San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1890-02-19

D
launching their young family on the world.
! One of his first walks was TO that spot beyond
the pond whero they had made their after
noon camping ground. The nut matches had
| led-hed Kendall hoped, some time before,
| for the hand of the spOiler had been near
! their dwelling, AMI its fragments lay scat
tered Oh the ground. He presently learned
| to notice that he never heard the sharp sound
| Of the birds tapping beak among the woods
| without little start of recollection.
Outside his walks, his days were spent in
continuous literary effort. His book was in
= condition which called for all his energies,
| and he threw himself vigorously into it. The
| first weeks were taken up with a long review
of Victor Hugo's prose and poetry, with a
| view to u final critical result. 1t seemed to
| him that there was stuff in the great French
| man to suit all weatherS and all skies. There
were somber, wind swept days when the
stretches of brown ling not yet in flower, the
hurrying clouds and the bending trees were
in harmony with all the fierce tempeStuous
side of the great romantic. There were
others when the homely tenler, domestic
aspect of the country formed a sort of frame
work and accompaniment to the simpler
paUrlarclai clements in the books which Ken
dial had about him Then, when the pages on
Victor Hugo were written, those already
printed on Cnateaubriand began to disSat-
isfy him, and he stepped himself once more
in the rolling art .icial harmouies, the mingled
beauty and talsity OF one of the most wonder
full of styles, that he might draw from it its
secrets and say last just word about it.
Uykuew few families III tho ueighbor-
hood but he kept away from them, and al
most his only connection with the outer
world during his first month in the country
was his correspondence with Nine de
Chateauveux, who was at Etretat with her
husband. She wrote her bother very lively
characteristic accounts of the life there, fill
ing her letters with amusing sketches of the
political or artistic celebrities with whom the
little Norman town swarms in the season.
After the third or fourth letter, however,
Kendall began to look restlessly at the
Etretat poSCmark, to reflect that Marie had
been there a long time, and to wonder she
was not already tired of such & public sort of
existence as the Etretat life. The bathing
scenes, ard the fire eating, deputy, and the
literary woman with Il mission for the spread
of maUuralism, became very fiat u him. He
was aStoniShed that his sister was not as
anxious to start for Italy as he was to hear
that she had done so.
fact that after tho first of August he began
to develop Il curious impotence on the sub
iect of the daily post. At Old House farm
tie post was taken as leisurely as everything
else. there was no regular delivery, and Ken
da generally was content to trust to the
casual merces of the butcher or baker for his
letters. But after the date mentioned it &C.
Cured to him that his letters reached him
wi n ,prDlp.,i ia irrnCru lurtV and that
would do his WORK no harm, but, on the con-
trary, much good, if he took daily constitu-
tioual in the direction of the postotfice, which
gave a touch OF official dignity to the wasp
filed precincts of a grocerS shop in the vii
lage, some two miles off.
For some considerable number of days,
| however, his walks only furnished him with
food for reflection Oh the common dispropor-
ton of means to ends i'll this life. His sisters
persistence in sticking to the soil of France
| he gan to seem to him extraordinary! How
ever, at last the monotony of the Etretat
rostmarkS was broken by post card from
Lyons. I'VE are here for the night on some
business of Paul's; tomorrow we hope to be
at Turin, and two or three days later at
Venice. By the way, where will the Brother
| tons be? ] must trust to my native wits,
suppose, when | get there. She is not the
sort of light to be hidden under a bushel.'
This post card disturbed Kendall not a
| little, and he felt irritably that somebody
| had mSmanaged matters. He had supposed,
and indeed suggested, that Miss Bretherton
| should inclOSe his note in one of her own to
MS sisters Paris address, giving, at the same
| time, some indication of a place of meeting
| N Venice. But Ii she had not done this, 1t
WAS very possible that the two wone, might
MIS- each other alter all Sometimes, when
| be had been contemplating this possibility
| with disgust, he would, with u great effort,
make himself reflect why it was that he
red about the matter so dispropOrtionately.
Why was he so deeply interested in Isabel
BrethertOn'S movements abroad and in tie
meeting which would bring her, SO to speak,
once more into his own wOrdi Whyf be-
Iause it was impossible, he would answer
himself Indignantly, not to feel a profound
| interest in any woman who had ever shared
Us much emotion with you as she had with
him i'll those moments at Euneham, who had
| received wound at your hands, had WINGED
under it and still had remained gracious
| and kind and womanlyl Il should be a hard
hearted BRUTE" he said to himself, IF did
not feel a very deep and peculiar interest in
her-if | did not desire that Mare'S friend
slip should abundantly make up to her for
my blundering"
Did he ever really deceive himself into i'm
aSlning that this was all! 1t is difficult to
say The mind of a man no longer young,
and trained in all the subteties of thought,
does not deal with an invading sentiment
| exactly as youth would do with all his eX.
perience to come 1t steals upon him more