The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1890-05-13

| repelIlng the advances Oh Hy prospective Au9
| band
was only sustained by the thought that
soon Fred would arrive, and the hope that be
would find some method of relieving me from
my painful position.
Gilbert had the impertinence TO remark
| that he hoped l should ike young Fred Hall
well, though, between ourselves, he was
rather a prig." Finally, Fred arrived, ana
was solennly introduced to me as an utter
| stranger One Of the few occasions on which
l saw Gilberts smile dry up was when ne
saw how rapidly got on with man whom,
as he thought, had just met for the first
! time
The days went by, and my position grew
more and more hateful More than once
| determined TO make a clean breast of 1t to
nv father; but | could never screw up my
courage to pay such an insult to the memory
of his dearest friend as to decline to marry
his son. Moreover, though l had attained
the gge of 10, had, strange 70 say, the rem
nants Of a conscience, which from time TO
time gave me horrible mental tweaks for
what it was pleased to call my double faced
ness, l being practically engaged to two men
at the same time. But what excuse could l
give my father for breaking of my engage
ment TO Gilbert! II would not have been the
slightest use to plead that didn't love him,
or to find fault with his mental or bodily fea-
lures; while to confess that l was in love
with Fred would have resulted in obtaining
that penniless youth his congo from Darien
hall.
Fred, in the happy-go-lucky way which is
one Of his chief failings (''No, I'm not" is
here interpo5ed in the manuscript which l
gave my husband to cOrrect)-Fred, Irepeat,
with Micawber like trust in the future, in
sisted that something would turn up sooner
or later, and that we had better wait until
that sooner or later, and spend our time
meanwhile in making the best of it, which
we did so efectually that even the long suf-
fering Gilbert suddenly took it into his head
to demonstrate with me on my manner to
that fellow Haliwell"
One morning during breakfast Fred be-
slowed upon me a series of mysterious mods
and winks, which evidently meant that he
had something important to tell me. He
aroused my curiosity by whispering in my
ear as he passed me cup of coffee, Il have
found out why he never leaves home"
After breakfast l dispatched Gilbert to look
for a pair Of gloves, which l happened to
have in my pocket, and followed Fred into
tie garden. Leading me out of sight of the
house, he delivered himself Of the following
oracular and unintelligible remark;
HE has epieptic fits.
'Good gracious! How did you find outF'
''Weu," said Fred, who was radiant with
Joy at his discovery, I'm tell you. You
know went up early to rooSt last night, and
when got into my room my candle blew
out. l couldn't find the matches anywhere;
SO l went OFF to GiIbert's room, glad Of an
opportunity to see the inside of it, for he
keeps fellow out of it as carefully as if it
were Bluebeard's cupboard, with dead wives
all hanging about. There was no one there,
30 I walked straight in, saw luminous box
of matches, struck light and looked round.
The walls were all padded"
Fred paused in triumph.
SIS that allF'
All, indeed! Why, don't you seeq It's as
clear as daylight. He's subject to fits and
throws himself all over the place, and the
walls are padded so that he sha'n't hurt him
self"
Fred's argument seemed plausible enough;
and if his conjecture was correct, here was
splendid manner of convincing my father of
the impossibility of nay marriage with Gil
bert
why, it's clear case of just cause and
impeachment" cried Fred. Gwen $4,000 per
annum can't make up for those fits. Why,
he might bite you in one Of them and give
you hydrophobia, and then there'd be the fat
in the fire with a vengeance"
But if he was subject TO fits, why had be
never had them during the time we had been
in the house? He had never failed as we
knew to our cost, to put in an appearance in
what happened to be going on each day, and
usually behaved as Fred reluctantly allowed,
like a Christian" Finally. in our ignor-
ance of matters, medical in general and fits
in particular, we decided that he only had
them by night and thsJ TINS was the reason
why he never slept away from home.
After much consideration we determined
with reluctance that the only way TO dis
cover the true state of affairs was for Fred
to conceal himself in Gilberts room and find
out if our conjecture was correct.
l scarcely slept a wink on the night on
which Fred had settled to put his project into
execution, expecting every minute TO hear
piercing shrieks from the remote quarter of
the house in which they slept However,
nothing occurred to disturb me- and meeting
Fred before breakfast, SIS we had arranged, in
the garden, l overwhelned him with a food
of questions, Did he frighten you muchl
How did you manage to hidel Is he very
violentl Does he foam at the mouthF'
After a tantalizing and, to me, inexplicabls
fit of laughter, Fred told me what had hsp-
pened. managed to hide myself in a ward
robe in his room, and, Cfter what seemed a
fearful time, Gilbert came up and began to
undress Good heavensl You should see the
way that fellow ogles himself in the glass;
why, he's nearly as bad as you-as a girl, l
mean. Wei, l was in an awful funk that
he'd open the wardrobe, but he didn't: and
at last ne got into bad without having shown
the slightest symptoms OF having fit l
can tell you l was disappointed, and deter
mined TO wait till he was asleep, and then
leave the room. I must have dozed off, for
suddenly I woke with fearful start, at what
I thought was q clap Of thunder, about an
inch from my ear. IN three seconds had
found out the secret Of the padded walls: he
snores like steam worked fog horn"
Fred was right. This was the horrible
seamy side to the silver lining Of G4,o00
year.
We had a certain delicacy about informing
my father of the one failing of his dearest
friends son, so we had recourse TO strstasen.
We managed TO csntTive that Gilbert and
my father should be boxed up together for
ten mile drive home from bali in the neigh
boring county.
We left Darieu hall the next day.
Il assure YOU, my dear, that young fellow
cracked the carriage window, not 70 men
ton the drum of ny ear, with his snoring.
l could not think Of you marrying such
man. Ills poor father never did such thing
True Flag