Connecticut western news., 1892-07-07

absurd conversation "a weakness for sentiment. But it was checked by her vexation with her friend for breaking their tacit understanding by the feeling of half contemptuous pity that stole over her as he spoke.
 Were she a man, she thought, she would never confess at forty to the in- competence of twenty-five. That Kin naird did so but absolved her again. Also, she reflected, she had headache yester- day, and therefore it was very lucky this conversation had not been started then, or she would have been much more provoked than she was now.
 "I shall not stop you," she said in half mischievous tone. "Go on-I won't be angry. You will perhaps admit that if there is Anything ranking 1t is as well for you to abuse me and have it over, even after all these years, whose obitu- aries you have written"
 My dear, my darling," he said, his strong hand clasping her so quickly that involuntarily her arm struggled like birds wing to wrest itself away. "It is well for me to tell the only woman lever loved that 1 love her still and do not mean to let her go again." .-.a
 ''Arthurp'
 Margaret, 1 love you more than ever"
 "It is impossible"
 '1 love you"
 "You cannot, cannot be in earnest" she stammered. "Why, you have never told me-"
 "Never-until now," he laughed. ''1 learned something when l lost you the first time-my darling"
 "This," said Mrs. Hugonin, partially recovering herself, ''is folly, Arthur, and it is most unfair"
 ''Unfair," he said, ito want you for my wife? No, you mean unfair to take you off your guard. will not quibble with your words," he said, smiling. "May the hour and the scene suggest to you all that they will. May they bring you back to-it was twenty that you were-when it all happened. Margaret, when you were twenty-six l went away from the city of all my hopes, but before turned my back on it did as many refugee had done before mel sealed up my treasures and hid them, and my store is where 1 left it. That is why l want you to marry me. All that had looked forward to telling you-when you were twenty-all that had to say to you, the secret hoard that I had been piling up for our married life, is intact, and now I want you to share it with me-" He paused moment and then went on: My dear, have simply had to wait, that is all. But, please heaven, we will begin again."
 Poor Mrs. Hugonin's breath came and went, an unwilling messenger of pas sion, or, it might be, of sentiment. 'Per- haps I was in the wrong," she said. "But why did not you think more of yourself?' .
 '1 am thinking of myself now," said Kinnaird.
 Suddenly, as Mrs. Hugonin hung dis tracted and in doubt, the cliff before them rang faint and sibylline with an echo. It was the town clock of the viii lage striking over beyond the trees; they could not hear it, but sent from ledge to ledge in the still night air it struck sill very and remote on the granite facade. AS it sounded they both started, he at it's elfin suggestions, she at its material reminder.
 "Good graciousl' she exclaimed, Git is Il o'clockr'
 'It is," said Kinnaird.
 "And we must positively go back to the hotel at once. We are 8 scandal, Arthur-and you know it, for saw you start too." She began to smile. "Do you see nothing in the auguryr' she asked.
 ''The augury?'
 "We are two old fools," she said. ''Think of my boy in his bed, Arthur. Think of my thirty years; be quiet, if you please. 1 choose to be thirty for formality's sake. It is only the night and the moonlight. When II o'clock strikes we recollect that we ought to be respectfully at home. It is only an echo. An, my dear old friend, we have had our past and it is over.
 "Yours has been unhappy, and I am, oh, so very sorry! But you are con- tented now, and, what is more, you are kind and strong; it is better as it is. Take me back to the hotel, and we shall beware of echoes in the future."
 'I thought you said you had grown old," said Kinnaird. "It is only youth that refuses the echo."
 And he took her in his arms and kissed Philadelphia Times.