Meade County news. [volume] (Meade, Kan.) 1900-1918, 1902-07-17

with his dreams tenanted by the ideal
being which he had once imagined
Miss Manigault to be. He would have
fled at once, but though his connec-
ton with Miss Manigault as a man
was over, there remained his duty as a
clergyman and he rallied to it. In
his capacity as a spiritual pastor and
master he addressed her. In voice
whose hardness astonished him, he
said:
Did your Cousin George ever ask
you to marry him."
why how frank you Northern peo-
pie are. No. He's twenty years older
than 1 am"
Did the father of Ike ever ask you
to marry him."
"Ike!" cried Miss Manigault, spring
ing to her feet. DO you think 1
would marry niger, degrade myself
oh, how could you'll"
Far better, madame" said Carson,
rising to his feet, ito have married
this negro and in honorable wedlock
borne him your son Ike than to have
brought Ike and the other four into
the world as you did,
Miss Manigault shrieked, but it was
as much a shrek of laughter as of
rage or injury. There were tears, but
they, too, might have been tears of
laughter. The man before her was
suffering as she had never seen man
suffer before, and it was for love Of
her. Whatever she might have said
or done in anger, whatever she might
have said and done in perversity,
though plainly perceiving his mistake
and his sincerity, was profoundly
modified by this.
"Sir, Ike and the rest are my negro
slaves, mine all except the one at
Cousin Georges, whom haven't COM
pletely paid for yet. Boys, we call
them, and see you have never heard
them called so. What have you to say
in regard to the terrible insult you
have offered me as man, to the re-
proof you were starting out to give
me as a clergyman" and again there
was ring of merriment mixed with
she tried to make stern twinkled..
Il have offered you most grievous
insult and l cannot think of proper
amends. I have heard it said that to
offer love is the greatest honor a man
can do a woman. To atone for my
outrageous offense, may 1 in deepest
humility offer you my hand in mar
De- ;ohk II
that an atonement, to ask the I'M
speakable happiness of union with
you and call it balm for my affront ?
Oh, such is the agony of my self-re-
proach that l could throw myself I'm
der the feet of yonder approaching
would you do it?" asked Miss
Manigault, clasping her hands.
Yes, gladly-except for the fact
that such an act by one of my cloth
might create a scandal and be used
by the enemies of sound religion. Oh,
1 could throw myself down from the
roof of the hotel to atone-if my cloth
only permitted"
But, tell me, how could you believe
it of me?"
Because you yourself said it. All
this time 1 have so builded love and
admiration and trust in you that even
when 1 thought heard you declaring
yourself utterly abandoned, believed
1 believed you. Had anyone else, my
dearest friend, my brother, whispered
aught against you, 1 would not have
believed"
You would have fought him, you
would have called him out?"
II would gladly have fought him
leaving the arbitrament to whatever
deadly weapons he might choose, how
ever unskilled I might be in their use
in my cloth had only permitted"
You are true South Carolinian, II
you; are Vermonter," after the ut