Okolona messenger. (Okolona, Miss.) 1900-current, 1909-01-20


had left phosphorescent wake of ad-
miration. She had always been per-
sonage. She was a power in Washing
ton after the war; they had found her
uniquely delightful in royal courts
long before Americans were the
fashion; she had been of importance
in New York, and they had loved her
epigrams in Boston; now, In her old
age, she held a veritable little court of
her own in the provincial western city
which had been her husbands home
He went to congress from Fairport;
he had made a fortune there, and
when he died, many years ago, in
Egypt, back to his western home, with
dogged determination and lavish ex
penditures Of both money and wit, his
widow had brought him to rest. The
most intense and solemn experience
of woman she had missed for no
children had come to them, but her
husband had been her lover so long
as he lived, and she had loved him
She had known great men; she had
lived through wonderful events; and
often her hand had been on those
secret levers which move vast forces.
She had been in tragedies, if an in
violable coolness of head, perhaps Of
heart, had shielded her from being of
them The husband of her youth, the
nearest of her blood, the friends of
her middle life-all had gone into the
dark; yet here she sat, with her
smooth skin and her still lustrous
eyes and her fragrant hands, keenly
smiling over her solitaire. The col
onel wondered il he could ever recon
cile himself with such philosophy to
his own narrowed and emptied life;
she was older than he, yet she could
still find Zest in existence. All the
great passions gone; all the big inter
ests; and still her clever mind was
working, happy, possibly, in its mere
exercise, disdaining the stake, she
who had had every success. What a
vitality! He looked at her, puzzling.
Her complexity bewildered him, he
not being of a complex nature himself
AS he looked, suddenly he found him
self questioning why her face, in its
revival of youthful smoothness and
tint, recalled some other face, recently
studied by hira--a face that had worn
an absolutely different expression;
having the same delicate aquiline nose
the same oval contour, the same wide
brows--who? who? queried the colonel
Then he nodded. OF course; it was
the man with the moles, the brother
He looked enough like Mrs. Winter to
be her knsman. At once he put his
guess to the test. Aunt Becky" said
he, have you any kin don't know
about?"
81 reckon not I'm an awfuIly kim
less old party" said she serenely. Il
was a Winter, born as well as mar
ried and so you and Mel and Archie
are double kin to me. was an only
child, so l haven't anything closer
than third or fourth cousins, down in
Virginia and Boston,"
"Eave you, by chance, any cousin,
near or far named Mercer?"
Resting herr fneer-tips on the cards.
Aunt Rebecca seemed TO let her mind
search amid Virginian and N.7-s lehu-
setts genealogical abies. AZ Y, GER
tainly," she answered after : Pause,
"there was Gen. Philemon Mercer
confederate army yo1 kaow-and his
son. Sam Nelson; Phil was my own
cousin and Sam Nielsen my sccoad,
and Sam Nelson's sons would be ny
third, wouldn't thfy? Phil and Sam
are both dead. and Winnie Lee, the
dershter, is dead, and poor Phil-thf
grandson. you Know-poor h5y, re
shot himself while at Harvard; our
mis- brother Cary is alive"
DO you know him?"
Never saw him but once or twice
He has very good manners"
rs he rich?'
He was, but after he had spent his
youth working with Incredible indus
try and a great deal of ability to build
up steel business and had put It into
a little combination--not a big trust,
| Just a genuine. corporation-some of
the financial princes wanted it for a
club-to knock down bigger game
reckon-and proceeded to cheaper the
stock in order to control it. Cary held
on desperately, bought more than he
could hold, mortgaged everything
else: but they were too big for him II
fight. It was in 1898, you know, when
they had an alleged financial psaic,
and scared the banks. Cary went to
the wall, and Phil with him, and poor
Phil killed himself. Afterward Cary s
wife died, he surely did have mean
time. And, TO tell you the truth, Ber-
tie, / think there has been a little
kink in Cary's mind ever since.
Did you hold any of Carys stockT'
He was piecing his puzzle together,
"Yes; but my stock was all paid for.
and held on to it; now 1t is over par
and paying dividends. Oh, the prop
erty was all right, had it been kept in
honest hands and.rua tor itself. The
trouble with Cary was that in order
to keep control OF the property he
bought lot Of shares on margins, and
when they began to run downhil. he
was obliged to borrow money on his
actual holdings to protect his fictitious
IN. - tr.o& I.