Evening star., 1913-03-02
Continued from page g

of its own, in which every boy and most of
the girls in the street held office; how the
Mayor, ministers, and the Superintendent
of Streets came to Rookery Row to thank
him for his work and offer him encourage
ment how the new shop thrived and was
written about in the big Sunday papers, =
would alone make a story,-a better one,
perhaps, than this. 1t is enough for us that
Mary Beldon's Store, from the pride of the
street, became a source and center of in
spiration; that it prospered amazingly; that
it's fame travelled far and in due course
reached secluded hamlet in the hills of
Northern Jersey.
ATHERTON had been in Rookery Row
y the better part of year, in all of which
time he had not travelled ten blocks from
the street, when a noticeable change came
over him. He became nervous and at times
strangely abstracted. At intervals he
seemed to forget the very existence of the
street and it's problems and draw into him.
self like one who has heard the rattle of the
dice and awaits the messenger. He had
many plans for the street and the store; but
they appeared to hang upon some unknown
thing, some contingent. Had he, for any
reason, been under the surveillance of Head
quarters, the Gordon would have closed in.
al can always tell when the boss gets one
of them letters from New Jersey" the office
girl remarked. "Maybe it's the pale lady;
but | heard she was dead"
AS was inevitable, Rookery Row sur
missed that he was preparing for flight, and
a rumor spread that the pale lady was COM
ing back to claim her store and all the money
that he must have made out of it. Ather-
tons smile, when he heard, was full of mys-
terry.
She came in June, all the bloom of per-
feet health in her cheeks, the confidence of
boundless strength to do and endure in her
buoyant step, in her eyes the softened lights
that come after grief, "a beautiful, adorable
woman. Atherton, who had been out, came
in and found her in the dainty, white office
he had built for her. She was staring
through tears at a framed picture of the old
store, bewildered, lost in riot of emotions.
al read the whole story in a New York
paper, and couldn't endure it another day,
she told him by way of apology for surpris-
ing him. ooh, it is splendid! What a Won
derful thing you have done!'
"And your new store-how do you like it?"
he asked, leaning forward as if to meet her
answer on the way.
-no-no" she cried at is not
mine. | left nothing 1t is yours your
own You made it. | have only come back
ooh, yes, it is yours he broke in firmly
am not square with Jimmy yet, and," his
voice suddenly low and soft, II never will be
ifWif-s aif
By the quaver in her voice and the great
light that shone in her eyes, Atherton knew
that he was not going away from Rookery
Row. The ownership of the store was no
longer in dispute: it had already passed
into a partnership. With cry he gathered
her into his arms, just as a noisy delegation
of youthful citizens broke in from the street.
They were married that afternoon in the
first parsonage they came to; and it hap
pened to be on the same mean street that
boasted of Mary Beldon's Store.
ATHERTON had just come in from a
"A meeting of the @Board of Aldermen
(perhaps A1derboys would be better when
his wife handed him a telegram. 1t was
from his New York lawyers with whom he
had kept in touch, and read:
Normoil people must have coal lands. They
instruct US to find you and say will accept
original proposition if can be had. Regard you
only man who can unravel tangle in West.
We hold twenty thousand for your expenses.
Come to New York Immediately