The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1903-01-09
AN AMERICAN DUCHESS.
A Mere "SchoOl Marm' from Away
Out West Who Went to England
to Become Peeress

Was there ever such a match! A
great English nobleman, the duke of
Allonby, and mere American school
marin" from rising community out
west, where they got the fashions
month late. She was beautiful, if you
like, with a mingled pride and tender
ness in her face, worthy of the Ma
donna with the bamboo; tall and with
a presence, too; educated, and, withal,
of a true nobility of soul, and even of
manners, that left nothing to be de-
sired. But school-marm going to
England to be duchess! Yes, there it
was, says Richard Whiteing's new nov
el, THE Yellow Van," in Century.
1t had come about in the most nat
ural way in the world. He was pros
pecting incognito for ranch on the
Pacific slope; her uncle, man of sub
stance, was the local land-agent; and
so they met. The alias of his mere
family name, as distinct from the title,
kept him secure against impertinent
curiosity, and he was little more to
them than a Mr.. Nobody; but he had
an air of distinction, and he paid his
way, and that was enough. Hestayed
at her uncle's house as what he called
a "lodger," and they paying guest"
The two young people were thrown to-
gether in romantic associations, and
in that sole circumstance you are well
on your way to the core of the mys-
terry. For the rising township was
still backed by the deep forest, of which
it was but recently cleared. And here
in the heart of it was being with the
virtues of the woods and the toilets, of
civilizat ton.
Her charm was subtly compounded.
She was cultivated, and yet a wayside
flower, a happy union of opposites.
She had taken good degree at her
university; and was of much miscella-
neous reading; yet she lived and
thought as simply as Lodges Rosa
lynde in the wild. She could talk the
duke down on any subject, because her
intent seemed only to be to talk her
self up to the highest reaches. There
was something fascinating in the way
in which she leaped in the porch, at
eventide, and looked wistfully toward
a wide, wide world which she had al
most made up her mind she was never
to see save through the medium of the
monthly magazines. She had charmed
him not more by her beauty and grace
than by her character.
Hers was that high-bred assurance
of self of those who have never known
the shock of a cross word, and who
are so free from sense of bonds as any
creature of philosophic anarchy. This
naturally made short work of one
whose whole life had been surfeit of
Difference. She was his intellectual
superior, and she met him on that foot
ing of social equality on which, by the
somewhat feeble tenure of pious
opinion, he held the hope of one day
meeting his fellow-creatures in
Heaven. He had made her acquaint-
ance at a time when his head was still
smarting from the impact of two able
bodied young women of family, thrown
at it in a single season by as many
unnatural mammas, to say nothing of
an orphaned third who had achieved
the same operation by sort of double
somersault. of great initial velocity,
on her own account. He was eager to
be loved for himself alone. And, even
beyond that, he wanted something not
himself; and here it was in the most
exquisite being who was all faith, hope.
energy, enthusiasm, and who seemed
only to live to shape herself and 9TH
ers to the finest ends.