The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1901-01-26
gelert Stprp.
CONTRA PORRAzO.
Philip Flrmin in The Argonau..

Philip Flrmln IN me ArgOnaut.
The winter climate of California is very
delightful, especially at the great Hotel
Balboa, but even there clouds are not un-
known, and storms occur at times. SINH
larly the relationship between Colonel
Talbot and his daughter Josephine was
said by their sentimental friends to be a
beautiful one, for they loved each other
devotedly and were seldom separated; new
ertheless it had its periods of disturbance
when they failed to agree and when each
spoke freely according to the family GUS
tom
The colonel was man Of large means,
whose house home was in an eastern city.
He had taken a suit of rooms in the Bal
boa for the winter for party which con-
sisted Of himself, his daughter, aged %,
and his sister, matron OF about his own
age. There was also maid.
The season was about half over when
the trouble between the colonel and Miss
Josephine began. The storm center at
the outset was certain Harry Grandin..
Some time later a second area of disturb
ance was created around widow, Mrs.
Bronson, but this was declared by the col
onel not to be genuine casus belli, but
merely counter irritant and an attempt
to get up side issue.
According to the material provided at
that time on which to base judgment
Harry Grandin was either a handsome
fellow, with exquisite manners, who could
talk to your very soul and whom all the
other girls wanted, or he was pestiferous
nuisance that no one knew anything about,
fortune hunter most likely, who should
be run off the place if the colonel had his
way about it. And the widow, from the
same source, was either sly, designing
creature that penciled her eyelashes and
pretended not to know that she was firt-
ing or she was an estimable person, who
minded her own affairs and was nothing to
the colonel nor he to her and who ought
not to be dragged into this matter.
cit seems very strange, y said Joseph
inc, that the person love best in all the
world, my own father, is the only one
that thinks am perfect fright .
II don t think anything of the kind r.
cried the colonel Indignantly. "You are
an exceptionally handsome woman, as your
mother was before you, and I know it as
well as you do He finished with a
grin.
''Then why do you always assume that
every man who pays me the slightest at
tention does SO merely because of your
money p She beamed on him as one
does who has scored.
~ dom t assume it of every one be-
gan the colonel.
.'That is not rich and bald and stupid -
tMy DEAR said the colonel solemnly,
isthere are some things in this world that
your old dad knows little more about than
you do, and money is one of them. There
are two parts to getting rich. One is to
make money, and the other is to hold on
to it. The first of these is easy enough,
but the second is deadly hard. Who was
the Englishman who said that whenever
he woke up in the morning in the city of
Paris and suddenly remembered that the
place contained, according to police stats
tics, over so, 900 people who would rob
him if they got chance it threw him into
a blue funk? Now, | have some money,
/ admit There is enough to allow us to
take life easily and to do pretty much as
we please within reason. | have put it in
the best possible shape to leave to you
when l pass out. But how long do you
think it will all last if some rascally young
spendthrift should have chance at it as
your husband ? So | would rather sus-
pect SO innocent ones than have you
caught on the hundredth one who would
play the mischief with your happiness.
"You must be pretty well through with
the 80 said Josephine.
'sLike enough, said her father. "In
that case our young friend Grandin must
be the hundredth that is specially to be
looked out for. -
"Now, to go back to the point from
which this talk started, said Josephine.
81 believe | told you that there was to be
a fishing party tomorrow and that Mr.
Grandin asked Aunt Harriet and me to go.
What do you think p
"Do just as you please about it, said
the colonel. ''You can't lure me into
forbidding things SO as to make it inter
esting. l am merely giving you little
tip, Dodie, my dear, because love you. =
Miss Josephine flung herself over the
arm Of the coloneps chair and put her arms
about his neck a'Oh, dad, 1 love you
too. Sometimes l almost wish that there
wasn't any money for us to get all mixed
up about F"
e'Stick to that almost, Dodie.
"And say, dad. You dom mind me
giving you a tip, do you r.
The colonel looked little uncomforta-
bic.
dts about the widow, you know"