The All-Story, March 1914 — page 160: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE Old Johann had been turnkey in the Mollersdorf carcer ever since a Turk- sh bullet, received at Livno eleven years before, had incapacitated him lor active army service. He regarded e Bosnian war as one of the greatest mochs in all history, and was fond of Praline whenever he could get pa- lent listeners, the details of that elo- fous engagement when Degan Pasha d his hordes were routed ‘by a mere kndiful of Austrian and Croat irreg- fars under the old Marshal Reinhard ion Regenstein. “A great general he was, too,” the K-soldier would say, addressing hits family circle round the home fireside. "A great general, and the young man m prison up there is his father’s very mage. They have the same high color. fhe fire smoldering in their eyes, the ame straight mouths, shaped to issue fommanics. -“Only the younker there lacks the solute chin of my old conmander. He has been indulged too much by bad tompanions, that boy has. A shame. foo, for there must be real iron down mewhere in the soul of Marshal Reinhard’s son.” ' After tirades like these—there were many of them—there was usually a prneral | discussion of Count Florenz. / Good-wife Emma would clack her bnouie and opine that such wild young ben were best in restraint, and Greta, lhe youngest daughter—a mere child bi fifteen years or so—vwould sit shud- eting and agape at the recital of mi- lrd’s reputed misdeeds. Occasionally tven the doddering old grandpap would put in a quavering word, but of them all Hildegarde, flower of the family. was the most interested. ~“T cannot believe,” she would say, “that the young gentleman is capable of all the heinous things they tell about him. Only see, mother, how you have set little Greta there atremble with your awful stories. I don't think one in the world can be as had as it is said he is.” Then they would tell her to be silent MAN WILO COULD NOT any DIL. 633 —what could a maiden know of such things’—and pack her off to bed in the attic of the cottage. Hildegarde, the turnkey’s daughter, was only eighteen—one of those deli- cate, rosebud creatures that, by some inadvertence of fate, are occasionally born incongruously into the most ple- beian families. The placid purity of brow swept up above great soulful eyes that were as blue and eternally calm as the summer sky itself. Her profile was perfect. her hands small, exquisitely molded, and aristocratic, despite the homely hhousehold tasks that were daily hers to do. And the curve of her red, red lips — well! That was a temptation upon which many a titled gallant— say Max Sigismund von Loewenho- fen, for instance — would willingly have squandered half his patrimony. The poverty of her station or the ill-fitting garments she wore could no more conceal the beauty of the girl than could a slough detract from the appearatice of a forget-me-not growing solitary upon its bank. Rather were her charms made thereby all the more apparenit. Old Johann, the turnkey, and -his good wite had strait ideas of how to raise a girl, and kept her wisely at home. where temptations were few and far between. Having never been admired, never moved by any deep emotion, Hilde- garde was, despite her eighteen years, still a veritable child. She was sim- plicity itselt. Practically the only times Hilde- garde ever escaped her’ mother's watch ful eye was at noon, when she daily carried old Johann’s lunch to him in a basket. She would hurry along the streets of the little town with bash- ful, downcast eyes until she reached the towering gray walls of the Mol- lersdorf. There she would deliver her burden, kiss her father, curtsy respectfully if the governor happened to pass by, and be back on her way agaiy NIiCLOOKS.€O