Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1913-12-25
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| that thrust against the flimsy muslin
Of her gown and threatened to spear
the pink-rosed hat that cast an ador
able warm tint over her creamy face
thinking that never had the old place
seen such a picture as she made
framed in the deep green.
| Some such thought was in the ma
jor's mind, too, as he came slowly
IN the terrace below. He paused, to
take off his hat and wipe his brow.
! with the place all fixed up this
way" he sighed to himself. II could
believe 1t was only last week that
Beaut.- Valiant and Southall and
we're boys loafing around this gyarden
And to think that now it's Valiant's
son and Judiths daughter! Why, ii
seems like yesterday that Shirley
there was only knee-high to a grass
|hair was that color because she ran
through hell bareheaded. I'm about g
thousand years old I reckon!"
! Meanwhile the two figures above
had pushed through the tangle into a
circular sunny space where stood a
short round pillar Of red onyx. It was
sun-dial, it's vine-clad disk cut OF
gray polished stone in which It's metal
tongue was socketed. Round the
outer edge of the disk ran an inscrip
ton in archaic lettering. Valiant pull
led away the clustering ivy leaves and
read: I count no hours but the happy
ones.
"If that had only been true!" he
said.
ut is true. See how the vines hid
the sun from 1t. 1t ceased to mark
the time after the Court was deserted
| He snapped the clinging tendrils and
swept the cluster from its stone face
ut shall begin to count again from this
moment. Will it mark only happy
hours for me, wonder? I'll bride II
with flowers"
white for happiness" she said.
"I'll put moonflowers at it's base and
where you are standing, Madonna
lilies. The outer part Of the circle
shall have bridal-wreath and white
irises, and they shall shade out into
pastel colors-mauves and grays and
heliotropes. Oh, shall love this spot!
perhaps sometime the best of ALL
(Which do you love the most now?
He leaned slightly toward her, one
hand on the dial's time-notched rim
Don't you know" he said in a lower
voice. Gould any other spot mean to
me what that acre under the hemlocks
means?"
Her face was turned from him, her
fingers pulling at the drifting vine
and splinter of sunlight tangled in
her hair like lace of ,firef1ies.
Il could never forget it, he con
tinued. THE thing that spoiled my
fathers life happened there, yet there
W two first talked, and there you-"
| DON'T" she said, facing him
DON'T"
"Ah, let me speak! T. want to tell
you that I shall carry the memory OF
that afternoon, and Of your brave
kindness, always, always! II I were
never to see you again in this life,
should always treasure it. If died OF
thirst in some Sahara, it would be the
last thing I should remember-your
face would be the last thing I should
see! If L"
| He paused. his veins beating hard
under the savage self-possession, his
hand trembling against the stone, his
voice traitor, yielding to something
that rose in his throat to choke the
stumbling words.
In the silence there was the sound OF
slow football on the gravel walk, and
at the same moment he saw a magical
change Shirley drew back. The soft
gentian blue of her eyes darkened. The
lips that an instant before had been
tremulous, parted in low delicious
laugh. She swept him deep curtesy
"I am beholden to you, SIR she
said gaily, 'for most knightly compH
ment There's the major. Come and
let us show him where we've planted
the ramblers."