Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1899-05-31
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JOHN STRANGE WINTER.

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possible adequately to describe the
effect which this way of earning her
living had upon Mary Conway. She
was still quite young, little more than
girl, and during all her early years
romance and the joy of life had never
had any chance of growing and flourish
ing within her.
There is nothing of romance about
the life of board school mistress, more
especially when under the continual in
fiuence of a mother who never forgot
her gentility or that her daughter was
the child of a gentleman. The board
school mistress who can love and be
loved again by young man whose
sphere is the same as her own, a young
man whose aims and ambitions are on
level with her own, can revel in ro-
nance as entirely as the hero of novel
or the lord of the manor. A young girl
may spend her life in the stuffy class
room of the state schools and yet invest
her lover with all the tender and idyllic
romance of knight of old, but if she
is cut off by class grade from inter
course with those men among whom
she is thrown by circumstances all the
romance which may be in her heart is
of necessity bottled up for sheer want
of an outlet.
Mary Conway, frail and delicate of
being as she was, gentlewoman to her
finger tips, a girl in whom all the signs
of good breeding were present to very
marked degree, was Of a nature In
which romance was indigenous, and un-
til the time when she became associated
in work with Alan Stacey, the novelist,
no sort of outlet had afforded itself,
and all the natural love in her heart
had been pent up until it was filled
nigh to bursting and was ready to over
flow at the first kind word from a SYM
pathetic soul, at the first touch of a
kind hand, at the first glance of pair
of magnetic eyes.
In Alan Stacey, Mary found not an
employer, but an idol From the first
day she worshiped him. know that it
is not commonly accepted idea that
woman should love man at first
sight. In sense she did not do so, and
vet she idolized him. The possibility
that one day she might be something
more to Alan Stacey than his interpreter
never for a moment entered her head.
But she loved him with a dim, faroff,
almost religious, feeling. He was so
brilliantly clever both in his work-for
where were such vivid. brilliant, haunt
ing human books to be found as those
which bore his ame2-and in himself.
There were times when he worked at
fever heat untiringly. restlessly, almost
passionately times, when the fit was on
him, when he almost wore her out call
ing on her to come early and to stay
late; times when they snatched their
meals and when she went home to her
bed dog tired and brain weary.
Yet always with the same charm and
sweetness of way: Mrs. Conway, /
must get on with this while the idea is
alive in me You'll help me through
it. won't youf" or Need you go2 l
know it's time, but cannot we take
little holiday when it's done? Surely
it's best to make hay while the sun
shines.
At such times Mary Conway would
willingly rather have died than have
failed him At others he would laze
through the days. letting his work slip
into brilliant. easy gossip, telling her
his ideas. his hopes, his aspirations,
making her look over his great collec-
tion of stamps. help to arrange his au-
tographs, discussing furniture or the
next smart little tea party that he
meant to give. and apparently wholly
unconscious that she took any more in
terest in him than the man who waited
had done.
"What was your father?' he asked
her suddenly between the pauses Of his
work one day when Christmas was
drawing near.
"A clergyman He was curate of
Elphinstowe, she replied.
"Ah, you were young when he diedf'
"Yes, quite child"
"And your mother2''
''She died after | was married."
II see. Forgive me for asking. But
were you long married? Well, of course
Iyou couldn't have been, you are still so
young. But did you LOSE
81 lost my husband only a few
months after our marriage, Mary said,
rising suddenly from her place at the
little table where she worked and going
to the fire, where she stood nervously
holding her hand out to the warmth and
keeping her face half turned away from
him.
"He was-he was-I mean was he
was he"-
"He was sailor, captain of one of
the Red River lire of steamers, said
Mary almost curtly. "He was drowned. I"
There was moments silence. "It
must have been great shock to you, >"
he said at last. He was busily occupied
with paper knife and slip of note
paper and spoke in studiously indiffer-
ent tone as if they were discussing some
question absolutely impersonal to both
of them.
cit killed my mother. said Mary,
still warming her hands.
"And your" He raped out the ques-
tion in strange, breathless fashion.
Mary looked aside ut him. why do
you ask me this Mr.. Stacey?' she
asked brusquely. 81 was beginning to
he hannY to fnrnet Ill the hnrril naSt