Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1911-01-17

riage was something TO be considered
when I should reach what to me was
! an advanced age. And the girl! Be-
tween her and that something which
falls TO the lot of older people was
still the gulf of some FIVE or six years
an interminable period.
But time was passing more rapidly
even than one realized. Before we
! had had time to come to that COM
paratively prosaic period when young
people begin to talk of the love they
| feel-an advanced stage on the road
to commonplace matrimony-we were
separated. going TO college. she to
| seminary However. there were four
years before us of love dreaming l
| have always thought that we were
especially fortunate that the period of
| feeling was so long in giving way TO
| that OF speech. There is in the former
delicious doubt. a fear that there
! will nothing come of it all. a dread
| that at any time we may hear that the
| loved one has entered into another
| such world far more beautiful than
| the first and leaving horrible void for
| the forsaken one.
! When We returned, an educated man
| and a woman, all was changed. The
| flower had opened. but there were a
| lot of thorns bristring about it. I knew
| that the result of love was marriage,
| and between me and marriage stood
| fortune. Still / was no wise old man.
was merely one beginning life and
| endowed with the propensities bestow-
ed upon mankind. 1 felt in honor
| bound since my uncle had brought me
up for a certain purpose under certain
| conditions to fulfill those conditions.
was now old enough to realize the
responsibilities I was under and that
carrying out of the contract with my
uncle would involve the loss to me of
my love. On one side of me was
! Sylla, on the other Chaubdis.
| Though l was twenty-one 1 was no
wiser in love than when 1 was six
| teen, and my uncle, who was past fifty,
was greater fool as regards such
matters than I. The truth is the far
| Their we get from that period when ma
| ture intends we shall mate the less we
know about mating. When we are in
| it we and it are the truth; when we
pass beyond it we know it by cold eX-
| perience only. The boys and girls to
| whom in other matters we may be
solons, in matters of love can act
what we cannot even feel.
This analytical statement is prelim-
| mary to a confession. The first thing
/ knew I was married clandestinely.
The marrying occupied about three
minutes. the ragged edge period that
| followed occupied months. Common
sense should have told me to arrange
the matter with my uncle first and
marry afterward. But common sense
| is very sparlng of visits to young peo-
pie 1t is supposed to be a natural
/ faculty but l am inclined to think 1t
| an artificial faculty. What does a pair
| of doves know about common sense?
| After our clandestine marriage we
| lived in a perpetual whirl between al
| ternate bliss and mental torture. At
| least 1 did. My wife, with the delight
! full stupidity of woman, said it would
| come out all right. Her prediction
was followed by my uncle's suddenly
falling dead of heart disease.
Here was a pretty kettle of fish! 1
was his heir under pledge of bachelor
hood, and / was married. However, 1
was glad that the blow had fallen. 1
was tired of living under false colors.
Then what happened? Why, when
the will was read it was found that
the bulk of his estate was left to me
and under a condition. What cOndi-
/ ton? Why. that l marry before l
could inherit n cent of his money.
There was n codicil leaving the income
of $4,000 to a Miss Arabella Wag-
staff during her life. What did this
mean? And who was Miss WaGstaff?
1t came out at last that even old
people can sometimes be natural in
matters of love Miss Wagstaff was
the woman with whom my uncle had
had trouble in his youth and who had
turned him against her sex. Shortly
before his death he discovered that
some forty years before he had made
an ass of himself and had treated
girl very badly. He made amends so
far as he could by leaving her enough
to make her comfortable for the rest
OF her life.
Didn't / tell you it would come out
all right" remarked my wife. making
one Of those illogical. irrelative state
nents for which women are famous.
You'd better say" I retorted. that
IN love matters all men, old and young,
are idiots