Pittston Gazette

              1850. | VOL.. XJLVIll No. 1 T i" Oldest Newspaper in the Wyoming Valley. PITTSTON, LUZERNE COUNTY, PA., FRIDAY, DECEHBER 3, 1897. A Weekly Local and Family Journal. I »1.00 per Year I in AdvaiiG** as from recent team When she spolte, the Boft culture of her voice was a distinct surprine to her hearer. the writing desk before which she had been sitting all this time and came over to share the sofa seat with her overseer's daughter. bobtail mar's an tne drag an oie ix»i-beav is good to {at him over the road in style to Mis' Chambliss' place. Miss Amy done come home. J, iss Amy, she's ole Mis' (J ham bliss' onlies' gal, an she'll be rich as Shorthorn cream some uv these days. I reckon them bobtail mar's'll trample the weeds down right smart on the road 'twixt our place an hem. It won't be the fus' Strong ole Dolbear is gone co'tin with. Yher''— He was rather a favorite of yours at one time." if he had so willed Liza flashed a mocking smile at him. "And succeeded admirably. Pcur old oggv, didn't he, now?" the shortcomings ot those wno lovea ner so well. „ tf It was as quiet as Robinson Crusoe's "Drake tell* me you want to see me. "Yes. That is, Eben had bestowed my name on the chap and 1 desired him to do credit to it. I thought he was in a fair way to do so, too, from all 1 beard. But"— tlie governor's long blue veined hand went up to his velvet skullcap and set it slowly rotating—"I am glad you've brought his name up, Adrien. It convinces me that you have not avoided it purposely." "Purposely! Why should I?" They were smoking their morning I cigars on the side veranda where the Lamarque rose interposed sweet smelling clusters of blossom and leaf between them and the sun's direct rays. Adrien leaned slightly forward as he asked that question and flipped the ash from his ! cigar down upon the border of white violets that clothed the rose tree's 1 gnarled roots. Ilis mother was there, too, with her large key basket sitting on the floor by the side of her chair. She was putting a delicate patch in a damask tablecloth that was too precious an heirloom to be lightly flung away. She could only see Adrien's beautiful profile from where she sat, and the pink ; carnation he had pinned on the lapel of his drab velveteen shooting jackot wafted its odor toward her. It was the peacefulest, happiest hour of all the day to her. i island, not even a HKX&ing bird stir' rintf the branches of the dark leaved laurea nmndis. Adrien leaned his gun against the vineclad wall and himself up to a rather somber tinted reverie. Strong Martin intruded into it with exasperating persistency—and— He took a package of letters from his pocket, and passed the superscriptions slowly in review. There was one with unbroken seal. His mail had been handed him by his grandfather with a jocu| lar allusion to this rather strongly j scented envelope. "No use dodging it. It is a violation ' :Df the contract, however." He said this aloud, as he ran his forefinger impatiently under the lap. His face darkened as he read it, and he ! promptly tore it in half. Short as it was it completed his discomfiture for that day. He laughed unpleasantly and drew his ?un toward him. "Better make wadding of it." At sight of the drawn ramrod and j the white wad of paper disappearing down the black throat of the shotgun, Sarah Jane drew in her lolling red i tongue and sprang to her feet. Evidently she had mastered one opinion in her short life and made it securely her own. Guns and birds were the corollary of each other, and her hour for self assertion had arrived. With the zealous indiscretion of ami bitious ignorance she leaped in among I the trampled pea vines, and with her slender nose held close to the ground careered wildly over the field, setting at defiance Adrien's harsh demand for her return. If her disobedience had j borne no fruit, it might possibly have : gone unpunished, but when a promising "It does not matter. It must not matter. It shall not matter. They are my people. I am theirs. If they made a mistake in sending me away, it waa the blunder of loving, ignorant ambition, and it shall not be visited on them. But it galls, O my dear Lord, it galls! Give me strength to bear it and to hide it from every eye but thine!" : Mrs. Strong. Mamma thinks I should 1 have paid you my respects before, but I preferred waiting for a summons. Things have changed so, you know. " "Ciabriella's mother pities you, too, She was 011 her knees, with one hand aftly smoothing the hair over the welts lade by the ramrod on Sarah Jane's uivering flanks. "I imagine you have poiled your dog for a hunter," she aid more gravely. "She will never be nything but a miserable coward after his. See how she cringes when you aake one step toward her." Eliza." "You! You pity me? Oh, why did you urge my father and mother to send me away from them? I know it was meant in kindness, but what has it done but unlit me for—them—for mv life? :?B BEbbm s®5. Looking at her now for the first time at close range, listening to her, saying what she had to say with a quiet directness equally free from flippancy as from awkwardness, Mrs. Strong was conscions of a passionate longing and of a brief sensation of thankfulness. If her (iabriella could but have been spared to come back to ber radiant, self poised, sultured as this child of EbeL Martin's, a plebeian overseer, bad come back! It was well! She was glad that Adrien was from home at this juncture. Some disposition must be made of this child before his final home coming. "They do not know what all this means to me. With God's help they uever shall. But what am I to do with my spoiled self, my despoiled days, shorn of everything I have been educated to prize? Cb. what have you all, in your blundering kindness, done to with a spasm of conscientious energy— "you chuckle head calf, git to work on dem harness." This, her prayer, she had poured out afresh that morning, kneeling among the fallen leaves that carpeted the earth about Gabriella's tomb. "You loved me, sweet, when we were two ignorant little girls, knowing nothing of the social bars that herd all humanity into different pens for different service. If only you could have staid and I gone, Bella mine!" "I fancy Sandy has lied to me. The log is a miserable, cringing cur by nature. Blood will tell in man or beast.'' ■iWBWE KWKWfcSfifl- The fragrance of a good cigar, followed by a quick, firm footfall, perhaps had something to do with this newborn zeal. Adrien's slender lipure was framed in the doorway of the harness room the next second. COPYRIGHT". 1897 8Y THE AUTHOR "True. And as this is nothing but a niserable cringing cur by nature, fit fC;r he quarters only, suppose you give her o me." CHAPTER VI and Adrien's children worn(l Hit it tip. To the ex-governor, plantation affaire were secondary and incidental. State affairs were absorbing. By a fortuitous but somewhat unusual ehance the semiweekly mail had reached the ex-governor's hand before breakfast and he was devouring it with an avidity born of- insatiable greed and long fasting. me?" It was the irrepressible cry of a soul in protest against the eternal unfitness of its environment. "Why. Uncle Dol, yon are rubbing away as if you were just learning your trade and trying to earn your salt." She was standing up now and with•ut a tinge of cowardice was looking dm placidly in the face. His mistake vas irretrievable. He flushed and stamnered and made matters infinitely vorse. If she would only turn those nocking eyes away from his crimson iheeks for half a second! All the wrath hat had been accumulating through he sunlit hours of that serene October norning turned inward with fierce self lenunciation, forcing him to blurt out: "My daughter-in-law's steward" was the facotions way in which he referred to Eben Martin among the neighbors. Eben Martin and his wife and his sons were among the many things that were simply tributary to the fuller, freer life of the big house. Therefore it presented itself in the light of a duty that Mrs. Strong should see that the domestic machinery of her overseer's house was koji? in smooth working order. "No time fur foolin, Mars Adr'n. Some folks wuks they jaws, other folkses wuks they elbows. Dolbear ain't got no time to wuk his jaws, less'n 'bout grub Having thus quieted herself "like m weaned child," her sketching had proceeded very satisfactorily until the iliad of Sarah .lane's woes had pierced her ears and broken up her working mood, not to be recovered that day. She assumed her scepter with quiet Mrs. Strong put herself on the defensive with a dizzy sense of topsy turviaess. What! She, the mistress of Sans Souci, apologizing to Eben Martin's daughter! Two mails a week was rather slender provision at any time for a man who decision. "Sit down, child. Yes, I wanted to see you. I have some things to say to you that perhaps you will understand better, coming from me, than from your mother. I hope you will receive what I tune to say in the right spirit," had ouoe been the leading political mo- time." tor in his state. It was deplorably inadequate at a time when the country was gjnvulsed with aage iattts for whose solution finite vJtRoavC&tri^l~ti*fO!'.d "Call it a mistake, if you choose, child. It was certainly meant in all kindness. I must confess I did not anticipate—ail—all this." "1 thought I told you to get help about the stables." Seth would be coming for her presently, and together, perched high on the wagon, with its cargo of seed cotton rising in a dazzling pile behind their backs, they would ride home under the faraway blue of the October sky, crushing the plumes of the goldenrod that lined the narrow rutted road fr°iwmth the ruthless iron tires of their clumsy wagon wheels, and while the mellow song of the care free cotton picken floated to her ears, punctuated by the short stertorous breathing of the steam engine at the gin, Seth would entertain her with the "weights" picked by each hand, and tell her how the race between the champion pickers progressed. She must be very much interested in it. 8he owed it to Seth. "Dar he"—pointinofhe finjrer of scorn at Sandy—"dar my h. pel you is a mind to ( all him dat. Whar's your manners. its utmost powers. Union or secession? There was nothing in life much worth considering outside of that stujxndous question. The papers bristled with pro and con. The nation held its breath. Would sectional hatred or large idea statesmanship tip the beam? Who might say? With a feverish eagerness the old man, who had once held the helm him- Lifca walked over to a chair, neither hurriedly nor shyly. She was not oppressed by any disconcerting sense of space between her and this patrician lady, who had been born into possession of all the elegances surrounding her. "All what, Mrs. Strong?" "I am a cad. a brute, an imbecile, tot worthy to stand in the presence of iny good and gentle woman.'' As a conscientious sovereign she was minded to look into everything fearlessly. She was seriously disturbed about this vivid, esoteric girl, who was given to violent horseback exercise and bewitching red pompous. Under the given circumstances she considered her fatherin-law's selection of the word "meddle" as not only inappropriate but bordering an the offensive The lady moved uneasily under the quiet compulsion of the girl's splendid eyes. nigger?" Thus violently introduced to public notice, Sandy rose and made a shufliiug movement in Adriiu's direction. Liberally construed, he might have been said to have bowed. Liza regarded him in reflective silence, t was as if she were trying to get him n proper perspective. "Really, child, you understand the art of making things difficult. Of course you must know that you are uncommonly pretty." "To be sure, why should you' It is veiy commendable of you proser\ ing such reticence about a man who has once be*'ii ynur schoolmate, but I think I am entitled to know what you know. You need not hesitate. Redmond has put me in possession of the whoie story. I simply wiuited your view of the case. What was Strong's trouble at ShingleDon?"She regarded Mrs. Strong's high bred, refined beauty with the girlish enthusiasm she accorded everything that was best of its kind. If good breeding had "Not quite as bad as all that, I imag- There was an air of vague uncertainty about all of Bandy's performances, a certain shy tentativeness as if the willing spirit located somewhere within his uncared for little body was sadly conscious of the flesh's weakness. He was approaching manhood positive of but one thing—that it was impossible for him to escape condemnation from some one at every turn of his existence. Hence a certain unresentful acceptance of Dolbear's tart criticism. As he shuffled forward to where Adrien. resplendent in drab velveteen shooting clothes, stood regarding him with coolly investigative eyes, his own were lifted deprecatingly as he ventured a shy salutation.ne. You are simply the product of your mvironment. It was not that poor dog's ihortcomings you were punishing. She lappened to be the only safety valve at land. Her helplessness was your vindia t ion." There was more sadness than of girlish vanity in Liza's smile as she answered : |elf, with steady nerve uud true, followed the wild tossing and pitching of the ship of state. Union or accession? Would the good ship founder or would she ride the stormy billows in safety? Into this rapt frame of mind Mrs. Strong's soft, cultured voice penetrated Finding a discussion of the Martins and their domestic affairs inevitable, the governor resignedly laid his spectacles across the pile of unopened pai)ers and went into the subject with some acerbity "I don't want to make things morcdifficult than they are. That is the reason I have been tardy in paying my respects to you. I wanted to get myself well in hand before I came to see you. As for my looks, mother and the boys —blessings on their unconventional heads—are a trifle outspoken. I might be a doll for the frankness of their flattery. Better—far better if I were! Then there would be none of this hot, bitter, futile rebellion in my soul." Adrien gaped at her like a chidden iharity school culprit. She was altogether a new order of womankind. If Sben Martin's daughter had been 40 rears old and himself 10, the absurdity )f his present position would have been ess apparent. She had reduced him to % condition of absolute wordlessness, rtetreat was the only thing left to him. Even that was attended with disaster. "If Redmond has put you in possession of the whole stC-ry, you don't need to hear it afresh from me, grandpa. 1 think Strong made a fool of himself and iamaged his reputation irretrievably. No one regrets it more than I do." JmL' W7m&s' Msg & tl# f, -tDI| * # • I il jC4r^D' -v "41 j • H l J L ffsJv v* A -V;,-* Mte- *• From where she sat on the moldering brick steps she could see the willow fringed pond near by the ginhouae. They were ginning that day. Woolly white clouds of steam escaped in swift jerks from the short, black pipe that pierced the ginhouse roof and lost themselves in the upper bine. The whir oi the machinery, the whizzing of the great rubber bands, the tearing teeth ol the saws, were all mercifully deadened to her ears. She was glad they had put the family burying ground as remote m possible from all that rattle and clatter. It seemed an especial intrusion into the holy calm of that October day. confusingly. "Yes, 'meddle.' That was the word I used. I have come to look upon the whole Martin brood as an ungrateful and stiff nocked lot Really, I have, Adele, my dear." "I think I shall have to talk to Eliza Martin.'' . They, the people of the big house, were sitting at the breakfast table in a pleasant, loftily ceiled room, with a highly ornate fresco immediately overhead Long, large panod windows opened upon a low side gallery. Lamartjue roses, big, creamy, fragrant, rioted from the foot of its steps to the comb of its lanettui roof. Through the near rose festoons and the farther shining screen screen of the oeage oranges that fringed the premises a vivid flash of red bad caught Mrs. Strong's disapproving eye. as tbe darting of a swallow's wing in upper ether it had come and gone. "But what did he do?" "Invited suspicion. A lot of trumpery had disappeared from various rooms in the collt;ge, stolen by the servants, of course, but when it came to foO in cash and Professor Redmond's watch a stir was made and the faculty took it into their sapient heads that one af the boys was the culprit and must be made an example of. A devil of a muss liev kicked up too." "Why?" "Well, Eben stood out so stubbornly for a reduction in the price I had placed on Neck or Nothing. I never would have sold tbe land at all had not that bov Seth stubbornly refused to remain She flung her hands outward ,ind upward with a passionate sob. When she removed them, it was to find Mrs. Strong leaning back among the sofa cushions, white, agitated, convicted. She was aghast at the mischief she had unwittingly wrought. He had flung his coat aside in order to give his amis freer play with the rod Df discipline, and the contents of one Docket lay scattered among the bushes. Ho recovered the coat with a jerk, flung limself into it, and, seizing his gun, he loffed his cap surlily to Liza and turned ais face homeward. A bitter sense of iefeat was his only company. Sarah lane still crouched at the feet of her leliverer. "Howdy. Mars Adr'n? I is mouty glad to see you ug'in." allowed, she could have smiled as she recalled tbe unreasoning awe of Gabriella's mother that had filled her ignorant little soul in those bygone governess days in the morning room. "I wonder what he dtdf" Furtively he was rubbing his begrimed right hand along the leg of his ragged trouse rs. If Mr. Adrien should vouchsafe a handshake, he wanted to be found in complete readiness. on the place unless I would sell him land to start a small place for himself. As for the second son, my namesake, Strong, his attitude is nothing short of incomprehensible. He refused point blank to be Adrien's traveling companion. although the fellow is so quick and intelligent I would rather have paid his expenses twice over than to have sent Adrien off with that dullard, Spencer. " "I forgot you are not robust. You are not going to faint, Mrs. Strong? Shall I call Suzanne r" Another long, quiet hour passed. fcut Adrien 's ivory white hands, with their carefully pruned pink nails, were clasped about the stock and the muzzle »f the gun nt rest across his shoulders. He tlung a nod and a smile at the boy. The smile was bright and the nod friendly. Sandy, the uncritical starveling, appropriated them gratefully and grew bold. "Preposterous!" the governor ejaculated excitedly. The lace patterns of the elder bnshet were losing their nice exactness at outline and growing blurred. What a pile of cotton Seth must be weighing! She settled her turban more securely on hex head and retraced her steps to where she had left her drawing materials all scattered about on the low flat stem that covered the remains of some long forgotten Strong. She gathered het crayons and sketchbook into her satchel with reluctant fingers. "I was educated into it," she said, in silent self excusing, "just as I have since been educated out of it" Aloud and with unruffled dignity, "If we aregoing to talk of my affairs, Mrs. Strong, as I suppose we are, I should prefer being alono with yon." The lady opened her eyes languidly. "Absurd 1" Mrs. Strong murmured jreathlessly. "I am not going to faint, and I do not want Suzanne. I was trying to think of something to say to you, something comforting, Eliza. But I am so agitated." Liza sat down on the brick steps to iwait Seth's coming. Her sketching mood was broken up, the serenity of tier day shattered. Signs of the recent conflict lay about her in the downtrodien grass and the broken ramrod. There, too, were bits of paper that perhaps she a ad herself carelessly dropped fiom her The lady frowned severely. Six weeks now since Seth and Strong had brought the girl home through tbe starless small hours and only by the flashing of that red wing, the central ornament of an immensely chic riding turban, had her presence been made known to the mistress of the big house. "Of course, but, preposterous and absurd as it may appear, they had Lawyer Seephar out to harangue the fellows and lis eloquence acted upon poor old Strong like a revival sermon. It stirred lim almost to the pitch of turning taleaearer—that is, if he really knew any:liing. He held his tongue, however, raceeeding only in convincing everyaody tliat if there was a criminal there in whipped of justice it must be Strong Martin himself. I talked to him. but I ■ould make no headway against old Seephar's forensic eloquence. That is all there is to the business. I had rather aot have spoken of this, grandpa, for suspicions once voiced rapidly crystallize into convictions, and a strong case igainst a man can sometimes be worked up from the most impalpable nothings.'' "Mr. Spencer belongs to a very good family, father, and he is not likely to embarrass my son by any social blunders. Perhaps young Martin thinks he has accepted enough at your hands. Moreover, it is quite time he was getting to work. I believe the plan is for him to study under Dr. Wbitcomb?" She glanced toward the window, where black Suzanne had located her hassock to get the best light on the skirt she was hemming. At the sound of that impelling young voice she rose, swept Liza's bright face with a look of eager curiosity and awaited further orders. "I am sorry to have agitated you. That is why I did not care to come. I knew I must say all this to you one time or another. As for your trying to think of 'something to comfort' me"— her sweet, clear voice was full of infinite Badness—' 'yon are as powerless as I was when I waa sent away to be educated. Such as my life is to be must be the work of my own hands hereafter. 1 wish I could have said what I had to say more amiably, but when the soul is full of bitter revolt the lips are not apt to drop honey." "I is got a pup for you. Mars Adr'n— a rale setter pup. She ready fur to be trained right now. I ben savin her fur you. A setter pup, he is." H • U ' C She reached over to possess herself of the papery litter, asking herself when she had destroyed a letter and cast its fragments to the winds. To assist her memory she smoothed the crumpled fragment across her knee. Two unbroken lines revealed themselves startlingly at a glance: portfolio. The governor glanced over the edge of his paper impatiently. His daughterin-law's voice was an arresting sound always. Being a woman, she was entitled to consideration. But the interruption was especially untimely just then. "Here, and here only, the peace thai passeth all understanding abides with me." "A setter? The very thing! I am going to look for some birds this morning, fcaudy, and there isn't a dog but Marlui's old collie up at the liouse. I can give her her first lesson this morning. " "Was, but, hang it all, he positively refuses to go into Whitcomb's office." It was hard to believe that this young lady with her gloved hands and imperious ways was little Liza Martin, who had been born down in the quarter lot She clasped her small hands and stood locking out over the gentle landscape with yearning eyes. "Graveyard point," as the promontory she was standing on was called, lifted its green head full 200 feet above the water level. Across the many tinted vines thai wrapped the tall forest trees in royal mantles of scarlet and gold she looked down upon the flat bottom lands that lay green and moist at the foot of tha cliffs. It was down there that Strong was making a hermit of himself. Why, no one knew. '' Refuses? Refuses to study medicine under one of the best practitioners in the south?" She had disposed of her share of the mail promptly. It was a mere scrap of a letter from Adrien, who had only remained in the rose scented ribbon festooned chamber long enough to secure a suitable traveling companion before leaving home again on a supplemental tour of all that was best worth seeing in his own country. When the governor leoked over the edge of his newspaper, Adrien's mother was twisting his letter Into a smooth white cylinder. "You can go, Suzanne. You can keep busy too. Weigh those crab apples for the jelly. I will measure the sugar when I come out." Sandy wa»d descriptive under this genial warmth of appreciation. He Hftcd the rod for a SMjyemc effort, covey of birds wheeled, startled ana terrified, close to Adrien's head and scudded off to take shelter in the more ilistant cornfield, the measure of his wrath was complete. "So Eben told me yesterday." "What does he propose to do, pray?" "He is going to move on to the peninsula. " "Adrien, yon would not be ashamed of your wife if you could see her with''— "Herisole Dido's pup an Hero is her's daddy. Wen you went away to school, ole mars sent ole Dido down to mammy's Tionse an tole me to tek kecr er her, an us did. but her die all the same. Her die six months ago. Her was wore out, mammy say, but her lef a jiassel er pups, an mammy she drown 'em all but fine, an she say I mus' raise hit fur you. Us name her Sa'y Jane, in her is got three w'ite foots, jis" lak Die Hero. Her is mighty smart. Mars Adr'n, but her don't know nothin— lothiu 'fall." w eii, nien, it is time x was reacning her something. Go fetch her, Sandy. I've lDeeu wond'ring all morning whan [ could find a biid drg." She drew her breath in quickly, bent forward and laid her bunch of periwinkles on the lady's lap. That was all. Liza crumpled the paper up once more and flung it from her as if it had been some loathsome reptile.A wasted, mpinent was the worst of crimes in Mrs. Strong's kingdom. Suzanne went out, closing the door noiselessly behind her. Evidently Sarah Jane and he took differing views of the situation. With the triumphant mien of a conqueror who had routed the enemy she came leaping back to his side. Instead of laurels a rod awaited her. Crestfallen, with soft deprecating eyes lifted to the stormy face above her, the setter crouched to receive her first lesson. "Neck or Nothing? Impossible! What would he do there?*' "Gabriella says let there be peace between ns." A moment of admiring silence followed this expression of fine feeling. The governor removed his spectacles and rubbed them absently. Mrs. Strong [Das«ed her gold thimble caressingly over the daintiest of patches in her fine damask. Adrien was a great comfort to them both. "OpCni it for Seth, is the plan. At any rate, he is going there to live or work or rust"—the governor gave an impatient outward sweep of his delicate hands—'' or rot there. Confound the fellow, I never was more disappointed in any one in all my life." With scorn bright eyes she looked aoioss the broad flat fields to where Adrien, his gun resting across his shoulder blades, was just disappearing behind a knot of pecan trees. A wondering smile broke over Liza's face. In another moment a dash of scarlet against the green of the orange hedge, repeated once, twice, three times, showed where Liza was speeding homeward."And so that is black Suzanne! How tall and stately she is. She looks like an Indian princess. Gabriella and I used to call her Pocahontas and teach herom lessons at second hand. She looks mnch more like an Indian than a negro. 1 suppose she is invaluable after all these years of training. Mother tells me she is quite an accomplished maid—sews, does your hair, preserves and does a little of everything." "I beg your pardon, my dear?" Mm Strong repeated her remark with un conscious arrogance. "So that is the sort of coward he is!" "A most tin usual girl! A remarkable creature!" Mrs. Strong said, getting ap to pat tbo periwinkles in water. "Very true and very creditable to you. boy," said the governor, having fully digested Adrien's remarks, "but, given your impalpable nothings, individual bias must have something to do with building up your case, and the bias was with Martin, if I understand matters." The glittering clasp of a Russian leather wallet caught her eye. It was lying on the ground beside the brick steps. She stooped to pick it up. Its contents were scattered loosely about, flung out by the violence with which he had jerked his shooting jacket from the tree. These Liza gathered up promiscuously and shoved into the wallet. "But there is no house on the Neck It is a brambly wilderness, a dreary, fenceless, out of the way hole." Quick and fast fell the blows from the ramrod held in Adrien's firm fingers. He had been defied—the Decalogue held no darker crime. Sarah Jane was to receive the overflow of the discontent that had been accumulating all that morning. With one hand he held the silken brown head in a merciless grasp. His handsome face was empurpled with the violence of his rage and the exercise. Sarah Jane's yelps of agony were mingled with his short panting breathings. His strength was almost spent. High in air he lifted the rod for a supreme effort. "I said I think I shall have to talk to Eliza Martin. She is assuming rather an unbecoming attitude." "Little Eliza?" "It is all that or a little less. Zeke's old cabin is still standing on it. Rather a dilapidated mansion to be chosen by a college valedictorian, with all the world before him." Life at Sans Souci moved to a livelier measure when Adrien came home, exchanging the stately andante of its everyday routine for a brisk allegro movement, expressive of the holiday spirit of gladness that seized upon everybody on and about the premises. CHAPTER VH. The governor's right hand went up to his black velvet skullcap and set it in rotary motion—a sure sign of perturbation with him. He glanced restlessly around the room and wistfully at the pile of yet unopened papers beside his plate. What was Eliza Martin or any other girl in the universe by comparison with the matter discussed in those coiled sheets? Mrs. Strong answered the question of bis eyes. Dolbear's jealous disapproval found vent in a snort of contempt as Sandy leaped nimbly past him and disappeared it a full run in the direction of the jua iters. "Suzanne is very well in her way," Mrs. Strong said curtly. She was fumbling among the papers on her desk for her eyeglasses. They were rarely ever just where she could lay her hand on them. "Yes—but''— Unce only did she pause in her task. It was when her fingers came in contact with the stiff leather case of a small ambrotype. "Upon my word and honor!" Mrs. Strong's amazement was boundless. '' He must be lacking in ordinary perception of his duty as a man of education and ability. Totally without ambition, I suppose. His class generally is." "He was not a gentleman. That explains it all. The plebeian strain permitted him to feel uneasiness for fear that suspicion might rest upon him." Old Dolbear struck the keynote to the situation tersely, standing over Sandy, his helper at the stables. (Adrien's home coming meant a good deal in the direction of extra work.) "Son, don't yon be tnrnin that fool boy's head. He's mouty easy set up, in don't you be raisiu no great spectashuns on that pup. Sandy is some on the brag, I tell you." This explanation of Strong's attitude was delivered by Mrs. Strong in her mellow soprano. She could accredit any amount of gaucherie and moral obliquity to a plebeian strain in man or woman. It was impossible not to look. Impossible not to wonder. "And mother tells mo old uncle Dolbear is still driving you." A small, plain face, with sad. large eyes and a sensitive mouth. That was all. The governor caressed his chin reflectively."One more, d—n you, and then perhaps you will know who is master." "Oh, she is not here in the flesh. I shall have to send a special messenger for her, I presume. She has just dashed by on that little mare Seth has had in training for her. She spends half her time on its back " "No, his entire college record is against that theory. I am afraid he has left Shingltton under something of a cloud. I saw Redmond in town yesterday and was talking with him about Strong. He would not speak out plainly, but hinted darkly that Strong, in the last months of his stay at Shingleton, had tarnished a brilliant record and Liza was purposely multiplying words. Mrs. Strong had found her glasses and poised them accurately upon the bridge of her delicate nose. She was scrutinizing Eben Martin's daughter with that cool deliberation that finds its only justification in acknowledged social superiority. She was a devoted adherent of the hereditary theory. There was a delicacy and a refinement in this girl's personality that offered an intensely interesting physiological study. Liza afterward informed Strong that she was prepared to give an accurate description of a fly's sensation under the microscope. "You see, boy, it is lak lettin down the checkreins for all cousamed. Miss Adele, she darsn't be so rigydified 'bout givin out pervisions, w'en, jus' as lak as not, w'en the dinner is ready to be dish up, Mr. Adr'n yher he come 'lopin wid three er fo' young gent'mens uv quality, all es hungry es wolfzis. An cook Nancy, she sorter slack up some, bekase she know Mr. Adr'n don't favor 6 o'clock brcakfusses, an she kin lay all her own laziness at his door. An black Suzanne, she take her own time cle;giin up uv mawnin's, for there's sucn a sight uv pickin up arter that boy that hurryin is out uv de question. But uobody ain't a keerin. Lud, no, sir. Who's a keerin? Not ef he mek work enough for fo'ty extra hands. An old mars gov'nor, he step roun lively as yon please, lak he want that boy distinc'ly onderstan he ain't out uv de ring bissel yit, nur ready to be lay on de shefT. Nuther is I." Adrien laughed absently and walking to the end of the harness room looked through its one broad, unglazed window into the paddock beyond. But the rod did not descend. It was caught from his grasp by an invisible hand behind him and a girl's clear voice in denunciation was added to the discord.After that Adrien had flung his cigar gway and, taking his cap and gun, had gone d,in to the stables to countermand his orders for the drag. He had lost all desire to renew his acquaintance with Amy Chambliss immediately. He had struck a discordant note in the harmony of the day and was out of tune with the mild refulgence of the October skies, the searching fragrance of the Mespilus plums, the vivid beauty of the goldenrod, the nutty pungence of the pecan grove, one ami all of which challenged his languid notice in that short walk from the big house to the harness room. "Scarcely the sort of face to make a man forget to be a gentleman," said Liza, clasping the wallet over the pic tared face and consigning it to her own deep dress pock"* cne was thinking of him. Sorrowfully, pitirully, tenderly. Perhaps no one could come as near comprehending his dark mood as she could. He had found it impossible to take up the old life just where ho had dropped it before going to Shingleton. But why should he have tried to do it? He was a mm The world was all before him. He oould have gone out to grapple with it. She was a woman. That meant so much in the way of restriction and limitation. She could only stand and wait. •• «»vt« C\tCrfYna th inkina off11 "I have changed my mind about riding over to the (Jhamblisses this morning, Uncle Dol. I think I will take a long tramp instead. I, hadn't thought much about the partridges until Sandy mentioned Sarah Jane. Where will I be most likely to find Bob White?" "You are a cruel wretch, Adrien Strong, and it would only be serving you right if you could be paid back in your own coin. There, and there, and there!" The governor had been swallowftig his coffee in cold installments; he now gulped it by way of economizing time. CHAPTEH VJLLL Presently there was no one left in sight and the battlefield was all her own. "She is a pretty little thing," he took time to say. stripped himself of well won laurels." "The pony or the girl?" "I wonder what he did? Strange that Adrien should have given you no hint. Not strange, either. My son could never be ungenerous to a comrade." No one ever questioned Adrien's moods. Dolbear laid the drag harness down regretfully. But "white folks" most generally were "notionate," according to his observation. A crackling of broken wood, and the fragments of his ramrod flew piecemeal from the iron crosspiece of the fence against which it had been struck with furious force. It was high noon, as she knew by the northward slanting shadows of the elder bushes that were tracing a delicate pattern of laoe against the crumbling brick wall liehind her. i n the knoll that had just swallowed up Adrien's fast moving figure the torch of a crimsoning sweet gum flared brightly among the rusty green of the pecans and the vivid verdure of the ma jnolias; a soft rustling in the oak trees which disputed territory with the pines and the laurea niundis in the graveyard was all the sound she heard. In the cool sustaining currents of the upper air some pigeons were circling ambitiously. The sumach was kindling its autumn fires in the fence corners. A blue jay dressed his elegant plumage with dandified fastidiousness as he swayed easily among the russet tassels of the dead corn. A serene still world above, below, all around about her! Alter a little Sarah .Tano lifted her brown head and pointed alert ears, while a look of animated interest came into her soft eyes. The musical note of a hound in pursuit broke in upon nature'8 noteless madrigal, floated nearer and died away, quenched in the Boundless distance. "The girL Dear me, of course the girl. Quite a style, niv dear. I saw her standing at the dish slSlf on the gallery at Eben's. Trimming lampfi, I believe. Unfortunately pretty, I should say." "Decidedly very unfortunate. I really call it a pity." "I did not inquire further. If it had been Adrien, I should have compelled Professor Redmond to be more explicit. But, to come back to this little girl of Eben's, I really do not see that she comcs within your province, my dear. " "Dolbear is still active and hale." "You oughter tin partridges mos' anywhar jus' now, but they principally feeds up 'bout the buryin ground. The peufields lays all 'bout the burvin ground, an the birds ain't ben postered much uv late. Ole mars giv' orders nobody was to shoot the partridges. He's ben savin 'em fur you. Den you don't want the mar's put in the drag?" Adrien faced about hurriedly. He knew of no one who would thus dare to interfere with his discipline, surely not his mother, scarcely his grandfather. Neck or Nothing looked desolate enough from where she gazed down upon it. Faithless worm fences crawled in decrepit crookedness about its few acres of cleared land. A solitary forlorn cabin, shutterless and un pain ted, was his home. A starveling pair of mules, browsing on the stiff crab grass within the inclosure; a shadeless, hard beaten dooryard, with half a dozen chickens in full possession; a ragged patch of ootton crowding close up about the crooked fence; one noble sycamore spreading wide, sheltering arms over all this dreariness. She took in the details one by one. It came to Mrs. Strong slowly that a remark had been made and perhaps politeness demanded a reply, but this young person's self possession was, under the circumstances, a trifle disturbing. She had completed her physiological survey, so she took off her gold rimmed glasses. He had been reared in tho school of polite observances, however, so ho had turned at the foot of the steps and, holding his cap in his hand, notified his mother of his change of programme. "I shan't go over to the Chamblisses this morning, dearest." Mrs. Strong was emphatic. She was thinking of Adrien. She was rather glad he was away just now. Eliza would have lost some of the freshness of a novelty by the time he returned. Standing on the moss grown brick wall behind him was a vision altogether out of keeping with its surroundings. It was Liza Martin, silhouetted in gray serge garb and red fringed turban against the dark greenery of tbo graveyard. Her eyes and cheeks were aflame with indignation as she flung the last splinter of his broken ramrod at his feet and brushed her reddened palms against each other to free them from dust and splinters. "Then I must bring her within it," she said haughtily, and turned toward her waiter. "Drake, you will watch for Miss Martin as she rides home. Stop her, and tell her that I want to see her very particularly this morning. She will find me in the morning room. You can char off the table." "I am afraid she is sulking. I am told she goes off on that pony and is gone for hours at a time.'' "It is of yourself and your own affairs I desire to talk, Eliza You have been exceedingly ceremonious with me since your return." "I am sorry. I think they arc rather expecting you. You will find Amy very much improved. She is one of the nicest girls we have." His mother's voice was gently rep-oachful. With quick transition from colloquial leniency to judicial severity, Dolbear laid violent hands on the piece of harness Sandy was rubbing. "Not until I give further orders. I wonder if one of the Martin boys would not like to tramp with me?" "I imagine she does not go off the plantation. I suppose she is renewing acquaintance with the old place. No harm in that, my dear! No impropriety that I can perceive." Dolbear waved a 6uperb negation with hand and head. The governor accepted these orders to Drake as his own much wished for dismissal and rose with alacrity. Piling his arms full of newspapers he went off briskly in direction of bis study. Once inside of its heavy, carved door no sound, no intrusion of petty local affairs, would disturb him. Liza met the issue with a pretty gesture of despair. Why should she submit to the probe held in that delicate, aristocratic hand. "Does you call that clean? Eekase I begs leave to diffah wid you." "Let the Martin boys 'lonC. son; they is got work to do. Let 'em 'loiie. It all done ve'y well w'en you was a passol uv little boys together, runuiu ba'rfi*Dt an climbin pussimmon trees an not knowin b from bull'sfoot, but you ain't a little b'arfoot boy now; you is got the fam'ly name to take keer of. The Martin boys is got to work out they own salvation. Let 'em 'lone, son. Birds uv a feather is 'blecged to flock tegeddcr. The Martin boys ain't no born gentlemeus.''"I remember her as a gray faced little thing with big owlish eyes, a large head full of brains and a maximum of freckles. Is my memorv correct?" His bushy, gray brows contracted ominously as closer scrutiny revealed greater obliquity on Sandy's part. The stormclouds on Adrien's face gradually passed away. It was such an exceedingly comical turn he was ready to laugh. Such transitions came easily to him. But the girl's face was too stern yet awhile for him to venture upon premature mirth. Of course this must be Eben Martin's daughter. He regarded himself as a good judge of female beauty, and this girl, who stood there calmly adjusting her displaced cuffs, filled his most rigid requirements. "What was Strong thinking of?" "No, no harm." "I have no affairs worth discussing, Mrs. Strong. My mother has urged my coming up to the house, but I asked her why and she could not say. No one hero needs me now. Mile. Moncrief was never tired of telling me that I was brought up from the quarters to study with Crabriella because she needed the stimulus of competition. The taunt made very little impression on me in those days. Either I must have been a dreadfully spiritless little animal or else love carried us triumphantly over every social barrier. We knew nothing about class distinctions then, my darling and L She loved me and I loved her." Into this dissatisfied reverie came a heavy, crashing footfall, and Seth stood before her, staggering under the weight of two rough hewn willow posts. He flung them down with a laugh and dried his streaming forehead on his shirt sleeves. "Nor danger." "Sandy, you is a low life, triflin, good fur nothin, quarter nigger. You ain't wuth shucks. No, sah. You ain't wuth the powder it 'ud take t' blow your saphaid off'n with. An you 'spires to wait on Mr. Adr'n!" "Don't leavo out the large heart full of constancy, son." "Neither harm nor danger, father, in the act iteelf, but it indicates restlessness and dissatisfaction with her lot generally. That is what I want to judge of for myself." "And she's not one of your modern In answer to Drake's somewhat flippantly delivered message from "the madam," Liza sprang from the saddle as she was riding homeward an hour later, flung the bridle to the boy, and, gathering her long skirt over her arm, walked sedately into "the madam's" presence. girls, self reliant and courageous. A grasshopper among her petticoats will make her scream; feminine to the core, sir. Your true woman is always a bit of a coward, bless her heart. I love her for it too." This from the governor. "But what have you to do with it, Adele? Have we not already meddled with Eben Martin's family affairs sufficiently?"Sandy did not look at all aspiring at that moment. He seemed to be taking himself rather seriously, as Dollar's denunciation grew in the direction of infinite contempt and forcible invective."Liza put out a hand and laid it caressingly on the silken head at her feet. "What now, Seth?" Liza asked, walking aronnd the long posts inquisitively. "Why, what a Hercnles you are!" "I imagine men always love the women best who oftenest give them an opportunity to show their own superiority, don't they, grandjia?" "Poor beastie! It has been a day of scourging to ns both—stripes for thee, a haircloth shirt for me.'' "Meddled?" In less questionable English, but with similar impressiveuess, Adrien had already received this advice twice over. "Who are you?" he asked, quite un uecessarily. "I been thinkin 'bont you, sissy, ever sence we parted this morn in, and it come to me, if yon was bent on doin all your piotnre makin in this pertickler spot, I'd better be providin ag'inst accidents. The rainy season is comin cm, and w'en it rains here it don't make no bones about it. Sometimes we has regular chuuk floaters. I'm go in to put you ap a storm shed. Them's the posts for ■t." Mrs. Strong repeated the word in soft voiced wonder. How was it possible for her to meddle? Could a sovereign meddle with the affairs of his own subjects? Sans Sonci plantation was her kingdom. Within its boundary fenr*m sbe was ab Bolute sovereign. Its menservants  its maidservants, its oxen, its sheep, its asses and all that therein was, wert her subjects. She had done autocratically just as she pleased, with nuui and beast, on Sans Souci, ever since the hour that Adrien's father had installed her as mistress, or, rather, crowned her its sovereign with a very pretty sp^-ch. She knew quite well where to find the object of her search. Before she had i been sent off to that Baltimore school she and Gabriella had studied together in the morning room. It looked out over "I p'intedly tole you to bresh up the drag harness, now, didn' I, boy? An yher you is ben waseu a solid horn- on the buggy crupper. You is got a sight to learn yit, Sandy—a Bight, I tell you. You pum'kin liaid r.iskil you! With gentle vagueness, as one who would temper justice with mercy, his mother had said: "I am Eliza Martin, Governor Strong's overseer's daughter. I have been prowling about h;re. The views are pretty from this point. My brother Beth left mo here when he went by with the wagon to haul cotton to the gin. I am waiting for him to pick me up on his return. I come here to sketch very often. You have spoiled it for me. I am telling you this so that you need not think I went out of my way to interfere. I was in there with Gabriella when I heard your murderous blows. At school I was vice president of a society for the prevention of cruelty to animals. We don't have such societies here at home, but I know of no place where one is more needed than in this plantation. Poor, poor doggy!" Things had been especially exasperating that morning. The flies had been more than ever populous about the open mouth of the molasses jug whwh formed the central ornament of the ml table cover three times a day. Charlie had appeared at the breakfast table with an unkempt look, laughing nervously over the admission that he "couldn't And his comb and brush r owheres.'' He reckoned '' Duke'd done made way with 'em.'' Her father, fresh from the humane but unpleasant task of drenching a sick mule, had composedly taken position behind the dish of fried chicken without any intermediate ablutions. Her mother had "clean disrenuinhered" that "sissy didn't like lie* to come to the table without somethin white about her throat." "Off with you, sir. You art* an impudent rogue. If I was 20 years younger, I would court Amy myself and outwalk you for a shot at the partridges too." the heliotrope and violet beds that were "My daughter was very fond of you, overshadowed by the crimson pome- child. It was by her request that all granate bushes and the flame of the her things were sent to you," said the flowering quinces. The scent of helio- mistress of Sans Souci in the softest, trope always brought back those days i saddest of voices. "The Martin boys are worthy, excellent people in their places, my son, and when you were all children together, subject to my the intimacy was not objectionable, but of course everything is different now." And now the distant pea. field lay trampled and despoiled before hini, its gray, green and russet repose all in a mellow tangl*. Dolbear lind told him to uenetrate the bramblv footpath as far *s the family graveyard if he would Btart the birds in numlDor. He had followed the old man's directions, stopping at the foot of the crumbling brick steps tliat led up to the elevated inclosure, by which time his enthusiasm was entirely spent and desire fled. It was always bo with Adrien; fruition and indifference' went hand in hand. "W'en the Strongs goes a-co'tin. they does it in style. Yon needn't tronlil' yorseff 10 biich up ary contraption for my w'ito folks. They iblue blood quality, that is what tin Strong fam'ly is, root an branch, lDoy. I driv' Mr. CabrVl, Mr. Adr'n's iDappy, 'bout w'en he was vaitin on the ladies an v.e went in style. I tell you, bey. Mars (iiibr'el's gone now, an Mart Adr'u's haviu his day, .1; .t ole Dolbeaain't furgot yit v. hat's i.'ftiu in a coiud pusson which 'spir s to\ ait en a gent' men uv eibility. You ain 't much to look to her—brought back the pinched, intel- Liza's eyes were luminous with an lectual face of the little governess, who ®hed tears. Continued on page Three. Liza especially, she might have add ed, but she did not. far OUCI ■STT* natiS^5TO| ■flr of tNs Globe (or I rheumatism! ■R NEURALGIA and aimflar Complain ta, I and prepared under the atriagent Bk GERMAN MEDICAL LAWS,^| prescribed by eminent phyaicians^^^B M) dr. richter's (Km mr " ANCHOR " fPAIN EXPELLERT I World renowned! Remarkably soccesiifnl! ■ ■ Only genuine withTrade Mark" Anchor,"! ■ K. id. Bichter ' Co., 215 PcarlSL, New Tort. ■ 3f HIGHEST AWARDS. ■ 13 Branoh H(rases. Own OlaMwarka. fl ***; Endorsed & wouimended bDJM r arrer & P«ok, 30 Luzerne Avenue, «. C. Glick, 50 North Main St. H H»ui'k. 4 North Main St Pitttston. Pa. RICH XK'« " I "ANCHOR" STOMACHAL, beat fori \ etc | had discriminated with cruel candor be- ' "I know, I know. I miss her so. I go tween Gabriella, refined, delicate, sen- ; to see her every day." His grandfather took the unequivocal stand of the plutocratic old aristocrat he avowedly was. Adrien's father, the ex-governor's son, .had passed away in the prime of a self indulgent life. His widow had held the helm in cart ful hands so undisturbedly since that the comings and the goings of the old politician caused but ■light deviations from the regular order of things. sitive, and the pretty hoiden from the There was something weird in this quarters, who was admitted on suffer- soul communing. The narrow literalance and had her opportunities thrown ness of Mrs. Strong's comprehension reat her as bones are thrown to a stray | (wiled from it. "We must draw the line somewhere, Adrien. Ebon Martin is as good and useful man in bis sphere as can be found. So is that boy Seth. Invaluable on the place, both of them. Charlie is nothing but a crude youngster yet. And as for the women, Martin's wife is just what an overseer's wife ought to be, healthy, vigorous; ignorant, gCxDd natural. The girl, I am afraid, has been spoiled between them all. Your mother there did her share. She is an uppish little minx, as full of independence and pride as an egg is of meat. Educated out of all conception of her true sphere in life, 1 fear. Your mother there says the girl is absolutely strong minded; talks of going north to study medicine. Revolting." dog. She had hated the governess in those unequal days, had always hated "You go to see whom, Eliza? I don't grasp your meaning." He flung himself down on the lowest step to the graveyard inclosure. Pale mosses and dark grasses were forcing their way through the crevices of the bricks. Some time or other he would go inside and see what order the graver were in, but not just then. From whC re he sat he could see how the laurea uiuniis had grown and spread, making n ihadowv arbor over and al out the clus- her, in fact, but Gabriella, never. Her ! "Gabriella, my dearest—out there she had loved always. Her sho had under the pine trees in the lonely old mourned bitterly, if briefly, when the burying ground on the point. She is news came of her taking off in earliest : more real to me than you fire, with your woinaiihood. Gabriella had been her whitening hairs and your blue veined senior by six years, but they had stood temples; more real to me than my and studied heart to heart. J mother, who has accumulated flesh and Crowding memories jKissed in with years. Lookl" With a hand that tremher through the opening door of the : bled perceptibly she touched a bunch of morning room, outwardly trying her ' blue periwinkles pinned at her waist, composure sorely. She bore herself with | "I gathered them at the foot of her the complaisance of a captive princess, grave. They remind me of her eyes. I She advanced well into the room before go out there and tell my darling everyspeaking, and stood there pressing her thing. I should stifle to death, else. She tiny, gauntleted hands tightly upon the knows. She understands. She pities.'' handle of her riding whip. Her large The pathos in her clear, young voice eyes were fixed calmly mi Mrs. Strong's was potent to move Mrs. Strong to an hurh bred face: They vera red rimmed act of unusual condescension. She left All this time Adrien was thinking much more about the girl herself than about what she was saying. Only Seth had vigorously adhered to the new order of things and taken his place at table, red in the face from recent conflict with the coarse roller towel, his waveless, sandy hair irroproaenaoiy smoom ana his srany&n arms painfully compressed into tho coat which, before Liza's advent, had been conscientiously reserved for state occa- at, Sandy." Sandy, nowise discniH-crttd by this slighting personal mention, surveyed himself gravely, hitch'd his solitary suspender feither up on the patched shoulder of his rugged cotton slim and answered with cheer.ul optimism: Ebeu Martin was simply her steward. A necessary and sati.sfai tC rv im chum between her and the multitude of living things, biped and quadruped, which existed principally to minister to the comfort of the Strongs. The serene dignity of her social status was not the result of any vulgar commercial success. She had been born into it. Her social importance was prenatal. It would exist after she was dead Sho had not come dowerless Into the Strong family. She had added to the magnitude and importance of their estate by joining her own to it. When she laid down her scepter, Adrien Yes, she was pretty, the prettiest girl by long odds he had seen since leaving college. Rather self possessed—that was the strong mindedness, he supposed, that his grandfather complained of. Her voice was marvelonsly sweet, however, and clear. He should like to hear it again. Even when denouncing his bru- "But, I kin fix up some. I ain't got no Sunday shoes nur no h;.twuth talkin 'bout, but mammy wash my yother shirt yistiday, an I got a better pa'r breeches than these yher, them as I keeps for burvins an baptizin's. " tering marble stones beneath. Gabrl?lla's was the newest one there. A :rumbling brick wall surmounted by a rusty iron railing circled the sacred spot. Creepers of every description twined clinging fingers in the iron tracery. A spray of gaudy nasturtium flowers fell near enoutrh for him to have irrasped it sions. As for Strong, he was only an occasional visitor now, who came more and more rarely to the overseer's house. He had "cut loose.'' Charlie called it. ility it had never once risen to shrilless.DollDear waved his hand majestically "I think you need not change your ketch ing ground. Miss Martin. I am at .ome very little and hunt still loss. I ras trying to waiK on a nt oi in vempei bis moruinsr." "I is glad to hear it, Sandy, I is glad to hear it, but you needn' 'sturb youseff. Mr. Adr'n is already signify that the "The world moves, grandpa." Adrien laughed at the antiquated horror in the srovernor's eves. "How Strong? Liza's fastidious taste was sorely outrnrwl at-hCMrDe-acores of times each dav. Self rebuke always followed closely on the heels of her silent condemnation of