THE LINE OF HEART.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 2293, 5 January 1900, Page 6

THE LINE OF HEART.

" Do you believe it 1" " I don't know," he answered, doubtfully, " I never had opportunity of judging" " Then I'll read your hand." " What, yoa t"

" Yes, really," ahe replied, nodding her pretty head. " I've been studying it. Books and all that sort of thing, you know. Come over by the light" He rose and followed her to the corner, where a softly shaded lamp diffused a mellow glow. Outside the wind was howling bitterly but an old fashioned wood fire blazed comfortably in an old-fashioned grate, for this was an old-fashioned house. He had never noticed how round and white her arms were until the loose sleeve fell back when she took his hand. The touch of her cool fingers thrilled him. " I thought so," she began, " you are a dreamer, and you do not want the world to find it out. It's been rather a hard life in some ways—you haven't always had all that you wanted. He shaded his eyes with his other hand, and rested his elbow on the table. " Safe observation," he remarked,

For the tiniest part of a second, he gazed into a pair of reproachful brown eyes. " Don't chaff," please," she said, "I can't do anything if you do." " All right, little girl," he responded, half caressingly ; " go on." "Your palm is elastic. That shows a hopeful nature and a strong one. Your lines are deep : you will get the full of living—in suffering and joy." The piano sounded softly in the next room. Her sister was playing, half to herself and half to her father, who sat nodding in the library. "The Mount of Jupiter is well developed," she went on. " That means pride, ambition, desire for power ; not a snobbish pride, you know, but that which will not let you stoop to baseness."

He smiled to himself. She was reading him very well. " Saturn in rather weak. I'm afraid you're not very fond of quiet study. Yet, you have an ideal of a home—which you have not yet found. Apollo is good. You like music, pictures, books. Keligion appeals to you from the standpoint of the senses ; it's the stained glass windows, the organ, and the vested choir with yott, not the doctrine." " How well you know me,'' he began, but she paid no heed to the interruption. The girl in the next room drifted in the open bars of the Serenade. It sounded like some far off melody. " You like money, but not so well as you do some other things. Books and pictures and travel and your own way come first." He coloured and her lips twitched temptingly.

" This is Mars. You known there are two mounts of Mars ; this one, under Mercury, means passive courage, self-control, resignation, and strength of resistance against wrong. The other one, over by your thumb, means temper. I'm glad to see that it is less prominent than this." She looked up at him with an adorable mischievousness that made him feel a queer tightening around his heart. " Here's Luna, down here. This means romance, ideality, imagination and mysticism. If it swells here it means a reverence for—well, for the ' eternal womanly.' That's the best part of you—you want to put a woman on a pedestal and keep her there." The bewildering sweetness of the Serenade sounded dimly through his consciousness and mingled with the breath of the roses—his roses—on her breast.

" You are sympathetic and charitable, geuerous to a fault; friendship means much to you—ah, I know that," she said to herself. " But this Line of Heart! It's too far down in your band; feeling is your court of first and last appeal. See how deep it lies; how it dominates your hand! There's a marriage line too—only one—there's only one woman in the whole world for you."

The lamp flickered. " It must need tilling," she said. " I must hurry, or we'll be left in darkness." Woven in with the Serenade, her voice vibrated on hiß heart strings; now merry, now serious, now so wholly sweet and tender that it sounded like the vision of Schubert in the room beyond. "She will be all the world to you," she said wistfully, " there will be no room for your old friend then. That ideal home you have dreamed of will be yours—and hers." Her eyes rested full upon his, and almost in a whisper she added, "It is not far away! "

For a moment he searched her face intently, but the lamp was almost out now. Then something that he saw there gave him courage and he slipped swiftly out of his chair and knelt beside her, taking daring possession of her. "Is that little home to be truly mine ? " he whispered. " Ah, Sweetheart —don't you know ? " Pale and frightened, she tried to slip away from him, but he held her fast. " Oh, no, no! " she cried, half sobbing. " Please, darling! " He tried to draw her down to him, but she resisted, and he wisely waited for her to come to him. '• Can't we go on just as we were ? " she ventured; " friends, and all that ? You will tind some on# else for—the other—but no such friend as I! " " There's no going on, dear," he said gently, " this is the parting of the ways. There is only one woman in the whole wide world—and the little home 1 Why, my life, it wouldn't be a home without you,don't you know ? " The roses were scattered on the floor among their drifted petals, and even in the shadow, she saw his face, tense with appeal. His arms were drawing her closer; the lamp flickered and went out. She could feel his heart throbbing against her: she fancied she could hear it too. The Serenade was almost finished now, and thoroughly humble in her surrender, yet wholly womanly, she bent down and kissed him in the dark.