Middletown transcript., 1894-03-03

but there were great many hings t
keep him in town, and he had to max
a great mary journ ,ys about the coun
try to hear what party leaders had t.
say about it.
After the close companionship of thi
last year, Mrs, Clint missed her hus
band terribly. She was little nervous
and impatient, and sometimes sh'
said 50. The hot weather and the con
slant strain had worn Clint's owl
nerves to rags. And he had neve
known how to be soothing. He only
sat by the open window, in his shirt
sleeves, and smoked a cigar and looked
at the sea, until Mrs. Clint told him
that cigar smoke would kill the baby
Then he went down stairs and looked
at the sea from the bow of beached
dory. His wife began to ask why she
could't go about with him as she Used
to do.
1.-TWO people can go anywhere, y
Clint said, "but two people nd baby
can 60 about nowhere,
And then she told him that she
always knew he was staying away be-
cause the baby bored him. Oh, it had
all been a midsummer madness, born
of heat and mosquitoes and the elec-
tricity af Presidential election year!
Once she left the baby with is nurse,
and went up to town to hear great
speaker. Clint had been obliged to
leave her, and she had waited for him
until 70 lr o'clock in morning; and
then when he came in, his step was
not steady. He had been all night in
banquet. She had never said a word
but she had lain with the sheet up to
her eyes and seen him bind an icy
towel about his head and sit down to
write with strong cigar his teeth.
After that she was silent, but she
was frightened. The next great speech
he did not send for her, but she went
up in the morning, determined to 60
with him that night and bring him
back home with her if she could. She
did not find him at the Office, and she
went into a restaurant to lunch, feeling
warm and out of sorts. She was trying
to be economical, these days, saving
money for little Wilbur. No one knew
better than she how precarious livii-
hood is newspaper work.
And there sitting opposite her,
farther down the room, was Clint cool
and Immediately fresh and gay, lunch
ing with Miss Richardson, who did
the snappy articles upon the moving
world for the day. Miss Richardson
was drinking champagne.
Well, Of course it was silly, but Mrs.
Clint walked out without recognizing
them, and went down to Long Island
and dismissed her nurse and packed
her belongings, and came up to town
without leaving an address hehind her.
She had gone to Mr.. Dash, the editor
of Tomorrow, and he had taken her on,
becauss che was in trouble, and be-
cause he had prophesied Il brilliant fu-
/ ure for her in the old days. But these
prophets generally leave out of consid-
GRAFTON the fact that women is, after
all, a woman. The brilliant career had
been turned aside, and there seemed to
be some diff :ulty about getting it into
the right track again. Instead of try
ing to make clever Stories, Mrs. Clint
read and smiled over and edited and
other peoples stories
1t was not long before Clint found
ler. Sne refused to see him, and then
le wrote her letter, and said that he
lad opened an account in the Jefferson
Square Bank in her name. and that he
should deposit fifty dollars week
here for her. His income varied.
that was about as much as he
made, Mrs. Clint knew. She never
the letter, and he let her alone.
She never touched a penny of the
money, but let it accumulate for Will
our. There was nearly ten thousand
lollars in the bank, and although she
7owed she would never touch it, it was
pleasant to know that it was there in
Ease of emergency-for Wilbur. And |
hen in the awful summer, the bank a
allied and the money was gone. She /
went down to see about it, and she
ound there had been nothing deposited
o her credit for several weeks. An
xtra tightness came about her heart.
he had been nursing her obstancy for a
i've years, but never, never feeling
lone. 1t always seemed to her that f.
Tint was only waiting for word.
)f course she would never speak it; it
vas his place to come back. No one
yer spoke to her of him. She had g
.voided all of her old friends. They
lad been few, and she had made no new a
mes. She and her boy lived alone.
When she could let her nurse go, she G.
ad taken this little apartment where
iargaret was janitress, anh would look :" "
fter the boy now and then. Next " "
ear he would go to school.
Think and plan as she might, these H
ast mouths had made a terrible !.
hange in Mrs. Clint. She pretended
o herself that it was because Wilbur's n
honey was lost, but deep in her heart i,
he knew that that it was the realiza- f,
on that at last her husband had de- n
,rted them. She called it "deserting" f
lem now. She asked somebody cas- q
ally, one day, what had bee I'M, OF q
[aude Richardson, and was told that n
le had gone abro ID, AMI then she saw at
4 allusion in the day which told her ii
lat Clint was in Paris. 1t was after +
3