Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1900-09-16
selves together under circumstances
rather trying to the self-control OF two


rather trying to the self-control Of two
OF them.
Gertrude Lydeard was an orphan
and had been one ever since she could
remember. She lived with her aunt
Mrs. Lydeard, whose husband had
formerly held high rank in the Consular
service.
He had ended his days In Athens,
where he made many friends among
the subjects of King George.
Hence 1t was that his widows house
in Harrington-road enjoyed a deserved
reputation for hospitality among the
Greeks who from time to time visited
the English capital. Gertrude Lydeard
had grown up to regard Greece almost
as a second fatherland, and her SYM
pathies had been reused to a high
pitch by the events which were even
then threatening to plunge the East OF
Europe into war.
1t was some years, also, since she
had resolved that, as soon as she be-
came Of age, she would cease to be a
burden on her cunt, though the
worthy Mrs. Lydeard was far from
regarding her niece in any such light.
A childless widow, she mad no one
else in whom to centre her affection,
and she had not yet brought herself
to take very seriously Gertrude's often
expressed intention of going out Into
the world to establish a position for
herself by her own exertlons. Never
theless, she had yielded to her niece
whim in allowing her to undergo a
regular course of training at a Nurses
Institute, which happened to be stu
ated not very far from Mrs. Lydeard's
comfortable house.
Gertrude had been working hard to
qualify herself for her chosen calling
for some time, when the ebb and flow
OF social life brought to her aunt's
door the young student-who had
since become a barrister-EYnest
Vaughan.
Vaughan was one of those men who
are sincere without being simple.
Among the complication of his mo-
tives he sometimes found it difficult
to disentangle the one which was to
guide him; but when his mind was
once made up, he was capable Of pur-
suing his end with a tenaclty which
astonished his friends. To them he
sometimes appeared a dreamer; to
himself he was always very much in
earnest. He was one Of those men
whom other men fail to understand,
and who sometimes fail to understand
themselves. So far his life had been
uneventful. A scholarship at a public
school, another at Oxford, and a cred
ible degree, showed rather the extent
Of his perseverance than the extent of
his powers. If he could have per-
suaded himself that classical learning
was a great object worthy of whole
hearted pursuit, he would have made
a name famous as a scholar. He had
chosen the bar on leaving the Univer-
sity because the bar seemed to him the
freest of the professions. A small, but
sufficient, income relieved him of that
incentive to work which frequently
has the happiest effect upon an I'M
decided character. He had a suspicion
that he would find it easier to work
up enthusiasm in the cause OF another
than for one in which he himself was
interested. He would fight harder for
a client than he would fight for Ernest
Vaughan. In any case, the bar was one
commit a man. 1t was the avenue 70
a dozen different careers. After being
called to the bar a man might become
a journalist, politician, or even a
schoolmaster; whereas man who had
once entered the Church. or taken up
medicine, was cut off from any change
of life.
A man so little interested-or. rather.
so little certain-about his own career
found it difficult to appreciate the
spirit in which Gertrude regarded the
vocation to which she had pledged
herself He understood that in these
days there were women who valued
themselves upon their independence.
He knew, of course, there were plenty
of women who went out into the world
to earn their own livelihood, not from
choice but from necessity; but with a
mans egotism he had been accustomed
to consider that the women who acted
in this way did so simply because they
had not yet succeeded in achieving
what he regarded as the natural des-
tiny of women. If Gertrude Lydeard
had told him that she did not love
him, he would have understood her:
but a woman who in one breath told
him that she loved him and in the
next that she valued her career so
highly as to be unwilling to sacrifice
il to her love. was phenomenon
which was outside his philosophy.
The story of their love. so far. had