Lifted Masks

're done

f a smile on her face, and in her voice the s

e and sat down before a table placed by the window. Leaning he

he wanted to do, and it had likewise proved a strange comfort. When tired and disconsolate and utterly sick at heart there was always one thing she could do-she could go down to the library and look at the paper from home. It was not that she wanted the actual news

and found the home paper. Chicago had given her nothing but rebuffs that day, and in desperation, just because she must go somewhere, and did not want to go back to her boarding-place, she had hunted out the city library. It was when walking listlessly about in the big

the belief that things would be better to-morrow, that it must all come right soon. It left her as she had come--heav

ghty young city of the Middle West-the heart of the continent-of its brawn and its brain and its grit. She had supposed that Chicago, of all places, would appreciate what she wanted to do. The day she drew her hard-earned one hundred dollars from the bank in Denver-how the s

Submerged as she had been in her own desolation she had given no heed to the small figure which came slipping along beside her beyond

air was rolled up in a small knot at the back of her head. She did not look as though she belonged in Chicago. And then, as the girl stood there lookin

day, without coming close to the heartache of another. But when she reached the end of the alcove she glanced

she said softly, laying a h

bling ones. It was a wan and a troubled face she lifted, and there was somethi

erness. "Do you have a feeling that you want to see the sun go down behind th

ssed the woman's hand tightly in hers.

is paper. I knowed it was here because my nephew's wife brought me here one day and we come across it.

ean," said the gir

st I will ever get!

brushing away her own tears, and trying

if I should," she said, "even i

sisted the girl. "The mountains,

an, musingly; "yes, but not for me to see." There was a

d out two impulsive hands. "Oh, no, no you're not!

ome. But I saw the biggest doctor of them all today-they all say he's the best th

st! If I could see the sun go down behind them just one night! If I could see the black shadows come slippin' over 'em just once! And then, if

ou won't go-your eyesight will last

go back hom

d the girl. "Why c

-he got me the money to come; but you see it took it all to come here, and to pay them doctors with. And George-he ain't rich, and it pinched him hard for me to co

e meantime? It would cost less to g

He's willin' I should stay with h

u the money? Doesn't he know," she ins

I mean when I try to tell him about gettin' there in time. Why, he says there's many a one living back in t

. "I understand! But-" she did her best to make it a lau

the tears. "Now, don't you be botherin'. I didn't mean to make you

But you are reasonable. I t

me. Emma-Emma's my nephew's wife-left me at the doctor's office 'cause she had some trading to do, and she was to come back there for me. And then,

irl, impulsively, "and tell me a little about your

to find someone that knows about them," she said, after they had dr

er on the thin, withered one. "T

lliam and I-William was my husband-we went to Georgetown before it really was any town at all. Years

d the girl. "I love ever

t's most like being home to find someo

nd we laid up a little money. Then, three years ago, William took sick. He was sick for a year, and we had

irl n

ade them take him over by the window and he looked out and watched the darkness come stealin' over the daylight-you know how it does in them mountains. 'M

t now, and the girl di

k about. But the mountains has always been like a comfortin' friend to me. John and Sarah is buried there-John and Sarah is my two children that died of fever. And then William is

said the girl, brokenl

" she asked wistfully, "in pinin' to ge

tightly in hers with a clas

y was there all right, but"-her voice sank with the hor

irl assured her. "You'll r

ow do I remember this? Can I see just how that looks?' That's the way I got to thinkin' up in the doctor's

y about it," murmured the

I had my eyes!' The doctor says my sight'll just kind of slip away, and when I look my last look, when it gets dimmer and dimmer to me, I want the last thing I see to be them mountains where William and me worked and was so happy! Seems like I can't bear it to have my sight slip away here in Chicago, where there's nothing I want to look at! And

passionately. "I'm not going to belie

ising. "But I don't know where 'twi

d been back home," she said in parting; and the girl promised to come and see her and talk with her about

until she found herself sitting before that same secluded table at which she and the woman had sat a little while before.

e, out of her great new need, there must be more than she had thought. But there was not, and she folded h

vious to everything in the world now save what seemed the absolute necessit

oment that she saw a man standing before the Denver paper, and noticed that another man was waiting to take his place. The one who was reading had a dinner pail in his hand. The clothes of the other told that he, too, was of

ple who came to read the Denver paper, the people who loved the mountains and were far from th

leness of one speaking from the heart, and the directness of one who speaks to those sure to understand. "And so I found her here by the Denver paper," she said, after she had stated the tragic facts, "because it was the closest she could come to the mountains. Her heart is not breaking beca

but little. Fifty cents will take her twenty miles nearer home-twenty miles c

shining as she poured out the story. They mingled their tears, for the girl at the desk was herself young and far from home, and then they walked back to the Denver paper and pinned the sheets of yellow paper just above the file.

told herself, as she joined the home-going crowds, "and until something els

she said, in conclusion, "I'd like to have you put in a little piece that I got to Denver safe, so's the

ditor, his voice gruff with t

room, that I was much pleased with the pros

t all," he assured her. "We'll say a gr

to you," she said

iders," someone began, "that they were people who were

tarted it had just eleven dollars to her name-" And then he, too

gest stories are not written about wars, or about politics, or even murders. The biggest stories are written about the things which draw human beings closer together. And the chance to write them doesn't come every

to black; and with the coming of the night there settled over the everlasting hills, and