The McCook tribune. (McCook, Neb.) 1886-1936, 1886-06-03
CONISTON'S COURTSHIP.
BY FANNIE AYMAR MATTHEW'S.
A Brief in Three Sheets.

BY FANNIE AYMAR MATTHEW'S.
John Gordon Annesley. Earl of Con.
iston, sat in the cabin of the Brighton
boat, reading his evening paper. He
had just folded and put in his pocket q
long letter from his friend and partner,
Sir Campbell Frazier. in which that
gentleman announced that affairs at
the Ranch of San Rosalie were going
on perfectly, but that he must beg his
'dear old Jack" to put off his sailing
date a fortnight, rs he now found that
he could not be in New York possibly
before the close of the month (Octo-
ber) or later.
Coniston was in the midst of a frown
over the piece of intelligence as he
glanced over the paper. He hated
America and the Americans; he longed
to put the sea between himself and this
displcasing nation; he yearned for
shooting and the Highlands; he
scorned the gayeties of all the Ameri-
can watering places, and stopped at
the Pavilion-solely, as he openly avow-
ed, because Brighton was an English
name for a place, and for the other
reason that here he was within an hour
of Pier SO, North River, and could step
on board a Guion boat at almost a mo-
ments warning.
Coniston, therefore, chafed under the
irtlictiOn of an additional fortnight in
the land of his loathing. Albeit the
Ranch of San Rosalie was adding a con-
siderable number of thousands to his
income, he still-just at this particular
moment-wished it at the bottom of the
Red Sea.
Perhaps, too, he mingled with the
Affections of the exile some memories
of Lady Cicely Howard, and the strange
penchant he had had for her during the
last London season.
However this may be, Coniston's va
cam eyes at this juncture took in a very
neat little figure as it advanced in the
cabin; it was followed by another-a
plump middle-aged lady's figure, much
burdened with shawls and wraps, and
evidently in deadly peril of a draught,
for before seating itself, both the neal
little figure and the plump duenna ex-
amined carefully the fastenings of all
adjacent windows.
This M seems tightly closed,
Aunt Dorinda," the girl said, in her
clear. light voice.
Horrible American tone, calculated
TO lacerate a fog!!" mentally comment
ed his lordship.
an Dali M, ~, ,,,ra
Polly! We gods!" soliloquized the
earl. Suggestive solely of comic
opera, milkmaids and parrots. And
she has short hair!-he never could
abide a short haired woman. And she
was small. Small women had always,
from youth up, constituted his pet aver
sion. Dressed in brown; brown as a
color was distressing, in fact it was no
color at ALL" Coniston had all his ma
TONS prejudice in favor of brilliant
hues.
She is alert, bright, vivacious; all
that a oma should not be; what q
contrast to Cicely, who was the perfec-
ton of languor, dreaminess and re-
pose!-and yet Cicely was sometimes
rather of a bore.
He wondered if this young person
was a bore? Now that he inspected
her. ne observed, that she had a certain
reticence of face and manner that vas
wholly un-American. She had seen
him looking at her, of course. By
Jove! where was his paper? on the
floor! and yet for some ~inscrutable rea-
son she did not return his gaze square
" out of those large eyes of hers. 1t
was strange! 1t struck Coniston as a
remarkable fact, worth recording, that
he had encountered one American girl
who declined to reciprocate the delicate
attentions of his eyes.
Whyi there came Bradford! such 4
capital fellow for an American.
Bradford knew her.
She smiled at Bradford and allowed
him to sit beside her, and gave him her
wrap to hold.
To be sure, Coniston remembered
that he had always thought Bradford
yery much of n cad, and not a nice fell
low by n means.
And Bradford held her wrap, and
they all went off the boat together in
the friendliest sort of fashion, with the
maid trotting after them with the
satchels and dogs.
No, he had always had Especial aver
sion for that Bradford And as for
small women, with short hair, dressed
in brown-well, his disgust for them
was not to be measured by any Ian
guage- =,
Nevertheless, as Coniston willy ar
yued with himself, "a man must fill up
his time;' so, in an off-hand way he
inst intimated to Bradford that he