The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1918-10-24
Brand, who at that very moment came
StrOlling toward her,

Brand, who at that very moment came
strOlling toward her.
81 hoped I'd find you-aren't you GO
ing to ask me to sit DOWN. Then he
sat down anyway. 1t was quite start
ling and very exciting. He questioned
her and leased her, treated her just
as if she weren't Van Wye and sa-
cred-just as If she were a girl whom
he liked.
Lets walk" he finally said, rising
and catching her by the hands to draw
her to her feet. He was like that
just sudden and abruptly insistent-it
took GATHERINGS breath completely
away. And the color came into her
cheeks and lips, and animation to her
eyes. She fairly sparkled in response
to his vital presence, and she complete
ly forgot herself and her aunts and ira
dition.
So it went. She met him many
times Apparently by accident, but
really by arrangement, although Cath
crime herself never fully realized this.
And suddenly her aunts noticed a
change in her. She grew rounder,
color became pronounced, her lips were
red always and her eyes danced on the
slightest pretext. The aunts were per-
picked until one evening Catherine was
late to dinner. She had been out all
afternoon in the car. Jim Brand had
given John IS, and they had left John
~; xxrhi fnoIy hn
wheel, with Catherine in the seat be-
side him. Together all afternoon they
had breezed along through the coun-
try recklessly happy. Hence Gather
ines lateness to dinner.
At the Van Wye table that night
there was less conversation than usual.
The aunts were uneasy. GATHERINGS
father had been little wild in his
youth, and the aunts wondered vague
ly until Catherine arose from the table
with little smile.
"Aunt Belinda, were you ever
grabbed suddenly by nice young man
and Rugged close up to his heart and
kissed ever so many times right on the
mouth before you realized what was
happenings"
"Whatever put such notions into
your head, Catherine Van Wye? Ger
tainly mott" said Aunt Belinda, Sc
verely.
"Then I feel very sorry for you,
Aunt Belinda" said Catherine, de-
murely, "for you have missed some
thing"
"Catherine" chorused the Mortified
aunts in despair, but their terrible
niece had danced toward the telephone.
And an hour later Jim Brand was
playing ragtime on GATHERINGS piano
while that young woman stood behind
him and patted the syncopated time
on his broad shoulders, occasionally
leaning down to rub her smooth cheek
against his, while in the room above
those maiden ladies, her aunts, COM
muned in solemn conference.
'And he's just common country
boy who happens to go to college"
said Aunt Melvina.
81 don't see what we can do about
It," said Aunt Belinda helplessly;
"she's twenty-one and has the Van
Wye willfulness!"
And every now ard then Catherine
Van Wye unexpectedly launches her
agile young body like a catapult upon
her surprised husband and hugs his
head savagely to her breast, murmur-
ing: "And they would have cheated
me out of this! Cheated me out of
life, and love, and you-you common
person."
But Jim Brand only grins and gives
his ardent wife proper kissing, which
vulgar practice, 1 regret to say, seems
to agree with the last of the patrician
Van Wyes.