The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1906-01-17

| to her to have Besn told that she was
playing fast and loose with MI. Fol-
lctt's heart all this time-leading him
on to tenderest hope by familiar o or
gesture ut one moment, sinking him
10 despair by q sigh, a look, a distant
reference to Mohun and her buried
love for him at the next.
She was single-hearted and generous
to a degree quite beyond the average
of her sex-an exceptional feminine
nature that, would have felt real pain,
not fattered, delicious triumph, ut
knowing that n good mans love was
being lavisfIed upon her in vain. And
this very lack Of vanity, joined to the
pr]eoccupation Of her own thoughts in
all things pertaining to love, made her
guilelessly play out q part which Mon
sieur de Balzoa's Princess" herself
could not have rivaled.
The conclusion to n conversation,
the last of many like to it, will show
upon what terms this man and woman
fast approac ching middle age now stood
with regard to each other. Scene-the
little garden of James cottage; season
-early summer; principal figures-Jane
Grand, dressed in black, pale and list
less as usual, training the roses in the
the way they should 60 above the par
lor window; exactly opposite her, at the
oh1,,{ +tran foot tho ViplT
Of Chesterford.
And here l stop to say-what l ought
to have said long ago-that Mr. Fol
let's appearance was not IN uncomely
one. He did not look his age Indeed,
at this moment there appeared very
slight difference between Jane and him.
self. his spare, broad chested, loose
knit frame being of that order when
retains all the lightness and elasticity
of youth years after compact out
fleshy contemporaries have spread into
the rotundity Of middle life.
AS he stood now with his arms fold
ed behind him-his accustomed attitude
and looking ~intently at Miss Grand's
unconscious face-a stranger seeing
only bis figure and dark, thick, close
cut hair, would have hesitated to call
him q man still on what is convention
ally termed the best side Of thirty.
Nor was his face old. Youth was, or
course, gone from it. if by youth you
mean freshness and rounded outline
and vivid coloring; but these qualifica-
| tons, the first points in a woman's
beauty, are by no means essential IN a
mans; and Mr.. Follett's. dark race,
with clear-cut salient features, and
| deep-set iron-grey eyes was, l fancy,
handsomer now than it was a dozen
years before His dress was always
old-fashioned and the same; not very
priestly. and seldom in frst-rate condl-
! ton, but suiting him in that indescrib-
| able manner which Messrs. StulZ or
| Buckmaster, do not always find 1t easy
to make their well-ut clothes assume
upon the wealthiest clients shoulders.
| On the morning in question he had on
his head q wide-awake hat, which ad-
mirably became his somewhat foreign
face, but which had already caused n
great deal of mental disquietude in the
parish.
Merely to shelter his eyes from the
sun! My dear Miss Brown, all the
world knows wide-awakes are the sign,
the watchword, of the Broad Church
principles"
And as that dreadful heresy was
new to the minds of Chesterford ST.
Mary, it's insignia or standard was
naturally regarded with the terror men
have for new and fell diseases by the
eyes of parochial orthodoxy. .
do you think the yellow roses trail
as we'll as they did last year, Mr.. Fol
lett? 1 fancy all the flowers have some
thing wan and sickly about them this
ksummer. Look, this cloth-of-sold will
never be brought to hang as it used
to do around the window"
Exceeding grace is the. sole personal
charm that years cannot take from a
woman. AS Jane, with one white bare
wrist aloft, turned to glance across her
shoulder at the vicar, her attitude
might almost have We'd with that i'm
mortal one of her who stood" a sight
to make an old nan young"
The Vicar of Chesterford felt very
young and very foolish, indeed. as he
looked at her; the more foolish, per-
haps, as, for certain crafty reasons. he
purposed within himself to speak def
nitely of his own passion upon this par
ticular morning. Young fellows Of
ive-and-twenty, without the slightest
grain of diffidence in their nature, and
who have been receiving every legiti-
! mate encouragement for months past,
feel q singular tingling in the soles of
their feet, and a general i~ndistinctness
| before their brain, when the actual
morning of speaking definitely has ar
rived.
To be Continued.)