Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1914-04-21

never to see him again. that he need
not dare to come to see me: that |
would return unanswered anything he
wrote! Then, without telling my
mother why. coaxed to 60 for visit
to 2 cousin.
II went. In few days my mother
died of heart failure, and ! hurried
home. After the funeral and the
trouble was over | remembered my
lover He had gone to Canada. new
'er saw or heard from him again"
"What-a shame!" murmured Eu-
genia Howard.
The older woman showed a placid
face. She rose and pulled at a grow.
ing vine.
1T wasn't--just losing him. she
said 1T was knowing that his feeling
for me was just a caprice, and that he
was sorry he had asked me to marry
him; that he took. the silly, exagger-
ated confession of my past half-love,
pitifully innocent, for another man, for
an excuse to jilt me! He was not
worth it, of course; but it nearly killed
me! l would feel bitter, even now,
if knew he had a worthy reason for
his treatment of me, or If he had been
man enough to tell me straight out!
A note like my last one should have
made him seek me out in spite of my
self! He might have come! At least,
he might have written!" Her tone was
la little angry and spirited.
Something you don't know may
have happened" answered Mrs. How
ard. gently. Things happen to men,
too. l have an uncle who has never
married. My mother told me little
about it. The girl did not answer his
letters; her father. in her name. sent
him from the door without explana-
ton, and she finally dismissed him in
a MOTEL imagine something like the
note you say you wrote. Don't mis-
judge him."
II have waited twenty years for
him to clear himself said Miss Cor
nelia. II think that is enough. l shall
never mention him again. don't see
why I have at all--but somehow you
made me, with your bright eyes ques-
tioning me! Shall | get you q wrap?
1t is chilly for May"
The matter of Miss Cornelia's love
was not mentioned again, but the
young wife and her husband came very
close to her heart. They appealed to
her latent desire to mother something.
She advised, helped. took them through
several little crucial times. One of
these was quarrel, very slight, when
they were fixing up room for Eu-
genia's uncle to come and stay with
them. Young Howard wanted the old
er man to come-the invitation had
come from him, made and accepted for
a month. The quarrel was some silly
little thing about furnishing the room,
but the young wife spent the better
part of two days in tears about It,
Finally Cornelia Braden marched over
and in her militant fashion inquired
into the trouble.
That evening she waited until she
saw Howard enter and followed him.
Don't be-idiots!" she said to both
of them. "He doesn't want you to tire
yourself out making chintz hangings,
and you ought to let him worry about
you. He likes it! She likes to fuss
for her uncle, and you ought to let her
"a woman has to fuss, Kiss and make
up, silly children!"
A week later, on night train, came
the uncle. Miss Cornelia, wakened
from her sleep by the welcome almost
beneath her window. wished the old
man--she had somehow taken his age
for granted-in Halifax. and before
dropping of again remembered that
on the morrow she must unbox, air
and repack certain of her fathers gar
ments which she had not in the two
years since his death had the heart
to touch.
Good as her intention she began her
day early. 1t was June, balmy dewy
and sweet. Evidently the Towards
were not up yet. Cornelia Braden.
for all her forty years, was good to
look upon as she emerged into her
grassy back yard, carrying an armful
of faded black clothing. Her morning
dress was crisp and blue, her firm
fleshed face rosy, her eyes bright.
There was hardly a gray hair in her
rudy crown of hair. With her back
to the Howard cottage she pinned the
old fashioned coats and trousers to the
line and began brushing away at them.
II the neiyhbors had not all been
sleepy-heads, they might have seen
Romanae. For a mans head, slightly
touched with gray, thrust itself from
the newly furnished Howard guest
room. A pair of broad shoulders be-
came visible, gray-clad, manly. The
strangers gray eyes perceived Cor
nelia Braden at her work, stared at
her, continued to stare. But she did
not note.
Like all good housewives, she was
fighting dirt. She seized a coat, shook
1t, sneezed, and shook it again, this
time upside down. A number of pa.
pers and letters fell to the grass. She
stopped and picked them up, turning
them over. The stranger still gazed
at her.
There was something queer in her
attitude. She stood looking down at
the letters. one hand raised to her
head, and then she gave little moan
and sat down in the wet grass, put
ting both hands over her face, the
letters in her lap, her blue dress
crushed in folds about her.
The man next door came quickly
/ through the window leaped the low
stone fence, and stood above her.
"Cornelia, Cornelia he said, in the
deep voice that she might have recog-
/ nized the night before. "Cornelia!"