The Wolf Point herald. (Wolf Point, Mont.) 1913-1940, 1925-04-16

she found that life was shaped without
Intervention of her own. She allowed
herself TO be dragged along with her
mixed load Of conceptions drawn from
q helter-skelter reading. Among other
conceptions was that eternal fiction of
the gallant and perfect fairy story
prince whose bride she would One day
be. To be a bride meant little more
in terms Of real life han to become an
angel.
IF | ever have a daughter" said
Brena Selcoss, Il will never allow her
to have this dangerous dream of a
Prince Charming. 1t is the common
foundation upon which girls throw
sensible judgment to the four winds
and come to critical moments with
out a thought of the flowing years Of
real life which are to come. 1t might
have wrecked me when | was seven
teen"
While Rrena was seventeen. indeed.
many landmarks had been set up In
her development. Her mother had
died quietly in bed the year before
without a gasp of warning, without a
murmur, a smile upOn her engaging
lips. Brena had been asleep in the
next room, and Demetrius, having one
of his spells of insomnia, sat almost all
night long on the porch of their cot
tage in Dallas, Texas, in a rocker
which squeaked a little as his bulk
moved. He had come up at dawn to
find his wife, with the first rays of
summer sun thrown through the shut
ters and onto the happy, lifeless fig
ure in bars of gold. 1t shimmered OH
her lovely hair; in all the red-gOld
mass there was not one strand Of
gray.
This is the time for great calm"
he had said to Brena, as he woke her
with his giants hand upon her shoul-
der. "The life has gone from Your
mothers beautiful body, my daughter.
but she will live always with us be
cause she was a brave and tender soul
which endures forever"
81 thought that she had endless
life he said after a pause, burying
his heared face in his ~sun-browned
hands. 1T is the way with me always
I am unprepared-always unpre-
pared"
This was the only finching brought
out in him by the death of the Irish
girl he had adored so completely, to
whose songs he had listened while his
life went askew and in whose smiles
he had warmed the chills of bitterness
and whose arms had stilled the rest
lessness behind his great dark glowing
eyes. He went on his way unchanged,
but no doubt making new attempts to
reach across the chasm which sepa-
rated him from the yearning heart Of
his daughter.
These attempts were failures. Be
side each other, when he was home,
they were as persons alone; the one
reminiscent, living in a past where
great figures of history stalked ma
jestically the other e%Xpectant, with
the eyes of youth turned away from
the shadows aud toward the glints of
the future.
For three or more years before Mary
Vaughn Selcoss had died, she had
been alarmed by a new characteristic
of her husband. In Dallas when he,
who once had known the tang of great
deeds lone in a setting of romantic
grandeur, came out through the hot
streets on a common electric car and
walked up a suburban avenue with its
cheap bungalows and its monographs,
its lawn sprinklers trying to raise the
sun-baked grass from the dead, and its
concrete sidewalks, Brena's mother
had noticed a look In his eyes of a
haunting fear.
Il wonder what would become of
you and Brena if anything happened
to me-" he had said in explanation.
Nothing will happen to you" Bre-
mas mother had gayly answered.
Come into the house. I've something
to show you"
ITO show mef"
"Yes-a happy little home with the
all paid up till last February.
Nothing will happen to you"
But the fear was written upon his
c~ountenance deeper and deeper, like
a tracing often repeated. He said to
his wife on one occasion, You say
fear is new. No, dearest; l have
carried it about for many, many
Long after her mother had gone
Brena had seen that look in her ia
eyes.
Perhaps he is afraid he will lose
his place with the oil company" she
had said to herself many times.
Opportunity enough was given her
those days to speak for herself.
She had gone beyond any school train
ing not only in independence but in
earning; nevertheless she remained d
lonely, sensitive child in the
leart of her ripening ~womanhood. Her
austerity and her own peculiar
made the pair appear TO the
Texan neighbors aloof, strange, like
over whom some shadow hing