The Weiser signal. [volume] (Weiser, Idaho) 1890-1904, 1900-05-24
CGUR D'ALENE.
BY nARY HALLoCK FoOTE.
Copyright. 1904. by Mary Hallock Foote.1
Continued from fifth page.


things the mothers heart OWNED
shrinkingly, without a question or a
fact. But the prosperous eastern broth
ers, sensible of the continental scope
and Importance of their own affairs
thought that a second-rate man might
10 well enough for such places as they
sought for Fred. It could not be ex-
pected that frst-class men would be
wiling to exile themselves to holes and
corners Of the earth, at any price. So
the good name, and the good manner
that was not quite up to date, and the
family influence, were in requisition
once more to cover up the inner facts
Of Fred's latest failure (what the facts
we're his brothers hardly knew, and
they had not been very particular in
their inquirles), and he was passed OIL
like counterfeit coin, to his next OPP
portunity, at some other persons ex-
pense.
| OF late years friends of the family
had hesitated to ask: what is Fred
doing now?" He changed his occupa-
ton so often-or it seemedioften to per-
sons who thought of him only once in
three or four years; andi they said to
one another: what a mercy that he
has never married again!" and they
bethought them that they must "do
something" for that pretty creature.
his daughter, and perhaps were trife
relieved, on casting up her years, to
remember that she could not be more
than schoolgirl, and there was plenty
of time. And her aunts were such very
sensible women-no doubt they were
bringing her up to a fit sense of what
her fathers daughter might have to
look forward to; which they were not
doing at al, but were petting her, and
making as much ado over the child as if
all the good fairies hadmet at her christ
ening They were not even attempting
to revise her innocent impressions of
parent known to her chiefly through
his munifcence in gifts and pocket
money. Her aunts never toldlher of the
carelessness that went with the munifi-
cence; OF the lapses, when there were
no remittances even for shoes and
school-bills; nor how often their own
private means had been drawn upon. to
spare the little Inheritance that they
held in trust from their sister to her
child. This money. they were resolved.
should not be touched. neither prnci-
pal nor interest. while they were its
custodiQns; and in this way alone they
showed their prudence. For why should
she need to know, poor child, what the
world said of her father? They them
solves did 20
judge him, but always, for the sake of
their sister who had known him and had
been silent to the last, they too were
silent. What the child's own mother
would never have told her, they be-
heved that they, who stood in the
mothers place, had no right to tell her.
When ct last they were startled by
their brother-in-law's unexpected de-
-nandl that his daughter should follow
him into the far west, they knew not
what to say. They had no objections
that they could dare to offer now, and
they had no rights in the child herself.
that they could set against the right of
father; and Faith, as any girl would
be, was wild to go. They watched and
prayed, feeling as If some unhallowed
bargain, transacted long ago, in which
IN unconscious life was the innocent
forfeit, had been fatally foreclosed. And
they had made no effort to prepare the
girl for whatever surprises, or shocks,
or ordeals, this foreclosure involved.
They could not have said Just what it
was that they feared-simply they did
not trust the man, her father, and they
greatly feared the life to which he was
taking her. But they never questioned |
that she must 60.
Those gentle, unassertive, maiden |
mothers who, with more than, maternal
unselfishness, had fulfilled every duty |
and made every sacrifice for their sis |
ter's child, yielded her up to the natural |
tie, and every one said that it was well |
done. A few outspoken old gentlemen
who had no daughters of their own,
and one or two defrauded young ones,
declared it was shame; but the wives
and mothers generally said that 1T WINS
the rightplace for Faith; all the more if,
as was limited, her father was not in all |
respects just what he should be. So,
with no more preparation for the ex-
perience before her than girls have who
go to the altar with men they are ex-
pected to reform, Faith had journeyed
westward, to cast in her life,
in the somber solitude of the Big Horn,
with that of the dull. hard, careless,
coarse old man on. whom her instinct
had conferred every grace and dignity
Of fatherhood.
And now, with her first trouble, her
defensive strength of silence
came to her and her letters to her aunts
we're models of picus deception. To one
person only had she uttered a word of
Ill her hearts shame and indignation.
Ind that one, az she remembered with 4
burning face, had been all too ready to
listen.
Continued next week.