The Tupelo journal., 1909-03-12

little notable on such an anniversary.
This rounding of the ~half-century had
attributes apart; it was no mere an
nual birthday; it marked the last van
ishing futter of the gilded %draperies
of youth; the whitening of the gar
lands; the fading tinhle of the light
music of hope. 1t should mark a mans
solid achievements. Once, not so long
ago, Winter had believed that his
fiftieth birthday would see wide and
5eneficent and far-reaching results in
the province where he ruled. That
dream was shattered. He was gen.
erous of nature, and he could have
been content tt behold another reap
the fields which he had sowed and
titled; it was the harvest, whether his
or another's, for which he worked; but
his had been the bitter Office to have
to stand aside, with no right to pro-
test, and see his work go to waste be-
cause his ~ces had a feeble brain
and a pusillanimous caution in place
of his own logged will. For all these
reasons, as well as others, the colonel
found no zest in his fiftieth birthday;
and his reverie drifted dismally from
one somber reflection to another until
it brought up at the latest wound to
his heart-his favorite brothers death.
There had been three Winter broth
ers-Rupert, Melville and Thomas.
During the past year both Thomas
| Winter and his wife had died, leaving
one child, a boy of IA, named Archi-
bald after his fathers uncle. Rupert
| Winter and the boys great-aunt, the
widow Of the great uncle, were APP
pointed joint guardians of the young
Archie. Tonight, in his jaded mood,
he was assailed by reproaches be-
cause he had not seen more of his
ward. Why, he hadn't SO much as
looked the little chap up when he
passed through Fairport-merely had
sent him a letter and some truck from
the Philippines; nice guardian he was!
BY a natural enough transition, his
thoughts swerved to his own brief and
not altogether happy married life. He
thought of the graves In Arizona
where he had left his wife and his
two children, and his heart felt
heavy. To escape musings which
grew drearier every second, he cast
his eyes about the motley crowd shut
fling owe the tiled floors or resting
in the massive dark oaken seats. And
it was then that he saw Cary Mercer.
At first he did not recognize the face.
He only gazed indifferently at two
| welIdressed men who sat some PAGES
away from him in the shadow of a
great tiled column similar to his own.
There was this difference, 1t happened:
tie mission lantern with its electric
bulbs above the two men was flashing
brightly, and by some accident that
above the colonel was dark. He could
see the men, himself in the shadow.
The men were rather striking in ap.
~pearance; they were evidently gentle
men; the taller n was young, we'll
set-up, clean-shaven and quietly but
most correctly dressed. His light
brown hair showed a slight curl in its
closely clipped locks; his gray-blue
eyes had long lashes of brown darker
than his hair; his teeth were very
white, and there was a dimple In his
cheek, plain when he smiled. Had his
nose been straight he would have been
as handsome as a Greek god, but the
nose was only an ordinary American
nose, rather too broad at the base;
moreover, his jaw was a little too