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About Lincoln County leader. (Toledo, Lincoln County, Or.) 1893-1987 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 15, 1905)
n rr !A OEAD If AST By MRS. LOVCTT CAMERON CHAPTER VI. "And pray where have you been hiding yourself for the past weekT Why were you not at Ascot? I hear you threw over three invitations for the week with out ever giving a reason. Do you not know that the whole London world the if emale world. I mean has been languish ing and pining without you? The Park has been a wilderness and Hurlingham l desert waste. Rumor says you have been away making love to a rustic beauty among the roses, and all the women have cried their eyes out for spite and envy!" "Yours remain bright enough, at any rate!" said Desmond, in answer to the above speech, as he sank down into a -chair by the speaker's side, and looked at her with a flattering smile of admira tion. "Ah, you can't tell the state my heart has been In, though!" replied, the lady. She was a handsome woman, with dark locks arranged in a wonderful shock ofr her broad brows. To know Mrs. Talbot was to know a woman of fashion who -was certain to amuse you, who was ready to flirt or to pick her most familiar friends' characters to pieces, who was a walking encyclopedia of the sayings and doings of all the men and women about whom there was anything worth knowing; and who had that kind of im pulsive and delightfully affectionate man ner which leads one to suppose that you are the only person of her acquaintance against whom she conld never utter a word of disparagement. Even as she sits now In the summer eunshlne of the park, with her white lace parasol tipped well over ber bead, and her large, unfaltering eyes turned fully upon him, she is wondering whether this absence of his Is in any way connected with the serious part of his life, or bears upon the secret she is bent upon unrav eling. "What have you been doing?" she re peats. "Eating cherries, principally," he re plies, smiling. "I was assisted by sev eral thousand birds and one tree elf." "And what was she like? Young and pretty, I suppose." "She may have been." She saw that she had gone far enough, and adroitly turned the subject. "Have you heard," she said, "that Fe licia Grantley, that good-looking girl who came out last year, has been whipped off Into the country by her father, who wants to force her Into a mariage with her cousin, who is younger than herself? Oh, It s quite a tragedy, I assure you! The poor girl between you and me, I -don't admire her, she la too scraggy -came to lunch yesterday with me, and ahe cried her eyes out" "What, for me?" "For you, Mr. Vanity! Not a bit of It; tor Lord Augustus Wray, a fourth son, , you know, with not a penny, and such a scamp! Of course, Felicia has money and doesn't care a farthing about his character, but her father won't have it, and will have her -marry her cousin be cause there's an old place and a baron etcy; and they say young Roy Grantley is In love with some one else, so there is material enough for a three-act drama for you!" "Roy Grantley," repeated Brian, thoughtfully. Where had he heard that name before? Was It not Kitten who had spoken once of a Roy Grantley who was a boy and who worshiped her? It would be odd if it should turn out to be the same. He was not In love with Kitten; he had no symptoms of any jealous feeling concerning ,her; but yet he had a curi ous feeling of satisfaction at hearing that some one else was to marry this unknown youth. "The beat thing Miss Grantley could io, I am sure," he said. "Her father is quite right to save her from a black guard like that." "Do you think so? But then If a wom an loves a man madly, desperately, do you think she cares what he is?" This Mrs. Talbot said softly, under her voice, and ' flashed her bold eyes meaningly Into his. "Oh, well, she ought to care!" an swered 'Brian, carelessly. "Excuse me!" and he jumped suddenly up from his chair. "I Bee a friend I want to speak to." He dashed away Mown the crowded path. Gertrude Talbot was red with an Ser; she leaned forward and followed him eagerly with her eyes. Who had he left her for? After what woman had he rushed away so precipitately? It was no woman, only a bent, white-haired old man whom she saw him run after and arrest. , "What, Professor! Is this Indeed you, loitering in Hyde Park at 1 o'clock in the day? Wonders will never cease. But, Mr. Laybourne, you are not looking well." "I am not well," he answered, "a little over tired, I think. I am up In town for this great scientific gathering of which, no doubt, you know. Would ' you like to hear me speak?" asked the Professor suddenly; "have you attended any of my lectures? Then would you like to go to-night? I am not, of course, worth listening to In comparison with Wentley and Shulton and some of our beat men; but I have a- ticket to give away, a good place close to the platform, you would hear well. I have been asked for It, but I have it here In my pocket, and I had sooner give it to you, Des mond, than to any mere acquaintance. Here it Is, would you like to go?" Rapidly through' Desmond's brain floated the plana of the day's amusements . 1 aU the pony races at Ranelagh, the little dinner at the club with chosen friend, the box at the opera to which be had been asked, the invitation to the supper party afterward. Was he destined to give up all this for a stuffy lecture room crowded with old men, to listen to a learned discourse upon a subject which be knew and cared nothing about? He hesitated. "Kitten would be pleased If she thought you were there to hear me speak," said Kitten's father with a smile, and Brian relinquished the ordinary joys of life without a murmur, and took the green admission card from the Profes sor's hand. "Thanks, very much. I shall like to go extremely. And, by-the-way, how is Miss Kitten?" "When I left her she was quite well. Desmond, If I die. you will be kind to my little girl, will you not?" he said wistfully. "Kind to her! Of course, I shall; but you are not going to die, Mr. Lay borune." "I don't know I don't know life and death are mysteries; who can tell how soon the one condition may be over and the other entered upon? It Is a great weight off my mind that you are to be my child's lawful guardian; that thought should make me. live." The lecture hall In Burlington Ilouse was crowded that night, when, somewhat late, In spite of a hurried dinner, Brian came In to take a seat. The Professor had already begun his lecture, yet his eyes flashed a momentary greeting to ward him as he sat down. Then, without listening over much to the subject matter of the discourse, Brian looked at the crowd of eager, ven erable faces, watched the straining eyes and ears, and wondered at the bushed si lence as the great men around him hung upon the naturalist's words. He heard the voice, which was at first somewhat feeble and faltering, suddenly warm to the work. He saw how the face of the pale old man fired Into a glow of glorious enthusiasm for his snbject; how his eyes shone and gleamed, how his thin band trembled as he stretched It forth, how the man became forgotten In' the sage! ( Then of a sudden the slight, bent fig ure upon the platform swayed and tot tered. There was a cry, a smothered murmur from the crowd, a rush of hasty footsteps, and the sound of a dull, heavy fall. Brian, with the rest, sprang npon the platform and forced his way among the frightened throng. There went up a great wall of terror and lamentation from the bystanders. Brian aank npon his knees and pil lowed the white, still face upon his breast. "Air! Air!" he cried, hoarsely; "stand back, and fetch a doctor!" But neither heaven's air nor human doctor could aid Professor Laybourne any more the great naturalist was dead. CHAPTER VII. "Coming down by last train to-night. To Misa Laybourne, from B. Des mond." Kitten stood reading, the telegram over again for the twentieth time; the grave childlike eyes shone with an in ward gladness, there was a peach bloom upon her soft, delicate face. "He is coming to-night!" she repeated to herself In a whisper; "to-night I shall see him again!" And then she fell to wondering a little, why It was that it was he who had sent the telegram and not her father, for, of course, her father was coming home too. "But my Daddy Is so busy when he is up In London," ahe told herself In explanation, "so many great people want him, . perhaps even the Queen herself might have sent for him to Windsor. Yes, that Is it, no doubt; after his lecture last night he will be made more of than ever." i j She took a letter out of her pocket which she had received that morning. "I am going to lecture to-night; there will be a great crowd, I believe. I wish I had my fairy with me to copy out my notes; they are a sad scrawl, but one has time for nothing in London's great heart. Never mind, my little girl, I shall soon be home again now; I cannot say for certain what day, but It Is sure to be soon." "Evidently," said Kitten to herself, "he found unexpectedly that he could get away to-day and told Mr. Desmond to telegraph for him, for he has prob ably gone to Windsor to see the Queen, and then Mr. Desmond aaid he would come, too." The day wore away happily enough. Kitten rifled the garden for flowers vo decorate her father's study and to set forth the simple supper table like a royal feast. She sang over her labors and was as happy as a bird. The little refrain kept ringing Itself over and over again In her heart "He Is coming to-night to-night I shall see him!" It was like a peal of joy bells within her. . She would see him I Oh, happy time of youth and love when to see the one dear face is enough to fill one's heart with divine rapture! There comes a time, after change end coldness and the cruelty of life have swept over what we love, when the sight of that one dearest face, can only stab the heart with pain, and fill the soul with hope less anguish and the miserable mocker) sf happiness that Is past and gone from us forever. .When she had filled every bowl and dish and vase in the house with Sowers, she called her dog and went out Into the fields, tracing over again all the paths through the meadows and the woods where she had wandered with Brian. It was a sweet delight to her; she recalled his words, his looks, his slightest gesture; each field, each stile, each tree seemed to bring back the swift days of enchantment more vividly to her. "And It will all come over aggain," she said to herself with rapture. "Here and here we shall walk again at this gate we shall linger, along this green meadow we shall saunter, side by side; here, at this plank across the stream he will reach out his hand to grasp mine to help me over, just as he did the last time we came to it; it will be the same thing all over again!" She was too young to Understand that things that are past never return, that joys that are gone come back no more. Kitten was dancing around the supper table In a fever of excitement aad de light; It was after nine, at every instant the travelers might arlve. How pretty the table looked, thought Kitten as she stooped over the flowers to fix a rebel lious rosebud in Its place or to put the final touch to the sprays of jessamine she had laid upon the snowy tablecloth. The glass and silver glittered under the rose-shaded lamp. The chairs were set In their places round the table; three chairs, for Kitten did not mean to be sent away to-night, and by the side of the professor's chair there lay his easy slippers just as he liked to find them when he came home. Everything was ready; would the trav elers never come? All at once the door bell rang. The bell! Where was her father? He would never ring at his own door, he had but to turn the handle and walk In. She ran into the hall; Keziah was opening the dour. Briau Deamuud cuius in alone. In a moment she saw that something was wrong. Desmond was as white as ashes; he came up to her with out a word and took her hand in his. "Where Is my father?" Bhe said. "Is he not coming? Could he not come?" "Oh, my poor child, my poor child!" was all that Brain could utter; "how am I to tell you?" , "Do not," she said simply; "I know, my daddy is dead." CHAPTER VIII. He had expected a terrible scene of grief and anguish he had pictured to himself how she would cast herself down and weep; how the small, childish frame would be shaken with sobs and the beau tiful, grave eyes dimmed and blotted out with her tears. All the way down from town he had dreaded what was before bim, for he was one of those men to whom the sight of woman's tears is ter rible. What really happened was so extra ordinarily different to what he expected that It seemed to him that he must be dreaming. "I know," Kitten had said; "he is dead." Then she turned round and went back Into the dining room. He heard the loud wailing cry of the old woman behind him, but from the dead man's daughter not a sound. Her lips framed one word, which was barely audible. ' "When?" "Last night it was quite sudden he was lecturing at Burlington House. It was all over In one moment; he could not have suffered at all, Kitten; we must be thankful for that He was speaking, and then he fell forward, and It was over." "And there was no time? I could not have gone to him?" "Impossible. It was all over In a few seconds. Your father . expected this, Kitten; he knew his death might be sud den. He had spoken to me about it when I was here." "Oh, yes; I know, it was his heart." Brian was surprised. "You knew? He did not think you suspected it." "No; I pretended not to know; it would have grieved him, but I have known it for a long time; I have been prepared for this." The extraordinary self-control with which she spoke, the intense calm of ber whole manner, terrified him. She looked so small and childlike, and ber words were so old and Impassive. Brain thought he would sooner have had to deal with those tears and sobs which he had dreaded, than with this strange un natural tranquillity. He moved nearer to her. "My pool little girl, what can I say, what can I do to comfort you?" "You can say nothing, do nothing; It's ridiculous yes ridiculous to say that to me. I have lost my all." For a mo ment she flung up her arms with a despairing gesture, then she paused, and they fell again nervelessly by ber side: "And you talk about comfort! Unless you can give me back my dead, you can do nothing!" She moved away toward the door, with the slow, lingering step of a person who Is very ill, but she turned back again to say to him: "You must be very hungry, eat something; I will send Keziah to you; your room Is ready, the same room, you know." He watched her clamber painfully up the staircases to her own bedroom door. A' sort of terror of what would follow possessed him. It Is this sort of grief, he told himself with horror, that un hinges the mind and drives people Into brain fever or kills them outright ' (To be continued.) Benefited. "Do you enjoy a holiday?" "No." answered the candid Derson. "but I derive benefit from one. After Dlnvlne baseball or riding In crowded cars for six or eight hours ordinary work seems mucn pieasanter." Wash ington Star. Alters It. "Are .you, or are you not, master In your own house?" "Well you see, I've srot mv hoimo In my wife's name." Cleveland Lead er. THE PATKIUIM OK PEACE, uy Kev. Harris J. Harrington. "If I forget tbee, O Jerusalem, let my right bund forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee let my tongue cleave to the roof of my "mouth; If I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief Joy." Psalms, 137: S, 0. Motives make men and men make history. Love is the most powerful of all possible motives, as well as. the most godlike. There Is nothing more beneficially potent for the shaping of the character of a people than that principle of love which we call patriot ism. For the true patriot is such a one as loves his land more than his own life. The greatest need of any nation Is thnt she shall always have .the patri ots of peace, the men and women who can live for their land as well as those who can die for it, who ure moVed by the devotion thnt does not have to wait for the drum's throb to arouse It. Plain, common duties are most divine; everyday religloa is the finest and most sublime sight on earth nnd plain, ordinary doing of one's duty may be the most glorious and heroic form of patriotism. Under the plain and simple life may lie the most glorious motives; In the heart of the man who toils like a drudge may be heavenly visions, mak lng the drudgery endurable. In the soul of the patriot who serves his land by standing for her laws, by filling a plain citizen's place, by the dull round of dally duties well done, may be the stirring vision of her yet unrealized glory. The vision Is needed; the patriot must not forget Jerusalem, the city of the great king. He would as soon forget his daily bread or his skill In lnbor. He cherishes the vision when the law conflicts with his liking as well ns when the land lays Its wealth at his feet, when taxes are due as yt-ell as on Independence day, when the rain falls on the election day as well as when the great football game lifts up a na tion's thanks to Almighty God. He would as soon expect to lose sight of the glory, the eternal honor of his land as that bis right hand should lose Its cunning or his tongue become dumb. The need of our dny Is men who will seek to realize the vision In themselves, We have enough who will not cease from telling others what they ought to do; we have enough reformers; we need more renllzers. It Is a good deal easier to fight to make other people good than it Is to stay at home making efforts along the same line yourself. It Is a good deal easier to fight for some principle than it Is to apply that principle rigidly In your own life. Sacrifice is never easy. It was no easier to leave the old home In a uni form than It Is to leave the cozy fire side In a rain coat to go to the primary It was neither easier nor harder to be a brave man on the field than to be a brave man, loyal to the right, in the factory or at the polls. The man who dodges the assessor 10 cents' worth would dodge the recruit ing officer in the day of the nation's crisis. The trouble with all these peo ple Is that the love of self swallows up every worthy love. 'The selfish man cannot be a patriot. He alone can find life; he alone can find liberty; he alone can love his land who has learned the grent lesson of willingness to lose his life. CONFLICT OP TWO IDEALS. Br Her. Joan B. Whittori, Text: "I will overturn, overturn, overturn It; and It shall be no more until he come whose right it is; nnd I will give it to him." Ezeklel xxl., 27. We are in the midst of the mightiest and grandest revolution of thought the world has ever known. It is not na tional but universal. The ground swell of humanity, the unrest In the world of labor, the angry muttering. on every side, the yawning abyss be tween the rich and the poor, the grow ing resistance to bosses and bosslsm, the exposure of municipal corruption, the advocacy of Justice, and the re pudiation of stagnant doctrines and stereotyped formulae in religion be token a great uprising of the common people, and an overturning of things antiquated and outgrown. The voices of the few are drowned In the deep toned thunder of tho many. .. This organ symphony Is world de mocracy. Ovcrturnlngs are not symp toms of decay, but evidences of thrill ing and throbbing life. They mean progress, Intellectual expansion, social and Industrial elevation. All the his toric revolutions of the past have made more room for the head and heart Ihey have meant cleaner and brlehteu homes, a happier and better world. ine fall of Russian desDOtlsm wu not sudden but gradual. It came not by any miraculous Intervention, but by a natural process. It was like boiuu on a sand heap. It was built on fraud ana kept In place for a time by force. But it mocked the moral gravity of the universe. The great battleground to-day be tween the forces of good and evil Is over our young neonle. Whlrhvr bo oh res their allegiance wins in the bat ties. Every device that Satan can sug gest and his agents can put Into oper ation Is to-day reachlnir out for tho control of the young people.. mow wonderfully young people have wrought for the nations and for man kind! It, as has been often said, and is historically true that young men won the bnttle of Marathon; young men saved Tarls during the French Revolution; they fought the battles of the republic. General Grant said In his Fourth of July oration at Ham burg, "What saved the Union was the coming forward of young men." Mora than half of the soidiers of the Civil War were under twenty-four years of age. The farm, the factory, and tho schoolroom sent their boys in the Culmn conflict to drive Spain from the Western hemisphere. "The church, like Hannah, must bring its youth to the temple and dedi cate them to Its ministries," and that Is the Inspiring and effective thing it Is doing to-day. Surely these are days of progress, of promise, and of power. If the church will use the facilities at Its command, keep in mind the plentltude of It power; If the conversion of the world to Christ Is evermore Its rallying cry. Its all-absorbing aim, It need not be long until the Desire of the nations shall be crowned Lord of lords and King of kings. VISION AS POWER. By Rer. B, Buchanan Bray. Text: "Therefore let us alone, see ing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that Is set before us." Hebrews' xl!., 1. Great things in this life are achieved by those who can see far and deep. The artist owes his peculiarity not to the fact of his materials, brushes and pigments, but to the fact that he sees in the human form, or In Nature, or In the world of Ideas, what Is hidden from the less discerning sight of his fellows. So, again, the art, for exam ple, of Sbakspeare or of Scott de pends, in the first Instance, on their power of sight, on their discernment, on the Internal play of passions la human society, on their detection of pathos or humor, or whatsoever else It may be, where to the ordinary ob server all would have possessed the monotony of common life. Once again, the statesman differs from the mere politician by his power of sight; he sees all the circumstances of the pres ent In their vast complexity; he sees) the elements in the existing society and polity which would, If they were allowed free play, make for the com mon good. And he bends all energies to bring about the uecessary changes. There comes times to all of us Is It not so? when we see with perfect clearness what Is right, what is the path of duty, but when we feel our selves alone and unequal to achieve It It Is then that we need the Inspiration of the thought of tills cloud of wit nesses, that we may remember that In striving after the right they that be with us are more than they that be against us. There Is one great society alone of the noble living and the noble dead. At times the noble living seem fur from us und unable to help us, but the noble dead are always with us; being dead they yet speak, and at times with a power which the living do not and cannot possess. And this Is largely because when we recall the noble dead of history we see how much of the faith of the past has be come the substance the seeing reality of to-day. Their eyes have tested things unseen and proved them by real faith. May we, then, all see far and deep. see far enough Into tho future to un- ' dcrstand the present; see deep enough Into the present to pursue what Is right .with courage, knowing thnt we are not alone, but thnt we are striving after the rlg.it, nnd thnt they that are with us are more than those that can lo against us. Let us run with endur ance the race which Is set before us, looking unto Jesus the Author and Finisher of our nilth. Some men think they are forehanded when the truth Is that greed has only made them four-footed. The trouble with the habit of criti cism is that It soon becomes a cloak for our own faults.