The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-08-23


on the verge OF making a clean breast of
her trouble. But. oh, what would her poor
old father say at her mourning a liability
which would ruiz him il he were called
upon to settle it And what would her
mother and sisters say TO her for surrep-
titiousIy placing herself under a heavy obi
cation 70 a man she had only met once, and
whose name she had never mentioned save
in the mos. casual manner?
And so what to the woman of the world
would have been mere joke. with toll
erably obvious purpose i'm it all to boot,
became to Madge Haywood secret trou-
bic of such gravity that her distorted fears
could figure nothing too terrible as likely
to be the upshot of it al. She wrote
few lines to Paul Edmonds, thanking him
for his kindness and il might indeed have
touched the young fellow to note the al
most pathetic strain of her epistle but for
the fact that he was quite incapable OF
realizing how terribly in earnest she was
taking his little joke.
Time passed and in her fGrtive references
TO the city column of the morning paper
the poor girl gathered enough TO compre-
bend that lie Rois were steadily on the
down grade. Paul Edmonos could not
strain himself until next settling day TO
write 10 Madge; with all the distraction
of his busting calling she remained very
prominent in his thoughts. and he wanted
to hear from her again. All is fair in
love and war, argued this ingenious youth;
and he thought that il he could brighten
the pretty parsons daughter into appeal
ing to his clemency it would afford him an
excellent opportunity OF showing his mag
nanimity and Substantially help on the end
he had in view. A somewhat supereroga-
tory procedure. might think; but, then,
many men have such original and unique
ideas to the best method of counting.
| So Paul Edmonds based his text upon a
| sharp slump i'm the price of lie Roi shares,
| and sat down to fire little bombshel at
| Madge. The absur6ity of the fact that he
| should adopting the reproachful tore in
| stead of expressing contrition that his adj
| vice should have turned out such costly
| failure thus far, did not appear to strike
| him. Be this as 1t may. he couched such an
| epistle injured innocence might be ex-
| pected to address to a willy client. He dwelt
| upon his own loss with heroic abnegation;
| said he regretted to have TO state the
market was now talking lie Rois great
| deal lower, and concluded by asking Madge
| TO kindly give him her instructions, sug-
| costing that i'm view of the slump contnu-
| ing it might be as well to sell out and cut
the loss before it went further. AS he was
| folding up this letter after-thought
| struck him, and he added postscript. 1T
will spoil the little game If she goes and
blabs to papa" he muttered, and to provide
| against this he particularly enjoned her not
| to trouble her parents, as hen would rather
| bear the whole loss himself than have to
reproach himself with the idea that he was
indirectly the cause of adding to her fathers
| worry
| 1t fell out, however, that the conciliatory
tone of this postscript was not sufficient to
neutralze the approximations raised in
Madge by the rest of the young jobber's
| letter. The last straw the camers back
was his talk of cutting the loss, which,
with all her vague perception of business
| matters, she perceived to be an arrange
ment that must leave her deeply in his
debt and without any prospect of paying off
the obligation. And so the poor girl. with
white face and beating heart, resolved
to take the bull by the horns. and going
to her fathers study she promptly scat
tered the conference of his next Sundays
smith could alone have done justice to.
The rector was not a man to rise i'm right
| eous wrath against the oppression of his
! troubles; he invariably subsidized beneath
their burden and wore a crushed demeanor,
until a long period of brooding convinced
him that the sings and arrows OF outrag-
eous fortune never turned out as poignant
as his morbid fancy pictured. AS the re-
| of int
! himself confronted with debt which.
sooner or later. must invariably mean bank
| ruptcy, ruin. dishonor He knew as much
about Stock Exchange matters as he did
about the architectural merits of the Sum-
| mer Palace, and whilst he mildly inveighed
| against Paul Edmonds for having put both
the idea and the means of speculation in
his daughters way, it never occurred to
the Supplemented old man that the liability
shown by those little slips of pink paper
could be otherwise than an incontroverti-
BILE debt, to be alone settledsby the hope
less expedient of payment.
AT the end of two solid hours of detected
musing ar inspiration put little CLEAN
into the Rev. Launcelot Heywood's dim
eyes. His daughter had met this consider
ate young jobber-for was he not very ex-
| plic1t IN manifeStlnk his concern for her
parents?-at the Manor Cartwright was a
| good fellow; he would go and see him. tell
him the whole affair, and ask his advice
| So bidding Madge deliver to him every
| scrap of correspondence bearing upon this
ruinous transaction, the rector set out
| briskly across two miles of damp fields,
and was rewarded by finding Cartwright in
his shrubbery. boisterously giving months
notice to the head gardener.
The bluff country gentleman listened pa
| tiently to the long winded, quavering recital
and then had the bad taste to burst forth
4 into small gale of laughter. Paul Ed
monds is bright young spark" quoth he
| 81 never know whether TO take the beggar
seriously or not. But if he means this as a
prank, it's rather too bad he should choose
your pretty little daughter as the subject
of it. Leave things to me, my dear rector.
and do not worry until we find out that
there is any occasion to-
The astute Paul was just making a close
price in a long line of Lake Views, i'm the
street. prior to starting for home. when
| a telegram handed to him. Booking
his deal with a little smrk OF satisfac-
h. n,