The Somerset herald. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 1870-1936, 1900-01-03

wished to make clear to herself exactly
how much of her anxiety to see Mr..
Percy Elphinstone, his hat and hello
trope spray, arose from a sisterly desire
to shield Maria from the wiles Of pos
sible Adventures, how much from pure
curiosity, defect ia her nature which
she acknowledged to herself, though to
no other. This analysis was compli-
Gated, but eventually honesty prevail
ed, and she yielded.
''If you bring him to tea, then, VI a
ria" she said, "there will be cup
ready for him, and 1 shall be glad to
see him."
The snails for the most part made
good their escape during this converse
ton, but Miss Jane was at pains to col
lect only the least distant Of the tru-
ants. Romance had stopped from
heaven and touched them, a sudden
flower had opened on the bloomless
stem of their quiet cathedral town
lives, and, though Miss Jane had no
great opinion of men in general, il
would be hard to say, though beyond
doubt, top hat and heliotrope written
in a copper-piate hand retained some
subtitle aroma even through the post.
She wondered whether if she too had
gone in for ringlets, and had stood like
a sentinel on duty, ever listening for
the football of romance and ever ready
10 salute it, she, too, might have had
her Percy ElphinstOne. Both she and
her sister bore times stigmata in cor
ners of eyes and fading hair, Dut TO the
casual observer she would have APP
peared at least no older than Maria.
But Percy was evidently no casual OBJ
server; like the digger of an ariesian
well in a soil of uncompromising dry
ness, he had conjectured and struck
that perennial fountain Of romance,
which, irrigated and flushed with the
green Of youth, the lmaginings of one
whom a not unkind appraiser would
call of middle age. And she stifled a
sigh Of regret for the days when she,
too had been only 40 years old, and
thought to herself that she would go
for an unusually long bicycle ride that
afternoon, and p rhaps even reduce
the contents of her box Of cigarettes to
twenty-three.
Miss Maria was trysted for 4 o'clock,
opposite the west door Of the cathedral,
and, strange though it may appear, she
set off in a state of greatly excited
trepidation, for her romance was very
real to her, and, in spite of, or in con-
sequence of, her day dreams, Percy
Elphinstone seemed TO her a quite pos
sible contingency. Also she had a
strong dramatic sense, and certainly at
this moment she held the stage The
play might be Hamlet" with the
title role omitted, but, whatever it was,
she was acting in IL. The day was
brisk with autumn, and a bright sun
made the air crisp and sparkling, and
! for half an hour or more she walked
to and fro about the close, now stop
ping to read a moss grown epitaph, or
watch the gathering of the swallows,
but busy all the time with the thought
of Percy Elphinstone. Indeed, had
he suddenly appeared in the lime ave-
nue., top hat, heliotrope and all, she
would not have felt it to be strange.
Since she had received the letter signed
with that magic name, he had become
more vividly corporeal; her own fiction
was convincing and had certainly all
the strangeness Of truth about il.
Meantime, like the poet, Miss Jane
had passed through the town and out
of the street in something resembling
a tumult of soul. The sun Of romance
had shone OH the red brick house she
was invigorated by its rays. Snails, a
bicycle, ordering dinner and washing
up a set of Crown Derby had hitherto
been provender sufficient for her psy-
chine needs, but now her capacity for
spiritual adventure had suddenly been
enlarged. Wider horizons were un-
folded to her gaze, aud life was really
an affair that presented problems, that
held the germ of the unexpected. She
had never hitherto contemplated the
existence of the unexpected, and the
prospect was exhilar4ting. A new
light was shed on the novels Of Charles
Lever; they described things that ae-
tually might happen to actual people.
ALI this was Illuminating.
She had left Winchester by Hyde
street, and the exaltation of her spirit
was such that the milestones, so she
phrased it to herself, literally flashed
by her, and she WAS already four miles
from the town before she knew where
she was. Then, taking road across
the river, she wheeled her machine uI
hill on TO the downs, and, striking
the Farnham road, came back at q
breezy pace by the golf links, aud dis
mounted to walk down the steep hiil
leading into the lower end Of Win
chester. Once on the level again. she
rcmounted and rode with great caution
up the broad street towards home.
Shops and lamp-posts and people
were vivid to her eye she noticed a
hundred things she had never noticed
before the flash and exquisite white
ness of the river as it plunged out Ot
the darkness of the mill; the graceful
outlines of the trees already showing
through their diminished foliage; the
topaz of a retriever's eyes, aud, lastly,
as she reared the High street hill, a
new butchers shop. The butcher him
self, a good-Iooking young man, wa'
recommending piece of loin TO Gus
toner. He held a chopper in one
hand, and with the other he slapped
the Joint. Now, Miss Jane had been
for years in two minds about adopting
vegetariansm; the thought Of deaC
sheep, especially if her mutton was s
little underdone, sometimes caused her
strangling feeling in the throa
muscles, and this cheerful slapping o
the meat sickened her. But before she
looked away she caught sight of the
name above the shop.
IL was Elphinstone
The world turned giddily round her
Who then was the slapper Of the lOin
the man with the chopper aud the
blouse, but Percy? Fresh from his