The herald-advance. (Milbank, S.D.) 1890-1922, 1902-08-15
CHAPTER l.

CHAPTER l.
The Breaking Of an Environment.
The single street of G~rayborougt
runs down hills that face the sea or
that rock-bound coast Of Maine where
all winter long turbulent w show
changing gray faces to a gray sky. Far
ou are little islands of stones thai
serve Is picturesque visions for sum.
mer tourists and. when the storms
come down, eat ships. 1t is a com
munity Of shopkeepers, boarding.
house keepers, retired seamen, resi-
dent farmers, a lawyer or two, one
doctor, four ministers, q woman who
writes for fiction weeklies, and is
therefore . literary person, seagoine
men who sail along the coast In
schooners. and ~listless mechanics. car
penters. wheelwrights and so on. For
three hundred years the same families
have lived there and they have inter-
married until every one is akin to
every one else. You cannot stand in
front Of the little hotel and say that
Jedediah Robbins IL . skinfiint with
out arousing the wrath Of Mehitabel
Brown, whose great-grandmother mar
ried q NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. OF
Robbins. In the summertime, occa-
sional visitors come from the great cit
les. attracted there by the singing salt
air and quiet. For six weeks the place
Il excited into spasms by men in knick-
erbockers. girls In bicycle skirts, the
whack OF tennis rackets. the click of
golf balls. moonlight firtations. man
dolin serenades, light laughter and
song. The residents look with set re-
proving faces upon these evidences Of
immortality and when the chill Septem-
Der has come settle back into the won't
ed routine with gossip-material to last
them through the winter. The life in
Grayborough II hard. narrow, devo-
tional, monotonous. In 1897 old Eph-
RAIN Butler, who used to be mate Of
the schooner Polly" to and from the
Bermudas for onions, went to Bangor,
stayed three days and returned with a
quart Of Medford rum. from which he
publicly and fearlessly drank in Sam
uel Higgins grocery. It will take him
three years longer to regain his social
status.
Near the end Of the street furthest
1rom the bay lives Miss Tabitha Eng
lish. who owns to forty-nve years. She
IL narrow-hipped and fl~at-bosomed,
with iron gray hair, thin lips and a
large nose. Earlier In life she had
leanings toward Universalism, but has
repented' and ID now an earnest Pres
byterian. She has q little house and a
little garden and q little income de-
rived from her fathers estate. With
her lived her niece, Lois English. AS
the story under narration IL practically
the story Of this young woman, 1t is
proper here to state who and what she
was.
In that staid. still. somber town she
bloomed 10 some strange tropical dow
or might bloom for an hour upon a
rock-ribbed pinnacle OF Greenland. She
was Of straight New England strain,
except that three generations back
upon the distaff side Of the house there
had been an admixture OF French
blood from Canada. and in her the
leathless Latin are showed "a It had
showed in her mother and her mothers
mother. With this dash Of the fiery
song-inspired fluid Of Provence came
her name. Lois. Her mother had died
when the child was Ave months old.
Three years later her father. as brave
and competent . seaman as eve set his
life upon q cast In all those stormy wa
ters. went to = grave which had
yawned before him since his boyhood.
Aunt Tabitha took the infant and
reared her into womanhood according
% her lights. which were dim, but
steady. The girl, showing evidence
even when . child of strange beauty
and strange contradictions OF charac-
tsr, went through the public school at
0rayborough. through the high school
ct Augusta and through . modest SEM
inary for young ladies In Massachu-
setts. Her father had left enough
money to educate her and the wish
that 1t should be expended In fitting
her Tor q battle with the world. Her
rigid aunt scrupulously accounted for
every dollar Of It subsequently Lois
was trained for . year AZ q profession
Il nurse In Philadelphia. sickened Of
the business. attended q Normal" or
two and became q school teacher. She
spoke, German slowly but correctly and.
~ Z gift Of heredity, battered French
with the soft slurs and ease of the
people just above Marseilles. She was
m expert needle-worker and = fair mu-
Gcian. possessing q contralto voice Of
wonderful depth and purity with q
strange pathos and passion In It that
sounded strangely to the people amcn.s
whom she was born. Upon the native
warmth Of her character was grated
through early environment q certain
repression Of manner. She walked
among them q volcano Of an icy out
ward seeming. Thoroughly pure. thor
oughly honest, disdainful Of petty trick
g artinoe. with dreams which she
dreamed alone and ambitions which
ahe stifed or hid, she went her way,
uttsrly out Of sympathy with the small
village affairs which made up her
annf6 Axiet0nOo. Secretly lona0g -