The Houma courier. (Houma, La.) 1878-1939, 1900-09-29
And So They're Engaged ;
sA0@WAW0W@W@&@&0@N
The Romance OF Midsummer
Luncheon in Town,

THE head waiter pressed button
in the wall and rose-colored cleo
trio bulbs blossomed like flowers upon
the ceiling, filling the great dining
room with soft, still radiance and show
ing the white tables surrounded with
ornate high-backed chairs, now elo-
quently empty. The air from the av-
enue stirred the lace that screened the
open windows and made the blooming
marguerites in great high tubs about
the room move on their fragrant stems.
1t was barbarously early for dinner,
but ridiculously late for luncheon, but
1t had suited the mood of the man and
the maiden who had met by accident
and had been spending a delightfully."-
unchaperoned day in town. Besides
that there were trains to be taken back
to fashionable resort, where break
fasts, luncheons and dinners made such
Informal meetings as this quite impos-
Rible. So, as the girl said, it was all
the more fun. They were not even
dressed for dinner and the head waiter,
who was punctilious in such matters,
glanced somewhat disapprovingly at
the girls linen shirt waist and her
bamboo hat with pouf of blue, tilted
down over her brows. The man was a
well-dressed, well-tubbed specimen.
The room was almost deserted except
for those two and the occasional cackle
of a waiter was all that broke the 81
lenae except their own discreetly-low-
cred voices. A small East Indian man
picturesquely turbaned and robed in
white came toward their table bearing
q chatting dish upon a silver tray from
which he served them noiselessly with
1qiee and chicken while waiter poured
wine into two pale greenish glasses.
The service had all the dignity and
importance of a rite.
The girls face took on a look of in
tense satisfaction as she tasted the first
morsel. AS her n-kissed hands moved
over her plate the man thought that
Size was one of the few women who ate
gracefully. AS rule, they were too
nonchalant or too enthusiastic. But
this girls appetite had all the rePres-
sion of Duse.
''Isn't it funny?' she said.
''Funny?'
"Why, Of course, it's too funny for
anythingl To think of cur meeting,
by. accident, Of all places, at church!
Tell me-why do you go to church?"
TO kill time, I suppose. Then the
music there is admirably good and the
sermons"
Admirably shortl"
"Exactlyl Why did you go2"
a always 60. It's become habit
with me. But it is the very last place
Z should have expected to see you. 1t
IS a remarkable coincidence that we
should have drifted there. Don't you
think things happen oddly at times?"
what kind of things ?"
"Coineidences-for instance ?"
"Please don't call our meeting a.mere
coincidence. I call it the result Of an
educated mind wave"
"Iind wave2"
"Yesa brain current. You know
in India"
That's where you go hunting lions,
iEn't it9"
"No-tigers in India"
+But you hunt lions, too-don't you?"
''Never have. / gave one a run once,
though"
"oh. how perfectly lOvelyl Tell me
about &"
It wouldn't interest you. You see,
was cunning first"
tHai hal hal"
"Funny. wasn't it? Well in India,
where they live on this sort Of thing
rice and chicken
And sauterne
well-no animal food-you un-
den tand-they get their souls culti-
waited to such an extent that they can
communicate with each other across
long distances.
Anybody can2'
"oh you must be educated up to it. /
An American doesn't fake 70 it as
quickly but the natives believe 81 it.