Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1909-01-09

OF HIS memories VI HID uuhN' oAio hAu
always worn 1t. He remembered 1t,
when she used to come and visit him
ct the hotel at West Point, dazzling
impartially officers, professors. cadets
and hotel walters. Was that almost
20 years ago? Well, "a anyhow! She
had been very good. very generous to
oil the young Winters, then. Indeed,
although she never quite forgave him
for not marrying the wife OF her se-
lecting. she had always been kind and
generous to Rupert; vet, somehow,
while he had admired and found a
humorous JOY In his Aunt Rehecca, he
wondered II he had ever loved her.
She was both beautiful and brilliant
when she was young. southern belle,
a northern society leader; her life was
full OF conquests. her footsteps.
which had wandered over the world.
had left phosphoresceht wake OF ad-
miration. She had always been a per-
sonage She was 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
apigrams in Boston; now, in her old
age, she held veritable little court OF
her own In the provincial western city
which had been her husbands home.
lie went to congress from Fairport;
ne had made fortune there, and
when he died, many years ago, In
Egypt, back to his western home, with
logged determination and lavish en-
aenditures of both money and wit, his
widow had brought him to rest. The
most intense and solemn experience
Of a woman she had missed, for no
children had come to them, but her
husband had been her lover so long
g he lived, and she had loved him.
;he had known great men; she had
wed through wonderful events; and
often her hand had been on those
sccret levers which move vast forces.
She had been in tragedies, II an In
violable GOODNESS 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
pnel wondered II 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 md 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 completely bewiltlered 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 sraoothness and
tint, recalled some othe. face. recently
studied by him-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; 1t was
the man with the moles, the brother.
He looked enough like Mrs. Winter to
be her kinsman. At once he put his
guess to the test. Aunt Becky" said
he, have you any kin don't know
about?"
II reckon not. I'm an awfully kin
less old party" said she serenely. II
was Winter, born al 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"
"Have you, by chance. any cousin,
near or far, named Mercer?"
Resting her finger-tips on the cards,
Aunt Rebecca seemed TO let her mind
search amid virginian and Massachu-
sets genealogical tables. "Why, GER
tainly," she answered after pause,
there was Gen. Philemon Mercer
confederate army, you know-and his
son, Sam Nelson: Phil was my own
cousin and Sam Nelson my second,
and Sam Nelson's sons would be my
bird, wouldn't they? Phil and Sam
ire both dead, and Winnie Lee. the
daughter, is dead. and poor Phil-the
grandson, you know-poor boy, he
shot himself while at Harvard; but
his brother Cary is alive"
DO you know him?"
Never saw him but once or twice.
He has very good manners"
rs he rich?"
Gle was, but after he had spent his
youth working with Incredible indus
try and a great deal Of ability to build
I'D steel business and had put it into
a little combination-not big trust,
Just genuine corporation-some Of
the financial princes wanted 1t for
club-to knock down bigger game, l
reckon-and proceeded to cheaper the
stock in order to control 1t. Cary held
on desperately, bought more than he
could hold. mortgaged everything
else; but they we're too big for him to
fight. 1t was in 1903, you know, when
they had an. alleged financial panic,
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 little
Itch 4, 1ar,,,o mind ovor sinceo