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Show Through the Pantry Window By CLAUD INE SISSON On a certain chill October afternoon, after-noon, which was brightened only by a flaro of crimson leaves on all the maples and the ever-present tangles of aster and golden rod along the bushy banks, Elsie turned her horse in at a rickety picket gate and dismounted dis-mounted before the porch of a tiny, shabby, neglected house. Tears came to Elsie's eyes, as she thought of the dead woman who had animated it with her kindly pres-ence. She felt that she would like to go in and look about and try in imagination to refurnish the abandoned rooms and to people them with the gentle figures that had once frequented them. The house was locked. She went about trying the shutters. At last she found one partly off the hinges blown off by a high wind, no doubt. She swung it clear and put her hand to the window underneath. . To her surprise, it raised as she pushed upon it. She seemed to hear a familiar voice saying in her ear: "The ketch on that pantry window needs fixing bad, but I can't seem to do it." Aunt Hope's dear voice! Aunt Hope's own remembered words! And this was the pantry window. Elsie V Elsie Turned Her Horse in at a Rickety Rick-ety fiate. looked In. The tiny place was neat, the cupboard doors shut; an pld iron spider hung against the wall. The window sill was only knee high from the ground, and Elsie climbed over it easily. She letdown the window behind her. The floor gave back an empty sound beneath her feet as she walked across it to the kJtchen. The kitchen, too. was quite unchanged. After the dining room came the parlor, the room that In aunt Hope's lifetime Elsie had always loved best It was a good sized room in the front of the house. She lifted a window and turned the slats of the closed shutters. The yellow afternoon light came in across the bare floor Innumerable motes danced in its rays. Upon the walls a few old pictures pic-tures still hung, and the wall paper showed fresh spaces upon its faded surface where others had been Elsie sat down upon one of the an pealing chairs and clasped her hands n their riding gauntlets about her knee. There was a chill of firelessness and stale air in the room, but she did not feel it. She was thinking of the last time she had been in this room There had been flowers in the room and many people. n the midst lay aunt Hope, always hitherto so gra cious and genial, so quick to respond to the love of her friends and neighbors. neigh-bors. Her hands were crossed upon a flower; her lips smiled a new little smile of understanding of men's ways and of God's. Above the hushed sound of tears rose a dignified voice: 'I am the resurrection and the life." How vividly she remembered it all ! one nad sat here and he had sat there with aunt Hope between And though they both looked at mint Hope tearfully they would not look at each other. How pale he had been! And perhaps, she. too. had been just as pale under her veil. Well It was Yet Elsie knew how anxiously aunt lope had longed for them to be friends again, "You are bolh young and high tempered, tem-pered, she had pleaded " again and again, "but there'll come a time when you'll be old and remorseful unless un-less you make up now. Why you are made for each other, Elsie. You'll never be happy with anyone else, nor will David. He's a splendid young fellow. Don't ! know? Wasn't I with his mother the night he was born, and haven't I watched him grow up from baby to man? And haven't I watched you grow up, too? And I love you both. I've tried to have you care for each other because I felt that was as it should be. And now you've lei that little trollop of a Doris Kennedy come between you! Oh, I know what folks say about me that I am a med dling of matchmaker " "Peacemaker, aunt Hope," Elsie had laughed, tremulously. "Well, then, peacemaker. I hope 1 am. Blessed you know what the Bible says. But I ain't sure of thai unless you'll let me make peace between be-tween you and David!" "Some day," Elsie had half promised. prom-ised. That was a year ago. Then they had met at aunt Hope's funeral fu-neral and had not spoken. Afterward David had gone back to the city to his j work and Elsie had gone hers in the little country town. As far as she knew now, her romance was ended There was no aunt Hope to advise and gently smooth away the difficulty. difficul-ty. But. oh, the sweetness and the bitterness of it lingered with her like mingled myrrh and honey. She had loved David she loved him still and must go on loving him as long as she lived. But she had the Bennett temper. tem-per. He had it, too, far back somewhere, some-where, a couple of generations ago, a certain marriage had made them kin. She would not give up. Neither would he. And It was all because she had not liked his city cousin, Doris Kennedy, Ken-nedy, and he had! Perhaps down in her heart Elsie had been a bit jealous jeal-ous of the blonde young woman who looked as if she had been run in an exceedingly slender mold, and had never so much as bent her back since an effect obtained. It was said, by means of an exacting dressmaker. Elsie was far too natural to admire Doris' immobility, loads of false hair and layers of pink and white powder. And she had told David so in a none too pleasant way. "But her heart is all right," he had argued, stoutly. "Doris is a good girl. "Envious!" cried Elsie, scarlet with rage. So the quarrel had begun. be-gun. As she sat there now in the empty room Elsie owned to herself sadly that she had been unreasonable. After all, Doris was David's own cousin and older than he. There had been no reason rea-son in the world for her being jealous as she had been; ;-es, she had toad mit that now. "If only I had listened to aunl Hope. If only I had let her make peace as she wished" A crash at the back of the house startled her. A window had fallen! She sprang to her feet. Steps were coming toward her through the house heavy steps a man's. Now they were in the kitchen now the dining room. She plunged toward the door that opened into the little front entry It was locked. She tugged at it frantically- Heaven! To be shut in this house with a tramp. Still tugging, with futile desperation, at the unyielding unyield-ing door she looked back over her shoulder just as the invader appeared in the parlor door a tall young fel-low fel-low in a respectable ulster, who looked almost as white and shaken as she knew she was. "Elsie!" he exclaimed. "Great Scott!" "David! "she gasped. And half fell against the supporting door. They stared at each other, the color slowly coming back to their faces. I "Did you get in at the pantry wln-Idow, wln-Idow, too?" Elsie asked, when she I could. He nodded. "I remembered that aunt Hope was always going to have it fixed and never did. What are you doing here, Elsie?" He came close to her. "What are you?" "1 came because I had to. 1 felt as if I was being called." "David! That's just the way I felt." Their eyes sought each other's ! awe-struck, wondering. Then their j bunds met. "Forgive me, Elsie. I was wrong " he faltered. "Forgive me, David, I was wrong too. s' They clung together. "I didn't care for Doris. But she was my cousin " "I know. 1 know." She was in his arms now. And he had kissed her. "David," Elsk said, from his shoulder, shoul-der, solemnly, "do you euppose-that she, aunt Hope, drew us here today?" His eyes had the look of one who has been very near the holy things Who knows?" he answered, very low. "Blessed are the peacemakers " |