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HmFLAffl FROM ALAVAWkI
Vy Odessa Strickland Payne and Lamar Strickland Payne, Author of "Limit of the Line," and Other Thrilling Stories.
I
hymn.
The girl wore a light-grey tailor-made suit with a
black hat wreathed heavily in plumes. She was fair
to see. Only the expression of her face was cold,
even when she arose and began to sing with the
rest the doxology. But as her voice soared, sweet
and clear, in the third line, “Praise him above ye
heavenly host,” the beautiful eyes suddenly grew
dark with wistful pain, and the proud young head
was lowered very humbly, under the solemn bene
diction.
As the girl passed out of the church, leaving it to
the flower-fragrant silence, two gentlemen standing
on the stone steps lifted their hats to her. One was
a remarkably handsome man, with a superb figure
and a clear-cut face. The eyes were hazel-brown,
and the hair worn short matched them perfectly.
His companion was an old man with a fine air of
dignity, to which a half century of professional life,
perhaps, entitled him. The older man looked after
the vanishing figure of the girl with an expression
that was half tender.
“Cam,” he queried, “did you know that ray profes
sion was a kind of revelation of womanhood?”
The younger man smiled
“Certainly, I can understand how it might be.”
uesk my Bby, girl we spoke to, just now,
June Churchill, is the finest all-’round character I
ever knew. She looks like a lovely vision, but there
is steel fiber under all that girlish grace. She is
idealistic in temperament, and her mother’s death
two years ago nearly killed her. But since then she
has been devoting much of her time to philanthropy
among the submerged folk. You know Garvin Hill
don’t you? and Carol Hall’s mills eh? Well, Cam, they
swear by her in these settlements of wretchedness
and poverty.”
“I have heard of Miss Churchill only as a gifted
girl,” Prof. Cam Blake made answer lightly. “I did
not know that our suburb could boast of a Florence
Nightingale.”
“Very few know of this passion of June’s for the
unfortunate,” the old doctor explained, “I mean of
her own class —and I am quite sure that she would
be angry with me, if she knew that I had been en
lightening you, even if we do happen to be bon com
rades.”
“I am glad of your revelation, doctor;” the Pro
fessor replied courteously, “unselfishness is rare
enough to be interesting, in these days of the but
terfly beatitudes.”
After which sage remark Prof. Blake and Dr. Caleb
Carr parted, and went their several ways.
Miss Churchill walked on slowly, unaware of the
comments that she had caused on the marble steps
of the church.
The houses along the way were all well set back
from the street, and the grounds more or less laid
off with an eye to the beauty of the whole street,
each emerald and green lawn boasting its comple
ment of giant water-oaks and statuary. Marble
steps and low stone walls gleamed out in unexpected
places. Some of the houses were of the far-famed
ante-bellum type white columned and imposing in
their simple, chaste lines, while others were entirely
modern in style and design and were consequently
angular and artistic, in the extreme.
Miss Churchill opened the iron gate to one, which
presented a happy blending of the old and the new,
in architecture. A wing, with bay windows and man
sard roof, left only four columns to the old-time
mansion; but it left it more imposing than its mod
ern neighbors —an ideal home in fact, with its close
clipped lawns, oak trees, and evergreen boundaries,
fifty years old.
June Churchill looked a part of the ideal loveli-
CHAPTER 11.
NSIDE the church at Hayden Park—
the old-time aristocratic suburb of the
great city—where the hot-house Calla
Lilies were still of unsoiled whiteness
a young girl sat in one of the central
pews, observant, stately.
The sermon was over ;but a choir
of rich young voices was filling the
building with the melody of the closing
The Golden Age For January 27, IslO.
ness as she loitered up the walk, with her ivory grey
parasol shading hr refined face, beneath the soft
shadow of the plumes which enswathed her hat.
An old gentleman sat reading on the front portico,
if sixty can be called old. He smiled as the girl
sank down, leisurely, into one of the wicker rocking
chairs near him. She returned the smile but said
nothing, as she pulled off her gloves and proceeded
to stretch out the fingers with a dainty touch.
“Well, June,” her father said, “what did Dr.
Brantley preach about this afternoon? Did he repay
you for your walk?”
“I should say he did,” she answered, “only I have
forgotten the text.”
And then Miss Churchill abandoned the study of
her gloves, leaned back in her chair, and, encoun
tering her father’s glance, laughed, softly, deliciously
as it is only in the province of a lady to laugh.
“You have forgotten the text? I hope that you do
not regard that as an orthodox omission or commis
sion, my daughter?”
“Neither the one or the other, father, but you did
try to look so comically grave, and you ought to
know that the weather, this summer day in winter
time, is too enervating for any display of dignity.”
“Perhaps,” a broad smile swept over her father’s
handsome mouth. “And so because of the weather
you lost the sermon?”
“No. I did not. I lost the text,” and then she con
tinued in a voice grown rich and soft with feeling,”
I think that I shall remember the sermon until I
die.”
“Ah, yes. I guess it was about heaven and immor
tality; and you thought about —your mother?”
“No, not about heaven, father; it was about some
thing better for human beings, just now, character
and ideals. You see, papa,” she went on, in a sweet,
vibrant tone,” it is quite impossible to rise any high
er than your ideal-self. Don’t you recall what Mrs.
Browning says, “Your Fourriers failed, because not
poets enough to understand, that life develops from
within?”
“So it does, my daughter; but the having of an
exceptional ideal is not always a surety of success.”
“Perhaps not, but one is infinitely better off, for
the following of a high ideal, however often they
may stumble and fall on the upward way.”
And, Miss Churchill, as if to emphasize her words,
too off her hat and stuck her silver hat pins through
the crown. Then, as her father did not reply, she
went on, thoughtfully:
“You know that Janies Lane Allen says: “God
does not count us failures because we have to be
forgiven.” And, he asserts, also, that there are two
kinds of ideals. The light-house ideals, which are
always out of reach, because they inspire us to long
for unattainable things; but the other kind are like
candles; they are possible to our fallen humanity,
and they serve to brighten and beautify life, but,
alas! they never satisfy. How could they?” and,
as June asked the last question, she crossed her
lovely hands above her head and gazed, wistfully,
out into the afternoon glory.
“After one has climbed, with infinite difficulty, by
the uplifting radiance of a light-house ideal, how
could they be content to walk by the rush-light of a
candle?”
“Light-house ideals are the heritage of the young,
my daughter,” her father returned, gently. “The
old learn to be thankful for the milder glow of can
dle ideals —at least, they furnish enough light to
walk by.”
“Yes, father,” June returned, sweetly, with a sigh
and a smile, as she lowered her arms, and assumed
a less theatrical attitude, “but I hope the storms of
life will not put out all of my light-house ideals, un
til I am too old to care.”
One morning June Churchill sat in the large front
hall at home, which, somehow, was a favorite place
of resort with her. It was an old English hall, with a
large, square mirror above the brown and white-til
ed hearth; and, besides this artistic feature it was
furnished with paintings, long quaintly carved
couches, palms, and statuary.
She had just finished a design of wild roses on an
ebony plaque, when a servant came to tell her, that
her father wished to see her in the library. The
summons was unusual, and she was conscious of
some degree of trepidation as she rose to go.
Her father was a handsome, impressive man, be
fore the rondure of his library table. He was a West
Point graduate, and a certain military grace of car
riage and manner, refined by culture and contact
with the best circles of society gave him a distin
guished personality.
He gave his daughter the military salute, when
she entered. Then he laid down his fountain-pen,
and turned around in his revolving chair, from the
finely polished mahogany table before him, which
was piled up, portentiously, with ledgers and ac
count books. He surveyed Juno critically, for a mo
ment, as she stood before him, in all the loveliness
of her youth, which, perhaps, he did not know was
intensified by a most becoming morning gown.
“My daughter,” he said, at last, “I think that you
had better be seated, for I have much to say to
you.”
He paused, and June appropriated a rocking-chair,
in the silence.
“June,” he said, then, and it seemed to her with
something of an effort, “have you any recollection
of your Grandfather?”
“Yes, I remember him,” she answered, in a low
musical voice, “as one of the deities of my extreme
youth. I recollect running down a long box-bordered
avenue to meet him, once, and I could not get the
gate open, when I came to the end. I cried, and,
my Grandfather, who was on the other side of the
gate, stooped down from his horse —for he was rid
ing at the time —and lifted me up into his arms.”
“I hope that you will keep that memory of his
kindness,” her father replied, in a grave voice, “for
you will doubtless need it, somewhere, in the future.
I have sometimes found it hard, bitterly hard, to re
member that he was a good man.”
“Explain?”
“Well, my father was a Southerner, first, last, and
always, and, after brother Will was shot at Gettys
burg he became unbalanced about the war. He had
saved the vast bulk of his fortune, by converting it
into English consols, at the commencement of hos
tilities; and, he was, in consequence, at the close of
the strife, a very rich man. I have heard him boast
that he had six sugar plantations, all the slaves
that belonged to them, and four business blocks in
New Orleans, in good English securities. He left
it all te me and my heirs, provided we married one
of our own race and religion—“ Southern born and
Protestant bred.”
“If, however, we should dare to exercise the right
of choice, over Mason’s and Dixon’s line, matrimo
nially, we thereby forfeited every dollar of our heri
tage.”
June’s face grew thougtful, and, she wondered,
without following the mental process of the thought
to conclusion, if Prof. Cam Blake was Southern born
and Protestant bred?
“I am glad to know about Grandfather’s will,”
June said, at length, interlacing her white fingers,
leisurely, “but it is really a surprise to me to dis
cover that we have a fortune. I had supposed, of
course, that we had money from my grandfather’s
estate, but I don’t think that you ever explained
before what it consisted of, father. I knew that
Von Bulow, Rose and myself had been given extra
ordinary educational advantages, and that you paid
for them, out of my grandfather’s estate. But I was
not aware that he left an old-time fortune.”
“Because, perhaps, my daughter,” and the man
smiled rather sadly, “I did not want you to think so
It is so hard for young people to have any senst
about money. It is so easy for them to become
haughty and purse-proud and indolent! And, as I
wanted my daughters to be worthy young women, I
have been, designedly, reticent about finances.”
“But now,” taking off his gold glasses, “as I
may have to leave you before many months, I
thought it best to reveal, a part of the truth, in that
iniquitous will.”
(To be continued.)
