Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1890-01-04
union nor gave wines; a creature who only sat

union nor gave wines; a creature who only sat
| in his college rooms and read
He came to the square brick house at Lam
ford widower with one child, boy of three
years old. He had maNied a parsons daugh-
| ter out of a village amC( Z the Welsh hills aud
| had lived with her in that quiet, far-of world
until their brief married life ended in sudden
| darkness. Her son was just beginning to run
alone, when the young mother. who had never
| given up the pious and charitable ways of the
| Wears daughter took the contagion OF
| deadly fever by a sick bed in a remote home
stead. half hidden among the hills. too far for
| the elderly vicar to carry words of hope and
| consolation. Ambrose Ardens wife had taken
| the duty OF visiting these people upon her.
self. The husband had an evil repute,
was known to have ill-used his wife.
! and she was dying of some mysterious consum-
ing disease alone and friendless. Amy Arden
went daily to visit her, Ambrose walking with
her. and while the wife read or talked to the
sick woman the husband sat on a little rustic
bridge that spanned a trout stream hard by.
reading the book he always carried in the
| pocket of his shooting coat Never had Am
| prose Arden been known to leave his house uu-
supplied with intellectual food of some kind
| Whether the dying woman's malady was
| contagious or whether the house itself reeked
| with drain poison the doctors never decided.
| All Ambrose knew was that his young wife fell
a victim to her own large-hearted charity. From
| her childhood she had ministered to her fathers
duty.
AR. Arden left the rustic cottage in the Rad
| norshlre village, in which he had lived for three
| years In comfort and refinement upon very
| small income, which he had inherited from his
mother. He was only child, the last as he
| supposed, of race tina. had slowly exhausted
| ITSELF a race of gentlefo.ks who had neither
tolled nor spun. and who had done very little
to distinguish themselves in the busy places OF
| this world. They were Cheshire family. and
| land
| their importance and their means gradually de-
caylnS generation after generation Without
| being moved to any attempt to mend the for
tunes of the house. Some of them had been
soldiers and some of them had been students,
not undisiinguished in the records of the uni
| verslty; but the active temper which can re-
deem the fortunes OF a race had been unknown
| in the house of Arden.
| Ambrose hed from Radnorshire with great
horror OF the soil on which he left the grave
OF his dead love. He had been very fond of
| his wlfe. not with passionate or romantic at
tachment, but with a mid and in some wise
| fatherly affection, approaching the sweetness
OF IA most perfect character. She had never
been more to him than a dear and tenderly-
| loved friend. and his affection at the begin
| ming of their married life had been as placid.
| temperate and as colorless the love of gray
haired Darby for gray-haired Joan after their
golden wedding. 1t did not seem within the
| capacities OF the students nature to pas
sionately for anything outside the world of
! thought.
He went to London and lived in a lodging
near the British museum for about half a year.
! while his infant son was cared for by little
stay maker at Roehampton, who had about half
| al rood of garden ground behind her cottage
The boy throve well enough in this humble
| nome. and Ambrose used to walk to Roehamp-
| ton every Sunday to look at him. All his week
days he spent in the reading room of the mu-
scum.
One day he discovered that his boy had
grown very fond of him. He cried and chung
TO his father at parting, and then it first entered
| into the fathers mind that he might make a
home for his son aud for his books, which had
gradually accumulated since he had been in
London, the temptations of the secondhand
book shops being irresistible to a man for
| whom the world of books was almost the only
| world.
The valley of the Thames was fairer and
more familiar to the Oxonian than any other
part of England. 1t was also within reach of
the great reading room; SO it was on the banks
| of the Thames that Ambrose Arden looked for
a home. He found a cottage and good old
garden for $50 year, and, as his prowlings
| about the iamplit streets within one-mile
| radius of the museum had made him familiar
| with great many brokers shops, ne had no
difficulty in getting together the few articles of
furniture necessary for the establishment OF a
! widower with an infant son. A carpenter from
| Henley put up pitch pine shelves for the stu
| dents existing library and provided space for
future accumulatIons and with his books and
his son Ambrose Arden settled down to that
/ dreamy life which he had now been leading for
between eleven and tw elve years. ..l
The Hatrells made their neighbours acquaint-
ance casually one summer evening on the river,
| where the student was sitting i'll punt with
| his boy, the father absor bed in a book, the boy
fishing. mo0red to the wilowy bank, and where
Robert Hatrel was sculljng his wife slowly
| toward the sunset in his capacious wherry, the
! strong rythmical stroke bearing witness to the
| time when he was one of the best oars in the
| university eight The casual acquaintance
soon ripened into an easy and familiar inter-
| course, and with the passing years intimacy
| became friendship. The two men had been at
Oxford together, albeit they had no memory Of
having ever met there. They had some tastes
other all repose. Mrs. Hatrell was a voracious
reader and looked to Mr.. Arden for counsel
and help in the choice of books BY the new
lights which his wide knowledge of books af-
forded her, she found many pleasant short
cut to higher level OF thought ana culture
than governess or professors had revealed to
her. She grew to depend upon him for intel
| lectual guidance and it was with delight she
| accepted his offer to educate her only child
| after his own plan.
at seems almost absurd to see you wasting
your time upon that child !" she said feeling
some conjunction at the beginning of things
Il have plenty OF time to waste, and Daisy's
education will serve as amusement and taxation
for me. Now that Cyril Is at Oxford have no
young thing to tighten my life except Daisy"
But to you teaching a child of seven
seems rather like setting Nasmyth hammer to
| crack nut"
lone of the boosted merits of the Nasmyth
| hammer is that it can crack nut. Let me
think that l have not lost the lightness and
delicacy of a mind which can understand the
| workings of a childs brain"
The mother submitted and was grateful, and
| it gradually became a familiar thing to see
Ambrose Arden, the grave student of seven
and thirty, whose magnum opus was to make a
revolution in the philosophy OF the world,
/ bending over the brown-eyed child and teach
ing her history upon his own plan, which was
to begin in the valley of the Euphrates and
travel gradually downward through the ages.
from the dim fairy land OF the east to the
finished civilization of modern Europe He
had genius for simplifcation, and contrived
to make the broad outlines of ancient history
clear apd interesting even to that infant mind
He had travelled over all the same ground with
his boy, Cyril, who was now distinguishing
himself at Winchester, whence he came nearly
every saints day to see his father.
CHAPTER IL
Condolences.
The moon rose at o'clock that evening. and
| Robert Hatrell sauntered into the garden after