The Topeka state journal., 1902-11-15
ClandeStIne Correspondence.
[Frorn the ord-HeraId.1

[From the Record -HeraId.l
OF course 1t was a silly notion and she
didn't expect that anything would come
of it. but Mrs. Bleecker had set hel
heart upon arranging some sort of
clandestine correspondence She knew
/ It was a rather vulgar form of diversion,
put she meant to cover UP her identity
/ SO thoroughly that she might drop the
whole affair at any time without fear of
discovery. She conned out of her imag-
NATIVE mind many reasons that seemed
| to condone. if they did not Justify, the
little scheme. Curtis BIeecker her hus-
band, was, she believed commencing TO
neglect her. They had been married six
years had no children. and were still
/ struggling to keep out of debt She
was suffering from ennui, amusements
We're expensive, and Curtis showed each
night when he came home the evidences
OF busy, nerve wracking. bothersome
days Sometimes he didn't come home
TIL past midnight. and she was begin
ming to doubt his stereotyped apologies.
Maybe he was perfectly loyal, and
! anyway, Mrs. 3leecker was sure of her
own fidelity under any conditions, and
she was fascinated with the idea of get
| ting up some sort OF a letter Irritation
with some unknown man whom she
never expected or cared to see
She conf1ded the plan to Miss Annie
Cuthbert, her best friend, who had
! typewriter, and between them they fixed
/ up an advertisement, which appeared in
the next Sunday newspaper, as follows:
WANTED-By young handsome, intel
| Hgent woman, the acquaintance of
! sympathetic, educated and moral man:
object, the exchange of instructive and
helpful letters. address Q 80, this office.
Miss Cuthbert went for the answers
and the clerk handed her many. That
night Curtis didn't come home even for
dinner. and his wife. for the first time
with her friend into the kitchen, locked
the doors, and together they sat down
to gloat over those answers to 20 49,
Most of them were idiotic, of course;
few were sane enough, but mercenary Or
commonplace or i'll spelt. Some con-
ta1ned photographs of love-lorn youths
with curls and foolish smiles Some
were the ridiculous plants of old men
DortunitieS to be loved. It was very
funny. the whole business. and Mrs.
Bleecker and Annie laughed over the
reading and the photographs till the ben
announced Mr.. Bleecker. Then Annie
bundled the stuff into her satchel and
said: Come over in-the morning, Chloe,
and we'll answer Them
But when it came to formulating
letter to the most likely of the CORE
spondentS, and they saw what study,
what subterfuge and what time it re-
quired, they determined to burn up all
the letters but one and make the most
of that. The lucky object of their at
tention signed, or rather printed, his
name as Roger Fortescue, and his adj
dress was General Delivery He had
inclosed no photograph, his typewritteI
letter showed every evidence of educa-
ton, good breeding and even reverence
for the unkonwn @ 33.'' and forthwith
he became a parsonage, something OF
hero in the minds of both these good
women, who never expected to see him
and would have laughed at his frank
confession, his gently limited hopes, his
dignified melancholy-if they could.
But they couldn't. Roger Fortescue's
nro ff1nir fret
anticipations. His typewriter words
in successive letters of increasing length
We're almost vocal of a generous. wise
and tender nature. Mrs. Bleecker. and
her friend began to endow him with
every imaginable virtue. In the replies
which the young wife wrote she Strove
to rise to his standard of rhetorical ex-
cellence, to his splendid imagery, to his
vague but winsome messages of love.
She no longer permitted her friend,
Annie Cuthbert, to dictate even an oe-
casiona1 sentence. and at last she even
failed to share with her friend one of
the letters which, as usual, she had re-
ceiVed at the general delivery window.
Then Mrs. Bleecher. almost uncon-
sciouSly, began to compare Curtis, her
husband, with the unknown E0rtesOue.
Why had the master of her destiny
never written such letters to Der? Why
was he not eloquent like Roger-therei
She had begun to call him Roger
She became a bit scared then, for she
Bleecker had exchanged very few let
ters in their counting days Perhaps he
would have written. just as well as
Fortescue, if he'd had the opportunity.
she thought. And then, in a sudden
realization of her folly and perhaps of
some subtle and hateful sense of dis
loyalty, she went to Annie's house and
wrote long letter to Fortescue in
which she begged his pardon for "lur-
ing him into a correspondence that
must appear deceitful, fruitless and
even humiliating when she, Beatrice
Landon," admitted as she now must,
that she was a married woman, whose
husband was "the best man on earth.
She expected that this long and self
deprecating letter would put final stop
to his letters. but after a week, during
which she did not inquire for any let
ters at the window. she asked Annie to
''see if there was anything" There
were ivel
Il, too" wrote Roger Fortescue. ''am
married NY wife is the embodiment of
all virtue, beauty and intelligence, but
=" And then he launched into a subtle
and gracefully worded discourse to the
effect that Mrs. Fortescue was not
wholly satisfied with him.. that she
didn't understand him; that he could not
blame her. but that in seeking a CORE
s2ondence with Mrs. Landon," he had
only tried after that im9ersonal and, he