My Sweetheart [pp. 256]

Overland Monthly
utterances, scarce audible or intelligible.
He was deaf to all my entreaties, frantic
though they were, oblivious to my presence, to my existence, even, of the world,
of everything, save that marvelous scene
outspread before his astonished eyes.
Suddenly he cried out sharply, "What
is the matter? Something is wrong! It is
out of focus! "
At this moment I heard a sharp crackling behind where I stood, and as I
turned quickly toward the sound there
came such a blinding flash of light as
made me stagger back, my hands before
my eyes. I dimly saw him spring from
the chair and rush toward the apparatus
regulating the current, but before he could
reach it the building became in a second,
such a living, blazing, hissing hell, as may
not be imagined in its awfulness, and such
as I shall never see again and live. The
awful power of near a thousand cables had
suddenly, through some terrible accident,
been let loose in all its hideous strength,
in that fearful place.
Blinded, dazed, bewildered, all but unconscious, with the suddenness and terror
of it all, I staggered somehow through
that dreadful place, felt the night air
upon my face, and fell unconscious. How
long I lay I know not, but when I weakly
struggled to my feet the observatory was
but a heap of tangled ruins and the whole
group of buildings was blazing fiercely.
I staggered past them toward the residence, scarce knowing what I did, when,
as I passed the blazing laboratory, there
came a terrible explosion from within it.
I had a glimpse of its walls opening in
jagged rents, with the red flames shooting
through, and knew no more.
Miy task is ended; I have little more to
say. Lady Fenswood and I have, since
my recovery, thoroughly searched all the
papers in Lord Fenswood's study at the
residence, and have now got together quite
a mass of notes, calculations, memoranda,
and general data, relating to the great
problem which he so successfully solved,
but, alas, at such terrible cost to himself,
to us, and to the world. His principal
notes, however, were kept in the laboratory
study, and these are now, of course, utterly
destroyed. However, let us hope that
what we have found may be sufficient to
enable science to take up this great problem anew, and that, although the mastermind be gone, in time may once again
come success.
MY SWEETHEART
" S she pretty?" How can I
Critically juldge of her?
"What her height?" Close to my heart, So much I can swear of her
"What the color of her eyes?"
"What the tinting of her hair?"
How may I her charms appraise?
I cannot take stock of her.
She's my sweetheart; understand,
In my eyes none can surpass her.
She has all perfections,- but
Words are cold; they can't describe her.
Frances Anne Cowles.
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