The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1921-05-17
Chapter 68.
MYRA'S IDEAS.

Duncan O'Niel recovered. That is,
he lay fat in bed, and he looked al
most as lifeless as the morning when
Ruth rushed home at her mothers
summons. But the big soul in the lit
tie body was outward bound, and even
as inexperienced an eye as Ruth's
could see that.
But affairs retured more or less to
normal. There were no boarders in
the house now, their noise and their
presence had always annoyed the SEN
sitive nerves of the man, and now
that he was ill the whole place was
kept quiet for him. The nurse stayed
on some weeks.
Though l don't see as she's any
good and she costs s25 week, Mrs.
ONiel was apt to grumble.
She is useful, and DR.. Lane wants
her. and I can manage the money"
Ruth answered.
But by and by even she could be
dispensed with, and Mrs. O'Niel could
take her place.
Meantime the autumn had gone and
winter had set in. The building of the
cottages was delayed by bad weather,
but some progress was made. BY
spring. the whole addition" was to go
through on a big scale. The cottages
now under way were to help house
the very builders who were to con-
struct the model factory town.
And Duncan O'Niel lay in the huge
bed. a shrunken little figure under the
bedclothes. Ruth had bought him a
table to hold books, that tipped up,
supporting the book so he could see
it, and that extended over the bed so
the page was convenient to read, and
he need not hold the volume This in.
genious article Of furniture was his
constant joy.
For though the body was failing
rapidly, the mind was as keen and
clear as ever, and for that Ruth was
eternally thankful Three evenings a
week she was reading law with the
one prosperous lawyer in the little
town, but as this did not take more
than an hour or so. there was always
time to chat with her father and 10
read TO him after she got back.
They read a great deal together
LoLg before, when she was a child
they had gone through the youthful
classics: later they had read the best
Of the standard men, from Scott and
Thackeray, TO some Of our own earlier
men, Fenimore Cooper Hawthorne
and OF course. the best of the poets
He had trained her in Shakespeare
since she was a child when she reao
Lambs Tales. and later the plays
themselves. and lately she had beer
getting the other Eliza bethan drama
lists from the library and reading
Beaunonet and Fletcher, John Ford
and others One summer day they hac
read French writer's. though the
library possessed but few translations
and once they had purchased the bes'
Of the Russian novelists' works
So the girl had an extraordinarily
good fund of culture and knowledge
from her fathers bookish training;
culture that gave her an Impotence
with the literary taste, or lack of it
that existed among her comrades.
Duncan decided it was time they
read up some of the newer writer's, 81
Ruth. glad she had the money. sen
for kipling, Moore, Conrad. Wells
Chesterton, Harrington. and others o
what her father called the moderns;
delighting in the fact that she could
afford this gift to him.
So, living in constant anxiety, al
most dreading the ring of the phon'
bell in her office, she read and WORKED
ana planned, ana occasionally Canc et
and rode, while Christmas came ant
went.
And once more Myra wrote:
I've been thinking how dull it mus
be at home was one of her first sen
fences. Mother doesn't give mucl
news, she says she hardly sees you
that you're busy working and tina
Your fathers worse.
~
mother told you when the baby came
but as she says she hasn't seen 70
and as I've stopped writing to every
one else at home, thought you Nigh
not know. It's a boy, and was bor1
in November, and we called him Tin
of course. | think I'll call him Junior
instead of Tim. I think that's quit
smart, don't you? | believe all tn
fashionable people use it, when th
Ions are named for The fathers. II
looks like Tim, too, and when b
laughs his eyes squint up in such
funny fashion"
The girl had to stop reading for
moment. She thought she had stifle
her love for this man until Myra's lie
tiers brought it up again And Away
the letters brought it up in a ne7
form. One letter had come when the
were engaged, when Ruth felt Xix
an outsider, and bitterly resented tn
fact that her home necessity had mad
her lose the chance TO keep Tin
love. She was, indeed love hungl
when she read that letter
Then C2mc the letter about thei