Mexico Missouri message., 1903-02-05
SOUL--ASTRAY.
loopyrIas.. boz. 9y pally s.ory PuD. col
By MRS. GEN. PICKETT.

Here's something you'll like, BILL"
II CHANGED that wilfrid Lancaster
and his publisher had once been
boys together and gone to the same
school, and still called each other
"Bill' and "Drick" when they met
Frederic Singster took from his
desk small volume in faded red and
gold, which looked as II II might have
lain a century on a shelf in the
library of generations Of booklovers.
Il should say it is just in your line.
1 can't read 1t all, not being much
OF a word shufler, but it's kind of
epic poem and love story combined
by a girl who signs herself Jeanne
and 1t seems to be very pretty, what
l can get out of IL. Put 1t into Eng
llsh and I'll bring it out for the holt
days in a handsome cover Of red with
gold feur-de-lis on it,
Wilfrid put the book into his
pocket and went to his room. He had
thought Of dropping in at the Authors
Club and rubbing up against the men
who were making literary history at
first hand. Now he seemed to be wrap
ped up in the desire to get at this new
old poem.
He opened the book and was soon
in the thrall of its mystic fascination.
Usually he dined at eight o'clock at
the little French restaurant three
blocks away. 1t was his one diver
sion. Not that he cared so much for
the bottle of good claret and the unde-
niable ragouts, but there was an en-
chanting atmosphere about the place
which pleased him. Then Henri went
there. Henri was a correspondent for
lie Temps, and there was something
In his electric manner and graceful
way which reminded Wilfrid of Paris
in the long ago, when he spent some
happy years there studying French
and music, and so forth. In return
for the fascinating atmosphere he
gave Henri pointers on the political
situation and told him what new
novels came nearest illustrating the
evanescent and Elusive American
view.
This evening he had no desire for
atmosphere and views. There was a
certain comradeship in the book that
superseded the necessity of any other
association. 1t seemed to open a view
into a life unkno .In-a gracious life
that held the light Of olden sunny
France.
AS he unraveled the story from the
medieval language in which it was
told in graceful rhythm and musical
rhyme, that old life seemed to enter
his heart and to draw him nearer to
the dreamy realm in which the I'M
known Jeanne" had lived and loved
and written ner brilliant and sorrow
full story, interviewer with the light
and darkness of her country's history.
Thus he reached back to the life that
had spent itself in the poem of the
olden times until a golden pathway
opened down which he could look
into that dream life more vivid to
him than the everyday existence
around him. At the end of the path
way of light was a golden glory and
looking out of it a brilliant face,
with wine-brown eyes and he knew
that Jeanne" beckoned to him across
the bridge of the centuries.
I have another life long to meet,
Without which life my life is incom.
plete;
Oh, sweeter self, like me, art thou
astray,
Trying with all thy might to find to
me the way?'"
he repeated to himself Jeanne, arr
thou, too, astray?"
He could not cross that bridge, so
he went out, led by fate, toward that
haunting face. Thus he came to the
beautiful little city Of st. Pierre,
cleaning against the side of Mont
Pelee like a pearl set In a cluster of
emeralds.
Nowhere is life crowned with the
rose of happiness save on a French
island; on no other isle of France
is that rose-crown so fragrant and
sunny as in Martinique; in no other
spot of Martinique is the fragrance