IDELIA'S beauty was of a soft Southern type, which made her seem more like a passionate, warm-blooded Italian than the daughter of an ordinary Silver Hill miner. She had always been lovely, and had had as many admirers in the usually unattractive stages of child life as in all the later glory of young womanhood. Of them all, though, the Colonel was the sincerest and the most faithful.

   Of course he wasn't a colonel. Nothing in Nevada is what it is called. If, to be strictly truthful, a spade may not be known as a shovel, Thompson must be considered a plain, every-day and all-night gambler, the Judge should be described as a sot, a sinful old reprobate, and the Great Consolidated Gold and Silver Mining Company a colossal steal. What a blessing is euphemy!

   When Fidelia was a baby — a most unusual baby, persistently good-natured and as shapely and glowing as a warm, pink pearl — the Colonel had presented her with a necklace whose coral was no more delicate and smooth than the blush of her satiny cheek. This was in the early days, when the Lady Mine, of whose stock he held five hundred shares, had just reached twelve dollars a share. When Fidelia was six, the ardent Colonel's admiration expressed itself in a magnificent wax doll from San Francisco, which place is variously known to Silver Hill people as "the City," "Down below," and "the Bay."

   Fidelia's girlhood was strewn with the Colonel's offerings. He celebrated a winning by buying something for his favorite, thus rewarding himself in the morning for a hard night's attention to business.

   When Fidelia was sixteen she rode in the Fourth of July procession, embowered in roses — imported at great expense from California, for Silver Hill produces nothing but sagebrush and silver — upon the shining, brass-trimmed engine, which the fire laddies pull along by means of flower-wreathed ropes through the hot, dusty, narrow streets, under the blue of Nevada's marvelously clear summer sky. Then the dusky loveliness of Fidelia's cheek was burned a ruddier hue, her eyes sent back a smile of pleasure to every eye which looked upon her admiringly. Her round, slender arms and swelling throat were burned and her brown hair was tossed by the wind — a coarser Fidelia, a fuller, evanescent bloom, a richer development under the twin suns of men's admiration and the glowing orb on high; a prophecy, perhaps, of what time might make of her.

   Along the principal street of the town which skirts the tall, gray mountain, Fidelia was borne to her home, and lifted from her floral bower by a couple of red-shirted firemen, whose comrades gave vent to their enthusiasm in loud cheers for the great, the beloved engine, and the beautiful girl.

   In the midst of their noisy merriment the door of the little house was thrown open and a woman appeared.

   "Hush—sh! for God's sake! He's hurt. Dying, I guess."

   "My father?" Fidelia's rosy face turned white.

   The woman nodded and they went in together.

   Fidelia's mother was weeping loudly at the foot of the cot, where her husband lay in a stupor, the perspiration beading his face, pale with the unhealthy, underground pallor of the mines, his great, strong chest laboring still to breathe, and his powerful, hairy hands twitching, restlessly clasping and unclasping.

   It wasn't an uncommon accident. The cage had been run up into the sheaves by an incompetent substitute, as Grant, the engineer, was a deputy marshal in the procession, and so Franceston lay panting out the painful remnant of his life, as many a miner has done before and since.

   Fidelia threw herself into her mother's arms and they sobbed together; the mother faded, ignorant, dressed in dark, coarse calico, the daughter radiant in her fanciful, soft-flowing white draperies, the brilliant tri-color sash with its glittering gold fringe still over her breast, the liberty cap upon her deer-like head.

   When Franceston opened his eyes and saw them thus he called Fidelia to him.

   "Don't cry, pretty. Never mind, never mind," he murmured soothingly. "Where's your friend, Fidelia — the Colonel? I want to see Thompson."

   The Colonel had left his own cool saloon, on the best corner in Silver Hill, nodding to his partner as he went, and had crossed to Daley's, where he proceeded to break his rival's bank. The news of the accident to Franceston reached him here, and he answered the summons immediately, though sighing regretfully, for luck was with him. He was shown directly into the living room, where Franceston lay. They had not thought it best to carry him farther. When the two men were left alone, Franceston spoke.

   "I wanted t' see ye, sir," he said — the Colonel's clothes entitled him to superior rank in Silver Hill, where only clergymen wore black — "I wanted t' ask ye if ye'd see after Fidelia when I'm gone."

   "I assure you —" began the Colonel.

   "Wait a minute," Franceston put a rough black hand upon the fine cloth of the Colonel's sleeve. "Ye see, the mother ain't enough for her. She needs the rein, I'm 'fraid. She's a purty little thing. Seein' her like that" — he nodded toward the sash and cap Fidelia had thrown at the foot of the cot — "seein' her in all that finery's made me think a bit. Lord knows I hadn't time to 'tend to her, an' the mother's weak an' kin' o' daft herself about gayety and novels — callin' the child Fidelia 'stead o' Fanny, my own mother's name! Don't let the little thing go wrong, sir. That's what I wanted t' see ye for. They'll have a little money — it's mighty little — that I get from the Union. I'll go easier if I know you'll look after her a bit, poor, pretty thing!"

   The Colonel wiped his eyes and stroked his moustache.

   "I promise you I'll care for Fidelia," he said with deliberation, and the miner heaved a sigh of satisfaction.

   "That's right. I knew ye would. Thank ye, thank ye, sir. Now, I ain't got much time — bring 'em back."

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Wilton Seminary.  
Monday Af.    

   Dear Col: — I'm going on the stage. Not right away, you know, but I'm going to be an actress. Will you please send me 50 to pay for ellocution lessons? I'll be awfully obliged, if you will. I'm taking Delsarte, too. That's extra. It will cost 50 more to pay for the term. Everybody says I'll be great. I was Cleopatra in the piece we played Founder's Day. I wore yellow swiss with spangles, cut low with no sleaves, sandals, and all my jewlery and all the girls got. I bought a jeweled snake over in the City. It cost 65. Did you get the bill? Everybody says I looked lovely and that I've got genius. Now, I'm crazy to go on the stage, and be great like Bernhard. Miss Payne — she teaches ellocution and Delsarte — thinks I can and she ought to know, and I'm prettier than that ugly old Frenchwoman anyway. I'll have my pictures all over, and I'll send you one every time I get a new one taken. How's ma and how's yourself and how's all the fire boys?

   Write to me about the stage. Do you know any actors? They get ennormous salries, don't they? They say Bernhard's got sloughs of dimonds. And some day I'll come back to the Hill and make folks stare, you bet

   This is a picture of me as Cleopatra. Ain't it stunning? Show it to Jim and Bid of Liberty Hose Cart No. 3, and to Harley, shift boss in the Bertha, you know.

   There's that old bell for recitation. I ain't good in Arithmetic and Grammar, and I hate poky things like Literture, and I just won't study Geography. But I tell you I'm a daisy speaking pieces. And I can sing quite good. I'm learning the mandolin, which is extra.

   There's that nasty old bell again.

               Your affectionate

FIDELIA.  

   P. S. Thanks for the check.

   The Colonel would have preferred a better spelled, more nearly legible letter. A misspelled word affected him like a disagreeable noise, but his prim, superlative, old-fashioned courtesy forbade mention of this fact. He wrote a reply to his protégée beginning, "Friend Fidelia," in which he gravely congratulated her upon her portrait, which nevertheless, he knew, could not do justice to her charms. As to the stage, he wrote that it was long since he had met any members of the dramatic profession, but that he had heard lately of the success of his old friend, Fred Farrell, in the East; that if he — the Colonel — could ever be of assistance in this or any other matter, she might command him. He begged Fidelia to pardon the brevity of his letter, for stocks were booming and, as she knew, he was largely interested. He enclosed a check for a large sum, trusted that she would be attentive and studious, and signed his letter, "Yours, etc., Thompson."

   There were times when Fidelia's demands were not so opportune. The morning her dressmaker's bill arrived, the Colonel had just a dollar in his pocket. He had lost everything the night before. Stocks had tumbled, too, and his shares of Copperhead were quoted at half what he had paid for them. But the Colonel was ever sanguine, the most persistent bull in the market. After his breakfast at the Rotisserie the Colonel lit a cigar and started up the Row. He had tipped Pierre with his last dollar, for the Nevada berries and the delicate Tahoe brook trout crusted in breaded egg had been truly delicious. He walked along, taking off his hat to the women he knew, and bowing his tall, slender figure with that extravagance of antiquated chivalry which would have been absurd in any one else. He swung open the glass doors of the bank, and when he came out he had twenty-five twenty-dollar pieces in that purse of his which was so seldom empty. Old Graham, the most miserly, distrustful, meanest of men and of bankers, had advanced the money merely upon the Colonel's word — as would any man of wealth on the Hill, for the Colonel was "good as shares in Bertha."

   When the Colonel returned the loan the following afternoon, he thanked the crabbed, gray-bearded banker. Then he leaned over the polished counter and, in the low, significant tone which even the children of Silver Hill know means a "point" in stocks, he said briefly:—

   "Buy Copperhead."

   Graham followed the advice as unquestioningly as would a church deacon the inspired words of an angel. As a matter of course, he expected to clear enough by the deal to furnish the Colonel the original loan many times over. But after this little transaction the Colonel wasn't in need of money. The stock market had recovered, and he had more shares of Copperhead than any one in Silver Hill except the mine's superintendent, who was his very good friend with really a genius for faro.

   One morning when the game had closed early the night before, the Colonel stood upon the famous corner of the Row, which looks straight down the hill to where the crude little depot stands, three blocks below.

   It is the custom of Silver Hill's gentlemen of leisure to stand here at train time and watch the incoming passengers toil up the hill. Beside the Colonel stood the Judge, sober and straight and dignified this morning. Chatting with them was Long Phil Devany, the Colonel's red-bearded partner.

   Among the crowd was a girl who climbed the unpaved, steep street with the graceful, buoyant step of one born and bred in the mountains. Her tall figure outdistanced the rest, and Devany recognized her while she was still a block below.

   "It's Fidelia," he said.

   "Impossible!" The Colonel felt for his gold-rimmed glasses.

   "No, it's the young lady herself," said the Judge. "The handsomest girl on the Hill," he added, with the air of the connoisseur.

   "What can bring her back so unexpectedly?" The Colonel hurried down the hill and met Fidelia half-way, taking her small satchel and her wraps, and putting her hand upon his arm to help her up the hill — which was quite unnecessary.

   "How well you are looking, my child."

   She smiled up at him. "I'm always well, you know."

   "And always beautiful," he added gallantly.

   She laughed aloud at this, and the crowd upon the corner, which they had reached by this, stared harder than ever.

   "But what is the matter? What brings you home, and what shall I do with you?"

   "Take me to the hotel, of course," she answered, leading the way, "and get me some lunch — Oh, there's that handsome Phil — Good morning, Judge — I'm famished, you know," she continued, turning to her escort.

   They passed through the swinging hotel doors and Fidelia was shown to a room.

   "It's just this," she said, running down the stairs a few moments later, quite at home and thoroughly happy, "I'm not going to school any more. I know enough — enough for me — and now I'm going to be an actress. Don't stare. You said you'd help me. Let's go to the Rotisserie." She took his arm and merrily pulled him along. "I've never been there, and I've always heard of the gorgeous things they give you to eat."

* * * * * * * * * * * *

   Silver Hill had discovered a better, or worse, reason for Fidelia's sudden reappearance than she had given the Colonel. There were rumors, never mentioned in his presence, of a scandal in which she and a popular young actor in San Francisco had been concerned, and of her expulsion from the fashionable seminary near the city, where the Colonel's money had maintained her, and where her fellow-students had accepted her Paris gowns, her jewelry, her saddle horse, her boat, her unlimited supply of money, as evidence of the story she loved to tell about the mines she owned, her guardian — the poor Colonel! — and the dazzling future which awaited her.

   But the three months which followed her arrival were only moderately dazzling. She attended all the parties, went to the theater, and promenaded up and down the four busy blocks of the Row till Silver Hill had seen and admired every pretty gown she had. All the eligibles and non-eligibles of the town dangled in her train.

   Yet she wearied of so small a field, and her piquant face grew radiant with delight when the Colonel announced one day that his friend, Fred Farrell, was billed to appear at the town's one theater, and it was with an unshakable conviction of success that Fidelia followed him into the actor's presence the afternoon of his arrival.

   "My dear Fred!" exclaimed the Colonel.

   "Thompson, by Jingo!" Farrell leaped up and, seizing the Colonel with one hand, clapped him upon the back with the other.

   "I was half afraid you might have forgotten me. Living as you do in the glare of success, surrounded as you are —" began the Colonel pompously.

   "Bosh!" exclaimed Farrell. "You're as simple as ever. I verily believe your view of the stage is that of any stage-struck miss in her — in her —" He had caught sight of Fidelia, and experience had taught him what to expect.

   "My — my ward, Miss Franceston," said the Colonel.

   Farrell bowed and Fidelia smiled, her long, dark eyes lighting up and her strong, white teeth gleaming between the curling, parted lips. Farrell looked again. "Oh, that she might have talent!" he thought.

   "It is on Fidelia's — Miss Franceston's account that I have ventured to intrude upon you."

   "What, Thompson! You don't mean, in spite of old times, you'd have let me leave town without hunting me up? Well, Miss Franceston, I'm grateful to you for the chance of seeing the old Colonel again."

   "Oh, I guess he'd 'a come anyway," said Fidelia.

   Farrell's heart sank; her accent distressed him.

   "Surely, surely," murmured the Colonel. "But we must not take up too much of your time, Fred. The case is this: My lovely young friend" — Farrell nodded appreciatively and Fidelia smiled and sparkled — "wishes to adopt the theatrical profession. In my humble opinion, she has ability. Will you hear her recite, and if you come to the same conclusion, as I've no doubt you will, assist her? Financially, of course, she is independent."

   Farrell looked again at the girl, searchingly this time, and Fidelia, unaccustomed to impersonal observation, blushed rosily and her long-lashed lids fell.

   "I shall be very happy," said Farrell.

   Fidelia rose and laid aside her wraps. Her heart was beating with excitement, but she stood quietly before them with her ring-bedecked hands clasped behind her, her dashing, graceful figure outlined by the dark green of her tightly fitting gown, her chin well up and her fine, shining eyes looking over her hearers' heads out into the future. She seemed out of place in the commonplace barrenness of the hotel parlor. A palace or a rose garden would better have matched the grace and loveliness of this miner's daughter.

   "All angels bless and guard her!" — Claude Melnotte's last words in the cottage scene from the "Lady of Lyons" — fell from the girl's pretty lips.

   Farrell had sat motionless in the shadow. He rose now and joined in the applause of the Colonel, who was stamping, clapping his hands, and shouting "Encore!"

   "Capital! Capital!" declared the ardent Colonel.

   Fidelia was smiling, and, her tongue being loosened now, talked merrily.

   "And when do y' think I can go on the stage? Right away? I hate to study, y' know, but I can learn things in a jiffy."

   Farrell smiled perfunctorily, helped Fidelia with her light jacket, and handed her her long suède gloves. He smiled again, not so perfunctorily, as she stood for a moment at the door, her young, bright face glowing, her dark eyes smiling a good-by from under the dark green plumes of her large velvet hat.

   "I'll have to talk it over with the Colonel, Miss — Miss Franceston. It's hard work, you know —"

   Fidelia shrugged her shoulders and pursed her lips mutinously, while Farrell held the door open and she passed out into the corridor.

   "What do you think, Fred?" asked the Colonel a little anxiously, when she had gone. "You've said so confounded little."

   "Oh, I'll say enough now." Farrell's large, smooth-shaven face puckered into a distressed frown, while he passed his hand nervously through his thick, white hair. "The pretty little idiot doesn't know what she's saying. That's all. She has no more comprehension of the thing than a — than a Chinaman. She has patterned herself upon some cheap emotional actress. There'd have been no use in my telling her all this. You could no more get it out of that lovely head of hers —" He stopped in his excited walk up and down the little parlor and held out his hand appealingly to the stricken Colonel. "You could no more convince her that she isn't a genius than you could crush a piece of silver ore from the Bertha down there with your naked hand. She's just another young fool, unusually beautiful, whose stupid little head has been turned by theatrical talk. Moses! How I wish there had been something to her!"

   The Colonel sat back dazed, helpless, hopeless. He was an expert in his own business, and expected others to be as proficient in their lines, and, therefore, from Farrell's decision there could be no appeal. Still, pity for Fidelia's disappointment prompted the question:—

   "Couldn't she be taught? So far as money is concerned —"

   He jingled the gold in his pocket.

   Farrell shook his head despairingly. "Why, it would take a lifetime to make it clear to her that she doesn't know it all already. No, no! Let go, old fellow. There's nothing in her for the stage. Tell her so. I didn't dare. 'Fraid she'd cry, and she's so devilish pretty I couldn't stand it."

   The Colonel sat in silence musing, his chin upon his gold-headed cane, his eyes bent upon the violently flowered carpet. To tell the truth, he was himself afraid to bear Farrell's decision to Fidelia.

   The actor stood watching him, smiling to himself. Then suddenly he walked over to where the discouraged Colonel sat, and putting his hand on his old friend's shoulder, asked quietly:—

   "Why don't you marry her?"

   "God bless my soul!" exclaimed the Colonel aghast.

   "You don't mean to say you never thought of it?" Farrell threw back his head and laughed and laughed. "You old simpleton! I'll bet you've raised that girl, spent shekels galore on her. Dresses and rings like that cost a few pennies, I happen to know."

   "Why, Lord! Fred, I'm not a marrying man."

   "Be one. You're still down there?" He nodded toward the corner in delicate allusion to the Colonel's profession.

   The Colonel assented.

   "Well, put aside some of your wealth. When you make a big winning in stocks — you're as lucky as ever? Ah! I thought so. Well, bank your spare cash, get a home, and marry this pretty little girl. She'll be all right after the first baby comes. Don't mind what I said. She'll never remember that she wanted to be an actress. There are millions of stage-struck girls who'll laugh at the memory of their fever, when they're cured. She'll make a nice little wife, and you, old fellow," he put an arm around Thompson's shoulder in an affectionate, womanish way, "you'll be anchored."

   The Colonel was laughing and sputtering with embarrassment as he parted from Farrell at the door.

   "If you'll have the wedding during my stay on the coast, I'll be best man," Farrell laughed.

   When the door closed, however, the Colonel grew thoughtful. He paused in the corridor for quite five minutes; then he straightened up, smiled a little conceitedly, pulled at his soft white moustache, and made straight for Fidelia's rooms, and took her out to walk.

   "Fidelia, my dear," said the Colonel a little timidly, "have you noticed the beautiful display Harford has brought up from the city?"

   They were standing in front of the jeweler's, a block up the Row. The Colonel made a practice of breaking bad news to a woman, if possible, before a jewelry store. He had found that it simplified matters wonderfully.

   "Yes, ain't they gorgeous? But tell me now, what did he say after I left? Ain't he handsome? Will I go with his company?"

   "N—no."

   "Why not?" asked Fidelia.

   The Colonel grew cautious and confused. "Because, my dear — because — now, that's an unusually fine stone — to the right. Yes, that's it. You see, he thinks —"

   "My!" Fidelia drew in her breath in a delighted ejaculation.

   "A very handsome stone. Quite five carats, I should judge, and very pure. Yes, Farrell thinks we've over-estimated your ability — just a trifle, my dear. Of course, I don't agree with him. Not at all! Not at all!" he added hurriedly.

   Fidelia sniffed resentfully. But her mind was not large enough to contain two emotions, and just now her whole soul was filled with the glitter of the diamond which lay proudly, a single drop of dew, on the dark rose of its bed.

   "It's bigger'n mine," she said covetously, pulling off her glove. "Yep, it's twice as big, and oh! the color of it! And he thinks I can't be an actress?"

   "He thinks," said the Colonel slowly, watching the color ebb in her lovely dark face, "he thinks you're far too beautiful, my dear, to go on the stage. He says there are other lives, happier ones than the actress'. Fidelia — my dear girl —"

   "What?" She looked up. His silence had aroused her from her greedy contemplation of the shining thing on the velvet cushion.

   "My child," said the Colonel, his voice trembling now with sympathy, "don't grieve over this disappointment. I hope, I trust —"

   "But what'll I say to the girls?" she pouted. His tone more than his words had made her realize the shattering of her hopes. "They all know I wanted to be an actress, and they'll laugh at me." A salty diamond glittered on her dark lashes.

   "My dear Fidelia, you're not crying? Come. Let's step inside."

   He drew her arm in his and they turned to enter the shop. Suddenly the Colonel paused.

   "Fidelia," he said, stopping in the doorway, "I'm too old for you — you're too young and too lovely for an old fellow like me. But if you'll marry me, my dear, I'll do my best to make you happy. I'm very, very fond of you, my love. I've always cared more for you than for anything in this world, ever since I carried you, a beautiful baby, in my arms, but — but I only realized it to-day. My dear, let me get the diamond for you, and — and let it be put in your engagement ring."

   Fidelia had listened at first amazed, and then with a pleased smile on her glowing face. Even the old Colonel could not resist her. Should she consent? Here would be a sensation with which to stop the mouths of friends who would twit her with her failure. And the diamond! She looked again from the diamond, a very sun among the lesser jeweled stars, to the Colonel, tall, straight, irreproachably dressed, and — she could not fail to see it — full of devotion, his kindly gray eyes looking appealingly, tenderly down upon her.

   "All right," she said, blushing and laughing, "if Harford can have the stone set before theater time."

* * * * * * * * * * * *

   The November elections were close at hand. Colonel Thompson, in whom love had begotten ambition, had consented to run for a senatorship, a position in which he hoped to fulfil his public duties in a manner as honorable and dignified as that which characterized the discharge of his private affairs. His election seemed almost a foregone conclusion — the slurs of the opposition at the Colonel's profession only improving his prospects at the Hill — when the receipt of a tiny billet sent him suddenly out of town for several days.

   On his return it was noticed that his figure was bent, and his overcoat and satchel seemed a burden. He surprised the Judge by consenting to "take something," which inaugurated a spree still spoken of by the Hill folk with respect as "Colonel Thompson's jag." He made a speech in which he jumbled up Fidelia and Free Trade in a way that shocked even his most ardent political supporters. The Judge was already as much of a "racketer" as the ticket could carry, and Thompson was sacrificed at the polls.

   During the exciting week preceding election, when the memorable "jag" was at its zenith, Copperhead shares had boomed for one short half day and then had fallen so rapidly that, by the end of the week, "worthless as Copperhead" had become a by-word. No one could even estimate how much the Colonel was hurt by the smash. Then there came three successive nights when Fortune persistently refused to look his way, and for the first time in years Thompson's game stopped and was closed for good.

   For awhile he dealt faro for Jim Daley, his former rival, but when a younger dealer was imported from San Francisco that winter the Colonel retreated to a little cabin up the mountain.

   One bitterly cold morning the miners noticed that no smoke issued from the stove-pipe of Thompson's cabin. When they succeeded in digging a passage to the low door they found the old Colonel within, lying upon his narrow cot—smiling and serene, as though neither poverty nor cold, nor even death, had any terrors — and holding in his white, tapering fingers this little note:—

   Dear Col: — I am going to be an actress in spite of that old stiff Farrell. When you get this I'll be oft with the Bates-Bridgman company. Charley — Mr. Bridgman — says I'll be leeding lady inside of six months. Please send 100 to Evangeline St. John, Care Chas. Bridgman, People's Theatre, S. F. You see I don't get any salary for a little. Love to Ma.

FIDELIA  

   Phil Devany, by whom alone it was read, saw in this characteristic missive both the cause and culmination of his old partner's trouble, and the coroner's jury of rough mountaineers, at his suggestion, rendered a verdict of "failure of the heart."