The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1910-02-11
CHAPTER VIII.

Apart from these painful struggles
with her children, which were quite
new to Lady Car, there were many
things that panied her in her resi-
dence at the Towers.
First of all, there was her nearest
neighbor, her dearest friend, her only
sister Edith; the dearest companion
of her life, who had stood by her in
all her troubles, and to whom she
had given trembling support in her
struggle, more successful than poor
Carry's, against the husband her
father had chosen for her. Edith had
succeeded at last in marrying her
only love, which was poor marriage
for an EarTs daughter. They had,
indeed, finally both of them, made
poor marriages; but what contrast
between them! Carry living ignobly
with the husband of her choice upon
Torrance's money, the result of her
humiliation: while Edith was at the
head of happy, frugal family care
fully ordered, with little margin for
show or pleasure, but yet in all the
plentitude of cheerful life. without a
recollection to rankle, or any discord
or complication in all her candid ex-
istence. Her father had not been able
to force the will of Edith. She had
not loved her John any better than
poor Carry had loved in her early
tender youth the lover of all her
dreams. the Edward Beaufort who
was now her husband; but Carry had
not been able to resist the other hus-
band, the horrible life. Even in that
Edith had so much, so much the
advantage over her sister, And then
oh, wonder to think of it-John-
John, from whom nothing had been
expected, except that he should show
himself. as he had always done, the
good fellow, the honest gentleman,
the true friend he was, whether by de-
velopment of his own respectable
mind or by the influence of Edith
(though she was never clever like
Carry, or by the united force of
both, John had long been one of the
most important men in the district,
member for his county, trusted and
looked up to both by his constituency
at home and the people at headquar-
ters. who took his advice, it was said,
on Scotch affairs more than any ones;
whereas Edward. Carry had long
made that poignant comparison in her
heart, but to see them together now
bowed her to the ground with a Sc
cret humiliation which she could ac-
knowledge-not to her sister, who
also in the old days had put so much
faith in Beaufort's genius; not to Ed
ward himself-oh, no, to humiliate
him. He did not seem to feel the con-
trast at all himself, or, if he did per-
ceive 1t. he thought it apparently to
be to his own advantage, speaking
now and then of the narrowness of
practical men, of the deadening in
fuence of politics, and of how COM
pletely John Erskine's interest was
limited to matters of local expediency
and questions before Parliament.
And he used to have his share of in
telligence.' said all unconscious the
useless man, whose failure his wife
felt so passionately. Then, as If this
were not enough. there was Jock,
little Jock. who was younger than
Janet. only fourteen. but already at
Elton like Tom. and holding a place
above that of the seventeen-year-old
big lower boy. The reader must un-
derstand that this history is not of
to-day, and that in those times big
lower boys We're still possible, though
1t Is so no longer Tom was only a
lower boy. and little Jock might have
tagged his cousin. had it not been that
Jock was in college. on the founda-
ton, saving the money which was not
too plentiful at Dalmylian. "a Tug!"
Tom had cried with contempt intensi-
fed by the sense of something in his
mothers eyes. the comparison which
made her heart sick. Little Jock at
fourteen. so far above the boy who
was almost man. John Erskine, in
his solid good sense, so much more
important man than Edward with
his genius manque. 1t went to Car
ry's heart.
To be Continued.