The southern sentinel. (Winnfield, La.) 1883-1910, 1903-07-24
In the Hour
Before Dinner
BY ELIZABETH SEARS.
Copyright. ,sas, BY Daily Story Pub. Co,

NOROIH4 MARSHALL sank Dack
in the big, cushioned, bamboo
chair before her driftwood fire with
. sigh of content. She held a pack
age of business papers in her hands.
Dorothy always dreaded business de-
tails. It would be real relief when
Thurston should take it all OF her
hands. Meantime-the fire snapped
and the embers glowed seductively.
She was tired. Positively worn
ont. Thurston had upset her so
that afternoon. He had been so inn
petuous and she was not used to
scenes. She dropped the papers in
her lap and clasped her hands be-
hind her head. She loved the fra
grant smell Of burning wood. She
loved to watch the dancing, brilliant
flames that nothing but driftwood
could produce.
She held out her dainty toes to
the heat and lazily congratulated
herself, as she admired them, that
she had never adopted the mannish
styles either Of dress or Of manners
that so many women did. Tom had
never approved Of it.
Her clinging black dress hung in
essentially feminine and well-built
lines as she sat there; but it was NOT
1t all becoming. She did not look
well in black, yet she had worn it
faithfully, even devotedly, ever since
Toms death.
Her mother had spoken her mind
plainly about it.
you look like fright in black, /"
she had said, with the brutal frank
ness which is permissible to rela-
tives. 'Tom himself would not wish
It If he knew how unbecoming it
WAS"
Thurston had said almost the same
thing that afternoon when he had
asked her to marry him in a month
and go with him to Japan.
"Tom himself would wish you to
be happy" he had urged. She loved
Thurston with every fiber of her be-
ing, but he was man and could not
understand her feelings about it.
Tom would wish her to be happy.
That was just it. If he had been
= brute or anything o. that sort, it
would be different. He had been
more than good TO her. always. She
remembered, with a choke in her
throat, all his anectionate little
ways.
Thurston was not always quite
reasonable. He had shown more
than . trace Of horrid temper. He
had been unnecessarily severe when
he had denounced her reasons Tor
delay as absurd. quixotic. unreason-
able.
Surely il was not unreasonable to
wish to show proper respect to ones
husband.
yhurston, too. had reminded her
81 the fact that she had been .
widow more than . year: that she
had mourned her husband faithful
" and with sincere grief.
She felt thrill of conscious vir-
tue It the thought. Not many wom-
IN would have worn black so con-
stantly and so long when It was so
unbecoming. She had really been
very fond Of Tom. Not, of course,
- she loved Thurston; no one could
expect It. They were so different.
ne could mot help but love Tom.
He had been SO good to her. He had
loved her 50 completely.
Y II had his every thought" she
Uurmured. She remembered the day
Ne had brought her home the very
chair she SIT In, especially for her
comfort. And even when he had
eoae 70 Japan that time he had been
= worried about leaving her. She
Md wanted to 60 She had always
lonRed to see Japan, but Tom had
heen 80 tied down with that tire
none business he had thought the
tip might not be pleasant for her.
But he had promised to 60 again
Dnss e take her, the dear boy.
he Crantleys had gons n the