American fiction -- 19th century; Dime novels; Popular literature
She is no prim New England maiden, this only child of the Chicago grain
manipulator. The warm blood of an Oriental mother flows in her veins,
though she knows it not. Besides, on the father’s side she inherits
some of his daring.
When she no longer doubts the identity of the man who has come to
their rescue, Dorothy turns away from the window--though they are at
this time reaching the point over which all voyagers on the wheel have
raved--and approaches the Canadian, who smiles a little as he looks up
into the fearless dusky orbs.
“I beg your pardon, sir, but unless I am seriously mistaken I believe I
have met you before, and under circumstances that left me your debtor.
Am I right?” she asks.
“You refer to our meeting last winter. I have remembered with pleasure
that a broken strap allowed me to be of some assistance to you, though
deploring the fact that you received an injury in your fall. Perhaps
you will recollect that you gave me your card. I called at all the
hotels on the following day but could not find you.”
“Ah! we were stopping with friends,” she smiles.
“I haunted the pleasure ground, and was at every affair for days after,
hoping to learn that you had not been seriously injured.”
“A telegram called us home the next day. Father was ill. But--you had
the card--my address is upon it. If you had been _very_ solicitous
about my health----”
“Ah!” he breaks in, “pardon me again. That is where the curious part
of it comes in. Look, I have it still. After I left you I continued
skating. Something happened down the river--perhaps you may have read
about it, but they gave me much more credit than I deserved. At any
rate, I was in the water, and, with the assistance of men who brought
boards, managed to save a young lady. The ice was new at the spot, and
hardly fit for use, though she had no warning. I only mention this to
explain another circumstance. Later on I remembered your card; when I
took it out of my pocket it had been soaked, and only half remained
legible. Thus I could only discover that your first name was Dorothy,
and that Chicago claimed you for a resident.”
“How strange,” she murmurs.
“I confess that when I came to the great Fair, I wondered if by some
odd chance I might see you here, though it would be a remarkable thing
indeed. While I think of the oddity of our meeting here, I am struck
dumb with amazement,” he says seriously.
“It seems like fate to me,” is what her heart whispers, and the very
thought causes the blood to mount over neck and face until Aleck’s eyes
are ravished with the fairest picture they ever beheld.
Love comes at no man’s bidding--it cannot be bought with the riches
of an Eastern potentate--spontaneously it springs from the heart as
the lightning leaps from cloud to cloud. So Aleck Craig, bachelor,
realizes, as he looks into the lovely face of Marda’s daughter, that
surely he has met his fate, for such a strange meeting could not occur
unless the cords of their destiny were bound together.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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