The Irish standard., 1908-12-19

EE}}Rf|{[E IA i
She Answered After Pause: "There
Was Gen. Philemon Mercer, Con.
federate Army"
Aunt Rebecca smiled upon him. ITO
give Information to your partner. The
main object Of the celebrated Ameri.
can.leads system Is signaling informa.
tion to your partner. Incidentally, one
tells the adversaries, as well as ones
partner, which, however, doesn't
count really as much as you might
think; for most people don't notice
what their partners play very much.
and don't notice what their adver-
saries play at all. Millicent is al-
ways so busy indicating things to her
partner and watching for his signals
and his indications that you can run q
cross ruff in on her without her sus-
pecting. She asked me once II she
didn't play an intelligent game. and I
told her she did: babe in arms
could understand It. She didn't seem
quite pleased"
"How about Archie? Can he play
good game?"
VERY fair for q boy Of IA: he was
fond of whist until his troubles
came" said Mrs. Winter, with faint
clouding of her keen gaze. "Since
then he hasn't taken much interest in
anything. Janet has Frightened him
up more than anyone; and when he
heard you were coming that did rouse
him. You are one of his heroes. He's
that sort Of boy" she added, with
tinge of impatience in her soft south
ern voice. AS If to divert her thoughts,
she began deftly moving the cards
before her. Her hands showed the
blue veins more prominently than they
show in young hands. This was their
only surrender to time; they were
shapely and white, and the slim fin.
gers were as straight as when the
beaux Of Fairfax county would have
ridden all day for a chance to kiss
them.
The colonel watched the great ruby
wink and glow. The ruby was part
Of his memories of his aunt; she had
always worn it. He remembered It.,
when she used to come and visit him
ut the hotel at West Point, dazzling
impartially officers, professors, cadets
and hotel walters. Was that almost
40 years ago? Well, "a anyhow! She
had been very good, very generous to
all the young Winters. then. Indeed,
although she never quite forgave him
for not marrying the wife of her sc.
lecting, she had always been kind and
generous to Rupert; yet, somehow,
while he had admired and found a
humorous Joy in his Aunt Rebecca he
wondered II he had ever loved her.
She was both beautiful and brilliant
when she was young, southern belle,
northern society leader; her life was
full of conquests; her footsteps,
which had wandered over the world,
had left q phosphorescent wake of ad-
miration. She had always been per.
sonage. She was power in Washing.
ton after the war; they had found her
uniquely delightful in royal courts
long before Americans were the
fashion; she had been Of Importance
in New York, and they had loved her
epigrams in Boston; now, in her old
age, she held a veritable little court of
her own in the provincial western city
which had been her husbands home.
He went to congress from Fairport;
he had made fortune there, and
when he died, many years ago, in
Egypt, back to his western home, with
dogged determination and lavish ex.
penditures Of both money and wit, his
widow had brought him to rest. The
most intense and solemn experience
Of a woman she had missed, for nc
children had come to them, but her
husband had been her lover so long
as he lived, and she had loved him
She had known great men; she had
lived through wonderful events; and
often her hand had been on those
secret levers which move vast forces
She had been in tragedies, II an In
violable coolness Of head, perhaps Of
heart. had shielded her from being Of
them. The husband Of her youth, the
nearest Of her blood, the friends ol
her middle life-all had gone into the
dark; yet here she sat, with he,
smooth skin and her still lustrous
eyes and her fragrant hands, keenly
smiling over her solitaire. The col
onel wondered II he could ever recon
cile himself with such philosophy tt
. his own narrowed and emptied life;
!, she was older than he. yet she coult
.. still find . zest in existence. All thu
i, great passions gone; all the big inter
. ests; and still her clever mind wal
working. happy. possibly. in its mer'
exercise, disdaining the stake, shl
. -A- Aax AAd n0as~ ~,,onA.s What 4