Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1896-03-30

III
.tgSy;fsl|AISSS& himself that the
s,,Sts&ies------.:----sizsS others could have
D~~y,-so> been nothing but
fancies, because he
had not been SO anxiously careful to
conserve his attitude toward them.
He had not lain awake at night Won
dering how he could pay them atten-
tions which they would accept as lead.
ing up to serious things, without at.
tracing the notice of his sister-in law,
and inviting the consequent ruiu OF
his hopes.
Cotter could not tell what cities
his sister-in-law employed to keep him
still widower, but he knew they were
ef1icacious. She never said ANYTHING
to him; she employed herself entirely
with the party of the second part
Any number of times in the years
since he began to "take notice" he
had seen girls whom he had found
charming, and who had displayed just
that piquant spice of consciousness,
when in his vicinity, which can
sometimes add twenty per cent. to
the value OF q pretty face. One
at time had filled him with an emo
tion which he called interest. One
by one he had seen them grow chilly,
indifferent, and commonplace, after
the blight of an interview with his
sister-in-law. And now that he was
as he told himself-honestly in love at
last, he lay awake nights thinking of
ways in which he could lead up to a
declaration and yet leave Mrs Shears
in ignorance.
If any man has tried to keep ee-
cret III town of ten thousand inhabi.
tants, he knows how hopeless a task
Cotter had before him.
1t may sound strange to say that
Cotter had never been in love before,
although he hal had q wife; but it
only sounds so because it is an uncon-
ventional thing to put ON paper. He
had married at twenty -three-or,
more properly opeaking,had been mar
ried, being passive in the matter. He
had been lanky, rather shy young
man who had never had home in his
life, and who knew nothing of the
ways of women. He was u serious
fellow, to whom vulgar dissipa-
tion meant nothing as temptation,
and who lacked the vanity to read the
innocent advances of young girls. So
until he met Miss Clinch he had hardly
known a woman. She was thirty,
small, compact, with curls, sympathy,
lisp, and arched eyebrows that gave
her an expression OF childish wonder.
She treated Cotter as though he were
head and shoulders above any other
man and the sensation being new to
his simple heart, he drank it in like a
sponge.
Miss Clinch, under her semblance
OF youth, was wearily reminding her
self that it was ''now or never" Her
charms had never been those that ap-
pealed to maturity. Men like young
girls, but they like them in natural
state of bud, giving promise of luxuri-
ant bloom not as stunted little roses.
At thirty, with Miss Clinch, it was a
boy or nobody, and Cotter was at her
hand. Heaven knows, his conquest
was easy! She married him in less
than six months; before another wear
she was dead, having done Cotter no
particular harm, end leaving not un-
pleasant fading memory behind her,
1t is wise provision OF nature
which makes SO many men the vic
Tins of youthful passion for wo.
man older than themselves. She edu-
Gates them, keeps them free from en-
tanglements, and lets them go, with
open eyes and their eye teeth cut en-
tirely through; butin the freemasonry
OF femininity the older woman who
married the boy is traitor and
"cat," and when the inevitable ar
rives, and the boy, grown man, re-
alizes that he has been tricked out of
the prize of life, she gets the scorn
instead of the sympathy of her sex.
No warning in the Book of Proverbs
is bad enough to fit her fate. But
happily Mrs. Cotter died, leaving
less fortunately legacy of q sis.