Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1897-02-25


lander I'm shocked Why. the very
first thing Nich Ian Yohr would do
would be to harry your fathers farm
4 But il YOU know the mountain so Wen.
what's TO prevent your showing me how
TO become interested in it? Why can't
you take tramp with me this after
noon >"
II don't think ought TO take the
time; mother'n be wanting me to help
about the house"
She bent lower over the sewing, and
/ Philip saw a faint tinge of color creep
up 10 hide itself under the waves of
/ bright hair on her forehead.
Then l won't go alone" he protest
/ ed. obstinately. and as Mrs. Duncan
came in he appealed TO her Mrs Dun
can. can't You spare Elsie to go up on
the mountain with me this afternoon ?"
what for mop" was the ready an
swer Veil bath be the better for a
/ DIT walk in the open. I'm thinking the
bulk is keeping We over close TO the
chimney neuk, Mr.. Thorndyke."
The appeal settled the question for
/ Elsie, but her evident embarrassment
puzzled Thorpdyke For a swift in
slant d possible explanation thrust it
| self upon him. but he PUT the thought
away with a twinge of shame that he
had given it room. Doubtless Elsie
had her own reasons for her apparent
confusion, but they concerned him only
SO far as TO make il advisable that he
should do nothing to place himself in
a false light before her. The afternoon
ramble would give him a chance to tell
/ her more about himself, and if the
vagrant suggestion which he had made
such haste to disown had any remote
| l1inship to fact. the bare mention of
| Helen's name would set the matter
right, and there would be no room for
| future misunderstanding 1t was
clearly the just and honorable thing TO
| do, and now that he thought of it, he
reproached himself for not having
! done it sooner With a different up
bringing, Philip might have seen the
unmalleable self-conceit in all this, and
having recognized il he would have
been honestly and frankly ashamed of
! it. Since he was not aware of it's eX-
istence, his resolve to make a conf
dante of Elsie took the comforting
form of an act of delicate and chivalric
| thoughtfulness, and he looked forward
with magnanimous Impotence TO the
time when he could give it speech.
! After dinner, however. when they
were climbing the steep path leading 10
the summit of Johns mountain, the
| good resolution began to part with its
urgency. Elsie's embarrassment had
disappeared, and in such irrelevant
talk as the scramble up the rocky trail
permitted, there was no opening for
anything like condolences. With the de-
lay Philip began to doubt the necessity.
If he We're not under sentence of death
/ it would be different, but in the light of
| that tremendous fact, why should he
60 about TO observe the unwritten laws
of conventionality? 1t could surely be
no disloyalty to Helen if ne allowed him
self to take what of sympathy and pity
this other young girl chose to give him
out of the abundance of life and health.
On tie contrary, would not Helen be
glad. when all was said, to know that
he had not died without the JUNCTION of
compassion? And Elsie ?-that was a
phase of the question which might well
be treated as q wise man treats sleep
ing dog; it was the very hardihood of
vanity to suppose that her heart was
touched by any emotion deeper than
that of pity. knowing that his days
were counted, there could be no offer
ing save at the shrine of womanly
tenderness and sympathy. In any
event, there was no occasion for haste;
he would wait aw bile and see what came
CT it.
When one begins to argue with his
conscience it is foreordained conclu-
sion that conscience will get the worst
of it. Lest Philip should be set down as
poor figure of man, prone to do weak
things as are the sparks to fly upward,
let it be said that he did only what
seemed at the time to be good and
right. Love, or what passes for love, is
not always accountable to logic or to
common sense; it may, perhaps, be the
adopted child of the intellect, but il is
begotten and nurtured by the senses.
propinquity, contact, daily association,
the fairness of one object and the near
ness of another, all these influences
were, in Thorndyke's case, opposed to
what was unconsciously becoming day
by day more of an abstraction-his
fealty to Helen. And, besides, when
one firmly believes he has made his
salaam TO the king of terrors, the con-
viction may so distort the mental and
moral vision as to make one practically
color blind
Half an hour after Elsie and Philip
had disappeared in the forest, Protheroe
rode up to the gate with packet of
letters for Thorndyke. When he
learned that the invalid and Elsie were
en- the mountain together, he seemed
quite as anxious to get away from the
farmhouse as he had just been to reach
it, On the way back TO town he had
another impatient argument with him
/ self c9fniDU ont az II q < Ou a farmer NJ