The Watertown weekly leader. [volume] (Watertown, Jefferson County, Wis.) 1912-1917, 1914-08-04

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even faint when feel like It, without
calling out the fre-brigade? You'll
pamper me to death and heaven knows
don't need It,"
"You won't let me telephone for Doc
tor Southall?"
Certainly not!
And you are sure it was nothing
but the roses?"
why, what else should it be?" said
her mother almost paevishly Il must
really have the arbors thinned out. On
heavy nights it's positively overpower-
Ing. Go along now. and well talk
about 1t tomorrow. I can ring II
want anything"
In her room Shirley undressed
thoughtfully. There was between her
and her mother fine tenuous bond
Of sympathy and feeling as rare, per.
haps, as it was lovely. She could not
remember when the other had not
been a semi-invalid, and her earliest
childhood recollections were punctu-
ated with the tap of the little cane.
Tonsght's sudden indisposition had
| shocked and disturbed her; to faint
TT rush of perfume seemed to sug-
, EST growing weakness that was
alarming. Tomorrow, she told herself,
she would send Ranston with wagon
load of the roses to the hospital at
Charlottesville.
she slipped on pink shellshaded
| dressing-gown OF slinky elk with
riot of azaleas scattered in the weave,
and then, dragging her chair before
the open window, drew aside the light
| curtain and began to brush her hair.
All at once her gaze fell upon the
floor, and she shrank backward from q
| twisting thread like thing whose bright
safron-yellow glowed sharply against
the dark carpet. She saw In an in
more dangerous than a fragment of
love-vine from the garden, which had
chung to her skirt. She picked up
the tiny mass OF tendrils and with
slow smile tossed it over her right
shoulder through the window. IF it
takes root" she said aloud, my sweet
heart loves me-" She leaned from the
sill to peer down into the misty gar
| den, but could not follow its fall.
Long ago her visitor would have
reached Damory Court. She had
vision of him wandering, candle in
hand, through the empty echoing
rooms, looking at the voiceless por-
traits On the walls, thinking perhaps
of his father, of the fatal duel of which
he had never known. She liked the
way he had spoken of his father!
AS she leaned, out Of the stiffness
| there came to her ear a mellow sound.
1t was the bell of the courthouse in
the village. She counted the strokes
falling clearly or family as the slug
| gish breeze ebbed or swelled. It was
eleven.
She drew back. dropped the curtain
to shut out the wan glimmer, and in
the darkness crept into the soft bed
as If into a hiding-place.
y -
A warm sun and an air mildly mel
low. A faint gold-shadowed mist over
the valley and soft lilac haze blend
ing the rounded outlines Of the hills.
Through the shrubbery at Damory
Court a cardinal darted like a GRIM
son shuttle, to rock impudently from
fleering limb, and here and there
on the bluish-ivory sky, motionless as
pasted wafer, hung hawk; from
time to time one of these wavered and
slanted swiftly down. to climb once
more in huge spiral to its high tower
of sky.
Perhaps it wondered, as its tele-
scopic eye looked down. That had
been its choicest covert, that dishev-
eIeds tangle where the birds held per
petual carnival, the weasel lurked in
the underbrush and the rabbit lined
his windfall. Now the wildness was
gone A pergola, glistening white, now
upheld the runaway vines, making q
sickle-like path from the upper ter
race to the lake. In the barn loft the
pigeons still Quarrelled over their new
cotes of fresh pine, and under clump
| of locust trees at little distance from
the house, q half-dozen dolls cabins
ON stills stood waiting the honey-stor-
age of the black and gold bees.
There we're new denizens, also.
These had arrived In dozen zinc
tanks and willow hampers, to the
amaze of sleepy express clerk at the
railroad station: two swans nc sailed
majestically over the lily-ponds of the
lake, along its gravel rim and pair
of bronze-colored ducks waddled and
preened, and its placid surface rppled
and broke to the sluggish backs OF
goldfish and the flirting fms OF red
Japanese carp.
The house itself wore another air.
Its look OF unkemptness had largely
vanished. The soft gray tone OF age
remained, but the bleakness and for
lornness were gone; there was about
ali now a warmth and genial bearing
that limited at mellowed beauty, fire.
light and cheerful voices within.
Valiant heaved long sigh Of salts
faction as he stood In the sunlight gax-
ing at the results Of hts labors- He
was not now the fippant boulevardier
to whom money was the sine qua non
Of existence. He had learned q soyer-
eign lesson-one gained not through