Wauwatosa news. [volume] (Wauwatosa, Wis.) 1900-1948, 1909-02-26

were DOth children when You went away
When you were at Cambridge it was
natural you should spend your vacations
with your men friends, especially after
your uncle died and you had nothing but
AN empty house to come back to. You
had so many new interests, both work
and play, y0u made so many friends
Why should you come hack? Then the
year spent in travelling about-n seeing
the world No; it couldn't have hap
pened any other way! Indeed l think
few people would have been so constant.
When l think it over, and remember
what wretched correspondent you are,
1t seems wonderful you should have
written all these years at Christmas and
on my birthday, with as muca regularity
as II the lanky tomboy of girl you
knew had been real belonging instead
OF only the playmate of your school
holidays. Indeed you are a brick, Noll,
to use your own favorite word. / never
thought anything of you but that But,
miss you! Oh, Noll, it has been so lone
iy, with no one to play with! l used to
pretend you were here in the old ship
waiting for me, and sometimes when /
pretended so hard / forgot it was pre-
tenoe Il cried. Yes, criedi You
would have abused me for milk-so and
a cry baby if you had been there!"
She wound up with a rather tremulous
laugh, and as she paused to give comieal
effect to the horror of her avowal Oliver
saw that her eyes were even now half
fearful
He longed to knee before her then and
there in a passion of self-reproach, and
kiss her sunburnt little hands and the
folds of her pink dress. His little play
fellow was grown to a beautiful woman
with dark eyes full of glorious radiance.
And the eyes were fearful as she told
him that she had eried-yes, cried, be-
cause she missed him so. And he fool,
brute that he was, had let her cry while
he wandered over Europe and even far
Their atield in search of sport and fun,
flirting with countless pretty girls and
incidentally losing what his Imagination
called his heart to few But this new
, feeling that had come to him that morn
ing was hitherto unknown, too precious
to treat lightly. Besides, the very frank
ness of her avowal showed what a child
she was still at heart.
, He would be patient, he would be the
old frank eomrade to her and teach her
little by little to feel the new, infinitely
/ deeper feeling that had come to him like
/ a sudden revelation, yet not altogether
4 sudden. 1t seemed to him the thought
of her had lain at the bottom of his
? heart through all his passing gallantrics,
and that he had loved her always with.
r out knowing it.
Look here, Bab,' he said in some
} what husky tones, at is useless for you
to pretend / was not a selfish brute! Men
e especially boys-mostly are. Friends
should stick by each other better. /
2 can't bear to think of how lonely you
must have been, my little-but if yot
5 will forgive me and accept me all over
again as a friend, / will be "a better
' sort of friend" he finished laInely. @Will
4 you. Bab?'
n why, of course!" laughed Bah, all
s trace OF sadness gone. her gray eyes
beaming once more. That's to say |
n can't take you for a new friend because
:. never gave you up as the old one. /
d don't admit in the least that you were
!. selfish and brute and all the rest of it.
: But there"
d AS his hand was outstretehed she dis.
e engaged one of hers from the scull and
1 placed it in his. AS her eyes met his
she saw a new light in them and some
K unexpected feeling brought flush to her
e cheeks. There was moments pause
4 while her eyes widened and darkened
e then she withdrew and grasped her seull
|, again.
Y MY old friend was wont to be less
S humble she laughed, "but I'll take it as
sign of increasing grace. And now
take the sculls, Fleet Foot, I'm growing
] warm, and you have LACED long enough"
t Right Shall we go up to the island
+ for lunch %
Splendid" replied Bah, as she sank
. into the cushions
t DO you remember, Noll, when we
bought the old ship?" asked Bah pres.
emily, not for information's sake, but for
the pure pleasure of going over past
wickednesses with the companion of
. them
} Rather! And the job we had hiding
her when we'd got her." chuckIed Noll.
r And" went on Bab-"and the first,
the very first time we eloped? You fell
half out and remained clutching on to
the side of the boat with one hand and
one legl Ha, ha, hal" she laughed whole.
heartedly. "Such an object! Like some
strange erab!"
"Yes'-with a would be injured ex
pression-"and you laughed so indecently
so immediately, that you couldn't even
give a Fellow tug in, so l fell right into
the river and was almost drowned"
Rubbish! You lived more in the
river than out of it anyway But how
/ wonder you didn't die of rheumatism
or pneumonia or something, going the
whole lllvelong day in your sopping
things!"
What reckless young beggars we
werel Do you remember the Sunday we
eloped when you had started demurely
for Sunday school, and The Wicked One
drifted away from her moorings at the
low meadow, leaving us to walk homer"
Don't L? And the fury of Aunt Heph.
zibah afterwards, and. the two days |
spent locked up in my room on bread and
water as penance What times we had
wonder people don't get into far more
scrapes. Ones evil days are so much
jollier to look back on than the good
ones. 1t gives me no satisfaction now 10