The Elk Mountain pilot., 1919-08-14

about wanting to marry any lady.
But Maud at eighteen had definitely
made up her mind. that lurked some
where beneath those soft brown curls,
that she did want to marry. and that
she wanted to marry Rodney Blaine.
though she would have died rather
than to have let any one suspect this.
She had convinced herself-and at
eighteen one convinces oneself of
such matters quite easily-that there
as no hope. She had smiled and
pouted as archly for Rodney as she
had for Tom and Bill and Walter. and
Tom and Bill and Walter had all in
their own way let Maud know that
they found her distracting and that
they dreamed of no greater happiness
than to be her slaves for life.
But Rodney had made no such pro-
testations and though he always asked
for dances when he was about he
managed to dance with other pretty
girls If she refused him.
Maud had thought it all out in her
eighteen-year-old mind. She was quite
sure that the case was hopeless and
that she herself had arrived at the
place where she must decide between
life of resigned spinsterdom or the
alternative of marrying the man she
merely liked.
This man was Walter. Walter had
come up to her mothers country place
to press his suit with considerable per-
sistence. Maud had assured Walter
that she didn't really love him. but had
fibbed in saying that she loved no one
else.
Then she thought it over quite defin-
itely and decided that. as she was
neither musical. artistic nor literary,
and had no sisters or brothers to
whose children she might devote her
self she had better be married, If only
for home and to have some one man
age her affairs. If Walter asked her
again before he went back to the city
she had determined to accept him.
Then came the special messenger
from the post office. ten miles away,
bringing that ten-pound box of the
choicest candy that the most expensive
candy shop in the city had for sale.
Maud opened it. and out dropped a
card that simply bore the engraved
name Of Rodney Blaine. That changed
everything. Walter went back to the
city unrewarded for his trip, inciden-
tally asking another girl to be his wife,
and was accepted.
The same locomotive that bore him
back to the city and away from Maud.
carried letter from Maud to Rodney,
that showed between the lines that she
had been thinking as much Of him AS
the candy showed that he had been
thinking OF her. incidentally. the next
mail carried an Invitation from Maud's
mother to Rodney to spend part of his
vacation Mt their cabin. and-well, 1t
was then that Rodney discovered what
he had been too stupid to guess before,
that Maud really was the most charm
ing girl Of his acquaintance and the
one he had been in love with from the
first.
ut was Uncle Jake that sent that
candy" Rodney told Maud. He was
In one Of his joking moods and he took
your name because 1t was the first
one he came across IN my address
book, then he got hold Of card Of
mine and of went the candy. You see
I had always loved you. Maud. but /
didn't know I had ghost of chance.
I thought you were all in favor of that
Walter Bates. So II 1t hadn't been for
Uncle Jake's tendency to joke, never
would have had the nerve to ask you.
/ never could have guessed how things
were"
Maud wns in reminiscent mood,
that brought to her lips pOut that
was arch and piquant. I'm sorry I
said what did about him. Really 1