The Middlebury register and Addison County journal. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1883-1885, 1884-01-18


waning flush in the western skies, and
with the darkness came sudden
dread-a dread she had not known or
dreamed of. "Will he ever come
backy she thought. "Will hep" she
said aloud. An obtrusive hOot-owl
screcched 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-th 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. lie 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--"lt 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 no
sleep while that moonlight lasted. 1t
was to Agnes new glamour; and of
glamour she had but little in the two
years then past. She was 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 even
her father did not fully knOw,-the
brown eyes of John Vandor would
have WINGED for his unforgiveness
could he have looked into hers for a
glance's span. Ill she was not; sad
she was not. But in her eyes was
weary look that the world never no
ticed, and beneath her vigorous health
was a nervous, craving unrest that
even her father never saw.
When the train drew up to the
station, Agnes still sat in her open
section, peering with longing eyes into
wonderland. Half an hour after the
train had settled itself for the night, a
tall girl in brown linen and Cruik-
shank sunshade was walking alone
down the track towards MERGED, with
her feet in the fairy light (and the
cinder dust Of the uneven road-bed),
following the waning moon.
Il wonder if it would be imprudent
as well as improper to 90 to sleep in
the wheat, Ruth-like and romantic?"
She spoke aloud, but nothing in the
profound stiffness answered her. The
moon had touched the far horizon,
silvering the crests of the west side
hills. Despite herself, the girl was a
trilie tired and very sleepy.
Are these peoples in the wheat 2"
she asked herself, smiling. "What if
l go to sleep for just five minutes, who
shall say me mayor care?'
1t was long five minutes. The
first meadow-lark stayed his shrill
mathis lest he should waken her; and
Il tall young man on piebald mare
checked his gallop with startled alb
ruptnesS to see woman's figure in a
linen dress, asleep-or deadly the
supervisors highway.
The piebald mare stood still, nib
bling the milky wheat. The young
man approached the recumbent folds
of linen, half hidden under the Cruik-
shank hat. Quite as matter of
course he knelt beside her. and gently
pushed back the broad brim of the big
hat The first ray of the rosy morning
fell upon the sleeping face. The eyes
of the young man opened their widest
in recognition. Then the eyes of the
young woman opened also, only to
ClOSt again us sue HluTllluTeu SOME
thing he could not catch. He bent
more near. Surely, it was in dream
she spoke:
"And you have come back to me at
last-to hear me say | am sorry"
You ask, Where was her woman S
pride, that she gave back her freedom
without the asking? That, young
gentlemen and misses, is something
no one may answer for any one else.
Perhaps Richard the Bear was not
so phenomenally cool as he looked
when he said to truant and captor an
hour later, "Where the deuce have you
two been, anyhow?'-Ocerland.
What Gamblers Put Their Money In.
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