The Progress. (Shreveport, La.) 1892-1900, 1892-08-27

reasonable.
There was tennis court at the side of
the Wood mansion, and Mrs. Whitcumb
found certain resource in watching
the play. "Mintie's beau" came over
every afternoon except Sunday, and it
seemed as though the Woods were hold
ing public festival for the benefit of
the neighborhood. Miss Mayhem did
not spend much time with her sister-in-
law. After family affairs had been
talked over they did not seem to have
very much to say to each other, and
gradually the invalid faded ont of OBJ
servation. At first it was one of her
"bad spells" that confined her to her
bed for two or three days, and then she
continued to take her meals in her own
room. passing from the bod TO the couch.
Her chair by the sitting room window
was empty. and the school children
missed her nod and smile as they passed
by.
The whole house was open to Sister
Martha. all but this shaded room, and
when she knocked there the door was
sometimes locked and there was no re-
Spouse. Ann cooked her best dishes for
the visitor, who, rather than take them
alone, ate with her i'll the neat kitchen.
Mrs. Whitcumb did not mind eating
with Ann. She always shared her
meals with her own help" at home, but
her visit on the whole was turning out
lugubrious. Nobody had asked her to
tea or to spend the day; she looked
eagerly in the Littlefield News to see if
her name had appeared among the ar
rivals. Yes; there it was ut the head OF
the column of town items, Mrs. Josiah
Whitcumb, of Bath, is spending few
days at the old Mayhem homestead on
Golf street."
Everybody in Littlefield had read that
announcement without its raising a
ripple on the surface, for the Little
fieldians, rs n rule, took the village
paper solely to read the ''lccals" contain
ing facts they all knew in advance; such
is the witchery of seeing ones name in
print.
Sometimes sitting up there in her own
room with the three slightly windows, a
wild impulse seized Sister Martha to do
something reckless that should make
folks talk. She was not a passive per-
son, nor was her mood Ineditative.
Vinie's room was next to her own. She
kept light burning in there all night
Their windows looked the same way
toward Captain Bligh's house, and in the
small hours when her insomnia was at
its worst, pinning her eyelids open and
making her brain whirl, she would hear
slight stealthy movements through the
wall. and would know that Vinie was
awake treading in her worsted slippers
UP and down the carpet.
There was a light, too, in the captains
window. for he sat late reading-or the
Lord only knew what he was doing
long after other folks were in bed. The
neighbors called Captain Bligh heath
en-. lie never went to church, nor did he
often enter any other house than his own,
but he was keen and sharp enough about
his own interests and had bought up
much valuable real estate in the town for
purposes of speculation. Sister Martha,
in her own dark room, spied on these
two lights as she heard WINES stealthy
steps. The two lights had looked across
intervening space at each other for fif-
teen years. Sister Martha had never
read the affecting ballad of the knight
who turned hermit ON the mountain to
watch the candle in his lady's window
across the valley, and had she known it
it would probably have seemed to her
sentimental stuff.
Sister Martha had her own thoughts 90
she gazed at the lonely bachelors viii
dow, and at times blended with them
was something like a twinge of remorse.
She hoped when the ketchin took her in
the side it did not betol1en incipient heart
disease. Ann Basket had sealed her thin
lips about Captain Dligh and was not
very communicative on the subject of the
neighbors affairs. Her opinion that Mis-
Whitcumb was "a kerryin and fetchin
woman was no whit lessened by the gift
of the linsey woolsey piece for winter
petticoat. Ann received it somewhat
lsrimly with an intimation of counte-
nance that she could afford TO buy such
clothes rs she needed. She let it lay neg
lected two days on kitchen chair before
she carried it TO her own room. AIMS