Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1893-05-25
CHAPTER III.
JEWELLERS IN THE WILDERNESS.

JEWELLERS IN THE WILDERNESS.
How deeply are our destinies influenced
by the most trifiing causesi Had the un-
known builder who erected and owned
these new villas contented himself by
simply building each within its own
grounds it is probable that these three
small groups of people would have re-
mained hardly conscious of each others
existence, and that there would have
been no opportunity for that action and
reaction which is here set forth. But
there was common link to bind them
together. To single himself out from
all other Norwood builders the landlord
had devised and laid out common lawn
tennis ground. which stretched behind
the houses with taut stretched net, green
close cropped sward and widespread
whitewashed lines.
Hither in search of that hard exercise
which is as necessary as air or food to
the English temperament came young
Hay Denver when released from the toll
Of the city. Hither, too, came DR.. Walk
er and his two fair daughters, Clara and
Ida, and hither also, champions of the
lawn, came the short skirted, muscular
widow and her athletic nephew. Ere the
summer was gone they knew each other
in this quiet nook as they might not
have done after years Of stiffer and
more formal acquaintance.
And especially to the admiral and the
doctor were this closer intimacy and
companionship of value. Each had
void in his life. as every man must have
who with unexhausted strength steps
out of the great race, but each of his So
ciety might help to fill up that of his
neighbor. 1t is true that they had not
much in common. but that Is sometimes
an aid rather than bar to friendship
Each had been an enthusiast in his pro-
fession and had retained all his interest
in it.
The doctor still read from cover to
cover his Lancet and his Medical Jour
nal, attended all professional gatherings,
worked himself into an alternate state Of
exaltation and depression over the re-
suits Of the election of officers and re-
served for himself den of his own, in
which before rows Of little round bot
/ ties full of glycerin, Canadian balsam
and staining agents he still cut sections
with a microtome and peeped through
his long brass old fashioned microscope
at the arcana of nature. With his typ
ical face, clean shaven on lip and chin,
with a firm mouth, strong jaw,
steady eye and two little white tufts of
whiskers. he could never be taken for
anything but what he was-a high class
Rr;t;oI ,,a1;,,l ~ ~ ha oc,a of
90, or perhaps just year or two older.
The doctor in his heyday had been
cool over great things but now in his re-
tirement he was fussy over trifles. The
man who had operated without the quiv-
er of finger when not only his patients
life but his own reputation and future
were at stake was now shaken to the
soul by mislaid book or careless maid.
He remark | it himself and knew the
reason. When Mary was alive" he
would say, 'she stood between me and
tho little troubles. could brace myself
fof the big ones. My girls are as good
as girls can be, but who can know man
as his wife knows him?" Then his men,
ory would conjure up tuft of brown
hair and single white thin hand over a
coverlet, and he would feel as we have
all felt-that if we do not live and know
each other after death then indeed we
are tricked and betrayed by all the high
est hopes and subtlest intuitions of our
nature.
The doctor had his compensations to
make up for his loss The great scales
of fate had been held on level for him,
for where in all great London could one
find two sweeter girls, more loving, more
intelligent and more sympathetic than
Clara and Ida Walker? So bright were
they, so quick, so interested in all which
interested him, that if it were possible
for man to be compensated for the loss
of good wife then Balthazar Walker
might claim to be so.
Clara was tall and thin and supple
with graceful, womanly figure. There
was something stately and distinguished
in her -"queenly" her friends
called her. while her critics described
her as reserved and distant. Such as it
was, however, it was part and parcel OF
herself, for she was and had always from
her childhood been different from any one
AROUND uSr. mere WAS uOlilluB bTtSdii-
Gus in her nature. She thought with her
own mind, saw with her own eyes, acted
from her own impulse. Her face was
pale-striking rather than pretty-but
with two great dark eyes, so earnestly
questioning, SO quick in their transitions
from Joy TO pathos. so swift in their COM
ment upon every word and deed arount
her-those eyes alone were to many
more attractive than all the beauty Of
her younger sister. Hers was strong,
quiet soul, and it was her firm hand
which had taken over the duties of her
mother, had ordered the house, restrained
the servants, comforted her father and
upheld her weaker sister from the day OF
that great misfortune
Ida Walker was a hands breadth small
er than Clara, but was little fuller in
thoiace and plumper in the figure She