The Advocate and news., 1899-01-25
CHAPTER XIV.

A week rolled by, week little Jim
Lawrence and other small boys long re-
membered for the good things they had
to eat and drink, and now Galahad
was sitting up again at his quarters,
doing very we'll, said both doctors, so
well that he could be out on the shaded
piazza in q reclining chair, said Bray
ton, but wouldn't, said Blythe, and for
good reasons, said the Fraziers feni-
nine, "because then there be no dodg-
ing Laura Winn, If indeed he has sue
ceeded thus far" True, he had not
ventured outside his doors, and no one
had seen her venture within them.
True, Mrs. Frazier, Mrs. Blythe and
other motherly women had been to
visit him, Mrs. Frazier frequently, and
Mrs Winn had been most particular in
her daily inquiries, "most persistent"
said the Frazier girls. Those were days
in which milk was luxury in faraway
Texas, but the delicate custards, whips,
creams and what the colonel's Hiber.
nian orderly described as floating Ire
lands, which that messenger bore with
Mrs. Frazier's love or Miss Frazier's
compliments or Miss 'Manda Frazier's
regards and hopes that the captain was
better this morning, could be numbered
only by the passing days. What Mrs
Frazier was prepared to see or hear of
was similar attention on the part Of
Mrs. WinD, but Mrs. Winn's attentions
took o form more difficult to see and
even in frontier, old time garrison to
hear Of.
What Mrs. Frazier was not prepared
90 see was Mrs. Blythe in frequent con-
6dential chat with the officer whom the
oolonel's wife chose to consider her own
invalid She had always fanoied Mrs
Blythe before, but now she met her
with that indescribable tone suggestive
Of unmerited yet meekly, womanfully
borne injury, which is SO superior to
either explanation or resentment, Mrs
Winn was frequently on her piazza
chatting with Mr.. Brayton or Dr.
"Funnybone, " as the wits Of the post
had designated Collabone's right bower,
"who has more brains in one head"
said Collabone, ethan the mess has In
ten, but she greeted Mrs. Frazier with
an austere and distant dignity even
more pronounced than Mrs. Frazier's
manner to Mrs. Blythe, which plainly
showed that Laura had not "been raised
In the army for nothing" and that she
had will and temper and pluck that
would brook no airs and tolerate no as
pensions ON Mrs. Frazier's part.
Aspersions there had been, for her
friend Mrs Faulkner had not failed in
that sisterly duty which so many wom.
en- so reluctantly yet faithfully perform,
and everything Mrs. and the Misses
Frazier had even hinted and some things
they even hadn't were duly conveyed to
Laura's ears She was angered at the
FFazieGs for daring to say such things
ut Mrs. Faulkner for daring to repeat
them and at Barclay Cor daring to keep
her beyond the possibility Of their being
true. Never before had she known what
it was to strive for a look or word Of
admiration and to meet utter indiffer
ence, yet those blue eyes of Barclays
had once fairly burned with passionate
delight in her girlish beauty, and his
words had trembled with their weight
of love for her. No other woman, she
believed, had vet come into his life and
hanished all memory of her, and now
that her beauty was but the ripper for
her years she rebelled in her soul
against the whisper that it could no
longer move him.
Welded though she was to Harry
Winn, loving him after the fashion Of
her shallow nature so long as there was
no man at the post from whom she
sought to exact homage, che had time
and RRain Within the year felt coward