Holbrook argus., 1910-09-13


 swept over him like a hot wave and his sick nerves quivered. Yet how could he explain to this girl, an utter | stranger, that she mustn't mind, be- cause really he was half an invalid? And why should 1t make any differ ence to him what she thought of him? Yet he writhed as he stood there, his order ended, watching her. Suddenly she lifted her eyes as with an effort. She was very pale now and he fan cied there was a hint of appeal in her gaze. Was there on earth an other creature of such varying aspects and moods?
 He glanced around the little shop desperately and bought an armful of magazines at random. The shock headed boy waited on him and the girl retired again to her tiny office, but bent over the desk. Still dazed, he left the shop and dropped into the drug store. He had made friends with the queer old proprietor.
 Who is she?" repeated the old man as Drillman lighted the cigar just purchased
 Say, that girls all right! Her dad owned that store, no-account he was, but he worshiped Judith. The only thing that kept him at work at all was that she wanted to go to college, and he had to earn that money. And in the middle of her second year he up and died, and after the funeral when she found that store was all she had | in the world, why, she just naturally started out to run it. That was three months ago. Of course. she isn't much on business, but she gets along"
 "She impressed me as being decid- edly able to take care of herself" Drillham found himself saying little curtly.
 The old man laughed. "Judy's got way with her." he said "She al- ways carried her head high. But I've seen her cry over a robin with bust ed leg when she was younger and lordy, but she can run from a COW! She's just a girl after all!" Bayard Drillham walked back slow ly to his quiet boarding place. He was trying to imagine Judith White frightened, appealing, tremulous, and could not. Yet as he pictured her face, tempestuous, naughty and com manding, he remembered suddenly that odd little quiver to her lips, and her pallor. It was a curious combina- tion.
 It was so curious that the following day found him back in the little shop, where he demanded more magazines, quite unabashed at the memory of his | yesterdays purchases. The boy was away and Judith herself waited on him, cool, reserved, polite. She wore dark blue, with white collar and cuffs, knew she looked as if she were dressed for a part in a play. Some. how his attempts at conversation, while frankly met, never got any where, and he found himself going out when he most decidedly wished to stay in.
 And for many days the little scene was repeated. He told himself it was merely an idle curiosity to see if he ever could catch the goddess of her guard, to find if she really were like other girls. A mad idea of hunting up a broken-legged bird possessed him. And each day brought him more firmly under thrall of her deep, dark eyes, her aloofness, her superb abil' ity to care for herself.
 Never had Bayard Drillham so pa tiently tried to make friends with any man, to say nothing of a woman, for all his life he had fled from them, and never had he encountered such an i'm passable wall. So constantly were his thoughts centered on the amazing girl in the stuffy little shop that he forgot to think of himself and his illness and the result was that health sought him out. Yet he stayed on in Perch Har- bor. Once he said to her half fiercely, Do you intend to waste your whole life here?"
 Why, not9" she had countered in- dignantly. T was born here! I be- long hereI"
 Judith was paler these days, and one morning Drillham, vaguely wor- ried, entered the shop only to find it empty. There was no sound, and he stepped to the door leading to her lit tie office. There with her head down on her out-spread arms was Judith, AS ne lOOkeu ueT SHuuluSTS HSdfeu
 With one bound Bayard Drillham was beside her, drawing her to him as one draws a weeping child. What is it, Judith?" he asked terrified. What has happened?"
 The fact that instead of repelling him she half clung to him in a limp sort of despair added to his terror.
 "Oh," she gasped hopelessly, i've had to give up! Pm beaten! I've fought and been conceited enough to think I could do things, but l guess you were right! There's been no sys- tenn or c-c-common sense in the way I've run the business, and now I've