The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1922-12-08

among the graveStOneS down hlll laid hand on his broken, shambling figure, and he became a shadow Once the shadow stumbled. And as if that distant, awkward act had aroused Mary from 0 kind of Iethargy, she broke forward 2 step, reaching out her arms.
 "JoshuaI" she called to him, Joshua, Joshua, come backi"
 In the last faint light from the sky where stars began to come, her face was wet with tears of pity and repentance; pity for the man who had walled himself in with that memory; repentance for the sin of her blindness.
 'JOshuaI" she called again, but he did not seem to hear.
 It was too much for me. Feel ing more shame than I can tell. and with it a new gnawing bitter ness of jealousy, I sneaked out of hiding by the Lillian" stone and down the Dome toward the mooTs. r"Good Grandmother! I know I grew redder and redder as walked. 'I hope I don't have to see her again-the old thingI"
 But I did, and that before many minutes had elapsed. For fetching back into the village by the ice house and the back-side track, I was almost in collision with q hurrying shade in the dark under Dow's willows. It was Mary. shall not forget the queer moment of suspense as she peered into my face, nor the touch of her fingers on my arm, nor the sigh.
 'Oh-yOu're-you're the Means boy"
 An embarrassment, pathetic only now in memory, came upon her.
 'I-I wonder Her cOnfuSion n grew more painful and her eyes went everywhere in the dark. You don't happen to have seen any one-any-you haven't seen MT, Blake.. have you?"
 "NO!" I shook off the hand that still lay, as if forgotten, on my out ragged arm- What do you want of him? He's no goodi"
 With that shot for parting turned and staIked away. Be hind me after a moment, I heard her cry of protest. dismal beyond words.
 Why do you say that, boy? What do you mean by that?"
  cept that I would have slain him gladly, kept my bitter peace and held my way to the westward, leaY- ing her to find her way and her soul in the blind, black shadows under the willow-trees.
 No one who liver in Urkey Vil- 1age then will forget the day It was known that Mary Matheson was going to marry Joshua Blake, at last. An isolated village is like an isolated person, placid-loolling to dulIness, but in reality almost idiotically emotional. More than anything else, when the news had run, it was like the camp-meeting conversion of a simple soul. First, for the conviction of sin," there was the calling-up of all the dark, forgotten history, the whispered refurnishing of departed gossip. the ghosts of old angers. Then like the flood of Mercy, the assur- ance that all was well, having ended well. Everything was for given and forgotten, every one was to live happily ever after, and there must be a wedding.
 Surely a wedding! The idea that Minister Maiden should come quiet to the house and so have it done without pOmp or pageantry- 1t is Imaginable to think how that notion fared at the hands of an aroused village. Flowers there were to be, prOcessions, veils. cakes, rice, boots, all the proper ties dear to the heart of the Roman mob. In the meantime there was to be a vast business of runnings and stitchings, of old women beating eggs and sitting flour, of schoolgirls writing MARY BLAKE" on forbidden walls with stolen chalk. Dear me!
 You might think Mary and Joshua would have rebelled. Curi- ously, they seemed beyond rebel ling. Joshua, especially. was a changed man. His old. hard mask was gone; the loOseness of his lips had come to stay. and the wilderness of his eyes. One could only think that happiness long-deferred had come under him like tide of fate, on which he could do no more than drift and smile. He smiled at every one. q nervous, deprecatory smile; to every proposal he agreed: All right Splendid! A4CL . lleLN S IL ISlEG <A4AAA OuT- got the sense somehow of the thought running on: right away! Make haste, if you please. Haste! For Gods sake, haste!" Y"
 If he were hailed on the street, especially from behind, his eyes came to the speaker with a jerk. and sometimes his hand went to his heGrt. Seeing him so one bright day, and hearing two old men talking behind me, | learned for the first time that the Blake boys father had died of heart-dis- ease. It is odd that it should come on Joshua now, quite suddenly. along with his broken mask and his broken secret. his Frightened smile. and his. All right! Splen- did,''- C"Make hastei")
 But so it was. And so we came to the day appointed. We had a dawn as red as blood that morn ing. and though il wS-5 clear. there was feeling of oppression in the air-aud another oppression of peoples spirits. For the bride party had the hack" and Mrs. Dow had spoken for the only other polite conveyance, the Galloway barge. and what was to come of all the fine. hastv gowns in case it came on for a gale or rain?