The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1899-03-05


CHAPTER VII.
Hath not old custom made this life more
Than that of painted pomp? Are not these
woods
Shakespeare.
How long had they been silent, those two
in the corner of the verandah, where the
faint music reached them, mellowed and
fraught with magic influence?
Scarcely word had passed between them
when they had seated themselves two
wicker chairs, and now for a heightened
period they had not uttered a syllable. Owen
- Meredith touched the reality Of such scenes
very closely when he wrote
"There are moments when silence, prolonged
and unbroken,
More expressive may be than all words ever
spoken:
1t is when the heart has instinct of what
In the heart Of another is passing
AT length something broke the spell. Per-
haps it was a laugh from someone who had
stroled into the garden which pared on the
nerves and Shivered the magic charm of the
still night at any rate, the power of utter
ance came back to Ingram, and. leaning tow
ards Dora, he spoke
Your aunt has asked me to Ferncourt-
may I Gomez"
She sat upright, as if longer needing
the support Oh the CRIMSON SILK CuSulOuS
which had made 50 becoming background
for her pale beauty.
Did she?"-her voice was so low he could
hardly hear her. We've always have par
ties for the shooting"
May 1 Gomez" he asked again. Miss
Bruce, 1 ask you-may Gomez"
why, of course she answered. Aunt
Adela asks whom she likes and 1 ann always
glad"
But I want your special permission. Oh,
no"'-in response to some murmured pro-
test-"not because the house is yours
should feel the same If it was an hotel in
foreign land-but because it means so much
to me-that if you do not say you will be
glad. just little glad to see me, I will not
come
Another silence, during which he waited
patiently, with his eyes fixed her face
and she struggled wildly with a confused
sense of fate bearing her onward on its
mighty, resistleSs waves and a longing to
wait, to pause for moments breathing
space, before giving herself up to the over
whelming force of the torrent.
Then a chattering bevy of young men and
maidens made their presence on the veran-
dab known, and there was something so in
tensely human in the smothered imprecation
Dora Bruce awoke from her dream, and
y said, rising from her chair: : :;
y Let us go back now. Yes, come to. Fern
court. IL want to show you tae, old place.
/ am so fond of it ALL.
1t was all very vague, very shadowy and
there was no reason why Ingrams heart
should beat SO rapturously, as if he saw his
goal within reach. On going over the scene
later in his mind, he fain to
knowledge to himself that he had received
, dozens of invitations couched in similar
terms, that there little nothing to
build such a splendid airy castle upon-and
yet he knew that to the fair owner of Fern
court he would not be quite ordinary
visitor; and with that conviction he was for
the present content.
When Mrs. Vane'E party broke up and In
gram was saying goodnight to his hostess,
before returning with the Trevannions to
The Willows, Mis-. Slade- Clinton, who stood
by, said pleasantly:
Dora or l will write to you and tell you
when our first shoot is coming off, And as
he thanked her, he caught CLEAN of some
that born of a warmer feeling, in the
dark eyes that he had grown to watch so
eagerly.
And visit to PeIthshire for the 18th for
which he had been preparing and to which
he had looked forward for months, faded into
very insignificant proportions beside that one
a month later, though had anyone told him
before this river idyll had come into his life
that there could be more excitement over
the slaughter of Hertfordshire partridges
than a grouse drive in Scotland he yNould
have scorned so sad a notion.
But he was too thorough sportsman not
to enjoy the Scotch visit, and though the
verdict amongst the ladies of the party on
his departure was that he was "a confirmed
bachelor. and essentially mans man." he
was still very popular with both sexes
He was family disappointed when at last
the invitation to FerncOurt arrived to find
that it was penned by Mrs. Slade-Clinton;
but there was Solace in the concluding words
My niece sends kind regards and hopes YOU
.will~b able to come on the 6th;' and as long
as he received the invite, Ingram would not
cavil at the means by which it came.
1t was a lovely afternoon on which he
jOurQoyeQ down to the Quaint Of