The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-07-07


 ''Each of us is only the sum of a long double column of figures going back to the first parents,' replied Bernard, and If the column don't add up right it is commonly because we can't make out the figures. We are mainly nothing but the answer to long sum in addition and subtraction No doubt there are people born with every impulse at an angle to ths parallels of nature, as you call them. Slight oblquites are what we have most to do with in education. Peniten- tiarles and insane asylums take care of most of the truly, right-angled cases"
 There were only two classes in Rock land who were worth reckoning socially: He mansion house people" and the ''two-story people," The mansion houses were inhabited by the old families The New England mansion house has a great, respectable width of yard front and it's owners have great respectable widths of clean shirt front. The two-story houses are trim, "genteeP' and crowded closely to the street. Their parlors are the most tomblike. melancholy places that can be found anywhere among the abodes of liv. ing peoples.
 In Rockland the mansion houses and most of the two-story houses stood under elms. No other Gothic arch compares for a moment with that formed by two Amer ican elms. When one looKs through a long
  not made with hands. fairer than any minister, with it's clustering stems and Lowering capitals, than ever grew in stone.
 Among the mansion houses in Rockland stood one that was too new, too swag- gering, too brightly painted to be of them It belonged to Colonel Sprowle (militia ranlO. From this house there is- suNI soon to Bernard Langdon:
 "Mr and Mrs Cn1opaI cprovvla'. oo.., pliments to MT. Langdon and request the pleasure of his company at a social en- tertainment on Wednesday evening next
 3oy directsd. to wait for an answer"
 And when Bernard replied that: MT. Langdon has the pleasure of accepting MT. anc Mrs. Colonel Sprowle's polite n- Vitation for Wednesday next" the Brah- min was launched in Rockland society.
 The Sprowle party was for the "bring- | ing out of Miss Matilda, sole daughter of the house. Everybody was invited so said those who had invitations. But the expressing question still was: will the mansion-hou people come?'
 The question was answered satisfacto- rily. The mansion-house people came. chief among them was Dudley Venner. With his wild beauty of daughter on his arm. She was. indeed, an apparition- so unlike other girls that it seemed per- fectly natural that when she moved the
 
 through them, and that she should carry all looks and thoughts with her.
 Ter heavy black hair lay in a long. braided coil with a golden pin shot through it like a javelin. Around her neck was golde1 torque, a round cord like chain such as the Gauls used to wear; the Dying Gladiator has 1t. Her dress was grayish watered silk; her col lar was pinned with a flashing diamond brooch. cb -one was circle of enameled scales and the other night have heen Cleopatra's asp with It's body turned to gold and it's eyes to emeralds.
 Dudley Venner looked every inch what he Was-a man of culture and breeding; but he was gloomy and wore a disturbed air, as one whose life had met a fatal th.ng. He saluted scarcely any one ex- cepting his entertainers and old pr. Kit tredge, the local practitioner, who watched Elsie furtvely but keenly
 Elsie made circle of isolation around herself. Drawing her arm from her fla ther's, she leaned against the wall and looked with a ueer. cold glitter in her ey at the crowd that waved and babbled around her.
 The old doctor went up to her Well Elsie," he said, 'do tell me how you hap pened to be such a good natured thing as to let us see you at such great party?'
 Its been dull in the mansion house." sh replied. and I wanted to get out of it. There's nobody to hate since Dicks gone. There's nofody there but Dudley anu I and the people, and Pm tired of it. What kills anybody quicker doctor?'' Then, in whisper: "I ran away again the other day, you know"
 Where did you go?''
 ''On. to the old place. I was only gone one night. Here. I brought this for you And she handed him a flower. He started as he took it. for he knew 1t grew only in one place on "The Mountain" and that was where no foot should venture.
 Have good dance tonight, Elsie" said the doctor, trying to smile, but look ing grave.
 was cancing with pretty Rose Milburn, one of his pupils. Presently, in one of tn turns of the dance he felt his eyes drawn to a figure which he had not dis tinctly recognized, though he had dmly 1t its presence. He saw Elsie Venner looking at him as 'S she saw no one else He was not nervous person. like poor overworked Helen Darley: but the glitte- Of the weird eyes affet ted him strangely. H. became silent. The young beauty at his side chafed at his seeming neglect and the imperous blood mounted to her cheeks but he was unconscious of it. There is one of the young ladies I must speak to ' he said, and was just leaving his partners side. when -Four hands 'round,' shouted the first violin and Der nard found himself seized and whirled round in circle. When he got back to his place he looked for Elsie Venner but she was gone.
 Old Dr. Kittredges narrow sullsy turned in at the gate of the Venner mansion next day conveying the doctor in troubled thought The great house which Mir Ven ner had inherited from his Dudley ances- tors. stood at the very foot of "The Mountain" where it rose steepest with baldest cliffs and overhanging woods. IL had been built in colonial times and was filled with massive furniture. old silver. portraits and hangings brought from England Around 1t. and beyond it. stretching out into the country. were farms belonging to "the estate"
 In plain view from the library windows was q small plat of green in the midst of which a single grave marked by a small plain, white slab of marble Dud- ley Venner's eyes saw it every time he looked out of the windows of the room where he spent most of his time.
 :. he doctor fastened his horse and was 1Lint- m the garden alley when ha