The Liberal democrat. [volume] (Liberal, Kan.) 1911-1924, 1913-07-04
WEALTH OR POVERTY
How Adventure in a Storm
Brought a Girl to Her Nor
NAL Senses.
BY LOUISE oLNEY.

by a more or less painful and pro-
tracted process of wedding out she
finds the one she wants to marry.
Meantime she plays the very mis-
chief
In the case Of Nora there we're three
men. The girl was taking time and
making trouble while she gradually
found out what she did not want. Her
mother, cold and calculating but wise
enough to pretend disinterested senti-
ment, watched the game-and her d.
mlnishing bank account. Nora's mar
riage meant to her mother wealth-ol
obscure poverty. One must perforce
admire the sporting qualities of the
older woman in spending all that she
had to keep Nora in the midst of
things during the matrimonial hay
making season. This meant a cottage
at the lake, servants. car, and pretty
dresses and entertaining.
Mrs. Stanton had been patient
Nora was twenty-three and her
chances" had been a matter of envy
with other mothers. She should have
been married. But she dallied about
the edge of capture, coquetting as
naturally as flowers bloom and waters
run down hin and sun shines, The
sweetness of her ran riot. She did
lot of hurting-which made her sorry.
One by one she had sent hearts into
the dlscard-gently, with regrets. She
liked the hero to go out gracefully to
slow music after a story that had
taken its artistic course from ac-
quaintance through friendship, to the
climax of love-and to the end of
vanishment. Her lovers never turned
back to friends.
There is one exception to this. Max
well Dunn, her friend from childhood,
her sehoolmate and companion, the
summer before, to his own surprise
and her mothers chagrin, became en-
gagged to Nora. Mrs Stanton liked
MaX-he was Of solid family and
alone but for an old cousin who kept
his good old country house. But he
wasn't 1ch. He simply was a rising
architect with love for his work and
a tendency to enjoy life as he went
along Money was not his main OBJ
ject.
1t was after Nora had discovered
that she didn't really love Max enough
to marry him, after she broke the en-
gradually, weeping at how
1t hurt him, and asking him to be her
friend the same as ever-that her
brother Sam. who looked at things
pretty much as they were, told
story, He told it at the breakfast ia
BILE and Nora was justly indignant.
The story dealt with a tender-hearted
Teuton, who being obliged to cut off
his dogs tall, performed the operation
an inch at time so the dog wouldn't
feel so badly about 1t. Sam seemed
to think the story pointed a moral as
to Noras method of dismissing a
lover. A younger brother has no SEN
tlment except for motors and bull
dogs and his meals.
But Maxwell Dunn gave Nora the
surprise Of her life and gained the
eternal gratitude OF Mrs. Stanton. He
promptly accepted his dismissal and
relapsed into the friend he had been.
Nora was hardly able to believe 1t.
She reluctantly concluded that he had
never really loved her. After this
she was her captivating best, but
never again could she raise a glimmer
rf fA hto =
ingly about the place-a comfort and
a refuge in time of trouble, always
ready for the wall-hower, the extra
girl or old lady, always good-natured.
He didn't even mind Thomas Preston.
Thomas Preston was in the whirl-
wind lover class. He had dallled
about, slipping honey and torturing
hopeful mothers, until he was thirty
five. Having money he had time. He
knew how to make love. And he
really wanted unexpectedly because
she was sincerely Indifferent to him.
Mrs Stanton was looking favorably
on Preston, the while saying that she
wanted her Nora to marry for love,
and was not in haste to lose her.
Preston understood her perfectly, but
was willing to play blind. If he got
Nora he was willing to pay her moth
er's way to the ends of the earth for
which she longed.
Meanwhile Maxwell Dunn stood
firmly in the exact center of the
friendship garden where Nora had
planted him, while she shifted every
thing and everybody around him at
her own sweet will
Besides Preston and Max there was
the college boy, Perry Poindexter,
who had haunted Nora all summer
and whom she had played as an angler
plays u gamey fish. He was hand
some and dangerous enough to worry
Thomas Preston, which, so far as
Nora was concerned, was his only rea-
son for being! Finally she refused
him to the indignation of Sam and to
the great gratitude of Perry's mamma
who had other plans for her son but
was glad to have him waste his sum-
mer on a girl who would not marry
him. Marriage was all she feared for
Perry.