Pittston Gazette

              / • ESTABLISHED 18ftO. ' VOL. XUII. NO. 81. » Oldest Newspaper in the Wyoming Vi iley. PITTSTON, LUZERNE CO., PA., FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 1893. A Weekly Local and Family Journal. )*'•«? 4sl eiLissjt of «,§ down, loosing oeiore nun 111 a uazea way. Would it all coine right? Did he believe that? Was he trying to deceive himself at the last? Then for the sake of action For, say what we will, a woman's heart does not beat only for the strong and true. Weak men and bad ones have without effort controlled a love the angels might have coveted. There is sometimes sufficient fascination in a trick of manlier, just the fall in a voice, to outweigh in love's inconsequent balance all the Christian virtues. W nen a nran is louoeu oi aiuiosi every faculty but sight aud speech he uses them to advantage. Of course you're going to marry him. Of conrse you are. He is genuine. He is stanch. He has a few more years than a novelist would allow an impatient lover—what of it? He is younger than half the emasculated, juvenile dudes floating around this town He is the most picturesquely handsome man I have ever seen and in the meridian of his strength. He is a gentleman by birth. The blood of ladies and gentlemen for generations flows in his veins. Ah. ha! lots of girls in his own set would stay at home and chase no more the poverty stricken duke if they thought there was a chance of catching Richard Monk•nw I have no obiection to him Hp everything I admire and commend. I give my consent, Virginia." to psychical ruin. Yon exhausted yourself in 'The World's Wav.'" "No one will know." ne said again, and there was a note of defiant joy in the breathless cry as he picked np the play. NEAR PICCADILLY. cause she was like the Kentucky landlord whom Griswold asked why he charged #2 for a 20 cent lunch. '-Well, sir," said the Kentuckian, putting his thumbs in his vest; "by , I need the money!" I shall do no more such charitable work and then buy pepsin and liver pills all winter as a result. An unwilling, dusky red started up in Tom's hollowed cheek. It ebbed slowly away as, opening his eyes wide, he smiled at Delatole with an expression of positive hatred. A sound attracted his attention. It was the faraway throbbing of a strsrt THAT IS WHERE BILL NYE IS STAYING AT PRESENT. and to keep thought away as much as possible he put his clothes and books in his trunk, locked and addressed it. Even when that was done he hesitated. A tumult seemed striving to tear his heart asunder. His hands were like ice. "I must go to her. I must. Why delay longer?" "That is one of those charmingly soothing speeches we must learn to expect from those we live with. But you are wrong. The trouble lies here. I unfortunately must still be sincere and must put something of myself into everything I write. When one believes in and cares for so little, it is very hard. I have not yet matched your stride, you see—you who with one arm around your neighbor's wife conld write an essay on the beauty of morality." ) pr He Likes It Better Than the FImm He It was Tom Virginia loved. No one better, no one higher. He alone had understood her. His sympathy, his smile had made her sunshine. And now he was gone. Had Before—Trying Hard to Entertain Clarence—Scenes and Incidents Bonnd I sometimes think that for a man with my chest measurement I am the biggest fool ever born in captivity. Clarence, my valet, has a way of describing things to eat and drink that makes my mouth fairly water. He is gifted like Dickens that way. Dickens could make one hungry in a paragraph. Clarence was telling the other evening about a "bumper of mild and Burton ale as clear and hamber, sir, as a goblet of sherry, and with a 'ead on it, sir, like a cauliflower." i I'! I'1 I - ji JORDAN *»• About London. ip?c»» «=»o c=DoC=»»«=».«=»• o. He found her leaning against the melodeon, her fingers buried in the fur of the little white kitten he had often teased. Her face was perfectly colorless. She looked at him steadfastly, coldly and uttered no word. It was evident she had heard his voice in the hall and widtwaiting for him. [Copyright, 1883, by Edgar W. Nye.} A soft purring at her side, an animal .warmth against her throat, aroused her, and she saw that the white kitten had crept under her arm and now lay cuddled against her like a ball of down, lapping her flesh in soft sympathy with its scrap of a tongue. London, Oct. 31. IT 1633 DT J.D.LIPPINCOTT COMBW. Yesterday I changed my lodgings and came into town a little more. Now I am only a few doors from Piccadilly, which is one of the streets here that have the most passing on them. (OONTItrUXD.) But Uie benedictory chimes were like mockery to Virginia. These days, when every window and shop gave evidence of Christmas cheer, were black and cold to her. Tom was changed. He avoided her ey*. When left for a moment alone with her, he relapsed into a constrained silence. His life becam* daily more irregulav, his moods more uncertain. The simplicity that matched his blue eyes waa slowly vanishing before new. insincere mannerisms. ••un, i u qo mat, or coarse. A few lines, a paragraph, will suffice, bat not this psalm of victory, this heralding of a new voice that is not to be stilled, bat will rise again and again—not that You'll have to prove all Tve said false before 1 write of you in that strain." And he was the incarnation of bland, impersonal regret as the papers once more fluttered in his hands. The door banged, and Delatole's footsteps grew fainter in the echoing passage. In the silence that followed Tom still lay motionless, his wide open eyes fixed upon the ceiling, the small unobtrusive sounds of a quiet room fluttering the loneliness that settled around him. Today the town is full of strangers. Farmers are in from some distance, and There was a long and painful silence. The words that came thronging to Tom's lips were those he dared not speak. A cry broke from her. She caught it wildly to her heart. It was something living that pitied her. But the little thing wriggled from the violent embrace, spat at her and scratched her on the cheek. Since his illness Virginia had grown accustomed to treating her father like a pettish child. She went to him, laid both her warm palms on his bald crown, and smiling looked tenderly at him. I was asking him yesterday about a meat pie made here sometimes, in the country especially, and which is a cylinder of batter with a piece of meat in the center. "Yon have come to say goodby," Virginia said abruptly, still bending upon his face that full, disconcerting gaze. "1 heard all you said to father. There is no need to go over it again." "No, daddy. I don't want to marry, I'll stay with you yet awhile." Virginia started up. laughter heavy with sobs leaving her quivering lips. She pushed the kitten from her with a frantic movement, and then with contradictory tenderness picked it up again and held it against her lips, weeping wildly, as women do when pain is robbed of hope. Why should she hurt it? What had it done more cruel than Tom? She had held him too closely to her heart He turned and scratched her. "How I hate him!" and though the words were but a whisper their reality was intense. "Oh, that, sir! That we 'ad at 'ome when I was a lad, sir. Hit is very delicious, very delicious indeed, sir. We call hit the toad in the 'ole, sir." Coals are 2 shillings a hundred and rising every day. Poor people are naturally worried over the winter to come. Milk also ig rising. So is cream. But we will let that pass. I was offered a fine Hereford bull 4 yean old last week for £4, and his blood was as good as that of the Duke of Northumberland. He was worth |100, as a matter of fact, but I could not take him very well, so he will go to the slaughter house. The drought has been something very serious, and the strikes on top of it will make hard times for the winter, I fear. Yesterday I met a man in Hyde park who had not eaten anything for 18 days, so he said, and he did not look like a man who would lie or do anything else. My present landlord, a very intelligent man, says that London is not the city it was even 10 years ago. I thought that London was like Gibraltar in the matter of trade, bat he says competition from countries where production is cheaper and methods better has cut down the volume of London's business. He thinks Germany has cut into the manufacture and trade of London. Possibly the town has been boomed too mnch also. She held out her hand, and he seized it eagerly, only to find it cold and unresponsive. Oh, if she but uttered one pleading word, one reproach, that he might in some measure defend himself! But this chilling repose was a wall which shut him away from her. The sudden fury of his gaze was like the leaping of an unlooked for flame from a dead fire. "If it were mine!" He looked them over half regretfully, band; the air, a German battle march. It was long since he had heard its heavy, rolling sweetness, with that flowing underbeat of sadness creeping in like a knell for many of the multitude who marched onward to its swing. A merer of pain crossed his uneasy eyes. He knew that march. Virginia had often played it, and it pulsed through the warm night with a wake of memories. Her face in its diurnal beauty rose before him; then a slim, white robed body floated to join the face, an arm, a hand, with finger pointing at the play, crushed in his grasp. Yes, her very voice was in his ears. "It's one of the best things Tve ever written, but in submission to my honest opinion I must destroy it." When Virginia remembered the kiss tuat had opened paradi- *o her, shame burned her, and her pain changed to fierce self contempt. It was the frait of a m 'ln-nt's passing impulse with him. an 1i r ,iad meant everything to her. He L. i forgotten or set aside the unfinished •■pvi f hat had shot like a rainbow -oss her life. He had forgotten, ana had remembered. She had hugged iC) things to her heart as memories i 'Us beyond words, a half spoken •■.iiseof a love that matched her own. "ious pain, wounded, aching pride, ines made the •' liant little head \D wearily and a p:.csion of wi.d sobs •e her lips in a stifl.'d cry. Bu only •ni she was alone. Let him come and ss he pleased, let him hurt her by this r side of his nature daily revealing If more fully, but he must not guess « had dreamed of thr.t which might ver be hers. "So you'll be a fool, will you? You'll say no? You'll fling away wealth that could give me, in my last accursed days, a few of the luxuries I was accustomed to? And why? Oh, you fool I" and his blue, quivering lips seemed to spit out the words, "and why? Because you are still thinking of that fellow, that scamp, that Murray, who gave you the go by. Don't 1 know? You sentimental idiot, he had no romantic memories to hold him back! He has looked to it that his bread will be plentifully buttered. Read today's paper. After a splurge in Europe, a courtship on the steamer coming home, he's going to marry General Bau doine's widow—a woman worth mil lions. Do you hear? Refuse to marry Monklow, and I'll never forgive you." He thought of the past. That year in Paris—every detail of it returned to him as he lay there—that crowded, riotous, unholy yes*. His first taste of pleasure, his exuberant appreciation of life carrying him along with the rush of a laughing stream going down hill; the new, fevered atmosphere; the days spinning by in a sort of moral vertigo; the crowd that called him to follow where it was brightest, that brightness lining the sheer descents of vice. In a few strides Tom was beside him They looked intently at each other Tom's eyes wavered and fell. "Do not misjudge me," he burst out passionately, his voice broken, and at the words she looked away. "I am going away for a time to work hard, very hard. And I want to believe that youi good wishes go wit,h me. that you still re main my friend." •Don't—don't," he said, and his voice wo* h .lf choked "Give me time. Let me tuiuk." Half an hour later they were walking up C uiversity place. They dined at a chophouse frequented by Bohemia, where tables were bare and beer was served in mugs. CHAPTER X. A year went by unmarked for Virginia by a single incident out of the common, gray as the wastes of a sea unruffled by a storm, unmarked by the approach of a Bail. No reply, but her eyes were upon him again, as eloquent with reproach as the eyes of the murdered Caesar gazing on the face of Brutus. And now? Now he was back in familiar New York, bound by honor by a woman who wearied him, inclined to rid himself of the obligations he had assumed in the beginning through sheer disinclination to the trouble of resisting, following pleasure with a foreknowledge of weariness, in debt to Delatole while straining at the wornout cord that bound them, struggling against the maddening inactivity that palsied his faculties in the art still dear to him. "Better than Delmonico's in certain moods." said Delatole as they crossed the sanded floor; "the food is excellent and iHV-'—d to suit Lucullus. As accompun in you have art, devil-may-care ism. 8iLi.»f and even socialism." Another year came, and when the opulent sunlight of early summer was deluging with its gold the dusty streets a coupe stopped one day at the door of the house in Chelsea sqnare, and a man. a stranger, asked for Virginia Kent. "You will not—you will not steal it, Tom! You could not fall as low as that!" That look told all. He felt it in his inmost heart. He knew himself contemptible. But Delatole's worldly wise, humorously cynical counsel was with him, impressive and significant as the tenets of a new creed to a convert. He dropped into a chair, hiding his face upon his clinched hands. A sudden nostalgia weighed sickeningly upon him. farewell to the landlady. now and then an American may be seen buying something and trying to pay for it without saying over in his mind: Hw friends were scattered through the loug room, and merry greetings were called mt to him, which he repaid in kind. The hours passed in sparkling He was a terrible sight in this sudden spasm of rage—repression, his lifelong habit, fallen from him like a garment loosed by his palsied fingers. Crossing the threshold of her home, he had entered her life. Looking into her eyes, full of unforgotten days, something of his lost youth had awakened in his heart that could only die with death. "You will not steal it, Tom," rang the voiee in his soul. 4 farthings make 1 penny. 18 pence 1 shilling. 20 shillings 1 pound. He dropped her cold hand in silence and half turned away. But he looked up again after awhile. The face was gone. The German march had dwindled to an echo. reminiscences, jests and laughter. Delator's levitv became astonish*:?, and in this impudent wag, who soon formed « group around hi tself, there was not a trace of the cynic, -vie philosopher, the serious man of letters. Much that he said was coarse, but so au vciously humorous it was impossible not D respond. Out, oh. to see him, speak to him. and ver by a single glance mirror the many that kept singing one question in tr brain—"Why—why—why has he •hanged?"—this was pain of that cruel ind particular kind that dwarfs in its penetrating torture the endurance rejuimd for larger griefs. Virginia straightened her young figure, her arms hanging loosely at her sides and as white as "The Masker" laughing beside her. Then the half crown comes along and knocks ont his calculations. So does the guinea. 'Til come and see you very often, Virginia, if I may." he said haltingly. "New York is not a wilderness, you know. Whenever my work permits, Pll come and have a chat with you, just—just the same." A sharp, quivering breath came from his lips. This man was Richard Monklow. Virginia had often heard her father speak of him, especially of his meeting with him in the auction room the day he had purchased "The Masker." "Yes, I will," he said steadily, as if defying an invisible mentor. "I'll take it. I'll not be a fool. It's a chance to redeem myself, and I cannot let it go. I can't. The man who wrote it must be dead—he is dead—and—there's no copy of it. I can choke down Delatole's sneers—I can pay my debts—I can start afresh. It will be life, hope, bread to my soul. I'm not going to let a fancy befool me. If it had fallen from heaven, it could not have come more opportunely. Conscience? Bah!" Darn a guinea anyhow. I lived next door to a flock of them one summer in North Carolina, and they got up bo mnch earlier than I did in the morning that Reason tottered on her perch. The patience and silence of the past fled away like shades, and resistance, fully armed, took their place. Delatole had spoken truly. Something had withered within him, or in the degradation of his life he had lost it forever. He had striven to write and always in vain. His ideas were no long- I went to a bank last week to get some money and cotild not get it, so times mnst be hard. And worse to bear than all was her father's assumption of a secret understanding existing between them. The words died on his lips. He knew he lied. He knew it would be long ere be should choose to see her changed face if indeed ever again. The first glance at him gave an impression that forever remained. He had followed the sea and followed it as a commander. His straight, powerful shoulders had a fearless poise. His glance was level, soft; his face, its first youtb faded, brown as sere grass, under the shorn, glittering frost of his hair. His humanity was deep, strong, farreaching, as one could see who looked into his eyes, and his smile had a warm, bright sympathy. There were times when he looked startlingly youthful with his white hair. There were unguarded moments of sadness when the chronicle of his years flared eloquently—a confession in ever}- deepened line. Then one knew he had lived the full life of a man in a crowded 40 years, in the sowing and harvest time, had garnered barren hopes and pain, yet without bitterness had tied the sheaves. "Then you'll never forgive me, for 1 do refuse," she said steadily, but scarcely louder than a breath. "What sort of life have I lived here at your very side? Will yo-j hear, now, at last? You flung away your money while you could. You thought wholly of your pleasures. You gave me nothing. You didn't think. You didn't care. And I have worked with my hands, my brain, at anything 1 could find to do—yes, often while yon slept. Now yon have said all you could W wound me," and there was an angry, sobbing break in the accusing voice. "1 could bear even that But you shall not take all, father—not my body, my soul. They are my own." Tom found himself moved to enthusiasm and laughter. His pulses were alive; his eyes glistened. Yes, let hi n reason as he would, he was attuned to this reckless brilliancy, this mingling of wits, this clatter of defiant freedom and spontaneity. Delatole was right. Chance words here and there gave him a new insight into a happy, modern paganism that filled his brain with imagery. The witchery, the sweep of it were intoxicafc- er Tivid, stirring, flowing to a logical sequence, but dim, abortive—a haze of tangled threads. Heaps of closely written paper, upon which the best efforts of his brain had been expended with the feverish intensity a man feels in running a race, had been cast aside as worthless. The day was surely coming when his world would know the truth and liken him to a plant that puts forth radiant blossoms once and withers in a night. My former lodgings were at Chiswick (pronounced Chizzick). Chizzick was the home of Hogarth, and his body lies bnried in the Chizzick churchyard. There also is the beautiful estate of the Duke of Devonshire, known as Chiswick House. Chiswick House is built after the plan of an old Roman villa and is a massive pile. Lots of old statuary from Rome and some decorations even from the Vatican are there. Several stone benches from the Roman senate were put under the trees at Chiswick House. They were the genuine thing, too—seats that the Roman senator had sat in while he thought of his speech; cold, hard stone seats that they sat in on wintry mornings in December with nothing between them and the hot blooded Roman but a cotton toga. At Hampton Court, where I went a few days ago, and of which I will speak in the future, I saw at a tavern a red faced Englishman, who, with his son, was making a pedestrian tour of 50 miles. He ordered some bread and cheese, two shandy gaffs for the boy and two Scotch whiskies for himself. Shandy gaff is beer and ginger beer together, as you may know already. This "I say, now, you and young Mnrray aie not quite so indifferent to each other as you'd have me believe, are you?" he asked her one morning as he lingered over his paper and cup of chocolate. Her silence maddened him. "Have you nothing to say, Virginia?" "Goodby," she said, add smiled—but such a smile! There were agony and scorn in it. But for all his bravado the violenoe of the temptation made him stand petrified peering into the shadowy corners. Every creak in the silent house appalled him as he mentally weighed the chances for and against detection. He passed his hand across his trembling lips, his narrowed eyes upon the locked door. "Tom will always be my friend, 1 hope," Virginia answered steadily, but almost inaudibly. "Is that all?" She held up her little head proudly, and again from her pale, tense lips came a murmur clear and defiant: "Goodby." iQ£, He regretted when 9 o'clock came and Delatole parted with him to keep an appointment at his club. No word had been exchanged between the two men upon the subject that so nearly concerned them both. Now, as Tom hurried up town the undecided question danced before his eyes, his heart became suddenly weighted. Mr. Kent gave a sharp side glance at her pale face and a shrug. "You don't mean to say there's nothing else? Stuff and nonsense! He was in love with you. whatever he may be now. Just before that play of his was put on, when he was on the tenter hooks of anxiety, I saw him watching you many a time. The tender passion reveals itself now just as it did when I suffered from it, and Tom looked sheepish. I dare say I used to look so. I know my rivals always appeared so to me. Has anything changed him?" Then her eyes closed. When she looked up. he was gone. How miserably he had failed! Wae there no escape from social annihilation except by trading on the infatuation of a woman 10 years older tha® tilmelf? And once—once—when he had thought like one inspired, and honor wa? a shining reality in his life, he had betrayed love for a chimera. But he must not remember that, and least of all tonight, in the silence, when his thoughts were like knives in his heart. Her body seemed weighted, and sht moved with an effort to the window, finding a dreaminess that soothed the hurt in her heart in watching the even fall of snow. "I'll do it," he whispered. Everything was dark as she went blindly from the room. She had a faint intention of going out in the rain—a sense of supreme and awful loneliness. The door closed upon her, and she would have stumbled had not strong arms caught her. She looked up and saw Richard Monklow. One glance at his face, drained of the hue of life underneath the brown, the bps contracted, the kind eyes sad, and she saw he had heard all. All night he bent over the pages, copying the play, here and there touctring it with wit that came to him then with diabolical readiness. His heart warmed over it. It seemed to become his own by the mere changing of the names of places and people. The chapel yonder was ablaze with light, rainbow coloring from the windows falling in bars upon the fresh snow that lovingly outlined every twig and angle. And now the students came thronging out, still singing the chorus of the Christmas hymn, passed from her sight, and silence fell again. la it any wonder that Rome fell and that "the barbarian Goth stabled his horse in the palace of the Caesars?" Should he east the old life behind him ntterly and enter upon a new one—free? He had come to bring Virginia to her father's bedside. The tremors against which the old man had struggled so long had culminated after an excessive debauch in a paralytic stroke resembling death. He had drifted to Monklow'? rooms and lay where he had fallen. He reached Union square. It sparkled in crystal whiteness. The branches patterned on the pavements waved fantastically about his feet as he strode on, his head down. Passionate indecision went with him like a wraith in the white rays. He thought of his enchanted dreaming of the night before. Only last night! Ah, he had learned much since then. Had he ever really reasoned or understood before? He stood up, shivering, and from habit turned to the sideboard. He half filled a goblet with brandy and laughed aloud as the decanter clinked against the glass in his hand, a laugh that subsided to a chuckle and rose again, beating upon the stillness like the wings of a caged bird. He left no chance fragment of the original play to betray him nor of the letter and even tried to forget the man's name. By morning all was done and done well. Chiswick House is most richly decorated in white and gold, with beautifully painted ceilings done by Italian artists of 300 years ago. The grounds are laid out in a magnificent park of 68 acres. Here Pope was a constant guest, and, as Plum Levi, my barber friend in North Carolina, would say, Pope used to be around Chiswick House a right mnch. No word came from Virginia's quivering lips. No word could come. "Then you are not secretly betrothed to him?" She went hurriedly to her father's side, and holding his arm tightly looked at him with dry, burning eyes. As she drove away with him that day Virginia did not dream that the summei would be past ere she returned to live again at Chelsea square, but so it was. In Richard Monklow's home, where the softness and fragrance of modern luxury were more caressing than the breath of the perfect summer mornings, she nursed her father to a semblance of health. "I asked for too much. Forget my words, Virginia," he said when he could speak. "Forget all save these—that I can only live if you will let me serve you, see you sometimes, be near you. 1 am yours. Use me as you will." As he stood up, a wan and haggard ghost, a crimson haze swept in, enveloping him like a blur of blood, and the lamps of a new day were lit in the east. "It wouldn't be out of order to drink a toast to my own defeat." "You must not fancy such a thing. 1 am nothing to him. Oh, you wouldn't speak to him about this, fathert You wouldn't! No: it would kill me if you did!" When he re-entered his studio a few months later, his eyes were flaming, though the smile—a hideous contortion —lingered on his lips. [to bx conttnuxd] Small Came—Big Seniatlon. His favorite walk between two huge evergreen hedges 15 feet high has also been a favorite walk of mine while here. If he had not been snatched away before I came to England, Pope and I wonld have helped each other. He was strong in some ways, while I came ont better in others. Pope oonld have shown me how to get abont London by the myBterions railroads, while I conld have corrected his essays for him. "Keep yourself unshackled. The man who enters a race fettered is a fooL" The frosty breeze that whistled past his ears seemed whispering these words to him. CHAPTER XI. An open letter on his disordered desk faced him as he sat down. The closing lines caught his eye: "Speak to him? D What are you talking about? Am I likely to do so? Do I strike yon as that sort of person? The man who wants to marry my daughter must sue for that honor." Her lonely heart won back a little of its freshness in these surroundings. Her lips again voiced joyous laughter. Friendship that rang like gold had been generously poured into her life. Her gratitude went out with equal strength to Richard Monklow, and to his sister, a soft voiced, sympathetic woman, who made her dimly realize what her mother's love might have meant to her. Delatole was dressing to dine out. As he struggled with a collar button he turned his head to listen to the lazy lilt of a song coming from a room across the hall. His face wore an ill humored frown. It was very evident that the song and the singer impressed him with equal unpleasantness. Hi* memory flew back to* miserable childhood spent among the rigor* of a poor western farm, and he shuddered. Only by a hard fight and incredible sacrifice had his father saved the money accessary for his support and education. I will finally withdraw "The World's Way" from the road in a fortnight. Now that four act society drama is what I'm waiting for. In two years I've had only two curtain raiser* from yon—rags of things that only drew at all because your name was to them. If I can't rely on you, I must look elsewhere. If you're not going to write any more, for God's sake say so. "THAT IS AMERICAN CHEESE." gentleman remarked as the food was bro tight that he thought that was rum cheese, so they had beer, ginger beer, Scotch whisky and rum cheese. He studied her face hard for a moment, and his lips settled into a thin, straight line. The tragedy in her dilated eyes told him the truth, and a haughty anger against Tom awoke within him. Virginia's love won and thrown away seemed an insignificant thing beside the thought that any man should indulge in desultory lovemaking with his daughter and then repent of it His daughter! There lay the sting that was unbearable. The Duke of Devonshire is well off and leases the place at Chiswick jut as Mr. Gould might have leased Irvingtou to some one in New York, or as George Washington might lease Mount Vernon to a Denver man, with use of tomb and right of piscary. "Do stop that humming, for God's sake!" he cried out at last. "It's enough to drive one mad." Discoursing on the cheese to his son and unaware that I was an American, for I wore a Piccadilly suit of dark frock ooat and high hat, which I will give to my coachman when 1 get home again, he said, with a sigh: Poverty! How he loathed and feared ft! How be had always loathed it! Ingrained in his nature was a love for the poetry at life, a hatred of the commonplace, and now—let him be careful, lest by one ill advised step he taste all the old bitterness again. GBOROI Pldkut. He read it and tore it to bits. There was a sob in his throat as his eager hands went searching through the mass of papers for half sketched plots and notes of ideas not worth the leaves they were scrawled upon. He would not even leave a scrap. All should be destroyed. Then she came home again, and the dayB settled back to their wonted placidity, but with this difference—that a bent and shrunken figure lay limply in a great chair, and the energy and pride in her father's still stubborn heart could only be read now in the hollow, morose eyea flashing beneath the puckered brows. There was no reply, and a few moments later Tom lounged across the hall. "Hat* you nothing to say, Virginia?" He was very different from the wavering, tempted roan who rushed from Virginia's presence that Bnowy night almost two years before. His face had lost the flashing earnestness that rose from an ecstatic heart. It had taken on resolute lines and an expression of worldly subtlety. The cheeks were slightly hollowed, the eyes placidly heavy, cold, showing the haggard lines of dissipation. A light touch on her arm made her turn, and she savrher father. There was an angry light in his eyes, although he smiled. If the duke had been there, ha would have doubtless sat the dog on me, but the lessee, Dr. Tuke, told me to go any* where over the place, eat hothouse grapes, pick orchids, climb the tree planted by Queen Victoria, or do my literary work where Pope did his. There are trees there planted by Garibaldi and many other eminent people living and dead. The tree planted by her most gracious majesty does not 6eem to thrive, and I feel almost positive that she did not mulch it properly when she first sat it out "That is American cheese. It is very bad, very bad. Ther' is no good cheese made in England a* more now. It is so with everything. Cheap things are the order of the day. We can't compete with them. See the cloth on that cheese? It is American. Too bad, too bad" (with a sigh that was like a breeze across a distillery). "I don't know what we are coming to. Iverything has went to be cheap now." / ' The fragrance of the hyacinths in his coat came to him in the crisp air, so penetratingly sweet it gave him a heartache—the flowers she had given him. It was after 8 o'clock that night before Tom entered the house. Delatole and he were to leave for a visit to the south in the morning. He could no longer postpone his going. But how to tell them? How to say goodby? Would Virginia remain his friend? Would she understand? Oh, she must, she must. He could not bear to think she would hate or despise him. "So our young gentleman has goner "Yes." And these crowded, dusty drawers, they, too, must be emptied, lest some day when he had sunk into comfortable apathy, with only a profound respect for the well being of the body, he might open them and hear each fluttering leaf whisper how he had once dreamed a dream. With a groan he flnng himself into a asat -M-ra," ana be pursed up his lips reflectively as he swayed lightly to and fro, his hands behind his back. "Just so. It's the way of the world. I know it. I have seen my friends depart on«- by one. Only the few stanch ones have remembered and remained. But there is one consolation. We haven't lost mudh. Our young friend was a fail specimen of the genus cad." She stood beside the window one September morning, a letter crushed between her hot hands. A mild rain was drifting like tangled skeins through the gray air. Beyond lay the college grounds a vista of damp greenness. "I love her! I love her! And she? Hava I not had the confession in her eyss—in her kiss? Who has helped me —who has understood me like her? How «aa I pain her—how can I leave her?" "Was I singing? I swear I didn't know it," he said languidly. Delatole surveyed him with a cold, unchanging glance. He worked with an eager intensity, as if following his heart's desire, even went on his knees and scattered the scrawled sheets right and left, then paused abruptly and looked with puzzled eyes at what he had dragged out—a long roll of manuscript, dusty and tied with gray tape. He did not remember it, had never seen it before. Yet, wait. Now that it lay unfolded before him, a fully written play, he did recall the title, "Doctor Fleming." In a crowded bus on Piccadilly some days ago there sat a very solemn man from Vermont. He had one of those low derby hats worn 16 years ago, with a capacity of two tablespoonfuls, and he was m coin, tinea nernng sort or man trying to find some American news in a London paper. As he walked slowly up stairs he met Mr. Kent coming down. The old man's greeting was chilling, but courteous. Tom drew his breath hard and plunged into explanations at once. The words were feverish, rapid—polite regrets for his necessary departure, mingled with a recital of his future plans. She opened the crumpled sheet, smoothing out its creases almost tenderly. Her lips quivered like a child's. For himself, if the reckless ambition mastering him required it, he could put love away, blot it from his life, and the thought bad some of the ecstasy of martyrdom. Bnt Virginia loved him, and he knew it. The thought of hurting her was cruel, and in the agonized tumult of the moment cold drops stood on his brow. Again as in the morning came the inward avowal of his own weakness. Oh, what if Delatole had spoken truly, and the sovereignty of love meant the enslaving of the talent he had sworn should make him famous! Then—oh, then, to what depths his ruined hopes would fling him! And he would drag her with him in his fall, perhaps making her taste a bitter anguish to which this younger disappointment was but little. Ami the other aide of the picture—the life o# the artist purely, the un trammeled, easy, earnest life, where great things would be accomplished—was it not better?"Still in your blouse and slippers. Won't you look in upon the theater party at all?" "I don't care a hang about it." "Aren't you afraid Mrs. Baudoinewill send out a search warrant for you?" "Let her send." I use the word sat advisedly. I use it on the advice of my valet, Clarence, aged 68, who says he belongs to the hupper clahssetf. Virginia winced at the word and shielded her face with her hand. "You know what I am going to say," •he read again. "During the summer that has been like no other to me, many "We don't want him. I've learned tc snap my fingers at the pleasures that won't stay and make the most of those that will. Well snap our fingers, Virginia. He's gone away like a puppy with a bone he wants to eat alone. Let him go." times the words I longed to speak have trembled upon my lips, but something in your eyes always silenced me. Virginia. I can be silent no longer. I love you so! The years are dark before you, dear, but I would keep you safe. No harm, no pain, should touch you. Too old and sad, perhaps, you think me. The years have left their ashes on my hair. I am asking too much when I ask for your youth. Yes, yes, I know. But, oh! child, your eyes lured me to dream again. You woke my poor, chilled soul, and it is yours. It but responded to your unconscious call. Turn from me, if you must, and I will put away my dream, but my soul is forever yours. You possess it, and I would not have it back. But, oh, if you would come to me, Virginia!" How the words awoke all the old pain! She drew her breath in hard, the lips fell over her heavy eyes, and reading Richard Monklow's letter she thought of Tom. These words of searching strength, quivering with the rejuvenating breath of love, had been the lever that rolled the stone from the old grave, and she stood looking at memories she had believed were crucified. I got to talking with Clarence quite freely the other evening, for I do not want time to hang heavily on hfs hands. There was no good theatrical performance that I felt like taking him to see, so we chatted the evening away, Clarence and L It is pretty hard for an American gent to entertain a valet, not being accustomed to it. I never had one before, bo it comes rather awkward. At that time there entered a very fat English woman. She found no seat and had to stand. The Vermonter got fidgety over his paper, and finally, rapping on the floor of the bus with his umbrella, he called the meeting to order. Mr. Kent heard him unmoved to the end. "Cool for a prospective bridegroom." "Prospective idiot!" And Tom settled himself very comfortably on hia back on a low divan. 'Til never marry Mrs. Baudoine. As the girl in the song says, 'Something tells me so.' Couldn't you, with your managerial tactics, help me out of that scrape? You know she did all the running—not I." "I don't wish to bandy any words with you, Mr. Murray," he said in a calm, colorleee tone. "One thing I must say however. When 1 was young, people did not repay hospitality as you have done. Pardon me, if you please. Don't interrupt. Without plunging into stu pid detail I am sure you understand ma I will Bay goodby to you now. You cannot go too quickly to please me. I dare say you will succeed. The sensitive and forbearing man is often left in the background, but men of your stamp, never." J list before his departure for Europe, a distinguished looking man in the traditional sliabbiness of unrecognized genius had called on him with this play, asking in a shy, embarrassed way that he, the splendidly prosperous young author, would read it and tell him what its merits were. His papers were never touched by his servant. It had lain forgotten in his desk for more than a1 year. And the man who had brought it—where was he? But still Virginia looked out at the enow and felt each of the city's muffled sounds like the surge from a sea on which her dearest had embarked, leaving her alone. "Gentlemen," he drawled, 'Td like the sense of this meeting. This lady ought not to stand np, I think. Now, to test the spirit of the meeting, I am ready to be one of three to give the lady a seat." He thinks I onght to hare my boots treed every night. I told him to tree them if he thought best, bnt that he would ha' » knock them off the branches morning, for I would not go np tem, so he puts a sort of dofunny i ay shoes at night to fill them up ai .. ep them in place and says it is better than to keep them on at night for that purpose. Delatole drew on his gloves in silence. He grew white, and when he came to the foot of the divan and let his eyes travel slowly over Tom's snpine length a rage only half controlled made his lipe tremble. "We'll not miss him, Virginia," pursued her father in the meditative voice that maddened her to a dumb fury in that moment. She opened and closed her hands and set her lips hard. "I say well shed no tears for him. We'll forswear all sentimental dreams if we had any. We'll remember that his leaving the church for the stage was, viewed in this latter light, but an evidence of the rowdiness inherent in our young friend. Very, very rowdy. We will console ourselves by remembering how much we are above him and that we couldn't have expected more from a man whose father was a brown fisted Irish immigrant, his mother an ignorant girl of the plains." Ha Loved Children, He passed down the hall, leaving Tom hot and indignant. Had Virginia told him, or did he only guess? It was impossible to retaliate, impossible to tell this selfish dreamer he had never been bis guest. Besides the words did rankle, oh, so deeply! for, though uttered from a partially mistaken sense of wrong, they were true. He had acted a cowardly part. His face was worn and reckless as he turned to the hall window, endeavoring to conquer the quivering of his pulses before facing Virginia. "In my opinion," he said slowly, with emphasis, "yon'll be in a fair way to need the material help of Mrs. Baudoine's money very soon." Still kneeling among the mass of dnsty papers, he turned the leaves. A letter fluttered to the ground: ▲ man with three children entered a restaurant in a German town, and after they were all seated he eaid, "Now, children, are yon hungry?" "Yes." Hours passed in this mute conflict Love with dove's eyea first pleaded, then changed to a fury and scourged him. Doubt, fear of himself, insatiable ambition, passed in mocking line and with shadowy lips whispered predictions that terrified him. "Really? Oh, then there are times when marriage seems good unto your And a burning glance was flashed at him from beneath Tom's lowered lids. Dear But—I Inclose this note, as it mty not be possible to have nn interview with you. The play "Dr. Fleming," which I beg yon to read a« a favor to me, has for its basis lneidenta in my own life. The scene tn Russia is particularly accurate, and I think presents a dramatic sltnation distinctly new. Tour respectfully. I have lodgings now just off Piccadilly, as I said, having made the change two days ago. My former landlady was an amatenr in that line. She sent me ap an egg that was intended for parliament. It was a good egg for a riot, but not for eating purposes. It looked on the outside rather tottering. It looked as an egg might that had been laid under the Tower and forgotten for a few sluggish centuries. It popped like a rifle "Would you like some sausages?" "Yes, yes." "Waitress, bring three sausages—two for myself—that makes five. Ah, I have forgotten the bread. Waitress, some bread. Now eat away." When he rose from the seat, he was benumbed. The frost seemed to have made a casing for his heart. The midnight traffic of the town, like the throbbing of massive machinery, swept across the white silence of the square imperatively rousing him to a sense of action. Yes. there lay his world, his life. No mora dreaming. He had dreamed long enough. The conflict was finished. Love had received its death wound. "My opinion about marriage has not altered in the least. But if a man can only fail, if he can't even support himself, the most practical thing is to find some woman silly enough to shoulder the responsibility." Feui Dawson. No. — Bedford street. P. S.—If you can And time to look It over, yoa will be doing me an inestimable favor. 1 beg that 70a will be careful of It, as I have no copy, and even though commercially worthies* It 1D very dear to me. —From the German. There was a solemn jingling of knives sad forks, the sausages were demolished, aud the children's faces were all over smiles. He lit a cigar with a nice deliberateneap and put on his cape and hat. "My soul is forever yours. I would not have it back." "Very dear to you," Tom said slowly. "I know just how you felt, Mr. Felix Dawson, when you wrote those words, 'Very dear to yon.' You shall have your treasure back." Anxious to Know. It had commenced to snow again. He could hear the students practicing a new Christmas hymn in the chapel opposite. In a moment the years spent in the college, so different from Us present life, passed in a series of pictures before him, and with them the thought of all he owed Virgin!*. But for her "The World's Way" would never have been written Looking back, he saw how clearly her companionship had nerved him to continual effort. Hers was the voice that had urged him on, hers the dauntless Optimism that had sent a rift of glory into his darkest days. "I'm going for a walk in the snow now. This room depresses me. Stir the Are and turn np the light. When I come back, IH have you play that little thing by Mozart." The words were in her mind. She seemed speaking them in the darkness to that other who had not listened. Was it so alwayB? Must one speak and one not hear? One live, the other wait? "Go on. Your English grows more vigorous day by day. It's really a liberal education to be allowed to hear you. Surely you haven't finished yet. You said more than this yesterday." when I tapped it with my knife, and if the window hadn't been open I should hare been asphyxiated. What a terrible death it must be to cork up a room tightly, make one's will and then turn on an egg like that—an egg that had been left to itself ever since the Saxons came here, an introspective egg laid by a morbid henl "Enjoy it, eh?" "Yes." "Like sons mors sausages?" "Yes, yes." He turned the first page with a pitying, half languid interest, but only the first. After that he knelt amid the destruction of his own work, paying tribute with enraptured senses to the genius of another man. The manuscript fluttered to the floor when the last climax was reached—a climax that made every nerve vibrate and awoke his senses like a trumpet call—and with strained, hot hands he grasped the chair. CHAPTER DL He turned her lightly to him and kissed her on the brow. If her flesh had been touched by marble lips, the caress could not have chilled or sickened her more. She could not cling to her father and sob out her pain. He had always quietly transferred his griefs to her. How could she expect him to help her now? "You have a very interesting letter there, Virginia. You haven't made a sound for half an hour." And at her father's voice, reduced now to a petulant piping that anger made shrill, she started guiltily and thrust it in her pocket. "No, I haven't finished. I want to remind you once more that you owe me money. More than that, I want it. I'm sick of your spiritless languor. I never knew a man let himself drop as you have done. Bccause you go at a rapid pace is no reason why you should die mentally. I haven't. But you can't drink at all without drinking too much and keeping it up too long. In fact, you are an extremist in everything. There's a genius in moderation." "Waitress, two or three more sausages."Day by day the breach widened between the life Tom had led and the one newly opening before him. The atelier had been transformed into an eastern asst. fragrant, harmonious. He had given Delatole the money that paid the bills, had also advanced half a year's rent for the suite and stood hopelessly committed to the agreement. These, too, vanished. The guest ordered some beer, having drunk which he tods his hat and stick and said to the children: "Now, you must be very good and quiet. I shall be back directly. I am only going to get some cigars." "All rigbtr I spoke to the landlady about it. "This egg." said I, turning away to avoid seeing its still features, "should not have been disinterred. Will you take it back to the cemetery again and see that the grave is resodded at my expense?" Five minutes passed, a quarter of an hour, half an hour. Then the landlord said to the children, "Your father is a longtime In coming." "He Is not our father! We were playing outside when the man came up to as and asked ns if we would like some sausages. We all shouted 'Yes,' and then Am a an brought us In herel"—Tit- Bits. An ache rose in his throat; the snow, in the light from the open chayel door, whirled mistily before him. Now that ha was actually going the thought that he was leaving her was exquisite pain. The familiar landmarks frowned an unbearable reproach. But when he was gone the loneliness became unbearable. His voice could at least keep the shadows from closing around her like a tomb. Her heavy glance took in each familiar thing. The girl with the mask laughed at her from the corner. The keys of the organ flashed back an eerie intelligence. He looked around the silent room and down at the bundle of half furled papers. Oh, that imagined life pictured there through laughter and sighing, like gems through dust and tears I It was more precious than a magician's wand. The hours spent in Chelsea square were like the rigor of an unsought penence, but the days drifted on while bis new home awaited him, end still he could not find the courage to cut the old ties. He was in continual antagonism to his better nature. His honest instincts —sertsd themselves only to be stifled, for his decision had been taken, his steps mt upon a toad that allowed no turning back. She thought I was sarcastic, a mistake," she said. "That is "Don't stop for breath. I am a-thirst for the rest. More—more," said Tom without moving an eyelash. Featherstone—Mr. Tutter asked me to step in and say he wouldn't be around tonight. I don't want to unnecessarily alarm you, Misa Pinkerly, but the fact is he has broken his arm. "Yes," I made reply; "it has that air about it." "You shall have it all. The time has come for plain talking," and there was a savage snarl in the words. "I want my money. It seemed there was some hope of getting it from this 14 idoine marriage, as I don't believe you'd writs another word." "No," she said; "I mean that the cook has made a mistake and sent you up a cooking egg." "Oh, you use these eggs for cooking, do you?" I asked, with well feigned astonishment "You use them to raise bread with and make angel food. Instead of using them in the interests of home rule you make puddings of them. Very well," I added in a broken voice, "if you have no other excuse to offer than that it is a cooking egg, I must say farewell." "If it were mine—if it were mine!" he said aloud, and a woman's laugh drifted up from the street, as if she had heard that cry and mocked him. "What a fool I ami" he thought and gave his shoulders an impatient shrug. "When I'm with Delatole, I see I've done right. When I'm here—pshaw I what's the use of these regrets? They lead nowhere. 1 can't turn back. I must go on. I'll never forget Virginia, we can be friends still, and some day, in a year maybe, when I'm sure of myself, if she but loves me, all will somehow come right." He went first toiria own room and sat "Never again," they seemed to say. 'Never again." Miss Pinkerly (anxiously)—Oh, how dreadful J Which arm is it?—Truth. A trembling seized her. She fell face downward on a couch and threw her arms out wide. How cruel it was, this sting of human love fiung back to feed in bitterness upon itself 1 Oh, was there nothing more in life than this? Wa9 this all? How had she failed? What had she forgotten or passed by that might have held him? Ho Confident**. He sprang up and turned tne Key in the door. Then he stood listening. The action was guilty, almost before the thought: An Instance Cited. "Youah teeth twabbling you again, Weggis, deah boy? Why don't you go to youah wegnlar dentist then?" "Because, deah chappie, I learned today that be doesn't even fill his own teeth, and a fellah who hasn't that much confidence in himself I'm afwaid to twust, don't you seef'—Beooyyu Bon fortnight dragged by, bringing Christmas snow and greens to the town. Chela— square was a patch of crystal brightness, the snow jindisturbed in the eerainiry grounds. The bells in the «hapst peeled gladly morning, noon and "Don't you?" Mrs. Staggers—You would be much happier if you would but learn to say "no." "No. It may be you've tried and can't—it may be you don't care. In either case I've been bitterly disappointed in you. You're the last embryo genius I'll put on a pedestal. Genius? By heaven! that's rich. Whv. Toti've fallen in- "No one will know if I make it mine." Mr. Staggers—I know I would have been much happier if you had said "no" on a certain occasion.—Detroit Free Press. "So you'll be a fool, will youT" It was foolish to tremble so. of course. The cold drops on his forehead were foolish, too, and hiB fast beating heart. "It's from Monklow. He's asked you to marry him. There, there, I know. «*-■' I had been there a week, mostly by-