The Ekalaka eagle. [volume] (Ekalaka, Mont.) 1909-1920, 1914-01-23

custom of her childhood, she became
the companion anC %confidante of Mr..
Percival, a pleasant, con- rsational,
good natured sort of a man. who liked
companionship. especially Of the youth
full female kind.
Sometimes she went for walks with
him in the luiet squares or she sat
with him, or she read with him. or
even she went to the theater with him,
in a manner which would have been
compromising to the last degree in
some circles, but in Elsie's. which car
hardly be called a circle and yet was
not a sQuare-perhaps a crescent, an
oblong-it didn't matter. She had no
friends who would inquire what We're
Mr.. Percival's intentions and, indeed,
at present he had none, because Elsie
seemed to him still the child he re-
membered when he was last in Lon
don and because he was without an in
come and was feeling his way along
the thorny path of literature, dream
ing and devising great things and
meanwhile thinking himself lucky
when he had a book tossed to him for
review or got an article accepted.
AS for falling in love with Elsie,
that, if you please, no more entered
into his mind than into hers. He was
ten years older than herself, which at
eighteen seems a frightful difference.
She knew, besides, that he was al
ready in love with 4 young lady as
beautiful as a queen, whom he could
never marry by reason Of One Tom,
who somehow stood in the way.
; This young lady was in England, hav-
pany, but he did not so to see her be-
cause, Elsie thought, he felt that it
would be a pity for him to get more
entagled in this hopeless labyrinth Of
love.
Besides. a literary man wants to
keep his brain clear, and in that novel
he was writing, from which he read to
her sometimes in the evening, there
was a man so madly in love with a
young lady whom both hero and To-
elist thought perfect, yet who seemed
to Elsie a whimsical woman, that
AAClClt " l)olLldS AlS ClllOllOl1S IL was
necessary for the mind of the writer
to be quite free from any troubles of
it's own. The fullest and largest sym
pathy was required for love Of this
passionate kind. When the work was
completed it would be time to visit
Nirginie, whose Christian name Elsie
had heard many hundreds Of times.
She shook her head, criticising the
chapter.
Il suppose it is a powerful scene,'
she said. But, you know, they
wouldn't really go on like that. No
body possibly could"
What would they do, them"
"Oh, don't know! They would fee
angry and disappointed with eacl
other. Then they would go away ane
break things off, l suppose"
1T is clear to ME, my child, tina
YOU have o the faintest conception
of the passion of love. How SHOULD
YOU" he sighed. "For my own part
l have experienced. l portray, witt
: a change of name, my own feeling
) toward Nirginie."
| OH She laughed the laugh o
the doubter. Your passion, indeed
But you have grown desperate. an
, you-why, you go on as happily as l
you had no passion"
profound student of human ma
l ture. Remember that it is the prov
:. ince Of art not so much to present na
. turc faithfully as to present things a
= they should happen, but don't Natur
- IS flat. Situations are wasted. In req
q life, my child, events do not happe
dramatically, nor are the right thin:
q said at the right moment. Real lii,
Elsie, is apt to be dull'-
a Horribly dull" said the philos.
d pher Of eighteen. ''Frightfully du
sometimes. Want Of change seems I
me the worst thing Of all. Loo
r ut my poor father. He was born i
d ! London, he lived in London, aud |