The Butler weekly times. (Butler, Mo.) 1881-1918, 1899-06-22

haughtily, "witheut either brains or
principle. Paul. Paul, I have found q
shelter in your true, loving heart,
and I mean to nestle there always.
And then she cried-this foolish,
soft hearted little wife of mine.
Jones and Tswksbury might have
called this policy. Farnum would
have said ii was acting. But it was
very pleasant. and felt more than
ever like q man who has found some
precious jewel, and wears il, like an
amulet, on his breast.
So things went on until the irm
of which I was managing partner
needed to send some one to Calcut.
ia to see after a turbaned scoundrel
of an agent, who had absconded
more money than we could well
afford to lose. Morrison was cid and
feebls-Hewilt's wife lay very ill, so
I was the only one to 60. 1 kissed
Clara good, by as cheerfully as I
could, fully expecting to be back in
three months or so. But-you know
the old French adage-"Thomme
propose, ct Dieu dispose
had to fellow the agent up into
the mountains of India-I fell ill of
one of those burning climate fevers
in the bungalow of an old native
priest, and the months flew by until
it was more than a year before I
found myself on the deck of the
Blue-eyed Mary, steaming into New
York harbor.
And, all this time, Clara had never
heard word from me.
I had written to her to prepare
her for what seemed almost like my
rising from the dead, but 1 had
afterward found my letters in the
pocket of the neglected. native sery-
ant who had undertaken to deliver
the mails to the Calcutta Office.
"But it don't matter SO muck,
now" l thought; 'she will be the
more delighted, poor little girl"
And then a cold chill seemed to
creep through all my veins, like No
vember'e wind suddenly breathing
across a bed of flowers!
Clara had heard nothing of me
for nearly fifteen months-what
might not have happened in that
time? ALI that Tewksbury, and
Jones, and Allen, and all the other
prophetic ravens of my acquaintance
had said, REQUIRED to my mind, like
the burden of an uneasy dream. 1
had been counting the days, the
very minutes until we should touch
port-but now that my feet rang
once more upon the pavements of
my native city, actually dared not
go home.
I turned into downtown restau-
rast. where I had been wont to go
in the days of my bachelorhood, and
skunk into dark corner; the twilight
was just falling, and was sheltered
by the partition.
Hush That was Tewksbury's
voice, harsh and Earring, as of old.
"Just what might have been ex-
pected," said Tewksbury. Pretty
young widows don't go begging in
this market"
''Folliott might have known it,"
growled old Farnum. poor Fol-
liott! There were some good points
about him, too. Sad thing that;
very sad thing"
"We must all die said Tewks.
bury. gravely.
eyes, but fellow would naturally
prefer dying in his own bed to being
carried off by an East Indian fever
and buried in the jungles"
I shuddered. Had I then come
home to my own funeral, as it were?
And she's going to marry young
Birmingham, after ALI added Far
mum.
The paper dropped from my
nerveless hand
II could have told FoIIiott so when
I heard what a COMPOUNDED idietic
will he had made said Tewksbury.
$50 gold has fallen again. Just my
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