The Press., 1910-01-26
HIS LESSON.
1t Taught Him Just What the Girl
 Wanted Him to Know.
ev RoRERr A. kNowLEs.

Press.l
 They sat upon the veranda side by aide, gazing silently into the soft May moonlight. The air had the haunting sweetness that comes at evening from growing things in their freshness. It was still and dreamily peaceful, time to soothe human restlessness and hu- man pain.
 | But 1t did not soothe Jane. She had been sitting there so quietly all even | ing that it seemed to her she must l jump from the chair, screaaRihg st the top of her voice, in another minute. Under the light shawl she wore she twisted her hands together in an effort to control herself. Yet she continued to stare out at the moonlight as if to behold it were the one thing worth living for.
 Rodney was staring out at the moon light, too, and enjoying it. He liked the stiffness; he liked being able to keep silence; he liked to be sitting there beside Jane
 | If Rodney had loved her, Jane thought bitterly, he would at least have held her hand. But he did not love her; he only liked her because he had always known her and because she was the one girl with whom he could be perfectly natural. If he wished to be silent with her he was silent: he did not feel it necessary to make the eff | fort to talk. Yet Jane felt sometimes that his dumbness was uncomfortable If only he would speak Evening aft CT evening he came to sit with her in the same way.
 Jane had always had hope until to- , night. A man who could sit beside girl-a fairly pretty girl, too-on such a night and not make love to her was certainly as near being without a heart as man could be.
 Jane gave him up. And in giving him up she gave up also many of the dreams and of her longings. her youth. Slowly her eyes filled with tears. Slowly she forced back the tears and swallowed the choking lump in her throat. But she could not keep back one racking sigh, and Rodney heard it. 
 hour and apparently of her.
 q must go." he said, looking for his hat
 Jane rose too, with apparent calm.
 He looked forth at the moonlight again. not at her. wistfully.
 "It is wonderful" he said. "MOOn- light like that always makes me forget myself. Coed night. Jane"
 "GOod-b-by." Jane answered strange ly. but he seemed not to notice.
 Her father stood before the lamp reading a letter as she entered the house.
 He looked up at her over his glasses.
 Rodney gOne?" he asked.
 "Yes" James tone was tense.
 Anything the matter?" he inquired anxiously.
 She shook her head. with hard lit- tie laugh.
 Nothing at all,' she said.
 '"This letter Is from your Aunt Jane," he said. ''She wants us to come to see her. It has been nine years since she was here-the same year your mother died. I've never been to see her since she went to Boston to live But I am going nOw-we're going Jane, what's to hinder us from going tomorrowY 'TOmorrow?" Jane gasped And to Boston! She turned pale with the sud- denness of it all
 By noon next day they had gone. bag and baggage. And that evening when Rodney came walking up in the moonlight he found unlighted win dOws and q locked door. He sat down upon the steps and waited How strange it was! Jane had not told him she was going away. He sat there wondering until Mrs. Clancy, who lived next door. came trundling her baby past on her way home.
 That you. Rod?' she called in her sweet Irish voice
 ''Yes. Mrs. Clancy. Where are the folks that belong here?"
 Why. don't you know? Hush, Ted dy, while mamma talks to the gentle man. They've gone to Boston-left at noon today. I can't tell you how long they intend to be gone.''
 To Boston! And without saying a word to him! Rodney could not speak, and after Mrs. Clancy had waited a moment for him to do so she went on with her baby, leaving him to figure 1t out by himself.
 Jane did not write to him from Bos- ton, and he did not write to her be- cause he did not know her address. And he would not ask for 1t from any one of the girls to whom he knew she was writing. But he heard things about her-how she was going about with her fashionable aunt, having new clothes made and enjoying herself gen. orally.
 The hot summer dragged on slowly. Rodney grew thin and looked pale. He was working too hard, they said.
 "Cut 1t out, Rod," they told him cheerfully. You've got money enough and are making more. Why do you want to kill yourself?''
 Rodney smiled patheticalIy and kept on working
 One day Edna Travers told him that she had just received Jane's picture and she looked dandy" Jane had also written to say she shad three strings to her bow"
 After that Rodney literally dropped. He began to walk past the house and, as he grew more desperate, to sit upon the veranda in the chair where he had spent so many silent hours. Jane's lit tie chair was beside his, and he liked to keep his hand upon it, rocking IE gently, while he thought of her. Some times he fell asleep sitting there, for 1t was hot weather. and night always found him tired.
 One night in August he came to the house late, as usual. 1t was still closed, dark, forbidding. But the mem Ory of dear associations haunted 1t. He stole up on the veranda behind the screening vines and sat down, with his hand on the arm of James little chair. When was she coming