The Press., 1898-01-06
THE REASON WHY.

81 always wonder why it is you have
never married, Dick?''
1t was Emily who had said these
words some half an hour ago, and Dick
had found no answer for them, and he
sits by the fire and ponders over them
nightly, trying to find if there be ali
answer. Dick is five and forty, tall, 70
bust, with q rather handsome face and
ford complexion, and with bright gold
en- brown hair, but just where it makes
little crinkles above his ears it has tiny
silver threads running through it-an
even race now between the gold and
silver, but in these days of bimetallism
who shall answer for the future?
He is very personable man, true,
honest, good fellow, rather slow at
grasping all idea, but when he has
grasped it it is sure to become service
able, clean idea. Dicks grasp firm and
vice or vulgarity it might have possess
ed before. He now sits quite alone in
the comfortable library Of his sister S
hause. He smokes pipe and thinks
over that sisters question, 81 always
wonder why it is you have never mar
ried, Dick?"
Then curious thing happens. A
the smoke of his pipe rises up in thick
black clouds he looks quite through it
back to the year 1867 and sees himself
again as boy of 30, just before he first
sailed for India-such jovial, noisy
sort of boy, with a ready smile and
pleasant word for every one, just now
much excited at the prospect of the new
life which is to begin with the voyage
tomorrow.
He is just entering a ballroom with
a friend of about his own age. ("Jack
Dufford, who died in China, murmurs
Dick of today.) It is very large ball
room, brilliantly lighted and decorated
with flowers and evergreens It must
be regimental ball, for there are col
ors stacked at one end. Dick of today
tries to make them out, but quite fails,
and so turns his attention to what Jack
Duford is saying to Dick of 1867.
ST want you to dance with my little
sister Kitty. It is her first dance, and
she's the dearest little thing going. -
And he puts his arm through Dick of
1878 and takes him across the room
to where there stands girl in white
muslin, such dainty, fresh white mus
lin, with little blue bowknots dotted
over it, and this is all that Dick of 1857
sees as he makes his bow, but when he
raises his head again he meets such a
sweet, dancing pair of brown eyes look
ing at him from such pretty, bright
face, with whole mass of light fluffy
hair above and around it, and later
when he puts his arm around her and
they dance and he looks down into the
hair he sees wee wreath of blue for
getmenots half lost and very tightly
imprisoned in its glittering meshes II
is almost Dick of 1867's first ball, too,
and he thoroughly enjoys it, but none
of the figures are plain to Dick Of today
save only the white muslin and blue
bowknot one. Talking and dancing
with it seem to fill up the whole even.
ing, and then, when the end comes, Dick
of 1867 rolls it up, oh, SO tenderly, in a
warm, white shawl, and Dick of today
feels his heart be at quicker as little
hand is put into that old Dicks hand
and low girlish voice says:
We'll, good night and goodby, Mr..
Kenneth. hope you will like India. .
Then Dick of 1867 goes home, and he
feels nervously excited and cannot SLEEP
and thinks it must be from the uncer
tainty of liking India.
The tobacco smoke clears off and oul
Dick wonders whv sr1ch an old. quite