, 1919-09-11
A Matter Of
Tradition
n
BY DORA NOLAN
Copyright, 1919. by the Mcclure News
paper Syndicate)

Alicia jammed her wide-brlmmed
shade hat an inch farther down on
her well-shaped head and toiled on
through the blistering sum-, up the
grass-grown lane and through the
knee-deep sorrel and daisies. 1t was
with a sigh of grateful relief that she
gained the shade of the pillared porch
of the old Caverly house. The door
stood ajar.
Opening 1t, she peeped into the de
serted mansion and was lured by its
cool shadows. Picking her way care
fully over the uneven flooring, she
passed through the stately olonial en-
rance into a wide hall, thence up H.
somewhat rickety but beautiful stair
case and into a great empty front
chamber.
Here, on a built-in seat by one of
the many-paned windows, from which
the glass had long ago fallen, Alicia
seated herself, removed the wide shade
hat n laid it on the window sill. A
cool breeze from the water rutiled her
fine brown hair. There was no sound
but the drowsy hum Of an occasional
bee and the soft swish-swash of tiny
wavelets on the beach below.
There is a certain sleep-inducing
quality in the early afternoon air of
a midsummer day that is difficult to
resist when one is alone and fairy
breezes caress ones eyes. Alicia didn't
try very hard.
Presently h was thinking in a IN
fused, half-conscious way of the things
that must have happened in this old
house, abandoned now. she had been
told, for twenty-five years. This old
front chamber-how many lives had 1t
welcomed into the world; how many
ushered out? How many young brides
had looked out of this very window
down onto the sparkling ocean?
Alicia's eyes were closed now; she
didn't trouble to open them to see just
how hat sparkling ocean must have
looked to the young brides. The hot
midday air vas an easy victor.
The soft purring of the waves on the
pebbly beach became more insistent;
the tide was rising. With it came a
stronger breeze.
1t lifted Alicia's shade hat and watt
ed it gently down to a resting place
amid the sorrel and daisies. Several
ices investigated its wreath of gay
colored flowers with disappointing re-
sults-and flew away moralizing. no
doubt, on their particular version of
the aphorism All is not gold,' etc.
Alicia slept on.
Somewhere in the direction of the
very rough road from which branched
the grassy lane a new sound o~riginat-
ed. 1t was an alien. mechanical sound.
II the sleeper had awakened she
would have identified it and wondered
q little, perhaps.
A powerful car was passing over
or, rather, through-the abandoned
thoroughfare. A quarter of a mile
from the house it gave up the under
taking and the driver picked his way
up the lane like one unfamiliar with
his surroundings yet not unprepared
for them.
Gaining the level plateau where an
unobstructed view of the old mansion
could be had the young man paused,
n with folded arms stood deep in
the sorrel and daisies. Through wide
set, humorous gray eyes he tool in the
scene before him. Poor Dadi" he
sighed at last, and made his way to-
ward the house.
"Why, even some of the peoples still
growing in front of the house ~ he ex-
claimed. Alicia's hat played its prac-
teal joke for the second time. But
not with such disappointing results
this time to the be-fooled. For Pliny
Couarlv tho Fourth Hanf1al fngtontI-
that he would like a girl who wore a
hat like that-and there might be rea-
o n why it was important that he
should.
Holding the hat gingerly in his hand
Pliny stood still and studied his ances-
trail home at close range. The win
dows over the porch would be in that
front chamber where he was born and
where-but somebody was sitting near
one of them. Just a glimpse of fine
brown hair and a broad forehead. that
vas all but 1t was rather tantalizing
to Pliny-for the reason.
Could it be the girl of the poppy
hat, sitting up there in that historic
front chamber where dad had first
seer his mother, when she had come
from boarding school with dads sister
for a vacation, the chamber that had
been a sort of upstairs sitting room
in those days? He'd see, would Pliny,
right away; 1t was important he
should know. He thought he liked the
soft brown hair and 1t certainly was
a well-modeled forehead, but he knew
he liked the hat and what the hat
whispered of its owner.
1t was very still, that well-shaped
head of which he could get but a
glimpse. Evidently its owner hadn't
noticed his approach. Would it be
possible to gain that room unheard7
he wondered.