The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1886-11-24
IN THE MIDDLE WEST.
A Story of Life in the Great
Mississippi Valley.
BY ALVA MILTON KERR.
[CopYRIGHT, 1886, by THE A. N. KELLOGG
NEWSPAPER COMPANY.
CHAPTER XV.-CoNTINUED.

the charm of her person stealing upon
his senses like the spirit of some dark
and lovely picture. Her mind did not
fill him with an equal pleasure, for it
seemed something like a spring, John
Earring thought, with certain little in
scrutable depths, but in the main. with
its bottom open to the eye. Several
sentences she let fall during the con-
versation made him look at her in a
curious way, but he saw that what
seemed well-nigh indicate in her
words came only of her innocence; for
in some directions she seemed almost
fatally ignorant; this, through her
motherless education, and her fathers
iron care that only things of the most
delicate kind should ever come into her
horizon.
Once she got up and crossed the
room to adjust window curtain, that
more of the slow summer twilight might
enter, and John Earring marked, almost
with a thrill, her gliding, willowy mo-
ton, and he leaned forward uncon-
sciously when she came toward him
again through the shadow with her
long dusky eyes upon his face A mo-
ment after that bell tinkled in the
room back of the one in which they
were sitting, and again John Farling
watched the young girl cross the room
and brush back two long curtains of
rich plush embroidered with flowers
and vines in silk, disclosing snowy
tea-table in the adjoining room, gleam-
ing under the white globes of grace
full chandelier Then she stepped
across the hall and called her father,
who came back with her, having his
grizzly head well brushed and seeming
more presentable than John Earring
had ever seen him.
When they were seated at the white
board the housekeeper, mild-faced
elderly lady, brought in a large porce-
line pot OF steaming tea, and after
bowling demurely went out. Maun did
the honors of the table little bashful-
ly, not saying much as she lifted her
slumberous eyes about, and John Earl
ing somehow caught himself fancying
more than once how those slow-mov-
ing orbs might scintillate and flame
with rage. But she seemed very gen.
tie, and only that something indetin-
able suggested it, he would not have
been visited by thought so unseemly.
At first the conversation seemed a
little strained, but in a moment the old
lawyer brushed aside lingering wisp
of trouble that seemed to lie across his
thoughts, and talked on in his graphic
ierky fashion of his travels and Incl
dents of life upon the Western slope.
Presently the conversation turned back
to Openstone, and Harry Whitney s
long absence was touched upon.
HE sometimes writes to me-" said
John Earling. ''He seems to find his
surroundings very agreeable at least.
can not entirely make him out. l
am afraid that he is no more in earnest
there than he was here. He has deal
to say in his letters about boating,
sometimes something about art, and
throws in occasionally scrap or two of
Greek or Latin.
II presume he will be a great gen.
lcman when he returns" said Maun.
Eyes, and his father will fall a cuss-
in the minute he sets eyes on him
again" jerked the old lawyer "He
has dropped into profanity several
times to my knowledge since the boy
went away, on account of the money
he has had to furnish him, and he ain t
liable to fall on his neck and weep a
power of water down the young chap s
back, or assassinate sight of veal,
when he does return. That Joers boy
should turn out a triple-plated dandy
would be too anomalous. He couldn' t
stand it. Joel would as lief be hung
up by the eyelids in purgatory as to
have such son."
The young folks laughed. They
were forced to it ever and anon by
the old lawyers ridiculous illustra-
tons. He did not eat much, but the
food which he put in his mouth he ate
quickly, as if impatient to get it out of
his way.
q understand that this callow lily
Is coming home in September" he
went on, land that Joel and Mrs.
Whitney are going to dedicate their
new house, celebrate his twenty-first
birthday, and commemorate his return,
in a grand unabridged blow out; sort
of divine Titanic splurge, whose int1u-
ence shall henccforth remain potent
and ubiquitous Congressional force"
The old man laughed at this himself;
not so much evidently for the manner
in which he spilled the sentences from
his lips as for Joe's ambition.
.'Do you like Mr.. Whitney's housep"
said Maun to John Earling.
mot so well as this or Mr.. Bowers. I"
said he. Il particularly admire Judge
Bowers home for the reason that it
stands well back from the street out of
the dust, and has SO many fine trees
and good lawn"
Eyes, l like it," said the girl, sim
ply. Then with light laugh: "Pa is
very angry with Mr.. Whitney's."
"Gewgawgeryn' grunted the old
man. and was silent,
When they had gotten up from tea,
the old lawyer led John Earling across
the hall TO show him his relics, he
said. Here was a long front room
with smaller one back; both bare of
carpet, and having walls and ceilings
of q dull tan-color from smoke. Some
old-fashioned wooden and splint-bot-
toned chairs were scattered about,
and in the back room was an exceed
ingly hard and uncomfortable looking
bed, with the great, shaggy head of a
moose looking down upon it from the
wall. In the front room was plain
fireplace at one side, and on the man
tel above it rested an elk's head, with
its huge horns fiaring to right and left,
upon which sat stuffed owl, and a
sluffnd earle olarinc down into the