The Mena weekly star., 1917-09-13

rapher in her fathers office. Scarcely equal either. for the stenographer earn ed her bread and was technically equip ped for the task, whereas Estella Ben ton had no training whatsoever except In social usage. She did not yet fully realize just what had overtaken her Things had happened so swiftly. so ruthlessly that she still verged upon the incredulous. Habit clung fast. But she had begun to think, to try and es- tablish some working relation between herself and things as she found them. She had discovered already that cer- tain theories of human relations are not soundly established in fact.
 She turned at last in her seat The Limited's whistle had shrilled for a stop. At the next stop-she wondered what lay in store for her just beyond the next stop While she dwelt men tally upon this her hands were gather ing up some few odds and ends of her belongings on the berth
 Across the aisle large. smooth faced young man watched her with covert admiration. When she had settled back with bag and suit case locked and strapped on the opposite seat and was halted and gloved he leaned over and addressed her genially:
 Getting of at Hopyard? Happen to be going out to Roaring Springsy'
 Miss Benton's gray eyes rested in- v fFt h. aF l.f eled slowly down over the trim front of his blue serge to the polished tan OK lords on his feet, and there was not fin eyes or on countenance the slightest sign that she saw or heard him. The large young man flushed a vivid red
 Miss Benton was partly amused, part ly provoked. The large young man had been her vis-a-vis at dinner the day be- fore and at breakfast that morning. He had evinced yearning for conver- sation each time but it had been dip lomaucally confined to salt and other condiments, the weather and the seen cry Miss Benton had no objection to young men in general, quite the con trary, but she did not consider 1t quite the thing to countenance every amiable stranger
 Within few minutes the porter came for her things, and the blast of the Limited's whistle warned her that 1t was time to leave the train. Ten minutes later the limited was a van ishing object down an aisle slashed through a forest of great trees and Miss Estella Benton stood on the plank platform in Hopyard station.
 Beside the platform were ranged two touring cars. Three or four of those who had alighted entered these. Their baggage was piled over the hoods, buckled on the running boards. The driver of one car approached her. Hot Sprlngsg' he inquired tersely.
 She affirmed this, and he took her baggage, likewise her trunk check when she asked how that article would be transported to the lake. She had some brothers written instruction. but she thought he might have been there to meet her At least he would be at the Springs.
 So she was whirled along a country road, jolted in the tonneau between a fat man from Calgary and a rheumatic dame on her way to take hot sulphur baths at St Allwoods She passed seedy farmhouses, primitive in con struction, and big barns with moss plentifully clinging on roof and gable The stretch of charred stumps was left far behind but in every field of grain and vegetable and root great butts Of fir and ceaar rose amid the crops, Her first indefinitely agreeable impression of this land, which so far as she knew must be her home, was of those huge and numerous stumps contending with crops for possession of the fields.
 At first she had been overpowered with a sense of insignificance utterly foreign to her previous experience, but now she discovered with an agreeable sensation of surprise she could vibrate to such a keynote. And while she communed with this pleasant discov- cry the ear sped down a straight stretch and around corner and stop ped short to unload sacks of mall at a weather beaten yellow edifice, it's win aows displaying indiscriminately In dian baskets. groceries and hardware. Northward opened broad scope of lake level, girt about with tremendous peaks whose lower slopes were banked with thick forest
 Somewhere distant along that lake shore was to be her home. As the car rolled over the 400 yards between store and white and green St. Allwoods she wondered if Charlie would be there to meet her. She was weary of seeing strange faces, of being directed, of be- ing hustled about.
 But he was not there, and she re- called that he never had been notable for punetuaSty Five years is long ume. She expected to find him changed flor the better, in certain directions. He had promised to be there, but in this respect time evidently had wrought no appreciable transformation.
 PEACE IN 2i HOURS.
 for Stomach Sufferers who take Mayr's s