The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1908-07-03

that he wanted to look over, ana ne
thought he should take to fishing again
as the weather got warm; and what
after all, was the good Of going back
to the same clubs, and the same men,
and the same women, that had dis
pensed too much money for him during
the last seven years of his life! He
was not a bit more weary of himself
in the country than he had used to be,
half his time, in London. He coulo
dine in his shooting jacket, and be his
own master here, at least. And then
Yatton was his; and he was beginning
to get back something of his old inter
est in the exercise Of small feudal
power; and it was inherently grateful
to Mr.. Clifford Mohun's nature to be
liked and looked up to-as the poor
people of his estate, true to their hered.
itary instincts, liked and looked up to
him now.
Persons of the class that are always
ready with decided and correct esti
mates of everybody else's moral condi
ton pronounced Clifford reformed. He
was not in the least reformed, if by
that term change of nature is intended
to be expressed. Men of nearly thirty
years very seldom do change their ma
lures, I fancy. He was simply begin.
ming to find out that he had hitherto
missed the kind of life which suited
him best-the unintellectual, lazily ac-
tive, healthy, material life of the coun-
try. Wherever he had lived, Clifford
Mohun must inevitably have sunk to a
tolerably low scale of existence; but
what had been disreputability in Lon
don was at Yatton idling about with
his gun or his rod, and habitually
drinking rather more than was good
for him-and gambling only when any
of his friends came down from Bo-
hemia or 5elgravia to stay with him.
Jane Grand was, of course, one of the
hottest supporters of the reformation
theory; Mr.. Follett, not less naturally,
one of those who looked skeptically
upon Mohun's change of life; and so it
fell out, after a few rather sharp dis
sensions on the subject, that the wears
visits to James cottage began to grow
extremely rare and cold. He always
found Mohun there when he called;
and when Mohun was there it was
simply ridiculous to think that he could
be wanted, too His fastidious gener-
osity made him speak we'll of his rival
Ito every one save Jane); he called at
Yatton at stated periods; he even dined
with Mohun, and asked him, in return,
to the vicarage. But to see him famil-
iarly seated in James little room-of
which every object was so sacred to
his own heart-to see James eyes ap-
proving of all he said, to hear James
praises of him when he was gone
were just pieces of slow torture that
the Vicar of Chesterford did not feel
himself called upon to endure; and, as
1 have said, his visits to James cottage
grew rarer than they had ever been
since the days in which he first began
to teach her English history when she
was nine years old.
And Miss Grand-who, simple as she
was, had all a woman's acutest small
iealousies in matters Of affection-Miss
Grand was wounded to the quick by
this dereliction of the man she did not
love!
She liked Clifford, of course. as she
could like no other being created, and
his society was all-suficient to her,
and yet-and yet-reader, don't we all
know what it is to go back to the place
where we lived when we were school
children? How we dream of it before
hand, and how our hearts throb when
we first begin to recognize the old IA
miliar milestones, and the bridge at the
turning of the road; and then, when we
are there, how shrunk it all seems, and
how we wish we had let the good oid
past rest. instead Of digging it up and
staring at its poor, lifeless remains
so different now to what we last re-
membered them! Well, something OF
this feeling would continually come
over Jane. whether she willed it or not,
in her intercourse with Clifford. She did
not know whether the change was IN
him or in herself; she only knew that
change was there. Once or twice he
came to her house after dinner, when
his utterance was not perfectly dis
tinct. nor his remarks very coherent
and lying awake at night. after such
visits Jane had to think a very long
while over the old bright vision of the
Mohun of her youth before she could
dislodge from her brain the visitor
nwhose ewes were glazed with wine OF
the present. Had Mr.. Follett CHANGED
to call on the following morning after
lane had thought thus, she would, yor
NAV rest assured, have been especially
acrimonious to him, and more than eyel
disposed to uphold and make much o1
Clifford in his presence. But Mr.. Fol
lett did not call. either on these or ar.
other mornings; and so, not havint
to defend Clifford afresh, only to see
him continually, both in the before ant
after-dinner aspect of his everyday life
Jane Grand was forced gradually t.
feel that he was nOt-neyer could b'
again-that which he was when she
first loved him in her youth.
feelings to herself as Indignantly as sh'
diSallowed the fact that she missed
the society of that true and refined ant
honest gentleman who had been he
sole friend and counselor during thes'
last outcast years Of her life (womel
like Jane invariably consider any fain
dawnings of reason in their love affair
just in the same light that they woul'
questionings or doubts in theological
matters, and strive to quench then
with as due a horror of their owl
heresy).
She was fearfully hard and resolut
I when enc or two of her female &C
qv-aintances hinted to her that, unles
an engagement was avowed, Mr.. Nc
hun ought not to go so often to til
cottage Had she not sworn to herSel