Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1896-09-14
THE THRESHOLD.

ed. 1.-THE very last time" he repeat
ed as he sat waiting in the pretty
glowing drawing room.
| Then she came in, and the room be
came beautiful, because prettines.
was not of her.
They sat together and talked, ano
| during a little interval the mans
heart logged his elbow in an irritat ting
way and murmured, ''This is the very
last timen
''Yes!" said the man aloud, and she
smiling, asked to what his aff1rma
tive referred.
Then they talked again on various
subjects which related to the man, for
she knew all his past and something
of his future
"Why are you sad today?" she ask
ed after awhile.
The man hesitated. BECAUSE
don't know why am sad; at least
can't tell YOU"
"May I tell you little story?" ask
ed she.
Please
'sListen, then, but remember my
stories are not personal. There was
once a man who never was boy be-
cause he had been unable to spare the
time. Being boy or even a youth
uses up lot Of time at the beginning,
when time seems short, and adds it on
to the end, but circumstances and
loneliness in strange places made it
impossible for the man in my story to
invest time in this way. So he skipt
boyhood and youth and went straight
into manhood in a strange country"
'sAnd what effect on him did that
have!" asked he in the drawing room
who had become interested after the
story's first sentence.
She who told the story smiled and,
continuing, said: sit had on him the
effect of tropical sun upon vegetable
life. It made him premature in all
ways, but strong also and glorying in
his strength. A great deal was shut
out Of his range of vision, and his
life's limits were narrow, but in these
limits very intense. To him the world
was himself-he and his work, his
aims, his strength. Having missed
youth, enjoyment did not come into
his scheme. He did not look about
him for life's soft lights and its music
and SO never saw or heard them. He
had no time.''
ssAh!n
'.Yes, it was a pity. Well, then one
day, by chance, he met Feminity hap
pened upon her, munching cake and
slipping tea. Femininity smiled pretti
ly at the man and offered him cake
and tea, which he took with nerveless
finger, gasping and staring the while
in pleased amazement. Then Femin
inity's rosy, dimpled fingers went
tripping daintily up and down the
keyboard of a piano and she sang to
him, every note in her ripping little
ballad twanging response on one Of
the mans heartstrings. And he asked
himself Well, let me see. He
asked himself
'sWhy," interrupted he who listened
in the drawing room "why he had
never before known that this was the
world and how he had been led to
think that his life was the real life Of
the world
Eyes, that was what he asked him
SELF And so dainty little Femininity
smiling all the while, drew aside the
lace curtains. which had hidden from
his range of vision the Byzantine al
ley wherein she lived, and, he looking
down the alley with her, decided that
it was the real world; that his world
SO far had been dreary fantasy of
his own creation. The mans lights
were not wide or deep, but very in
tense, and of course he laid his heart
new found, reverentially and unre-
servedly at Femininity's feet. Fem
ininity laughingly accepted the heart,
and then"-
Injecting another man at the corn
er OF her alley" said the listener,
''threw the heart down, still laughing
", and went back to the piano with
her new friend"
ssExactly. Well, now the man was
in very sorry plight, because he had
lost his own world, the self created
fantasy. and being forsaken in the
world by her to whom his heart had
been given he could not find his way.
Disillusion blinded his eyes with tears,
and, cropping about in the Byzantine
alley, he''--
ssHe met Frou Frou. You must let
me tell this piece" said the man in
the drawing room 'sHe met Frou
From wh0 hannnnad TO have wandar-