Courier Democrat. (Langdon, N.D.) 1891-1920, 1897-02-25

E$RI S!:S; =. simply building
ftHt@SS = each within its own
n grounds, 1t is prob
' IN able that these
three small groups of people would
have remained hardly conscious of e. oh
others existence. and that there would
have been no opportunity for that ac-
ton and reaction which is here set
forth. But there was a common link
20 bind them together. To single him.
self out from all other Norwood build
ers the landlord had devised and laid
cut a common lawn tennis ground,
which stretched behind the houses with
eaut-stretched net. green close-cropped
-owara, and widespread whitewashed
Hines. Either in search of that hard
-exelciS" which is as necessary as air
or food to the English temperament,
came young Hay Denver when released
from tire toll of the city: hither, too.
came DIR. Walker and his two fair
daughters. Clara md Ida. and Either
also. champions of the lawn. came the
ahort-skirted. muscular widow and her
athletic nephew. Ere the summer was
gone they knew each other in this quiet
nook as they might not have done after
years Of sitter aid more formal ac-
4uaintance.
And especially to the admiral and
the doctor were this closer intimacy
and eompanionship of value. Each
had a void in his life, as every man
must have who with unexhausted
strength steps out Of the great race. but
each by his society might help to fill up
that Of his neighbor. 1t is true that
they had not much in common. but that
is sometimes an aid rather than bar
to friendship Each had been an en-.
thusiast in his profession. and had re.
tanned all his interest in it. The doctor
still read from cover to cover his Lam
Get and his Medical Journal, attended
all professional gatherings, worked
himself into an alternate state of exal-
tation and depression over the results
OF the election of officers, and reserved
for himself a den of his own, in which
before rows of little round bottles full
OF glycerine, Canadian balsam. and
staining agents, he still cut sections
with a microtome, and peeped through
his long, brass, old-fashioned micro
scope at the arcana Of nature. With
his typical face. clean shaver on lip
and chin, with a firm mouth, strong
Jaw. steady eye. and two little white
Tufts Of Whiskers, he could never be
taken for anything but what he was. a
nigh-class British medical consultant
of the age of fifty, or perhaps just a
year or two older.
The doctor in his hey-day, had been
cool over great things, but now, in his
retirement, he was fussy over trifes.
The man who had operated without the
culver of finger, when not only his
patients life but his own reputation
f,1f9 NJ toll
shaken to the soul by mislaid book or
a careless maid. He remarked it him.
self, and knew the reason. when Mary
was alive he would say, "she stood
between me and the little troubles. I
could brace myself for the big ones.
Ny girls are as good as girls can be,
but who can know man as his wife
knows him." Then his memory would
'eonjure up tuft Of brown hair and
a single white, thin hand over a cover
let, and he would feel, as we have all
felt, that If we do not live and know
each other after death. then indeed we
are tricked and betrayed by all the
highest hopes and subtlest intuitions of
our nature.
The doctor had his compensations to
make UP for his loss. The great scales
OF tate had been held on a level for
him; for where in all great London
could one find two sweeter girls, more
loving, more intelligent, and more SYM
pathetic than Clara and Ida Walker?
SO bright were they, so quick. so inter-
'ested in all which interested him, that
II it were possible for a man to be COM
pensated for the loss Of a good wife
then BalthaZar Walker might claim to
be so.
Clara was tall and thin and supple
with graceful, womanly figure. There
was something stately and distin-
guIshe11 in her carriage, "queenly' her
fs7ends'called her, while her critics de-
scrlbed her as reserved and distant.
such asst was, however, it was part
and parce1sof herself, for she was, and
mad always from her childhood been,
different from any one around her
There was nothing gregarious in her
nature. She thought with her own
mind. saw with her own eyes, acted
from her own impulse Her face was
pale, striking rather. than pretty, but
with two great dark eyes, so earnestly
questioning, so quick In their transit
lions from JOY to pathGs, so swift in
their comment upon every word and
deed around her, that those eyes alone
were to many more attractive than all
the beauty of her younger sister Hers
was q strong, quiet soul, and it was her
firm hand which had taken over the
duties of her. mother, had ordered the
house, restrained the servants, comfort
ed her father. and upheld her weaker
sister, from the day of that great mis-
fortune.
Ida, Walker was a hands breadth
smaller than Clara, but was little
fuller in the face and plumper In the
figure. She had light yellow hair:9mis-
.rhievous blue eyes With. the light Of