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IV.
HE next afternoon there was a drive
arranged for the guests of the house
party to some picturesque shoals about
six miles from Gray Towers. Sylvia
rode with her host, and managed, with
out. appearing to do so, to avoid any
intimate conversation with Rodney Hill.
But Dorothy Fane upset all her plans,
by taking her seat in the tonneau, on
T
the return trip, and Sylvia tv as left with no resource
but to come back in the dog cart with Rodney Hill.
f ‘Tell me,” she said, after they were seated and
quietly driving- along the country road, “about
California, the magical land; the big trees and the
fruit farms and the wonderful flowers.”
“You should see it for yourself,” he said
dreamily. “It is the paradise of the earth. The
cactus grows to gigantic height, as well as the
geranium, oleanders and azaleas. The dwarf pets
of your state, which you are glad to house in a six
inch jar, flourish into overshadowing trees, in our
magical climate.”
“Go on,” she said in an interested tone.
“On our fruit farms we have mile-long rows of
fruit trees, criss-crossed, figs and apricots, plums,
and oranges, and lemons. There is no country that
seems to me to be so much God’s country as ours,
for even our deserts now blossom as the rose.”
“Aunt. Lina has promised to take me there,”
Sylvia answered quietly, “next winter. That is, if
we can get Reece to go with us. We have been
to Europe two summers without him, and we have
both vowed never to leave home again, as two
forlorn females.”
The young man touched the bay horse between
the shafts, lightly, with the whip, as he enquired:
“Why?” in a carefully modulated tone.
“Oh, I suppose that it is because we are spoiled,”
Sylvia explained with a smile. “He thinks of
' everything for us at home; he takes the whole
burden, financial and social; and when we go off,
we just do not know how to get along without him.”
Rodney Hill frowned; but after a moment he
said, in a meditative voice:
“I would give anything to see you, dressed in
white like you wore last night, standing under a
plumosa palm, with your violin trailing from one
hand at vour side, and back of vou the lustrous
light of a Pacific coast sunset. Miss Warrenton,
promise me now,” he continued ardently, “that
you will come to God’s country next winter.”
“Oh, that is easy,” Sylvia replied, with ready
diplomacy. “I promise, if Reece will come with
me.”
He gave the girl at his side a long, searching
glance. She wore a lilac lawn dress and a white
chip hat wreathed heavily in violets. And she was
apparently the incarnation of innocence. But the
young Californian, in gray flannels, said one word,
under his blond mustache, too low for her to catch,
“Checkmated! ”
Hours later Sylvia, not being interested in the
game of dominoes, with which the members of the
house party were beguiling themselves in the
library, slipped away at ten o’clock, intending to
get a long beauty sleep. But the great arched
window on the second landing of the g-rand stair
way, with luxurious cushions on the broad seat,
shadowed by the graceful fronds of palms in the
corners, looked so enchanting in the moonlight,
that she paused, in obedience to an artistic impulse.
She gazed down into the beautiful grounds below,
which the gleam of rare statues among the ever
greens made more fairyland like, in the soft light,
then she sighed and sank down among the cushions.
“What a glorious thing to be alive!” she ex
claimed, as she lifted her white arms above her
head, and leaned back against the heavy window
frame.
THE MISSION GIRL
* By Odessa Strickland Payne,
Author of "Psyche, ” "Esther TerralVs Experiment, ” Etc.
After a while, a large withered daisy, lying on the
window sill, attracted her attention. She picked
it up, touched it lightly to her lips and said with
a smile:
“I leave the solution of my problem to you —my
fate to the petals of a fragile flower; and, why
not? The destiny of nations has hung upon the
throw of a die, the rise or fall of kingdoms upon
the toss of a penny.”
Then she began shredding the long petals slowly,
one by one, while she murmured:
“He loves me, loves me not,” in a voice that was
as sweet and amused as a child’s. When the
flower had been denuded of all of its petals but five,
she continued her game slowly and anxiously—but
she finished at last with a soft blush, and in a tone
of ecstasy,
“He loves me!” she said to the silence.
While the color still burned in her cheek, there
Avas a ringing masculine step on the stairs; Sylvia
gathered up her light blue draperies, and hoped that
the intruder Avould pass her by. It proved to be
Rodney Hill, and he stooped and looked at the
vision in the window seat with kindling eyes, but
he said nothing for a. long moment.
“You have been avoiding me,” he declared, “all
the evening, and I dare hope that it has made you
as unhappy as it has me.”
“Why?”
“Because, I have found you wonderfully con
genial,” he affirmed calmly, “during these days of
close intellectual companionship Avhich Ave have had
together here. Such intimate association as has
been made possible by this house party, is worth
a lifetime of* mere acquaintanceship. Indeed, I
have felt like I haA r e been granted a sojourn in
Paradise . . . shall I tell you Avhy?”
Sylvia stirred faintly and clasped her hands;
but he held her glance with the grey imperiousness
of his eyes.
“Only because I love you!”
Suddenly he bent down, masterful and tender.
“Say that you will be my Avife, Sylvia. Say
yes, sAveetheart, say yes!”
But the girl had risen to her feet, Avhite as a
disembodied spirit, and slipping past him, she
ascended three or four steps above him, and leaning
down, Avith her draperies in a blue swirl about her
slender figure, she threAV out one Avhite hand ap
pealingly :
“Wait! It may be yes at some time in the
future, I do not knoAv . . . Avait. ’ ’
A look of anguish swept across the strong white
face.
“But, Miss Warrenton,” he expostulated, “I
lea A re for San Francisco, tomorrow. There is no
time to wait. It is noAv or never.”
She lifted one azure-clad shoulder.
“Here!” he slipped a diamond ring from his
little finger. “Wear this, at least as a symbol that
there is hope . . . for me.”
He took the white passive hand in his, which
hung over the balustrade, and slipped the ring on
the engagement finger.
“There is no one that you prefer to me?” he
asked, his A T oice vibrating Avith anxiety.
“No one,” she ansAvered, Avith simple directness.
“Well; that is enough for me,” he said, Avith
an irradiating smile, which made his handsome face
gIoAV.
“I shall give myself the pleasure of taking you
home tomorrow, and call afterwards, if I may, in
the evening,” he continued. “Good night.” He
lifted her hand to his lips Avith a look of reverent
tenderness, and turning, descended the steps, while
Sylvia slipped quietly up to her own room.
. She turned up the light and looked at herself in
the full length mirror, on the old fashioned bureau.
Her cheeks Avere flushed and her eyes bright Avith
restrained emotion.
The G-olden Age for June 18, 1908.
“Bound!” she said to the tall girl in blue who
confronted her, like a radiant \ 7 ision. “And he will
find out that I . . . love him . . . before he leaves
for the Pacific coast tomorrow night.”
Mrs. Lila Dane Rawson sat reading in the back
parlor of her home, and after a long time, in which
she sloavlv turned the pages Avith varying interest,
she sighed, laid down the book, and glanced up at
the bronze clock on the mantel.
“It is eleA T en thirty,” she said in the quiet,” I
wonder how much longer Rodney Hill is going to
make his, fareAvell call.”
As if in answer to her demand she heard the
front door shut softly, and a moment later Sylvia
trailed dreamily into the room.
She Avore an old rose colored silk, simply made
with a lace yoke defined by bands of nile-green
velvet ribbon, artistically tied in knots on the
shoulders, and except for a diamond starred locket,
swinging by a slender chain around her white
throat, she Avas entirely Avithout ornament.
Mrs. Rawson regarded her niece with an affec
tionate glance, tinged Avith amusement.
“Mr. Hill’s adieux,” she said in & loav, melloAv
voice, “seemed about as long to me, as the journey
from here to Frisco.”
“We had so many problems to solve,” Sylvia
answered sloavlv, “that I Avonder he got off at all.”
The stately lady in gray mull, threAV out her hand
with a gesture of impatience.
“My dear child, Avhat do you mean?”
The radiance Avent out of the girl’s face, she had
meant to keep her happiness to herself for a while.
But Avhy should she not tell her Aunt? She had
always been good to her, and Reece Redmond and
herself furnished her, as all the Avorld kneAV, Avith
her chief reason for living.
“Can’t you guess, Aunt Lila?”
“No; my intuitions are more frequently in
correct than otherwise,” Mrs. RaAvson explained,
“although I belong to the sex whose brilliancy is
conceded on that line.”
Sylvia Avent over to her aunt’s chair, and stooping
down kissed her cheek; then she straightened her
self, and said, with a soft blush:
“I did not Avant to tell you tonight, Aunt Lila,
but I am engaged to Rodney Hill.”
“Since when?” the tone of the question Avas not
unkind.
“Last night,” Sylvia answered, as she fled to
the door, “dear Aunt Lila, I can not talk about it
noAV . . don’t make me. Good night.”
Mrs. Rawson’s eyes filled Avith sudden tears as
Sylvia left her and sAviftly ascended the grand
stairway. She said:
“Never morning Avore
To evening, but sqme heart did break.”
She Avas thinking of Reece.
(To be Continued.)
»\ K
Not Exorbitant.
The summer resident looked sharply at Mr.
Jameson’s guileless moon face, and then at the
mild and none-too-sprightly horse he was offering
for sale.
“Don’t you think a hundred and fifty dollars is
rather a stiff price to ask for a horse like that?”
asked the summer resident. “Hoav old is he?”
“He’s only jest thirty,” said Mr. Johnson,
calmly.
“Thirty years old, and you expect to get a hun
dred and fifty dollars for him?”
“I don’t knoAv as 1 expect to get it,” said Mr.
Jameson, without rancor, “but it seems as if I’d
ought to have full as much as that. It don’t come
to but five dollars a year, and lie’s cost me a good
deal more’n that most years.”—Exchange.
