The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1908-06-19

I1Eh i
utterly forgotten her, and her love too
| 1t would have been simply revelation
to her to have been told that she was
playing fast and loose with Mr.. Fol
lett's heart all this time-leading hin
on to tenderest hope by familiar tone OIL
gesture at one moment, sinking him
to despair by a sigh, look, distant
reference to Mohun and her buried
love for him at the next.
She was single-hearted and generous
to a degree quite beyond the average
of her sex-an exceptional feminine
nature that would have felt real pain
not f1attered, delicious triumph, al
knowing that good mans love was
being Iavished upon her in vain. And
this very lack of vanity. joined to the
preoccupation of her own thoughts in
all things pertaining to love, made her
| guilelessly play out a part which Mon
| Sieur de Balzoa's "PrinceSS' herself
could not have rivaled.
The conclusion to one conversation.
|
upon what terms this man and woman
fast approa ching middle age now stood
with regard to each other. Scene-the
little garden of James cottage; season
early summer; principal figures-Jane
| Grand, dressed in black, pale and list
! less as usual training the roses in the
the way they should go above the par
lor window; exactly opposite her, at the
distance of about three feet, the Vicar
of Chesterford.
And here I stop to say-what I ought
to have said long ago-that Mr.. Fol-
let's appearance was not an uncomely
one. He did not look his age Gndeed,
at this moment there appeared very
slight difference between Jane and him.
self, his spare. broad chested, loose
knit frame being of that order which
retains all the lightness and elasticity
of youth years after compact but
fieshy contemporaries have spread into
the rotundity of middle life.
AS he stood now, with his arms fold<
ed behind him-his accustomed attitude
and looking intently at Miss Grand's
unconscious face-a stranger seeing
only his figure and dark, thick, close
cut hair, would have hesitated to call
him a man still on what is convention
ally termed the best side Of thirty.
Nor was his face old. Youth was, of
course, gone from it, if by youth you
mean freshness and rounded outline
and vivid coloring; but these qualifica-
@r q
beauty, are by no means essential in q
mans; and Mr.. Folletts dark face,
with clear-cut salient features, and
:deep-set iron-grey eyes was, l fancy,
handsomer now than it was a dozen
years before. His dress was always
oid-fashioned and the same; not very
priestly. and seldom in first-rate condl-
ton, but suiting him in that indescrib-
able manner which Messrs. Stulz or
Buckmaster, do not always find it easy
to make their well-ut clothes assume
upon the wealthiest clients shoulders.
On the morning in question lie had on
his head a wide-awake hat, which ad-
mirably became his somewhat foreign
face, but which had already caused a
great deal of mental disquietude in the
parish.
"Merely to shelter his eyes from the
sun. Ny dear Miss Brown, all the
world knows wide-awakes are the sign,
tIi,. watchword, of the Broad Church
principles"
And as that dreadful heresy was
new to the minds of CheSterford st.
Mary, its insignia or standard was
naturally regarded with the terror men
have for new and fell diseases by the
eyes of parochial orthodoxy.
"Do you think the yellow roses trail
as well as they did>last year. Mr.. Fol-
lett? I fancy. all the flowers have some
thing wan and-sicl1ly about them this
summer. Look. this cloth-of- geld will
never be brought to hang as it used
to do around the window"
Exceeding grace is the sole personal
charm that years cannot take from a
woman. AS Jane, with one white bare
wrist aloft, turned to glance across her
shoulder at the vicar, her attitude
might almost have wed with that i'm
mortal one of her who stood" a sight
to make an old man young"
The Vicar of Chesterford felt very
young and very foolish, indeed, as he
looked at her; the more foolish, per-
haps, as. for certain crafty reasons. he
purposed within himself to speak def
nitely of his own passion upon this par
ticular morning. Young fellows: of
fiye-and-twenty; without the slightest
grain of difidence; in their nature, and
who have been receiving every legiti-
mate encouragement for months past,
feel a singular tingling in the soles Of
their feet, and a general indistinctness
before their brain, when the actual
morning of speaking definitely has ar
rived.
(To be Continued.0