The log cabin Democrat., 1916-05-17
LORD OLLIE By IZOLA FORESTER.

We nave been accustomed to hear Ollie speak of the Countess in, well. not exactly friendly or comradely or familiar terms, but as if he knew her pretty we'll For instance, he would say when the mail was brought in:
 Another letter from the Countess. Now I'll get it for not writing" Quite as if it mattered to the Countess whether he wrote or not.
 He had come to the old-fashioned boarding house on West Fifty-fifth street in the summertime. From his tone and words we gathered that he was man of peace and would not go to war, that the Countess disap- proved of his sentiments, and that his | elder brother was fighting somewhere | in France.
 l He was a slim, dark, nice sort of chap, with big, speculative, humorous blue eyes behind eyeglasses. Until Jessica came to stay with us, he had matters his own way in an argument down in the dining room. The rest of us were too hungry and weary to com bat world peace 0Fs anything else
 But Jessica was different Fresh from the West she wis, and thorough ly prepared for war at any moment. She was in the nurses training school, waiting for her chance to go abroad in Red Cross work
 Ollie was all for social evolution. and the two of them would sit and let their dinners grow cold while they thrashed the wars of the nations over and over again. His name, by the way was Oliver Grovesnor. Sometimes his mail came to MT. Oliver Grovesnor and sometimes to Lord Oliver Francis Grovesnor, but we called him Ollie.
 A boarding home is a curious con- monwealth. To save your life you can't help knowing every other body's business. We used to run across the two of them sitting out on the little green wooded bench in the bit of a front yard talking after dinner.
 Then came another letter from the Countess, the first one since Jessica had come to stay. Oliver found it un- der his napkin as usual, glanced at it whimsically, said it was another let ter from the Countess, and that he'd get it for not writing
 And Jessica, being a woman, prompt ly asked who the Countess was. Whereupon Ollie answered simply:
 My mother
 She eyed him from a different as- pect from that moment. At first, with suspicion as if he might be poking fun at her. You see, Jessica came from a small town in South Dakota, and she was twenty-one. She won dered, just as we all had if Ollie were telling the truth.
 Jessica waited until she had him to herself on the green garden bench. She approached the subject of Ollie's connection with the English nobility without fear or compromise
 Is the Countess really your moth err"
 So I have always been told" re- piled Ollie.
 Countess what?' Countess of Walsingham. Her name, though, is Margaret. Margaret Olivia
 T blame you more than ever," she said briefly and tensely. Since you do happen to be born in this particu- lar age and in certain class, you owe it to your times, to the spirit of your times, to stand for the morale of that class"
 Rot" said Ollie, and he opened the last letter from the Countess. She was silent as he read it. Presently he spoke in curious voice, a sort of baf- fled voice, as if fate had handed him foul.
 By Jove!' he said. Poor old Bert!"
 For minute Jessica didn't get the portent of his words, he had spoken so quietly, but she turned her head and saw his face, suddenly sharp and a bit white in the half light.
 Who is he?"
 Ollie stood up.
 I'm going back. She wants me to. My brothers dead"
 And this is the strangest part. AS he stood there looking down in her face, suddenly all the little foolish conventionalities of everyday life dropped from them.
 You're going over there to fight?" she asked
 Of course. Bert died somewhere in France. It isn't so much the war, you understand" His hands clenched at his sides. It's what they've done to him. l want to go and just give it to them for his sake. and my moth CT expects me to-"
 I'm sailing on the 10th" Jessica 1 spoke eagerly. T didn't want to tell you because you had a way of taking all the spirit out of it for me, and | wanted to go the other way-believ- ing in it, mean"
 Wen sail together he told her.