Bellefonte, Pa., June 30, 1922.
er ————————————
MY CREED.
By Howard Arnold Walters.
for there are those who
would be true,
trust me;
would be pure,
care;
would be strong, for there is much to
for there are those who
suffer;
I would be brave, for there is much to
dare.
I would be friend of all—the foe—the
friendless;
I would be giving, and forget the gift;
I would be humble, for I know my weak-
ness;
I would look up—and lJaugh—and love—
and lift.
———————————————
“ALL ASHORE THAT'S GOING
ASHORE.”
nee
(Concluded from last week).
He explained to Meg, seated in his
roadster, on some high curve of the
Round Top road, watching an adoles-
cent moon grow yellow as it melted
down the sky. “I promised my moth-
er I'd bring you to see her tomorrow
afternoon. She wants so much to
know you.”
«She would!” commented Meg with
a flicker of cynicism. “Was she very
difficult, Syd?”
Sydney looked pained.
“Or didn’t you mean to tell me
about that part of it?” She leaned
closer within the curve of his arm,
half-shut her Romany eyes, and
laughed a little. “Oh, my dear—my
darling dear!—you’re so transparent.
Do you think I can’t tell that you've
bullied your mother into saying she
was willing to meet me? No, but bul-
lied. Gently coerced; that’s the word
I mean. She probably loathes the
thought of me, a strange young fe-
male, dropping in from Lord-knows-
where; herself, Lord-knows-who;
going around the world alone—and
stopping by the way to devour a poor
lady’s son—only he isn’t poor; he’s a
kind of crown prince, with ranches
and plantations and things in his pock-
et, and he should have selected a crown
princess who wanted a house and a
husband and little princelings more
than—wings on her heels, say!”
“You talk an awful lot of non-
sense,” said Sydney sweetly. “Did
you know it?”
“Yes, but such sapient nonsense
“Don’t you want a house—and all
the rest of it?”
“Not if I can help myself.”
“But you realize you can’t help
yourself ?” His low, unsteady voice
started her heart stumbling.
She said passionately: “Do you
know, I hate you almost as much as I
love you—for the way I—for the ef-
fect you have on me—your touch and
your voice and your eyes! What have
I got a head for, if I can’t get away
from you? I know what I want, and
it isn’t even remotely what you are,
trying to give me. If I let you side-
track me here—build me into your life
—as you will—I say goodby for good
and all to the life I was born for. In
the face of my mother’s example!”
“You were born for me!”
She laughed, staring out across the
lights of the town below them, across
the far, dark desert that was the sea.
The moon swung low and yellow as
overripe fruit—like something at once
young and too wise, lovely but some-
how baneful.
“There's something inside me like a
dryad in a tree,” she told him slowly.
“Something you'll never own. Is it
any good warning you?”
“Not a bit.”
“All right. On your head be it!
What time shall we make our trial
flight before your mother?”
“Qh, about tea time, I suppose,” said
Sydney with a breath of relief.
“Funny,” Meg sighed, her face
against the sleeve which an hour be-
fore had absorbed the moisture of
Mrs. Chamberlaine’s futile tears.
“Funny!—I know quite well what
your mother’s feeling. She thinks
I'm designfully snatching you away
from her, that I have schemed to get
you, that you're a piece of luck for
me. I dare say she'd like to have me
boiled in oil for a mercenary adven-
turess! And all the time I’m loathing
the thought of your correct, tidy
house—and your correct, nicely-plan-
ned life—your suffocating little town.
Isn’t it absurd that Honolulu should
be only Greenville or East Orange
after all, with a few palms and moun-
tains and a blue and green sea, to dis-
guise it? I wish I had nerve enough
to break away from you. I'm so ter-
rified of doing it and then finding I've
torn myself in two—I wish—I almost
wish I’d never seen you!”
“You shan’t say it!” he told her,
catching her close.
She put up her face to be kissed,
like one asking for oblivion.
“Words!” she murmured with a pa-
thetic whisper of laughter. “They
opt mean anything. It’s what you
o!
19?
Strangely enough when the meeting
came about, Meg and Mrs. Chamber-
laine liked each other at once.
Sydney br~-ght them together with
a hand in tl. hand of each, just across
the threshold of his mother’s cool, de-
lightfully-ordered drawing-room, the
next day.
“Madre,” he said simply, “this is
Meg!”
Mrs. Chamberlaine put out a royal
hand, the queen-mother condescend-
ing. She swept with an edged glance
the slim, straight figure before her,
from the top of its soft, white hat to
the tip of its spotless, white shoe.
Midway she silently approved the
dash of ardent color which a coral silk
sweater afforded. “Sydney has told
me a great deal about you,” she began
graciously, “my dear. It is good of
you to come to me like this.”
Then she left off the careful speech
of welcome which she had considered
in the night hours to be her most
proper attitude, put an arm about
Meg, and kissed her.
At which Meg flushed crimson,
touched to the heart. “It is good of
you to let me come,” she said softly.
Sydney stood by and beamed upon
them. ;
“It doesn’t even take her fifteen :
minutes, does it?” he demanded of his |
i
mother. iT
“What is he talking about?” asked |
Meg in delightful confusion.
“Nothing that we need listen to,”
replied Mrs. Chamberlaine loftily. |
She reproved her son with a glance. |
They were all three presently seat- |
ed about an irreproachable tea-table,
talking as freely as if no such thing
as maternal jealousy existed. Meg |
knew a letting-down of her guard
that was infinitely restful. She had
feared the encounter with Sydney’s |
mother more perhaps than she had let
Sydney know. It was not possible
that any woman could be ready to
give up that adorable gentleness of
his, that wonderful protectiveness and
never-failing consideration. Sydney’s
mother must inevitably be ready to do
battle with the girl who threatened to
take Sydney away from her. And one
would take him away—if one took
him at his word. Phrases of his using
fitted through Meg’s mind while she
stirred her tea and did justice to some
very perfect sandwiches.
“You've been my whole life—since
the first day I met you. * * * You
can’t tell me it isn’t fate. * * * *|
You're the reason of existence—that’s
what you are! You make living
worth-while. There’s nothing in the |
world I wouldn’t go after if you want-
edit, 2 Ex 3D
The catch-words of youth and
young love? Perhaps. But eternally
fresh.
“He’d keep me in cotton-wool, if I'd |
let him,” thought Meg—and looked |
up and met his adoring eyes across |
the tea-cups. i
Her own word echoed in her soul |
like the fine, thin, far-off crack o’ |
doom—cotton-wool! What else had
she been afraid of all her restless life?
Mrs. Chamberlaine was saying, with
her ineradicable trick of platform
diction, even in her humanist mo-
ments, “What a bit of a thing you are,
to be off by yourself like this!”
“I'm twenty-six,” said Meg.
Sydney chuckled. “That’s frank-
ness, Madre!”
“Twenty-six!” cried his mother lof-
tily. “Nothing! A mere child! What
do your people think of it, my dear,
this wild-goose chase of yours?” She
patted Meg’s hand and smiled with a
touch of proprietary amusement.
Meg said quietly: “My mother died
when I was very young, my father
when I was seventeen, as I told Syd-
ney yesterday. I am my own people,
I'm afraid.”
She saw, looking out of shrewd old
eyes, the question the older woman
was too well-bred to ask and smiled
faintly. “You see, when I came back
from France, I'd seen a good bit of
the A. E. F. at pretty close range, and
there was a big demand for first-hand
information, however unofficial, so 1
put some of my experiences into 2
book—everybody was doing it, and it
just happened that the thing got over
somehow. I made enough out of it to
make this—wild-goose chase—possi-
ble. It was an old dream of mine.”
“I hope you salted some of it down
for a rainy day,” Sydney suggested
indulgently.
_ “Not a cent,” said Meg with charm-
ing unconcern. i
“Good Lord! Then you meant to |
write more!”
“Not a word. It isn’t my line. The
book was no earthly good from the |
standpoint of literature—even best-
seller literature. It was merely a
straightaway account of a lot of little
things concerning one big thing. I
don’t want to write. I don’t know
how. The book was only a flash in the
pan. I had to tell what I'd seen or
bust, so to speak.” She threw a dep-
recating little smile in Mrs. Chamber-
laine’s direction.
“Your modesty is very refreshing,
my dear,” said that lady approvingly.
“But Meg—" Sydney was leaning
forward, elbows on his knees, eyes
keenly alarmed—“what did you ex-
pect to do at the end of this trip, when
your money gave out?”
“I meant to be back in New York
by that time.”
“Broke?”
“Stony, I dare say.”
“What were you thinking of ?”
«What are you thinking of 7?” Meg
inquired cooly. “I've been in New
York before.”
“But without money! What on
earth did you expect to do?”
Meg set her tea-cup down and bit
her lip before a rising inner protest.
«What would you do—anywhere—
without money?” she countered.
“Go to work, wouldn’t you? Well, so
should I. It’s very simple, it seems
to me.”
“But a girl—” began Sydney.
“Qh, I see!” said Meg pleasantly.
“My dear boy, you don’t mind my say-
ing that’s rather an ante-bellum atti-
tude, do you? I've somehow got out
of the way of thinking of myself as
a peculiar organism incapable of liv-
ing an ordinary life.” Her eyes held
a gleam of annoyance.
Sydney’s eyes said plainer than fu-
tile words: “Well, this never can hap-
pen again! Hereafter I stand between
you and any such folly.”
“Children—children!” objected Mrs.
Chamberlaine genially. To her son’s
grateful satisfaction, she added with
soothing effect: “You really can’t
blame him my child, if he dislikes the
thought of your being exposed to so
many chances—should one say chanc-
es or mischances? He's thinking only
of you.”
“I'm sorry,” said Meg impulsively.
But a flame of rebellion shot through
her.
She sat quiet, the mask of a smile
on her lips while Mrs. Chamberlaine
deftly turned the talk into smoother
channels. It appeared that the en-
gagement might better be announced,
at once.
“Sydney has so many friends who
will want to know of his happiness,”
said Sydney’s mother, shifting the
things on the tea-tray. “Perhaps a
dinner might be the best way. What
do you think?”
“Must we?” asked Meg politely.
“Make it snappy!” warned Sydney
lazily. “I don’t propose to let her be
monopolized by a lot of other people.”
“Now, Sydney, you must consider
what people will say. And Meg wants
| and won’t value it—and will some
things done properly, I'm sure. Any
girl likes the pretty little ceremony of |
an announced engagement. The hap-
piest time of her life! 1 think I shall
have a dinner for your most intimate
riends. There will probably be a
number of parties given for you di-
rectly people know. Sydney was born
here, you know, dear, and has lived
here all his life.”
«I know,” said Meg. Her own voice
sounded dull and thick in her ears.
“You mean to give up the rest of
your—wanderings—of course!
ney tells me you think of being mar-
ried soon.
A spartan mother if ever one drew
the breath of life! Sydney smiled a
tender approbation.
“If at all,” said Meg. Startled at
her own brutality, she covered it
swiftly. “I mean, it’s all so astound-
ingly new to me. A month ago, I'd
never—"
“I know, my dear!”
berlaine leaned over to pat the ner-
| yous, ringless fingers of her guest’s
right hand. Already Sydney’s plati- |
num-enwreathed diamond glimmered |
on the left one. “Of course it* rather
takes your breath away.” One might
| readily infer that Sydney’s splendid
eligibility was no small part of the
breath-taking process. “All girls feel
just the same. I remember quite well
However, Sydney has always had
pretty much his own way about every-
thing, and I see that you will not be
able to depart from that precedent.”
“No?” asked
“No,” echoed the older woman,
smiling. It was an odd moment.
However, there was no
oddity connected with the remainder
of that visit. Meg made herself very
charming, as she well knew how, and
the look in Sydney’s eyes repaid
Mrs. Chamberlaine did likewise, with
a like reward. They said good-bye
eventually with the beginnings of a
real affection between them.
Syd- !
{
|
Mrs. Cham- |
{ had heard
i
{
|
|
|
| Meg curiously—of | found these people
| herself—of Mrs. Chamberlaine—or of | ly, if a trifle insular—as one had no | sounds and smells.
| Fate?
especial | ged
|
|
“It made me feel ten years young-
er,” said Meg, “which was what
needed at the moment.” :
For the most part, however, she did
not talk riddles to Sydney’s friends.
She kept herself within the confines
of what she knew was expected of her,
and gave a very nice performance, in-
deed, of a stranger gratefully enter-
ing the hospitable gateway of aj
strange land.
As Mrs. Chamberlaine had predict-
ed, a great many parties were given
for her at once. A great many parties
would have been given for any girl
whom Sydney decided to marry. Meg
went to them meekly, drank tea when
it was poured for her, sat at dinner
when she was asked, and produced up-
on Honolulu at large an impression of
a not at all extraordinary young wom-
an, whom most of her new acquaint-
ances considered disappointingly well-
bred—when one remembered what one
of her at first—going
around the world alone. She had not
gone far!
been gossip only. More
knew which side of her bread was but-
tered and had flung up her globe-trot- | stuck, would not follow.
ting, directly
suggested it.
ney seemed very
luck for a
—the Chamberlaine estate!
Meg, naturally, knew nothing of
such conjecture and comment. She
amazingly friend-
right to hope
1
{ ly.
{
|
Sydney Chamberlaine | of four by the watch on
Certainly she and Syd- | The gang-plank was up.
! devoted. A piece of | to the side of the ship,
little adventuress like that | against the rail,
|
|
they wouldn’t be. She | her stand well toward the stern,
She finished the one thin sheet
with scalding tears in her eyes and a
horrible lump in her throat. But she
finished it, nevertheless.
It said: “Sydney—I'm running
away from you. By the time you read |
| this I shall be well out
to sea. I was
right in the first place. I should nev-
er have
make a go of it. I
warm hearthstone.
the beginning.
Japan. Try to forgive me. Give peo-
ple back their little cups. * % *VYou
might turn one down empty.”
That was all—except her name,
Meg Van Dorn, smudged at the last,
determined down-stroke by a beast of
a tear. She blotted it and let it go.
The Nile was to sail at four. Meg
went aboard at twenty minutes to,
settled her belongings in her cabin,
scowled at herself in the mirror above |
the wash-stand, and went back to
watch Honolulu slip out of her life.
She felt a little numb.
f “Well, here I go on my own again!”
Perhaps the gossip had | she said to herself.
“The next thing’s
likely she | Yokohama—then Kobe—then—"
It was as if the beads of her rosary
Ten minutes
her wrist.
stood leaning
town to the cool, dark mountains be-
hind it.
There were the usual noises of a
ship’s departing, the usual sights and
Meg had taken up
out
might have got through very comfor- | of the current of the incoming passen-
tably, for she was pretty well drug- | gers,
by now with the sharp,
powerful | pear her,
but there was a woman rather
who wore a lei of plumiera
sweetness of Sydney’s adoration, if it | that maddening, wistful fragrance.
hadn’t been for the cups.
It seems absurd, but it was the cups
her. | that set her off. One gives a cup for
an engagement
Meg had never heard
custom, and when the first of them
came, the day after the dinner-party,
a delicate Dresden trifle, flowered an
«I think your mother’s one of the gilded and frail as apple-blossoms,
best sports 1 ever saw,” Meg told Syd- | she wondered at it and set it up on her
ney as he drove her back to her cot-
tage through a cool, green-gray twi-
light. “She must have hated the very
thought of me, and yet she met me
more than half way. What I'm doing
is so unconventional, so bizarre, in her
eyes, as to be downright impossibie,
but she’s willing to whitewash it and
be decent to me just because you want
me.” She turned on him almost
fiercely. “Sydney,
less!
girl who wants that sort of thing.”
“What sort of thing, honey?”
|
|
i
it's a crime—no | four days there were fifteen.
You've got so much to give a | week there were thirty-seven.
table in the beach cottage—from
which she had stubbornly refused to
be dislodged—and really rather liked
it. It spoke of after-dinner coffee and
lovely, languid evenings with Sydney
on the other side of the table. It had
a quaint, small suggestion of domes-
ticity, which she fondled even while
she flouted it.
In two days there were six cups. In
In a
Such
was Sydney’s area of friendship.
Thirty-seven coffe-cups. Meg put
“You know perfectly well what I|them on her table, and they overflow-
mean—your lovely house, your well- ed it.
trained servants, your silver and linen | materials,
and garden and engagement dinners!”
He only laughed carelessly.
She finished with a hopeless
laugh of her own: “It’s a crime to
give it to me—who don’t want it— | of breaking them whenever she pow- |
day | dered her nose or did her hair.
here | put them in the bath-
| tooth-paste on them.
rise up and hate it, if it keeps me
when I want to go!”
“Just wait,” said Sydney gently.
“You'll like it when it’s yours. Any-
how I’m not going to turn you loose,
you know that?”
It was the thing about him that held
her closest, his immutable certainty
of himself and her. She couldn’t fight
him forever. Surrender was
sweet. So she sat at his mother’s ta-
ble on the night of the engagement
dinner and looked across the roses and
orchids and linen and silver and crys-
tal and lace of that charmingly-ap-
pointed function, with the question in
her heart securely bound and gagged.
She even felt a certain inconsistent
pride in the smoothness and evenness
of everythig, like perfection in a pic-
ture or a play—lights exquisitely
shaded, flowers beautifully placed,
food symphonically arranged, and
guests in equal harmony. Service and
conversation running, alike, on an
even keel. No jarring note, aywhere.
A atmosphere of felicitation and—ac-
ceptance. Sydney’s choice might have
aroused a reasonable amount of un-
dercurrent and comment, but upon the
surface all was smiling approval.
These well-dressed, well-behaved
young men and women were taking
her without quibble or hesitation. Syd-
ney’s position among them assured
that Sydney’s wife would give dinners
like this later on; wear gowns that
came from the proper places, cost. de-
cent sums, and demanded stately set-
tings. She would have pearls to hang
about her neck, if she wanted them—
and also if she didn’t. Her children,
if she had any, would have French
governesses. She would have cars to
drive. ® EIR
The memory flashed back upon her
of a rattly little flivver that she and
another girl had owned all one sum-
mer, had clattered about in. How
they had loved it! She looked about
the cool, high-ceilinged room and re-
membered other rooms neither so cool,
nor so high: a little French restau-
rant down on Royal street in New Or-
leans, with sanded floor, long, narrow
tables, coarse, white tablecloths, cel-
ery in a glass in the middle of a ta-
ble, smoke-wreaths drifting against
the discolored plaster walls—a huge
platter of scarlet craw-fish—a great
knobby loaf of crusty bread. Sydney
in a place like that!
She tried, but she couldn’t see him
there.
Other rooms. A hall bedroom with
a rickety, golden-oak dresser, a bat-
tered trunk at the foot of the narrow
bed. The parlor of a Madison Avenue
boarding-house; red velvet chairs,
watery old pier-glasses in tarnished
frames. * Then the narrow
confines of a cabin—an ocean, wiggle-
stick blue, rising and falling beyond
the port-hole. There was adventure
in the color of that ocean—adventure
and freedom!
She caught Sydney’s eye, and felt
a tremor of contradictory—happi-
ness? Or was it merely ecstacy?
She straightened her slim, white
shoulders in their sheathing of cop-
per-colored lace and tulle (thank the
Lord, she owned one good evening-
gown!)—and began to talk to the man
on her left. He was Sydney's law-
yer, rather older than the rest of the
tableful, a short, tired-looking person
with a great many lines about his
small, winkling eyes.
«I saw him look at you,” he told her
plaintively. “It made me feel ten
years older.”
|
little liked to keep there.
She had no room for writing-
for her shabby, little, old
traveling-clock, for her books, for her
magazines—for her hat, which she
She put them on
i
i
Meg felt her throat contract. Plumie-
ra is for good-bye. The woman was
frankly crying, mopping her eyes.
present, in the West. | She was waving between-times, to a
of that pretty ' man on the dock.
Meg had no lei, no one to wave to.
She stood alone on the deck of the
ship, and nobody watched to see her
go. Her hands were suddenly cold.
She twisted a gaily-colored folder she
had brought up from the cabin with-
out thinking, and tried to hum a little
tune.
The tune became “Aloha Oe” and
choked her. The very echo of fare-
well! She took a stub of a pencil out
of her bag and scribbled along the top
of the steamship folder, “Yokohama—
Kobe, Shanghai, Peking, Singapore.”
No use! Barren hieroglyphics, an
open sesame no longer potent.
might, for all the answering thrill she
felt, have been writing “Peoria, Kan-
kakee, Tucson, Evanston, Shreve-
port.”
It came to her all at once, like a
knife slipping into warm flesh, that |
she had chosen, that this was to be her
life—coming into strange ports with
no one to welcome her, slipping out of
listened to you. We can’t
don’t belong on a:
I told you so in!
I'll write you from |
She crossed |
staring out across the .
She |
dled, Meg turned away. The wind of
the open sea blew fresh on her burn-
ing eyelids. She drew a long, happy
' sigh that finished in a queer, little
sniff of contempt.
She thought, with the unwilling
clearness of vision that pierced the
. veils of her most breathless moments:
“Freedom’s no good for women, * * *
We are our own eventual jailers.”
Lacing of foam on the sapphire
slope of a wave caught her eye, and
the urge for sharing loveliness with
the beloved twisted her heart. She
sent back a little cry across the water,
“Sydney * * * I want you!”—By
Fanny Heaslip Lea, in Good House-
keeping.
Farmers Buy Bull Calves.
Two young pure-bred bulls have
been purchased recently by Centre
county dairymen who are interested
in the . improvement of their herds.
| The calves come from the herd of The
Pennsylvania State College and were
two of the seven future herd sires to
be offered in the dairy department’s
second annual sale held during Far-
mer’s week. The seven calves sold
for an average of $152, a reasonably
low figure considering the splendid in-
dividuality of the calves, their breed-
ing, and the yearly records made by
their dams.
“Penstate Delza Royal Master,” a
| Guernsey bull of May Rose breeding,
| was purchased by George Mitchell, of
{ Lemont. The dam of this bull, Delza
' 3rd, is considered the best Guernsey
(in the herd, her record as a junior
| four years old being 10,608.7 pounds
| of milk and 542.5 pounds of butterfat.
. The bull is a good individual of serv-
iceable age, and will eventually be at
Ie head of Mr. Mitchell’s herd of cat-
i tie.
| Arthur Peters, of Oak Hall station,
| supplied the second addition to Centre
| county’s list of pure-breds with the
| purchase of “Penstate King Esther
| Korndyke,” a six months Holstein bull
| calf, tracing on his sire’s side to the
| notable Pontiac Korndyke sire of 151
| A Registry daughters. This
|
calf’s dam King Esther Boelyn made
| a yearly record in the college herd, of
114,031.9 pounds of milk and 622.1
pounds of butter, as a senior four
| years old.
| Real Estate Transfers.
J. Rebecca Spayd, et al, to William
| 25 Kerlin, tract in Centre Hall; $3,-
H. Laird Curtin, et ux, to Henry J.
Heaton, tract in Boggs township; $1.
J. W. Struble, et al, to C. I. Struble,
tract in College township; $3,000.
Cyrus F. Hoy, et ux, to Wm. H.
Rager, et ux, tract in Bellefonte;
| $1,500.
| Elizabeth Vaughn's heirs to Susan-
|
| the dressing-table and was Nervous | gpanse ports with no one to Wave ' n. Benner, tract in Rush township;
’
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She
She caugh
wherever she turned. They made her
t the glint of their gold, Ss
| the rose and green and blue of their ! hy a3 fo 2a. Someiune
wreaths, the opalescence of their frail- | bound Ler; ’
no matter how much you flutter, don’t | ty, and the smugness of their beauty | py .h41 Bound and alone!
| good-bye.
forever lonely! Captain of her soul—
room and spilled | 5, 4 that soul a tramp. Never before
had she wanted the wave of a hand as
had
had
she was going away
She said to herself: “Little fool!
belongings look shabby and gipsyish. | 14 : : >
BO los, vi he oll Higu, Ssrients week
any and purple and fine linen.
which they came, because she hadn’t
room enough. And she couldn’t keep
them out of the boxes because she
didn’t, however they fretted her, want
them broken. She had to write thank
you notes for ail of them—and you
can’t use a typewriter for a thank
you note; she hated using anything
but a typewriter. She told Mrs.
Chamberlaine what armies of cups
there were, and Mrs. Chamberlaine
was exceedingly pleased. Meg had
known she would be.
Then Meg told Sydney, and Sydney
laughed.
«Women like things like that, don’t
they!” he cried.
Meg tried to tell him how the cups
appalled her. She might as well have
been speaking Chinese. It wasn’t ea-
sy to explain just what she meant,
even to herself. But she meant it fast
enough. The silly porcelain things
roused a passion of rebellion in her.
They stood for all she was tying her-
self down to—for the sale of her
birthright, the barter of her freedom.
Every time she looked at them, she
heard the clanking of fetters, the rat-
tle and thud of a ball and chain. And
she couldn’t stop looking at them. She
drank from them in dreams; drank
from them one after the other—end-
lessly.
She tried to stand up to them, but
they had become a symbol, and the
symbol was too much for her. So she
packed her trunk and went aboard the
Nile one afternoon, leaving forty-eight
—they were forty-eight, by that time
—expensive little coffe-cups in an
otherwise empty cottage near the sea.
It wasn’t so simple as it sounds.
She had to use every wile at her com-
mand to get passage at such short no-
tice. Somebody dropped off the list,
and an agent with a heart slipped her
in. That was that. She paid her bill
at the hotel and managed everything
concerning it with unostentatious se-
crecy. She told nobody, not even Mrs.
Chamberlaine, good-bye, because that
would have involved explanations.
Letters would be easier—and practic-
ally unanswerable, if one gave no ad-
dress.
Concerning Sydney she debated
with herself for a long time, throt-
tling the memory of his dearness, re-
fusing to acknowledge that his smile
haunted her, his voice hung in her
ears; insisting only to herself that he
asked of her more than she could give
—that now, if ever, was the time for
her to tear herself free.
So long as he wasn’t there to touch
her, to speak to her, to assert his
queer, irresistible claim upon her, she
managed it.
Only, at the last, she couldn’t quite
betray him without a word, so she
wrote to him and left the note at his
office, to be given him at five o’clock,
when her ship would have sailed. That
seemed less heartless, somehow, than
dropping the thing in a mail-box.
She didn’t say much; she meant,
when there should be blue water be-
tween them, to have it out on paper,
coherently and definitely. Even to
say what she did hurt her desperate-
She |
too | couldn’t keep them in the boxes in|
‘green water widened
But herself knew better.
Tears slipped down her cheeks.
She set her teeth and dabbed at her
eyes fiercely. She thought: “I'd bet-
ter go down to my cabin—and get—-
this—over with—if I'm going to—be-
have—like—a congenital idiot. Don’t
I know my own mind? Don’t I—
know—what I want? Anyhow—it’s
too late now to change. He'll never
forgive me! His mother was a good
sport—but she'll be glad to get out
of it. It’s I that’ll be sorry—it’s I!
Oh, God, what did I do this for! * * xh
Overhead the whistle screamed, a
wild harsh menace leaping out of a
murmur of lesser noises, and it was
while the whistle was screaming that
Meg saw Sydney.
e came to the edge of the dock,
putting gently but powerfully aside,
people who stood in his way, and look-
ed up at her. ;
He was very pale and breathing
hard. He must have been running,
she thought stupidly. He had no hat.
His smooth, brown hair was wind-
blown. His eyes were black with
some violent emotion. His mouth was
set in a grim, clean line. He looked
up at her—she was standing alone; he
must have been able to find her at
once—and she looked down at him,
leaning on the rail, the tears wet up-
on her cheeks.
People about them stared curiously.
Neither was aware of anything but
shadow, so far as the rest of the world
was concerned.
He said—he had to lift his voice a
bit to make her hear him, but she
watched his lips—*I got hold of your
note.”
She answered—he saw, not heard it
—*Pm sorry. * * *
He pointed to where a strip of
imperceptibly
between ship and dock. He said clear-
ly, “Never mind—TI’ll follow!”
She answered—nothing at all. She
couldn’t command her voice. Her
beautiful eyes, drenched in tears, cried
to him across that cruel, jade-like
glimmer, louder than any words. She
shook her head, to clear her longing
sight. Her hands tightened on the
gaudy folder. She glanced at it—
broke into a little, breathless laugh—
twisted it as a boy twists a newspaper
—and flung it, leaning far over the
rail.
It fell at Sydney’s feet and he
picked it up. Across the top of the
first page, smoothed out, Meg's tale of
cities—that stubbornly scrawley itin-
erary, “Yokohama, Kobe, Shanghai.”
Sydney crammed it in his pocket
and smiled back at her. The ship was
slipping away farther and farther.
He called to her a last masterful
word, his eyes holding hers: “Wait
—in Yokohama!—Wait!”
She called back to him, shrugging
wayward shoulders, “Perhaps!”
But she kissed both hands to him
the moment after, to comfort the hurt
in his look. She knew—Love’s crip-
ple!—that she would wait. She trail-
ed a broken wing and remembered the
blue empyrean vainly.
While they could see each other,
they stood at gaze. ‘When the town
was a blur and the coast-line dwin-
She was to be free—and |
| $1.
| John Slothers, et ux, to Penelec
Coal Corp., tract in Rush township; $1.
| D. H. Musser to Lottie M. Musser,
tract in Haines township; $1.
| Dora E. Fisher to George W. Holt,
| tract in Union township; $50.
| Mary E. Gates, et al, to J. Calvin
| Eyre, tract in Ferguson township;
| $2,619.
Adam H. Krumrine, et ux, to Chas.
E. McBride, tract in State College;
$450.
John D. Gill to Wm. Bell, tract in
Rush township; $260.
E. W. Midlane, et al, to Nettie C.
Backer, tract in Burnside township;
$125.
Arthur Brown’s Admrs., to Isaac
Baney, tract in Bellefonte; $225.
Douglas Eboch to John A. Erb,
tract in Philipsburg; $1.
In Need of One of Them.
The proprietor of the second-hand
shop was not so tidy as he might have
been.
One day while standing in front of
the shop a man approached him and
asked:
“Have you any clean shirts in your
shop 7”
“Yes, certainly I have,” answered
the clothing man, anxious for a sale.
“Lots of them, as clean as anything.”
“Well,” said the man, moving away,
“go in and put one of them on.”
Joke Was on the Hare.
A man sent his servant with a pres-
ent of a live hare to a friend. The hare
managed to escape, but the servant
made no effort to catch it; all he did
was to stand and gaze after it with a
satisfied grin on his face.
“Ye may run and run, and run, ye
lubbering baste,” he shouted, “but it’s
no use, for ye haven't got his ad-
dress.”
——Subscribe for the “Watchman”
MEDICAL.
So Deceptive
Many Bellefonte People Fail to Real-
ize the Seriousness.
Backache is so deceptive.
It comes and goes—keeps
guessing.
Learn the cause—then cure it.
Possibly it’s weak kidneys.
That's why Doan’s Kidney Pills are
so effective.
They're especially for weak or dis-
ordered kidneys.
Here’s a Bellefonte case.
Mrs. Mahala Kreps, Phoenix Ave.,
says: “A few years ago my kidneys
were in a wretched condition: and I
suffered a lot with dull, nagging back-
aches. At night the pains were so se-
vere I couldn’t rest. My kidneys act-
ed too often and I had frequent spells
of dizziness and headaches. I used
Doan’s Kidney Pills as directed and
they helped me from the first, Four
boxes of Doan’s cured me of all signs
of the trouble and I have had no re-
turn of it.”
Price 60c, at all dealers. Don’t
simply ask for a kidney remedy—get
Doan’s Kidney Pills—the same that
Mrs. Kreps had. Foster-Milburn Co.,
Mfrs., Buffalo, N. Y. 67-26
you