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Show Isles T .ow Sr ILrfrtoGnL I Lj Ljed from Front Page) I urtT Perhaps it wm her Hp' .jjjog m-'"''' .J and Iv" I . llfBr W wedding day that B,, B DOYOT tfoyH .ant you I JEi unhappy - Tti of" .',,rfh taking UJ 'Isk for. K ui" '" N ' " ' BLfjiar were dying. The wind ifcttlaP1 lhom lnto Ilf'' huJ IK I El nld " i ni too old I') Mhp I Lfciway oh, In a vcrv lng f i! Bal It's a BL beinr worth an s ft . the fine B .- B madfl aaafthk hr brutes." added father Shu mere on me as he spoke. Er typical ynu are of your IT commented Lorraine. "Mr. RlJI for the man, as they used ftjlrtliur ru'Tc fur the women Late are now." jjtot an- you for, Lorraine"" I ngdrusly. m children," she snld, with padDf- in her tone than I fHle altogether natural Bimeh a temptation in ha v. Rskten voice! "We three are m of one sort and ano r, two are boats still in bar-Kft'll bar-Kft'll hare to face the gales By" was understood t hat I and Ftere Rung to school going I (he world In a v ry fow i ill jul love to f.ice tho vjl be wnntln Bv what do you mean l.y of dliparageim-nt directed '"''ir. my aunt my P(4 la his eyes. RBti. Lorraine," hp iad he drew n Ion FlL; ''Vl"-T I tt.l!i!: , if." lnk." spoke Lorraine, "that B' tPT,T nny use In trying to jf' "' clear to mo by this tl Ulnk to Luke at.-.. ,Ugh ho !'wk "P frr.ru 1,,-9' 1,,-9' ' :- ' 1 But. with the . unnli B"1' I kept all i ffiet in the hope 0f I, taring j," apoke old Ivorv from his B. r ,,,. instantly and pur uood-nijfht. Dara. Good-Wadfatuer. Good-Wadfatuer. G r. K?- walked off d.iwQ BUi i r '' tho f " ' 'id of fjl00- said old i E,?P,in,rrf'' :i bis K r ' e i heard L . ., ' Hi u,1!' In rests K .ti,ttk the-v'r nip' HuVUhe vr-r;i L u our familv," ob- Va S wlth v JJJ'' too. foun.ru. .Mark kber if!"' : K ev ' iken LVts a . WR- 1 reaching at LWu I T Mitt hew my son nn ty0.''101'-' StshlV rr" thv de"il llWj1' klp-generatlon ft-. 0 and ,KO,!o1 -,f'cr kj? an ivory, a 1 rlghl K;1 "-'H us." . ' "ni.kv any,- io luter. 1 1 J ,h?Te omethlnK in- ' bl is painted . but what !T!1 1? 'n H' ,f onft couId only Jfcv fm. "w that day was different. It track It out. that I rM,ned B,e.,p iKW , iJi ' Jaflt na ln a whln- .jnl lay Wlh my far(J b(jr!ed Mi'M l lng up of something lonr and l"ng hair on th comforUMe. nre- 4irk bUck and Tory th,n morc warmed sand besido my father. I - "Don't look at me as If yoi;- thirty-foot length of rope than any Knew he nWed to have me Jiihi. as if you saw me!" 'eeping near him and I hoped to tPr U 1caiin't nn octopu feeler; gain an unobserved halt hour ' snapped. ,hat ls th,fk u asn t tne wbJp. I:,Jt 1 hafl reckoned without Lo ,lke- dagger-armed tall of a giant r,n- - V stlngaree; wo knew that look and "Get up," ahe said in a low pen- v th lash of that as well as we knew ' 'atlng whl.p,- " Don't sham or '&EX A n. - ,hf ,ook of ,U Prown marbled fin. I'll tell your fa'.r' iV9nPW. 3 - as a dining table, heaving up At this (though I could chopr. mPtKKL. wS 'tmL VSk' Into -Ight and sinking again before pUll ha '!iought Sj vta.' you had time to take a real look. J. yawn and rise to my?fcet QWfcA ..JtjjU P 'h.- ..f Hie Pacific, a py , . . H Jtip- cha-m five miles deep, lies near the rif j ou: r ililiwa Darn Islands. ' iSLl &mm m A JlLwr K an( ,,"v" ,,f ,MO deep sr-a alone . jif ' jPw Sxfc ' 0r'V&' "Fr known what horror m.iy be hidden JSb JHbW ft 'JBaB . only wanted .yjTO U 4Ht. but did It not a minute after we had .v.-en the awful thing, while I stood j& 'RPrH about ln tho midst of i I ' I knew she WOQI4 cirTy out her threat if I persisted, and my father VII not to bo trifled with on any question of lying or trlrkorj So I bade them good-n! fht In proper order father llrst then Lorraine, then old Mr. Ivory and went off to my room, leaving them sitting there round the great driftwood drift-wood fire, with the smoke spiring up into the dark arch of tho roof and the sea sounding on outside. When I look back across the seas and the years to those island days I think always of the long ound of waves, the fresh weedy smell of sands at low water, the sliver shining of a full tide after rain. I can see on a still afternoon tho oystor-grny of the sky meet tho oyster-gray of the sea with Jut so much division as might mark tho hinge of a giant shell. I can see on northwest mornings tho wldo lagoon lie smooth and green as emerald, silver-set ln the ring of white tumbling surf that barred it away from tho blue thunderous ac.i - . - ide. Sea. always sea the eound?. tha sights, the scents of tho great South Seas theso were my picture pic-ture books, my library, my school. We had books and pictures of the common kind in plenty, and I got plenty of schooling, too, from my father and Lorraine. But I think It was the sea that taught and made me, most of all. My room was at tho cud of a long cave passage, some way from the main hall. It was by no means tho damp, rough cell that tho nature na-ture of our dwelling might hnve led one to expect. Father and old Ivory'. " our coming to the inland, had chosen to leave the main hall just aa it was sand floored, limestone lime-stone roofed, with rough arches leading away in all directions, and a low. wide tunnel running out toward the beach and the sea. But the i, -st of tho place was fitted up almost with luxury Have you not thought, when you were a boy. and spent long Summer Sum-mer holidays wandering through the sea-cehted. echoing balls of .some little city of caves, how you could. If only you might, make a splendid residence of such a place, given time and labor, and tho de- llghful possibility that never, nover came about? You never eveu dared to speak to your elders of such a drcutn. You knew how they would -ntr laugh and tell you It was impossible. Well, let me tell you now that It Is not. Many men have made such homes, in many parts of the world. Father and old Ivory were not biasing bias-ing the trail of Inventors when they turned tho caves of Hlliwa Dara into a houso good to look at and very fit to live In. They had heard of such thiugs and seen them, eo they knew how to go about It. They made coral concrete by the ton, burning masses of white coral down on the shoro into heaps of flour-like lime, mixing it with sand and gravel, puddling It with water. They concreted tho floors of tho caves meant for living rooms, and the floors of the passageways. They stopped the cracks through which water trickled. They blasted openings to tho outer air and put shutters ln them to keep out rains and tempests. They made, ln fine, a sound, tight, airy, beautiful house out of tho dark and muddy caves of Ililiwa Dara. and they did it in a fourth of the time that would have been needed to build any other kind of house. Our cave ancestors, even yet. can teach ue a thing or two worth learning 1 carried a brand from the fire with me to my room and lit with it the lamp that hung from the roof a t:re.ir ' baler " -hell, eream lined, crimson lipped, filled with cocoanut oil, and floating a wick of wild cotton. cot-ton. We bad kerosene and most other civilized necessities In store. But since communication was al- way? uncertain It was the inviolable invio-lable rule of Hlliwa Dara to use native material as much as possible. possi-ble. And I do not think morc beautiful, beau-tiful, pure light ever fell from a moro beautifully shaped vessel than fell upon my little drift timber bed and on the cedar chest that held my clothes aud on the gleaming frieze of pearl shell set about the roof of tho room from the lamp made in the depths of the great sea. On my mattress of dried sea-wrack sea-wrack I slept well. But all through the night, and all through the long-.-oundlng of the sea that penetrated veu to the depths of my sheltered little ihamber. ran through my dreams the echo of the words I had heard In the great hall: "There are five years to look round In" and "You are right, she Is." And in my dreams I wondered what wai I that I did not know? After the five years, what should come to me? CHAPTER II. AS soon as there was light to tell gray sea from gray sand Luke and I were out upon the beach. Wo always began the day with a .iwlm. and as wo were dressed practically alike. In a loose short smock and knickers of blue linen, there was not much undressing undress-ing to do. Luke threw off his smock, I kept mine on, and e both changed afterward. The routine of the bath was always al-ways the same. We ran out of our cave rooms, out ln the main hall, and raced together down the slope of clinking coral that led to tho lagoon. We shrieked and leaped as we ran, because It was very cool in the giy of tho morning and the night had been hot, and our bodies wero aching for the kiss of tho green salt sea. There was a shallow spaco to run through first of all, kicking up tho water as we went and throwing aside great carven shells that a collector col-lector would have knelt to save Then camo the deop, with gold chalnwork of sunrise already knit- nug orrr anu over u, ana aazznng us as we lifted our heads from tho ripples wo had made In our lem-ming-llke rush for the full sea. Then the outer coral reef, sharp and spear-pointed, not to be mounted without care. There was always the temptation to stand on Its farther far-ther edge and look and long for the tumbling white and blue waves outside, where wc were forbidden to go Luke had caught a thrashing or two from old Ivory and I had been shut up In my cave for a day moro than once before we had given ln to the hard law. I don't know that wo should have done so even then for It was so invigorating to breast those huge breakers and ride, shouting, in a chariot of foam, over the reef Into the lagoon had not an ugly thing frightened me one mornin,' Y '.t used to the sight of shark fins riving through the deep. and. liku most Pacific folk, had little fear of them (Indeed, tho shark la not so r, am, wuc rur. smc i. Crit mu aunu iu,. the foam and thunder of the reef, sick at heart and crying to him to come back. He did come back, a little pale, but with a wonderful light ln his blue eyes. "Grandfather can lick me If ho likes now," was his only remark, shouted through tho pounding surf. "I've proved It to myself." By tho freemasonry that lived between be-tween us two 1 knew that he meant ho had proved his courage. I knew that he hdd doubted It; I know that Luke, made as he was, could not have endured that doubt and endured en-dured to live. Running up to tho great hall of tho cave-house, all wet, with my mermaid hair streaming down, I had shown my courage then by fearlessly fear-lessly bearding tho formldablo Ivory, and telling him why Luko had once morc broken his rule. I could not endure my boy-mato should suffer punishment for such a noble fault. Ivory heard me in silence, and then told Lorraine to take mo to dry myself I don't know what ho said to Luke. Luke only told me tbat "grandad was very decent to him." t He did not go beyond the reef again. For myself, not all the treasures of all the world poured out at my feet would have tempted mo to venture. I might break sensible sen-sible rules through childish bravado, bra-vado, but 1 was never the boy-girl xype mat courts an actual aanger As for Luke's horror of "being afraid." I saw It and admired It, but I did not understand It. In truth, I felt then, as I felt on the morning vben we rusiied down into the lagoon, that Luko was somehow or other getting away from me. He was changing. How, I did not know. But it seemed to mo that Luke and I were somehow no longer one. We had been used to speak without thinking, to talk ;h we breathed, to understand without with-out talking. Now It came back right In the middle of our swim, as we landed together on a coral "horsehead" to rest after af-ter a vigorous bout of the misnamed mis-named "crawl " I was examining a grazed elbow with sonje attention, atten-tion, when I looked up and saw Luke's eyes fixed on my face. "Don't look at mc Uko that!" I snapped. 1 Ike what?" "Don't look at me as If you as if you saw me!" "You talk a great deal of non-tense," non-tense," he said plainly. 4 "There1 more nense in It than in some of your sense," I retorted 'more wisely than 1 knew), and Immediately did a Bitting diva. But I had been right. Luke was changed. That very morning he amazed the household, already collected for prayers in the main hall, by walk lng In clad only In a bath towel. and dropping the entlra collection of bis tunica and knickeis at Ma grandfather's feet. "What's the meaning of this con- duct?" demanded old Ivory, look- lng. with the lut.le in Qil, hand. Qttttt frightfully, like an ancient llel.rew law giver. "Grandfather." replied Luke with courage that turned me cold, "you have dressed me like a girl or a child long enough. 1 want clothe ilke yours and Mr. Hamilton's proper clothes." "Do you know how old you are?" Remanded the prophet with tho oook, in a windy voice. "Of course. I'm fourteen and two weeks." And you want a set or grown- up clothes?" Tw, sir " There was no "please" attached, I trembled. I thought old hory would crush him with the mighty book. Ivory put down the Bible without a word. went, still without a word. to my father's room, and returned with a shirt and trousers belonging to him. "I'll square with you. Hamilton." he sain briefly. "Let Ixrralno take up tho legs of these a bit. Mine are too big altogether." Lorralno did take up the legs. nfter prayers. During prayers Luke, holding firmly to his point, sat and knelt draped in tho bath towel only. I whispered to him tbat ho was Just like tho Infant Samuel, and had tho satisfaction of seeing a vexed flash In his eyes. It was pleasant, I thought, to make him feel. I would try It again In B somo other way. Making people B feel was sport except with Lor- B ralne. "Be with us all for over more, Hamilton!" "What is It?" H "If Dara ha heard or Joined In a single word of tho prayers, I am very much mistaken." "In rhli arrnuullnn - I ...... v. .... v .... , II , URl'U father, pulling mo to him and pinch- B ing my car. Ivory looked at him and at mo disapprovingly. "Train up a child." he said "I suppose breakfast's ready." "There's fried flying fish, and honeycake," I said, Jumping up ami down and clapping my hands. T love them both." "Yon should novor say you 'lovo H things,' " chid Lorralno, sweeping on in her black dress. "But I do," I said. "I lovo every thing In all tho world sometimes- things to eat and things to see, things to feel, to things to hear. I wouldn't care to live If I couldn't go on loving." "Dara. Dara!" said my father, half reproaehfully. half sadly. But he did not check mc; he never checked my childish running on. "When I go to tho world," I said, scampering in front of him fws always called the projected exodus of Luko and of myself "going to the world" I don't know why), "It will be delightful, for there will be new things to love there." "True for you." said my father somewhat sarcastically. No oue else took any notice at all. We were entering the dining hall now and tho smell of the good things on the table seemed to occupy alJ thoughts. I must tell about our dining hail. It was the glory of Hlliwa Dara, and would have been the wonde' of all that part of the Pacific had tourists ever come within five miles of it. But no oae ever did; and so Its beauties were ours and ours alone. Nowadays, when famous caves nre h- r.im I n " cnitinuin an, I u-Iiaii 1 thousands of people every year go through the Mammoth Caves of Kentucky, tho Jenolan Caves of New South Wales and other show places, one need not fear to bo ac- cused of "travellers' tale-".'" If one daacrlbai an underground miracle. And a miracle indeed was the Hall - H of Persephone, as my scholarly father had named It. I used to think, in my earliest days, that I: was the very palaco hall to which B Demeier's daughter had been car- ried away, in the arms of ena- B moo red Pluto. And 1 thought, prl- B vately, that Persephone had been a "fuss-cat" for objecting to Pluto or anything else BO long as she had B that magnificent home to live la. B It was a ball of diamonds. B (Continued on Next Pqqc.) B j - A F icinatin NevR)imnce South Seas - (Contivurd from Preceding Pagr) I believe, in geology, such (bines are known as "drusy cavities" a singularly ugly name for a singularly singu-larly beautiful thins:. I did n..t know men so much In those days nor. I think, did my father. Wo were quite content to be ignoraut ' of the scientific titles rightly owned by Persephone s Hall and its crystals. crys-tals. I called them diamonds, because be-cause they were exactly like tho small, shiny stones In Lorraine's half-hoop ring, but even I knew that you didn't have diamonds ihe size of a dinner plate. The hall was about forty feet long by twentv to twenty-five in width You came Into it from a long, dark passage, designedly letl unlighted that led you with almo I startling suddenness into a blare of crystalline splendor like nothing noth-ing else in the heavens above, or the earth beneath or the waters under the earth Father and Ivory, with much blasting and digging away, had contrived one Immense oblong window, open toward the rising of the sun. Tts embrasure must have been full ten feet deep, but it let In a splerrtl r of sun, In the early morning hour?, thai I burned and dazzled upon the thick-let thick-let crystal masses lining roof and walls, till one could scarcely bear the glory of It. The drooping chandeliers, set by j, Nature's hand alone: the glassy curtain that fell like a frozen waierfall clown all one end of the f- hall: the curious tall "candle- ! i 6ticks" beside the window, shone hi not crystal-white alone, but violet blue and green and red, in sparks, as the light crept down the wall from the great opening to the sc? Blue and while the waves were racing, rac-ing, out there, with a glory of sun jKl and spray on them that almost IS matched the glory of the crystal $1 ball within: and the sea-wind streamed through the embrasure strong and salt and vivid c-n ths lips, a very philtre of life. Once I heard old Ivory say to himself, as the wind met him on the mouth, he walking slowly as bis manner was. with his head bent a little towards his breast. 'I remember, when I think. That my voulh was half divine" I wondered what he meant. Then it occurred to me that old people, of course, were foolish, the sa d things that had no meaning at alt It was well to be of a differen species and race it was well to be young This morning I felt and behaved Tery young indeed I think, as an unconscious uncon-scious protest against the suddenly acquired age o' Luke I came 0 fnto Persephone's " I-ill with a series of fiug-like leaps my ' .40' latest accomplish- v&iSlffll ment, of which I wa -jt$P Inordinately proud w and found my way to my own side of the table hopping. I "Honeyeakes aud flying-fish," I sang, taking my seat. Lorraine told me I was a citizen of Svbarls, and when I shook my I head at her, said I had better look It up at lessons. But not even the I thought of lessons could spoil that i glorious day. I Dinah would have spoiled it, if anyone could. She had cooked the breakfast, in her kitchen-cave, set It out on the concrete table, and was now sitting humbly, as was her I habit, at the far end, though father had told her, often enough, in my I recollection, that she was not con sidered a servant here on Hiliwa I Dara, where all were equal, and that he would Just as soon she sat ;: -With US. I saw. the moment I looked at her, that she was in a funeral I mood. I Dinah had missed her vocation, ! if anjono ever did. Obviously sho I should, with her peculiar cast of mind, have been the wife of some I flourishing undertaker, to whom j she would have been a? good as a I fortune. As a matter of fact 6he had. out "la tho world," been married mar-ried to a commercial traveller of the wine and spirits line, who died j of extreme convivlalty and, I think, or Dinah. But that Is con-jj con-jj 'Jecture. i She was the most ghoulishly- mlnded human being T have over met, with an inly-rooted attraction toward illnesses, deaths and fun- I erals. We had had few deaths on HIHwa Dara, but, there had been one or two. A native from among our field laborers had died of consumption; con-sumption; a young brown girl had "gone out" in her confinement; a j baby or two had given in to baby ailments. Dinah made the most of nil such occurrences, It would be unkind to say that they actually gave her jov, but they certainly did seem in some obscure fashion to "For answer, my lr . n her and do her good. aunt took my XL Her bedroom was hunt; round small face with funeral pictures; her father s . grave, her mother's grave, a faded ,n funeral wreath In a frame, a hands and - ghastly photograph of her husbani silently turned Iving in his coffin, another of his Up 0 father's headstone with herself In widow s view " VP-raf " ; weeds beside It She had news- i5KS' ' . paper notices of all these events afe. ijW pasted into a hook as actresses , '."' ''"" v pasie their paragraphs of praise. ':' ', She did not wear widow's weeds herself, it was Lorraine she who V never spoke of deaths, who woro eternal black for one dead bur . ' -vb Dinah, although she dressed In tho - 9 . rough blue affected by myself and ,; . , ' X. wk Luke, contrived to shed an atmos- y j H ' -gjQif-' 7 ' V' ' ' ' phere of widowhood over the very cookies and pies that she made and .J :' Hr -v - to spread a smell of funeral baked . '.' ?;3i 'SEffi''-' ' meats about every ham she cured. : . ' '? 'Nc :' Tw"' To-day, after helping round the SSfc'i fr ' SsW " ' excellent results of her cookery she "ktt-' '"' heaved a deep sigh and remarked jln' with her head on one side (always aft W. rV "ftf a danger signaD that she didn't flBk b F? vsl hold with tables made that wav. (fiVSlv V. Asked (InjndlclOUSlyj to explain - ' ' '!. she said that a marvel table (eon- " . j- 'fV' ' v - crete was always "marvel'' to ' r' ' . ' . ' Dinah 1 made her think of the tomb. y'j .r 'J0OTk ' y ' -j-.- And It seemed unlucky, somehow, 'tUM&t-tf Wffi , ',. '1 to be eating your food off of a -'V c ' ' T1 grave Dinah did not read or, at least so little as hardly to be worth ,-;.' (;i ' V mentioning but she certainly used ' ' v." ' : different fonts of type in her talk. and her capitals were expressive in a high degree. A?' - ; ' - .. '. y i-! t .avis' ,; '.;)' rs ' f Father never did know when to let well enough alone with Dinah I think his inborn courtesy often prompted him to unnecessary and injudicious politeness. "Why so?" he remarked, slicing a honey cake. "I don't see that any bad luck is likely to hit us now if it hasn't done so in all tho years that we've been eating off this concrete con-crete table of ours." "Man proposes and God decomposes," decom-poses," said Dinah piously There t, ere tears somewhere in her voice. She filled a cup of coffee and buried her face in it. Luke suddenly choked in his. Ho could never get accustomed to Dinah's amazing Malapropisms "I can't help smelling bad luck, somehow or other. It seems that kind of a day," observed Dinah, looking unmoved at the world of sapphire and gold that showed through the great window. "And master Luke there" (she would keep up the master and the mlssi "sitting with the sermons of tho grave about him, as you might say, does give my stomucl: a turn ' Luke, as a fact, was still wrapped In his bath towel like a senator in a toga, or. ns Dinah cheerfully put It, like a corpse in its cerements. Nbbody took much notice of her. Dinah was like that sometimes. She may, pr may not, have been qulto right in her mind I have often wondered. But she wan a splendid worker, and without her efficient aid in household tasks my education at the hands of Lorraine would have bepn sadly hampered So everyone indulged her. "Talking of bad luck i9 bringing it." said my father quite seriously Ho believed in the fructifying power of thought; it has become a common faith since those days. Dinah rolled on unreproved. Her head was on one side, she was buttering but-tering a piece of bread in a resigned re-signed sort of manner, as if she were sorry for it, and for herself. "You can't bring bad luck, nor yet keep it away," she said. "You can only make ready for it. Thank God, I always have kept the best of my nightdresses not trespassed upon, folded up with moth balls Inside In-side of it in a box, so that I can face my Maker with a mind at rest. And if ever anything happens to mo" she addressed Lorraine now, eating her bread and butter and dropping tears on it without the slightest alteration in her voice "there's my will put away In tho biggest tea tin that we don't use. I'd like you to remember If It al-N al-N ways did seem a scandal to me for anyone to die intestine." There was no handling Dinah when she got into this state Luke and I bolted our food and lied. We coaxed Lorraine to run the ends of Luke's new trousers through her machine and then, as It was Saturday Satur-day and a holiday, went off together to-gether to climb Parnassus and look for ships. Ships never came or almost never but none the less we looked for them B9 Industriously , as If we had been wrecked sailors marooned out here on Hiliwa Dara, hoping for release Father had called the hill in the middle of the island Parnassus, because be-cause he was a poet and un;d to go up there and write when he happened hap-pened to have the time. I think with the knowledge of later days, I can reconstruct much of the frame ot mind that led him to settle on Hiliwa Dara. He was, as I have said, a poet ; not a very famous onei but still not unknown. Ho had as much of the poetic temperament as many whose names are greater, but he had I imagino more feeling than power of expression. Thereby hung the tragedy of his marriage. He had married a girl who believed in nothing noth-ing that she did not see, credited the existence of nothing that was not told to her in plainest of words. And father couldn't tell her the things that she ought to havo known, without any necessity for telling. And somebody elso in timo proved apt at tolling that which she never should have known. My little mother "played the game." If she had not I her daughter, daugh-ter, would scarcely tell this tale. She loved the man in the uniform the man of the silver tongue (I have wondered, words or no words, if he could ever have had a voice as sliver as my father's wasp. She even told him so. She told my father She would have told all the world. Her love, she said, was her glory ... I don't know what she thought it was to her husband. I suppose she did not think about that at all The man waited. Probably he thought not understanding my Utile Ut-ile mother, even as she had not understood un-derstood my father that ho had only to wait. I was born tny father's own child When I was three days old she laid me in his arms and asked him to take me from the room she wanted a good long sleep, Even the nurse was to go away. They all went. They stayed within with-in hearing, but no one heard a sound . . An hour later my mother's body was found floating at the foot of the cliffs. They called it childbirth mania I do not know or, perhaps. I think I do. The man? He went to "tho war." You will not want to know which war it was. Ho never came back. After that, when the shadows had cleared away a little, my father being, be-ing, as I have said, a poet, dreamed a dream. It was the dream that everybody has, at some period of his or her life tho dream of on island of one's own. I need not tell you about it; you have had It. loo. But you never hoped to realize it, and never tried. I don't think mv father would havo tried either being so much of a poet if he had not, about this time, met old Ivory Mr. Ivory was a retired missionary, who had spent many years in the Pacific. Father, In his Sydney home the beautiful little nest he had built for the bird that only wanted to fly free talked with the strange old man and found that he too, had suffered. His marriage had been unhappy. His sons had been unhappy His grandson's had been more or less unhappy. All were still living, save tho grandson who had died in a shipwreck with his wife, leaving one little baby boy, whom Ivory had adopted. He told my father these things and I infer that they found each oilier very congenial on the Bubjec! of unhappy marriages. I thought in my childish days, aud I think still more now. that the Ivorys, on the whole, were a violent-willed, impetuous crowd who mado too early and too hurried, choices Their very virtues, which were as fierce as everything else connected with them, probably contributed to ' il resttlt. But Ivory did not think so. Ho thought the Institution of marriage itself was to blame. He was not. and is not, aloue in hi error. (C) 10CL InlrTDitionj! Ffajure Serrtee, lor. Ornt Urltilo Rlrhi ItrrrTL BSBUBBBBSa -1 ., . ,. c - i He told my father much about Islands and island life; told him incidentally that Islands were pur-chaseable pur-chaseable things, and that a man who wanted one. and could afford to pay for hrs fancy, might havo one as readily as he might have a horse or a house. It turned out when inquiry was made, that few were at that time in the market. Hiliwa Dara. being some miles square, of good soil, well watered, and uninhabited, naturally was valr ued high by the government to which it belonged. My father could not raise capital enough to buy it and to live there as well. And yet his very soul by now was set on owniug it. Here old Ivory came to tho rescue. He had saved money himself him-self and he had a curious plan in which my father, and no one else, could help him. He proposed a partnership. Lorraine, my aunt, at that time a widowed bride (for her fiance had died in n railway accident acci-dent on the morning of their marriage mar-riage day), came as companion to father and future in struct res.-i to me. And father, who had neglected my christening hitherto, much to the horror of old Ivory, when he found it out, had me named "Dara," after the island. And Hiliwa Dara was bought and the poet realized bis dream. If you had seen Hiliwa Dara you would have envied him; it was in every way the island of a dream. Many Pacific islands are nothing of the kind. Tho "low" island, lovely love-ly though it is, is no one's dream. People do not know enough about it to dream of it although its coloring, color-ing, as a rule, is superb, unmatch-able, unmatch-able, its palm trees the best of all . island palms. ' r Hiliwa Dara was not one of these. It was a "high" island, with Just the tall purple peak standing up in the middle, the dropping veils of stream and cataract, the bright-green bright-green climbing woods, and lawny bays, and tho white, white coral shore, that you have pictured so often to yourself. It had palms in plenty what is a south sea island without its palms? leaning over the green still water of the lagoon within the reef, pluming the slopes of "parnassus," standing out on the ends of seaward-running points as palms do stand. Just as If they had been planted there for sheer beauty. We planted a 'good many ourselves after coming to the Island, but no one would have noticed no-ticed them, since they were all sot '' x IS I I ' 1 f -.nt Hat awa at the back or land. Yes, it was lovely, entrai;cingMa.tSjo: lovely. It lay in the central bHK! .' ih. I"-... , : . ..rricansMj never come, and there 1- -u litthli,, fc( difference between the seasons tHn one may well call life one lonH i!g Sum There were rahBi1' sometimes djk after day of rain for quite 'a aH while; there were equinoctial gahwkla kind: there were "cold" nifjft v. hen tho thermometer w en dowmjjj'tt ' i said -ti..M l ne dimate must be e'nanghjft and nuthin; lud ever been seaji' liko it There were hot dajR plenty when ihe instruments 4. our little thatched hut stood nfiW over ninety at high noon Bvli there was never cold, nor tempesj1" I'or iJe.itro;, '.r. V- ; al as theA a core of life and coolness ijtiy, the air from the 'ireath of the gresW PrjnM seas, almost alwavs there was iKWIcI and sun ai d - in. and flowers thjjei marked two Summers In the Jm in, u uuimic feiii ui mucin. XBJ '.'i: - : not : once, as in less generous clinie&Brci 1 re two seasons, markMi(' by the changing of the winds frowtit sluggish. imes stormy nflH west, to the cool, clear river of thC LEv (lowing southeast -trade'' that Bb. for nearlv --.-n months of the yeC1 without a break, through o'ir blCkE pale-blue heavens. Some of jH!:ttQe flowers kept no season, but l.doomBul!t,0a endlessly. Alwavs there we strange secretive orchid bIoolBjja hiding in the great bush fl01P butterflies ami moths- of white IH, jUnk and y.-lhe.v oranue spottK -ot with brown, of ,'!esh red tipped ffltsK!'' Color of new blood Alwavs tlJZi faithful frangipanm bore wblttff'-! e gold-centered s'ars, sometlinSM" Petr, many, sometimes few, ih.o luade.."J5, flf; ?vr.- :li ... ;n hnWUriCej and the hibiscus burned red at titfjKf," ri edges of the bush, and the pawBkj hung on' i-..ivlng s'reams of ?reSiB Obai white blossom: 'Imost too cloyUM Ij sweet. It ,111 tlrnt 'lBiM' ' about the " nouso were ypttat; hut they flowered mo 1 of Hie tillM and fr iiied fwleo yearly, so tBL1 the stabbing ni of orange-blOK? er( blown down the entrance archwitj.11 never abs' if from our rooH5j"co and ihe golden fruit was almost flj.0. ways piled u;on our tables melted into season on HL b Dara. with not so much , han.g9riCovfrl comes of morning melting 'Kfc; 1 moon Ft was always love! .V-M?S is always Summer And it .vmS" t alwavs peace until the day BTlt0y Dinah saldthere was 111 luck aD0Wf rg To Be Cftinued Next Sundayfc Bar, (Copjrlfht." h by B.lrl OiiS. M |