Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1916-07-28

oh" SAID JOANNA Imply. IT'S your
sometimes with the other guests at
the hotel, more often alone. Doubt
less In the opportunities for reflection
thus afforded her she was reaching
conclusions concerning her future.
A few weeks later Joanna was walk.
ing with quick. nervous, determined
steps through the wood behind the
hotel. AS she swung into the path
toward the camp of the man Friday
she flushed to her temples. She kept
repeating to herself what a woman on
the piazza had said last n~ight-"the
sort of young person who picks up &C.
quaintances in haphazard style"
She walked on bravely and directly.
She had never gone unaccompanied
beyond the crossroads since the first
day. He had always met her, by a
happy chance, somewhere on the hills.
He looked up at the sound Of her ap-
proach and sprang to his feet, to come
hastily and happily toward her.
you said yesterday that you would
not come out with me today" he cried,
"or I should have been lurking about
In the woods
~ know. But I've Gomez
She spoke heavily and paused. Then
she hurried on quickly.
i've just come to my Senses" she
said. Twelve been crazy-this last
month-crazy with freedom and OBJ.
stinacy.
you've been the most
mo, no. Don't stop me. I want to
say 1t all and go away. I've acted
the way 1 have. I've picnicked with
you, fshed with you. tramped with
you, a stranger, out of brayado and
"Was it nothing but bravadoT" ask
ed the man Friday, very pale himself
now.
"Oh, yesi The sweetness of it, the
beauty of it can't say what l mean,
but it was like dewy mornings. oh,
I've liked it, I've liked it very much
and it never seemed to me for a min
ute horrid and common and vulgar.
But last night I began to see how you
must think Of 1t, of me-
"Have l done anything to make you
believe that l thought anything I'M
worthy of"-he hesitated and looked
at her, her looked around him-"of
this?"
mo, no! But you might some time
come to think of me as"-
what l think of you now / shall
think of you always. And that is this
oh, child, don't you know? That you
are the one woman for me-the one
woman? If you reproach yourself for
u meetings I am to blame. l should
have told you who 1 was, should have
gone to that gossiping old hostelry of
yours and met you with all the rites
no, hang it, 1 should not have done
anything of the sort! Why should l
have spoiled an idyi? 1 didn't want
you to know who I was at first. 1t
makes an immediate difference In peo-
pies attitudes to learn that n is a
clergyman. I wanted to be just a fell
low human for awhile-just a man.
What is the matter, child, my dearT'
For Joanna, after one wild look at
him, had burst into a hysterical laugh,
1t ended In a sob, smothered on his
shoulder.
"Yes'-the Rev. Elijah spoke to a
congratulatory caller with a certain
pompous placidity-"yes, Joanna is tr
leave us. OF course you have heard OF
DR.. Graham's work In New York;
They tell me that his city missionary
program Is the finest n there He is
young to be rector of so important a
church as St Jude's on the avenue
OF ~course"-and the Rev. Elijah sigh
ed-"we could have wished that he
was of our own denomination. but the
affections cannot be coerced, you
know. And Joanna's life work as his
wife win be a very earnest one. None
Of our children, we are. humbly proud
30 say, has failed to find q useful. Sc
Nous mission in the world"