Los Angeles herald., 1909-02-14
FEBRUARY IA, 1909

his family's eye That family was not a large
@ one only the old Squire, Mr. Hamilton, and his
gentle delicate wife But from the moment when the
church bells rung rantically tell the neghborhood
that there a and heir Reginald had been
King of the Manor, and there one to dispute
his reign. Never had there been such baby;
such Winchester boy Oxford apparently only existed
number him of her most distinguished off
sprng-not, it must be admitted, a world-renowned
scholar, but frst-class stroke. The old people
the Manor hung breahless his accounts of boat
races where his figured, bought every picture
paper that held his distorted portrait lived through
term times the fattering hope of his return to
them. There nothing good that it was good
enough for him in their estimation. Nothing they
would have denied him, to the sacrifice of their
hearts blood 1t is not exactly the school to turn
out heroes. Reginald perhaps little inclined
to suppose that the world created with special
to his satisfaction and that he honored it by liv
ing within its limits.
People said it would be hard the old Squire and
his wife when Mr.. Reginald married 1t would be
tremendous wrench to have to give him up to any
woman. But it lucky they knew and liked his
future wife. For nobody had any doubt who she
to be, and it pleased the entire neighborhood. Miss
Mary down at the Rectory. She to be the Lady
of the Manor when the old people went. From the
days when Reginald in Eton jackets, and she was
in short skirts and haxen plgta1l tied with ribbons,
there had been a boy and girl sweeheartng Skating
the Rectory pond in the winter, tennis playing
the Manor lawn in the summer, it always Mary
here, Mary there, the moment he home from
school college. There had not been any words said,
but those sometimes needed Mary had certainly
thought of any other in the world but Reginald
Hamilton even when she had come at the Hunt
Ball, and fublown young lady.
He had whispered soft things in her ear, perhaps,
or he had pressed her hand and held it little longer
than actually needed He had let her see, all
events, that she the in the world he
wanted and as for her, she would have waited for
him half her life if he had only asked it. -
That he going to ask something nobody ever
doubted. The old people pleased possible.
Mary Vyvian had been like daughter them all her
life, and nothing could have suited them better than
have their marry her. A girl that had grown
up in the very shadow of the Manor it were, who
had turned to Mrs. Hamilton for all the things she
would have turned her mother for, if she had
had One of those pretty, sweet-mannered, de-
lghtful girls that make you want to have them with
you always. Good at sports and full of fun but
nothing of the boy about her. 1t arrangement
that pleased everybody and the only thing that did
give satisfaction that the engagement not
settled one.
For Hamilton had been abroad, and the Manor had
had to do without him. Now he coming home,
and if the old people looked for him with uter
of satisfaction, it is probable Mary VIVIAN futtered
even more in her secret heart. There absolutely
nothing to keep him from speaking. There to be
all sorts of welcomes home him the Manor. In
vtations for ball, and Mary to stay
up at the Manor for it, and for the theatricals that
follow
Nobody knows, nobody should ask what hopes and
expectations went to the ordering of her ball frock
the choosing of the flowers he liked best the thousand
pretty little suggestions of the girl in love-