Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1908-01-30

Miss Granger to let me have my
mothers address as soon as she has
1t, he said.
| He got into the cab that was wait
| ing. and his thoughts fingered about
Cuthbert
Paris, he said; 81 thought he was
going to stay in town and work all
this winter"
! Then he shrugged his shoulders.
He made it his business not to in
quire too closely into anything that
Cuthbert did, in which he showed
himself to be unlike the majority of
chose people who give to others; and
assuredly he was generous enough to
his half-brother. For Culbert, of
course. had the major portion. of any
thing their mother had, and Rupert's
first action (when he had realised that
he had the command of so much
1 money! had been to surround his
mother with every comfort.
| He bought her the house in which
she now lived, she had her own car
riage. and very ample income. He
gave her, in fact, exactly the sum
equivalent to that which he spent on
| himself
Matthew Woolgar had left him the
money unreservedly-everything save
legacy to his sister, an old, crippled,
and humble woman, had passed ITO
the son of the best man ever knew"
But Rupert himself had certain
theories. He felt convinced that this
money would never have come to him
| If Woolgar had not seen to him the
proper medium through which this
immense wealth could he handled
judiciously, and it was his one desire,
his one anxiety, that ne should prove
worthy Of the immense trust which
had been placed in his hands.
The schemes about which he had
spoken to Agnes Brenton the night be-
fore were no paltry things; they were
planned on the most generous lines.
There was scarcely public charity
to which Haverford did not already
subscribe largely, and his private ex-
penditure of this kind was almost
without limit. but he intended to do
more, much more And his keenest,
his most living sympathy was with
those people among whom he worked
so long; it was on these toilers and
out of them that this great wealth had
been CLEANED in the first instance, and
Rupert resolved to give back to them
in full measure. Nothing was toe
large or too important that dealt with
their welfare and the good of their
rising generation.
Already there had sprung up in that
smoke-grimed factory town monu
ment dedicated to the memory of the
man who had enriched him and the
man who had given birth to him. 1t
took the form of a large institution
designated for the practical education
and the physical and moral uplifting
of his old comrades.
Life in the factory served to stunt
the growth and stultify the intellect
OF those who did not possess, like
himself, that piercing, that vitalsins
determination to keep looking up
wards. 1t. was to such as these that
Haverford determined the major par,
of Matthew Woolgar's money should
go.
After leaving Kensington he wen
back to the city, where he had an of
fee, and it was late in the Afternoon
before he reached the house that was
perhaps the sole reason why he hac
elected to make London his head
quarters.
Matthew Woolgar had raised up te
himself a veritable palace None,
had been lavished on this house like
water The art experts of the vari
Gus great continental centres ha,
been busy for months and months
finding treasures with which to gar
nish this lordly dwelling-place.
But Rupert Haverwords benefac
tor had never lived in the house His
real home had been the shabby work
ers cottage, where he had dwelt il
those far-off years before his wife anC
son had died, and when power ant
greatness had not even dawned on the
horizon of his future
When first Rupert Haverford hat
passed through room after room O
that magnificent house which Mat
thew Woolgar had built. his feelins
had been one of oppression and in
sense, pain. Everything was so beau
tiful, everything was so cold. Tha
element of desolation, of heart lone
illness, which must have driven thu
Wealth-burdened man to sit and smoke
in his old wooden armchair by the
broken-down fireplace in that humble
north-country cottage made itself fel
to Rupert almost too sharply.
That had been more than two year!
ago, and his influence and the crowd
ed, and to him wonderful, circum
stances in those two years had made
change in everything-in himself ant
in all that surrounded him. Still
though the world had fluttered in ant
out of these rooms very often, thi:
wonderful house remained only {
house; it was never a home. That ele
meht of solitude. that deafness, as i
were, that clings about the atmos
phere of museums and other treasure
storehouses, continued to oppres!
Rupert.
1t was too glib for one person.
And today, coming freshly from the
cherry. sociable homelike influence o
Yelverton, Rupert was sensibly at
fected by this sense of solitude, thi.
mockery of empty grandeur
Happily, vast amount of cores
pondence awaited him, and he Sc
himself the task at once.
Letters bombarded him whereye,
he went-the world seemed peoplec
|