Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1902-09-22
those lips trembled!

So time passed; and then Wyndham
Care paid his long delayed visit to
Croombe abbey. She had despised
| her husband because he was com
moner; she had refused to believe
that great merit of true nobility could
belong to a man not nobly born; she
| had treated him with GOODNESS and con-
tempt. Now she was to behold man
whose chief merit lay in what she
valued so highly-noble birth. He
prided himself upon it; he looked up
on his interiors in station as people
belonging to another world; he treated
them with insolent contempt. He
| talked of his order until Lady Ianthe's
face grew crimson; it was as though
she saw herself in glass.
Wyndham Care spoke with a lisp
and he never forgot himself or his
own good looks. Yet he was brave
officer, and good soldier. One of the
| first things he did at Croombe was to
| injure a child as he was galloping
along the high-road. True, it was an
accident, but he had flung gold at the
mothers feet when she came to pick
up the little one, and had uttered no
| kindly word to her. When spoken to
afterward about it, he said that peo-
pie of that kind had little feeling;
they had no wounds so deep but that
money could heal them-gold was their
sovereign remedy.
Lady Ianthe contrasted such be-
havior with the tender charity that
had characterized Herman in all his
dealings with the poor. Which was
worthier of admiration-the man of
birth or the commoner?
Again, it never occurred to Wynd-
ham Care to exert himself to render
the least service to the earl. If Lord
Care expressed a wish for anything
the younger man would, if near the
bell, ring it and summon a servant;
il the old earl longed for the help Of
kindlp arm, his relative would raise
handsome eyebrows and say:
"Pon my honor, / regret that was
not cut out for the domestic virtues"
He was too indecent to read aloud,
too careless to write letters, too indif-
ferent to interest himself in matters
pertaining to Croombe; and, again
contrasting such selfishness with the
never-failing solicitude of her hus-
band, Lady Ianthe asked herself which
was the nobler Of the two?
In the first excitement of seeing his
kinsman again, the earl had confided
to him the story of his difficulties and
hi won n oYf111 rocn1o Ono of tho hit
terest trials of Lady Ianthe's life was
to hear Wyndham Care sneer about
it. "Our good friend the tradesman"
was his designation for the nan who
had done so much. Where did our
excellent friend the rradesman find
this good taste?" he would ask. And
when he had heard the whole story of
solently:
cit was an impairment thing of him
to come to the rescue of a family like
ours"
On hearing this speech, Lady
Ianthe's face famed with indignation,
and her heart beat with anger. She
turned to him abruptly.
''You would not have done it, she
said.
mo, my dear lady. I confess to a
preference for number one"
"You have five thousand pounds, but
would not give them to save my father
from ruin, would your"
Since you press the question, Ger.
tainly not" he replied, with laugh.
Il knew it," she declared; "and, if
you had found that my father had
made use of your five thousand
pounds, you would have compelled him
to repay it,"
"I am afraid necessity would have
eft me no choice. We cannot all be
as munificent as our good friend the
tradesman. It is not given to us all
to have the privilege of making
money"
THE tradesman, as you choose to
call him, is thousand times nobler
than you are!" she cried, Indignantly.
my dear Ianthe, you forget what
you are saying" he said, raising his
eyebrows. THAT kind OF man could
not be noble if he tried"
And again she askSd herself which
gained by contrast-the plebeian or
her kinsman?
She could not help noticing, too, that
the poor and the dependent who had
so dearly loved and so generously
praised her husband did not like
Wyndham Care. He had habit of
treating his interiors with insolence,
not unmarked by contempt. He gave
his orders to servants with the air of
tyrant; he scolded and stormed if
things did not please him. He was lit
tie loved in the household, yet he was
nobly born.
when will the squire come back?"
people began to ask. He had been
gone three years now, and in his let
ters he said no word about returning.
l. ady Ianthe knew that he would never
return-that he would remain in exile
until death freed him. She for whose