Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1909-11-12

that for its simplicity and heartlnesS
and but for the ripened flower of wo-
manhood before him might have car
ried him back a half dozen years.
Lawrence Greer was not one easily
to be carried off his feet. but he was
too evidently in the air this time even
to disguise the fact cleverly.
but l say, Gertrude. how on earth
did it all happen?" looking her over
from head to foot.
Years. Uncle Law, just years and
the getting into touch with new kinds
of life. You said it would be just as
I've found it and also that l would
some day forget my Uncle Law and
that he told me so. But, you see.
haven't forgotten either" And she
smiled as frankly as in the days when
he told her sitting on his knee. of the
world that she would go into. through
the gateways of school and experience
and of the society. whose door had
not then opened to her.
That she hadn't forgotten him and
those talks to the child Gertrude gave
Lawrence q thrill of real pleasure.
That afternoon and evening was a
rare day in Lawrence's experience of
life. The storm ragged ~furiously. and
Lawrence, relieved of duty, gave him.
self up to the spell of a renewal of ac-
a~uaintance that had all the novelty,
~piquancy and delight Of a rare and
agreeable discovery.
What astonished Lawrence most
were the frequently recurring and fiat
teringly delightful evidences that
wherever she had been and however
occupied during these intervening
years Gertrude had kept close tab on
his own career and. furthermore, had
found a certain inspiration therein. To
be sure, that career had not been hid
den under a bushel. for he was already
sufficiently in public life to make him
a marked man among influential men.
Gertrude's discriminating illusions
to his work as commissioner. delegate
or president of the board. to his work
in correcting civic evils and in his
other public activities ~betokened a pc
culiarly personal interest such as Law
renee had not before met and such as
he least expected in any Ills
own mother and sisters had shown no
such intelligent interest in his work,
and even his brother, he was willing to
q knew far less of his career
than did this mere girl whom but yes
terday. as 1t were. he had amused as a
child, but a child that he loved.
Was it possible that in shaping the
ideals of life for a child he had unwit-
tingly offered himself as an ideal TO
the heart of that child? If so would
she find him worthy or not now that
the years had proved him? Was her
admiration only admiration? If more
than that might 1t not yet be that
some one else already forestalled him
in her affections? How was he to
know?
1t was near the close of the second
day and drifting winds had made nee
essary a still further delay in breaking
out the roads that opportunity offered
itself to Lawrence to gain some light
on the ever more tantalizing question
of possible rivals in Gertrude's affec-
lions. AS for himself, Lawrence fell
that his entire world was already re-
volving around this one young woman
Gertrude was showing him some pho
tographs accumulated during the years
of her girlhood.
"But where is his %picture?' asked
Lawrence, interrupting her description
of the photographs.
81 have never asked him for one."
"Why SOP"
IT preferred the picture In my heart
to any other"
"Does he know that?"
"He must know it-by now" with a
battling smile.
cant you give me any idea of what
he looks like, some picture of him be-
fore you consigned him to your heart?
OF course you must have had a tintype
experience on some early excursion.
been ~snapshotted on the lawn or ko-
baked somewhere"
An amused smile and q mischievous
look came to her face as Gertrude took
from its separate envelope a carefully
protected little kodak picture of a
youth not yet out OF his teens ana a
girl just entering hers. He was bend.
ing down the branch of a mountain
ash that the girl might pick the red
berries. She was trying by standing
ON her toes to reach yet a little higher.
Here is the gem of my collection. If
you will see it. Perhaps you will rec
ognize the subjects and recall the oc-
casion. | have never become reconcil-
ed to the fact that you failed to bring
those berries within my reach"
With Lawrence's look of recognition
and laugh at the all but forgotten cir
cumstances of the time thus recalled
came a puzzled expression, as if he
were trying in some way to connect this
picture with the question he had asked.
At the same instant Gertrude's face
assumed the expression Of one who
fears she has said a word too much,
and she fastened to call Lawrence's
aftantion fo tho uritinQ on tba hack of