The Washington times., 1913-05-13

brock (alias Friedel Stran-
diger) quartered at wynslade
Priory. was thinking lamentably Of hol-
land skirts and of other matters. more
important. Thomsine Musgroye wal
walking homeward to Allenthorn manor.
house, under an ashes-of-roses sunset.
In the months since she had crept
home disgraced from Oxford. tht
child, never again to be entirely child
had stretched out hands to. the woman
hood that awaited her.
She had overtaken in her growth the
long hands ana feet, the management
whereof she had at last acqutrec.
She had become a creature of deli
cateiy suggested curves and melting.
gracious lines.
alluring. the more 30 for her grave I'm
consciousness Of the source of her al
lurement For though Thomstne had
attained to sex. SO far as concerned her
tody. to such purpose that she could
not now, by the maddest chance. have
passed disguised in boys dress, she was
still in mind and soul as sexless as
divinity.
On that rose-and-ashen evening
Thomsine was thinking not of Caris-
years might well have thought, nor on
any vague abstraction of a lover.
She thought, like a little boy, of the
nuts that she had been given at Peter
Forester's cottage. and she wished that
she had the time to pause and slide
or the ice-run that the village lads had
made.
Then. as she walked more briskIy,
with the gables Of the manor-house in
distant view. she fell to dreaming, and
brown, who smelled of wet leather and
tobacco
No sex was ever in these dreams of
Thomsine's, be II remembered, She
never thought of this brown idealiza-
tion as her lover. or even as her
friend.
She merely saw him the triumphing
figure in thousand preposterous perils
of her shaping, and thousand equally
preposterous scenes Of chivalrous for
bearance.
Dimly she realized that she had fain
been such a man had she been for
tuned to be born a man. But since
she was born maid. and the days at
Allenthorn were longer and of a same
ness, surely she worked harm to no
one In dreaming Of such deeds, and
such a doer.
So, in her dreaming, Thomsine came
to Allenthorn manor. as the last of the
rose in the sky sank into ashes. and
on the threshold met with a chalk
faced serving-maid. who gasped and
pointed to the upper chamber.
In that upper chamber. Great-aunt
Eustasta's chamber. how reached Thorn
sine could never after say, she found
the hard-featured waiting woman, Joan
Laycock. crouched on the floor. amid
the 60 and come Of whimpering serving
folk. and Joan's knees were pillow for
Great-aunt Eustasia, dead.
Like all the acts Of her life, Great
aunt Eustacia had done this final act
with thoroughness and dispatch.
She had not hung between life and
death. to vex herself and others. while
she made I'D her mind. In the fullness
of her strength and faculties (thanks
be to GodD she had closed her Bible,
adjusted her cap. said no more than
My head, Good Joan. Good wench,'
and. falling into her woman's strong
arms, was dead inside the half hour
Remained for The doctor only to purse
his brows and speak of apoplexy.
Characteristicallv Great-aunt Eus-
tasia had left, folded within her Bible.
concisely written instructions as to
what order should be taken upon her
death.
Thomsine. red-eyed and snuifling,
with a feeling that her world was re-
solved into chaos. looked on those in
structions in the chill gray of the next
Lenten morning, and duly =enI ines
sengers to her aunt's lawyer at Cam
bridge town. and to her guardian at his
castle of Kings Staversham.
Wat Musgrove was at Allenthorn Tin
borrowed blacks, which III became him)
in time for the funeral and The reading
Of the will
On these occasions he wore a counte-
nance of equal dolor.
Poor Wat, He had had expectations,
like his father before him. md ne saw.
by the date OF the codicil. that those
expectations had gone Illustrate in tie
hour of Thomsine's return to Allen
thorn. which was the hour. II will he
of Great-aunt Eustasia's
utterance touching Roar
ing Wat
Now AIlenthorn and the farms there
to pertaining-revelues footing to E300
the year-all fell to little Thomsipe,
who had, in all conscience. wealth
enough before. And Wat would have
held that inheritance goodly one.
Had he not sold or mortSaged all
that he could sell or mortgage OF Kill
scote and Carlaw, to follow the court
and keep himself and Charlotte brave?
Had he not Q child already. and an.