Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1897-05-20


terested motives. Mankind at the club
assemblies and meets together to jeer
at him; his brother laughs him tc
scorn; the women mistrust him. Only
many years can set him right with
them-and a man does not like to wait
When he reforms, he wants to do it at
once. He has no fancy of wearing the
stained garb of sin until the sun of vir-
tue 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 re-
form, you must go away.
Lovat grew sick of the life he had
led for ten years-ever since he had been
pretty boy of IS, who should have been
learning useful things. 1t had not been
such very bad life, but it certainly had
not been a good one. He tried to do
right at home, and failed. Then he
came to the states.
Now the states-if you except, per-
haps, New York-is 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
virtue. There is also in the human heart
a true, natural goodness learned from
the unspoiled savage. There is no tit
tle-tattle, and d 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
vas aware of the existence of Montana
shows that his youth was not alto
gether 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 lus-
ter that no bearer of it, whatever his
misbehaviors, could tarnish it. 1t is
also a rich family-very rich. Wilton
Iovat was the younger son, but he had
decent fortune of his own. Therefore
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 per-
suasively: why, if you want to re-
form, can't you stay here and do it?"
because a chap can't in his own
town"
HE can, if he's any character"
mo, he can't"
81 say he can. What do you suppose
did?" His voice subsidized as he con-
templated himself in the pleasant light
of an example.
'You didn't reform. You only mar
ried."
Which happened to be so true that
Lovat, ST., was unable to reply, save in
the not uncommon parental fashion of
answering the unanswerable, known to
childhood as getting even" He cut oil
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 log
house on the ranch, and it was fur
nished 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 professional beauties who
were not nearly so beautiful as his own
sisters. For his family was handsome
as well 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 diff
ferent languages.
The change was not unpleasant. He
looked after his stock, and played the
musical instruments, and read the
books in five languages for twelve.
month. He decided that he was re-
formed thea, and began to grow tired
of being patriarch over his own herds.