Macon beacon. [volume] (Macon, Miss.) 1859-1995, 1910-08-19
TIE
&E%
GZNIM
mMEW
CO1XRUw DO8 NT
6ON1C- MENH (N.
p I.
The Vanishing Mystery.
COCX2UAV UQ3 LT
6ON~- mERw ca

OF ler dining room. one Hdu CuIHCu
her back on it. She swayed forward.
Her bare arms were lifted. Her hands
lightly caught the molding on either
side of the door. She was looking in
tently into the mirror at the other
end of the hall. All the lights in the
dining room we're lit, and h saw
herself rather keenly set against this
brilliance. The s~traight-held head,
the lifted arms, the short, slender
waist, the long, long sweep of her
skirts made her seem taller than she
actually was; and the strong, bright
growth of her hair and the ~vivacity
of her fac made her seem more deep
Iy cOlOred.
She had poised there for the mere
survey of a new gown, but after a mo-
ment of dwelling on her own refec-
lion she found herself considering it
only as an object in the foreground of
a picture. That picture, seen through
the open door, reflected in the glass,
was all of a bright, hard glitter, all a
high, harsh tone of newness. In its
p~aneled oak. in it's glare of cut-glass
and silver, in the shining vacant faces
of it's floors and walls, there was not
a color that filled the eye, not a shad.
dow where imagination could find
play. AS a background for herself 1t
struck her as homogeneous. Like a
child looking at the landscape up
side down, she felt herself in a for
eign country. Yet 1t was hers.
She glanced over the table. 1t was
set for three. 1t lacked nothing but
the serving of dinner. She looked at
the clock. 1t wanted a few minutes
to the hour. Shima, h Japanese but
les, came in softly with the evening
papers. She took them from him.
Nothing bored her so much as a pa
per, but tonight she knew it con
tanned something she really wanted to
see. She opened n of the damp
sheets at the pag of sales.
There it was at The head of the
column in thick black type:
AT AUCTION. FEBRUARY 1s
PERSONAL ESTATE OF
ELIZABETH HUNTER CHATWORTH
CONSISTING OF -
She read the details with interest
down to the end, where the name of
the famous ChatwOrth ring" finished
the announcement with a flourish.
Why famous? it was very provok-
Ing to advertise with that vague ad-
|jective and not explain it.
She turned indifferently to the first
page. She read a sentence, re-read it,
read it again. Then, as if she could
not read fast enough, her eyes gal,
Hoped down the column. 1t was the
most extraordinary thing! She was
bewildered with the feeling that what
was blazing at her from the columns
of the paper was at n c the widest
thing that could possibly have hap,
pened, and yet the one most to have
been expected.
For, from the first the business had
been sinister, from as far back as the
tragedy-the end of poor young Chat.
worth and his wife-the Bessie, who,
before her English marriage. they had
all known SO we'll. Her death, that
had befallen in far Italian Alps, had
made a sensation in their little city
and the large announcements of auc-
tion that had followed hard upon it
had bred among the women who had
knOwn her a morbid excitement, a
feverish desire to buy, as if there
might be some special luck in them,
the jewels of a woman who. had SO
tragically died. They had been ready
to make a social affair of the private
view held in the Maple room" be-
fore the aCUtiOn. And now the whole
spectacular business was capped by a
sensation so dramatic as to strain
Cr@dulity to its limit. She could not
believe it; yet here it was glaring at
her from the first page. Still-it
might be an eNaggeratiOn, a mistake.
She must go back to the beginning
and read ii over slowly.
The striking of the hour hurried
her. Shima's announcement of din
ner only sent her eyes faster down
the page. 8ut when, with a faint,
smooth rustic, Mrs. Britton came in,
she let the PAPER fall. She always
faced her chaperon with a little ner-
vousness. and with the same sense of
strangeness with which she so fire.
Quently regarded her house.
It's Is minutes after eight" Mrs.
BrittOn observed. I'VE would better
not wait any longer"
She took the place opposite Flora's
at the round table. Flora sat down,
still holding the paper, flushed and
bolt upright with her news.
It's the most extraordinary thing.'
she burst forth.
Mrs. Britton paused mildly with a
radish in her fingers. She took in
the presence CT the paper, and the
suppressed excitement of her COM
panion's face-seemed to absorb them
through the large pupils of her light
eyes, through all her smooth, pretty
person, before she reached for an ex-
PLANTATION.
What is the most extraordinary
thing" The query came bland and
smooth, as if, whatever it was, it
could not surprise her.
why, the Chatworth ring. At the