Denar
Bellefonte, Pa., November 29, i901.
THE OLD REFRAIN.
Oh you may have yeur table-dote, with all its ter-
ry-pins,
An’ turtle soups, an’ fishes briled, or baked
with tails an’ fins,
An all its ducks with canvas backs, an’ frozen
lemmernade,
Ef you'll jest {fetch me some o’ them boss pies
that mother made!
An’ you kin have them kaffv-teers, with isters in
the cans,
The way they come all lickered up, from the
Creator's han’s!
Er frickerseed, er parley-vooed, in eny
er shade,
I'd like a corner on them pies, the pies that
mother made !
size
I do not keer fur swallerin’ French with vittles
eny-how,
puddin’ deep-lo-matteek,
“pud” I'vow,
Tnen one that’s made o’ bread-crum’s (one o
: the highest grade).
But shucks, it doesn’t shake a stick at pies that
mother made!
An’ ain’t no better
So keep your flummididdles, marryin’-glasses
an’ sooflays,
Yer bowls to wet yer fingers, for the folks thet
has the craze,
To be eatin’ what ain’t vittles, (ef they kin an’
aint afraid),
But I'd like a quarter-section o> the pies that
mother made!
—Lillian W. Rountree, in * What to Eat.”
A DULL FELLOW.
Iam a dull fellow, and you are all very
kind to take the trouble to explain things,”
he said when the point of a story had been
defined for him, and the smile which ac-
companied this admission was so good
humored that only one of his hearers sus-
pected the pain it concealed.
‘You should laugh when the rest of us
laugh, Mr. Britton. That is the simple
recipe with which many of us concoct a
reputation for quick wits,” Gertrude Grant
declared, looking up at the man sitting on
the veranda railing beside her chair—the
man who had been horn to greater wealth,
nearly thirty years since, than most mil-
lionaires acquire in twice that period of
laborious achievement—the man for whose
complete subjugation her grandmother had
brought her to this Maine coast paradise,
and whose unexpected echo of the verdiet
usually pronounced upon him awoke a
pang of pity in a heart accustomed to een-
sider itself inaccessible to the soft emotions.
‘But then I should sometimes miss what
you really mean, and I wish to understand
my friends,” he said in a low tone asa gen-
eral laugh followed her advice.
‘According to their explanation of them-
selves, instead of your own guessing ?’? she
smiled. Isn’t that very much like throw-
ing away a sword, which is vour only
weapon, though perhaps not a keen one,
and marching through a strange eountry,
trusting its inhabitants neither to rob nor
murder you ?”’
The blue eyes, which regarded her stead-
ily, were distinctly puzzled.
*‘I was speaking of my friends; he said
slowly. “They would not be my friends
if I did not trast them.’” He paused and
added gravely : ‘‘Of course, I have heen
taken in no end of times,and shall be again
to the end of my chapter, but, so far, I ean
blame only my own dullness toward obvious
fraud, not any treachery from those in
whom I put special confidence.” :
‘What is this about confidence? Or am
I indiscreet to ask?’ a pleasant voice de-
manded asa young man appeared beside
Nicoll Britton. \
Gertrude was aware that she liked the
. glance Britton turned to the newcomer,
though she did nct approve its recipient.
“I was saying that my confidence has
never been betrayed, except in cases where
it was hastily given,” he said. ‘‘You
should endorse me cordially, Otho, as I am
usually wise enough to follow your coun:
-sels.”?
Otho laughed. “Miss Grant's eyes assert
that she is not wont to consider me a Men-
tor. How do you consider me, hy the
way ?"" he added audaciously.
‘As an obstacle between me and the
‘moon at present,’”’ she answered serenely.
‘SMr. Britton’s shoulders left me a glimpse
.of her, but you have obscured her utterly.’’
'Otho laughed again, and came nearer
while Nicoll arose. :
“There is the first of the waltzes my
aunt promised us, and which I must dance
‘with Miss Wynne,”’ the latter exclaimed
as three or four people deserted the veranda
for the drawing rooms. *‘Is there any use
in asking you for the next, Miss Grant?”
““Not a bit ! I did not come to Maine for
waltzes after a winter of cotillons and danc-
ing classes,” she declared.” “But you will
find me in this corner if you return within
an hour.” :
‘I will surely return,” he asseverated.
and ber gaze followed his tall, strong figure
as he disappeared through a long window.
“I like our host,” she said, bringing
back lier eyes to Otho, who regarded her
somewhat.cynically.
‘‘He is popular—for reasons,’ he mur-
mured. :
‘That is not well spoken by his chiefest
friend,” she commented coldly. “It sug-
gests curiosity as to the reasons, which are
possibly in proportion to the extent of the
iatimacy."” = 25 i
‘We bave been chums since we were
small boys atsehool,’’ he said with asperity,
‘‘and if his muscles saved me many a lick-
ing, my brains ‘did many a task for him.”
*‘You who dislike tasks?’ i
‘I work harder for him than ever I have
worked for myself,’” he protested. One re-
‘quires sharp wits in constant practice to
Steer a gullible millionaire, with an appetite
for pictures and curios,among the big deal-.
rs in Paris and: London—and you may
have heard what the art enitics in New York
said of the collection he has just bestowed
upon the Metropolitan Museum 2’
he nodded, looking at him with iuter-
est. FEAR)
“I take credit for the value of that col-
lection, as without me Nieoll would have
been swindled in the purchase.”
1 must tell my: grandmother,” she
laughed. ‘‘She has. heen coufident that
popular rumor underrates Mr. Britton’s
shrewdness, since Levi in London assured
her, as an old customer by whom he pre-
fers not to be considered an extortioner,
that he bad received only half the sum for
the Raphael which the New York papers
announced.” |
‘Levi is a professional liar I’ Otho ex-
claimed angrily. For once the newspapers
told a straight story, and you may so re-
port to Mrs. Grant.’ . dtilini o i
“Suppose you report to her yourself,
She says that you are as charming as ‘detri-
mentals’ are apt to be 1"? :
“A ‘detrimental 2’? Otho repeated. ‘Even
your grandmother cannot accuse me of any
empty pockets —and they are filling 1’
*‘Are they ?’’ she smiled ‘‘Here come
pockets which are fall but emptying. Dear
me! Mr. Britton, there was no need for
such hurry when I told you I should stay
in this eorner an hour !”’
At the gates of this particular Maine
paradise there is a tidal river which rushes
between wiliow-shaded banks for a course
of some eight miles, and divides the devo-
tion te old ocean which is the chief attrac-
tion of the place.
Nor indeed can anything more beautiful
be conceived than the row up through
crimson-tinted waters toward the sunset,
unless it be the row dewn again, with the
moonlight casting silver eclipse over the
vanished gorgeousness of color.
When this double delight,however,must
be won by battle with the tide, either go-
ing or coming, an indelent or weary holi-
day-maker postpones it. But Nicoll Brit-
ton was neither indolent nor weary. His
great physical strength rejoiced in exer-
tion, and the fact that he thus got a mo-
nopoly of Miss Grant’s society, during an
hour when some instinct taught him that
she was more soft ef mood than her wont,
and he himself at his modest best, render-
ed blissful to him a canoe expedition to-
gether on the following evening.
They had floated on the incoming tide
beyond the third bridge before she com-
manded their return, in that dim interval
between sunset and moonrise. He obeyed
without demur, though the dimmness did
not hide from her the regret which crossed
his face. She divined that obedience with-
out demur, in the fulfillment of any bond
to which he had agreed, would be natural
to this silent young man, who had pledged
forth.
Go slowly, Mr. Britton,’”’ she said
graciously. “I fancy that, if we should be
belated, those arms of yours would easily
master the tide.
‘*‘We have matched each other often, to
my advantage,”” he laughed. ‘‘Bnt there
is little need for special strength any long-
er.” he added wistfully, after an instant.
“During the Middle Ages a kpight or a
man-at-arms could acquire, by physical
force, the distinction which nowadays,even
in the army, is achieved by brains——"’
‘Yet a name was mentioned in dis-
patches after San Juan whose owner calls
himself a dull fellow,’’ she interrupted.
‘‘Nove the less dull because he was
fortunate enough to have the chance of
‘helping his wounded captain thrust into
his hands!’ he exclaimed, while his happy
eyes looked their fill on the sweetness of
her smile.
“Is it dull, too, to choose pictures, and
bestow them, as you do?!”
*‘I like pictures, though the best of them
does not mean so much to me as this river
to-night,’’ he answered; ‘but Otho chooses
them for me.”
“I am going to ask you a most intrusive
question—a question on the reply to which
I have a wager,’’ she said. *‘Did you really
pay that awful amount of money for the
Raphael which the newspapers announced?’
“I really did,’’ he admitted apologetical-
ly. ‘‘It seems a sum which would be het-
ter spent en more practical necessities than
a museum, but Otho was eloquent about
the uplifting of the art-sense of our coun-
try, and he assures me that I did not pay a
penny beyond the Raphael’s value.’’
‘‘He attends to such purchases for you ?’’
“He is good enough to play ‘go-hetween,’
80 that I may not be unmereifully robbed.’
‘Gertrude made a sudden movement—al-
mest as though she would touch the brown
hands clasped upon his paddle. His start,
half ineredulous, half eager, was more vio-
lent than her movement. Their frail craft
swayed, dipped, avd, with a storm of
splashing, turned over.
Gertmde, who could swim.a little and
possessetl abundant courage, realized at once
that she was a mere feather in the mighty
tide which bore her whither it would. Then
an arm, stronger than the tide, upheld her,
and a voice cried elose above her head :
“Don’t struggle! You shall be on the
bank 1 a moment.”
Nobody thinks quite clearly inan instant
whieh may well prove his last, yet, even
in the midst of that rushing river, she
wondered at the absolute eontent of her
self-suirender to Nicoll’s knowledge, as
utterly as to his strength.
- When they presently scrambled up a
gravelly little beach they sat wordless and
(1ipping side by side, during a space when
breath seemed a more difficult matter than
when the tide water had raced past their
lips. ?
He was on his feet again quiekly, how-
ever, looking a young giant in the moon-
light his drenched flannels clinging to him.
“Can you. walk or shall: I earry you?”
he panted. ‘Yon must get dry at ouce,
aud there is the brick-kiln close by with a
five all night.”’
“Ican run almost as well as you ean
swim,” she began gayly, but, as his fingers
clasped hers to help her rise, voice and eyes
grew sweet. ‘‘The Middle Ages may bave
possessed vobler uses for the strength you
despise than the saving of a girl who has
upset your canoe, hut you must not ex-
pect ber to think so !?
‘A shining fair head was bent suddenly;
quivering lips touched her hands. ‘‘Auy
wan who could swim would have got youn
out,”” he muttered. ‘Only you could
make it worth—all the years of my life to
me.”’ ; :
“Don’t 1" she cried sharply, and’ with-
drew her hands. A slow fellow may stride
too rapidly,’ it appeared, along ‘a ‘road
where his guide was not ‘quite certain of
the way ! “Shall we rade?’ she added
lightly. “The brick-kiln fire is a capital
idea, for I am shivering.” :
words as they sped across fields to the
curve in the river which the brick-kiln de-
faces. When they reached it Nicoll broken-
ly narrated their accident and their needs
to a stolid watchman, who, when the dis-
jointed story was concluded, led them to a
blanket for Gertrude’s wrapping, and a
coat of curious cut that spoiled Nicoll's.
picturesqueness.
possessed a telephone, and Nicoll was able
ter’s safety, and to order his heach-wagon
sent over for their return. Then, while
they waited, a silence fell upon them, which
she explained, without contradiction from
him, to be due to sleepiness. She smiled
as she mentally depicted the different use
which most men of her acquaintance would
have made of the role that kindly fate had
bestowed upon him, and for, which after
the first moment he seemed to have lost
inclination, He looked pale, despite the
he sat with folded arms in his corner of the
bench. Perhaps he was sleep really?
She remembered the sound of his voice as
his lips touched her fingers, and repented
the jibe, witha rush of feeling she called—
pity !
They could not, however, sit there dumb-
ly until the wagon came for them, with the
scrutiny of their equally dumb host keep-
ing watch of their mariners for future gossip
qualities belonging to that type, except
obedience to her ever whim. when they set
bench beside the fires and produced a.
Luckily, too, the kiln
to inform Mrs. Grant of her granddaugh-
ruddy glow cast on him from the ovens, as |
among the natives ! Nicoll had done her a
good turn; he deserved something in kind
from her, and, surely, to reveal the sur-
rounding of upsuspected treachery must
be a good turn from keen wits to dull? Her
dislike of Otho Villars, founded in her per-
ception that he opposed Nicoll’s admira-
tion for her, had become distrust of his
honor and honesty since her grandmother
bad repeated Levi's tale, and every new
detail of the cousin’s positionsin that busi-
ness ripened her distrust.
She moved restlessly.
‘‘Are you chilly ?”’ he asked at once.
“Am I a Salamander? ‘Let us turn
our other cheeks to the fire, as though we
were apples roasting on a string, and I will
tell you what I was about to say when I
upset the canoe.’’
His eyes adored her mately despite the
disheveled locks and mantle of scarlet
blanket! Certainly his way of sitting
quite still and speechless, when other men
would have fidgeted and babbled,gave him
individuality"
*‘I asked you whether you really paid
that enormous sum for the Raphael, be-
cause old Levi assured my grandmoti-
er that he had received ‘only half the
amount.”
‘‘He lied,” Nicoll answered smiling.
‘Otho says that something in the combi-
nation of the Jewish instincts with the
bric-a-hrac trade produces the most brazen
liars on record.”
‘Mr. Villars hasa pretty wit,’’ she said
impatiently; ‘‘but Levi is too clever for
easily detected lies, and he told my grand-
mother without restriction as to repeating
his statement.”
‘Nevertheless I paid the sum the news-
papers mentioned.”
“By check 2’?
He frowned with a puzzled glance.
‘‘By check, of course, bnt, nos for the ex
act amount of the picture’s cost, or made
out to Levi,”” he answered slowly. ‘It
covered several purchases Otho chose for
me in London, and was paid to his account
at Brown's there.”
‘“Then Mr. Villars can suppress Levi's
story by showing his own canceled check,
if vou demand it?’ 3
The sudden color in Nicoll’s counte-
nance was redder than any reflected glow
could bring. ,
‘I am sure that you would not suggest that
I should ask my cousin for proof of his fair
dealing,” he said gravely. ‘‘He might
think that I suspected him of hypothecat-
ing mauy thousand dollars—*
‘I hear wheels !I”’ she interrupted, rtis-
‘ing abruptly.
The explanation concerning the check
had satisfied her last doubt of Levi's story.
Yet she hesitated to go farther, because of
a new perception that to destroy his trust
in the friend of his past would be crueler
to Nicoll than to conceal the treachery,and
permit that false friend to swindle his fu-
ture.
“It is awfully good of vou to care
whether I have been cheated !” he exclaim-
ed hurriedly. ‘‘Otho says I need a special
Providence to look after me ! But this is
‘not so much a question of Levi’s honesty
as of —"’
He broke off as Otho, debonair and con-
fident, and followed by Mrs. Grant’s maid,
appeared in the shed doorway with an
armful of wraps.
The newcomer was at the cost of the con-
versation during the homeward drive, hat
it was at a cost never difficult for him to
defray. Nor was it until Nicoll reclothed,
entered the smoking-room at the cottage,
where only himself remained, that he
showed any consciousness that he had been
delivered of half an hour’s monologue, to
the accompaniment of two horses’ ¢
hoofs.
“What happened to you and Miss
Grant, besides an upset and a swim ashore?’
he asked, staring at Nicoll, who was filling
a pipe. t 7%; ;
**A good deal of talk’?
‘Obviously. You neither of you had an
idea left by the time I—?’
**Yet some of the talk concerned you,”
Nicoll interrupted, turning his eyes from
his pipe to his cousin with the look of
blended affection and puzzlement with
which Otho had been familiar since their
round-jacket days. ‘I’m afraid vou and I
were cheated about that, Raphael.”
‘‘Has Miss Grant been repeating to you
Levi’s attempt to square his case with that
astute old lady, her grandmother?’’ Otho
laughed.
“‘She bad already spoken of it to youn ?”’
**Of course, and to many mutual friends!
Her thoughts are too constantly busy with
the condition of your exchequer not to find
this tale of absorbing interest.”
There was no dullness in the flame with
whieh Nicoll’s eyes blazed, only as blue
eyes can. i
“‘It is my purpose to ask Miss Grant to
he my wife,”’ he said very low. ‘ What-
‘ever her answer may be, you must under-
stand that I will not hear her spoken of
again as you spoke just now.”’
‘‘Dear boy 1”? Otho smiled. ‘‘Your an-
nouncement has no more surprise for me
than Miss Grant’s reply will possess.”
**You think there is no hope for me? I
am not a likable fellow, I know—-""
“You are most likable to me, and to
those who find you out, you dumb spirit !”’
Otho cried warmly. “And Miss Grant's
acceptauce will be partly for that worth,
and partly for another, which no girl,
brought up to make a wealthy marriage,
can possibly disparage.’
Nicoll stretched his strong young arms
ahove his head with a gesture of tragic
force. .
‘‘D~—— money !”’ he muttered. ‘‘I wish
I had been born to stone-breaking.’’
“i‘‘Then yon would have missed more
pleasure than pain—including the ac-
Neither had breath to spare on farther. | 49aintance of Miss Grant 1”
Nicoll leaned against the frame of an
open window, and gazed out at the moon-
lit ocean.
' “We have got a long way from Levi and
his lies,”’ Otho said presently, while his
arm went about the other’s broad shoul-
ders. ‘‘Shall I silence them by producing
‘my canceled check? It must be among
my last winter’s belongings in town.’’
*‘I have not deserved this question from
you, ’’Nicoll said gravely, holding out his
hand. ‘‘but if my mention of Levi's farrago
has hurt your feelings, I beg your par-
don.” * : : : :
Their aquatic adventure did not absorb
comment at. breakfast next morning, as
Gertrude feared it would. It was divided
in interest by an errand upon . which Otho
intended going, and wbich had humorous
aspects as related by him.
The cottage which hospitably sheltered
them every one knew to be rented by Niec-
oll. ‘They knew also that he was in treaty
for the site npon the ‘‘cliff-walk’’ which
made the fashionable end of the village,
and which was defaced by the shabby
homestead of the local miser, a worthy
famed for his ignorance and eccentricity.
These attributes manifested
among other ways, in a distrust of bank
accounts and check books, which accord-
ing to popular rumor, had induced him to
bury the proceeds of former sales of por-
tions of his farm. These proceeds had allbeen
themselves, |
paid in gold, and it was to bring five
thousand dollars in gold, insisted upon for
the impending sale, that Otho’s journey
Was necessary.
This announcement was followed by a
chorus of questions.
**Does old Newton go with you to bring
back his treasure in a potato sack ?’’ some
one demanded. .
“I hope you do not mean to keep the
money in the house over night, Nicoll 2”?
his aunt asked anxiously.
“There were burglars at the Stuarts’
last summer !”’ a girl exclaimed.
‘‘Nohody will suspect our wealth,”’ Nic-
oll said smiling. ‘Otho intends to bring
it himself in his dress-suit case.’
*'Of course, some rumor from the bank
night reach the roughs who always infest
such a railway centre as the town,’’ Otho
conceded. ‘‘But Nick and I take turns in
watching to-night, and tomorrow the pay-
ment will be made.’
“Why not to-night, Mr. Britton ?’’ Ger-
trude asked:
**Newton is harvesting !I”’ Nicoll laugh-
ed. ‘It will take him until dark to get in
his hay, and he refuses either to delay his
work, or to count the gold except by day-
light.”
Whereupon on Mis. Britton’s sugges-
tion, every one agreed to keep silence un-
til to-morrow, lest the servants, overhear-
ing, might spread the story in the village,
with disastrous results. Then thev sepa-
rated for the wonted variety of morning en-
gagements at the seaside. Gertrude waited,
upon one excuse an another, until all had
departed, because she wished to avoid Nie-
oll so long as she had not discovered the
answers to certain questions as to which a
wakeful night had brought no counsel.
With anovel and a golf cloak she made
her way te a bit of shingle, sheltered from
possible observers at the cottage by lofty
rocks,and there began her selfconfession.
She had been accustomed to the opinien
that she was a young woman of purposes as
well defined as her principles, not given to
the inspection of a desired object from con-
flicring points of view—bhut to-day she wa-
vered iu that opinion. :
She had come to this pretty place pie-
pared to accept Nicoll Britton’ if he asked
her—an ‘if’ inserted merely for euphony,
thouglyshe had only known him a few
weeks. She intended to make him an ex-
cellent wife to watch over his lack of as-
tuteness, and to see that his dignity was
maintained by the respect which his char-
acter, if not his intelligence, deserved.
But since last nighh misgivings assailed
her. '
Would this decorous loyalty from his
wife entirely satisfy him? Sincere, unsus-
picions as he was, would not her accept-
ance include to him such love as he cifer
ed ? When he found such love lacking
from her bond, would he not feel that gen-
erous faith of his defranded ? Would he
not suffer far more cruelly than if she had
forced upon him the knowledge of Otho
Villars’ dishonor?—a task from whose
sternness she had shrunk—-
**You are not reading?’, the man of
whom she was thinking asked, close be-
hind her. ‘‘May I sit here with you for a
little 2”? 2
It must be, then she told herself, with
an odd pang at her heart, while her de-
cision came to her. Better hurt him sharp-
ly now than crush the faith out of him
month by month, year by year, in the
long future he might live with a wife who
did not love him !
Silently she drew away her white skirt
that heshould find place beside her. She
fancied he was:likely to encounter senti-
mental dangers: as unhesitatingly as he
had rushed up San Juan Hill--nor did she
misjudge him.
“I am not good at words,”’ he begau
at ouce, and though his voice was low she
thought its steadiness would carry him
through with that which he meant to say
as he went on; ‘‘but somehow I believe
you undeaistand me pretty well without
words. It should not ‘be difficult, for I
am not subtle, yet I like to feel that youn
wake me out better than any one else
She did not speak as he halted an in-
stant, and be continued more hurried-
ly: :
‘I ama slow fellow, but this has come
to me quickly—I have known you so brief
a time! yet [ seem to have loved you so
long—I am not worthy of youn in any way,
but I love you—I love you!"
During another moment she did not
speak—yet he added nothing more.
Somewhere in her consciousness was a
smile—or perhaps a sob ?—that this mil-
lionaire should be so unsuspicious of the
motives for which she bad intended to mar-
ry him; that his plea was only “‘love’’—
as though they were dwellers in Arcadia!
But his folly had so far infected. her that
she resolved to answer him after his own
fashion—divining that she should hurt
him less if she left his ideal of her undim-
med by hint of the mercenary intentions
which this ‘new reverence for him had
abandoned. :
She rose. he rising, also, wordless and
without effort to detain her.
‘I am glad, and I am sorry, I am proud
and I am ashamed, that you should say
this to me,’’ she said softly. “Iam glad
and proud that a man whom I respect so
highly should care so much for me; I am
sorry and ashamed that there is not love
enough in me to give you what you de-
serve.”
He neither spoke nor lingered as she
stepped back to the path, and they walk.
ed.up the steep little lawn mutely to the
veranda. There he held out his hand.
“This is ‘good by’ to more than I shall
ever hope again,” lie murmured.‘ Though
of course, Ishall see you often, and love
you always.” ;
With this he went away.
Gertrude did not appear at luncheon,and
her grandmotheris maid brought a cap of
tea toa very real headache at five o’clock.
‘But despite an unhappiness which she
could not entirely explain to herself by the
mocking assertion that she dreaded a neec-
essary confession to Mrs.: Grant, she came
down to dinner in a becoming gown, and
a beauty rather enhanced by her pallor.
Nicoll seemed neither more nor less
quietly cheery than his wont throughout
dinner. But he withdrew, at its con-
clusion, to the library, with a laughing
excuse of the need to do ‘sentry duty’’ be-
fore the closet in which, as the cottage
possessed no safe, the gold that Otho had
brought from town was locked for the
night.
Among his guests the usual summer
evening followed. Half a dozen, including
Otho, departed for a moonlight ‘‘trolley
ride,”’ which that season happened to be
the chicamusement. The others lingered
gayly in the shadowy veranda, whence Nie
oll’s bent head could be seen by one ob-
servant pair of eyes as he wrote, letters be:
side the library table. About ten o’clock
off to bed at once, declaring that lie should
relieve Nicoll’s watch at two. A little lat-
er Gertrude also went upstairs feeling that
she had given sufficient evidence of seren-
ity. But when her pretty haii was braid-
the trolley party returned, and Otho went |
ed, she paused before taking off her dress-
ing-gown, gazing at the white hed with
sudden disbelief in its suggestion of re-
pose.
The easy chair beside the open window,
through whose partial draping of honey-
suckle she could see the moonlit ocean,
would better suit her wakeful mood. She
never knew if, perbaps. the slumber she
deemed so distant had lightly wrapped her
for a while, when she was roused by phys-
ical discomfort. She sat upright, and
realized that her oppression was produced
by an odor of ether, which eclipsed the
honeysuckle, the sea saltness, and the
sweetness of the summer air.
She was startled. Somebody must be
ill. Yet, though she listzned intently, the
stillness of the house was unbroken by the
commotion which sudden illness would
have cansed. Swiftly,silently she descend-
ed the stairs.
She had remembered the gold in the
library closet, Nicoll’s solitary watch, and
the talk of burglars.
Noiselessly she opened the library door,
and her first glance assured her that be-
side the table where a lamp burned low.
Nicoll lay asleep in a big chair. The room
otherwise was empty, but the closet door
stood ajar, and its broken lock lay upon
the floor,
Her next movement brought her to Nie
oll’s side. He did not wake. She touch-
ed the hand which lay on the arm of his
chair—it was cold as snow, and bending
nearer, she saw his deadly whiteness, and
her cheek. almost touching his lips, felt
no breath upon it, though the odor of
ether dizzied her.
Gathering his band to her breast with a
passion of tenderness and terror, she rose
erect and fae-d Otho, who entered from the
vera ida in his stockings, carrying a parti-
ally filled pillow slip,slung weightily across
his shoulders.
His ghastly siare of discovered guilt was
not needed to tell her what had happened.
Yet an instant told her also, though the
her clasp, that Otho had meant no person-
al hurt to his eousin.
‘He is dying from the ether you have
{given him,” she said. “There is a mo-
| ment, perhaps you cau save him. Open the
{other windows.”’
“Dying I”? he echoed. ‘‘He is as strong
as a bear——"" With chattering teeth he
gazed down at the deathlike figure before
him. “As God sees me,” he muttered,
‘I would not have harmed him—for all
his .illions I”?
She had flung some roses from a vase,and
was splashing water on Nicoll’s brow and
lips. :
“Stand back.” she whispered.
care for him now !”’
“You will not betray me?’ .
It was the first note of self which Otho’s
glance or word had shown since he had
realized his consin’s danger, but, though
that remembrance came to her later
to condone a perversion of justice, she was
moved to her reply then, only by a won-
drous tenderness for the loving heart be-
ginning to throb strongly again under her
hand—and which no pain for another’s
shame must disturb.
‘It would kill him now to hear what
you have dove—jyon are safe,’’ she mutter-
ed.
‘But later? Have mercy ! © I was push
ed to this! You suspected the picture
business—it was only a question of time
when my influence with him would yield
to yours—I had lost the picture money at
Monte Carlo—other debts are hounding
NE?
‘‘Hush ! He is stirring.”’.
‘‘Promise not to tell him—for his sake!
The gold is in this pillow slip. I meant to
carry it upstairs and hide it among my lug-
gage—but it shall be found. in the garden
beside the empty portmantean—as though
the burglars had thrown it away when they
heard the house aroused —-"7 -
‘‘For his sake I promise,’”’ she said, and
then in a tone her voice had never before
uttered, the tone which brings more con-
viction to a lover's ears than any words,
and which thiilled with half conscious rapt-
ure through Nicoll’s rallying senses. “You
are better,’” she murmured to two blue be-
wildered eyes, in which life and love were
kindling swiftly. t .
Thus was made astory, fragmentary ver-
sions of which supplied talk to this gay
fraction of the summer world for many a
day. That‘the odor of ether should have
reached Miss: Grant, when separated. from
it by the width of the house and two clos-
ed doors, was a wonder not of physic but
of telepathy. : :
Such was the aspect of the- story which
engrossed the sentimental few among its
discussers, while the practical majority
were entertained by Otho Villars’ dramatic
narrative of his coming to take his turn at
watching the gold, of his assistance to Miss
Grant in reviving his cousin. and of find-
ing the gold in the garden, where the burg-
lars had thrown it away as he approach-
ed. : ar
Two regrets were added to the story be-
fore the fashionable colony fled to its win-
ter habitations. Vigorous detective effort
had abandoned hope of discovering the bur-
glars, and Otho had turned his back upon
American society for several years, by de-
parting for Italy and the study of art.
There will, however, soon be but one
memory unconsoled for him. Nicoll, in
the midst of his great happiness, misses
the. friend of all bis youth, and that Ger-
trude does not lament him has caused their
only difference—a difference for which he
knew how to be forgiven. :
“If'T do not like him as well as you do,”
she said, ‘‘your. liking for him has helped
to make me love you !”’—By Ellen Macku-
bin in the Saturday Evening Post.
HI will
There Are Others.
a skull so thick that a bullet would:
not enter it. He first tried to shoot it with
a.22- calibre rifle, but the bullets glanced
off without hurting it. He next tried a
32-calibre revolver, but with no better re-
sult, and finally procured a 38-calibre re-:
volver from a neighbor and shot it se eral
times. By this time the hog began to tire
of such treatment aud jumped out of the
pen and ran away. It was finally ecaptur-
ed and knocked in the head. After it was
dressed it was found that the skull was
formed in a sort of a V shape and not one
of the bullets which struck ‘it had pene-
trated, :
Big Timber Deal.
Seth T. Foresman returned to Williams-
port Friday from Louisiana, after complet-
ing the purchase of 109,000 acres of timber
land in Avoyelies county for a company of
Williamsporters, among whom are Mr.
Foresman, former Attorney ' General Me-
Cormick, former Mayor Mansel, Daniel
Brown aud others, capitalized at $2,000,-
000. There are 5,000,000 feet of hard
wood on the tract. The land ‘will be valu:
able for farming after it is cleared.” = ©
J
wrist of the man she loved lay pulseless in |
ri Tr i d
A Hog With a Skull so Thick a Bullet Coul
" ‘Not Be Shot Into It. t
, Haury Beatty, of Punxsutawney,
killed "a hog the other day with
A True Story of Politics.
He faced the beautiful creature as she
stood before him. She stood before him,
as she had heard tbat was the proper thing,
and Lewseal Oleomargarine O’Flin figured
on doing the proper thing always and for-
ever.
*‘Has it come to this?’’ he hissed.
| *Yes,” she replied, shrugging her beau-
| tiful shoulders.
| “Woman, would you drive me insane ?”’
he cried once again, not forgetting to hiss.
With a cruel, cold smile she murmured :
“You wouldn’t bave to be driven far.”
This blow staggered him and for a mo-
ment he stood as one in a trance, but pres-
ently a fiendish smile chased itself into the
region of his ears.
*‘T suppose you think I have no reason to
talk thusly 2” he queried, raising his eyes
with an effort.
‘‘None whatever, ’” she replied haughtily.
At this the husband, for such he was,
gave a fiendish ery, and bending toward
her asked hissingly :
‘You ask for money, woman! What
did you do with that fifty cent piece I gave
you last month ?*?
‘I spent it for groceries,’”’ she admitted,
and then fell on her knees and became a
woman, instead of a cold and impassive
statue.
Dear, patient reader, their honeymoon
had been placed upon the shelf some time
and she had only asked her generous and
noble mate for money to buy sone actual
necessities, with the above result. After
which, the man went down town and blow-
ed in $10 on a sap headed galoot of a cheap
politician who handed him a boguet, say-
ing: ‘‘You are the party’s logical candi-
date.”
Dear, kind reader, is not this a true
story ?— Denver Times,
Grover Cleveland is out of Danger.
Family Physician Says Crisis Was Safely Passed
on Thursday Last.
The condition of former President Grov-
| er Cleveland is much improved. This af-
ternoon Dr. Wikoff. the Cleveland family
physician, made the following statement :
*‘The cold contracted by Mr. Cleveland
on his recent trip to the South is pract:cal-
ly broken up aud the sick man will be en-
tirely recovered inh two or three days. Al-
though the danger is past, Mr. Cleveland
has been a very sick man. On Monday he
walked eight miles on a hunting expedi-
tion and caught a severe cold. which
was attended. wits chills at night.
The next morning the party broke up
aud Mr. Cleveland started for Princeton,
arriving here Tuesday night. Wednesday
he was very ill with the cold, but was not
confined to his bed. Thursday the crisis
came, and he was very sick. I was called
in on Thursday afternoon and I found Mr.
Cleveland in a high fever, and attacked by
severe chills. He is now resting easy and
is entirely out of danger.”’
Dr. Wikoft’s said that only a part of Mr.
Cleveland’s right lung had heen at-
‘tacked.
Rescue Party Perished in Ill-Fated Coal
: ne.
Eight Prominent Officials Overcome by Gas and
Bodies Cannot be Found. v
All hope of finding the eight mining of-
ficials who entered the West mine at Poca-
hontas, Va., Saturday to search for hodies
entombed by the recent explosion in the
Baby mine, has about heen abandoned. Up
to 1 Sunday nothing bad been heard from
them, : :
A rescuing party entered the mine Satur-
day afternoon but were able to proceed only
300 yards. They found the coat of Super-
intendent O'Malley hanging on a peg about
200 yards in the mine, hut discovered no
other trace of the party. :
The mining: experts now have de-
cided upon a plan of attempted rescue, hut
the minegofficials refuse to give any infor-
mation to the public. It is said that an-
other effort will be made to enter the mine.
Hopes had heen entertained up to this
‘morning that the party had escaped through
the Tug river outlet, ten miles distant, and
messengers were dispatched at an early
hour to that point. They failed to find any
trace of the party. a
Assistant Superintendent King, who led
the rescuing party yesterday, and who was
overcome by black damp, has entirely re-
‘covered. He says it is impossible for a
human being to live fifteen minutes in a
mine in the condition in which was the one
his party entered yesterday. It has been
raining ha:d since early morning and the
main entrance to'the mine presents a gloomy
appearance, with the friends and relatives
of the missing men standing around.
A ————————————.
fHiow a Clearfield Politician Dug Po-
totoes and Worked His Wite.
Not long ago the wife of a Clearfield
county politician asked him to lay aside
polities long enough one day to dig the po-
tatoes in the garden. He agreed to do it.
After digging for a few minutes he went
into the house and said he had found a
coin. He washed it off and it proved to be
-a silver quarter. He put it in his jeans
and went back to his work. Presently he
went to the house again and said he had
found another coin. He washed the dirt
off. It was a silver half dollar. He putt
‘in his jeans.
“I have worked pretty hard,”’ said he to
his wife. “I guess I will take a pap.”
When he awoke he found that his wife had
dug all the rest of the potatoes. But she
found no coins. In then dawned upon her
that she had been worked. s
1 - * »
a Serious Charge. . >
Lairdsville Woman Arrested for Giving: Children
Poison: i... ... . “ip Y
Mrs. Carrie Cox, of Lairdsville, Lycom-
ing county, was held for court Friday.
Mrs. Cox is charged by William McFadden
of that village, with. attempting to poison
his two children, aged 3 and 5 years. He
alleges that the woman spread poisoned
jelly on a biscuit and then gave the chil-
dren the biscuit to eat. Shortiy after the
children became ill, and the physicians had
a hard time saying their lives. The gener-
al opinion among Lairdsville residents is
that the arrest is the result of a neighbor’s
quarrel. .
s
Sclected Site for a Home.
The Odd Fellows of this state at a meet-
ing in Allegheny city on the 8th inst., con-
sidered offers of twenty-two sites for the
proposed home for aged and homeless mem-
bers of the order,and selected a farm of 150
acres near Grove City Mercer county.
Grove ‘City will give a cash bonus:
and “will also furnish free electric light
and water to the institution. The associa-
tion will levy an annual per capita tax of
twenty-five cents for the maintenance of the
home. The building will cost about $100,-
0060 towards this the town gives a bonus of
$4,000 cash, with freedom from taxes for
ten years- i . hae :
3