Bellefonte Pe., Februrary 12, 1904.
THE HISTORY OF LIFE.
Day dawn’d. Within a curtained room,
Filled to faintness with perfume,
A lady lay at point of doom.
Day closed. A child had seen the light ;
But for the lady fair and bright,
She rested in undreaming night.
Spring came. The lady’s grave was green,
And near it oftentimes was seen,
A gentle boy, with thoughtful mien.
Years fled. He wore a manly face,
And struggled in the world’s rough race,
And won at last a lofty place.
And then he died ! Behold before ye,
Humanity’s brief sum, and story,
Life, death and all that is of—Glory.
—Barry Cornwall.
PRINCE ROSELEAF AND A GIRL
FROM KANSAS.
Edgington was at the end of the long
gallery when he heard the swish-swish of
many feet, the high, penetrating voice of
the American girl, and a laugh that was
frank and free and unlike anything to be
heard obo the coutinent,
‘‘That,monsieur,”’ explained his guide‘‘is
a partie of Cook’s.”’
The young American looked with distaste
at the Belgian whose supercilious tone he
resented for his compatriots. But he look-
ed with distaste, too, upon the miscella-
neous assortment of Americans, male and
female, being herded into the ‘‘salle. And
he blushed at fancying himself among
them: and then had the grace to blush be-
cause he had blushed.
The ““partie of Cook’s took possession of
the place. Its flight-like that of wild geese
the guide first,a girl with a green veil nexé
a hardy adventurer following after a space,
another, and then a scattered bunch—Iled
straight for the great Rubens. A swift con-
centration about the guide-magnet, a per-
functory. ‘‘Here you see before you, la-
dies and gentlemen,” ‘‘Ici, mesdames eb
messienrs, vous voyez,”’ ‘‘Hier, meine da-
men und herren, sie sehen’’—following in
rapid succession without a varying tone or
accent. A choral ‘‘Oh!”’ a murmur of as-
tonishment, curiosity,gratification and then
swiftly on the wing again; alighting before
the Rembrandt, just tonching earth a min-
ute before an Ary Scheffer, then taking
flight reluctantly and strung out like re-
gretful peris leaving Paradise; a clatter; a
swish; a.silence; the swift murmur of the
polyglot guide; an ‘‘O--oh!”’ the slip-slip
of many feet on the marble floor—and that
was all.
They vanished’ as they came and Edging
ton, who stood musing before Van Dyke’s
‘‘Saint Catherine.’’ looked after them, a
puzzled frown on nis boyish face.
He walked a few steps after the radiant-
visaged Belgian who was his guide, then
absent-mindedly dismissed him. He stood
a moment irresolute, looking upward. But
he did not see the palely beautiful frescoes
above the arched doorway for him the wall
was lettered as Belshazzar’s. But the let-
tering that held Edgington’s attention, was
in a most modern, business-like hand, and
it read:
“You are altogether mistaken, my lad, if you
fancy your father’s a fool. I'm not putting up for
a prince’s tour over the continent. You're at
liberty to cut it all short and come home, or to
see Europe on what's left to you, but no more of
Jim Edgington’s dollars go to prove to the na-
tives that another young American ass is
abroad.”
Heyward Heriot Edgington recognized
his father’s forthright style in those words.
He could not only thank fortune that it had
been given to him to read them rather than
to listen to them, and that very day he join
ed this ‘‘partie of Cook’s.’”
Mary Daley looked once at his full signa
ture on the hotel ‘register, and the new
member of the ‘‘partie’” found himself
christened ‘‘H-H’’ hefore he had been
among them a day. This, Miss Daley play-
ed upon by a natural series of facetious
puns. At different times during the next
day he was known as Mr. Hyphenated Hy-
phen, Hy Hiram, Breakfast Food, Dejoon-
er (Miss Daley scorned the affectations of
foreign pronunciations), Jooner and June.
Where this girl led, any and all dared to
follow. Her high spjrits, the passion for
sightseeing that possessed her, ber untiring
bodily energy and unceasing native delight
and her pert wit made her the head as well
as the life of the party. Sheknew the pro-
fession and the pretenses of its every mem-
ber. She could mimic the serious, intelli-
gent, blonde German lady-professor from
St. Lonis as cleverly as the handsome boy
from the South who was devoted to her.
And she so loved to practice her mimicries,
and was so careless of consequences that at
times, her victim found himself among her
audience.
This happened once to Edgington, who,
following on her heels as they all arrived
at the station at The Hague, heard her cry
to ber friend Miss Merton: “I beg your
pardon,but may I ask the name of the brad
canal with the Jorge building on this side
She tripped as she was saying it, and. in
recovering her balance, her eve fell on Edg-
fogton’s outstretched arm and flashed
iace. She looked donbtful a moment, and
then said with an irresistible giggle:
‘“’'Tain’t a very good imitation, is it? Bus
you see you haven’t been with us long
enough yes.”
‘‘Long enoogh to get from H-H to Jane’
he answered.
‘Ob, you know that too? Well—it’s the
common lot of man to be nicknamed. And
it’s good for him. And’’ she looked up at
him out of the corner of her eye, as though
testing how far she might go. (Na-
ture had lingered lovingly on the details of
this fat little girl's face, and the mark of
Her artist’s fingers was upon the corners of
lips and eyelids, in the molding of chin
and forehead )—*‘and it’s my opinion yon
haven’t had enough of it, Mr.—June!"’
*‘What makes you think so?”
‘‘Have you got a lot of brothers and sis-
ters?’
*‘No—none.”’
‘I thought not.’’ :
He was undecided as to whether he was
resentful or not, but the charm there was
in watching the dimpled corners of Mary
Daley’s mouth, and the special effective
set of her eyes, led them on.
Core,” he urged, ‘‘give me your rea-
sous.”’
‘“You’ll be mad if I do.”’
‘‘No—I won't.” .
‘‘Well, you see, no man who wasn’t his
father’s only son could put such awful 30n-
descension into joining us as you do. No
man who had been laughed at a lot when
be wae a boy could find us all—me espe-
. oially—so volgar. No man could suffer
such agonies at being classed with us who
—I said you’d be mad.”
He did not answer. He was “mad”
clear through. An impulse to be thorough
while she was about it possessed her.
Do you know your real name?’’ she
1 Well, I’11 tell you.
asked pertly. ‘‘It ain’t June—it’s really
—1I say’’—the impudence in her face broke
into a bewildering maze of dimples—*“I
say—guess what it is !"’
He shook his head.
‘“You must be awful mad,’’ she teased,
‘“‘if you’ve not curiosity enough to ask.
You are the P. L. G.
—the perfect little gentleman.
He wasn’t little, which was some small
consolation to him; but he flashed under
her taunts. ‘‘And what may vou be?’ he
demanded.
‘*Me ? Oh, I'm a dozen things, accord-
ing to your point of view,’ she answered,
with good-natured composure. ‘I’m the
Kansas Schoolma’am. I'm Dickens’s fat
girl. I’m Lady Raw-and-Ready. I’m
Bessie Backwoods. There are lots of nick-
names I deserve, but youn can’t make me
mad by calling me them.”
She looked up at him with a frank pleas-
ure that was disarming.
“You see,’’ she went on, “I'm nine-
teen. I’ve been teaching school, off in the
country, ever since my fifteenth birthday.
I’ve saved every dollar I could scrape to-
gether—there’s nobody in the world to
look out for me but my aunt, and her
hands are full--and I’m blowing it all in
on this trip that I’ve dreamed of all my
life,and that’s greater than all my dreams.
I may be crude and ignorant and fresh—
but I’m happy; bappier than these artistic
swells who are bored to death, ashamed or
afraid to say what they like and what they
don’t, and so penned in and tyrannized
over by rules orsomebody’s opinion that
they daren’t be natural. I don’t care a
darn whether I know the proper thing or
not, and I hate people who pose and pre-
tend that they do. All that stuff hasn’t
anything to do wish life or living.—How
does that sound to you—vulgar ?”’
Edgington yielded to a sudden impulse
to match her frankness. ‘Look here, I'm
not such a prig as—as I seem, evidently,
to you. Ido like the proper thing—not
because it’s the proper thing, but because
it suits me. I do like to travel, to live, to
appear well. I like the best restaurants,
the finest trains, the best-dressed women,
the ocleverest clubs—all because the raw-
nesses of life are hidden, and the rough
edges turned carefully under in them. I
like the best—and I took it and had it and
enjoyed it till my letter of credit was a
sum of subtractions, and then the old gen-
tleman, who likes these things as much as
I do, and from whom I probably inherited
my fondness for them, got one of those
sudden economical seizures to which he is
liable. So when I heard of the fellow be-
longing to your party who was taken sick
at the hotel and couldn’t go on——"
‘‘How old are yon—if you don’t mind ?*’
she interrapted.
“Twenty-three. Why ?”’
‘‘And living on your father?’
He nodded curtly. ‘‘What’s a man to
do who’s just through college ?’’
She was silent a minute. ‘It seems
fanny to a girl who’s made her own living
ever since she left short skirts behind. No
wonder you don’t enjoy this trip as I do—
you didn’t earn it for yourself; somebody
gave it to you.” °
They had reached the hotel and Edging-
ton was glad of it. He got out in a hurry
and lost eight of his tormentor till the
evening, when the whole ‘‘partie’’ sailed
in a body into the glittering ‘‘salle’’ and
sat down to a table d’hote dinner. It was
then he heard her say in an aside to Miss
Merton: ‘‘You don’t know how these
public appearances afflict An Only Child.
He, you know, can’t bear life unless the
rawnesses are hidden and the rough edges
carefully turned under.’”’ It enraged him
so that he forgot to besensitive to the lofty
disdain of the head waiter, whose disap-
proval of merely middle-class toarists in a
body was as unmistakable as his own; and
whose sharing of his sentiments made him
feel like a lackey himself.
It was an old hotel that took its age and
its traditions very seriously. And it shook
to its very center—where the be-buttoned,
polyglot portier sat like a fat spider, his
bulging eyes watching the incoming flies--
when a shriek from a bedroom on the first
floor startled the night some hours later.
Edgington and his room-mate heard the
wild cry and, pulling on their garments,
followed the proprietor, the portier, the
maid, and the pert little Boots, as they
hurried along the corridor.
In front of the door whence the shriek
had escaped the little crowd congregated
while the portier knocked lustily.
“Who is it ® What do you want ? It’s
all right. Go ’way. Don’t bother. Never
mind. It’s a mistake,” came in quick
sentences from behind the closed door. It
was Mary Daley’s voice; Edgington and
the boy from the South both recognized it.
*‘But I demand to enter !”’ cried the
portier after a colloquy in Duteh with the
proprietor.
‘‘Enter then !"” The door was flung open
and the party entered. Miss Daley, her
hair in two long braids over her shoulders,
a loose red gown over her night clothes, her
face looking absurdly fat and baby-like,re-
ceived them. At sight of Edgington her
bright eyes grew round and challenging,so
he deemed it safest to remain with the
Southern boy, outside.
‘Miss Merton, who is lying behind those
bed curtains trying not to snicker,” de-
clared ‘Miss Daley in an official tone to the
portier, ‘‘shrieked because she was waken-
ed from a sound eleep by Queen Wilhel-
mina’s picture crashing to the floor. Will
you go now and let ue get to sleep ?”’
‘But I do not comprehend,’” said the
portier, picking up the large, gilt-framed
portrait from the floor, ‘‘what bad weak-
ened its hold ?”’
“It might have been my washing.”
‘‘Washing ?’
‘‘Yes——washing:’’ She stuorned and
waved her band. The large pier glass over
the mantel, the window panes, the portrait
of the Queen’s mother, the glass of the
dressing-bureau—all were plastered with’
wet white linen adhering to the smooth
surface.
The portier looked with incredulity, with
disgust, from Mary Daley to her handi-
work. r
‘*And the portrait of the Queen——?’
‘‘Was as good as anybody else’s,”” sup-.
plied Miss Daley sturdily. ‘Yon know—
or perhaps you don’t know—that after yon-
wash handkerchiefs you must spread them
very, very smoothly on a glass surface. It
saves ironing. Wilhelmina was rather
bigh vp and my arms got tired, but I
smoothed that handkerchief flat on Her
Majesty’s face and the cord, being royalist,
1 suppose, broke three hours later.’
‘‘Mademoiselle,’’ said the portier, his big
face red, his prominent, fish-like eyes pro-
trading farther in his shocked displeasure,
‘it ia not permitted so—-1’
“Then why didn’t you say so?’ she in-
terrupted gaily. ‘‘The whole continent is
plastered full of things that are verboten—
how was I to know you preferred dirty
handkerchiefs to clean ones ?"’
“It is supposed—’’ began the portier
with dignity.
‘‘It is supposed that when one pays for a
room to sleep in, she’s going to he permit-
ted tosleep in it. Good-night.”’
In the morning they took the train for
Brussels. Edgington leaned over to Miss
Daley as she sat opposite in the second-
class compartment, studying ber Baedeker.
‘‘Would you mind if I open the window,
Mademoiselle Mouchoir ?’’ he asked.
A sudden explosion of laughter shook
her.
‘“You are actually getting on,”’ she ex-
claimed. ‘‘The Only Child ought to be
disgusted. Think what awfally bad form
——to do such a thing——and be caught
at it! And you’re not shocked so as to
wish you’d never joined us?”
He shook his head.
‘‘Well—if you're sure you're unot--I’ll
confess that I am shocked--a bit. But I
had to bluff, didn’t I, with you out there
in the ball? I'd have died before I’d have
admitted that I bad the least idea how aw-
ful that poor. plastered, gold-mirrored room
looked. ”’
‘So it was all for my henefit ?”’
“Mostly.”
‘Well, Mademoiselle Mouchoir,”’ he
said audacionsly, ‘‘you might have saved
yourself the trouble. I saw only the girl
with the black braids and the sleepy, rosy
face--why would a man want to look fur-
ther ?’’
He had an agreeably novel sensation of
holding the whip-hand as he watched her
face crimson with confusion.
*‘I call that mean,’”’ she cried, rallying.
‘‘It surely can’t be the proper thing to re-
mind a girl of an unavoidable thing like
that.”’
“Bat you know we're ‘darning’ the
proper thing.”’
*‘I am,”’ she returned stoutly.
not--sincerely.”’
‘Well, I say, suppose you help me to;
teach me to. Show me how much pleas-
anter i6 is to travel second-class than de
luxe; to scurry through museums when
you’d love to linger over something that
specially strikes you and basn’t hit the
guide’s exquisite taste; be crowded in with
a lot of people who——"’
““Aren’t congenial and not received in
the best families? No--you’re not teach-
able, Prince Roseleaf. And why in the
world--tell me that--should you travel bet-
ter than most ? Why should you go first-
class ? Your father’s got a right to, per-
haps, but where did you earn any ?”’
He sat back as though he had been buf-
fetted about the ears. She took np her
Baedeker and read sternly through ‘‘Brus-
sels to Antwerp.”” Then sbe dropped the
little red-covered volume.
“Why in the world,’’ she said, sudden-
ly taking up the conversation where it had
fallen, ‘‘don’t you say ‘it’s none of your
business ?’’
‘‘Because it isn’t,’ he answered simply.
This time she got from “Antwerp to
Paris’? before she spoke again; it took
longer to read away a rebuff received than
one given.
“That ought to make us even,’’ she said.
“Shall we call it a draw 2’
They separated immediately, to indulge
in the cordial mutual ill-will that follows
an indecisive battle.
On the Rhine boat he heard her demand
of the waiter, who was serving an English
party. ‘‘Kennen sie taken ein autre or-
der 2’ and demanding ‘‘swei of this”’—
pointing to the bill of fare. Hesaw the lift-
ed supercilious eyebrows of the English-
men whom her mixed essays amused, and
he felt like punching the pert, red-faced
German waiter for the excellent English
in which he answered.
The ‘‘partie’s first day in France ended
at the Invalides. Stretched ont,they made
half of the circle of hero worshippers who
look down upon the massive red-brown
grauvite sarcophagus on its pedestal of green
black marble, with not a line of ornamen-
tation, not a flower, not an inscription to
belittle this burial box of stone and the
dead greatness it encloses. Edgington’s
eye wandered from the tattered standards
from whose folds, like insense, rise the
memories that shook a world, to one after
the other of the twelve Angels of Pradier,
that mighty sisterhood of stateliness, seren
ity and beautiful gravity and watchfalness.
As it completed the circle, the young man’s
eye, unconsciously lifted, took in the oth-
er end of the semicircle directly opposite, of
which he was the beginning and the little
Mary Daley the end. Her pretty, child-
like mouth was trembling, and the tears
rolled down her cheeks, unheeded.
Edgington covered the space that separat
ed them in a moment. He stood beside her
his shoulder shielding her from the curious
eyes hent upon her for some moments he-
fore she noticed him. Then she looked up
wiped the tears, of which she bad been un-
conscious, from her cheeks, and, gulping
down her sobs, she exclaimed while ber lip
still trembled: ‘‘Ain’t it dandy ?”’
In some altogether unaccountable way
this seemed to mitigate the effect of that
deadly draw which had separated Mary
Daley, of Wichita, from Heyward H. Edg-
ington, of Rittenhouse Square. Edgington
swallowed his sooial scruples once and for
all and came in out of the chill atmosphere
of criticism into the warmth of the little
girl’s friendliness. He found it much pleas-
anter to laugh with her than at her, for the
world provided endless food for laughter to
Mary Daley. She was born a flesh-and-
blood caricaturist, quick to catch and mim-
io it with just enough exaggeration to
stamp it as a characteristic. And she car-
tooned all Europe in poses and sentences
and expression.
Edgington soon found himself contribut-
ing to the merriment of the ‘‘partie’’ by
singing as the break which held them all
dashed along the Hohenweg at Interlaken.
And when the first verse of his favorite
Princeton jingle was answered by the next
from a passing automobile, he laughed at
the amazement of two of his classmates in
it who bad recognized him. He took off his
hat in response to the unuttered sentiment
Mary Daley’s face expressed and to accom-
pany the salute she made, when they came
unexpectedly across the Flag on a little
launch bobbing about on the lovely lake of
Thun. He climbed with her and launched
with her and was stared at with her, and
lite seemed a lark to him in the sunny in-
souciance her unaffected happiness reflect-
ed’
Till ove day, just before they were to
sail, they went to the banker’s together for
letters, and he opened and read one with
an enclosure from his mother. He looked
from it to Mary Daley’s face and then
crammed the letter in his pocket, saying
whimsieally, half alond : ‘It’s too late,
Mamma Edgington.’’
Mary Daley’s eyes lifted. ‘‘Not bad
news ?”? she asked with ready sympathy.
‘‘Would it be bad news $o you, if it pre-
vented my going back on the boat to-mor-
row with the ‘partie ?”’ ;
‘Wait a minute.” She dived down into
a side-satchel from which she drew her
much-weakened letter of credit. She look-
ed it over carefully before putting it back.
‘‘Look here, Prince Roseleaf, you and I
have got to be pretty good friends haven’s
we? i }
He waited, disappointed. He was look-
ing for another, less frankly expressed,sign
of interest.
‘‘Well, then,’’ she went on, ‘'why don’s
“You’re
you ask me to let you have enough to pay
your passage money over? I can do it and
still have enough left to get back to Kan-
sas. Why in the world don’t you say some-
thing?”
“Why it’s awfally good of you—of course
I thank youn over and over, you kind little
soul, but. you see, my mother is sending
me a check, and —"’
‘Ob!’ The circumflex accent had more
than the ordinary allowance of savagery in
it, he thought. ‘‘And a swell like you
wouldn’t, of course, go back on a slow
steamer if he could ges supplies in an un-
derband way from his mamma after his
father had denied him. .
This time Edgington told himself that
there was something he never could forgive
He saw her ou deck the second day out,but
all the women except herself were below,
battling with misery, of which they spoke
facetiously and thought with terror, and
she was walking briskly about, very much
in demand. with the boy from the South
on one side and the Minneapolis professor on
the other. She bad only a curt nod for
him, that declined to show even suprise
that he was on board.
She planned a ‘progressive euchre party
with the boy from the 8S,uth, and captain-
ed an entertainment that was given in the
cabin, to neither of which functions did
she deign to invite Edgiogton. Her activ-
ity and her good-humored informality took
her everywhere. She was the first to get
over on the forward deck to play shuffle-
board, to be invited up on the bridge by
the Captain, toget down on the lower deck
in the early morning and shell peas with
the women from the steerage, who were
working for the cook in sheer ennui.
She came up from this last excursion and
twisted her ankle on the wet deck, and fell
into Edgington’s outstretched arms; which
was not surprising, as he got up, before the
first gong sounded, for the express purpose
of following her, and, in the comparative
seclusion of early morning, ‘‘having it out
with her.”” Bat now that he bad her in
his arms, a plamp, pretty, helpless weight
for an instant, his heart began to thump
madly, and, instead of berating her, he
bent over in a Christian spirit and kissed
the mouth that had so often wounded him.
She struggled from him indignantly, her
round face aflame.
“I couldn’t help it,”” hecried—but there
was no apology in his tone.
She hid her face in her hands, murmur-
ing like a shamefaced child: *‘I knew I was
going to care for vou.”’
*‘And this Miss Daley,’’ demanded Edg-
ington senior; ‘‘you say you took her to
a hotel before coming home? You must
think a lot of her to postpone seeing your
mother and nie after so long an absence.”
*'I do—a lot.”” His son smiled ; but there
were indications in his manner that so ex-
perienced a woman as Mrs. Edgington could
not overlook.
“Who introduced you, Heyward?’ she
asked.
“I think,”’ he said slowly, “I owe her ac
quaintance to father.”’
“To me?”
Old Edgington slipped his finger between
his collar and his throat; it was a protest,
grown involuntary, against the dictates of
conventionality in men’s dress. It always
irritated his wife, who had been one of the
Heriots, of Baltimore,as an unnecessary and
humiliating reminder that the iron manu-
facturer had begun the accumulation of his
fortune unhampered by stiff collais—or any
other kind.
Young Edgington looked at his mother.
‘‘Who is she, Hevward!”’ Mrs. Edging-
ton asked appealingly.
‘Absolutely nobody—but her own sun-
ny self.”
His mother threw up her hands. “Well,
let us see her anyway,’’ she said.
So Edgington’s mother sgw Mary Daley.
‘A dumpy little thing with no style, a
good complexion, and positively awful man
ners,’’ is the way ~he described her to her
sister.
What Miss Daley thought of Mrs. Edg-
ington she told that lady as soon as she
saw her.
“I knew you'd be a swell,’ she said,
looking up admiringly at the tall, slender,
youthful-looking woman, who had donned
her most imposing Heriot manner and her
handsomest afternoon frock to receive her
threatened daughter-in-law. ‘‘But I did
hope you’d generously let me down easy.
This kind of thing,”” she spread out her
dimpled hands eloquently, ‘‘overpowers
me. It must seem a pity in a way to you,
doesn’t it, that Prince Roseleaf and I should
care for each other—but we do.”’ s
‘ ‘Why, really,’”’ began Mrs. Edgington,
summoning her savoir-faire, “*it’s so new
to me yet, that I have hardly accustomed
myself to the thought.”’
Bat the absolute sincerity of the girl’s
voice sounded sweet to her husband’s ears.
“Why, ‘Prince Roseleaf’?’ he interrupt-
ed.
‘‘Why, you should have seen him when
he joined us-the dainty disgust of him, the
air as being in reduced circumstances—tem-
porarily, oh, very temporarily—the shock-
ed surprise at how little we knew and how
much fun we bad; and the tenderness of
him about what people might think! My,
but be was raw—in another sense than I
was—from the wounds to his sensitive soul
Mr. Edgington roared. Young Edging-
ton smiled, not deprecatingly. Mrs. Edg-
ington lifted her beautiful chin—all the
Heriots have beautiful chins.
‘‘And you resented it, didn’t yon Mary?
Young Edgington’s tone made his mother
Shivers the loving confidence of it sounded
final.
‘Yes. Because—of course you know ?’’
she said, smiling past Mrs. Edgington’s
haughty face into old Edgington’s. eyes,
“‘because I cared for him from the very be-
ginning. And I couldn’ bear to think I
was growing fonder and fouder of a prig.”’
‘A prig 1”
‘Don’t yon worry, Mis. Edgington, he
isn’t one—not a bit of it. He’s the—
Well, you know, I can’t tell you what I
think of him when he’s aronnd.”’
The contrast between the delicious shy-
ness of her voice, just then, and the assured
manner with which she had faced his wife,
won James Edgington.
**Yon wouldn’t have had him, ’’he asked,
his eyes twinkling, ‘‘if he had been what
he seemed when he joined you?”’
‘I'd have hated him—or tried to,’’ she
added softly.
‘‘But,”” Mrs. Edgington said, quite as
softly ‘‘did it never occur to you that some
thing of what he stood for might be a very
desirable thing?’’
‘That reminds me of what yon said that
time about the ‘‘rawness of life’ and all
that rot.” Miss Daley turned with the
fullest trust in being understood to her
Prince, ‘‘Excuse me, Mrs, Edgington, it’s
going to be bard for you and me to get on
together, ain’s it? You're Lady High-and-
Mighty. I’m just any girl from Kansas.
It’s too bad for you that Prince Roseleat
should care for me, but—but it’s very, very
good for me, If I could, I'd do a lot to try
to make myself over to be your kind. Bat
I counldn’t if I would and—no I wouldn’s
—if I could. I would die for him, but I
wo SO
won’t live to pretend for bim. It’s what
your friends will think of me that bothers
you—isn’t it? But don’t you let it trouble
you too much—my being what I am; at
least not for the present. For, after I've
gone back to Kansas, you won’t be bother-
ed with me for a long time, and one can’t
say—'’
“So you're going back to Kansas 2’ Mr..
Edgington crossed over to where she sit
and took her plamp hand in his.
*‘School begins Monday,’ she said.
‘‘School?’’ inquired Mrs. Edgington with
a flash of hope. ‘‘You are attending some
finishing school?”
“It’s all kinds of school—the one I teach’
mixed grades, yon know.”’
**Why don’t you say something ?"’ Edg-
ington turned to his son.
**Because I think Mary can explain her-
self quicker and better than I could.”
‘‘He means I give myself away all in a
bunch, so that you’ll know rights away the
extent of the calamity that’s befallen vou.
But--but put yourself in my place for a
minute, Mrs. Edgington. How could I help
caring for him?’ *
It was the first direct appeal she had
made. It occurred to both the younger and
the older Edgington to step into the breach
but something in the girl’s frankness made
the subterfuge seem unworthy. There was
a pause, significant, long. Then the blood
of the Heriots came to the lady’s assistance
*“That’s not the question, ’’she said brave
ly, “it’s how could he help caring for
vou?’
The Edgington blacks, famous at many a
horse-show on the Wissahickon, carried
Mary Daley down to the station the next
morning.
“I’ve simply got to go back to Kansas
to teach,”’ she said when old Edgington
tried to prevail upon her at the last minute
to change her mind. ‘‘The sooner I get to
work the sooner Heyward will. Of course,
I couldn’t marry a man who couldn’ sup-
port me himself—not by taxing his father.
We have talked it all over and he won’t
let anybody but himself—not even you’’—
she had learned a special way already of
saying ‘‘you’’ to Mr. Edgington —‘‘pay my
board bill after we're married. I'll go to
work and so will he. It’s best for us both.
Aud perhaps’’ she smiled at Mrs. Edging-
ton in a way that made that lady feel as
thoughshe bad a little girl, a very winning
fat little girl to deal with, ‘‘perbaps I'll
work some of the rawness off down in Kan
sas.’’
But she clung to young Edgiogton till
the conductor’s warning cry sounded.
‘Oh, do work—hard—hard,’’ she sobbed
as she bade him good-by. ‘For I can’t
bear it long. I—I love you so, my boy,
my boy!’.—By Miriam Michelson, in Me-
clure’s Magazine.
A Strange Use for Skimmed Milk.
A use to which skim milk, sour milk
buttermilk, or even whole milk is not often
put is paintmaking, yet this product of the
diary makes possibly one of the most en-
during, preservative, respectable. and in-
expensive paints for barns and outbuild-
ings It costs little more than whitewash,
provided no great value is attached to the
milk, and it is a question whether for all
kinds of rough work it does not serve all
the purposes and more of the ready-mixed
paint, or even prime lead and paint mixed
in the best linseed oil. It is made as fol-
lows, and no more should be mixed than
is to be used that day: Stir into a gallon
of milk about three pounds of Portland
cement and add sufficient Venetian red
paint powder (costing three cents per
pound) to impart a good color. Any other
colored paint powder may be as well used.
The milk will hold the paint in suspension,
but the cement, being very heavy, will
sink to the bottom, so that it becomes
necessary to keep the mixture well stiired
with a paddle. This’ feature of the stir-
ring is the only drawback tothe paint, and
as its efficiency depends upon administer-
ing a good coating of cement, it is not safe
to leave its application to untrustworthy
or careless help. Six hours after painting
this paint will be as immovable and un-
affected by water as month-old oil paint.
I have heard of buildings twenty years old
painted in this manner in which the wood
was well preserved. My own experience
dates back nine years, when I painted a
small barn with this mixture, and the
wood to-day—second growth Virginia
yellow pine—shows no sign whatever of
decay or dry-rot. The effect of such a
coating seems to be to petrify the surface
of the wood. Whole milkis better than
buttermilk or skim milk, as it contains
more oil, and this is the constituent which
sets the cement. If mixed with water in-
stead of milk, the wash rubs and soaks off
readily. This mixture, with a little extra
of the cement from the bottom of the
bucket daubed on, makes the best possible
paint for tress where large limbs have been
pruned or sawed off. —By Guy FE. Mitchell.
in Scientfiic American.
Vermont Woman Preparing to Cele
brate Her 114th Birthday.
The oldest person in Vermont, and pos-
sibly the oldest in New England, Mis. So-
nora McCarthy, of South Shaftsbury,is pre-
paring to celebrate her 114th birthday.
Mrs. McCarthy does not recall the day of
the month on which she was born, but says
that it was on the first Friday in Lent of
1790. That she is 114 years of age was
confirmed by records found in the parish
in Ireland, where she was born.
—_——
Mere Momey and a Picture Hat.
‘I witnessed an amusing incident at one
of the local theatres the other evening,’
remarked the theatregoer. ‘‘A woman,
wearing a large picture hat, was seated
directly in front of an elderly man, who
was straining his neck in an endeavor to
see what was happening on the stage, and,
of course, it was only possible for him to
see but one-third of the performance.
*‘The second act bad begun, and I could
plainly see that his anger was increasing.
At last, when he could stand it no longer,
he lightly tapped the woman on the should-
er and, in as gentle tones as he possi-
bly could muster, said:
‘‘Madam, pardon me but I paid $2 for
this seat, and your hat—
“My hat cost $25, sir-r-r!’” came the
haughty reply,
“The conversation was atan end.’’ Phila-
delphia Press.
Glass Factories Closed Down.
The DuBois Express says: The fires have
been drawn at the window glass factory of
this place, and no window glass will be made
in DuBois this season, unless some arrange-
ment is made between the company and
and the workmen. A large number of
hands will be compelled to remain idle for
some time. They refused to consider the
proposition of a reduction. The fires at
the other glass factories in that vicinity bave
also been drawn. This will meana
loss of several thousand dollars a week to
DuBois and other towns in the mountain
distriot.
PLEASANT FIELDS OF HOLY WRIT.
Save for my daily range
Among the pleasant fields of Holy Writ,
I might despair —Tennyson.
THE INTERNATIONAL SUNDAY-SCHOOL LESSON.
First Quarter. Lesson viii. Matt. xii, 1—183
Sunday February 21, 1904.
JESUS AND THE SABBATH.
The Sabbath was the ‘bloody angle’ in
the contest between the Pharisees and
Jesus. They bad idolized the Sabbath—
bad converted it into a veritable Jugger-
nant, whose ponderous weight they were
rolling over men’s hearts and homes.:
Their micrology would have been ludicrous
if it had not been exercised upon something
so sacred.
With this spirit-destroying literalism,
Jesus took strongest issue. Of set purpose
be broke the tradition, while he yet kept
the Sabbath. He wrought seven conspic-
uous cures upon as many Sabbaths, as if
to show the merciful character and uses of
the day. But heconld not expect to lay
his hand thus rudely upon this Pharisaic
fetich without raising a din and ory, and
being branded as a sacrilegious person.
On this occasion the Pharisaic espionage
followed him in hopes that it would dis-
cover that he took one step more than the
two thousand cubits allowed for a Sab-
bath-day’s journey. It congratulated
itself upon a still greater *‘find.”’ Ic threw
up its hands in well-feigned horror at the
dreadfal infraction; for were not the dis-
ciples reaping and threshing on the Sab-
bath? According to the refinements of
their traditions, plucking the ripe wheat-
ears was a kind of harvesting, and rubbing
them between the hands and blowing the
chaff away was a kind of winnowing.
What a sin!
The reply of Jesus is a master-stroke:
“David is your hero-king. It is not pos-
sible you are ignorant of what he did in
an emergency; how, flying from Saul and
famishing, he took, not standing corn in
the field, like my disciples have, but the
showbread from the golden table before
the very presence of the Lord: and that,
too, when it had been freshly laid there,
and there was none to replace it. David
did this! How is it that you find no faul§
with him?’ The law of merey in this in-
stance supplanted the law of sacrifice.
The scene shifts now from the wheat.
fields to the synagogue, but the issue re-
mains the same. The cripple is used asa
bait to catch Jesus with. Jesus called the
unfortunate man to a conspicuous pesition,
The alternative which he proposed pus
them to confusion: Which accorded better
with the spirit of the Sabbath-law—to do
good, as he proposed, by setting this un-
fortunate free from his malady, or to do
evil, as they were doing when they en-
tertained a jealous and inhuman spirit;
to save life, as he soon would (making
the poor man’s life worth living), or to
kill, as they were now (cherishing the
spirit of murder in their hearts)? No
wonder they were silent. Jesus was
unanswerable.
THE TEACHER’S LANTERN.
The technism of piety reached its com-
pletest development under the hair-splis-
ting genius of the Pharisees.
* * * * *
They enumerated 365 prohibitions, 248
commands (equal to the number of bones
in the body), 613 precepts (number of
letters in the Decalogue).
* * * * *
Their dialectical skill was especially
busy in framing the casuistry of the Sab-
bath: determining whether it was right to
eat an egg laid on gabbhath, ete.
* * * * *
There was a serious side as well as ludi-
crous in this excessive legalism. Hebrew
pilots dropped the helm on approach of
Sabbath. Hebrew soldiers allowed them-
selves to be butchered rather than fight on
the Sabbath.
* ® * *
Jesus crushed these hollow traditions,
showed how intent of the Sabbath was
prevented by them.
* * * * *
He did not abolish the Sabbath. ‘Lord
of the Sabbath’’ would bave been no hon-
orable title if it wae a repealed institution.
He was Lord of the day in the sense of
ridding it of the barnacles of tradition,
elevating it and filling it with life and
sanctity.
CHILD-STUDY AND SUNDAY-SCHOOL METH-
ODS.
A little gil when asked what made it
rain, disclosed the fact that she helieved
that rainy days were ‘‘wash-days’” in
heaven, aud rain was caused by the throw-
ing out of the water, and thunder by the .
rolling around of the empty tubs. A
five-year-old said, ‘‘Mamma, where does
God live?”’ The conventional answer was,
‘‘Everywhere.”” Quick as a flash, but de-
void of irreverance, came the response,
“Why don’t he build a house and stay at
home!” The inadequacy of our traditional
terms as vehicles of truth to the ohild-
mind is apparent. It is a question wheth-
er they do not often fall short of convey-
ing anything except a sound of words, or
else a positively false notion. The teacher
who is fit will find what the child’s idea is,
will enlarge or reduce it, or substitute an-
other, as the case requires.
Rules for Prolonging Lite.
Famous English Physician's Ten Commandments of
Health.
The question of the possible extension of
human life has recently had renewed con-
sideration by a British scientist. In a lec-
ture delivered before the Royal College of
Physicians, in London,Sir Hermann Weber,
M. D., F. R. C. P., propounded certain
conclusions which he had arrived at as to
the best means for prolonging life. The
main points in his advice, says Harper's
Weekly, were comprised in these prescrip-
tions :
Moderation in eating, drinking and
physical indulgence.
Pure air out of the house and within.
The keeping of every organ of the body,
as far as possible, in constant working
order. ;
Regular exercise every day in all weath-
ers; supplemented in many cases by breath-
ing movements,and by walking and climb-
ing tours.
Going to bed early and rising early, and
restrioting the hours of sleep to six or seven
hours. :
Daily baths or ablutions according to in-
dividual conditions,cold or warm, or warm
followed by cold. :
Regular work and mental occupation.
Cultivation of placidity, cheerfulness
and hopefulness of mind.
Employment of the great power of the
mind in controlling passions and nervous
fears.
Strengthening the will in carrying ous -
whatever is useful, and in checking the
craving for stimulants, anodynes and oth-
er injurious agencies.