Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1905-11-30
CHAPTER XVIII.


st is very dreadful to have TO say it;
but [ think | began to love you just
when it was wrong to do so-on the
day you came to tell me you had dis
covered your wife was living Then
came that unhappy time, and the letters
written in Jacks behalf really helped
yourself. At last. when 1 saw you so i'll
and sorrowful looking, my heart went
out to you"
This will be an awful blow to jack
Never mind Jack now. Your kind
ness has made him think himself a para
gon. l think it will do him good to find
out that he is not so irresistible as he
fancied himself
Presently, after some conversation,
Ethel said:
Papa will wonder what has become
of US. We had better go and tell him
everything. He will be so pleased"
DO you think SOP Polling asked,
doubtfully; and Ethel throwing her arms
about his neck answered him with kisses.
OF course Sir Godfrey was delighted.
AS man, he thought highly of Captain
Polling. Besides, he had undoubted ad
vantages of birth and position, and
would make an excellent master of the
household when the present possessor
should have gone to rest
Jack was inclined to be displeased at
first; but it was characteristic of the
facile nature of tte man that he con-
sented to be concilated, and stayed on
right into the summer, making Mailing
ford his headquarters during his trips
into the surrounding country to touch up
from nature Lord Summers six pictures.
And, as the days heightened to their
longest, Polling gradually recovered
| much of his old brightness. Ethel was
devoted to him.
Sometimes people, looking at her ra-
diant young beauty and his grave ma
| turity, wondered at the girls uncon-
ceaed devotion and admiration. One
day some one ventured to say some
thing of the kind to her. Her eyes
flashed little, as she answered:
You don't know him as he really is
if you did, you would not be surprised"
Alec took her to Paris on their we'd
| ding trip, and amid the gayeties of the
city they did not forget one day to pay
| a visit to Pauline's grave. Ethel placed
a large wreath of immortelles on the
resting place of her unfortunate cousin
and turned away with a lump rising in
her throat Husband and wife were
both very silent on the way back to their
hotel
They received ore visitor before they
passed on toward Italy-it was Babette
now Nine. Couronne, of the Boulevard
des Italiens. She had invested her FIVE
thousand pounds judicously, and was
already becoming rather celebrated as
e IL of Al
She wished one piece of news to be con-
veyed to Sir Godfrey. Messrs. DAVIS &
Raven had made "a flash in the pan"
with their two thousand FIVE hundred
pounds; they had speculated through a
man who was Hammered" the very next
settling day, and so lost every penny.
and were in a worse plight than ever.
'They wanted me to join in the same
| speculation" added Nine. Couronne
with the money your father had been
| so so generous as to insist upon my ac-
cepting; but you have proverb, "A bird
in the hand is worth two in the bush,
and | kept my money under my own
| management, as madame sees, with good
result.
Erect, white-haired Sir Godfrey is
never so happy as when he is walking
out with toddling Godfrey Mailing Pei
ling, who is to carry CT the old family
name, by and by. Captain Polling is
| everything that a country gentleman
should be; and, in spite of the many calls
| on him, he is always able to spend plenty
of time in his wife's society The pleas
ure these two find in each others COM
| pany is as strong to-day as it was on
| their wedding tour, and it is likely to
| increase rather than diminish, for it is
a union founded on the most lasting of
all foundations-a deep mutual respect
| and an impregnable faith.