Belding banner. (Belding, Mich.) 1889-1918, 1909-04-01
Copyright. by shortstory Pub. Coz
BY CLARENCE Mako.

NCOpyTlSHls ny 0AlOIlSlOAy kuD. W.
Any student of mental philosophy
viii tell you that every impression re-
ceived by our brain cells at any time
and under all circumstances, no mat
ter whether we be sober or drunk, on
the field OF battle or in the region oil
abstract thought, is recorded on the
tablets of memory, and is never lost.
Moreover, it is a singular fact that the
proper degree of molecular vibration
being excited in the brain, no matter
by what cause-and the possible
causes are without number-these
thoughts spring into active and con-
scious re-existence, for they have
never been destroyed. Here lies the
key TO some interesting phenomena.
Have you ever On making a call
thought you had hung your hat up
xan the hall rack, and when leaving
O,ought there vainly for the very hat
which perhaps you were holding in
your hand? If you have, you know
now unpleasantly this little trick Of
your brain Jared your reason, in spite
of your involuntary apology that 1T
was only a mistake, trifing, absent
minded mistake, after all.
1t was all because of just such a
little mistake, on the part of Mrs.
Starr, that foolish persons who postu-
late, Marriage is a failure used to
point triumphantly at Starr and his
wife. All on account of queer little
brain trick. Mrs. Starr blighted her
husbands life and her own.
Still, when they harnessed up to-
gether for better or for worse, no
couple could be more devotedly in love
with one another than were they.
This forms a rather sad but | think,
profitable little story
Now that the principals concerned
are dead and gone the physician who
attended Mrs Starr says l am at lib
erty TO tell the tale. He laughs, as
he is entitled to, at the construction
put upon the facts-but inconsistency
evades sitting in judgment on the case.
Men remember Mrs Starr as the
beautiful Miss Smell, for her face in
those days was a face that no man
could quite forget. She was the most
The family means, in her generation,
had fallen far below what was neces-
sary to keep up the prestige of the
name.
er papa and her mamma never
'&Ased to lament that fact, and Miss
Smell was dutifully impressed in her
early girlhood that her beauty must
win back the departed family glories
by social achievements. How we'll it
did everybody knows.
BY a mere coincidence. among the
persons chained by her smiles was a
Boy who did not have much of any
thing but a naval commission, some
brass buttons, and sword.
This business with the Boy was
quite unnecessary, Miss Smell had
nothing to gain by winning the Boy S
love; still, she even went out of her
way to do it. The Boy avoided her
because he knew she was unobtain
able for him, and because the first
time he looked into her eyes he knew
with but half a chance. he would love
her very badly. Miss Smell knew It
!, 90. but If the Boy had not avoided
4 her. she would not have done what
\ she did.
n She was engaged to another man
at the time-it was her thlrd-and
she deliberately broke that engage
nent that she might be free to dea
with the Boy. This was most effec
tualiy accomplished.
He was a queer mixture of poet and
sailor, the Boy was, and Miss Smell
was a little shocked at the tempest
she invoked within him. There was
something in his glorious avowal o.
Sove that made former protestations
y Into insignificance. 1t carried hel
|IWsy for the moment, and she gave
| him her lips and she gave him hel
promise. knowing very well in he
neart of hearts it was the old story
| OF love on one side and submission OF
the other. But marriage on his pa!
was impossible, so the Boy went of
10 his ship, and Miss Smell back TO he
,riumphs in the social whirl of tn,
rity.
The letters that came to her from
| every port tue DOg . sup Iudut NeI'
rather remarkable. They were of /;
new breed and species. The write
seemed to have an uncanny divina.ioI
Of everything the woman he loved dic
or thought In spite of that. and mos
pitiful of all, an unreasonable Low,
breathed forth from every line. NJ
man should write the things he wrot,
"a any living woman. At last n lette
came from Honolulu that was so touch
ing in its pathos, so abject in its devo
ton. and still so marvelously prophet
IL in its conception of Miss SMELL
life. that she felt called upon to writ,
him some truths. This was just abou
the time she met Starr. and fell
victim herself 10 the passion she hat
tr,fied with so often.
when the Boy received her lette
he amt down TO his quarters in tn
wardrhom, and blew his brains al
ovo. nc nice white paint that covered
the cruisers armored walls. Out o
decency's sake the surgeon called It
n,sfo5-cleaning accident, but he we
hrutal enough TO send back a blood
.,l.ahed letter that he found a,