The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-01-23
asly, as he went out through the French

that he had vacated and laughed in Curl
Gus way
Then Grace Glastonbury, who had lived
at the rectory all her life entered the study,
smiling.
L overheard ALL" she said. HE is a
cruel man. Look at the text he has chosen
for Sundays sermon" she cried, pointing
to the lines which appeared at the head of
the first page of a fresh quire of sermon
paper. Charity suffereth long and is kind
that's the text which he has chosen, and
yet he refuses to read poor Dicks letter.
"Or to hear anything about Charlie said
Alice
HE must hear the letter." cried Grace.
You must read it to him after dinner"
I'VE must talk it over on our way to the
village" said Alice
The rector's wife had been dead several
years; she had not lived to see the degrade
ton of her son Dick, who had been sent
down from Oxford for some desperate
breach of the rules, and had on coming
home been detected by his father in the act
of kissing Grace Glastonbury under the al
most sacred boughs of a weeping-an APP
propriately weeping-ash.
Grace was the orphan child of an Indian
officer who had intrusted HEREWITH a suffi-
cient sum of money to pay for her support
to the rector of Elmthorpe This second
escapade-Grace had at that time been only
nineteen years of age.precipitated the BAN
ishment of Dick, with the command never
to darken the rectory door. This incident
had synchronized with the departure of the
Rev. Charles Elwood, the rector's curate,
who had got into the habit of preaching for
a quarter of an hour. He had, it was said,
given up the church, and, having about two
hundred a year of his own, had resolved to
go out with his friend Dick to try his luck
at farming in some colony. The letter
which Alice had endeavored to read to her
father was the first that had been received
either from Dick or Charlie
That night after the peaches were placed
on the table after dinner and the servants
had left the room the rector said:
alice, desire to do what is just-strictly
just-in-in regard to your brother. You
may read his letter; but l warn you that
can send him no money. He has had more
than his share of my money. Nothing more
will I do for him."
II will read you his letter, and then you
can make up your mind what you should do
in regard to the money" said Alice, taking
the letter out of her pocket.
mo, my mind is made up now-definitely
Auduc up, SdAQ AS4 AdbASAs lac Ao~o AAoOS
his bed
Are you not too hard on Dick?" said
Grace. lone of the loveliest texts in the
Bible is that about charity-'Charity suffer-
eth long and is kind Surely that text is
meant for the preacher as well as for the
congregation"
There was a long pause. The rector looked
greatly annoyed. Who were these girls that
they should presume to reprove him for his
way of life, which he had thought out
graYely long before either of them had been
born?
IF you read the letter, Alice, L will listen
to it, said he, at last.
She opened out three sheets, not of flimsy
foreign note paper, but of stout - extra
stout-paper, the rector noticed. 1t was so
like that prodigal son of his to pay triple
postage on begging letter.
He writes from johannesburg" said
Alice.
L have heard the name of the place-a
rowdy town in South Africa" said the
rector.
=" Dearest Alice: 1 think it is about time
wrote to you. 1t is five years all but a
month or two since left home. still call
it home, you see"
He need not muttered the rector.
=" For this place, though well enough for
a time is not place to live in" continued
the reader. Wei, if 1 were to tell you
all my adventures-our adventures, / should
say for good old Charlie and I have never
been separated-during the five years that
have passed since got fired out at Oxford,
would have to write you a novel; We went
to Natal first, Charlie having notion that
there was money to be got by growing
oranges to send home for Sunday school
use, but after prospecting bit around we
made up minds that some greater fools
than we We're would have to do their best
to meet the demand for Sunday school sue
culence.'"
"A ribald jest" muttered the rector.
. SO we trekked-to trek is to make
tracks, my dear-up country in a wagon
with twenty span of oxen, but as we were
unlucky enough to founder into a country
where some fighting was going we got
our oxen stolen, our wagon smashed and
ourselves nearly slaughtered. In return we
did a little Strengthening and stealing on our
own account -
"Ah! And one of those men was my son,
and the other my curate!'
= Nothing but ill-luck was our por-
ton"
HOW COulO Iney expect any InlnS else.
i" So long as we remained in that ter
ritory. We joined a gang of thieves going
in the direction of the Transvaal, and we
did much thieving enabled us to pick
up an honest livelihood. / do not believe
the originators of the noblest families on
the border ever stole as many head of cat
tie as we did, and yet only just man
aged TO live, and had no prospect of a
strawberry leaf any other. My dear girl,
all your ideas of what it's like to be hard
up would need to be revised if you came
here for a while. ! wonder if you have any
spare cash saved out of the housekeeping
money!"
1.-THE impudent curt
. If you have, you would do well to give
it to a society for the prevention of emf
grafton. What chaps have to suffer here no
one could guess. Well, my sweet sister, to
make long story short, we fought and
starved and stole for a little over a year.
Then we made friends with man who was
greater scoundrel than even we had be-
+ come, and he tried to get the 5000 of
Charles which had accumulated in the
bank through quarterly payments from
England. He knew where gold was to be
got for picking up, he said. He talked so
y,lousihlv that he GOT the money and we