Glacier County chief. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1931-1940, 1939-05-12

For purely personal reasons I make
this final. absurd offer. Seventeen fifty,
take it or leave it."
For impurely personal reasons" she
began bitterly, II have to have five
hundred and eighty-seven dollars and
seventeen cents"
1t was that fool seventeen cents that
defeated her. She could hear Thad's
voice coldly computing the horrid to-
tai of her months of deception Sud-
denly she discovered, to her absolute
horror, that these were not raindrops
dripping down her extensively pow
dered facial but plain old-fashioned
salty tears. Not the slow, sweet, dra-
matte tears that Thad's mother knew
how to shed SO effectively but a de-
luge that splashed like the downpour
OF April rain that had driven her into
the bookshop. She stumbled along
clutching her Family Living on $500
Year" sobbing.
He could never have loved me at
all! Not If he puts love on a budget!
Just low-down, sordid, commercial
haggling about seventeen lousy cents!"
And then, as though she had not
endured enough anguish, it was just
at that moment that her pernicious
heel dropped off her left shoe precip-
itating her, book and all, into the elder
ly gentleman's arms.
And what a vile thing for me to
do!' she walled. To try to hold you
up! To trade on your love! I saw her
bookplate the first thing and where
you'd written to my beloved Doro-
thea-I tried to trade on your love
for poor dead"
She was trying to pull herself away
from him but she couldn't. He might
be elderly but he could grasp firmly
when beauty was in distress and in his
own willing arms.
My dear little girl" he began elo-
quently, "Dorothea is not dead! She
is in excellent health except for an oc-
casional neuritis. I merely thought to
amuse her with a"
The car slowed down at the curb.
From an opened window a brisk con-
tralto called.
What's the matter with that girls
foot, Allie? Did she sprain her ankle
running away from you? Why were
you annoying her like that?"
We'll, the fact is, Dottie, my dear"
he stammered.
drenched! Help her into the carl" the
voice commanded imperiously There's
no fool like an old fool! Tschk! Tschk
Spring! You and SPRING."
Druse found herself sitting meekly
between them, hopping IS cents worth
of mascara from eyelashes that had
never needed establishment. Decor
ously the old car moved through traffic.
The preliminary skirmishing was
deity done! Tiny, white-haired and
Immediately groomed, Dorothea be-
gan the attack
"Sciatica, indeed! And you have to
see Doctor Horly! And will I send
Forbes for you at 5! How much did
you get mulcted for that IZuma? Or
did this girl outbid you so you ran
after her frightening her into Mysteries
trying to offer her two cents more than
she. paid? Tschk! Tschk! You weren't
foollng me one minute! I saw that
notice in the morning paper and
knew wild horses couldn't keep YOU
from that drafted auction!"
las usual, my dear" he interrupted
her. you are jumping at unwarranted
conclusions! I did not intend to go to
the auction l merely dropped in be-
cause it had begun to rain And as for
this young person, her Mysteries were
entirely unwarranted. too. made her
fair offer for a book that I thought
might amuse you"
"A book amuse me? After fifty years
of living with walls, tables. sideboards
and sofas full of rubbishy books! You
go to one more auction and I shall do
what 1 did in 1907! shall send the
whole houseful back down to that
This book" continued Alfred with
much dignity, was a souvenir of our
youthful days"
Chins up, eyes front, they spared
Drusilla staring at first one and then
the other. discovered that they were
theEoSEh st ehoy pot their b Sstt dsaeped
the book from Druse's lax fingers
Look! Your own bookplate!"