The Opelousas courier., 1900-12-08

II nave e Z" she wondered. nef OLD
bewilderment at his conduct, her whole
being longing to comprehend it, re.
yiving with something Of the old, old
force. Could it have been? Gould
it have been? And an old guess, an
old theory, n she had never spoken
to anybody. but had pondered much In
silence, again presented itself interrog.
atively to her mind.
The door opened; the butler mumbled
q name, and she saw a tall, white
haired, pale old man smiling at her and
holding out his hands. 1t took her a
little while to realize who it was. With
an unthinking ~disallowance for the ac-
ton of time, she had been expecting a
young fellow Of eight and twenty,
brown-haired and rudy.
Perhaps he, ON his side, was sur
prised a little by meeting O middle
aged lady in a cap.
After dinner he would not let her
leave him, but returned with her to the
drawing room, and she said that he
might smoke. He smoked odd little
Cuban cigarettes, whereof the odor was
delicate and aromatic. They had talked
of everything, then had laughed and
sighed over their ancient joys and sor-
rows. We know melancholy wanders
hand in hand. She had cried a little
when her husband and her brother
were first spoken of, but at some comic
Renaissance Of them a moment after
wards she was smiling through her
tears.
do you remember SO and 500" and
What has become of such a one:'
were the types of questions they asked
each other, ~conjuring up old friends
and enemies like ghosts out of the
past. incidentally he described Porto
Rico and its natives and it's Spaniards,
its climate, its fauna and its flora.
In the drawing room they sat on
opposite sides of the fire and were ST.
lent for a bit. Profting by the permits
sion she had given him, he had pro-
duced n of his Cuban cigarettes.
opened it at its ends, unrolled it, rolled
it up again, and lit it.
tAN GAA1O III COl4S 1OF FOT no
tell me what l most want to know"
| she said.
what Is it?'s
Why you went away"
"Oh!" he murmured.
She waited a minute. Then
"Tell me-" she urged.
do you remember Mary IsonaY" he
asked.
She glanced at him suddenly as if
startled.
MARY Isona? Yes, of course"
wen, | was In love with her."
You were In love with Mary Isona ?"
Il was very much In love with her.
! nave never got over it, I'm afraid"
She gazed fxed1y at the fire. Her
ups were compressed. She saw a slen-
der girl In a plain black frock, with a
sensitive pale face, luminous, sad, dark
eyes. n a mass of dark, waving hair
Mary Isona of Italian parentage. n
little music teacher whose only rela-
ton to the world Theodore yellan
lived In was professional. She came
INTO 1T for an hour or two at a time
now and then, to play or to give O
music lesson.
Yes he repeated, ST was In love
with her. / have never been in love
with any other woman. 1t seems RI
diculous for an old man to saw it. but
am in love with her still. An old
man? Are we ever really old? Our
body grows old, our skin turns white.
U the spirit, the heart? The thing
we call I? Anyhow, not a day. not
an hour passes, but I think OF her.
long Tor her, / mourn for her. You
KneW-y0u knew what she was. Do
you remember her playing? Her won
derfui eyes? Her beautiful pale face?
And how the hair grew around the
forehead? And her talk, her voice. her
lnfelligencei Her taste, her instinct
IN literature, In art-it was the finest
I eve met"
Yes. yes, yes" Mrs. Kempton said
slowly. She was a rare woman. j
knew her intimately-better than any
one else, I think. / knew all the IN
happy circumstances Of her life. har
horrid, vulgar mother; her moor
dreamy, Inefficient father; their power
"; how hard she had to work. You
were In love with her. Why didn't Won
marry herr
"She wouldn't have had me-"
Did you ask herr"
NO. It was needless. 1t went with.
out saying"
You a icy tell. You ought to
have asked her."
IT was on the tip of my tongue.
% course, to do SO a hundred times
life was passed In torturing myself
with the question whether / had anv
cnance, in hoping and fearing. But as
oIten as ! found myself alone with her
! knew it was hopeless. Her manner
to me IS q OF frank friendliness.
There was no mistaking IT. She never
thought OF loving nneiin
'1On were wrong not to ask her, One
never can be sure. Oh, why didn't YOU
asg herq' His old friend spoke Tlih