Pittston Gazette

              m * ■a abUshtd 18SO, I fOU I. So. 8« f Oldest Newspaper in the Wvom: ev PITTSTON, LUZERNE COUNTY, PA., FRIDAY, DECEMBER 22, 1899. A Weekly Local and Family Journal. j 91.00 a Year 1 In AdTtm. I w *55 a : | is: Cj( 1; j ] I f FIRM |i *#■ A TALE OF LIFE IN THE 11 ■|jj: ★ BOER REPUBLIC. | "It may be of some help to you," he •aid carelessly. "It was a gospel to me when I first fell on It You must not expect too much, but It may give you a center round which to hang your ideas instead of letting them lie about in confusion that makes the head ache. We of this generation are not destined to eat and be satisfied as our fathers were. We must be content to go hungry." rtgnt Gown to Ml snomoera. n masn one nek to look at him. He's only ■ servant of th« Boer woman's and a low, vulgar, uneducated thing that's never been to boarding school in his life. He had been to the next farm seeking sheep. When he came in, she said: "Good evening, Waldo. Have some coffee," and ah* kissed him. he reached the homestead, and Em was on the doorstep to see him off. When he had given the letter and Waldo had gone, Gregory bowed stiffly and prepared to remount his own pony, but somewhat slowly. It was still early. None of the servants was about. Em came up close to him and put her little hand softly on his arm as he stood by his horse. She was more HKe a princess, yes, far more like a princess, than the lady who still hung on the wall in Tant' Sannie's bedroom. So Em thought She leaned back In the little armchair; she wore a gray dressing gown, and her long hair was combed out and hung to the ground. Em, sitting before her, looked up with mingled respect and admiration. on the fourth day and hired myself to the first Boer woman whose farm I came to, to make fire under her soap pot, if I had to live as the rest of the drove did. Can you form an idea, Waldo, of what it must be to be shut up with cackling old women who are without knowledge of life, without love of the beautiful, without strength, to have your soul cultured by them? It Is suffocation only to breathe the air they breathe, but I made them give me room. I told them I should leave, and they knew I came there on my own account. So they gave me a bedroom without the companionship of one of those things that were having their brains slowly diluted and squeezed out of. them. I did not learn music, because I had no talent, and when the drove made cushions and hideous flowers that the roses laugh at and a footstool In six weeks that a machine would have made better In five minutes I went to my room. With the money saved from such work I bought books and newspapers, and at night I sat up. I read and epitomized what I read, and 1 found time to write some plays and find out how hard It Is to make your thoughts look anything but imbecile fools when you paint them with ink on paper. In the holidays I learned a grfeat deal more. I made acquaintances, saw a few places -and many people and some different ways of living, which is more than any books can show one. On the whole, I am not satisfied with my four years. I have' not learned what I. expected, but I have learned something else. What have you been doing?" window and look out at the boys in their happy play. We want to go. Then a loving band is laid on us. 'Little one, you cannot go,' they say, 'your littlS face will burn and your nice wbite dress be spoiled.' We feel it must be for our good, it is so lovingly said, but we cannot understand, and we kneel still with one little cheek wistfully pressed against the pane. Afterward we go and thread blue beads and make a string for our neck, and we go and stand before the glass. We see the complexion we were not to spoil and the white frock, and we look into our own great eyes. Then the curse begins to act on us. It finishes its work when we are grown women, who no more look out wistfully at a more healthy life—we are contented. We fit our sphere as a Chinese woman's foot fits her shoe, exactly, as though God had made both—and yet he knows nothing of either. In some of us the shaping to our end has been quite completed. The parts we are not to use have been quite atrophied and have even dropped off, but in others, and we are not less to be pitied, they have been weakened and left. We wear the bandages, but our limbs have not grown to them; we know that we are compressed, and chafe against them. "But what does it help? A little bitterness, a little longing when we an young, a little futile searching for work, a little passionate striving for room for the exercise of our powers, and then we go with the drove. A woman must march with her regiment. In the end she must be trodden down or go with It, and If she is wise she goes. sins. He would have left one of those names that stain the leaf of every history, the names of women who, having power, but being denied the right to exercise it openly, rule in the dark, covertly and by stealth, through the men whose passions they feed on and by whom they climb. All last night 1 heard nothing else but "Have some coffee; have some coffee." If I went to sleep for a moment, I dreamed that her finger was pressing mine, but when I woke with a start I heard her say: "Good evening, Waldo. Have some coffee." "Power!" she said suddenly, smiting her little hand upon the rail. "Yes, we have power, and, since we are not to expend it in tunneling mountains nor healing diseases nor making laws nor money nor oh any extraneous object, we expend it on you. You are our goods, our merchandise, our material for operating on. We buy you, we sell you, we make fools of you, we act the wily old Jew with you, we keep six of you crawling to our little feet and praying only for a touch of our little hand, and they say truly there was never an ache or a pain or a broken heart but a woman was at the bottom of It We are not to study law nor science nor art, so we study you. There is never a nerve or fiber in your man's nature but we know it. We keep six of yon dancing in the palm of one little hand," she said, balancing her outstretched arm gracefully, as though tiny beings disported themselves In Its palm. "There—we throw you away, and yon sink to the devil," she said, Foidlcfg her anus composedly. "There was never a man who said one word for woman but he said two for man and three for the whole human race." He smiled his automaton smile and rebuttoned the bag. Waldo thrust the book into his breast, and while he saddled the horse the stranger made Inquiries as to the nature of the road and the distance to the next farm. Is this madness? "I do love you best of all," she said. She was not frightened now however much he kissed her. '1 wish I was beautiful and nice," she added, looking up Into his eyes as he held her against his breast Lyndall was tired after her long Journey and had come to her room early. Her eyes ran over the familiar objects. Strange to go away for four years and come back and find that the candle standing on the dressing table still cast the shadow of an old crone's head In the corner beyond the clotheshoroa. Strange that even a shadow should last longer than man. She looked about among tb$ old familiar objects. All was there, but the old self was gone. I have not eaten a mouthful today. This evening I go and propose to her. It she refuses me, I shall go and kill myself tomorrow. There is a dam of water close by. The sheep have drunk most of it up, but there is (till enough, if I tie a stone to my neck. When the bags were fixed, Waldo took up his wooden post and began to fasten it on to the saddle, tying it with the little blue cotton handkerchief from his neck. The stranger looked on in silence. When It was done, the boy held the stirrup for him to mount. It is a choice between death and madness. I can endure no more. If thia should be the last letter you ever get from me, think of me tenderly and forgive me. Without her life would be a howling wilderness, a long tribulation. She is my affinity; the one love of my life, of my youth, of my manhood; my sunshine, my Goid given blossom. "My darling, to me you are more beautiful than all the women in the world, dearer to me than everything it holds. If you were In , I would go after you to find you there. If you were dead, though my body moved, my soul would be under the ground with you. All life as I pass It with you in my arms will be perfect to me. It will pass—pass like a ray of sunshine."f" "Stop your work, you lonely man, and speak to us/ they cried. lous, unless ofce chanced to new it m another light Presently the stranger said, whiffing, "Do something for meT" The boy started up. I " 'My salvation 1b In work. If I should stop but for one moment you jwould creep down upon me,' he replied. And they put out their long necks farther. "No; stay where you are. I don't want you to go anywhere. I want you to talk to me. Tell me what you have been doing all your life." "What Is your name?" he Inquired, unglovlng his right hand when he was In the saddle. "They never loved who dreamed that they loved once And who saith, 'I loved once.' "What are you noticing?" asked Em. " 'Look down Into the crevice at your feet' they said. 'See what lie there— (white bones! As brave and strong a cnan as you climbed to these rocks. And he looked up. He saw there was no use in striving. He would never hold Truth, never see her, never find her. So he lay down here, for be was very tired. He went to sleep forever. He put himself to sleep. Sleep Is very tranquiL You are not lonely when you are asleep, neither do your hands ache nor your heart' And the hunter laughed between his teeth. The boy slunk down again. Would that the man had asked him to root up bushes with his hands for his horse to feed on, -or to run to the far end of the plain for the fossils that lay there, or to gather the flowers that grew on the hills at the edge of the plain. He would have run and been back quickly—but now! Not angels, whose deep eyes look down through realms of light I" "Nothing and everything. I thought the windows were higher. If I were you, when I get this place I should raise the walls. There Is not room to breathe here; one suffocates." The boy replied. Tour disconsolate brother, on what is, In all probability, the last and distracted night of his "Well, I trust we shall meet again some day, sooner or later." life. Guooar Nasuhskm Bosk. Em thought how beautiful and grand his face was as she looked up Into It She raised her hand gently and put it on his forehead. He shook hands with the ungloved hand, then drew on the glove and touched his horse and rode slowly away. The boy stood to watch him. P. a—Tell mother to take care of my pearl studs. I left them in the wash hand stand drawer. Don't let the children get hold of them. "Gregory is going to make many alterations," said Em, drawing nearer to the gray dressing gown respectfully. "Do you like him, Lyndall? Is be not handsome?" P. P. &—I shall take thia letter with me to the farm. If I turn down one corner, you may know 1 have been accepted; if not, you may know it is all up with your heart broken toother. "You are so silent so cold, my Em!" he cried. "Have you nothing to say to me?" Once when the stranger bad gone half across the plain he looked back. a. N. B. "1 have never done anything," he said. "Poor devil," be said, smiling and stroking bis mustache. Then be looked to see If the little blue handkerchief were still safely knotted. "Poor devil!" Gregory having finished his letter read it over with much approval, put It in an envelope, addressed it and sat contemplating the Ink pot, somewhat relieved in mind. A little shade of wonder filled her eyes. "He must have been a fine baby," said Lyndall, looking at the white dimity curtain that hung above the window. "I will do everything you tell me," she said. "Then tell me of that nothing. I like to know what other folks have been doing whose word I can believe, it is interesting. What was the first thing you ever wanted very much?" " 'Have I torn from my heart all that was dearest? Have I wandered alone In the land of night? Have 1 resisted temptation? Have 1 dwelt where the voice of my kind is never heard and labored alone to lie down and be food for you, ye harpies? What else could she say? Her idea of love was only service. Ei a was puzzled. "There are some men," said Lyndall, "whom you never can believe were babies at all, and others you never see without thinking how very nice they must have looked when they wore socks and pink sashes." She watched the bird pecking up the last yellow grains, but Waldo looked only at her. He smiled, and then he sighed wearily, very wearily. The evening turned out chilly and very windy after the day's heat From afar off, as Gregory neared the homestead on the brown pony, he could distinguish a little figure in a little red cloak at the door of the cow kraal. Em leaned over the poles that barred the gate and watched the frothing milk run through the black fingers of the herdsman, while the unwilling cows stood with tethered heads by the milking poles. She had thrown the red cloak over her own head and held It under her chin with a little hand to keep from her ears the wind that playfully shook it and tossed the little fringe of yellow hair Into her eyes. "Then, my own precious one, promise never to kiss that fellow again. I cannot bear that you should love any one but me. You must not I will not have it! If every relative I had in the world were to die tomorrow, I would be quite happy if I still only had you. My darling, my love, why are yon so cold? Promise me not to love him any more. If you asked me to do anything for you, I would do it though it cost my Ufe!" The boy waited to remember, then began hesitatingly, but soon the words flowed. In the smallest past we find an Inexhaustible mine when once we begin to dig at It. And Waldo waited till the moving speck had disappeared on the horizon, then he stooped and kissed passionately a hoof mark In the sand. Then he called bis young birds together and put his book under bis arm and walked home along the stone wall. There was a rare beauty to him in the sunshine that evening. "Nothing." When she spoke again, it was very measuredly. "That is not possible. I shall find out by and by." "I see In your great eyes what you are thinking," she said, glancing at him. "I always know what the person I am talking to is thinking of. How is this woman who makes such a fuss worse off than I ? I will show you by a very little example. We stand here at this gate this morning, both poor, both young, both friendless. There is not much to choose between us. Let us turn away just as we are, to make our way in life. This evening you will come to a farmer's house. The farmer, albeit you come alone and on foot, will give you a pipe of tobacco and a cup of coffee and a bed. If he has no dam to build and no child to teach, tomorrow you can go on your way with a friendly greeting of the hand. I, if I come to the same place tonight, will have the strange questions asked me, strange glances cast on me. The Boer wife will shake her bead and give me food to eat with the Kaffirs and a right to sleep with the dogs. That would be the first step in our progress—a very little one, but every step to the end would repeat it. We were equals once when we lay, newborn babes, on our nurses' knees. We will be equals again when they tie up our jaws for the last sleep." "They bring weighty arguments against us when we ask for the perfect freedom of women," she said, "but when you come to the objections they are like pumpkin devils with candies inside,* hollow, and can't bite. They say that women do not wish for the sphere and freedom we ask for "He laughed fiercely, and the echoes of despair slunk away, for the laugh of a brave, strong heart Is a death blow to them. Em remained silent Then she said, with a little dignity: "When you know him, you will love him as I do. When I compare other people with him, they seem so weak and little. Our hearts are so cold; our loves are mixed up with so many other things. But heno one Is worthy of his love. I am not It is so great and pure." They still stepped on side by side over the dewy bushes. Then suddenly she turned on him. A confused, disordered story, the little made large and the large small, and nothing showing its Inward meaning. It is not till the past has receded many steps that before the clearest eyes it falls into co-ordinate pictures. It is not till the 1 we tell of has ceased to exist that it takes its place among other objective realities and finds its true niche in the picture. The present and the near past are a confusion, whose meaning flashes on us as it slinks away Into the distance. "Don't you wish you were a woman, Waldo V "Nevertheless they crept oat again and looked at him. "No," he answered readily. She laughed. " 'Do yon know 'that your hair to white,' they said, 'that your hands begin to tremble like a child's? Do you aee that the point of your shuttle to gone? It to cracked already. If you should ever climb this stair,' they said, •it will be your last. You will never climb another.' CHAPTER XVI. Em put her hand very gravely round his neck. "I thought not Even you are too worldly wise for that I never met a man who did. This is a pretty ring," she said, holding out her little hand that the morning sun might make the diamonds sparkle. "Worth £50 at least I will give it to the first man who tells me he would like to be a woman. There might be one on Bobbin Island [lunatics at the Cape are sent to Bobbin Island] who would win it perhaps, but I doubt it even there. It is delightful to be a woman, but every man thanks the Lord devoutly that be Isn't one." them and would not use it "If the bird does like Its cage and does like Its sugar and will not leave It, why keep the door so very carefully shut? Why not open it, only a little? Do they know there is many a bird will not break its wings against the baia, but would fly If the doors were open?" She knit her forehead and leaned farther over the bars. "Then they say, If the women have the liberty you ask for, they will be found in positions for which they are not fitted r If two men climb one ladder, did you ever see the weakest anywhere but at the foot? The surest sign of fitness is success. The weakest never wins but where there Is handicapping. Nature left to herself will as beautifully apportion a man's work to his capacities as long ages ago she graduated the colors on the bird's breast If we are not fit, you give us to no purpose the right to labor. The work will fall out of our hands Into those that are wiser." The new man, Oregory Rose, sat at the door of hto dwelling, his arms folded, his legs crossed and a profound melancholy seeming to rest over his soul. Hto house was a little square daub and wattle building, far out in the "karroo," two miles from the homestead. It was covered outside with a somber coating of brown mud, two little panes being let Into the walls for windows. Behind it were the "sheep kraals" and to the right a large dam, now principally containing baked mud. Far off the little "kopje" concealed the homestead and was not itself an object conspicuous enough to relieve the dreary monotony of the landscape. QBBGOBT BOSJE FINDS HIS AJTOCTT. "I will never kiss him," she said, "and I will try not to love any one else. But I do not know if 1 will be able." "You need not make yourself unhappy on that point—your poor return for his love, my dear," said LyndalL "A man's love is a fire of olive wood. It leaps higher every moment; it roars, it blazes, it shoots out red flames; It threatens to wrap you round and devour you—you who stand by like an Icicle in the glow of its fierce warmth. You are self reproached at your own chilliness and want of reciprocity. The next day, when you go to warm your hands a little, you find a few ashes. Tis a long love and cool against a short love and hot Men, at all events, have nothing to complain of." "Is it not too cold for you to be standing here?" said Gregory, coming softly close to her. "Oh, my darling, I think of you all night all day. I think of nothing else, love, nothing else," he said, folding his arms about her. "And he answered, T know it? and worked on. The stranger lighted one cigar from the end of another and puffed and listened with hfljf closed eyes. "Oh, no; it is so nice. I always come to watch the milking. That red cow Yith the short horns is bringing up the calf of the white cow that died. She loves it so, Just as if It were her own. It is so nice to see her lick its little ears. Just look!" Em was a little conscience stricken. Even that morning she had found time to remember that in six months her cousin would come back from school, and she had thought to remind Waldo of the lozenges for his cough, even when she saw Gregory coming. "The old, thin hands cut the stones 111 and jaggedly, for the fingers were ■tiff and bent. The beauty and the strength of the man were gone. "At last an old, wizened, shrunken face looked out above the rocks. It "I will remember more to tell you If you like," said the fellow. He spoke with that extreme gravity common to all very young things who feel deeply. It to not till 20 that we learn to be in deadly earnest and to laugh. The stranger nodded, while the fellow sought for something more to relate. He would tell all to this man of hto—all that he knew, all that he had felt, hto most inmost sorest thought Suddenly the stranger turn* ed upon him. "The clouds are black. I think it is going to rain tonight" said Gregory. saw the eternal mountain rise with "I do not know bow it Is," she said humbly, nestling to him, "but I cannot love you so much as you Perhaps it is because I am only" woman, but I do love you as much as I can." She drew her hat to one side to keep the sun out of her eyes as she walked. Waldo looked at her so Intently that he stumbled over the bushes. Yes, this was his little Lyndall who had worn the check pinafores. He saw It now, and he walked closer beside her. They reached the next camp. walls to the white clouds, but Its work "Yes," answered Em, looking up as well as she could for the little yellow fringe. ,was done. "The old hunter folded hto tired "You speak so because you do not know men," said Em, instantly assuming the dignity of superior knowledge so universally affected by affianced and married women in discussing man's nature with their uncontracted sisters. "You will know them, too, some day, and then you will think differently," said Em, with the condescending magnanimity which superior knowledge can always afford to show to ignorance. and lay down by the precipice .where be had worked away hto life. Before the door sat Oregory Rose In hto shirt sleeves, on a camp stool, and ever and anon he sighed deeply. There was that In his countenance for which even his depressing circumstances failed to account. Again and again he looked at the little "kopje," at the milk pall at his side and at the brown pony, who a short way off cropped the dry bushes—and sighed. "But I'm sure you must be cold," said Gregory, and he put his hand under the cloak and found there a small fist doubled up, soft and very warm. He held it fast In his hand. Now the Kaffir maids were coming from the huts. He kissed her again, eyes and mouth and hands, and left her. It was the sleeping time at last Be- low him over the valleys rolled the thick white mist Once it broke, and through the gap the dying eyes looked down on the trees and fields of their "Boy," he said, "you are happy to be here." "Let us wait at this camp and watch the birds," she said as an ostrich ben came bounding toward them with velvety wings outstretched, while far away over the bushes the head of the cock was visible as he sat brooding on the eggs. Waldo looked In wonder at the little, quivering faee. It was a glimpse into a world of passion and feeling wholly new to him. "Oh, Em, I love you better than all the world besides! Tell me, do you love me a little?" Waldo looked at him. Was hto delightful one ridiculing him? Here, with his brown earth and these low hills, while the rare wonderful world lay all beyond. Fortunate to be here! Tant' Sannie was well satisfied when told of the betrothment She herself contemplated marriage within the year with one or other of her numerous "vrljers," and she suggested that the weddings might take place together. She talked more rapidly as sbe went on, as one-talks of that over which one has brooded long and which lies near one's heart Waldo watched her intently. "They say women have one great ind noble work left them, and they do t 111 That Is true. They do It execraDly. It is the work that demands the Droadest ™~ and they have not childhood. From afar seemed borne to him the cry of his own wild birds, and he beard the noise of the people "Yes, I do," said Em, hesitating and trying softly to free her hand. "Mark yon," she said, "we have always this advantage over yon—we can at any time step into ease and competence, where you must labor patiently for it A little weeping, a little wheedling, a little self degradation, a little careful use of our advantages, and then some man will say, 'Come, be my wifer With good looks and youth, marriage is easy to attain. There are men enough, but a woman who has sold herself, even for a ring and new name, need hold her skirts aside for no creature in the street They both earn their bread in one way. Marriage for love is the beautifulest external symbol of the union of souls; marriage without it is the uncleanllest traffic that defiles the world." She ran her little finger savagely along the topmost bar, shaking off the dozen little dewdrops that still hung there. "And they tell us we have men's chivalrous attention!" she cried. "When we ask to be doctors, lawyers, lawmakers, anything but ill paid drudges, they say: No, but you have men's chivalrous attention. Now think of that and be satisfied! What would you do without it?" singing as they danced, and he thought he beard among them the voices of hto old comrades, and be saw afar off the sunlight shine on bis early home, and great tears gathered In the hunter's eyes. The stranger read hto glance. Presently he rose and went Into bis bouse. It was one tiny room, the whitewashed walls profusely covered with prints cut from The Illustrated London News, and In which there was a noticeable preponderance of female faces and figures.. A stretcher filled one end of the hut and a rack for a gun and a little hanging looking glass diversified the gable opposite, while In the center stood a chair and table. All was scrupulously neat and clean, for Oregory kept a little duster folded in the corner of his table drawer, just as he bad seen hto mother do, and every morning before be went out he said hto prayers and made hto bed and dusted the table and the legs of the chairs, and even the pictures on the wall and the gun rack. "Better than everything; better than all the world, darling?" be asked, bending down so low that the yellow hair was blown into his eyes. Lyndall's little lip quivered In a manner indicative of Intense amusement She twirled a massive ring upon her forefinger—a ring more suitable for the hand of a man and noticeable In design—a diamond cross let Into gold, with the initials "B. B." below It Lyndall folded her arms on the gate bar, and Waldo threw his empty bag on the wall and leaned beside her. "Yes," he said, "here with the karroo bushes and the red sand. Do you wonder what I mean? To all who have been born In the old faith there comes a time of danger, when the old slips from us, and we have not yet planted our feet on the new. We hear the voice from Sinai thundering no more, and the still, small voice of reason to not yet heard. "We have proved the religion our mothers fed us on to be a delusion. In our bewilderment we see no rule by which to guide our steps day by day, and yet every day we must step somewhere." The stranger leaned forward and spoke more quickly. "We have never once been taught by word or act to distinguish between religion and tbe moral laws on which It has artfully fastened Itself and from which it has sucked its vitality. When we have dragged down the weeds and creepers that covered the solid wall and have found them to be rotten wood, we Imagine the wall itself to be rotten wood too. We find it is solid and standing only when we fall headlong against it We have been taught that all right and wrong originate In the will of an Irresponsible being. It is some time before we see how the Inexorable Thou shalt and shalt not* are carved Into the nature of things. This is the time of danger." Em set to work busily to prepare her own household linen and wedding garments. Gregory was with her dally, almost hourly, and the six months which elapsed before Lyndall's return passed, as he felicitously phrased it "like a summer night when you are dreaming of some one you love." "I don't know," said Em gravely. "1 do love you very mnch, but I love my cousin who Is at school and Waldo very much. Yon see, I have known them so tDCg-" "I like these birds," she said; "they share each other's work and are companions. Do you take an interest in the position of women, Waldo?" ;ven the nfflnmrest The lawyer may lee no his lawbooks and :he chemist see no farther than tfie*-™*" windows of his laboratory, and they may do their work welL But the woman who does woman's work needs a many sided, multiform culture. The heights and depths of human life must not be beyond the reach of her vision. She must have knowledge of men and things in many states, a wide catholicity of sympathy, the strength that springs from knowledge and the magnanimity that springs from strength. We bear the world, and we make it The souls of little children are marvelously delicate and tender things and keep forever the shadow that first falls on them, and that is the mother's, or, at best, a woman's. There was never a great man who had not a great mother. It is hardly an exaggeration. The first six years of our life make us. All that is added later is veneer. And yet some say if a woman can cook a dinner or dress herself well she has culture enough. " 'Ah, they who die there do not die alone!' be cried. "Then tbe mists rolled together again, and be turned his eyes away. "Ah, Lyndall," Em said, "perhaps you are engaged yourself—that Is why you smile! Yes, I am sure you are. Look at this ring!" "No." "Oh, Km, do not talk to me so coldly!" Gregory cried, seizing the little arm that rested on the gate and pressing It till she was half afraid. The herdsman had moved away to the other eo4 of the "kraal" now, and the cows, busy with their calves, took no notice of tlM little humfn farce. "Em, If you talk so to me I will go mad. You must lore me—love me better than all. You must give yourself to me. 1 have loved you slnee that first moment when I saw you walking by the stone wall with the jug In your hands. You were made for me, created for me. I will love you till I die. Oh, Em, do not be so cold, so cruel, to me!" Late one evening Gregory sat by his little love, turning the handle of her machine as she drew her work through It, and they talked of the changes they would make when the Boer woman was gone and the farm belonged to them alone. There should be a new room here and a kraal there. So they chatted on. Suddenly Qregory dropped the handle and Impressed a fervent kiss on the fat hand that guided the linen. "I thought not No one does unless they are In need of a subject upon which to show their wit And as for you, from of old you can see nothing that is not separated from you by a few millions of miles and strewed over with mystery. If women were the inhabitants of Jupiter, of whom you had happened to hear something, you would pore over us and our condition night and day, but because we are before your eyes you never look at us. You care nothing that this is ragged and ugly," she said, putting her little finger on his sleeve, "but you strive mightily to make an imaginary leaf on an old stick beautiful. I'm sorry you don't care for the position of women. I should have liked us to be friends, and it is the only thing about which I think much or feel much, If, indeed, I have any feeling about anything," she added flippantly, readjusting her dainty little arms. "When I was a baby, I fancy my parents left me out In the frost one night and I got nipped internally. It feels so." " 'I have sought' be said, 'for long years I have labored, but I have not found her. I have not rested, I have not repined, and I have not seen her. Now my strength to gone. Where I lie down worn out other men will stand young and fresh. By the steps that I have cut they will climb; by tbe stairs that I have built they will mount They will never know the name of the man who made them. At the clumsy work they will laugh; when tbe stones roll, they will curse me. But they will mount and on my work; tbey will climb, and by my stair! They will find her, and through me! And no man llvetb to himself, and no man dieth to himself.' Lyndall drew the hand quickly from her. "1 am not in so great a hurry to put my neck beneath any man's foot and 1 do not so greatly admire the crying of babies," she said as she closed her eyes half wearily and leaned back In the chair. "There are other women glad of such work." On this hot afternoon he took from beneath his pillow a watch bag made by bis sister Jemima and took out the watch. Only half past 4! With a suppressed groan be dropped it back and sat down beside the table. Half past 4! Presently be roused himself. He would write to hto sister Jemima. He always wrote to her when he was miserable. She was hto safety valve. He forgot her when he was happy, but he used her when he was wretched. "You are so beautiful, Em," said the lover. "It comes over me In a flood suddenly how I love you." Em smiled. Em felt rebuked and ashamed. How could she take Lyndall and show her the white linen and the wreath and the embroidery? She was quiet for a little while and then began to talk about Trana and the old farm servants till she saw her companion was weary; then she rose and left her for the night But after Em was gone Lyndall sat on, watching the old crone's face in the corner, and with a weary look, as though the whole world's weight rested on these frail young shoulders. He held her arm so tightly that her fingers relaxed their hold, and the cloak fluttered down on to the ground, and the wind played more roughly than ever with the little yellow head. "Tant' Sannle says when I am bcr age no one will look at me, and It Is true. My hands are as show and broad as a duck's foot and my forehead Is so low, and I haven't any nose. I can't be pretty." The bitter little silvery laugh, so seldom heard, rang out across the bushes. She bit her little teeth together. I was coming up in Cobb & Co.'s the other day. At a little wayside hotel we had to change the large coach (or a small one. We were ten passengerseight men and two women. As I sat in the house the gentlemen came and whispered to me: There is not room for all in the new coach. Take your seat quickly.' We hurried out, and they gave me the best seat, and covered me with rugs, because It was drizzling. Then the last passenger came running up to the coach—an old woman with a wonderful bonnet and a black shawl pinned with a yellow pin. " "There is no room,' they saia. *You must wait till next week's coach takes you up,' but she climbed on to the step, and held on at the window with both hands. "Tbe tears rolled from beneath tbe shriveled eyelids. If Truth had appeared above him in the clouds now, be could not have seen her—the mist of death was in bis eyes. "I do love you very much," she said, "but I do not know if I want to marry you. I love yon better than Waldo, but I .can't tell If I love you better than LyndalL If you would let me wait for a week, I think perhaps 1 could tell you." He took out ink and paper. There was a family crest and motto on the latter, for the Roses since coming to the colony had discovered that they were of distinguished lineage. Old Rose himself, an honest English farmer, knew nothing of his noble descent, bat his wife and daughter knew—especially his daughter. There were Roses in wngimrt who kept a park and dated from the conquest So the colonial Rose farm became Rose manor In remembrance of the ancestral domain, and the claim of the Roses to noble blood was established—in their minds at least. She laughed softly. It was so nice to think he should be so blind. " 'My soul hears their glad step coming In,' be said, 'and they shall mount, they shall mountr He raised his shriveled hand to his eyes. "When my cousin comes tomorrow, you will see a beautiful woman, Gregory," she added presently. "She is like a little queen; her shoulders are so upright and her head looks as though It ought to have a little crown upon It You must come to see her tomorrow as soon as she comes. I am sure you will love her.." "The mightiest and noblest of human work is given to us, and we do it 11L Send a navvy to work into an artist's studio and see what you will find there! And yet, thank God, we have this work," she added quickly. "It Is the one window through which we see into the great world of earnest labor. The meanest girl who dances and dresses becomes something higher when her children look up into her face and ask her questions. It is the only education we have and which they cannot take from us." His dark, misty eyes looked into the boy's. The next morning Waldo, starting off before breakfast with a bag of mealies slung over his shoulder to feed the ostripliea, heard a light step behind him. "I have only a few old thoughts," he said, "and I think them over and over again, always beginning where 1 left off. I never get any further. I am weary of them." "Then slowly, from the white sky above, through the still air, came something falling, falling, falling. Softly It fluttered down and dropped on to the breast of the dying man. He felt it with his hands. It was a feather. He died holding it" "In the end experience will Inevitably teach us that the laws for a wise and noble life have a foundation infinitely deeper than the fiat of any being, God or man, even in the groundwork of human nature. She will teach us that whoso sheddeth man's blood, though by man hiB blood be not shod, though no man avenge and no hell await yet every drop Bhall blister on bis bouI and eat In the name of the dead. She will teach that whoso takes a love not lawfully his own gathers a flower with a poison on Its petals; that whoso revenges, strikes with a sword that has two edges—one for his adversary, one for himself; that who lives to himself is dead, though the ground Is not yet on him; that who wrongs another clouds bis own sun, and that who sins In secret stands accused and condemned before the one Judge who deals eternal justice—his own all knowing self. Gregory picked up the cloak and wrapped It round her. & ? "Walt for me. I am coming with you," said Lyndall, adding as she came up to him: "If I had not gone to look for you yesterday, you would not have come to greet me till now. Do you not like me any longer, Waldo?" "If you could but love me as I love youT' he said. "But no woman can love as a man can. I will wait till next Saturday. I will not once come near you till then. Goodby. Oh, Em," he said, turning again and twining bis arms about her and kissing her surprised little mouth, "If you are not my wife I cannot Uvel I have never loved another woman, and 1 never shall— never, never!" "Like an old hen that sits on its eggs month after month and they never come out?" she said quickly. "I am so pressed In upon by new things that, lest they should trip one another up, 1 have to keep forcing them back. My head swings sometimes. But this one thought stands, never goes—if I might but be one of those born in the future; then perhaps to be born a woman will not be to be born branded." "Of course I shall come to see her, since she Is your cousin, but do you think I could ever think any woman as lovely as I think you?" The boy had shaded his eyes with his hand. On the wood of the carving great drops felL The stranger must have laughed at him or remained silent He did so. "Yes; but—you are changed." It was the old, clumsy, hesitating mode of speech. He fixed his seething eyes upon her. "You could not help seeing that she Is prettier," said Em, slipping her right hand into his, "but you will never be able to like any one so much as you like me." "You liked the pinafores better?" she said quickly. She wore a dress of a simple cotton fabric, but very fashionably made, and on her head was a broad white hat. To Waldo she seemed superbly attired. She saw it "My dress has changed a little," she said, "and I al«D, but not to you. Hang the bag over your other shoulder that I may see your face. You say so little that If one does not look at you you are an uncomprehended cipher. Waldo changed the bag, and they walked on side by side. "You have improved," she said. "Do you know that I have sometimes wished to see you while I was away; not often, but still sometimes?"She smiled slightly. "They say that we complain of woman's being compelled to look upon marriage as a profession, but that she is free to enter upon it or leave it, as she pleases. Gregory took up one of the white, crested sheets, but on deeper reflection he determined to take a pink one, as more suitable to the state of his feelings. He began: "How did you know It?" the boy whispered at last "It is not written there, not on that wood. How did you know it?" " 'My son-in-law is ill, and I must go and see him,' she said. , "You make me afraid," said Em. "Come, let us go, and I will fill your pall." Afterward, when she wished her lover good night, she stood upon the doorstep to call a greeting after him, and she waited, as she always did, till the brown pony's hoofs became inaudible behind the "kopje." Waldo looked at her. It was hard to say whether she were In earnest or mocking. " 'My good woman,' said one, 'I am really exceedingly sorry that your Bon-in-law is ill, but there Is absolutely no room for you here.' "Yes, and a cat set afioat in a pond Is free to sit in the tub till It dies there. It is under no obligation to wet Its feet. And a drowning man may catch at a straw or not, just as he likes. It is a glorious liberty! Let any man think for five minutes of what old maidenhood means to a woman, and then let him be silent Is it easy to bear throughout life a name that in Itself signifies defeat—to dwell, as nine out of ten unmarried women must, under the finger ot another woman? Is it easy to look forward to an old age without honor, without the reward of useful labor, without love? I wonder how many men there are who would give up everything that is dear in life for the sake of maintaining a high ideal purltv."  "Certainly," said his stranger, "the whole of the story is not written here, but it Is suggested. And the attribute Of all true art the highest and the lowsat Is this—that it says more than it •ays and takes you away from itself, it is a little door that opens into an infinite hall where you may find what you please, yen, thinking to detract, say, 'People read more in this or that work of genius than was ever written In it,' not perceiving that they pay the higher' est compliment If we plek up the finger and nail of a real man, we can decipher a whole story—could almost reconstruct the creature again from head to foot. But half the body of a Mumboo-Jumbow idol leaves us utterly in the dark as to what the rest was like. We see what we see, bat nothing more. Kop}« Alone, Monday Afternoon, Then he looked up into the little glass opposite. It was a youthful face reflected there, with curling brown beard and hair, but in the dark blue eyes there was a look of languid longing that touched him. He redlpped his pen and wrote: My Dear Jemima— "I want no milk. Goodby. You will not see me again till Saturday." "I know It is foolish. Wisdom never kicks at the iron wails it can't bring down," she said. "But we are cursed, Waldo, born cursed from the time our mothers bring us Into the world till the shrouds are put on us. Do not look at me as though I were talking nonsense. Everything has two sides—the outside that is ridiculous, and the inside that is solemn." Late that night, when every one else had gone to bed, the yellow haired little woman stood alone in the kitchen. She had come to fill the kettle for the next morning's coffee and now stood before the fire. The warm reflection lighted the grave old womanish little face that was so unusually thoughtful this evening. " 'You had better get down,' said another, 'or the wheel will catch you.' "I got up to give her my place. " 'Oh, no, no!' they cried. 'We will not allow that' Then she passed through the room where Tant' Sannie lay snoring, and through the little room that was draped In white, waiting for her cousin's return, on to her own room. " 'I will rather kneel,' said one, and he crouched down at my feet bo the woman came in. "Experience will teach us this, and reason will show us why it must be so, but at first the world swings before our eyes, and no voice cries out: This is the way. Walk ye In it!' You are happy to be here, boy. When the suspense fills you with pain, you build stone walls and dig earth for relief. Others have stood where you stand today and have felt as you feel, and another relief has been offered them, and they have taken it When I look up Into the little glaai that hang* oppodto me, I wonder 11 that changed and aad laoe— She went to the chest of drawers to put away the work she had finished and sat down on the floor before the lowest drawer. In it were the things she was preparing for her marriage. Plies of white linen and some aprons and quilts, and in the little box in the corner a spray of orange blossom which she had brought from a smouse. There, too, was a ring Gregory had given her and a veil his sister had sent, and there was a little roll of fine embroidered work which Trana had given her. It was too line and good even for Gregory's wife—Just right for something very small and soft. She would keep It And she touched it gently with her forefinger, smiling, and then she blushed and bid It far behind the other things. She knew so well all thar was in that drawer, and yet she turned them all over as though she saw them for the first time and packed them all out and packed them all In without one fold or crimple and then sat down and looked at them. Here he sat still and reflected. It sounded almost as if be might be conceited or unmanly to be looking at his own face hi the glass. No, that would pot da So be looked for another pink sheet and began a train. "I am not laughing," said thDi boy sedately enough. "But what curses you?" "There were nine of us In that coach, and only one showed chivalrous attention, and that was a woman to a woman. "Better than all the world; better than everything! He loves me better than everything!" She said the words aloud, as If they were more easy to believe If she spoke them so. She bad given out so much love In her little life and had got none of It back with Interest, Now one said, "I love you better than all the world!" One loved her better than she loved him. How suddenly rich she waa! She kept clasping and unclasping her hands. So a beggar feels who falls asleep on the pavement wet and hungry and who wakes in a palace hall with servants and lights and a feast before him. Of course the beggar's Is only a dream, and be wakes from It, and this was real. They were at the gate of the first camp now. Waldo threw over the bag of mealies, and they walked on over the dewy ground. He thought she would not reply to him, she waited so long. "I shall be old and ugly, too, one day, and I shall look for men's chivalrous help, but I shall not find It "It Is not what is done to us, but what Is made of us," she said at last, "that wrongs us. No man can be really injured but by what modifies himself. We all enter the world little plastic beings, with so much natural force perhaps, but for the test— blank, and the world tells us what we are to be and shapes up by the ends It sets before us. To'you it says—work, and to us It says—seem! To you It says, As you approximate to man's highest Ideal of God, as your arm is strong and your knewledge great, and the power to labor Is with you, so you jshall gain all that human heart desires. To us It says: Strength shall not help you, nor knowledge, nor labor. You shall gain what men gain, but by other means. And so the world makes men and women."Have you learned much?" he asked her simply, remembering how she had once said, "When I come back again, I shall know everything that a human being can." "The bees are very attentive to the flowers till their honey Is done, and then they fly over them. I don't know If the flowers feel grateful to the bees. They are great fools if they do." Bop]# Alone, Monday Afternoon. Dew Meter—It U hardly aU month* since I left you to come to thla »pot, jret could you now m dm I know what you would my. I know what mother would My, "Can that be our Greg—that thing with the atrange look In hla eyeef" Two Tower*. There is nothing so universally intelll- "When the day has come when they have seen the path in which they might walk, they have not the strength to follow it. Habits have fastened on them from which nothing but death can free them; which cling closer than his sacerdotal sanctimony to a priest; which feed on the intellect like a worm, sapping energy, hope, creative power, .all that makes a man higher than a beast, leaving only the power to yearn, to regret and to sink lower In the abyss. Students of architecture may have often wondered why the two towers of Notre Dame at Paris were not of the same size. It appears that when the cathedral was built It was the cathedral of a suffragan bishop, who was not entitled to two towers of equal height, and for centuries the bishop of Paris was suffragan to the bishop of Sens. ble as truth. It has a thousand mean- Vlngs and suggests a thousand more." He turned over the wooden thing. " "Though a man should carve it Into dtAtter with the least possible manipulative skill, it will yet find interpreters. It la- the soul that looks out with burning through the most gross fleshly filament Whosoever should portray truly the life and death of a little flower—'its birth, sucking in of nourishment, reproduction of its kind, withering and vanishing—would have shaped * symbol Wall existence. All true facts of nature or the mind are related. Tour little carving represents some mental facts as they really are, therefore 60 different true stories might be •waul from It What TQIir wnrlf tvQ nfa te not truth, but. Oeauty of external form, the other half of art" He leaned almost gently toward the boy. "Skill may come in time, but you will have to work hafd- The love of beauty and the desire for it must be born in a man. The skill to reproduce It he must make. He must work hard." ••All my Nfe I have longed to see you," the boy said. The stranger broke off the end of his cigar and lighted It The boy lifted the heavy wood from the stranger's knee and drew yet noaFer him. In the Aoglike manner of his drawing near waa something superbijr *Wea- Ym, Jemima, it 1a your Oreg, and the change baa been ooming over me ever since I came here, but it la greatest if nee yesterday. You know what sorrows 1 have paaaed through, Jemima; how unjustly I waa always treated at school, the maetere keeping me back and calling me a blockbead. though, aa they themaelvee allowed, 1 had the beat memory of any boy in the school and oould repeat whole books from beginning to end. Tou know bow cruelly father always used me, calling me a noodle and a milk aop just because be couldn't understand my Bne nature. You know bow he has made a fanner of me instead of a minister, as I ought to have been. You (mow it all, Jemima, and how I hare borne it all, pot aa a woman, wbo whines for every touch, but #• § man should—in silence. She laughed. "Are you thinking of my old boast? Yes; I have learned something, though hardly what I expected and not quite so much. In the first place, I have learned that one of my ancestors must bave been a very great fool, for they say nothing comes out in a man but one of his forefathers possessed It before him. In the second place, I have discovered that of all cursed places under the sun, where the hungriest soul can hardly pick up a few grains of knowledge, a girls' boarding school Is the worst They are called finishing schools, and the name tells accurately what they are. They finish everything but Imbecility and weaknesj, and that they cultivate. They are nicely adapted machines for experimenting on the quefttiou, 'Into how little space can a human soul be crushed?* I bave seen some souls so compressed that they would have fitted into a small thimble and found room to move there—wide room. A woman who has been for many years at one of those places carries the mark of the beast on her till she dies, though she may expand a little afterward when she breathes In the free world." "But some women," said Waldo, speaking as though the words forced themselves from him at that moment, "some women have power." Ww. She lifted her beautiful eyes to bis face. "Power! Did you ever hear of men being asked whether other souls should have power or not? It is born in them. You may dam up the fountain of water and make it a stagnant marsh, or you may let it run free and do Its work, but you cannot say whether It shall be there. It Is there. And It will act, if not openly for good, then covertly for evil, but It will act If Goethe had been stolen away a child and reared In a robber horde In the depths of a German forest do you think the world would have had 'Faust* and Iphegenle?' But he would have been Goethe still, stronger, wiser than his fellows. At night round their watch fire he would have chanted wild songs of rapine and murder till the dark faces about him were moved and trembled. His songs would have echoed on from father to son and nerved the heart and arm—for evlL W Dr. RICHTER'S  W World-"Renowncd ■ I "Anchor" I Pain Expeller I I ha* proven to be OnBcrtttmU fir I I Rheumatism, I I Gout, Neuralgia,etc. I ■various Rheumatic Complaints! Only 25o.aad50o. at all druggists I or through I F. Ad- Richter & Co. J Bk 218 Pearl Street, jM York, Gregory had said to her, "I will love you as long as I live," She said the words over and over to herself like a song. "Boy," he said, and the listener was not more unsmiling now than the speaker, "yon are happy to be here. Stay where you are. If you ever pray, let it be only the one old prayer, 'Lead us not Into temptation.' Live on here quietly. The time may yet come when you will be that which other men have hoped to be and never will be now." Put there are things, there W a thing, which the soul longa to pour forth Into a kindred ear. "I will send for him tomorrow, and I will tell him how I love him back," she said. Tomorrow evening when Lyndall came she would bring her here and show her all. Lyndall would so like to see it—the little wreath and the ring and the white veil! It would be so nice. Then Em fell to seeing pictures. Lyndall should live with them till she herself got married some day. Pea* alater, have you ever known what It is to keep wanting and wanting and wanting to kiss some one's mouth, and you may not; to touch some one's hand, and you cannot? I am in love, Jemima. But Em needed not to send for him. Gregory discovered on reaching home that Jemima's letter was still In his pocket, and therefore, much as he disliked the appearance of vacillation and weakness, he was obliged to be at the farmhouse before sunrise to post It "Look at this little chin of mine, Waldo, with the dimple in it It is but a small part of my person, but though I had a knowledge of all things under the sun and the wisdom to use it and the deep, loving heart of an angel. It would not stand me through life like this little chin. I can win money with it I can win love; I can win power with It I can win fame. What would knowledge help me? The less a wornin has In her bead the lighter she is for climbing. I once heard an old man •«ay that he never saw Intellect help a woman so much as a pretty ankle, and it was the truth. They begin to shape as to our cursed end," she said, with ber lips drawn in to look as though they smiled, "when we are tiny things In shoes and socks. We Bit with our Utti* feet drawn 119 under us la tfee The old Dutch woman from whom I hire this place haa a little atepdaughter, and her name begina with E. The stranger rose, shook the dust from his sleeve and, ashamed at his own earnestness, looked across the bushes for his horse. She ia English. I do not know bow her father came to marry a Boer woman. It makes me feel ao strange to put down that letter that 1 can hardly go on writing—E. I've loved her ever alnoe I came here. For weeka 1 have not been able to eat or drink. My very tobacco, wlien I amoke, haa no taate, and I can remain for no more than Ave minutes in one place and sometimes feel aa though I were really going mad. Every day when Gregory came borne, tfred from his work, he would look about and say: "Where Is my wife? Has no one seen my wife? Wife, some coffee!" and Bhe would give him some. "If I see her," Gregory said, "I shall only bow to her. She shall see that I am a man, one who keeps his word." "We should have been on our way already," he said. "We shall have a long ride in the dark tonight." As to Jemima's letter, be had turned down one corner of the page and then turned it back, leaving a deep crease. That would show that he was neither accepted nor rejected, but that matters were in an Intermediate condition. It was a more poetical way than putting it In plain words. Waldo hastened to fetch the animal, but be returned leading it slowly. Tb« sooner it came the sooner would Its rider be gone. Em's little face grew very grave at last and she knelt up and extended ber hands over the drawer of linen. Every evening 1 go there to fetch my milk. Yeeterday she gave me some coffee. The spoon fell on the ground. Bhe picked it up. When (he gave It me, her finger touched mine. Jemima, I do not know If I fancied It—I shivered hot, and aha riiivered tool I thought: "It la all light, (he will be mine. »w lovee me I" Just than, lawfa. la earns • fellow, % great, coarse juqtefrw-Wega sw*  "Oh, God!" she said, "I am so glad! I do not know what I have done that 1 should be so glad. Thank you!" "Do you think If Napoleon had been born a woman that he would have been contented to give small tea parties and talk small scandal? He would have risen. But the world would not have beard of him as It hears of him sow— % aramX and fcliurtw. with all hi* The stranger was opening his saddlebag, in which were a bright French novel and an old brown volume. He tank tbe last and held It not to the boy. "Were you miserable?" he asked, looking at her with quick anxiety. "I? No. I am never miserable and never happy. 1 wish I were. But 1 ahoujd bave ran away from the place Gregory waa barely in time with his latter, lor Waldo waa startin* whan CHAPTER XVII. LTBOAU.