The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1898-01-18


She nodded, and Ardsley went back
to his seat.
$50 you have refused the entire
armyp' he asked as they walked home.
"Not quite. -
'The entire department."
"Well, fair percentage of it," she
admitted.
care you going to refuse me?''
81 can't say until you are offered. "
81 offer myself now. !"
''And l accept you now.
Good enough. Will you announce
our engagement tonight at SUPERB
''At the risk of being adjudged in
sane-yes."
''Put on this ring until can get you
another. Your hands are not small. 1t
will fit your middle finger Now am
in earnest. =
$50 am l." she said.
They were very much in earnest, the
event proved, and the garrison derived
unmixed pleasure from the total, I'M
conditional, obvious surrender of Miss
Hampden. She was as open in her in
fatuation as she had always been in ev-
erything else. And Ardsley was equally
infatuated. He took back the class ring
and gave her diamond which cost him
three months pay. They were altogeth-
er happy. So, just fortnight before
the day arranged for their wedding, the
gods demanded the first payment on
their loan.
Ardsley was ordered off on a scout.
Miss Hampden was the sort of girl
who might have been expected to take
this reasonably. But she did not She
clung to Ardsley and cried like any lit
tie girl and did not behave in the least
like woman who had seen countless
scouts. And she let him go to the wars
remembering her standing with her arm
against the wall and her head upon her
arm, sobbing as if her heart were utter
ly broken. He himself was moved and
stern. Loring would have liked to re-
mind her that hearts which were really
wrung did not show their pain. He had
not yet recovered.
Ardsley did not come back from the
scout He was i'll fight Oh what should
have been his wedding day. Others were
killed and their bodies were recovered
and buried, but Ardsley's body was new
or found There was tale that a fire
had been seen on the battlefield the
night after the encounter, and in the
midst of the fire a tree with form
which might have been that of a man
against it. There were Indians grouped
around it. Miss Hampden never heard
the story. She never even guessed at
what had happened until 20 years after
ward.
She was the superb and spiritless wife
of a mighty general, and she was ao-
companying her husband on tour of
inspection in the west. They were at an
agency one day and were visiting the
tepees. 1t was the agency Of the Indians
that young Ardsley had fought two
decades before, and the generals wife
was nerving herself not to show that
she remembered this.
The general was examining the trim
kets that hung on string around the
neck of a half blind squaw.
"Here is West Point class ringp
he exclaimed.
His wife repeated her words of 20
years past.
MAY see it?'' she asked coolly.
She took it in her hands and turned
it about. She could make out the de-
sign, though it seemed to have passed
through some heat that had melted it.
There was no doubt in her mind. New
ertheless she looked inside. The heat
had not affected it there, and the mi
tials were quite plain even yet.
I'D. A." she said. "It was David
Ardsley's ring. The fire did not touch
the letters. 1 understand now why they
never could tell me which was his
grave"
The general broke the string and
picked up the class ring from among the
scattered baubles. The squaw was chat
tering and whining and clawing around
on the earth. The general held the ring
out to his wife. She raised the dark
eyes that had been so bright and happy
the last time it had been held out to
her.
"Can have it?'' she asked.
The general put it in her hand, and
the hand closed over it.
''Thank you, she said -Gwendolen
Overton in San Francisco Argonaut.