Santa Fe daily New Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1885-1897, 1897-07-27
REWARD OF VIRTUE.

OWu people, I1o Is uOU uaken SoflOuly. Ills
abstentions from deeds Of vice are imputed
to interested motives. Mankind at the club
assemblies and meets together to jeer at
him. His brother laughs him to scorn.
The women mistrust him. Only many
years can set him right with them, and a
man does not like to wait. When he re-
forms, he wants to do it at once. He has
no fancy for wearing the stained garb of
sin until the sun of virtue shall bleach it
white. He would don Immediately the
snowy robe and be made welcome among
the elect. Which may not be. If you mean
to reform, you must go away.
Lovat grew sick of the life he had led
for ten years-ever since he had been a
pretty boy of 10 who should have been
learning useful things. 1t had not been
such a very bad life, but it certainly had
not been good one. He tried to do right
at home and failed. Then he came to the
States.
Now the States-if you except perhaps
New York--is a place where there are
neither towns nor temptations. Over all
its broad prairies, where sleek steers
browse and gentle coursers stray, there
hangs an atmosphere of soft, pastoral vir-
tue. There is also in the human heart o
true, natural goodness learned from the
unspoiled savage There is no little tattle,
and man is what he is, not what he has
been. They know this in England, just as
we in the States know that there is one
fair sized town in Australia and that all
the rest is bush.
Lovat knew it, and he also knew that it
was most true of Montana. That he was
aware of the existence of Montana shows
that his youth was not altogether wasted.
His family had some land there OF this
family it must be said that nothing in
England is better or older. Lovat is a
name Of such luster that no bearer of it,
whatever his misbehaviors, could tarnish
it. 1t is also rich family-very rich.
Wilton Lovat was the younger son, but
he had decent fortune of his own. There
fore he could do pretty much as he pleased,
and when he quarreled with his father and
his allowance was stopped he didn't care
His father argued with him persuasively,
"Why the devil, If you want to reform,
can't you stay here and do it?'
"Becausea chap can't in his own town, !"
He can if he's any character.
emo, he can't"
c. it, say he cam What the devil
do you suppose did," His voice subsidized
as he contemplated himself in the pleasant
light of an example.
"You didn't reform. You only mar
RED"
Which happened to be so true that Loyat
senior was unable to reply save in the not
uncommon parental fashion of answering
the unanswerable, known to childhood as
''getting even." He cut off the allowance,
but graciously permitted his ungrateful
son to dwell upon the Montana lands
Wilton went at breeding racers, as is the
custom of Montana. He had u loghouse
on the ranch, and it was furnished with
rough chairs and tables and hunks and
with many sorts of string instruments,
and with pictures Of his family, and of
some girls who had liked him, and Of pro-
fessional beauties who were not nearly so
beautiful as his own sisters, for his family
was handsome, as we'll as of great repute
and rich. There were also royal groups
from The Graphic and Illustrated News
on his walls, and there were books in five
different languages.
The change was not unpleasant He
looked after his stock, and played the mu
steal instruments and read the books in
five languages for twelyemonth. He de-
cided that he was reformed then, and he
gan to grow tired of being a patriarch over
his own herds. Patriarchs, as he under
stood it, had wives and children. He had
only horses, and they didn't take the place
of society. He was fond of society. So
he made the acquaintance of some Of the
officers at Keogh They gave him stag
dinners in Miles City and they entered
him at the post club, but they did not in
vite him to their houses. He did not meet
their daughters or their wives An Eng
lishman has to grow wise before he learns
that this is small world and that the
tight little isle is not too tight for rumors
to escape from it--that the rumors, more
over, are frequently exaggerated. Lovat
began to grow wise. At first he wondered,
then he understood. He asked himself
what, after all, is the reward of virtue,
and he determined that it has none. There
are those who hold otherwise, but the
question is not yet settled. He was lonely,
expatriated and homesick. He was also
young and full of energy and anxious to be
met half way. But he could not travel the
whole road alone. He turned and went
back to where he had started from. There,
at least, there was feminine companion
ship-of its kind. His vice was less gilded
than Of yore, but that was the fault Of the
country. He threw over once and for all
every hope of admission to the society Of
his equals in the garrison. The service is
critical and jealous Of its women. But he
was still entertained by the men.
When 1t was too late to mend-for, copy
books to the contrary, Notwithstanding,
1t frequently is--he came to repent more
heartily than ever before, aye, bitterly. He
met and fell In love with Constance Cham
berlain, as many another man has done
and still does, though she is Mrs. Brook
field now. She was even prettier then than
today, for she was very young, just 49,
Lovat knew her by sight, but he had
never spoken to her OF heard her speak
which was harmonious treat--until he
came upon her one day some five miles
from the post. She had dismounted to
tighten her saddle girths, and she was
Alone How should Lovat have guessed
that she had seen him coming ere she had
slipped to the ground, and that she was pur-
posely goading her placid black steed to be
unmanageableY He came to her aid with
nn ssAllow me to be of service, which she
answered with "You are very good,
thank you"
"You should not be away off here alone,
Miss Chamberlain, he said.
II know 1t.
"It is not safe. =
II am SO tired of being safe. Her voics
was sweet, low and Unconditional. There
was no suggestion In II Of unfeMinine re-
hnllinn Aud Invnf wi In Ind MT hoard