The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1897-10-15
AN IMPULSE OF SPRING.

AN IMPULSE OF SPRING.
How xo. exaltins it is. now to choose a
And drive straigh for it. like flint and
steel!
To break off all round one. on every side,
The bonds that bind one to home and
Peer Gynt.
It had been a quarter Of an hour out
OF hell, but, now that 1t was over. the
feeling uppermost in James Homers-
hams mind was that Of relief. Ac-
cording to his wont he had announced
by telegram to his sister, Mrs. Earle,
his intentions Of honoring her with a
visit. and had driven down to Bixton
in his private hanson in a more ami
able frame Of mind than that in which
the prospect Of such a visit usually
found linn.
1t was late in August, and no one
was in town. Adelaide, his wife, had
zone to stay with her own distin-
guished relatives in the north, the
club was a wilderness, n the solitude
grated upon his nerves. During
his drive he came to a de-
| termination which set him aglow
by the ~beneficence Of it's character. He
would have his sister to dinner with
| him that evening", and they would go
afterward together to the theatre.
Poor thing! He suspected 1t was many
years since she had tasted the pleasure
Of the kim He would try again to
bring back their Old-time relation,
when She was pretty and gay, and he
was proud Of her, and d~isconnect, if
possible, the thought of her from the
unsatisfactory husband and unwieldy
| ia mj1V whose ChqhhV a~YiStanra dis
turbed his growing sense of fashion
able Importance. Not that any of
them often intruded their s%habbiness
on the elegance of his household.
Emily, his sister understood him, and
saw to that. But the nature of things
necessitated an occasional exchange
Of visits, during which it was doubt
full whether giver or receiver was the
more ill at ease. Altogether, besides
a financial one. there were ways in
which the relation was distinctly OPP
pressive. But to-day he was con-
scious Of a different attitude toward the
visit, which difference might be trace
able to the absence Of Adelaide, before
whose cold eyes he hated the exposure
Of a way of living wholly foreign to
her own genteel experience.
On the threshold of his sisters house
his agreeable new sensations received
a check. She opened the door to him
HcISell Will d. lace IuIl VI lIOuDlc. Ic
unsatisfactory husband had not gone
to work that morning, and was in the
parlor nursing a cold. So she showed
him into an ugly little drawing room,
furnished in a taste that had been
common to them in youth, but which
he, with his larger artistic opportuni-
ties, had long OutgrOWn; and there she
unfOlded her tale of woe. Usually at
their meetings she presented a neat
and creditable appearance, but today
with no fear of Adelaide in the back
ground, she had omitted to make any
toilet preparatory for her brothers
visit, and looked untidy as we'll as
shabby.
Before the d~raWing-room door had
been shut on them he had decided to
withhold his proposal for the evening.
1t was the old story. and more also.
The landlord refused to wait any long
er for his rent; the doctor had said
that a visit to the seaside was impera-
tive for the little girls; and-and she
was afraid there was a baby coming
in the spring.
The last item completed the revul.
sion of feeling that had already set in
His irritation was not to be suppressed
and, as he wrote her out a check he
let loose on her some of his ideas or
the subject of the responsibilities OF
parenthOOd. He had not calculated the
effect of his words. He had long cas-
ed to associate with his sister those
wild outbreaks of temper which huns
about the memoir of her in the darl
ages of their joint history. In fact
her latter-day weakness had been al.
most a source of irritation. To-day he
learned that the volcano had not beer
extinct, but sleeping. She tore the
check he handed her to shreds before
his eyes, and filled his astOnished ears
with the garnered bitterness Of griev.
ances borne long years in silence. Sh
c~ontrasted their positions-her own in
creasing poverty and his growing
weal-and declared the difference alone
accountable for the rarity of their in
tercOurse. She inveighed against hi:
ill-concealed contempt for her husband
his wife's open sighting of herself, tn
omission of her husband and herself
from any but the most informal an(
out-of-season dinner parties. He. who
in view of periodical checks, a look
ed upon himself as the aggrieved party
listened open-mouthed to his sister:
extraordinary estimate Of the situa
ton. Finally she rose in her wrath
and ordered him out of her house, pur
suing him with reproaches to the door
step, where her two little brown-hair
ed, brown-eyed girls stopped theil