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CHAPTER XXXVIII.
HREE weeks had gone by since
Sylvia and her father went South.
Through frequent letters and
through the newspapers, Faith
learned the happy events that had
followed their arrival in Altamont.
Sylvia’s reappearance was a nine
days wonder, and Charley’s imme
diate release was the occasion of a
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joyous public ovation.
When, pale with the prison pallor, but with
bright happy eyes, he appeared by the side
of the Judge, who had officiated at his trial,
the air rang with the welcoming shouts of
the crowd assembled in front of the prison.
Loyal friends and those who had doubted his
innocence alike pressed forward to congratulate
him as he moved through the throng on his
way to the carriage in which sat his father,
Sylvia and Stanley King.
Later, came the newspaper account of Hu
bert Thorne’s complete vindication by the law
to which he had given himself up as soon as
he arrived in Altamont, asking for an imme
diate trial. Sylvia wrote about it in her enthu
siastic way, telling of her father’s surprise at
finding that he had all along had many un
known friends and sympathizers; among the
most sincere of these being Stanley King him
self, nephew of that noted prosecutor whose
biting satire and bitter arraignment had largely
conduced to Thorne’s conviction.
Ten days after her return to Glenwood, Syl
via and Stanley King were quietly married at
Sunset Lodge, Dr. Glenn conducting the rites
that united them; Charley officiating as best
man, and Hubert Thorne giving away his
daughter at the altar.
Directly after the marriage, the newly-wed
ded pair went to New Orleans to visit King’s
sister —his only relative. When they returned,
announced the society reporter, they would
occupy their beautiful new home in Glenn
wood.
What will Sylvia’s father do? Will he be
content to live with them, or will his freedom
and solitude-loving spirit take him back to
the far West, questioned Faith as she sat on
this gray, snowy day in the uptown flat she
had made into a home nest for herself and
Claude, watching the snowflakes whirling in a
giddy dance outside her window.
She had been domesticated in this pleasant
little apartment for two weeks, and it had
come to seem like home. She had been fortu
nate enough to secure a corner apartment,
looking out in Central Park, and with all but
one of the five rooms open to the air and sun.
The brightest room was given to Claude and
he sat in it today, re-reading, with an occa
sional correction, the type-written copy of the
novel he had finished at last. It would shortly
be brought out by a prominent publisher.
Claude’s energy and cheerfulness surprised
Faith. He had seen Anabel only once, in ac
cordance with his tacit promise to Faith and
Anabel’s own resolution to break off the rela
tion between them. The interview took place
before he left the hospital. What passed be
tween them Faith never knew, but she noted
in Claude a more serious view of life’s duties
and responsibilities, and she believed this was
due to Anabel’s influence.
In Anabel herself, there was an evident
transformation. Her look, her every motion
expressed greater dignity of character. She
still occupied the two rooms in the dingy tene
ment, which she kept daintily clean. She con
tinued to work in the printing establishment,
earning wages sufficient to support her, sre
told Faith —when she* gratefully declined any
further assistance from her. The work was
purely mechanical and Faith was looking out
for a better place for her—one that would help
TRIAL AND TRIUMPH
A Story of the Conflict of Good and Ebil —Mary E>, Ury an.
The Golden Age for February 23, 1911.
the growth of good qualities of mind and heart.
She was more solicitous for her than for
Claude, because she foresaw that he was taking
hold of the opportunity offered him. He bade
fair to be successful in the field of literature,
which he had entered with zest and energy.
That he was gifted in this line, Faith had
reason to believe. He possessed a vivid style
—a fresh, vigorous, though untrained, imagi
nation. His sister had brought with her some
of his short stories and sketches, and these,
when she had revised and copied them neatly
in type, she had sold to a literary syndicate.
The sum they brought was small, but she was
glad to add it to her exchequer. Her store of
money had dwindled after she had plainly fur
nished her little apartment, and it would be
some months yet before she would secure an
other installment of the money due her from
the purchase of her Glenwood estate. When the
installment should come to hand, she hoped
she might be able to use some of it in assist
ing one of the many charitable enterprises car
ried on by women of the city for aiding the
poor and ignorant families of the slums to bet
ter ways of living.
Os these philanthropic enterprises, the Set
tlement appealed to her most. She had noted
its methods with increasing interest. Letters
from the pastor of her church at Glenwood
and from some of its members—her friends —
had brought her an acquaintance with a few
of the workers for public good in the great
city. The day before this she had gone with
one of these new friends to a settlement sit
uated in a once fashionable, but now squalid,
part of the city. The house which was the
headquarters of the settlement work was a
large, substantial building—once the handsome
home of a family of importance, now left like a
stranded wreck by the receded tide of fash
ion.
The house had been leased, and the settle
ment founded by a young woman —an orphan
—with means of her own —soon after she left
college. She and a sister graduate of the sem
inary had worked with enthusiasm to carry
out their plan of benefiting their poor and
ignorant neighbors by associating with them,
inviting them to their home and showing them,
incidentally, the wholesomeness and beauty of
cleanliness and order' the economy of skilled
ways of cooking and knowledge of nourishing
foods.
The two girls had instituted social clubs at
which there was music, singing and pleasant
intimate talks about books and homely duties,
and the wonderful things to be seen in traveling
over the globe. The free use of magazines and
books and fireside games was among the priv
ileges of their neighborhood house, and the
girls had night classes for women and men
and a kindergarten school for the children.
The young woman founder of the settlement
had spent nearly all her small fortune in car
rying on the work and now there was a great
need of means to prevent its coming to an end.
Also, its devoted head had been stricken with
tuberculosis, and felt that she must no longer
mingle with the people she had come to love.
The meeting which Faith had attended was
for the purpose of collecting money to carry
forward the work which was doing so much
good in the neighborhood, but the sum sub
scribed was not nearly as much as was needed,
and it seemed inevitable that the Neighbor
hood House, so well loved by young and old in
the community, must be given up.
Faith was thinking of this today, as she sat
looking out on the world of white. She was
thinking of the grand young woman, who had
given the best years of her girlhood to building
up this useful charity, and who now, with the
stamp of approaching death on her noble face,
must see her life purpose fall to the ground
for lack of a few hundred dollars.
“If I only had money to renew the lease of
the house,” she said to herself.
The ring ot her apartment bell announced
that’a visitor was about to come up.’ Direct
ly, a gentle knock fell on the door. She rose
from her seat by the window and opened the
door. An exclamation of surprise and pleas
ure broke from her at seeing the soldierly fig
ure and half comical, half kindly face of Hu
bert Thorne.
When he was seated and had answered her
questions concerning her friends in Glenwood,
he looked leisurely around at the bright warm
room and its home-like appointments—the cat
coiled up on the blue and crimson rug, the
Japanese curtains, the table with its work
basket and the dainty gold thimble lying atop
a half hemstitched handkerchief, the trim fig
ure in a house dress of soft violet colored fab
ric and house-wifely white apron, with pock
ets —these had a peculiar charm for the man
whose intense love of home had known but
little gratification in his life.
Turning to Faith, he said:
“It is a little previous, but I have brought
you a gift from the Christmas fairy—Christ
kind-cheu, as the Teutons call her—• But, real
ly, I think you are not in need of gifts. You
seem a very contented and comfortable little
lady.”
“Appearances deceive,” she answered, smil
ing. “I was just wishing for Aladdin’s lamp
that I might give it a rub and get a golden
prop to uphold a beautiful philanthropic work
that is about to fall for want of —’’
“See here, my Lady Bountiful,” he inter
rupted, “the fairy gift 1 bring you is not meant
to .prop any alien house, but to help keep your
own house of life comfortable and restful. Be
fore 1 bestow it, I want to exact a promise
that you will keep the wise, modern, new com
inandment, ‘First, be good to yourself,’ whose
observance is neglected by a certain young
friend of mine.”
“No danger of the young friend neglecting
the important personage—self,” returned Faith
laughing. “()ne of the modern philosophers
tells us that self is the motivepower of all we
do —even when we do for others. Service for
others brings self-gratification. But this gill
of the Christ-kind-cheu —do let me have it.
1 will promise to keep the new commandment.”
“I doubt that,” he said, laying in her hand
a square large envelope. Opening it, she
found a small flat book —a bank book. On its
first page she saw the record of a deposit that
had been made in the bank in her name —a
deposit of twenty thousand dollars.
She stared at the figures in mute amazement,
then looking up at Thorne, she asked:
“Is it a joke?”
“Joke! Not a bit of it,” lie declared. “It is
from a serious minded young woman. Here
is her letter.”
She took the envelope he handed her, and
read:
“if it gives you half as much pleasure to
receive the accompanying check, dear Faith,
as it gives me to bestow it, we will both be
happy. It is not a gift. As part of our grand
mother’s legacy, you have a perfect right to it.
Only a portion of this legacy is in money ; the
remainder consists of real estate —houses and
lots —which may need to be sold before it can
be properly divided. I know you will divide
this money with Claude, but keep a fair share
of it for yourself, dear. In your hands, it is
sure to be spent wisely, and to benefit others,
as well as yourself. “Fondly,
* “SYLVIA.”
Faith looked up with glistening eyes.
“Dear Sylvia! This is like her!” she said.
Continued on Page 17)
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