The Calhoun chronicle. [volume] (Grantsville, W. Va.) 1883-1984, 1909-09-07
Any White Woman Looks Beauty to Man
on His Return From Long African Trip.
Generally Proposes to the First He Meets
and Repents Soon AHerward.
~ LEWIS n. FREEMAN.

out OF the running. and the lad who
had proposed and been forced out.
BY the time the Congo had been
warped alongside Tillbury Docks I
was entirely satisfied in my own mind
that l wanted to marry what I firmly
believed was the most beautiful, tall
ented and winsome woman I had
ever encountered; but determining
to do the thing decently and in order,
I took the address OF the lodging to
which she was going, and begged per-
mission to call upon her with my sis
ter. In due time the call was made.
Miss b. was out, but at my urgent
request sister left q note inviting her
TO spend a week with us at Maiden
head, where my brother-ln-law had
taken a home for the summer. A
couple OF days later she wrote us
saying that she had engagements
covering the next three or four weeks,
but at the end of that time 1t was
possible that she would be able to
give us few days of her company.
My hated rivals were getting ahead
of me, I thought, and I was q good
deal cast down until. at the end of
three or four days. another letter
came to say that she had cancelled
her engagements, and was at liberty
to come down at once. I got sister to
wire her to come the following after
noon, and spent the interim rehears-
Ing proposal.
The Test of Comparison.
"She came a couple OF trains ear
lier than we had expected, and I was
out when she was driven up to the
house. When, eager with anticipa-
ton, came back sister met me with
a puzzled expression on her face.
John, she said. I'm afraid there has
been a mistake. Are you sure that
the Miss Agnes r. whom we invited
down here is your friend from At
RIGA? You said she was very beau
tiful. Isn't 1t possible that the wrong
person got our note?'
Absurd I scoffed, brushing past
her in my haste to gain the terrace,
where an enhancing bundle of white
was silhouetted against the sombre
ivy beyond. I'd know her hand
writing among a Million
81 bounded up the terrace yards in
advance OF my sister, to pause aghast
before the apparition OF gaunt, mid
die aged stranger who was smiling
weakly up at me from a seat by the
tea table. 1 knew her by her coral
brooch had bought 1t for my SIS
ter the day left Africa-her Maui
fiji lizard skin handbag-that was
from Captain Broadstairs-and the
mole on her left cheek. Those were
about the only familiar things / no.
ticed. Yet she probably had not
changed at all in the week since she
had left the steamer l had been
seeing other girls, that was all.
1--WE made a brave effort to make
her visit a pleasant one, but 1t was no
go. The same thing had probably
happened at the other places she had
tackled, and was. no doubt. tho rea-
son for the sudden setting forward
OF our date. On the second day she
began speaking Of pressing invita-
tions she had received. and on the
third day she went back tc London.
And 1t was not until the carriage had
ratified out of sight down the drive
way with her that my sister turned
and asked me how It was that 1 had
never mentioned that Miss X. was
crosseyed. And for the life OF me
can't recollect noticing It until that
CHASTITY moment when l found her
waiting on the terrace. New York
Tribune.