Lyon County times. [volume] (Silver City, Nev.) 1874-1907, 1890-10-18

shyly at his boot; I'm not sure I'm
doing right"
"And 80 you want to shirk the respon-
sibility on me, see. All right, old man,
work the willing horse. love RESPONSE
bility, glory and revel in it; fire away.
Do you feel the girl doesn't care for your
"Oh. mol what puts that in your head?''
says John, looking up naively.
"Then you don't love her? or what the
devil is it?"
81 have never loved any one."
"Well, certainly have never known
you even spooney for one hour-not in
all these years."
''Now, Fred, this is point of honor.
Ought / to link woman's fate with
mine merely for the reasons have
stated? Have 1 a right to talk of love to
girl who, while admire and like her,
leaves my heart as cold as-as it has
ever been!"
"My dear boy, of course you have.
Listen to me. There is no necessity to
bring to marriage grand romantic pas
sion or any nonsense of that sort. The
question is not how much you love your
wife, but whether you are likely, after
the knot is tied, to love somebody else
more. Now you are safe as churches
never to do that"
"Well, hope have too much COM
mon decency."
"To be sure you have, but didn't
mean that, meant you won't be tempt
ed. Now look at my precious wife.
She accepted me with positive alacrity,
after a five weeks acquaintance, and
having to start for India we were mar
ried in three more. Well, you know the
result"
"Alas!"
"Alas be hanged. She's got her punish
ment and my freedom. was wildly
spooney, admit, but it was for the fifth
eth time. So was she for perhaps the hun
dredth. Well, two years after she bolts
with little Fitzcramp, of the artillery, her
excuse, as she keeps on writing to me,
that he was her fate, that she had never
really loved before. Now she calls me
all the names she knows because l won't
apply for divorce! Merci. don't
happen to approve of divorce and con-
slider the spectacle of a woman happily
married after bolting from her first hus-
band to be highly injurious to public
morality"
"You argue from all this that one is
quite as well off without any violent, SEN
sible passion before marriage as with it?''
II do," said the mentor, "and better a
hundred times"
And SO ended the momentous inter
view.
John returned to Hampshire, cheered
his mothers heart with willing con-
sent. and after the briefest wooing found
himself the betrothed of the best match
in the county.
And yet
All. Why do we not speak and act for
ourselves? Vain question. As well ask
why we have not all strong characters.
Well, by this time the equestrians have
had good breather, and by common
consent they pull up on reaching the
brow of a steepish decline and prepare to
descend at foot's pace.
sis this your first visit to these parts,
Miss Templemore?" asks Dalyell by way
of beginning, while he cannot but no.
tice that the fair round little face is even
lovelier than he thought it at first,
flushed and animated as it now is by
their gallop through the breezy air.
eyes," she replies, turning to him with
a frank smile; 81 was never south of Lon
don bridge before. 1t is my first trip to
Hampshire, but hope it won't be my
last, for l am already enchanted with
everything see."
"Only fancy, john" put in his fiancee,
"she has not only travelled all night, but
never even lain down."
"And why, may one ask?"
81 had two changes and the trains
were all so full"
"But are you not dead tired in spite of
Appearances" he says, smiling.
81 am never tired" she replies simply.
Then adds with roguish twinkle of the
eyes, except of doing nothing"
81 shouldn't think that often happened
to your
"No indeed, I'm pretty good hand at
finding some mischief or other to busy
myself with"
mischief" says her friend. "Why,
John, she is the cleverest little thing in
the world. There is nothing she cannot
90, and is an adept at all she attempts.
You shall come in To tea and hear her
play and sing. She will beat even you,
John, at tennis or, as to that, at billiards;
she"-
"Now, Marian," interrupts the little
northerner, ''if you won't spare my
bushes l shall canter on and let you
finish the catalogue" Suiting the ac-
ton to the word, she bounds lightly for
ward, but turns as she does so to dart a
sly glance at the pair, as much as to say:
"If you like to believe that ye may,
but know lovers like to have few
to themselves" and in moment
she is well out of earshot.
Dalyell's first impulse is to break forth
into praise of Marian's friend, but he