Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-07-08

be able to hunt and shoot, and move in culti-
waited society, tour in Europe and have leisure
to extend his thoughts to other matters than
the details of lawyers office or manufac-
turer's set of books.
.'You time is all barred" continued Miss Dur.
ham. land the music of your life must be in
common time. No elasticity, no initiative. all
is barred and measured. Tell me something
about yourself"
'Tr' This was a daring question to address
to one so reserved as Philip. 81 have had
nothing occur in my life that could interest
you"
Because it has been spent in a cage. know
it has. can see the jail look in your face, IN
your back, in the way you wear your hair, IN
your coat. in your every action, and look, and
tone of voice"
This is not complimentary"
at is true But you were not made to be
jailbird. No one is; only some get caught early
and are put behind bars, and see the world, and
know it, only through bars; the wind blows in
on them only between bars. and the sun is cut
and chopped up to them by bars and cross-bars,
and all they know of the herbs and flowers are
the scraps of chickweed and plantain, dropping
and dying that are suspended TO their cage
bars for them to peck at. 1 know exactly
what they come to look like who have been en-
Gagged all their lives; they get bald on the poll
and stiff in their movements, and set in their
back, and dull of eye, and narrow of mind"
''You-have you not been a cage bird?' asked
Philip with some animation.
"Oh, no, not I. 1 have kept outside the bars.
I have been too fond OF my liberty to venture
behind them"
What do you mean by barsf' asked Philip
with some gravity in his tone.
BARS? There are bars of all sorts-social
religious, conventional-but there! 1 shock
you; you have lived so long behind them that
you think the bars form the circumference of
the world. and that existence is impossible, or
improper outside of them"
Beyond some none are at liberty to step.
They are essential"
II am not talking of the natural, but of the
artificial restraints which cramp life. Have
you any Bohemian blood in your
Bohemian"
10 wild blood. have. I confess 1t. A drop,
a little drop. of fiery African blood. You in
England have your class distinctions, but they
are as nothing beside our American separations
between white and black. With you blot on
the escutcheon by a mesalliance is nothing;
with us it is ineradicable. There is bar sim
lister cast over my shield and shutting me out
from the esteem of and association with those
whose blood is pure. Pure! 1t may be mud
died with the mixture of villainous blood
enough-of swindlers and renegades from JUS
tice, but that counts nothing. One little drop,
an eighth part of drop, damns me. do not
care. thank that spot of taint. 1t has liber-
ated me from conventional bonds, and can
live as like, and see the sun eye to eye with.
out intervening bars"
Philip had WINGED when she spoke about the
coexistence of pure blood with that of SWIM
dlers and renegades. He stopped and looked
back.
They had been walking fast, though uphill.
When takers are excited and interested in
what they say, they naturally qzicken their
Philip looked back he could not see her. for
the ground fell away steeply and concealed the
several folds of the road.
"whatP" asked Miss Durham, mockingly,
Hooking for one of your barsf'
Philip turr ed and walked on with her. They
had reached the summit, and the ground be-
fore them was level On this track of level
nossy moor lay the lake of deep crystal water,
in which fioated masses of snow or ice, that had
slidden from the mountain on the opposite
side. Hardly a tree grew here. on this neck,
exposed to furious currents of wind.
MAY 1 take your armf' asked Miss Durham.
81 am heated and tired with this long climb?'
Philip offered her the support she de-
manded.
Il suppose she said. "that you have not as
sociated much with any but those who are cage
birds?"
He shook his head and colored slightly.
do you know what 1 am?' she asked alb
ruptly. and turned and looked at him, loosing
her hand from his arm.
II have heard that you are a lady with alarge