Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1910-06-17

IRIS TEN YEARS sINCE YOU'VE SEEN ME-"
was in the habit of bringing her and
the impossible dolls with fuzzy, fiaxen
hair and staring blue eyes. Jim was
not rich in those days. but he seldom
came to the house without some trife
for the kid" and Muriel never forgot
him.
His rise to fortune was rapid. In a
few years from a plausible, smooth
tongued promoter. with a shabby coat
buttoned over bis shirt to hide def
ciencies of toilet. he became a success
full manipulation 1.-THE stock market
and the president of a company which
netted him thousands of dollars a
year. Jim had prospered, and he had
enemies, and among the bitterest were
the members of Muriel's family
The Dimocks never forgave the good
luck, as they phrased it, of a friend.
They spoke s%lightingly of the great
James Douglass Manning, which, how
ever did not bother the said James,
as nowadays their paths neyer crossed,
but Muriel suffered for him. She took
his part eloquently at first; then when
the usual shaft of ridicule had been
launched and her tongue silenced her
reproachful eyes continued to protest
against the injustice.
'Jim owes you nothing she would
arraign her people in imaginary con-
versations. by his pluck. his quick
grasp of affairs, he has prospered.
while you have remained in a rut."
At eighteen Muriel suddenly devel-
oped mentally and physically. Her
meager little frame filled out, the
sharp oval of her face rounded. till
she no longer resembled the baby
owlet, all eyes in a bony setting. to
which her eldest brother had long
likened her.
She became holder. less easily 81
fenced in the unequal family argu-
ments; she pursued her little charities
in the face Of opposition. while her
people looked on and wondered. They
considered her an alien and admitted
among themselves that she was
queer" but as she never attempted
to win any of them over to her way
of thinking they let her alone and
smiled indulgently at what they called
her folly.
When Jim Manning's downfall seem
ed imminent the Dimocks fell on him
root and branch and tore him to pieces.
They exulted in the ruin that hung
over him as If they had a personal
grudge to avenge. and they declared
that they had known all along that
this would happen. When Murtel
started up In his defense they turned
upon her as if they would rend her
also. She covered her ears with her
hands and fed from the room. her
heart beating furiously in a storm OF
futile anger.
Jim, her idol. tottering on his pedes-
tai, had never seemed so heroic a ng-
ure. She read every line the newspa-
pers printed about the scandal in his
company. She did not understand the
technical terms, but her Intelligence
grasped that he was charged with
fraud. that his creditors were %insinuat-
ing his money had zee made dishon-
estly and that he was threatened with
ruin and disgrace. She read the worst
side of the story. for her people pat
ronized the yellow journals. and she
pictured him sitting alone. deserted by
those who had fawned upon him in his
palmy days, and she longed to show
him by some tangible sign that one
person at least did not believe in his
infamy. Waves Of sympathy were not
powerful enough to fit this case. 1t