The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1905-03-05

TENDING of human and divine love ex-
listing between men and women which
she displays in this little volume.
Near New Orleans. just after the
close of the great civil war, lived d
r1otfer and her two sons, Ernest
Farnsworth and Guy Edgerton, and
with them. Marie de Ia Ronde, VINO
lad come TO them an orphaned babe,
some fifteen years before the story
opens. The following extracts aptly
describe the characters.
Ernest Farnsworth paused outside
the darksned chamber from which the
family physician had told him his
mother would never come. save rooeo
fer the grave.
His half brother was just closing
the door. so constrained an expression
on his usually untroubIed face, that
Farnsworth asked quickly:
What has occurred? Is there any
change?
mo. have been merely telling her
that when she is gone / intend making
Mignonne my wife. Was driven into
such deucedIy tight corner 1 had to
tell her.
You forget that I am the girls legal
guardian. as Web as yours, after
mother. / shall have something to
say.
THE elder brother. then clearing his
brow, quietly entered the sick room.
The GOODNESS of the room modified the
rush OF his angry blood, the gloom
dimmed the fire flash of his eyes. There
was a faint aroma of lavender about
the white canopied bed. The trans
parent face upon the pillow turned
eagerly at his approach. the blue
yeined hands outreached toward him.
He stopped and kissed the pallid lips
again and again with passionate ten
derness. smoothing the silken hair
with his always carsssing hands"
The mother talked long and earnest
~ to her eldest son of her desires, to
he carried out after her death, and
pledged him to see that her young ward
cid not marry until after she was 19
years of age. That she wished him to
then marry Marie, who loved him
above everyone else In proof of which
she detailed a conversation between
them had some days previously.
And did l ever think you would like
her as well as Guy does? That would
depend. l told her, wholly upon her
being a good girl, studying hard. prac-
ticing faithfully, saying her prayers
ia fact making herself worthy Of your
r gard" No more was said at the
time. but when / came away, l saw
she had something on her mind. 1 took
her in my arms. and with her lips
close to mine. she disburdened herself.
q" And so she said conclusively, as
though terminating once for all an in
ternal argument that had not ceased
since my rebUke, and so, even il L
should name him second in my prayers,
the good God would know he was real
ly first, because the good God knows
everything.
Dear little innocent, / would not
thus betray her to any other man, En-
rest. IL would give him too great an
advantage. But you might soon have
known. for she is 16, that most dan
gerOus age, and she can but -betray
herself
Like all southern girls she has early
reached her perfection; but in mind
and heart she is still 1 wish her TO
be. immature. For I have revealed to
her absolutely nothing of the mystery
of self and sex; have cautioned the
sisters against doing SO. I wanted her
reared in profound ignorance of these
dangerous matters, which. revealed too
early. only suggest fevil TO the un-
ripened heart. 1 have talked it over
with her chaperone, and / have Father
Durand's sanction upon this course.
She is q child Her affection for you is
that of child, ignorant, idOlatrous,
with only the sugge stion of the wo-
mans devotion yet to bless you, a love
that viii be wholly self-forgetful. And
loving you thus myself. how could 1
chide her?"
"Edgerton sauntered off toward the
stables, whistling Way Down South in
Dixie What a self assertive young
giant he was-cool, deliberate, phleg-
matte. fair of face; slow to anger. slow
to forgive, calculating to fault: the
exact opposite of his elder brother,
with his dark, glowing beauty and
burning southern eyes, a man all
lightning and gunpowder, hot of blood;
quick to strike, quick TO forgive, i'm
pulsive to fault, to whose strong pas
sfOnate heart love was the only law,
whose desires i'll brooked denial; with
whom life was ever at high tension,
pleasure at concert pitch.
And these two loved their mothers
ward, each in his own peculiar way.
Reared within the walls of the Sacred
Heart. with vacations spent upon the
plantation, Marie de la Ronde's knowI-
edge of men was as narrow as a nuns,
Icing limited to the priests and broth
ers of Sacred Heart, and to the sons
of her guardian.
She was a sweet bud of womanhood,
Ter eyes were of the deepest blue, al
most purple. like Russian violets. with
long shadOwy lashes; a dainty little
miss in short skirts which exposed
small, aTched feet and well formed
ankles. She had the fresh, inexperi-
enced face of a child. a face whose
primal note was innocence, and this
Contradicted by the full. voluptuous
form OF a woman. How pretty she was
how much too pretty! with her virgin
eyes and Siren lips. She was youth
and awakening love and modesty per-
sonified, at once chaste and coquettish
innocent and provocative"
The mother died shortly and the elder
son became the guardian of the
Younger and of the girl. She remained
pupil at the parochial school, being
car I'd for by the sisters and her chap
erone. spending her holidays, Satur-
days and Sundays on the plantation
The story is. in plot. as old as the
human race and the characters. though
they may be unusual. are true to life.
How like a mother to wish her
daughters to be innocent, forgetting
that innocence is ignorance and that
ignorance united with an underlined
natural desire leads toward the thorny
path of dishonor and scared conscience;
and how like a mother to know the
character of man and yet have that
blind, unreaSoning trust in the ability
of her son to be true TO those about
him whatever the temptation.
The younger son is the type OF lover
with high ideals. but self centered. His
love is insistent because he desires. He
does not consider the result to others.
The triumphS of his kind forerun
homes that are no homes and swell
the records of the courts with actions
for divorce
Ernest is older in years and knowl-
edge of the danger of the path they