Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1917-10-12

A Story of Romance Yer
sus the Practical.
By ALAN HINSDALE

OF all the girls of our bunch l pre-
ferred Gwen Meriweather. Gwen had
character stamped In her face as plain
ly as the word may be printed. But
she was, or seemed to me to be, devoid
of sentiment. / was full of it. fell
In love with her, and since she was de-
void of what was born in me l endow-
ed her with it. For this purpose I had
plenty of Imagination and succeeded In
covering her with an ideaity which
she did not possess.
1t Is said, and l believe 1t, that OPP
posites are readily attracted to each
other. At any rate, Gwen and l pair
ed off. 1t was not long before l was
making love at high pressure. Gwen
did not seem averse to listening to ny
rhapsodies, but she made no return In
kind. Besides, she showed her matter
o~f-factness in other ways. For in
stance, | gave her a book rack, hand
somely inlaid, one of those con-
triyances to put on a stand to hold a
dozen or SO choice books. No long
afterward her little brother knocked
1t off the stand and broke it. l told
Gwen that | would have 1t mended
for her. She said hat it would cost
more to mend 1t than 1t would be
worth.
This reply was a great shock to me
/ had supposed that the gift, coming
from me, would be of inexpressible
value to her. Gwen looking at it In a
pecuniary way rather than prizing 1t
as an expression of my tender feelings
for her seemed to me to be barbarous.
1 made no complaint. l simply went
off and nursed my wound.
When I entered seriously with Gwen
into a discussion of a future together
she again threw a damper on me. She
~poo-poohed my talk about love In a
cottage-poverty she called it-and
brought up many objections to a
match between us. l was so inflated
by my omance that nothing seemed to
stand In the way of III union. l told
her that with love in u hearts OBJ
jections were of no moment whatever.
Her reply was, when poverty comes
In at the door love flies out of the win
dow"
This was all the more chilling to me
because there were no important world
ly reasons why Gwen and | should not
be married. / was In receipt of an in
come on property to enable us to live
comfortably. l had, besides, a good
salary and was advancing as rapidly
as was to be expected. I have noticed
that women have a way or saying one
thing and meaning another. Owens
real objection to marrying me came out
in good time. She saw plainly that l
had set her upon a pedestal as an OBJ
ject of worship, and she feared that
when the time came-as 1t inevitably
must come-for taking down the gilded
image and putting up one Of flesh and
blood my love would not prove to be
of the kind to endure the change.
This was the way Gwen expressed
1t to me: .sYou have mistaken me-"
she said. You consider me generous,
unselhsh. On the contrary, l am mean
and never give anything away that 1
want myself. Besides, I have traits,
inherited from my ancestors, that
would turn any nan from me whose
love was of the most substantial kind"
/ was a bit staggered by this confess
sion, but not for long. My optimistic
disposition rose above fear that l would
not love Gwen even If she were all she
painted herself, and 1 told her SO In
most impa ssioned words, at the same
time lavishing upon her an abundance
of caresses. But she d~isengaged her
self from me, avowing that at the first
sign of a real fault in her my caresses
would turn to expressions of contempt.
One day when Gwen and | were
walking together we came to a fruit
stand kept by a poor who was
evidently obliged to keep her little
child with her while selling her goods.
Gwen took a fancy to some apples and
asked the woman their price. Instead
of paying it Gwen ~endeavored to beat
the vendor down and, failing to do SO,
walked on without buying. 1 was SO
filled with commiseration for a woman
whose sphere in life condemned her to
make her living in such an humble
way, especially as she vas obliged to
keep a hungry looking child with her
while doing so, that Iwould have been
glad to pay double the price she asked
for her apples.
l said nothing to Gwen about the
matter then, but l thought a great
deal. After all, was she not right In
asserting that after we were married
her faults would come up to make trou-
BILE between us? She had said that she
was very mean and when a time came
had not %scrupled to show that mean
ness. While 1 was repealed at her
fault, l could not but admire her frank
ness and her wisdom at h~esitating to
marry a nan who was ignorant Of it.
Gwen and | were invited to spend a
couple of weeks in midsummer at the
country residence of a friend of hers.
Gwen and Miss Emily Tucker had been
schoolmates, and l did not doubt that