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insult Lassie by leabin’ huh outside
he ma’s own gate, an’ pears ’termined
like not to set he foot inside de
house do’. Marse Phil sut’nly got
sump’n on he min’, dat’s one thing,
to’ sho!”
The next minute Mrs. Prentiss ap
peared in the doorway. Her quick
mother-ear had caught the sound
of the young man’s voice, and she
needed no summons from Jerry. She
was a comely little matron of forty
five, with soft brown eyes. She
hardly came up to Phil’s shoulder,
and the strapping fellow bent low to
kiss her.
“I have been expecting to see you
here, Philip,” she said; “though 1
hardly looked for your arrival at this
hour of the day! Did you ride from
the city?” noting his costume.
“Where did you spend the night, and
where is your horse?”
“My! Mother, you are as good at
rapid-fire questioning as was Napo
leon himself. Yes, ma’am, I rode,
and Lassie is hitched at the gate, and
as I didn’t leave Baltimore till nearly
nine last night, you can answer your
own question as to where I rested!”
“Oh, Philip, you and Lassie must
both be tired, after your all-night
traveling! You must eat a hot break
fast —it will be ready in a few min
utes, now—and then take a good
nap.”
“Thank you, little Mother: but 1
took an hour's snooze down the road
awhile ago, and feel as fresh and
bright as this splendid spring morn
ing itself. I have no doubt I shall
enjoy my breakfast when I get
around to it, but—the first thing, 1
must see the Judge. I have sent word
by Jerry that 1 am waiting out here
for him.”
“Well, 1 hear him coming. I will
go and see about preparations for
breakfast.” And Mrs. Prentiss hur
ried away.
She was a wise little woman, and
knew full well the peculiar circum
stances in which her husband and
her son now found themselves as to
each other; also that the latter was
a young man who could seldom be
accused of not knowing his own
mind, when once made up, so that,
whatever course of action he had
decided upon, in the present instance,
would be carried out in any event.
So she left them to have their in
terview alone.
Judge Prentiss and his stepson
had always been good friends, and it
was with a cheery: “Well, Philip, my
boy, it has been a long while since
you last favored Prentiss Hall with
your presence,” that the Judge step
ped out onto the piazza and gave the
young man a warm handshake. Yet
to Phil’s quick, perhaps suspicious
eye, there was a trace of embarrass
ed constraint in the Judge's manner.
Phil drove at once to the point.
“Yes, Judge, it is quite a while
since I visited you here. And, from
present prospects, it is likely to be
even longer ere I do so again. Ur
gent business has brought me to
Frederick, and it was natural that I
should wish to see my mother.
“But I fully realize, sir, that in
the existing state of public affairs it
might be anything but agreeable to
you to have me stopping under your
roof. There are busy times just
ahead here, and, as you know, Judge,
T shall not play an idle part: you also
know what that part will be. I
wished to do you the courtesy of
seeing you and letting you know that
I appreciate your position, sir, before
proceeding to take up quarters in
the town.”
“Philip, you always were a
thoughtful boy!” (Phil thought he
detected a note of relief in the
Judge’s voice). “But you can, at
least, take breakfast with us and
have your horse fed before going on
to Frederick. Yon know you can
safely do that much, from the stand
points of both of us: you have not
yet joined the fray just opening up
over in the village.”
And the older man laughed, a
trifle nervously.
“Thank you, Judge; but it is only
a matter of a couple of miles further,
and there are matters I should see to
without delay. After all, sir, if I
proceed at once there will be no
possible excuse hereafter for a
charge against you of having shelter
ed one of the ‘rebel ringleaders.’ As
I reminded you a moment ago, my
position and projected course are well
known to you: it is no great distance
to Washington, you. know, and you
are well known in high circles
there.”
“Philip, my boy, I hope you are
not hurt.” The Judge took a turn
about the piazza, (his hands clasped
under his coat-tails), and appeared
ill at ease.
“Really, my boy, aren’t you mak
ing a mistake? You are young,
Philip—very young—and can well
afford to leave the shaping of these
matters to older heads; your position
is a purely voluntary, unofficial one,
you know. That would not prevent
your adopting what course you think
best, when the issue is once made up,
so to speak. Meantime, there could
be no impropriety in my having you
stay here as my wife’s son, as well
as a private citizen. In any event,
you know this State is right under
the guns of Washington; so, with a
view to the practical side of the ques
tion, considering your own material
interests as a property owner of
Maryland, would it not be just as
well for you to go a little slow just
at present?
“Still,” the Judge hastily added,
marking the young man’s contracting
brow and flashing eye, “I suppose
your mind is fully made up, and any
attempt at argument or persuasion
is useless, even on the part of an old
man like myself!”
“Quite right, Judge; utterly use
less. My determination is as firmly
fixed as is yours, and, stand or fall,
I am irrevocably identified with
Maryland and the South. I thank
you for your present interest in me,
sir, and for all your past kindness
to me. But I shall bid you good day
as soon as I see my mother for a
minute again.”
The Judge went to summon his
wife, and appeared not to find It
necessary to return with her to the
piazza. Possibly he regarded the
proud young fellow’s closing remark
as a dismissal. As she came out on
the porch the second time, Mrs.
Prentiss regarded her son solicitous
ly.
“You will stay with us, Philip, at
least today, will you not?” she
asked, as if divining the trend of his
interview with the Judge.
“No, Mother dearest; not another
hour. It is best thus. I cannot say
how long my stay in Frederick will
be, nor where I shall go when I leave
there. The future of both myself
and my 'State is just now full of
doubt and uncertainty. I surely hope
to be able to see you again soon, but
—I shall bid you goodbye, Mother,
here and now!”
“Oh, Philip, my son, my son! To
what terrible end are events shap
ing?” And the little mother buried
her face on his breast as she burst
into tears.
Hers was indeed a trying position;
her only living and dearly loved son
—through force of circumstances and
his own deliberate choice—shut out
from free access to her home; her
husband, from birth and tradition,
siding against her people and her
State; herself the victim and chief
sufferer in a divided household!
Woman’s Work.
“There, there, Mother; as you used
to teach me when a little child, we
are in the hands of our Father above,
and all things are in His protecting
care!”
A minute or two he stood, support
ing his mother’s form in his strong,
tender clasp, and soothing her with
loving caresses. Then, as she be
came more composed, he led her over
to one of the seats ranged at each
end of the broad piazza, and seated
himself beside her. He allowed him
self fifteen minutes further talk, in
cluding in part some necessary in
structions as to the management of
things at Ellerton, in case he should
be unable to give them any further
attention. Then, as Lassie’s impa
tient, remonstrant neigh sounded
from the road, he arose to go.
“And one thing more, Mother,” he
said, holding tight her hand, but
strangely enough looking off over
the Judge’s broad, rolling fields —not
down into her brown eyes with his
blue ones, as before. “You will see
that Miss Pillsbury and —and Mar
ion Palmer, in Baltimore, are in
formed that I am not staying at
Prentiss Hall, and shall not?”
Mrs. Prentiss was both wise and
discreet; she was, moreover, a wo
man. Whatever she may have known,
or may not have known, of the state
of affairs between the Northern beau
ty and her son, she had not learned
from Phil’s lips. Now she answered
simply: “I will see that they know.”
Another son 1 embrace and linger*
ing kiss; another “Goodbye, Mother
dear,” and Mrs. Prentiss, with a
fervent, “Goodbye, God bless and
preserve you, my son,” smiled brave
ly up into the young man’s sternly
set sac as many and many a
noble mother was doing daily
throughout the length and breadth
of the Southland, keeping up a brave
expression at the dread moment of
parting, but shedding many a tear
of anguish, alone, when the last
goodbye had been said. It was these
same noble women of the South, who,
in many cases, literally buckled the
sword in place as they bade the de
fenders of their homes Godspeed in
going forth to meet the invader. A
similar tribute might well have been
rendered the Southern women gen
erally to that paid by the great Stone
wall Jackson to the patriotic daugh
ters of the Valley of Virginia: “God
bless the women of the Valley; they
are worth fighting for!”
Phil’s actions were as much in
disfavor with Lassie as with the
scandalized Jerry. She knew it was
breakfast time, and past, and after
the jaunt of the night before she
B
physical and spiritual elements is the very
foundation of health. One who is con
stantly looking for defects i i others sees
little or nothing of the beautiful either in
mankind or in Nature. It is said that
what one sees in others is but a reflection
of self. This may or may not be true, but
there is no questi-in that he may absorb or
assimilate, so to speak, the faults he per
ceives in bis fellowmen -until he becomes a
veritable receptacle for any adverse con
ditions thrown out by those with whom he
comes in touch.— Alice M. Long.
Every duty we omit obscures some truth
we might have known.
A distinguished writer has said: “To
no woman can we give higher p-aise than
to say of her she is a perfect nurse. For,
to find a perfect nurse we must find a wo
man with a head so well furnished, a heart
so good, and a temper so sweet, that she
might also be termed a perfect woman.’
Neither a borrower, nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
—Shakespeare.
Beware of losing or wasting inches of
time—they are the little foxes that run
away with many days. So much can be
done in them and with them—often the
very things for which we sigh hopelessly.
Fill them, every one. Keep something
handy—something that fits the interval.
Remember that a famous law book was
written because a lord chancellor chose not
to be idle throughout the fifteen minutes
his wife made him wait each day for din
ner. Recall, too, all the men, noble and
For Woman’s Work.
REFLECTIONS.
EAUriFUL, I right ar.d hopeful
thoughts are conducive to harmony,
and harmony cf the mental, moral,
was full ready for a good feed of hay
and oats.
Yet here was her master, after
leaving her tied outside the gate of
this prosperous looking Maryland
farm house for a half hour and more,,
deliberately proceeding to mount and
ride on, she knew not how much
farther, as if on this fresh April morn
ing, there were no such things as
hungry horses in the world. She
tossed her mane, champed the bit.
and half turned that same pretty
head to look around at her rider with
inquiring, reproachful eyes; then—
concluding that this was a small mat
ter, after all, for good friends to fall
out over, and responding readily to
Phil’s signal—she broke into a
smart lope down the road to Fred
erick town, two miles away.
“Yes, I know you are tired and
hungry, little gal, and have well
earned your breakfast: you shall
have it, too, before ~you are thirty
minutes older,” and Phil patted the
mare's neck as he spoke.
“But you see, Lassie,” he confided.
I really could not embarrass the
Judge by asking him to keep two
such arrant ‘Rebels,’ (he would style •
it), as you and I. Os course I sup
pose we might have accepted hie
Honor's invitation to breakfast with
him, and I may have appeared a bit
churlish in refusing same: still, there
is no time like the present to' begin,
when you have a definite line of ac
tion mapped out. “And then, too.
Lassie,” very confidentially, “such
complete and early severance of dip
lomatic relations will serve all the
more strongly, when it reaches
Milady’s ears, (as reach them it
speedily shall), to convince her that
I am really and truly out of the way
at Prentiss Hall, and she will have
the less hesitancy in carrying out her
original plan of coming on there
from Baltimore again. Whatever
else she may think of me, she shall
have no occasion to look upon me
as a cad, ready to take an unfair
advantage of circumstances, or need
lessly to embarrass a lady. She will
find in Phil Elliott a good hard fight
er to the end of the chapter, but, at
all events, one who will fight fair.
And fighting there is, a plenty, in.
store for both of us, I am thinking,
little gal, so the day ot
battle has dawned!”
Half cheerily, half sadly was this
soliloquy delivered, to be followed by
a long silence as Lassie cantered
along the well traveled highway, her
master sitting erect and rigid in the
saddle, his thoughts busy with Balti
more and the very recent past—with;
Frederick and the immediate future.
(Continued next month.)
eminent, who have climbed to the heights
by saving inches of time. All of us can
not hope to become likewise eminent, but
we can reasonably and easily make our
selves happy with things wrought in the
fragmentary moments which we might un
thriltily leave vacant.
You will find as you look back upon
your life that the moments that stand out,
the moments when you have really lived,
are the moments when you have done
things in a spirit of love. As memory scans
the past, above and beyond all the transi
tory pleasures of life, there leap forward
those supreme hours when you have been
enabled to do unnoticed kindnesses to
those round about you, things too trifling
to speak of, but which you feel have
entered into your eternal life. I have seen
almost all the beautiful things God has
made, I have enjoyed almost every pleas
ure that Ho has p'annel fjt man; and yet
as I look back I see standing out above all
the life that has gone, four or five short
experiences when the love of God reflected
itself in some poor imitation, some small
act of love of mine, and these seem to ba
the things which alone of all one’s life
abide. Everything else in all our lives is
transitory. Every other good is visionary.
But the acts of love which no man knows
about, or can ever know about—they never
fail.— Henry Drummond.
* May every soul that touches mine, be
it the sligh eet contact, get therefrom some
goo),some li,tie grace, one kindly thought,
one inspiration yet unfelt, one bit of cour
age for the darkening sky, one gleam of
faith to brave the thickening ills of life,
one glimpse of brighter skies beyond the
gathering mist, to make this life worth,
while and heaven a surer heritagel'*
MARCH, 1910.