New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1920-09-05

l. ~ love only twice before the
collapse brought on by
Julia Atwater, and though his
mother talked Of organizing o
Young Mems Mothers Club against
Julia, nevertheless she acknowa-
edged that in one solitary way
Noble was being improved by
the experience. His two previous
attacks Zone at twelve, the other
at eighteen) had been incomparably
lighter, and the changes in him,
noted at home, merely a slight gen.
eral irritability and a lack of do
mestic punctuality, due to too much
punctuality elsewhere. But when
his Julia Atwater trouble came the
very first symptom he manifested
was strange new effort to become
beautiful by means of bodily
garnishment, and his mother even
discovered that he worked with
pumice stone upon the cigarette
stains on his fingers. She was
amazed, yet not overgrateful to the
lovely Julia: what had been done
to Noble in every other way was
destructive, and the trial of living
with him in his ruinous state was
too great.
The most curious thing about his
condition was that for a long time
he took it for granted that his
family did not know what was the
matter with him; and this shows as
nothing else could the meekness
and tact Of the Dills; for, excluding
bad cooks and the dangerously in
sane, the persons most disturbing
to the serenity of households are
young lovers. But the world has
had to accommodate itself to them
because young lovers cannot pos
sibly accommodate themselves to
the world. For the young lover
there is no general life of the spe-
cies; for him there are no appalling
spirals evolving in a trillion skies
beyond our own; for him the uni
verse is delicate blush under
single little bonnet. He has no
business except what deals with the
business that goes on under this
bonnet; he has but an irritated per-
ception Of every vital thing in ma
ture except the vital thing under
this bonnet-all else is trivial IN
trusion. But whatever does concern
the centrifugal bonnet, whatever
concerns it in the remotest, faintest,
furthest-ah, then he springs to
life! So Noble Dill sat through
Sunday dinner at home, seemingly
drugged to torpor, while the fam
lily talk went on about him; but
when his father, in the course of
some remarks upon politics, hap
pened to mention the name of the
county treasurer, Charles j. Pat
terson, Mobiles startled attention to
the conversation was so conspicuous
as to be disconcerting. Mrs. Dill
signaled with her head that COM
ment should be omitted, and Mr..
Dill became, for the moment, one
factor in fairly clear example of
telepathic communication, for it is
impossible to believe that his wife's
almost imperceptible gesture was
what caused him to recall that
Charles j. Patterson was Julia Al
waters uncle.
That name, Charles J. Patterson,
coming thus upon Mobiles ears, was
like an unexpected shrine on the
wayside where plods the fanatic pill
grim; and yet Mr.. Patterson was
the most casual of Jula's uncles by
marriage; he neither had nor de-
sired any effect upon her destiny.
To Noble he was ineffably privileged
and fateful. Something of the
same quality invested the wooden
gate posts in front Of the big, hon.
est brick house where Julia lived
with that august old danger, her
father. In general, Noble felt q
warmer something for the gate
posts, however, than he felt for Mr..
Atwater. The latter ins pired Noble
with not only the uncalled-for af-
lection and veneration inevitable
toward Julia's next Of kin, but also
with kind Of horror cue to the ir-
responsible and awful power pos
sessed by sacred girls father. In
sum, Noble loved Mr.. Atwater, but
often, IN his reveries, when he had
rescued him from drowning or being
burned to death, he preferred to
picture the peculiar old mans in
juries as ultimately fatal.
II Julia and all her relatives and
Noble Dill and Mobiles rivals had
happened TO live in Chicago or New
York or Peking, much would have
been differant In New York ner