The Bridgeport evening farmer. [volume] (Bridgeport, Conn.) 1866-1917, 1911-04-22

They had the open air. their large
house, their own pursuits. He left
the indoor management to his ca
pable wife, and himself superintendent
everything out of doors, except the
garden, their joint delight. They
were both benevolent, unimaginative
people, liking comfort, yet industrious
and full Of energy. They agreed
we'll on those small details which are
of such Importance, as forming the
sum of everyday life. Upon deep
er things, or higher, they never
touched.
From time to time, during his
uncle's lifetime, Jem had been their
guest. He had spent his summer
holidays at Carronlea as a boy. In
looks and build he was SO like his
uncle that he might have passed for
his son; and when she was left a
truly bereaved woman-Emma Bard
sley determined to take the mother
less Jem to fill her husbands place
about the farm of which he had been
SO proud.
But there were differences between
the uncle and nephew which, invis-
iible at the surface, went very deep.
Tom Bardsley had not been a we'll
educated man. He had lived in a
day when boys were sent to small and
inferior private schools, and taught
practically nothing. But the educa-
ton of James, his dead brother s
child, had been his own care; and
Jem was a public school and uni
versity bred man. He had all the
Bardsley impassivity, their love of a
country life, their domestic habits,
but he had also a fierce, almost NOR
bid temper, and vein of something
call it poetry, ideality,4 what you
aunt recognized, nor would have un-
derstood.
His aunt and he got on IN much
the same excellent, detached manner
in which she and her husband had
gone through life together. In al
points where was any contact, the
the first time, it seemed to Aunt EN-
ma as if the thousand points on
which there was no contact might be,
after all, the more important.
With her sterling, honest good
sense, she saw herself standing con-
tentedly aioof from all the deep places
of this young mans nature; and her
feelings were lacerated by the thought
WAS this the case with Tom also
Have I never entered the holy places
of even my own husband?"
What had she known of Tom ?
Many things. She had known exactly
what he liked to eat and drink. She
had known what persons he preferred
as guests. She knew his bodily con-
east wind necessitated thicker vest,
and how much stimulant would pro-
woke govt. She could have told yon
how he would vote any election, aud
his views upon crops and labor and
landlordism. But, within the auto
maton who did these things-who lay
down at her side at night, and up
rose in the morning-who came regu-
larly to his meals, and went to church
every Sunday, wet or fine, though he
| would have fiercely rejected his
church's directions upon such points
as fasting, or days of obligation
somewhere inside this creature who
did all things from a lifelong habit
there lived in darkness and solitude
an immortal soul.
And this soul, which she had never
| known-this ego, kept in the DARK
| and starved-had it sometimes walked
and cried in him, and found none te
answer? For the first time, his wild.
ow wondered.
For she was now told that inside
Jem, the taciturn fellow of regular
| habits, whose comings and goings she
| never questioned, there lived aimar
whom she knew not-a man suscepti
BILE to the temptations of , sex. Wo.
men of Mrs. Bardsley's school Away:
assume that the men of their owr
kind do not feel these temptations.
| If Jem craved the society of youns
women, what had she ever done fol
him? There were no young womer
in the near neighborhood, except the
almost child, Selma. And now Yer
| non
| But Vernon had come too late.
| Her memorable sense told her that
If the girl had come when such a.
Jem had been fancy-free, she Nigh
have conquered. But now
| And it was both of them! Jem ant
Miles! Bitterly she thought that
good girl has no chance beside
wicked woman.
And had Tom, her husband-bi'
and full-blooded, athletic and vigor
ous-had he never felt for any wo
man any feeling less moderate thar
his sober, constant affection for her
self? In spite of her sixty years, tn
thought hurt her cruelty
She thought of her own brother
and his fierce love affair, of which
Vernon was the outcome That wa