San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1892-03-15

uoghole of station any day you name,
and we can talk things ever and arrange
about the business part. Bring gun,
and fishing tackle, and dancing shoes,
too, if you still banker after the petit
coats. The old state can show a pretty
woman or two yet, and we've got some
sport left, in spite of the niggers and the
claybank mongrels." The letter was
signed his faithfully, Ned Anthony"
and across the top was scrawled hastily
an evident Neutrality-suspicious. what
day shall meet you"
Dan returned the letter to its envelope,
amused and pleased and interested. So
old Ned was back in the neighborhood
he had left twenty years before bare
footed boy without second shirt to his
back, in the plumed helmet and golden
spurs of knight of Plutus. He Won
dered how his former chum had been
received in the stately, old fashioned So
ciety of conservative country neigh
Observation-Disclosures they were gracious
or turned their backs on him because
of his father having worn shabby home
spun and superintendent another mans
plantation and slaves and gone down to
his grave in ignorance of written Ian
guage. He wondered also whether Ned
grated on his neighbors, or whether the
original grain of the man had COM
pacted with the growth of years and be-
come susceptible of polish. To him Ned
seemed improved; he liked that open
reference to his father and his fathers
calling; it showed an absence of that
meanest of all qualities, false pride.
There was delicacy about his reference
to his business matters also which did
not escape Dams notice-it was so unlike
the Anthony of old Most decidedly, he
thought, his friend had improved.
The little romance they had discussed
was doubtless in process of completion
was rounding into the circle of a mar
riage ring, as he had always said it
should. The cheerful tone of Ned's
letter, its hopefulness, this talk of build
ing and of settling down ''if things go
as want them," all pointed the same
way. And Dan, who liked Ned, and
loved romance like schoolgirl, loosed
the reins of his imagination and took a
breezy canter of conjecture and arrange
ment.
The things" to be bent to the con.
quering hero's will We're, of course, pri-
marty Miss Mary Beverley's affections,
and secondarily the aristocratic proclivi-
ties of Miss Mary Beverleys family.
With the young lady the romance of
having lived the solitary sentiment and
blossomed the solitary flower of strong
mans nature for twenty years of toll
and roughness and struggles and adven-
ture would, he thought, be better want
age ground than most lovers possessed
at starting. With the family-ah, well,
most locks turn to keys of gold, and if
this one should prove obdurate Ned An
thony had strength and skill enough to
pick it. A man who could unhorse
Fortune and bind her captive was not
likely to let himself be endorsed by pref
udice.
He would HE him down to Old Vir-
ginia, and shake his friends brown hand,
and have a chat about old days; perhaps
entice few James river bass to respond
to his soft advances. Then, if things
went well with Anthony, he would re-
main awhile, and build "little Mary's"
house for her, in his noblest style, and
have a shot at the cartridges, and act
"best man." and all that. And then he
would come back again to the bustling
city and try to put in some more effec-
tive strokes on the canvas of his own
future than he had done heretofore.