San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1896-01-10
CHAPTER III.
sympathy.


Five years rolled on, and Phil Gilman
prospered He wasn't quite viceroy,
to be sure, but he was deputy collector.
Not man in the Deccan got on better
than he did. His excellency was pleased
more than once in that short time to
promote Mr.. Philip Gilman to success
sive posts in successfully dreary up
country districts. Phil saved and scrap
ed, and all for Aggie. AT the end of five
years, with his own little income and
his rising pay, he began to feel himself
in position to think about marrying.
He would send home for Aggie now
and ask her to come out to him. He
could redeem that long standing pledge
and make himself and her happy.
Five years had rolled on, but they
had rolled ON Gas observant souls may
often note to be the case) by one day at
time, through 12 months of each year,
with long, slow regularity. Now, all
those months Phil Gilman had written
by every mail to Aggie, and by every
mail he had heard in return from Aggie
again. At first he had sat down to write
each time with ardent affection. He had
torn open Aggie's letters. when they
came, with eager expectancy. But as
months passed by and he never saw Ag-
gle this first flush of young love began
to die away imperceptibly, until at last,
almost without knowing it himself, he
sat down so many times week to write
his budget as pure matter of duty.
Sometimes it rather worried him to
have to find something fresh to say to
Aggie; he wrote, not SO much because
he wanted to write, as because he knew
Aggie would be disappointed not to get
letter. And so she would have been,
indeed; she would have cried very Bit
terly that Phil should have neglected
her. Phil was always SO punctual; what
could be the meaning of this delay?
Was it possible that Phil, her dear Phil,
was forgetting her?
There's vast deal of difference, how
ever, between 81 and 26. For those five
long years Phil had saved every penny
Che said penny quite naturally now, an
mas having grown only too common and
unclean to him), and at the end of that
time, when he began to think to him
self he might now send home for his be-
loved Aggie-why, a strange sort OF
discovery broke suddenly over him.
Great heavens! What was this? Was
he overjoyed at the prospectf Did he
hail with effusion the advent OF that
long wished for, that much desired, day?
Was he half mad with delight, half
wild with expectancy? If the truth
must be told-oh, dear me, not bit OF
it! It occurred to him all at once that
for the last two years or thereabout he
had been saving and writing not for
pure, pure love, hut by mere force of
habit. The original flame had died
down, the original impulse had worn
itself out, and now, in their place,
strange, critical doubts and fears OBJ
truded all unawares their unwelcome
faces
Did he really love Aggie quite as
well as he used 70 do? Did Aggie really
love him quite as well as she once said
she did? Had they two changed much
in those five years of absence? Would
Aggie's fluffy hair be quite as entranc-
ing and as Grant as ever? Would Ag-
gie's simplicity be as engaging as OF
old? Or, again, let him see; she was IL
then; would there be any simplicity
left at all at 23, he wondered. Looking
at the matter philosophically (and In
dian civil servants are ex officio philoso-
phers-it's part Of the examination),
he saw for himself they were both five
years older, and five years might have
made a deal of difference to both OF
them. Each might have developed, and
each might now take fresh view OF
the situation and Of the other. Oblec-
lively Aggie might be somebody else;
subjectively, he himself might think
quite diversely of her. Now, when
man begins to talk of object and sub
ject in these matters at all, you may be
perfectly sure the fine flush of loves
young dream is pretty we'll over with
him. We certainly don't philosophize
in the first full rapture. Phil Gilman
realized all at once that loves young
IL. IL La