San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1891-03-23

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cts my most earnest hope that pce'rc inn
mortal after death"
As boys Gerald Ravelow and Louis
Bond used to play together. They
would perhaps never have sought one
anothers company had not circumstances
caused them to spend many boyish
summers on their parents neighboring
estates, not far from the picturesque
shores Of New Rochelle, for Gerald was
robust, merry, pink checked lad, and
Louis, with his sallow face and great,
mystic black eyes, differed from him as
an ivy leaf differs from the dandelion.
Having once met and become friends,
however, genuine fondness grew and
throve between their two widely oppo-
site natures. Gerald Ravelow's mother
was a meek faced widow, who adored
her only child, and lived in perpetual
state of weak chested and neuralgia re-
greet that his late father had not left him
millionaire. o. But Gerald's cheerful
mind could see nothing really calamitous
in the snug little fortune that had sur
vived his fathers commercial collapse.
They spent four or five months in New
York each year, and their WestChester
home was pleasant if not palatial
After ALL" said Gerald one day, II
begin to think, mamma, that money
can't always buy us happiness" He
looked SO jocundly ignorant of his own
platitude that his mother forgot how
threadbare one it was. There are the
Bonds" he went on: Louis is nice lit
tie chap when you know him, but then
he gets fits of the blues, as he calls EN-,
and he doesn't begin to have half as good
a time of it as do. And just look at
their great, big house. and their stables,
and their servants, and everything like
that! And then, Louis father! al
ways think Of a crow when | see MIR.
Bond: he's so awfully dark and glum."
He never recovered from his wife'p
loss,'' said Mrs. Ravelow, little reprov-
ingly. Il never saw her; they bought
Shadyshore after her death. But I've
heard that little Brenda looks good
deal like her dead mother, and if that is
the case Mrs. Bond must have been very
beautiful.
DO you think Brenda Bond pretty"
asked Gerald The idea of her being so
had never occurred to him before.
shes like little angelr' declared his
mother. Such hair as hers viii always
stay golden; itisn't the kind that changes
to nut brown, as that of 50 many chill
dren do. And then her pure little wild
rose of face! Oh, Gerald, | should think
you'd be ever so fond of her already!'
That ALREADY" piqued Gerald by its
ambiguity lie did not know exactly
whether it referred to his own youth or
that of Brenda, who was two good years
younger than himself But pride kept
him from inquiries as to his mothers
actual meaning, while at the same time
he reflected that he was privately very
fond indeed of little Brenda and that in
more than one gallant way he had con
trived to tell her so.
The thought of her son marrying
Brenda Bond at some future day filled
Mrs Raveiow with ambitious thrills.
The Bond fortune was we'll known to be
| S. 600 900 if dime and though Louis
would perhaps receive the"great bulk of
the property on his fathers death still
his sisters share would doubtless prove
handsome one. But Mrs. Raveiow
was of too hypo3houdriac ii turn to al
low hope the least altitude Of flight,
Her semi-invalid eyes forever gazed on
the dark sides of things. and she saw
slight prospect of mere boy and girl
preference ever resulting seriously in
| after life.
At l6 Gerald went to Harvard. while
Louis, owing to the enfeebled health OF
/ his melancholy father. remained At home
| under the care Of tutors. During Ger
AIDS vacations he saw great deal Of
| both Louis and his sister. This had
proved one of the few childish friend.
ships not fated to be shattered or dis,
| PEELED by time. Gerald took no high
stand in his class, and Louis, studying
sIld reading amid comparative solitude,
you'd sometimes &ssail him with gentle
ironies
81 dare say you'd beat rs all out Of
our boots if you were at Cambridge"
laughed Gerald one day in his junior
year
oh, how do wish he had gone"
said Brenda, who CHANGED to be present,
and who had now become a damsel with
bair like threaded sunshine figure of az