The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1906-09-02
By e. Z. BENSON.
copyright 1906 by E. F. Benson.

at an early dinner before driving to
Kings Gross to catch the night mail
and 60 north with him. : -
The state Of things which they had
found on their arrival seemed to them
both to justify his coming. A panic
terror, such as is only possible among
Ignorant, uneducated folk, who are
naturally healthy, and know little: of
illness and disease, had seized the vii
lage at this sudden striking down of
the strongest and heathiest among
them Mixed with it, too, was dis
trust and fear of doctors, arising from
that same Ignorance, and the inability
to believe that it could be right when
man was Frustrated by the exhaus-.
ton of a mortal weakness produced by
the fever to deny him a morsel of meat
or crust of solid food. Doctors were
there and nurses, but it was not the
medical attendance, but: the obedience
to the orders of nurses and, doctors, that
had been so difficult to enforce. And
It was for this purpose that Lord
-Thurso found at once that he had been
right in coming, since word from him
doctor. For feudal obedience, in spite
of distrust of doctors, was on his side,
and now that the laird ranged himself
on the side Of the doctors, who ordered
windows to be opened when all folk of
common sense would be inclined to shut
every chink and Granny by which air
might enter and give 8 cold'' to the
patient, and forbade solid food to. be !
given, tho the puir body was crying
it was necessary to, follow these in
comprehensive DEGREES, since the laird
also enjoined them. tho many heads i:
were shaken: over treatment which
seemed obviously unreasonable. sThurso
had brought his valet with j him, Ebut
otherwise the earetaker and, his wife
looked after the needs: of:=him and his
sister. Upstairs there was open just
stairs this one big room half. shrouded
in holland sheeting, where they ate and
sat. -. :-.-% 77.,.. - -. i )
Nature had FOR many generations
adopted a very sensible and reasonable
plan with regard to the Stratton fam
lily. They were extremely prolific, and
numbered their cousins by the hun
dred, and she had certainly said to her
self: There is not enough beauty to
go round, sowhat shall I do about thems
Shall I divide up all the beauty which
L can invest in each generation be-
mold and paint it all into one Of
them and let the rest look out for them
selvesa' She had adopted the second
alternative, and now for six or seven
generations Of Strattons there had al
ways been one perfect and exquisite
piece of modelling in the successive fam
lies, while the others had to be con
tent with a certain air Of distinction
and pleasantness which, however, made
their plainness matter of small ac-.
count. Sometimes Nature, one could
not help feeling, had made an error of
Judgment in investing the beauty of
some one generation in boy and net
IN girl, but in this generation she had
made no such mistake, and here in the
window waiting for her brother was the
lucky posscssor of the natural fortunes
of the rest of her family Like them
all, she was tall; and for once in way
feed, as SO often happens to mere per-
lection of feature, For violet eyes are
so often no more than violet eyes, lust
pieces of beautiful color, but here the
thousand moods of the girl s. mind that
like clouds and alternate sunshine on
some windy spring day chased each
other across some azure surface, were
reflected from the depths of those violet
pools, and thru the beautiful windows
Humor and an alert sense Of the lu-
dicrous, SO valuable weapon in that
mental armory with which we have to
repel the assaults, of adverse and an
.noying circumstances were there also,
ready to set the mouth smiling; in
tense and kindly interest in the spec
tacle of life shone there, and deep down
in them you would say that something
not yet fully awake slept, and perhaps
dreamed, in its twenty years slumber.
And man might find the breath catch
at the thought of awakening that.
Like all the STATIONS, she was fair of
complexion, but her hair was not of
that vague straw color which loosely
passes for gold, but of that tint touched
and Illuminated by orange color which
made it CLEAN as if the unlimited metal
shene in it. It grew low on her fore
head and abundantly, but not in those