Waterbury evening Democrat., 1907-10-30

condolences, but apparently the time had come. s
 Because have already made upmy mind to marry some one else"
 His mother gasped.
 'Lorry! My dear boy! Oh, hope she's suitable. You're prone to oyer- look the really necessary qualifica- ions?"
 ''She has beauty and grace and kind- ness of heart" said Loring v
 And her people?"
 Her mother is very estimable wo- man. Her father was the janitor of the Myrtle street school"
 Then followed the scene which Lor- ing had anticipated and dreaded-re- brooches, upbraidings and beseechings on his mothers part, steel-like deter imitation on his own. Finally Loring rose.
 T am going to Portland tomorrow on business trip" he said, land in the meantime perhaps"-
 There is no perhaps about it." cried Mrs. Carter. on the verge of tears. If your father had lived he might have been able to manage you. But if you go against me in this everything is. over between us-forever"
 Tce next night. standing before her mirror, while her maid unfastened hei dinner gown, Mrs. Carter strove to re- call the connection between a serpent's tooth and an ungrateful child. The last thing she remembered as she drop ped off to sleep was a determination to speak to the girl herself, the next. she was standing daZed and terror stricken in the middle of the street without any definite knowledge of how she came there. She was in a pale blue kimono. her feet in bedroom slip pers. Past her thronged white lipped disheveled men and women. The ground was Swaying beneath her feet
 What has happened?" she demand ed wildly. and was answered by the sound of crashing brick and timber the dull rumble of the earthquake h the midst of this appalling nightmare she had but one thought-to be neal to other human beings. On went the crowd, panic stricken, hurrying, and she with it. h vain she looked for familiar face. Where were her neigh bors? Where were her servants? Bui Mrs. Carter had never treated her serv ants with consideration, and in this hour of common peril they had nol stood upon the order of their going.
 I'm Mrs. Addison Carter" she cried, touching the sleeve of a woman who passed, and then realized with a shock that her name, so potent yester. day, meant nothing now. Values had shifted, changed Terror seized her fol its own. She swayed with the throng a leaf in the current. Her hands clutched the edges of her kimono; heI feet trod unfamiliar ways. With a blind instinct for self preservation she kept to the middle of the street, till ir dingy thoroughfare she stumbled against a eucalyptus tree that lay up. rooted A strong arm reached out and caught her.
 Sure, 'tis a bad fall you'll be hay. ing," said kindly voice, and Mrs, Carter looked up into womanly, care furrowed face.
 "Oh, take me with your' she panted, clinging to the arm outstretched to steady her.
 "I willy said her rescuer heartily. "It's a terrible night, it is! Come, Eileen, girl, have you got the food and the blankets? Then we'd best be nov. ing along"
 To Mrs. Carter's fright shattered nerves the rest passed as in a dream, the great exodus of the hill from whose summit they saw the confagra- tion of the city red beneath them. Mrs. O'Higgins busted herself with crude arrangements for comfort but it was Eileen who, all ignorant of the identity of her charge, watched over her, tend. ed her and fed her in the long hours that followed. It was to Eileen that Mrs. Carter clung with passionate de- pendence. It was with Eileen that Lorry found his mother, as, haggard and despairing, he searched among the myriad camping groups.
 Mother" he cried.
 Eileen paled.
 You've been asleep, motherF' he asked, with tender solicitude, as one might question a child.
 Mrs. Carter sat up on her pile of blankets. "I have been" she cried. "but I'm awake now-awake to the kinship. the loving kindness of the worldr'
 The peevish line about her mouth was gone. Something newer and deep- CT than life had ever before wrought in her shone in her face as, with an ex- clamatiOn of joy that was half a sob, she held out her arms to them both.
 Clara-I hor' you would not marry woman for her money?
 Tom-No. not if I could get her money without marrying her.-Denver