Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1913-07-20


to bed every night. and deposited in his wheel chair
every morning. But he had wasted to a shadow, and
it was not hard, really, to handle him. And then he
gave trouble. She had always been strong woman,
and age had not, far impaired her strength much.
After ALL she wasn't very DID, still in the first half of
her sixties.
dull Hiram entertained very little, IN the social
of the word, and never at his house. He
paid his social obligations periodically with dinner at
the hotel He had never, in his best days, been what
would call vivacious. She couldn't think what Ada
had in him that had made her want to marry
him. although of course her resentment over his having
Tilted her for Peter Darvels widowed daughter easy
to understand. Indeed, she shared it herself.
Up to the time when old Peter had had his stroke,
and Hiram had offered her her present position she had
for many years been the principal professional in
the town. not trained nurse in the modern scientific
sense, but the only sort mothers knew She got
money for that than Hiram offered her; but the
life was harder and the expenses more.
If there any feeling in the back of her mind that
the new position might some day give her an oppor-
tuny to up the grudge she bore against old OAR
wells worthy sonnlaw, she not conscious that she
thought of it that way.
1t had really been old Peters fault of course He had
engineered the match between Hiram and Jane. But
the judgment of Heaven had fallen upon him in the
form of the stroke, and that score paid As for
Hram-wel, it Ada herself who had put that idea
into her head
Ada had smiled when she told her about the new posi-
tion,-that grim, hard-fnshed smile of hers-and re-
marked that Hiram had something coming to him some
side. ''O''' -
Old Mrs Harper was secretly proud OF Ada; although
she proessed and with sincerity to disapprove of her.
They hadn't met above half dozen times since Ada
had left Edmonton On those occasions there had
letter with money in it and an invitation to run down
to Chicago or Cleveland or, twice. New York
for little visit As rule these visits conceded with
similar absences Of Ada's husband Ada had certainly
turned fashionable. The like of the clothes she wore
never seen in Edmonton.
1t long time, though all of three four years.
since of these letters had to relieve the ono
ony. And life, as she often complained was dull.
PUT beginning at eleven o'clock on Tuesday night,
= when Hiram came back unexpectedly from Chicago
in very bad temper things began to happen that
not only interesting but IN some cases quite unaccount
able
Hiram's bad temper not anything out of the
ordinary these days. to be He had been blacker
and GUNNER for the last six months than she had
known him before 1t wasn't unusual either that he
should have taken Dr. Aliens message impatiently
He had often said he wished the old doctor would
his father-in-law alone. He didn't need medical atten
tion really, and the old man was simply trying to
up bills.
@Ths time he said it's important, Mrs Harper had
insisted @You were to call him up the very first minute
you got back from Chicago. He said to keep at
you till you did, because it something you'd
to know about
Hiram had looked rather queer at that, she remem-
bered, if for just second he was frightened That
something unusual certainly She had never seen
that sort }, look in his face before 1t gone an
instant, and he said all right, he'd call up quite his
DID, sharp, contemptuous way and moved off then and
there to the telephone.
Mrs Harper would have liked to stay and hear
Hirams end of the talk But just then another unprec
edented thing happened The doorbell rang And it
already after midnight! But that was nothing to
what followed. For the person who had rung the bell
handed in yellow telegraph enveop addressed to Mrs
Harper herself She had never had telegram before
and she signed for it in rather shay way, and shut
the door upon the messenger and then down the
bottom step of the stairs, underneath the redshaded
Something about Ada surely Ada was probably
dead. And she canvassed half dozen possible
of her DEMISE in her mind before she the envelop
open.
But Ada was not dead. Ada was very much alive,
and coming Edmonton. for the TELEGRAM read