He vis- CHAPTER III T= Edith Towne had lived with her Uncle Frederick nearly four years when she became engaged to Dela- field Simms. Her mother was dead, as was her father. Frederick was her father’s only brother, and had a big house to himself, after his moth- er's death. It seemed the only ha- ven for his niece, so he asked her, and asked also his father's cousin, Annabel Towne, to keep house for him, and chaperone Edith. Annabel was over sixty, and rath- er indefinite, but she served to play propriety, and there was nothing else demanded of her in Frederick's household of six servants. She was a dried-up and desiccated person, with fixed ideas of what one owed to society. Frederick's mother had been like that, so he did not mind. He rather liked to think that the woman of his family kept to old ideals. It gave to things an air of dignity. Edith, when she came, was differ- ent. So different that Frederick was glad that she had three more years at college before she would spend the winters with him. The sum- mers were not hard to arrange. Edith and Annabel adjourned to the Towne cottage on an island in Maine —and Frederick went up for week- ends and for the month of August. Edith spent much time out-of-doors with her young friends. She was rather fond of her Uncle Fred, but he did not loom large on the horizon of her youthful occupations. Then came her winter at home, and her consequent engagement to Delafield Simms. It was because of Uncle Fred that she became en- gaged. She simply didn't want to live with him agy more. She felt that Uncle Fred would be glad to have her go, and the feeling was mutual. She was an elephant on his hands. Naturally. He was a great old dear, but he was a Turk. He didn't know it, of course. But his ideas of being master of his own house were perfectly archaic. Cous- in Annabel and the servants, and everybody in his office simply hung on his words, and Edith wouldn't hang. She came into his ba Paradise like a rather troublesome Eve, and demanded her share of the universe. He didn't like it, and there you were. It was really wanted her Uncle Fred who to marry Delafield Simms. He talked about it a lot. At first Edith wouldn't listen. But Del- afield was persistent and patient. He came gradually to be as much of a part of her everyday life as the meals she ate or the car she drove. Uncle Fred was always inviting him. He was forever on hand, and when he wasn't she missed him. They felt for each other, she de- cided, the thing called “love.” It was not, perhaps, the romance which one found in books. But she had been taught carefully at college to distrust romance. The emphasis had been laid on the transient gual- ity of adolescent emotion. One mar- ried for the sake of the race, and one chose, quite logically, with one’s head instead, as in the old days, with the heart. So there you had it. Delafield was eligible. He was healthy, had brains enough, an acceptable code of morals—and was willing to let her have her own way. If there were moments when Edith won- dered if this program was adequate to wedded bliss, she put the thought aside. She and Delafield liked each other no end. Why worry? And really at times Uncle Fred was impossible. His mother had lived until he was thirty-five, she had adored him, and had passed on to Cousin Annabel and to the old servants in the house the formula by which she had made her son happy. Her one fear had been that he might marry. He was extreme- ly popular, much sought after. But he had kept his heart at home. His sweetheart, he had often said, was silver-haired and over sixty. He basked in her approbation; was soothed and sustained by it. Then she had died, and Edith had come, and things had been differ- ent. The difference had been Hemon- strated in a dozen ways. Edith was pleasantly affectionate, but ghe didn’t yield an inch. “Dear Uncle Fred,” she would ask, when they disagreed on matters of manners or morals, or art or athletics, or religion or the lack of it, “isn’t my opinion as good as yours?” “Apparently my opinion isn't worth anything.” “Oh, yes it is—but you must let me have mine.” Yet, as time went on, he learned that Edith’'s faults were tempered by her fastidiousness. She did not confuse liberty and license. She neither smoked nor drank. There was about her dancing a fine and stately quality which saved it from sensuousness. Yet when he told her things, there was always that irri- tating shrug of the shoulders. “Oh, well, I'm not a rowdy—you know that. But I like to play around.” His pride in her grew—in her bur- nished hair, the burning blue of her eyes, her great beauty, the fineness of her spirit, the integrity of her character. Yet he sighed with relief when she told him of her engagement to Dela- field Simms. He loved her, but none the less he felt the strain of her presence in his establishment. It would be like sinking back into the luxury of a feather bed, to take up the old life where she had en- tered it. And Edith, too, welcomed her emancipation. “When I marry you,” she told Delafield, ‘I am going to “Bob is utterly at sea.” break all the rules. In Uncle Fred's house everything runs by clockwork, and it is he who winds the clock.” Their engagement was one of mu- tual freedom. Edith did as she pleased, Delafield did as he pleased. They rarely clashed. And as the wedding day approached, they were pleasantly complacent. Delafield, dictating a letter one day to Frederick Towne’s stenogra- pher, spoke of his complacency. He was writing to Bob Sterling, who was to be his best man, and who shared his apartment in New York. Delafield was an orphan, and had big money interests. He felt that Washington was tame compared to the metropolis. He and Edith were to live one block east of Fifth Ave- nue, in a house that he had bought for her. When he was in Washington he occupied a desk in Frederick's of- fice. Lucy Logan took his dictation. She had been for several years with Towne. She was twenty-three, well- groomed, and self-possessed. had slender, flexible fingers, had soft brown hair, and her profile, as she bent over her book, was clear-cut and composed, “Edith and I are great pals,” he dictated. ‘I rather think we are going to hit it off famously. I'd hate to have a woman hang around my neck. And I want you for my best man. I know it is asking a lot, but it's just once in a lifetime, old chap.” Lucy wrote that and waited with her pencil poised. “That's about all,” said Delafield. Lucy shut up her book and rose. “Wait a minute,” Delafield decid- ed. “I want to add a postscript.” Lucy sat down. “By the way,” Delafield dictated, “I wish you'd order the flowers at Tolley's. White orchids for Edith of course, He'll know the right thing for the bridesmaids—I'll get Edith to send him the color scheme" Lucy's pencil dashed and dotted. She looked up, hesitated. ‘Miss Towne doesn’t care for orchids.” gow do you know?" he demand- ed. She fluttered the leaves of her notebook and found an order from Towne to a local florist. “He says here, ‘Anything but orchids—she doesn’t like them.” *’ ‘But I've been sending her or- chids every week.” “Perhaps she didn't want to tell you-—"' ‘*And you think I should have some- thing else for the wedding bouquet?’’ “I think she might like it better.” There was a faint flush on her cheek. “What would you suggest?” “I can’t be sure what Miss Towne would like." “What would you like?" intently. She considered it seriously—her slender fingers clasped on her book. “1 think,” she told him, finally, ““that if I were going to marry a man I should want what he wanted." He laughed and leaned forward. “Good heavens, are there any wom- en like that left in the world?” Her flush deepened, she rose and went towards the door. “Perhaps I shouldn't have said anything.” His voice changed. “Indeed, I am glad you did.” He had risen and now held the door open for her. “We men are stupid creatures. 1 should never have found it out for myself.” She went away, and he sat there thinking about her. Her imperson- al manner had always been perfect, and he had found her little flush charming. It was because of Lucy Logan, therefore, that Edith had white vio- lets instead of orchids in her wed- ding bouquet. And it was because, too, of Lucy Logan, that other things happened. Three of Edith's brides- maids were house-guests. Their names were Rosalind, Helen and Margaret. They had, of course, last names, but these have nothing to do with the story. They had been Edith's classmates at college, and she had been somewhat democratic in her selection of them. *“They are perfect dears, Uncle Fred. I'll have three cave-dwellers to balance them. Socially, I sup- pose, it will be a case of sheep and goats, but the goats are—darling.” They were, however, the six of them, what Delafield called a bunch of beauties. Their bridesmaid gowns were exquisite — but unobtrusive. The color scheme was blue and sil- ver—and the flowers, forget-me-nots and sweet peas. “It's a bit old- sensational effects.” Neither the sheep nor the goats agreed with her. Their ideas were different—the goats holding out for something impressionistic, the sheep for ceremonial splendor. fast at the house. Things therefore given over early to the decorators and caterers, and coffee room. When the wedding bouquet ar- rived Edith sought out her uncle in his study on the second floor. “Look at this,” she said: “how in the world did it happen that he sent white violets? Did you tell him, Un- cle Fred?” “No.” “Sure?” “Cross my heart.” They had had their joke about Del's orchids. “If he knew how I hated them,” Edith would say, and Uncle Fred would answer, “Why don’t you tell him?" But she had never told, because after all it didn't much matter, and if Delafield felt that orchids were the proper thing, why muddle up his mind with her preferences? The wedding party was assemoled in one of the side rooms. Lt .lated guests trickled in a thin stream to- wards the great doors that opened and shut to admit them to the main auditorium. A group of servants, laden with wraps, stood at the foot of the stairs. As soon as the proces- sion started they would go up into the gallery to view the ceremony. In the small room was almost overpowering fragrance. The bridesmaids, in the filtered light, were a blur of rose and blue and white. There was much laughter, thick walls. Then the ushers came in. “Where's Del?” The bridegroom was, it seemed, delayed. They waited. “Shall we telephone, Mr. Towne?” someone asked at last. Frederick nodded. He and his niece stood apart from the rest. Edith was smiling but had little to say. She seemed separated from the others by the fact of the ap- proaching mystery. The laughter had ceased; above the whispers came the tremulous echo of the organ. The usher who had gone to the telephone returned and drew Towne aside. “There's something queer about it. I can't get Del or Bob. They may be on the way. But the clerk seemed reticent.” “I'll go to the ’phone myself,” said Frederick. “Where is it?" But he was saved the effort, for someone, watching at the door, said, “Here they come,” and the room seemed to sigh with relief as Bob Sterling entered. No one was with him, and he wore a worried frown. “May I speak to you, he asked. Edith was standing by the window looking out at the old churchyard. The uneasiness which had infected the others had not touched her. Slender and white she stood waiting. In a few minutes Del would walk up the aisle with her and they would be married. In her mind that pro- gram was as fixed as the stars. And now her uncle approached and said something. “Edith, Del isn't coming-—"" “Is he ili?" “1 wish to heaven he were dead.” “What do you mean, Uncle Fred?" “I'll tell you-—presently. must get away from His glance took in the changed | scene. A blight had swept over those high young heads. Two of | the bridesmaids were crying. The | ushers had withdrawn into a hud- | dled group. The servants were star- { ing-—-uncertain what to do. Somebody got Briggs and the big i car to the door. Mr al. Towne?” But we "” his i | Shut into it, Towne told Edith: {| ‘He's backed out of it. He He had a note in his ‘It was written to Bob Sterling. Bob with him at breakfast time, { and when he came back, this was | on Del's dresser.” She read it, her blue eyes hot: 3 left this.” hand i was “I can’t go through with it, Bob. I know it's a rotten trick, but time will prove that I am right. And Edith will thank me. “Nal She crushed it in her hand. “Where has he gone?” “South, probably, on his yacht.” “Wasn't there any word for me?" “Mo.” “Is there any other-—-woman?” “It looks like it. Bob is utterly at sea. So is everybody else.” All of her but her eyes seemed frozen. The great bouquet lay at her feet where she had dropped it. Her hands were clenched. Towne laid his hand on hers. “My dear—it's dreadful.” “Don’t-"' “Don’t what?" “Be sorry." “But he's a cur—"' (TO BE CONTINUED) The slopes of the Appalachians Little more than a generation ago, perhaps, the most characteris- tic tree of the region was the chest- nut. It was taken as a matter of course, About 1904 an Oriental fungus known as endothia parasitica ap- peared on the trees in New Eng- land. It spread rapidly through the entire chestnut region, attacking the bark, girdling the trunk, and killing the trees. There was noth- ing to be done about it. The spores of this fungus were extremely light, so that every little breeze wafted them into new regions. Today probably 95 per cent of the chestnuts are gone. The few left, which have escaped largely by accident, are doomed. But a few years ago a few healthy trees were transported bodily to the campus of the North Carolina State college at Raleigh, 200 miles from their usual habitat and away from the path of the blight. For four years, according to a report, writes Thomas R. Henry in the Washington Star, they have es- caped infection and remain healthy and thriving. It is hoped that they will live to become the ancestors of other great chestnut forests when all the trees in the mountains have been killed and the fungus goes with them because it will have noth- ing more to live on. Meanwhile a series of co-opera- tive experiments is being undertak- en by the college and the depart- ment of agriculture in an effort to discover a preventative for the blight. A variety of chestnut in Japan and another in China have been found which appear resistant, but they are inferior to the Amer- ican. variety. However, a few are being grown on the Raleigh campus side by side with the fugitives from the Appalachians and efforts, thus far unsuccessful, are being made to produce crosses which will re- tain the fungus-resisting qualities. Eyesight Needs Vitamin A One of the first and most char. acteristic symptoms of a deficiency of vitamin A is what is known as nyctalopia or night-blindness. This inability to see clearly in a poor light, or quickly to recover clarity of vision after being temporarily blinded by a dazzling glare like that of headlights of an automobile, is asserted to be largely responsible for the rapidly mounting toll of night motorcar accidents.—Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, OBJECTION OVERRULED The defense counsel was cross- examining the witness, blonde with big blue eyes. | Brighten Tea Towels “on Monday night?” The blonde smiled sweetly. “And where were you,” bellowed “Out for a run in the car,” re- The counsel leaned closer. “And Prosecuting counsel leaped to his “Your Honor,” he protested, “I object to that question.” “And why do you object?” in- “Because,” said the peosecutor, ~~ Vice Versa She—I think I'll let my hair grow out again, He—I'm using something now to make mine grow in again, One Way Out A candidate for the police force was being verbally examined. “If you were alone in a police car and were pursued by a desperate gang of criminals in another car doing sixty miles an hour along a lonely road, what would you do?” The candidate looked puzzled for a moment. “Eighty,” he replied. 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Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers