Connecticut western news., 1916-06-01
- A Misapprehensiion By WILLIAM CHANDLER

the hotel where stopped if there was a free library in the place. He direct ed me to one of the most attractive little buildings ever saw. in the cen ter of grove. I went there and nosed over the fiction shelves for awhile and finally took down novel.
 On turning the leaves a bit of paper fitted to the floor. picked it up and. seeing some words written on it in pencil. read them:
 Ten years today since Frank left us, and l am no more reconciled to his ab- sence than the day after his departure. Oh, the long, long, weary day!
 ALICE.
 Now, there was something in this that fitted me. My name is Frank Tisdale. Twelve years before had accepted d position in commission house in Hongkong and gone out there to make my fortune. I returned on a visit after eight years sojourn in Chi ma and never went back. l was twen- ty years old when I left home, and among the girls to whom l said good by was one Alice Ringold. But l was not aware that I was any more to her than any other young man.
 I took the book and the paper to the librarian. telling her that had found the one ia the other. She said that re- turned books were apt to have varie- ty of articles in them, usually put there in lieu of a book mark. 1 asked her if such articles were returned, and her reply was, sometimes" l requested that if she returned the paper l had left with her to the person who had written 1t she would let me know. 1 left with her a postage stamp and my address.
 Not very long after my return to my home I received a letter from the librarian announcing that she had found the Alice whose name was ap- pended to the writing on the paper had discovered. The lady had dropped it into the book which was lying open on a table, some one else had closed the book, and it had been returned to the library with the slip in it. The librarian gave the name. Alice Rim gold.
 Now, had passed the age of thirty, supposing that no woman had shown any predisposition toward me. l WI on the verge of middle age, with no one to care for me. and now accident ally I had discovered that girl from whom I had parted a dozen years be fore had been mine for the asking dur ing the whole of that period. I remem- bered Alice Ringold, a shy little thing, so young that I would not have be- lieved she could love any man. She could not at the time have been more than fifteen.
 Here was a chance to break away from the bachelorhood into which fate seemed to have thrown me. would renew my acquaintance with Alice Ringold, and if she was of the same mind-and from the recent date of what she had written 1t was likely that she was-I might settle myself in a home under the same advantages as pertained to youth. But I must con- trive to make the meeting appear ac- cidental
 She had removed from the town where she had lived to Acland, and there I went. Having learned where her home was situated, set out to fin her, proposing to make up story as to how l had come to know of her being in Acland. Just before reaching the house young woman came out of the front door and in another moment met me face to face.
 She was Alice Ringold. Between six teen and twenty-siX there is not so as between twenty-six and thrty-siX At any rate, there was enough left of the girl I had known for me to recog- nize her. stopped, lifted my hat and spoke to her. She looked at me, and l saw at once that she knew me.
 Alice RingOld?' l asked.
 Yes; and you are Frank Tisdale."
 Singular that you should know me after so many years absence"
 No more singular than that you should know me"
 II have been wondering what had become of you since my return tu America. l have been hunting you for months"
 She cast her eyes down just as she did when she was little more than child. She was going to the village. and l walked beside her. told her of the many tjmes I had thought of her during my absence in the east and how had longed that fate should have brought us together again.
 With that slip of paper in my pos session I had all the boldness of Il grcnadier. made rapid progress, speaking more and more plainly in my lovemaking as l advanced. When parted with her I told her I would sec her in the evening, and when the evening came. having gone through the preliminaries. I proposed to her.
 She said it was very sudden and a great surprise to her. smiled inward ly at this, thinking of the paper I had found. However. after little coyness