Courier Democrat. (Langdon, N.D.) 1891-1920, 1918-08-01

age to sleep in the smallest of small
rooms and get breakfast for the price
of three dollars a day. Dinner she
would manage to do without by con-
Stunning crackers and cheese and may
be a ham sandwich from the delica-
lessen shop. She had t%elephoned from
the office to have the room reserved,
ard it was with infinite comfort and
satisfaction that she wended her way
through the crowd, following the mes
senger boy with her bag. Different in
deed was this way Of going home in the
usual neck-to-neck struggle with traffic
on the Peace street cars. It was as If
Peace street were a thousand miles
away, Hortense thought, and as she
inhaled the spring air that was espe-
hyacinths that bloomed in the small
beds in the city park, it seemed as if
she had been transformed as if by
magic. Her gait lost the hardness
characteristic of those who hasten
home at night after a day in the Office.
She told herself that she was walking
on clouds.
Supper alone in her rooms on crack
ers had no special attractions, but she
was thinking of the JOY that she would
experience in having a substantial
breakfast in the hotel dining room.
She would pretend then that she was
at Palm Beach, or at Hot Springs. It
was worth having suffered the tor
ments of wanderlust just for the salts
faction of gratifying theE.
The next morning she felt no BASH
fulness In entering the hotel dining
room alone. She was rather early, for
she wished to allow ample time, and
she had to reach her Office at nine.
She wasted no time in ordering, for
she had made up her mind days before
exactly what she would have each of
the three mornings. This morning 1t
was to be a large baked apple with
cream, preached eggs and coffee and
toast. The baked apples in Peace
street were never large or juicy, and
the eggs were always scrambled.
Probably Peace street eggs were bet
ter that way. Perhaps not the least
delightful feeding that entered into
her perfect bliss was one of outlines.
She felt, in a way, that she was doing
something reckless. That added the
element of spice to her adventure. She
felt that If Mrs. Buttersby saw her
there eating cream on her baked ap-
pies and eating also a poashed egg,
she would be furious with her. What
If n of the boarders saw her and told
Mrs. Buttersby? What excitement!
But then Mrs. Buttersby's boarders
breakfasted at the Morton
House. 1t was really as If she were
at Palm Beach.
Just hen she looked up and she &C
tually looked into the face of Matthew
Watts. He was sitting at a table not
twenty feet away. He, too, was eating
cream on baked apples, and the waiter
was in the act Of placing a covered
platter before him. BE raised the pew.
ter cover and there were two poached
eggs. Hortense looked away and then
she looked toward him and she smiled.
OF course she had recognized him.
and Of course she blushed. Then she
looked back at her plate and she didn't
look again.
But the next day when she entered
the dining-room Matthew Watts was
waiting for her, and without giving her
time to accept his suggestion, he led
the way to a table where he had ar
ranged that they both should sit.
"Now, tell me all about it." he be-
gan, looking at her across the table.
II came here to get away from Peace
street, and Peace street follows me-"
"Oh, you didn't knowY" she asked.
"Of course you didn't. Well, it was
this way. Perhaps 1 am very silly, but
when it is spring Peace street seems
very dingy. I am filed with strange,
restless, unsatisfied little feelings and
well, this spring l thought If !
couldn't really go away from the city.
[ could 60 away from Peace street for
a few day. So 1 came here"
$50 you felt the spring in the air,
too, did you?" he asked, jabbing his
snonn. into the grapefruit that the