Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1889-02-08
CHAPTER XXIII.
"GooD-BY, MY DEAR, GooD-BY.n

''GooD-BY, MY DEAR, GOODBYE
When Edward Cossey had gone, Ida rose
and put her hands to her head. So the blow
had fallen, and the deed was done, and she
was engaged to be married to Edward Cossey.
And Harold Quaritch! Well there must be
an end to that. 1t was hard, too-only u
woman could know how hard. Ida was not
a person with long record of love affairs.
Once, when she was twenty, she had pro-
posal which she had refused and that was all.
So it happened that when she became at
tached to Col. Quaritch, she had found her
heart for the first time, and for a woman,
somewhat late IL life. Consequently her feel
ings were all the more profound, and SO in
deed was her grief at being forced not only
TO put them away, but to give herself to an
other man who was not agreeable to her. She
was not a violent or i'll regulated woman like
Mrs Quest. She looked facts in the face, re-
cognized their meaning, and bowed before
their memorable logic. 1t seemed to her
almost impossible that she could hope to avoid
this marriage, and if that proved to be so she
might be relied upon to make the best of it.
Scandal would, under any circumstances,
never find a word to say against Ida, for she
was not person who would attempt to COLI
sole herself for an unhappy marriage. But
to turn aside from her happiness-fer she well
knew that with Harold Quaritch her life
would be very happy-aud fit her shoulders
to this heavy yoke. Well, she had saved the
place to her father by it, and also to her
descendants if she had any, and that was all
that could be said for it.
She thought and thought, wishing in the
bitterness of her heart that she had never
been born to come to such a heavy day, till
at last she could think no more The air Of
the room seemed TO stide her, though it was
by no means overhcated She went TO the
window and looked out. 1t wa5u 'r T. re-. :
evening, and the wind wa Griy
before it in sheets. IN IL" '. .-r.l
light of the sinking san a,2I..-,. l.e clouds
blood red, and broke in arrows OF ominous
light upon the driving storm.
| But, bad as the weather was, it attracted
Ida. When the heart is heavy and torn 10y
conflicting passions, it seems to answer to the
calling of the storm, and to long to lose its
petty troubling in the turmoil of the rushing
world. Nature has many moods of which
| our own are but the echo and reflection, and
she can be companionable when all human
sympathy must fail. For she is our mother
| from whom we come, to whom we go, and
| her arms are ever open to clasp the children
| who can hear her voices. Drawn thereto
by an impulse which she could not have ana
| lyzed, Ida went upstairs, put on thick pair
of boots, q macintosh and an old hat, and
sailed ont into the wind and wet. 1t was
| blowing D., UAs, and as the rain whirled
down, the drops struck upon her face like a
spray. She crossed the bridge and went out
! into the park land beyond The air was full
Of dead leaves, and the grass rustled with
| them for this was the first wind since the
frost. The great boughs of the oaks ratified
and groaned above her, and high overhead,
among the sullen clouds. flight Of wind