Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1890-11-10

looking like those in the long gallery
of the Louvre. He thought he knew
all about the Louvre, but he would
go over again and locate the long
gallery, and become able to talk I'M
derstandingly about it.
And then it came over him like
blast of icy air that he could never
talk over things with her again. He
had reached Fifty-ffth street now,
and the shock brought him to stand
still on the corner, where he stood
gazing blankly before him. He felt
rather weak physically, and decided
to go back to his rooms, and then he
pictured how cherries they would
look, and how little of comfort they
contained. He had used them only
to dress and sleep in of late, and the
distaste with which he regarded the
idea that he must go back to them to
read and sit and live ia them, showed
him how utterly his life had become
bound up with the house on Twenty
seventh street
ssWhere was he to 60 in the even
ing?' he asked himself, with pa
thetic hopelessness, cor in the morn
inc or afternoon for that matter!"
Were there to be no more of those
Journeys to picture galleries and to
the big publishing houses, where they
used to hover over the new book
counter and pull the books about,
and make each other innumerable
presents of daintily bound volumes,
until the clerks came to know them
so we'll that they never went through
the form of asking where the books
were to be sent? And those tete-a-
tete luncheons at her house when her
mother was upstairs with headache
or a dress-maker, and the long rides
and walks in the park in the after
noon. and the rush down to dress,
onlv to return to dine with them, ten
minutes late always, and always with
some new excuse, which was allow
| ed if it was clever and frowned at If
it were commonplace-was all this
really over?
Why, the town had only run on be-
cause she was in it, AMI as he walk
ed the streets the very shop windows
had suggested her to him-forists
only existed that he might send her
flowers, and gowns and bonnets In
the milllners' windows were only
pretty as they would become her;
and as for the theaters and the news
papers, they were only permissible as
they gave her pleasure. And he had
given all this up, and for what, he
asked himself, and why?
He could not answer that now. 1t
was simply because he had been sur
feited with too much content, he re-
piled passionately. He had not ap-
preciated how happy he had been.
She had been too kind: too gracious.
He had never known until he had
ouarreled with her and lost her how
precious and dear she had been to
him.
He was at the entrance to the Park
now, and he strobe on along the walk
bitterly upbraiding himself for being
worse than a CRIMINAL fool, a COM
mon blind mortal to whom a goddess
had stopped.
He remembered with bitter regret
a turn off the drive into which they
had wandered one day, a secluded,
pretty spot with circle of box around
it, and into the turf of which he had
driven his stick, and claimed it for
them both by the right of discovery.
And he recalled how they had used
to 90 there, just out OF sight of their
friends in the ride, and sit and chat
ter on a green bench beneath bush
of box, like any nursery maid and
her young man, while her groom held
the horses heads In the bridle-p path
beyond. He had broken off sprig
of the box one day and given it to
her, and she had kissed it foolishly.
and laughed, and hidden it in the
folds Of her riding skirt, in burlesque
fear lest the guards should arrest
them for breaking the much advertis-
ed ordinance.
And he remembered with miser-
able smile how she delighted him with
her account of her adventure to hel
mother, and described them as flee
ing down the Avenue with their treas
ure, pursued by squadron of mount
ed policemen.
This and hundred other of the
foolish, happy fancies they had shar
ed in common came back to him, ano
he remembered how she had stopped
one cold afternoon just outside Of
this favorite spot, beside an open iror
grating sunk in the path, into which
the rain had washed the autumn
leaves, and pretended it was steam
: radiator, and held her slim glovet
hands out over it as if to warm them
How absurdly happy she used t.
make him, and how light-hearted sh
t had been He determined suddenl'
2 and sentimentally to go to that Sc
cret place now, and bury the engage
e ment ring she had handed back t.
7 him under that bush as he had burie'
/ his hopes Of happiness, land he pictur
] ed how some day when he was dea'
j she would read of this in his will AN
4 - I'D dir mn tho rinU and rampm