The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1911-09-16
DOCTOR JACK
The Letter Which Said So Much, and
Yet So Little.
MY Dear, dear Jack:

bachelor sanctum that was discreet
combination of apartment and Office
stared incredulously at the dainty mis-.
slve in his hand. He picked up the
envelope. The address was unmis-
takably his. He turned the note to
look at the signature. There in con
firmation of the violet monogram was
the full name: Mildred Martin Vane
With an unusual leap in his healthy,
well-ordered pulse, he read on.
MY Dear, Dear Jack:
Do not let us misunderstood each
other any longer. You hurt me yester-
day more than can say. Why will
you let wealth, pride, position all that
| hold worthless stand between us
Ii you were rich and I poor it would
make no difference to you as you
know. You can not hide your feelings
from me. have read your heart in
your honest eyes, your earnest voice.
Love like yours should not be hope
less. God gives it to make happy
homes, useful blessed lives, not to
wither in it's beautiful bloom.
so be frank with me, as under like
circumstances I would be with you.
Come to me and tell me ALL Let me
make you happy, gladden., brighten,
bless your life.
Ever yours,
MILDRED MARTIN vANE."
Two, three, four, half-a-dozen times
did DR.. Jack read and re-read this as
founding epistle before he could quite
believe his own eyes. Mildred Vane
writing thus to him! Mildred Vane!
A vision of sweet, gracious face
rose before him, deep gray eyes, clear
and womanly, seemed to look into his
shaken SOUL Ten minutes ago he
would have sworn that letter like
this would have opened the gates of
paradise to him. Now he stood stun
ned, bewildered, and must we confess
the masculine nconsistency-mom
tarily shocked! 1t was as if some far
distant star to which he had lifted his
eyes had suddenly flashed into an
earth light radiantly near
He was dull fellow about women,
as he knew. In the long years of his
student life, cramped for money, for
time, for all that is required by the
social amenities, he had been perforce
a recluse. Afterward his professional
duties, leading, as they did, through
paths full of painful but vital interest,
had absorbed him completely. He was
physician to the poor paid by the
city to look after it's submerged
TENTH
1t was in these darkened ways he
had met Miss Vane. Stunning with
charming good sense, a tender wis
dom unusual in young lady whose
entertainments were chronicled at
length in the society column, and
whose fathers jovian nod could make
the financial Olympus shade. So at
least DR.. Jack had learned from con-
freres wise in the world of fashion and
fame. To him this gracious, clear
eyed girl, treading so simply the dark
ened ways of sorrow and sin, needed
no such glittering halo. She wore an
aureole all her own.
She was secretary of the "Mater
Misericordiae" feminine imitation,
she had informed him, of the old Ital-
ian charity which some jealous Cath
Ollie women were striving to establish
on these prosaic Western shores. The
Mater Misericordiae'' came to help
when all earthly hope and skill had
failed. 1t preceded the priest to
wretched homes, and made all things
fair and sweet for the last solemn
rites of the Mother Church. It's men,
bers watched beside the friendless dy-
ing, they buried, with prayer and bless
ing, the friendless dead. Rather a
gruesome and dolorous mission for a
society belle to choose, but Miss
Vane's worst enemies, if she had any,
could not accuse her of any morbid
sentimentality.
I'VE come in when you doctors
throw up your hands, she smilingly
explained to DR.. Jack. 1--WE take
charge of hopeless creatures whose
families are too ignorant, too broken
hearted, too terror-stricken, to be of
any help to the poor passing soul
And we give comfort and peace, as
you see.''
And the doctor had seen and won
dered, and his soul, Swallowed as it
was by the mists of materialism,
caught CLEANS of the Light this fair
girl seemed to bear so serenely into
that dim, dread borderland and be-
tween life and death, where all skill
and science fail.
But with such different viewpoints
the doctor and the secretary of the
Mater Misericordiae" sometimes I'M
avoidably clashed. There had been
one of these differences the day be-