The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1907-11-03
One Touch of Nature
By Constance darcy hlackay in Kansas City Journal

| AS for Loring. he was filled with
wonder at the alchemy of the years
that had changed a .gawky, brown pig
| tailed school girl into this slender,
deep-eyed beauty. After this, at least
/ three evenings a week found him in
the little apartment that Eileen kept
for her widowed mother and herself.
| The street was questionable and
noisy: but despite of its crowded
shrillness Loring liked 1t, as he liked
the dusty eucalyptus tree that stood in
front of Eileen's door. Such humble
things had come to stand to him for
signs and symbols.
One night as he fingered over his
after-dinner coffee on the broad porch
of his home overlooking the lawn, his
mother glanced at him with sudden
quizZical sharpness.
LOFTY she burst out, "does it ever
occur to you that you're a great dis
appointment"
She was a pretty little woman, with
a peevish mouth and nervous. much
beringed hands. Her voice held a note
of accumulated wrongs.
"a great Disappointment she reiter-
ated.
.
"You know quite WELL" she flashed.
1--WE spoken of it often enough, good
ness knows!'
Loring.
cit isn't as If she wasn't an attrac-
tive girl" pursued his mother irrele-
vanity. 'She's of good family, too.
And ten millions. And every one
in 7 nora,+
see why you don't marry her."
Loring set down his cup. 1t was
hardly the moment he would have for
condolences, but apparently the time
had come.
Because have already made up my
mind to marry someone else."'
His mother gasped.
''Lorry! My dear boy! Oh, hope
she's suitable. You're so prone to
overlook the really necessary quail
ications."
''She has beauty and grace and kind
ness of heart" said Loring.
And her people?"
Her mother is very estimable
woman. Her father was the janitor
of the Myrtle street school,"
Then followed the scene which Isor-
proaches, upbraidings and beseech-
ings on his mothers part; steel-like
determination on his own. Finally
Loring rose.
81 am going to Portland tomorrow
on a business trip" he said, "and in
the meantime perhaps
There is no perhaps about it." cried
Mrs. Carter, on the verge of tears eff
been able to manage you. But if you |
go against me in this, everything is |
over between us-foreveri''
And next night, standing before her |
mirror while her maid unfastened her |
dinner gown, Mrs. Carter strove to re-
,all the connection between serpent's |
tooth and an ungrateful child. The |
asst thing she remembered as she drop |
ped off to sleep was determination to |
speak to the girl herself, the next-she |
was standing. dazed and error-strick-
IN, in the middle of the street, with
out any definite knowledge of how she |
came there. She was in a pale blue |
ximono, her feet in bedroom slippers.
Past her thronged white-lipped, dis
1eveled men and women. The ground
vas swaying beneath her feet.
WAdI udS IldppcnSQ. she UOiIldDu-
ID wildly, and was answered by the |
sound of crashing brick and timber,
he dull rumble of the earthquake. In
he midst of this appalling nightmare,
she had but one thought-Jo be near
o other human beings. On went the
.rowd, panie-stricken, hurrying, and
he with 1T. In vain she looked for a
amiliar face. Where were her neigh
'ors? Where were her servants? But
drs. Carter had never treated her SER
ANTS with consideration, and in this
Jour of common peril they had not
TODD upon the order of their going.
I'm Mrs. Addison Carter" she cried,
ouching the sleeve of a woman who
assed, and then realized with shock
hat her name, so potent yesterday,
1eant nothing now. Values had shift
d, changed. Terror seized her for it's
wn. She swayed with the throng,
eaf in the current. Her hands clutch
d the edges of her kimono, her feet
rod unfamiliar ways. With a blind
lstinct for self-preservation she kept
D the middle of the street, till in a