Semi-weekly interior journal. [volume] (Stanford, Ky.) 1881-1905, 1891-05-22

priceless blessing. Would you be RICH
in keeping II from their possession be
cause of that personal prejudice which
. your mother instilled into your minC
. when you were a mere half-grown boy?'
He knit his brows. What is this?'
he demanded harshly. "Who told yo,
g of any such act on my mothers part
Thorndyke, no doubt"
81 have guessed more than DR.. Thorn
dyke told me-" Lucia said.
: Sylvan chose now TO rise. He walked
a toward the door, slipping both hands
behind him with sort of non-committal
4 moroseness-as who should say: Il de-
cline further speech on this affair
though what | have heard has beer
highly agCravating."
lie left the dining-room, and Lucia
felt that for the first time they had stood
on the verge of an open quarrel And
how would il end? She must have that
packet; her very palms had begun 10
itch and Jingle for il. With burning
cheeks and lowered head she sat for
more than an hour in her own dressing
room, and brooded upon this avid long
ing which had seemed To grow as firmly
blood. No use TO try and laugh away
Egbert Maynard's whole aspiration as
the dream of mad chemist. While
she now thought upon her own past life
she understood how there had always
been strain in it of romantic receptive
~ TO just such Impressions as the one
which a recent event had wrought. Her
parents had held no definite faith; they
were of the kind (emincntly though her
! father had shone in the law who cur
tanned what they thought the bad
| policy" of non-belief with such pretty
! patterned fab brio of Indifference, that il
/ deceived nearly every eye as orthodoxy.
For this reason their child's nature
missed those pleasant repasts which
occur 10 us when we can feed magma
ton and emotion on the solemnity of
worship. Lucia would have made
splendidnun, except for the actual greed
of mere living, the hunger after large
inclusive experiences, the love for life
itself just because of it's pulsed beats
and bresth-dra wings, which must for
ever have kept her somewhat OF the
earth, earthly.
But she would have chung to her
psalter and her beads, nevertheless,
while shaping for herself material
future heaven, with palm-trees of CLOS
sier emerald than most nuns dream of,
and perhaps pair of wings with some
sort of half-voluptuous rose-tint amid
the chastity of their plumes. Now, in
the present circumstances of her being,
married to man who had never lit
her days with any harder kind of
glow than that of a rushlight through
hours when her eyes longed for the
light that never was" this young
woman poured forth in excited obei-
sance on a new-found object of homage
all the past, pent-up fervor which re-
ligion might formerly have won from
her with ease. Seated there. in her
perturbation, her fright of self. she
strove to think what friend or acauaint-
ance could now bring balm to her |
troubled soul Not one! All the men /
and women whom she knew had for 3
years entrenched themselves behind the /
practical and ordinary. Some Of them
were confirmed church-goers; others
were rationalists; and yet others were
OF that don't care" type which accepts
life, death, time, eternity and the hui
man soul as il they were facts in his
tory, like the Edict of Nantes or the
Battle of the Boyne-topics that one
may well be aware of but need not seri-
ously treat.
II wonder what sort of a counsellor
this younger brother, Gerald, would
make" Lucia deliberated. Hes never
sent us his photograph; might have
gained some real inkling of him from
that. But at least he's liberal; DR..
Thorndyke more than suggested il. His
mind isn't a covert Of cobwebs, like
Sylvan's. IL would be refreshing to
know him and judge for myself whether
he could help me-" Through a mist of
tragic bewilderment one clear-viewed
purpose began to dawn upon her.
Sylvan had spoken about destroying
those papers This meant that he had
not yet done so-possibly that he would
refrain from such an act for a long
time, If indeed he ever performed it.
the manuscript why not?)
reposed in one of the two locked drawers
Of the cabinet in his study. What if she
his obduracy by theft?
iitT Impulse Oh honesty, SUN cntWlneu
among the most sensitive fibers Of con-
science itself, urged stern veto
against any such crafty course. Once
more She would try persuasion. Once
more she did.
For several days the friends who
came TO her noticed that she had an alb
sent and febrile manner One or two
Of them, who were feminine. went !
away with the deduction that pecul-
arly domestic illness was approach
ing and that it was high time some
happy proof of her bond with Sylvan
should bring its welcome change.
One lady even murmured sentence
Of this import in Lucia's ear "How
little she dreams Of what thralls and
clouds me-" her nearer thought. That
very evening, perhaps an hour after
their almost silent dinner together, she
at Sylvans side, while he '
wrote as our lawyers do when they I
rave quilted their downtown" dis
racti ions and Will. h.. t,s.I for A JasI, /