The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1884-02-20

aDOYe all elSeT III IS a-an eTTOTs EdCn
of us loves his own way better than
sweetheart or lover. Is it not sop
"For you, possibly; not for me"
If she had looked more closely at
him as she spoke, she would have
noticed that his face wore an express
sion she had never before seen. John
Yandor's forehead carried frown as
black as the shadows Of the forest
hillsides above San Pablo, and there
was the precise sort of glitter in his
brown eyes that the usual tictitionist
describes as "baleful." But she did
not notice; and when he said, slowly
and painfully, as if every word cost
him a moment of physical pain, "Do
you want your freedom back again,
Agnes ?" she answered him, with the
defiant ring of assured proprietorship
in her lark-like voice:
"Why, yes, for a while, if you
please"
at shall be until you please to tire
of it," was all he said.
He strobe down the hillside slope
without single good-by, and she con-
tinued to stand with a scornful smile,
while the afterglow faded out of the
sky. But the smile faded with the
waning flush in the western skies, and
with the darkness came a sudden
dread-a dread she had not known or
dreamed of. "Will he ever come
back ?" she thought. "Will hep" she
said aloud. An obtrusive hoot-owl
screeched shrill reply, and the proud
girl found it anything but reassuring.
She had been so sure of John Van
doris love, had taken it so for granted,
that no daring seemed too'great. She
had thought it did not greatly matter
how courtship Jared, since marriage
would be master on the morrow. She
was prepared to be to her husband all
that a wife ought to be; but to abate
one jot of her freedom in compliance
to her betrothed-that was another
matter.
The morrow came and the to-mor-
rows morrow; but John Vandor did
not come with them. One day Agnes
went to her fathers study. In her eyes
were unwonted tears. She told him
everything. He waited until she
stopped crying; then he said = and
though the words were the words of
Richard the Bear, the tones of his
voice had in them all the tenderness
of the father-"It will serve you right
if you two never meet again; but you
will"
The whistle of the midnight loco
motive startled the echoes asleep in
the MADEIRA freight house; in the
freight house, because there was moth
ing else in MADEIRA big enough to
harbor an echo. First-class passengers
sleep aboard trains on the first stage
of the Yosemite trip. Richard Earle
had been asleep in his section three
hours. What to him was the yellow
moonlight that shone on an ocean OF
yellow grain? But for Richard Earle'S
travelling companion there was nC
sleep while that moonlight lasted. II
was to Agnes new glamour; and OF
glamour she had but little in the two
years then past. She was a proud
girl, and Drawer than most; but the
prolonged and unexplained absence Of
her lover had been no passing grief
If the world did not suspect,--if ever
her father did not fully know,-thC
brown eyes of John Vandor would
have WINGED for his unforgiVenes:
could he have looked into hers for ;
glance's span. Ill she was not; sac
she was not. But in her eyes was j
weary look that the world never no
ticed, and beneath her vigorous healti
was a nervous, craving unrest tha
even her father never saw.
When the train drew up To tn,
station, Agnes still sat in her OpeI
section, peering with longing eyes int
wonderland. Half an hour after tn
train had settled itself for the night,
tall girl in brown linen and Cruik
shank sunshade was walking alon
down the track towards Merced, witt
her feet in the fairy light (and tn
cinder dust of the uneven road-bed
following the waning moon.
81 wonder if it would be impruden
as well as improper to go to sleep i
the wheat, Ruth-like and romantics"
! She spoke aloud, but nothing in tn
{ profound stiffness answered her. Th
, moon had touched the far horizon
silvering the crests of the west side
hills. Despite herself, the girl was
trihe tired and very sleepy.
) "Are these poppies in the wheat
= she asked herself, smiling. "What
go to sleep for just five minutes, VIII
l shall say me mayor care?"
I II was q lOnu five Minutes TIL
first meadow-lark stayed his shri
: mathis lest he should waken her; an
a tall young man on a piebald MAJ
+ checked his gallop with startled al
= ruptness to see woman's figure in
linen dress, asleep-or deadly I'll
supervisors highway.
The piebald mare stood still, MI
bling the milky wheat. The youn
q man approached the recumbent folC
| of Ifnan ha1f hi1Ian 1,n1ar tho Cr1il