The San Juan islander. [volume] (Friday Harbor, Wash.) 1898-1914, 1908-02-15
BY MISADV'ENTUR
F r A N K 3 A r RE TT
CHAPTER /.

CHAPTER l.
NY name is Keene-Anthony Keene. /
am lawyer; sixty-four years is my age.
You may see what kind of man am by
my portrait; not over pleasant with any
one.
George Flexmore and were friends.
He was my first client when | set up IN
Coneyford, a small town just large enough
at that time, as / believed, to keep law
yer of it's own; there are couple OF us
now, and we have as much to do as we
need Flexmore had just then come into
fortune and he did not know what to
do with it. I prevented him from losing
it, as he certainly would have done with
out proper direction, for he was an easy
going man, Of a credulous disposition,
such as your needy adventurer and shifty
speculator love to take in hand. For ev-
cry man that has money there are ninety
nine who are anxious to spend 1t for him.
IF any one asks you for money, Flex-
more" said I, don't refuse him; send
him to me-" And he did so, with this re-
sult-he never lost penny by these good
natured friends.
He had great respect for me-more
than deserved doubtless. He seemed to
think that whatever. did must be right,
and believe it was the sheer force OF ex-
ample that kept him out of matrimony so
long; because I did not care to take
wife, he thought it best to keep single.
But the conditions were different. l am
not an easy-going man, and marriage
would have been purgatory for me or my
wife, and the result must have been equal
ly bad for both of us in either case. But
Flexmore had nothing to do from morning
to night that might not very well be set
aside to attend to the wants of some
body else. He saw that he ought to have
some other object in life than to eat and
sleep and kill time-that his life was in
complete in fact. But he still made pre-
tense Of being content with bachelors
existence.
One day caught him singing his old
song, when mans single he lives at his
ease" but in such a lugubrious strain
that it would have made me laugh If 1t
had not irritated me.
That's humbug, Flexmore," said /,
"and you know it. A mans happiness
consists in making other people happy
unless he's a lawyer. You're not law
yer, and you ought to be making some
body happy. You'd be more at your ease
If you had somebody else to think about,
and somebody else to think about you"
do you mean that l ought to marry,
Tony" he said blushing like q girl.
THAT is exactly what do mean,
George. There's little Miss Vaughan,
who has been waiting to be asked these
three years; there are dozens of girls to
be chosen from"
do you think she would have meY he
interrupted eagerly.
well. the best way of deciding that
point is to go and ask her this afternoon"
said I.
The result of this advice was that
Flexmore married Miss Vaughan just six
weeks after.
She was much younger than he, as
wife should be. A happier couple never
saw. He lived to please her, and she to
please him-that was the chief object of
their lives.
A year after their marriage they had a
She grew up pleasant little thing, shy
and timid, with clinging affection for
lovable persons and things. never saw
anything like the passionate attachment
that existed between her and her sweet
tempered mother. Poor Mrs.. Flexmore
had never been robust person, and
well, to cut short story that is too pain
full to dwell upon, she died when little
Laure was eleven years old.
Flexmore was then sixty-two, but he
was not too old to suffer. The loss I'M
manned him completely. He took on like
a woman; and he would have been less q
man If he had not, perhaps.
"My poor old friend" said l, ''it would
have been better to let you live on an
old bachelor
mo, no." he replied. after such hap
piness an eternity of suffering would find
me still gamer"
You have your child-your little
Laure," said L; and then, to turn his
thoughts from the past, talked about
the future, and what he should do for
the child's welfare. Indeed the child's
grief gave me almost as much concern "A
the fathers. 1t was not passionate out
burst, that spends itself like a summer
shower and gives place to peace sand
smiles, but a continued fruitless yearn-
ing for that loved one to come back who
was gone forever.
You must have a woman here to COM
fort her." l said to Flexmore.
He agreed to this, and sent for his de-
ceased brothers widow, who had married
again and been second time left !
widow, as being his nearest female rela-
tive, and she came readily enough
woman of fifty, hard as nails, and stringv
as an old crow. She looked upon little
Laure's distress as unnatural in 4 child.
and her morbid condition as the result II
defective education: and she set about
correcting all this by setting the little
thing to read some instructive and mora,
books which no conceivable creature could
find interest or pleasure in.
After she had been there three dav.
DR.. Awdrey had to be sent for. Laura
was feverish and couldn't sshold herself
up properly" DR.. Awdrey ordered her
to b put to bed at once. gave directions
respecting treatment, and sent physic to
b administered every two hours.
Mrs. Yeames had studied medicine from
= shilling handbook that she carried with