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Show 1 "7 I : TBECoioNHsWirt Amx or mfoX5&t7CZfJ&Qe& 'Arc I sto now the meant cot c rob you of life but of tome lung you must as a true Suutlie n value wore." "Ah! my reputation." "In the eyes of Mollie Granger." "What! still baipiug on that matter, are they?'' "They told me you loved her and would Hike her from Oswald Worden. Pool that I was I lent myself to their plans, hating myself for doing it." "Don't worry about no harm done. Let them plot they can't outwit Kate which has woven the threads of Moliie's life with mine." "But listen she saw you enter here saw Belle let you in now do you realize their malice?" Jo rf) w TME - the year lay dying;' By his low'y cojeh we met Brmg'ng ivv leaves ana trying Some with smiles ana some w,th sighing To remember or forget YESTERNIGHT 1 CHAPTER XVI Continued. The woman whom we may recog-oizas the Confederate spy, Belle Stevens, did not seem at all confused by either reproaches or Irony. "Well, you may doubtless remember. Colonel John, I owed you one for what kind attention you gave me In Ixiuisville. I am a woman who cannot easily forget or forgive an in- W hen I jury put a frost upon your little love affair I fancy I repaid in a measure the debt long past due. Perhaps Miss Mollie may throw you over now.'" "Pardon me, you do not seem to have been well Informed regarding the relations existing between the planter's daughter and myself. You took her into your confidence, but she did not return the favor, I am ready to believe." "But she loves you I would sweat to that." . "Thank you, my dear Belle you make me very comfortable. That was a point on which I could not be very positive, so that your evidence is a As to what you told great relief hex I can with the greatest ease prove It to be false, and you may be sure I shall graRp the first opportunity to before my place ail the evidence wife." "Your wife?" the "Certainly Mollie Granger, playmate of my childhood occupies that. position which a week ago I was sure no woman oa earth would e ever fill." "He did not tell me this." "And pray, who is he?" The woman bit her lip evidently she had not intended going so far. "Well, if you must know, Major Worden." "Then he sent you to Lyndhurst?" "He asked 'me to go, but the desire for revenge upon you, Colonel John, urged mo on much faster than the major's gold." Somehow her words aroused him. "You shall see her ne seated while I tell her you are here." Then she glided away. Colonel John did not know exactly what to think of all thin. This woman's past was of such a character as to prevent him from believing good of her. She was capable of carrying out the boldest and most desperate of plans In order to further her own ends or in behalf of the cause which she really cherished as sacred. Wise men always take certain pre cautions, even Win n ihe case does not seem to justify it, and as we have seen John came with a guard, and a faithful weapon in his pocket. Treachery is an ugly beast to handle, and one must seize upon the brute with ungloved hands. His meditations were interrupted. Some one entered the room. It was a woman She could not be far from fifty years of age. Colonel John arose and approached her. "Aunt Sarah, I am surprised to see you here." "And why?" she asked, giving him her hand coldly she was a handsome lady despite her age, and her dark eyes sparkled with a flare that might have been the envy of a young girl. "Becaase I believed you safely hotis ed in LoulSTllle. where I saw you last." "Indeed, and why should I remain there in peace and with all the comforts around me while my unhappy country groaned under the heel of the oppressor. My- heart was wrapped tip In the dear old Southland, and I flew to my old home to do what little I could for the cause. For that perhaps you despise me, you a Yankee officer." "On the contrary I admire, applaud your principles. But why say more, aunt? You sent for me see, I have come." mm "Ycur presence hero and the message to me what am to understand is this a sort of pitfall did you forge my aunt's name?" The colonel towered above her as he Indignantly demanded the truth, for like all honest men he was averse to being made the tool of an unscrupulous, plotting woman. Bells Stevens did not flinch. Whatever else might be said of her at least she was no coward her daring ventures as a female spy, risking life and all else in the cause of the South stood a guarantee for this. "The letter you received was genuine, Colonel John," she replied, stead1 ily. "Then my aunt is in Atlanta?" "Yes." "Under this roof?" "It Is so." "And she appeals to me for assist a nee?" "You had her letter," watching him closely. "But her son has been here I myself have seen him why could he not help her?" "There is something I do not understand something she wished to explain to you. That Is why she sent the message." 'I saw her last In loulsville, nnd was able to be of assistance to her at the time." "Yes, I know, and you failed to include me in your Samaritan work you thought It a little matter, no d' iilit Colonel John, but sometimes such things bear a prodigious amount of fruit." I am sorry I have Incurred your utility. Belle, but It was my duty, and no matter what the consequences would do the same ngaln If the occasion warranted it." "Thank you." she said with a sneer, "then I do not regret anything I have said or done In return." The interview was not to Rldge-as taste. "My time is precious I have been as you may hotly engaged know, and I would not have ridden In here only in the hope that I might be of assistance to Aunt Sarah." "I have heard of your charge the whole city Is ringing with your praise tonight, which must be gall and wormwood to your rival for the affoc tlon nf Mollie Granger " me see "Say no more about it. my auat." he returned, for the very mention of his wires name by this , bold woman see med like rllego it had even come lo that poll.... y Ii - rw "It was good of you, John you have the Ridgeland blood in your veins, though it pains me to see you wearing the blue when you should be wearing the gray. Would that my entreaties could turn you." "It is quite useless, aunt I have withstood the most severe test, even down to having a sweet little rebel for a wife. Nothing can change my sentiments they are like yours, grounded on a rock, even my own life." ' What! you are married, John I did not know it?" "Do you remember long years ago the little Mollie Granger of our neighbor the f --ire." "Yes yes I have reason to, but John you do not mean she is your wife?" Her emotion surprised him, although he could not understand It. "Yes, we wert duly married In the presence of her father. I confess It was a marriage of convenience, for my life was at stake and the estate As the property of a of l.yndhurst. Federal officer's wife It is being protected. But I have fallen In love with my wife and I trust sooner or later when her prejudice against the uniform I wear has softened. I may win her heart as I have already won her hand." He had reached this point when ho noticed that his aunt's face had grown very white. "What is the matter are you 111?" he asked. "No, no but I see now they deceived me," she muttered, as if talking to herself. "They I don't understand, aunt who has deceived you tell roe If I You know I can be of assistance. stand ready to do what I can." She became more hysterical nnd covered her face witli her hands, drop-pininto a chair. am to "Wretched woman that think that after all he has done for nie I should betray him." "Who is It, aunt tell roe " "No one but yourself, John Ridqe-way,she said, still rocking to and g 1 fro. He glanced around, and seeing noth Ing of a dangerous nature, smiled "My dear aunt. If I am the only party you have wronged, cheer up. Surely do not hear animosity. Resides, In what way could you Injure me I have friends near by who will come at a signal." "It Is not that thev derclved mt-1 w nursbng year is waking, gaze into rvs eyes Heedless ot his sire s lorsanmg, In h,s craaie he is taking Gifts from earth ana sea and skTes. nrj we Out of the Trap. change came over the demeanor of the Federal officer when ne heard those remarkable words from hh A aunt's own Hps. Worden was equal to anything, bul until lately Colonel John could not have believed his cousin Crockett would so demean himself. The motive of the major was plain out and out. jealousy that of the woman the fury of a woman scorned, while Crockett, might have dreams of siime day coming into John's inheritance should things take a turn in his direction. No doubt the last named plotter had no suspicion of the true cause that urged his wife to press the Yankee colonel's downfall, and would be sure not to let such a fighter as Crockett RIdgeway suspect the truth. Colonel John paced the floor In his agitation. He had at length been awakened. Cool and collected even under the hottest fire, this man could be anised if the right, means were brought to bear upon him. And when they touched upon his honor, in connection with Mollie Granger, they struck a key that if properly played, could be made to vibrate with intense zeal. "Come, aunt, you tell me a strange thing how am I to understand It. I believed my wife to be safe under her father's roof, and yet you tell me she is in Atlanta that she saw me enter this house saw Belle Stevens admit me." "Every word of it is true when she left home I do not know, but there must have been some engagement made, for she was driven here in her own carriage, and by one of her father's former slaves, one called opPa. Dawn of gold and sunset April eve and aid to such a thing?" "I do not know they badgered me and declared I did not love the South if I should hesitate to defeat one of her foes. I acted against my good judgment, I trust you will believe. Be sides, there was no whisper that Mol lie was your wife. Had I known that not anything on earth would have influenced me to join them." "Well, after all. It has not gone so far that it cannot be remedied. If you really regret the share you have had in the matter, dear aunt " "I do, believe me, deeply." "Then it will be easy to confess the whole thing to Mollie and I will only too gladly forget the share you had In It." She flushed as he spoke, for she was a proud woman, and as such it would cut her keenly to confess to duplicity In the presence of Mollie a woman may not find it hard to beg forgiveness from a man whom she has treated treacherously, but it is as bitter as wormwood for her to say the same thing to one of her own sex. Still Aunt Sarah meant what she said and was ready to hack it up. (To be consumed.) Unpleasant Surprises. P. P. Johnston, president of the Na- gleaming, Juneuae morn Things of truth and not of seeming. These have glorified his dreaming, He the neir, the newly born. VoAs In his tiny grasp he treasures Miches that may soon be ours Sunlignt gold in brimming measures. Meadow fragrances ana pleasures. Honeyed wine distilled ot fiowers. So fiery-heade- d "I know the fellow but it is monto think of such a plot to rob a man of his wife to make her despise me. How could you lend your jar' swr - Now strous 7777TZZ' Kti- CHAPTER XVII. Eze-klal- ." jy-rj7f?- z YEAK. NEW-BOR- N the child will frolic O'er his fathers Soon rvOo 1'ghtly grave, grass-gree- Day shall be his playmate brightly, Ana his sleep be sweetened nightly By W) the songs of wind and wave. Arthur oft 8 6&? r,Q2tf8 J&9-Qr- , L Salmon &250rt On, a New Year Irresolutions The Widow Discusses Them With the Bachelor. By HELEN ROWLAND SN'T it hard, said the widow, glancing ruefully at the clock on the mantel-piece- , to know where to begin reforming yourself?" "Great heavens!" exclaimed the bachelor, "you are not going to do anything like that, are v. : i you?" The widow pointed hands of the clock. sillily to which indicated 11:30, and then to the calendar, on which hung one fluttering leaf marked December 31. "It is time," she sighed, "to begin ; mental to sweep out our collection of last year's follies and dust off our petty sins and fling away our old vices and " "That's the trouble I" broke in the bachelor. "It's so hard to know just what to throw away and what to keep. Making New Year's resolutions is like doing the spring housecleaning or clearing out a drawer full of old letters and sentimental rubbish. You know that there are lots of things you ought to get rid of, and that are just in the way, and that you would be better off without, but the minute you make up your mind to part with anything, even a tiny, insignificant vice, iC suddenly becomes so dear and attractive that you repent and begin to take a new interest in it. The only time I ever had to be taken home in a cab was the day after I promised to sign the pledge," and the bachelor sighed reminiscently. "And the only time I ever overdrew my bank account," declared the widow, "was the day after I had resolved to economize. I suppose," she added pensively, "that the best way to begin would be to pick out the worst vice and discard that." "And that will leave heaps of room for the others and for a lot of new lit tie sins, beside, won't it?" agreed the bachelortjcheerfully. "Well," he added philosophically, "I'll give up murderholly-wreathe- d 4h Hr sol-th- e house-cleaning- tional Trotting Association, said at the annual meeting in New York: "The faking of trotting continues My friend T E. Dompsey tells me that In the summer he saw a mare that had been bleached, bleached like a blonde woman. "All sorts of fakes are adopted by crooks In order to disguise a trotter with a good record. Then the trotter, believed to be a beginner, gets enormous odds and w hen she wins what a surprise." Mr. Johnston lighted a cigar. "It Is an unpleasant an unexpected surprise," he said. "It is like the sur" prise a friend of mine met with on a ing "What!" the widow started. train In West Virginia. "Don't you want me to?" asked the "As the tra'n traversed Wise county my friend, eniranoed with the scenery, bachelor plaintively, rubbing his bald spot. "Or erhaps I might resolve not stuck his head out of the window. "The brakrman hurried to htm nnd to commit highway robbery any more said: 'Keer your head inside, can't or to stop forging or " "All of which is so easy!" broke in you?' " 'What 'or?' asked my friend. the widow sarcastically. There'd be some glory and some "'So m won't damage any of the Iron work on the bridges,' said the reason In giving up a big vice." sigh ed the bachelor, "if a follow had one. brakemnn " Hut the trouble is that most of us men haven't any brg criminal tendencies, irreverent Suggestion. a heap of little follies and Josepl H. Choate tells of a meetlne merely that there Isn't any parweaknesses at a I.on ion club of a bishop and Ixirri virtue in sacrificing or any Roseben During the course of their ticular particular harm in keeping," conversation the reverend gentlemat "And which you always do keep, in observed to his lordship: "I've an In vltatlon to dine this evening. Wha' spite of all your New Year'l vows," remarked the widow Ironically a nuisance it Is- -a long dinner Huh!" The bachelor laughed cynl mean. There are two things I als it' our New Year's vows that cally dread a dinner and a too? lutely long The very fact to keep em US I sermon. contend that however Rood help has sworn to forego any they may be neither the dinner nor that a fellow the sermon should take more than thing, whether It's a lialilt or a girl, I've thrown makes It more attractive twenty minutes at the most." Rose whole box of cigars with the a away smiled. "It seems to he bery me," rn the world and then said, "that the matter might be nicely finest Intentions up In the middle o( the nlnht arranged by knocking ten minutes off gotten Mo l' 'es out of the waste has to fish the sermon and putting it oa the ket. And that midnight smoke was the sweetest I ever had. It was sweeter than the apples I stole when I was a kid and the kisses I stole when " "If you came here to dilate on the joys of sin, Mr. Travers," began the widow coldly. "And," proceeded the bachelor. "I've made up my mind to stop flirting with a girl, because I found out that she was beginning to to " "I the understand," interrupted widow sympathetically. "And, by Jove!" finished the bachelor, "I had to restrain myself to keep from going back and proposing to her!" "How lucky you did!" commented the widow witheringly. "But I wouldn't have," explained the bachelor ruefully, "if the gorl had restrained herself." "Nevertheless, ""repeated the widow. "It was lucky for the girl." "Which girl?" asked the bachelor. "The girl I broke off with or the girl that came afterward?" "I suppose," mused the widow ignoring the levity and leaning over to arrange a bunch of violets at her belt, "that is why it is so difficult for a man to keep a promise or a vow even a marriage vow." "Oh, I don't know." The bachelor leaned back and regarded the widow's coronet braid through the smoke of his cigar. "It isn't the marriage vows that are so difficult to keep. It's the fool vows a man makes before marriage and the fool promises he makes afterward that he stumbles over and falls down on. The marriage vows are so big and vague that you can get all around them without actually breaking them, but if they should concrete questions Into the service such as. 'Do you, William, promise not to growl at the coffee ' "Or, 'Do you, Mary, promise never no put a daub of powder on your nose again?'" broke in the widow. "Nor to look twice at your pretty stenographer," continued the bachelor. "Nor to lie about your age, or your foot or your waist measure." "Nor to juggle with the truth whenever you stay out after half-pas- t ten." "Nor to listen to things that that anybody except your husband may say to you In the conservatory oh, I see how it feels'" finished the widow with a sympathetic little shudder. "And yet," reflected the bachelor, "a woman is always exacting vows and promises from the man she loves, always putting up bars for him to jump over: when if she would only leave him alone he would be perfectly contented to stay within bounds and A man graze In his own pasture. hates being pinned down; but a woman doesn't want anything around that she can't pin down; from her belt and her theories to her hat and her husband." "Well," protested the widow studying the toe of her slipper, "it is a satisfaction to know you've got your husband fastened on straight by his prOBiM and held In place by his nun vowg and that he loves you enough to " "I'snally," luierrupied the bachelor, "a man loves you In Inverse ratio to The lover who his protestations. all tnings wunout reser promises is too often like the fellow wlio doesn't question the hotel bill nor ask the price of the wine, because he doesn't intend to pay it anyway Tti fellow who is prodigal with his vews and promises and poetry is generally the one to whom such things mean nothing and. being of no value, can be flung about generously to every girl he meets. The firm with the biggest front office is likely to be the one with the smallest deposit in the safe. The man who swears off loudest on New Year's is usually the one they have to carry home the morning after. And the chap who promises a girl a life of roses is the one who will let her pick all the thorns off for herself." "Perhaps," sighed the widow, chewing the stem of a violet thoughtfully, "the best way to cure a man of a taste for anything, after all, is to let him have too much of it instead o' making him swear off. If you want him to hate the smell of a pipe insist on his smoking all the time. If you want him to sign the temperance pledge, serve him wine with every course. If you want him to hate a woman, invite her to meet him every time he calls, and tell him how 'suitable' she would be." "And if you want him to love you," finished the bachelor, "don't ask him to swear it, but tell him that he really ought not to. The best way to manage a donkey human or otherwise is to turn his head in the wrong direction and he'll back iu the right one." "Then," said the widow decisively, we ought to begin the New Year by making some irresolutions." "Some what?" "Vows that we won't stop doing the things we ought not to do," explained the widow. "All right," agreed the bachelor thoughtfully, "I'll make an irresolu tion to go on making love to you as much as I like." "You mean, as much as I like, Mr. Travers," corrected the widow severely. "How much do you like?" asked the bachelor, leaning over to look into the widow's eyes. The widow kicked the corner of the rug tentatively. "I like all but the proposing," she said slowly. "You really ought to stop that " "I'm going to stop it The widow looked up in alarm. "Oh, you don't have to commence keeping your resolutions until tomorrow morning," she said quickly. "And are you going to stop refusing me continued the bachelor firmly. The widow studied the corner of the rug with great concern. "And," went on the bachelor, taking something from his pocket and toying with it thoughtfully, "you are; going to put on this ring" he leaned over, caught the widow's hand and slipped the glittering thing on her; third finger. "Now," he began, "you are going to say that you will " The widow sprang up suddenly. "Oh, don't, don't, don't!" she cried. "In a moment we'll me making prom- ises!" "We don't need to," said the bachelor, leaning back nonchalantly, "we can begin by making arrangements. Would you prefer to live in town or at Tuxedo? And do you think Kurope or Bermuda the best place for the " "Bermuda, by all means." broke In the widow, "and I wish you'd have that hideous portico taken off your town house, Billy, and " But the rest of her words were smothered in the bachelor's coat lapel and something else. "Then you do mean to marry me, after all!" cried the bachelor triumphantly. The widow gasped for breath and patted her hair anxiously. "I I meant to marry you all the time!" she cried, "but I never thought you were really in earnest and " "Methinks," quoted the bachelor happily, " that neither of us did protest too much.' We haven't made any promises, you know." "Not one," rejoined the widow promptly, "as to my flirting." "Nor as to my clubs." "Nor as to mjy relatives." "Nor my cigars." "And we won't make any vows," cried the widow, "except marriage vows." "And New Year's irresolutions," added the bachelor. "Listen!" cried the widow softly, with her fingers on her lips. A peal of a thousand silver bells rang out on the midnight air "The chimes!" exclaimed the widow. "They're full of promises." "I thought It sounded like a wedding bell," said the bachelor, disappointedly. "Maybe," said the widow, "it was only Love ringing off." Los Angeles Times. New Year's Calls. The custom of visiting and sending presents and cards on New Year's day is recorded almost as far back as history goes. The practice of using visiting cards can be traced back for thousands of years by the Chinese. Their New Y' ear's visiting cards are curiosities. Each one sets forth not only the name, but nil the titles of Its owner, and, as all Chinamen ' who have any social position at all have about a dozen. It makes the list quite appalling. These cards are made of silk or else of fine paper backed with silk and are so large that they have to be rolled up to be carried conveniently They are, Indeed, so valuable that the) are returned to their ownera. |