The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1899-11-03
CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER I.
On the night of the 5th of December,
1882, the first fierce storm of the win
ter was raging in Brooklyn.
The wind howled and shrieked, and
drifting snow clung in crusts on the
windows. But the fire burned furious
ly in John Olmstead's library, where
he sat in comfortable armchair, his
slippered feet on the fender, supposed
to be listening while his nephew, Rob-
ert Stanton, read aloud to him.
The old man was called 'crusty" at
large, and crusty he surely was. He
stood well up among the wealthiest
men in Brooklyn, and, having been
widower almost all his life, he had
become so thoroughly accustomed to
his own way that he had outlived even
the passing suggestion that there could
by any possibility be any other way.
He was supposed to be listening. His
eyes were fixed in fierce, determined
stare upon the glowing Goals. His fore
head was furrowed. His right hand
wandered restlessly over his left arm
and shoulder, as though seeking the
seat of something that was out OF Or
der there.
He was supposed to be listening, but
he was not listening. His mind was
working back some two-and-twenty
years, on a night very much like this
one, only later in the winter, when he
sat before the fire in that same library
and read letter disclosing, to his hor-
Tor, the fact that he had two-year-oO
nephew.
Then it took another jump backward,
indefinitely, and he thought of the
mother of the boy, his only sister, Mary.
From childhood he had supported her;
but when his beautiful young wife died
and he really needed sister to help
him manage his grand home, Mary de-
liberately deserted him to marry
farming fellow from away in some TO-
mantle, unknown obscurity-a fellow
whose only prospects lay in few mis-
erable, mortgaged acres.
1t was made all the worse by the
fact that Mary had stubbornly refused
" III Ohl Vim
stead's best friend, who had been her
devoted lover from girlhood, who was
then in the west, coming a great for
tune, ready to return to Brooklyn to
live the moment Mary said the word.
John Olmstead remembered how he
had spoken his mind to Mary, and how
the only effect it had was that never
another word did he hear from her
or her husband till the letter that came
on that stormy night, % years before,
written by the selectmen of the un-
known obscurity, announcing that his
sister had died two years and her hus-
band a week before, leaving nothing
but debts and one male child, two years
old, named Robert Stanton. 1t noti
fed him that the child would be held
for a limited period subject to his or
der, and, in default, would be adver-
tised and manipulated as towns poor.
OF course the thing" as John Ohm
stead called it, was brought to his
Brooklyn mansion and properly cared
for, but he had conceived such dis
like at the start that Robert Stanton
grew up and actually left for college
before the lack of him about the house
opened his uncle's eyes to the fact that
under his supposed dislike there had
sprung up great, unreasoning, un-
bounded fondness for the boy.
From that moment there was moth
ing too good for his nephew, in the
old mans estimation, and the happi
est days he had known since his wife
died were when Stanton came back,
after graduating from the law school,
settled down in the old home, and
opened an Office in New York.
The young lawyer was not model
done in wax, but very fair result of
the conditions under which he had been
developing. He was rugged, honest and
refined. He had not the remotest idea
of the meaning of such words as self
denial or self-sacrifice, or of such
quality as patience in suffering or ad-
versity.
The utter lack of feminine influence
about the house left the genial and So
cial side of his nature wholly unde-
veloped. He thought society bore,
and society thought him cold and
proud, Unlimited financial resources
overburdened him with persistent
friends till he easily fell into way
of holding every one at arms length
and constantly pushing, lest they
should come too near and annoy him.
He was generous because it was
agreeable. 1t relieved him of a surplus
that would otherwise have been bur-
densome; it rid him, quickly and easi-
ly, of disagreeable things in the line
of philanthropic tramps. Wholly un-
whiting, he won for himself reputa-
tion for phenomenal liberality, which,
connected with his many conflicting
characteristics, produced the universal
conviction that he was sure to develop
hto prodigy of genius.
His habits were scrupulously circum-
spect, chiefly, no doubt, because any
others would have forced him, more
or less, into some sort of society; and
underneath it all were sound, native
common sense and rare adaptability
to his profession.
Thus far the only disagreeable phase
OF li.c to which he had been obliged
TO saSmit was his uncle's determine