The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1893-04-29

Extravagant and groundless as this
splendid promise may have sounded, it
suficed to send Ninette into the house
smiling instead of weeping.
CHAPTER Nv.
When Ida Fairbanks sent that white
iaponica huttering through the air and
waited a kiss and smile to the pretty
child in John Lorimer's village cart, she
was acting a part with consummate
skill and effect.
When she turned her back on the
White Cliffs people, and, picking up the
heavy basket OF flowers, walked off
with it, with a fine assumption of alb
sorption in her responsibilities as q
flower merchant, she was consciously
posing for effect.
When she had found stump COM
pletely hidden from the grass. grown
road, whose almost efaced wheel marks
might have forewarned trespassers, she
planted her fragrant burden upon it
and seated herself on neighboring
stump, facing in the direction from
which old Cato, her carrier, must pres
emily come stumbling. Ostentatiously
opening her book, she spread it upon
, her lap and fastened her eyes upon its
printed characters. They might have
been Greek or Hebrew characters for
all the meaning they conveyed. She was
still acting part. Her smooth fore
head was rumpled by a frown.
j The dog was sound asleep beneath
her feet, and to all appearances she was
! reading absorbedly, when the lazy
shutting of Cato's mule along the road.
way made her look up.
"This way, Cato" she called, in her
clear, commanding voice, and delivered
her basket of flowers with strangely
curt directions. "This is packet day.
You must. be there before the upcoun-
try boat gets in
Then, seating herself once more, she
opened her book where her handker-
chief kept the place. Mechanically she
finished the interrupted passage. 1t
was one of Goethe's sage aphorisms.
She read it aloud in a student voice,
somewhat as if resolved to drown every
other voice in that of the sage:
"The thoughts we have had, the pic
lures we have seen, can be again called
back before the imagination, but the
heart is not so ob1iging; it does not re
produce it's pleasing emotions" 49,
She looked up. Cato was entirely out
of sight. The mask might safely be
thrown aside. While she drew one
long, half sobbing breath, with hyster-
ical energy she turned, lifted the book
high in her right hand and sent It
hurtling into the thorny, bramblY
underground. +.,.@
With sharp note of surprise, Step
MAX scrambled to his feet and sprang
to the rescue. Ida watched him with
glittering eyes. 1t would not be an
easy search. The thorns were thickset
where it had fallen. She laughed at
his frenzied zeal until she grew wearied
of it. Then she called out to him,
angrily:
''Let it be, sir! do not want it. /
am sick of it. twas written by fool.
Only fools try to keep their brains and
hearts alive
She was tearing her handkerchief into
rags with nervous, trembling hands.
Whenever the embroidered edge offered
any resistance, she brought her strong
white teeth to the task of destruction.
Her cheeks were afame, and her eyes
were dry and brilliant. She was trem-
bling violently from head to foot. This
was not the first time that she had
yielded to the over-strain her nervous
system was perpetually enduring, out
there under the trees, with no breath
ing thing near but Stepniak. Nature is
fond of her own revenges.
Stepniak came back finally, triumph
ant. She had almost forgotten his ex-
istence. He laid the book at her feet
and looked up for some word of COM
mendation. She looked down upon him
frowningly, then stopped, and, fasten-
ing one hand in his brass collar, struck
him a sharp blow over the head with
the book. Then she sent it once more
spinning among the briers. Stepniak
, looked at her, but made no motion to
20 after the discarded volume a second
time.
"You have learned your lesson, have
you, boy?"
The dog wagged his bushy tail acqui:
escingly. Plainly, he disapproved Of
the disrespect shown the sage, but did
not propose risking any more blows in
his defense. Ida reseated herself upon
the stump and drew him close to her by
his collar. She looked him steadfastly
in the eye. His glance quailed before
hers. She freed one hand from his col
lar to pass it caressingly over his huge
head. There was an apology in 1t and
in her next words:
Don't drop your eyes before mine
Stepniak. You are wiser than I, and
truer. You learn your lesson of sub
mission after one blow. Ittakes great
many for my teaching, and then the
lesson is but half learned. You neve,
lie, stepniak. do. don't do any,
thing else, in point Of fact"
A single clear bugle-note rang out
upon the quiet air. Another, and an;
other! stepniak wagged his tail ex
pectantly, He recognized in it the sum
mons for them to return to the house
!