The Newark journal. (Newark, Ark.) 1901-1959, 1906-09-21

why you left Dig city practice and
came 5000 feet up to minister to ugly
coughs?''
NO" said the doctor, gravely. 81
had better reason. Isn't making
you well and sending you back reason
enough for my being here?"
Sending me back?" in sudden ter
ror. But I'm not going! | ate my
heart out to go back when / came. but
now-now-"
When the silence grew heavy be-
tween them the doctor spoke again.
~ once knew a chap who wrote letters
- q woman white slip of a woman
whom he didn't idealize," he said.
lie didn't know he loved her at first.
The whole sweep OF his life was away
from women. But this girl was SO
lonely, SO pathetic somehow, that he
found himself writing these letters 10
per almost before he knew it He had
an idea, theory-he was a great chap
Tor theories-and he kept himself in
the background. He asked nothing of
the girl. He"
lie Numbered she cried. Sup
pose the woman had never had
lover; suppose the sweep or her life
had been away from men, that she
had been SO busy that she had never
thought of one until she got those
letters"
Child" The doctor spoke sharply.
Suppose through the whole long
wonderful summertime she had reared
her Joy castle, at first afraid it would
vanish like the bubbles she had blown
IL childhood, until she had come to
believe in the writer of those letters
with the same terrible, childlike faith
she gave to her Cod
Child, child" the doctor implored
her.
With little unsteady laugh Miss
Carleton got to her feet. How that
big moon stares, she said. Wouldn't
you like TO climb on its chin and sail
to your Hearts Desire? Haven't you
a land of Hearts Desire, doctor?'
She leaned and looked deep into the
moon-flled, sleeping valleys as she
spoke.
The doctor trieu to answer. He
orew back into the shadows as she
said goodnight. He had seen wo-
mans soul, and the sight had shaken
him.
Not many days later fairy-tale
happening came 10 Mary Carleton in
the shape of telegram that told her
OF the death of an old great-aunt and
the arrival of a fortune, all in a breath.
The doctor came back from the
valley settlement, where he had been
visiting a patient, 10 hear the story
and slip away from everybody. In
the quiet of his den, with the little
fire on the hearth fighting the grow
ing dusk, he tried TO realize what life
would be with the glory gone out of it.
A log broke and fell, shattering his
reverie. The fire leaped. and she
came swiftly down the room to drop
into a chair beside him and nestle
there as If she meant to stay indefi-
nitely.
1T has been scipline-waiting
for that fortune, she said cheerfully.
"Many's the time I've defied fate with
Ii when I've been SO hungry. Cocoa
and toast for breakfast, toast and
cocoa for lunch and my great-aunt's
fortune for dinner How the money
has changed things" in sudden gaiety.
I'm not going TO ride on the moons
chin 1t wouldn't be dignified for an
heiress."
Don't you ever mean to grow up?"
The doctors lips twitched in way
that would have gone straight to
woman's heart if she had loved him.
I'm grown up" contentedly. I'm
-"
And I'm not less than Is MORE"
miserably.
Are YOU" politely. Il could never
DO arithmetic" The laughing shaft of
Ter dark eyes struck straight into the
middle of a heart that wasn't aging,
and the blood that wasn't iaded.
although the doctor had tried so hard
to think so, pounded and leaped, hot
and strong.
The doctor caught her hand In a
grasp that hurt her.
give been a brute" he cried "I