Waterbury evening Democrat., 1889-01-07

for had he hot to stock the Moat farm, and was not Michaelmas at hand?
 Ida, too, was happy, happier than she had been since her brothers death. Besides, Mr. Edward Cossey was out of the way, and that to Ida was very great thing, for his pres ence to her was what a policeman is to ticket of leave mana most unpleasant and suggestive sight. She fully realized the meaning and extent of the bargain into which she had entered to save her father and her house, and there lay upon her the deep shadow of evil that was to come. Every time she saw her father bustling about with his business letters and parchments, every time the universal George arrived with an air of melancholy satisfaction and long list of farming stock and implements he had bought at some neighboring Michaelmas sale, the shadow deepened, and she heard the clank- ing of her chains Therefore she was the more thankful for her respite.
 Harold Quaritch was happy, too, though in a somewhat restless and peculiar way. Mrs. Jobson, the old lady who attended to his wants at Moleshill, with the help of gar dener and simple village maid, her niece, who smashed all the crockery, and nearly drove the colonel mad by banging the doors, shifting his papers, and even dusting his trays of Roman coins, actually con- fided to some friends in the village that she thought the poor dear gentleman was going mad When questioned oli what she based this belief, she replied that he would walk up and down the oak paneled dining room by the hour together, that then, when he got tired of that exercise, whereby, said Mrs. Jobson, he had already worn groove in the new Turkey carpet, he would take out a ''rokey' Coggy) looking bit of a picture, and set it upon chair and stare at it through his fingers, shaking his head and muttering all the while. Then-further and conclusive proof of a yielding intellect-he would get a half sheet of paper with some writing on it, and put it on the mantelpiece and stare at that. Next he would turn it up side down and stare at it so, then sideways, then all ways, then he would hold it before a looking glass, and stare at the looking glass, and so on. When asked how she knew all this, she confessed that Jane had seen it through the key hole, not once, but often. Of course, as the practiced and discerning reader will clearly understand, this meant only that when walking and wearing out the carpet the colonel was thinking of Ida; when contemplating the painting she had given him, he was admiring her work and trying to reconcile his admiration with his own con- science and his somewhat peculiar views of art, and that when glaring at the paper he was vainly endeavoring to make head or tail of the message. written to his son on the night before his execution by Sir James de Ia Molle in the reign of Charles I, and confidently be- lieved by Ida to contain a key to the where abouts of the treasure he was supposed to have secreted.
 Of course the tale of this worthy soul, Mrs. Jobson did not lose in the telling, and when it reached 1da's ears, which it did at last | through the medium of George-for i'll addi- tion to his numberless other functions, George was the sole authorized purveyor of village and country news-it read that Col. Quaritch | had gone raving mad.
 Ten minutes afterward this raving lunatic arrived at the castle in his dress clothes and his right mind, whereupon Ida promptly re- peated her thrilling history, somewhat to the subsequent discomfort of Mrs. Jobson and Jane.
 No one, as somebody once said, with equal truth and profundity, knows what minute may bring forth; much less, therefore, does anybody know what an evening of say two hundred and forty minutes may produce. For instance, Harold Quaritch-though by this time he had gone so far as to freely ad- init to himself that he was utterly and hope lessly in love with Ida, in love with her with that settled and determined passion which sometimes strikes 0 man or woman in middle age-certainly did not know that before the
 
 devotion with results that shall be made clear in their decent order. When he put on his dress clothes to come up to dinner he had no moro intention of proposing to Ida than he 1 had of not taking them off when he went to bed. His love was deep enough and steady enough, but perhaps it did not possess that wild impetuosity which carries people so far in their youth sometimes, indeed, great deal further than their reason approves 1t was essentially middle aged devotion, and bore the same resemblance to the picturesque passion of five and-twenty that snow fed torrent does to q navigable river. The one rusheS and roars and sweeps away the bridges and devastates happy homes, while the other bears upon its placid breast the Argosies of peace and plenty, and is generally service able to the necessities of man. But, for al that, there is something attractive about l torrents. There is grandeur i'll that first rush of passion which results from the sud den melting of the snows of the hearts purity and faith and high unstained devotion.
 But both torrents and navigable rivers arc liable to one common fate, they may fall over , precipices and when that happens even the latter cease to be navigable for a space. AnG that was what was about to happen to oul friend the colonel
 | To begin with, he had dined we'll, and what ever ardent twenty-three may think of SC gross and material fact, it is certainly true that if man is in love before dinner, he i five-and-twenty per cent more in lovt after it.
 Well, Harold Quaritch had dined, and he had had pleasant as well as good dinner The squire, who of late had been cheerful a: q cricket, was in his best form, and told long stories with an infinitesimal point. In any body else's mouth these stories would hav' been wearisome to degree, but there was gusto, an originality, and kind of Tudol period flavor about the old gentleman whicl made his worst and longest story acceptabl in any society. The colonel himself, too, ha( come out in a most unusual way. He had fund of dry humor in him which he rarel, produced, but when he did produce it it wa of most satisfactory order. On this par ticular night it was all on view, greatly t. the satisfaction of Ida, who was witty a well as clever woman. And so it came t pass that the dinner was a very pleasant one ,, Harold and the squire were still sitting over their wine, and the latter was for tn , fifth tme pivinr ta tha former a full an,