Evening Star Newspaper, March 18, 1923, Page 72

9 < Letty's Mother Had Her Doubts as to the Wisdom of Declaring the Girl Should Be Condemned ETTY FAIRWEATHER made eyes at life before she could tulk, and when she was barely six two small boys fought in the yard of Miss Pegram’s kindergar- ten for the honor of carrying her copybook to school. Not that it was Letty's fault, ard at that date no one coneldered it Letty's misfortune. For Letty was fated to conquer—nothing plainer. It was not only the look of her, the wildwood grace, the inscrutable- wistfulness, her coloring, delicate as Deach blossoms against a.. April sky —it was not the question of her smile, nor the answer of her long, smoky gray eyes—it was something in the &irl herself, & joy of living, a hunger for love, that drew response as the emall, white clover draws Presently some one would comethe prince, of course—striding out of an enchanted dusk, and she—and he— would live happily ever after. She never thought of work. She never dreamed of a profession. All her dreams were otherwise engaged. And, besides, she had the edict of her father for guidance. “I hope,” he had sald from the time she was a little girl, “my daughter will never have to work. I'm here to do that for her. If she makes as good a wife as her mother has done, I'll be satisfied—and some man will be in Iuck!" So he sent Letty eventually to a charmingly feminine finishing school, from which she emerged at the ripe age of elghteen. Take her all in all, Letty, advane- | ing upon the world, was a thing of unquestioned loveliness. The town held its breath before her return. “The Falrweathers'll give her a wonderful coming-out,” people sald. And the Fairweathers did. There was a ball that revived the ante- bellum glorles of the state. Some time In the course of that enchanted evening her father whispered in her ear: “Happy, little daughter?” Letty whirled about and kissed him. She hadn't words. * oK X % HAT was the night Chan Carroll came back into her lfe. Half- way through & dance he tightened his a t her and said softly: “So forgotten, eh? That's sratitude!” Letty threw back her head and looked up at him prettily, Knitting lim brows: she murmured. have I forgotten?" “Me,”" sald Chan, laughing down at b His eyes were blue with lashes—ardent eyes, “What ck wheedling eves. “Did I know vyou before, where?” asked Letty. “Forgotten, honestly?” “Absolutely, I am so sorry!” “Well, !t's a long time agi Chan, “so perhaps T'll forgive you. 1 had a fight once, when I was a kid, with another kid, about carrying your book.” She met surge of beat!” always beat,” he assured her pleasantly. “He blacked my eye, but 1 made his nose bleed, and he sald he had enough. “I remember—oh, I remember now!" sald Letty happily. She questioned a second later: “Why haven't I ever seen you?” “My people moved away a year or g0 later.” “And I've been away to school.” “I know where you've been. I found out all about you ten minutes after I Eot here tonight “Am I so easy to know?" Letty innocently. “All girls are easy,” sald Chan, “as long as you don't lose your head over rem.” ‘I can't imagine your losing your head over anybody,” sald Letty— was it wistfully? Chan took her by storm that first incredible night. And after Chan had once got into his stride there was little enough room for any one else. Mrs. Fairweather adored him, and Letty’s father pronounced him the finest youngster in town. How much all of this had to do with the fact that Chan's father was now at the head of the biggest trust company in the state, one doesn’t question. Letty, herself, lived those days in the heart of a rainbow. Heaven knows what evanescent dreams she ‘wove about the day when Chan would say to her: “Letty, I love you—I have always loved you—-"" He did say It but he didn't say it that way. They were coming home from a dance at the country club. Chan was driving with one hand, & feat he had not learned in two months, and crushing Letty's small, slim, chilly fingers with the other. “Well, Letty, honey,” he sald, “when do you think you'd like to be married? Around Christmas, or New TYear's?" Then he kissed her, and mid-Vie- torfan as {t may seem, he was the first. He knew it from the deliciously awkward way in which she endeavor- ed to avoid it, so that his kiss landed on her chin, embarrassing her dread- tully. “You are going to marry me, Letty, honey, aren't you?" And the second time he kissed her she sald she was. blac] some- his eyes with a thrilling recollection. “And you asked S HAN was no mean Jover. Ie gave Letty a ring which blazed upon her hand like a sublime. sweet evening star. He sent her flowers and sweets till they grew commonplace and lost their dream significance. He owned her as completely and as triumphantly and as unrelentingly as was humanly possible. He was, in a word, the ideal swain, as the world, Letty's world, sees them—which made it all the moroe incomprehensible that in No- vember, with the day for the wedding set, Letty jiited him. She sald, when brought before the family tribunal, that she had found oug she didn’t love him. Which was at once, as an explanation, cast upon the ash-heap. Letty burst into tears, but otherwise stood firm. “Darling,” begged her mother i tressfully, “don't you know that sometimes a girl can’t be sure of her own mind? Don't you know that per- haps, after you're married to him, you'll really love him more “If it bores me to talk to him five nights a week, do you mean that it will bore me less to talk to him weven?” asked Letty. “So he bores you, does he?” sald her father coldly. “What would you Uke as & husband—a vaudeville art- i “Darling.” wald her mother. geatly, Dbees. | said | | Uve been afraid all along, only “when did you find out that he— bored you?" Letty flushed crimson. before last, and I wouidn't let him kiss me, and we had nothing else in the world to talk about. Of course, at a slow and painful first 1—I lost my head a little. Her father was implacable. “Do you consider that you ure being en- tirely fair to him?" “I do,” sald Letty unsteadily. “He ought not to want me, now that I've told him.” “Matty,” sald Letty's father sternly, “perhaps you can convince your daughter——" Mrs. Fairweatlier put out a shak- ing hand and covered Letty's cold one. *“Convince her of what?" she asked recklessly. “I think she's perfectly right.” So the family end of it résted there, Chan went north about that time. ¥ OR Letty to allow a man to monopolize her now implied trankly that the man was a brilllant fellow, no dullard. And only the men themselves knew that something else about her drew them—a hunger and thirst after happiness, like a flower turning to the sur. She danced over a good many hearts that year, but her dancing grew in and she had a smile that b Some time in the following she became engaged to Dr. M Aprit THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C., MARCH 18 | “When I had a cold—nlight | | ler, a young physician who kad come south | from Johns Hopkins with a reputa- tion already far from negligible. He made charming love to Letty, but of a delicate and reverential cast Then one afternoon early in May Letty came to her mother and sald: “Mother, I've got something to tell you. My engagement's broken.” “Oh, my dear—my dear!" cried the unhappy lady. “What's the matter now?" When Letty looked stubborn, she added, piteously, *“Did you— again?" 0" sald Letty, “I didn't.” “You don’t mean” gasped Mrs. Falrweather; “you can’t mean that he—" Letty explained tiredly: “We have talked it over, that's all, and we see that we've made a mistake. We think the best thing to do—the only thing to do.” she amended firmly, “is to call the whole thing off.” “What 1s it, dear?" pleadcd mother. “Lovers' quarrels, know—"" her you ‘Nothing half so nice” sald Letty. | “I tell you, mother, we've talked it all over—endlessly. We're friends— we've never had an unpleasant word —but we—we don't belong to each other, that's all!" “Do you think that's a very dell- cate way of putiing 1t?" asked her { mother with a touch of annoyance. “More delicate than marrying him | when I don’t love him." said briefly. “This and “Disengaged?” “So often, yvou know, Le:ty, it isn't quite nice. People will talk horribly. “Had you rather have me married,” Letty inquired dispassionately, then divorced?’ he will go through the woods™ Letty thing of being engaged— N\ N\ AR AR RN — TR AR ERCHHIEI NI KOS 3 SRR SRNDCRIINN D R NS S NN B ETR N e N S S S . . i :\“\ S SR SR “and | not | violent, perhaps, as Chan's had been. | birch and elusively sweet as roses after rain. Something about Alec An- | derson called to her insistently. She | was at her best with him, delicately | tmpuisive, full of a charming reck- |lessness, honest as a child. Life at |1ast seemed about to flower beneath her touch Then she went with him, the last | night of Lis stay, to a dance and sat {out & waltz on & low white bench in the =hadow of a locust tree in bloom. Music came to them faintly. She new that he was going to kiss her, and he did. While she listened, with {her heart quickening in her breast, he told her softly: “That's for good-bye, Letty. I {¥know your type! 1 thought I knew how to take care of myself. but you A SUDDEN GUST OF RAIN SMOTE THEIR FORGETFUL FAC “OH, GOOD-NIGHT,” CRIED LETTY—“AND THANKS AGAIN.” her father decreed darkly at the last, “and pick up & crooked stick! You'll see!"” Letty grew a little older than her years warranted in the atmosphere of family disapproval which envel- oped her for a long time after that. As for the outer world, the world of parties and dances and unremitting easy frivolity to which she had been born, she was the center always of an eager group. “Letty's latest” des. ignated one gilded youth after an- other. They came, they saw, and Letty conquered—but in & curiously detached way. A great many young men, in the years between her twentieth and her twenty-fifth birthday sald to her in voloes variously affected by emotion, “Letty, I love you,” but they always laughed just a little when they sald it; and nobody ever said, “Letty, will you marry me?’ With Dr. Miller she had apparently come to the end of that. . * ok ok x ‘HERE was & man from the east who came to town the summer of her twenty-ffth year and whom Letty had moments of thinking might be the one. She was at her lovellest that summer—slender 28 a white almost got me. All you want s an- other scalp, isn't it, now? But I'm taking mine with me. Thank you, you lovely, heartless person!” Letty began to ask herself if the thing for which she had been wait- ing—the thing for which she had re- fused to accept any substitute, how- ever desirable it might appear—had ever really existed. \ “Have I msked too much?’ said Letty to herself. She got In the way of going off alone for hours in the little roadster she drove, of thrashing out by h elf the whole contradictory scheme of things, of looking helplessly for & way out and never finding one. One afternocon early in a windy, implacable March, when something went wrong with her engine and the roadster limped palinfully back Into town just at dusk, a slanting rain had come up and a savagely gusty east wind. There was nothing for it but to leave the machine at the nearest garage and go home on the street car, which Letty did, filled Wwith a cold and bitter resentment. She was thoroughly wet by the time her car came. Her white or- gandy collar, wilted into a llmp and beneath her black sallor hat, had been blown into an untidy wispiness, and there was not a flicker of color In her face. She climbed upon the already crowded car and pushed her way into its warm and stifiing terior. She reached for a strap and clung there. A second later she felt a friendly hand upon her arm. “Sit down.” said a curt masculine voice. When she hesitated, it added: You look tired.” Letty sat down with a murmured “Thank you!" and looked up. The man was half hidden behind a newspeper gripped in one long- fingered, sunburned hand. He caught her upward look and nodded with an impersonal pleasantness. His eyes were dark and keen beneath the line of an old felt hat. collar and & dark tie, and the set of his chin was good. So obsessed she was by her own discomfort that she allowed the car to pass her corner and came to her- self with a start a hundred feet or | 80 beyond it, which meant an added walk In the rain. She got off the platform hurriedly and saw the man with the newspaper was getting off before her. He glanced at her and waited. The vain- est woman In the world could not have misunderstood the friendly Im- personality of his look. “I see you've got no umbrella said, “Which way are you going He had an extraordinarily delight- ful voice. It cut the rain and the murk like a damascened sword blade, golden with sudden shadows. Letty iIndicated her homeward course. He held a sturdy if somewhat ancient umbrella over her head, and they proceeded, heading into the wind. “I ltke & night lke this,” said the stranger presently. “There's an edge to it. If you're tired, you'd hardly appreciate it, however. Something enervating about this climate of yours.” “What is your climate?’ Letty unexpectedly. He laughed. She liked his laugh. “Wherever I've been I've found it good! TI've got no climate of my own—a man without a—home town!" “Well, what was your last cli- mate?" Letty persisted, more and more amazed at herself. She felt that he looked down at her amusedly. “S8amoa; before that, Alaska." It was exactly as if a sudden flare had spilled across the dark. “Oh, Samoa! That's in the South Seas! I've always wanted to go——" Letty began, then quite suddenly she saw that they had come to her own gate. She put a hand on it perfunc- torily. “Thank you 80 much—-" She felt the suprise in his keen glance. “This the house? Rather a swanky old place, isn't {t? What do you do— tutor the embryo plutocrats?” “I—why, I live here,” sald Letty confusedly. She was aware sharply of his error. He had supposed her a working woman, a governess. She fancied he drew off somehow. “Live here? Oh, I see! Do I beg your pardon or not?" “You needn’t,” sald Letty, “so far as I'm concerned. I'm awfully obliged to you, really— “It was nothing at all” sald the stranger, almost bruskly. “Sorry you're not in my boat. as I supposed you were. We might have seen each he asked other again.” Letty had an instant’s vision of her father's face, her mother's horrified helplessness. She spoke across it recklessly. “Why shouldn’'t we see each other again as it {s? “Care to? You know,” he told her, the wonderful voice a trifle mocking, it sn’t done in your particular stratum.” “I'm tired to my soul” said Letty, *“of doing only what every one else does—and that's that!” “I wonder,” he told her, “if you honestly are? Well, what's the best place to meet and talk in tomorrow efternoon? Likely itll rain. An art gallery’'s not a bad place on a rainy afternoon.” miserable string, lay upon the blue| *“There 1s-a sort of art gallery,” serge of her ofas esllar. Ner halr mald Letty. She told him how to find it. in-| He wore a soft | | T "l 1 | ; ""‘l'l‘}’lm.'?“ " D n 3 THAT WAS THE NIGHT WHEN CHAN CARROLL CAME BACK INTO HER LIFE. S — “At half-past four?” he suggested. “Five's better,” said Letty. A sudden gust of rain smote their forgetful faces. “Oh, good-night “And thanks again! “Hasta la vista, cried Letty. senorit, sald |the man, lifted his old felt hat, and strode away through the shadows. He took the umbrella with him. Letty ran up the walk and rang the bell of her father's house. She was thrilling to her chlilly finger tips with a new flush of life. She had | touched hands with romance in the dark, and that volce lingered in her ears. * x x % ATER that night she decided she would not go to the meeting place next day. She would never see him again But go she did. The rain was stil] steadily falling at half-past four. ralncoat over a smart dark frock, pulled a soft, dark hat on over her bright brown hair, and drove herself down to the old gray bullding in which the town's treasures of art were housed. He was walting for her at the tarther end of a long room full of un- important watercolors. He was hold- ing the old felt hat in one hand, and she saw that his hair had a crisp, dark wave. “Am I late?” she murmured. “Yes, but I was sure you would two on the old-fashioned seat knew |cently possible, Galloway made h be,” he assured her. They sat down upon an unholstered seat. They took stock of each other € there's wan thing that St Patrick did fr Ireland that 1 like betther thin annything else,” sald Mr. Dooley, “’tis th' day he fixed 'r his birthday. He converted th' haythen chiefs ‘tis thrue, an’ he dhrove out th’' snakes, an' a good job he made iv both, but he niver showed his saintly charack- ter betther thin whin he fixed on th® siventeenth iv March f'r his birthday. “No wan knows whin he was bor- rn. He wuddent tell an’ no more wud I But he was a thoughtful an’ a janyal man, Hinnissy, an’ says he to himself: “'Iv coorse, afther I've gone fr'm this pleasant island to return no more, th' good people that come afther me will want to cillybrate me birth. I've got to fix a date f'r thim whin it won't be a hardship. It must be a big day that iv'ry wan'll look for'and to with hope an' look back on with regret that it's past.’ “So, bein’ and injanius man as well as holy, an' well read in th' calendar, he named a day that was sure to fall somewheres in th' middle iv Lent. “An’ now, about this time iv th’ year, I'm beginnin’ to get tired v Lent It's a fine thing In its way an’ 'tls betther an’ cheaper thin that place where ye'er boss goes whin he's had too much to ate an' dhrink— Carisbad, that's it—besides bein' good £'r th' soul as well as th' body. “But about th' end Iv the first month I begin to feel that I'm too healthy an’ far betther thin anny man ought to be in this sinful wurruld. * K % ¥ (13 €QTHRANGE things happens to me! I find that I can lose me temper an’ still keep enough f'r a quarl with me best friends. Th' sight iv a fish- hook makes me tur'rn pale. All eggs have lost their freshness. I refuse credit to all me customers but th' Jew an' th' herytic, as a matther iv principle. “Whin I go to wind th’ clock I can't see it £'r lookin® at th’ pipe that I put on th' shelf back iv the clock onm Shrove Choosedah. *“I wondher whether I can last. I begin readin’ ‘up rellijous books to Letty slipped a| 1923—PART 5. THE. CROOKED STICK mutely. She blushed. He shook his head, “Not the mame person at all” he commented in the volce that had echoed for all those Interven!ng hours in Letty's cars, “If I'd sten you like this last night I'd have known better.” “You thought I was & tired little working girl “I thought you were a splendid | little working girl, worn out after a hard day. 8he told him about the car. abstracted attention, eyes lovely face, “Don’t you do anything—at all>” She shook her head. “What is there to do? I've mever heen taught to do anything. I've mever had to do anything.” “Just waiting for some one to come | along and marry you Anger swept Létty and slipped away before the understanding in his look “Yes, that's all,” I suppose. “It's what | the rest of them do.” he other pretty white peacocks?” Vot omitting the charming night- ingales and the little brown wrens,” sald Letty. “Oh, you can be human, can you?" He pald her tribute with a laugh. “What do you do?” asked Letty. | There was no one in the room be- sldes themselves. | “What do 1 d He mald a cute | | gesture of negation. “I'm a rolling | stone. I've done a bit of engineering, I've worked on a newspaper or two, 1 was in Alaska a year ago with an | | exploring outfit—left 'em to work in & logging camp. Once I got down to South America on some Aztec ex- cavation stuff. 1 was camera-man with a movie company that worked through Honolulu and Samoa.” Letty caught her breath softly. And what are you doing here?” He chuckled. “That's funny—out of my usual trail, Why, I'm here to get | | some money that was left me a bit| | ago. Sounds more respectable, doesn’t it? Well, I don't know if you'd think so or mot. The man who left it to me was & barber. I'd known his son in Alaska. We were pals. The boy got caught under a tree that fell the wrong way, and I sent his stuff home. The old chap dled a few months ago and left me everything he had'—he forestalled her mockingly — “about two thousand. What a conventional creature you are! Money doesn't mean a thing in the world to me— except the ability to go from here to there without walking all the way.” He held her with the stralght, cool question of his eyes. “About you, now—you're the kind of woman I've been taking the other side of the road from all my life.” “Why?" asked Letty. He lent on her alone'—no time for fnessentlals.” Letty looked at him in silence. “Go on,”* he said. about you. You kept me awake last night.” * K o® ¥ ETTY told him pretty much every- thing. Bhe scarcely knew her- solf how frank she was, or why. It came from her as naturally as breath- ing. | ‘When at last she drifted into silence | he said, quietly: “Funny—no woman of any conse-| quence In my life, and yours has | been nothing but men. “And yet, and yet—you know— you've kept the faith. You could| have married—you had your chance |ing his *‘He travels the fastest who travels | “1 want to know | worth | to justify your training—tho easiest i was open to you—and you re- {fused 1t You've | guns, en?" “You mean- sald Letty. Her eyes were shining. | “Ot courss I do! I mean you've boen true to yourself. Love was a| real thing to you—and you've walt- | o4 for it. - Most women don', so a| lot of ‘em never see it.” The dusk was coming on. Rain still slanted against the windows. | | The air was musty and chill. The| stood by your | {an isolation and an intimacy beyond | phrasing. “Did you ever talk like this be- fore to any other man?’ he asked her suddenly. eaid Letty. any other woman? “No—it's queer, en?” He looked deep into her eyes. “I| wish 1 had you somewhere down in| the Pacific,” he sald, not quite stead- fly, “on & raft, under a blazing, white moon, with the lights of & town—not too big a town—back of us on the shore—not too near a shore—with & whole, black, heaving ocean swashing round us—and steel gultars crying somewhere along the beach.” “I wish you had!" said Letty. “Do you? Remember, you'll go home presently, and some one Wil ask you where you've been. What will you say? ‘Up In the picture gallery with & man whose name 1 don’t know—and to whom I've never been introduced'? Letty stood up, “You were born to the same sort of thing I was” she told him softly. “You know all the passwords, don't you? I shall have to go now.’ She gave him one hand and he took the other as well. It was against all precedent and over and | above all precedent to Letty. He fingers clung in his. She looked up at him, smiling a little. | “When?" he asked her. | Then he began to laugh, tighten- | hold on her fingers. She| Iltked his laugh. She had liked it the night before—or was it cen-| turies ago? “D'you know,” he said, —I'll never let you go! uppose before you let me go now." suggested Letty, “you tell me your name, 8o that I can tell my father and mother and my thres un- | duly inquiring brothers who s/ dining with us tomorrow night” “Dining! Do you know I haven't sat at a civilized dinner party In a g00d six years? How wliil you ex- plaln me? I haven't any evening things"” “I am going to tell them the truth,” sald Letty. “They have told it to me a great many times. I'm not ashamed of knowing you like this” Nevertheless, when good-bye in the foggy, gray dusk on the steps of the art gallery, she said: “It—if my people should be—aif- “Did you—to “it 1t's you ficult—will you remind yourself that| you're coming to dinner with me after all—not them? And will you be—nfce—to them?" “I'm golng away. the end of the he said suddenly. He wanted to see her face whiten at the news. It did. “Well, even it this means only be- | ing friends—for thres days—it's it—to me,” she told him. He stood bareheaded in the rain and watched her shadowy, gray car vanish down the street. He had not told her his name. He sent it to her by special delivery next morning, having found hers in the directory “It's Nell | “Irish, and therefors not much given to looking before I le: though. You may, You've still got time.” * X ¥ x ETTY carrled her point. “I could meet him outside” she safd. “But I'm giving you a chance to make our friendship, well, legitimate, if| you like to put it that way.” Her mother wept and her father talked about adventurers. “I'm not a child,” said Letty, “and if I can’t tell a man when I see him, at twenty-seven, it's time I learned!" In spite of her sharpest effort, the dinner was difficult. Galloway's dark gray sult, well-brushed and freshly pressed as it was, suffered sartorially by reason of the family dinner coats. His manner was studiously pleasant. When dinner was over, there ensued a stiff, conversational hour in the living room. As soon as it was de-y is| good-byes. And Letty, defying vis- | ible disapproval, went with him to| the gate. | BY FINLEY PETER DUNNE. “OUT _IN FRONT ON HORSEBACK IS THE CHIEF MARSHAL. HE SETS AS COMFORTABLE ON TOP IV THAT CRAZY ANIMAL AS IF HE WAS IN A ROCKIN' CHAIR AT HOME.” ses whether th' rewards s akel to me heeroyio sacrifices. “An’ I'm almost ready to offer to thrade in a couple iv millyon years f'r-wan pipe full v kinnl-kinnick whin th' corner iv me eye catches th' date on th' top iV & ps-aper. “It's on'y two days to Pathrick’s day an' a dauntless man can stick 1t out! “But, dear me, th' sixteenth iv March is a long day. It's th’ longest day in th’ year. Haythen asthrono- mers say it ain't, but I know betther, “An’ be th’ same token th’ siven- teenth is th' shortest. It's like a dhream. It don't last more thin a minyit but a millyon things can hap- pen' in it. Annyhow, it comes ar- round at last “Many iv me frinds goes out to meet 1t. Not mind ye. But ye can het I'm standla’ on ti’ dure step waltin’ hand. “I'm woke up be a detachment iv th' a-o-aithches from a suburb marchin' by with & la-ad blowin’ ‘Garry Owen' on a fife—a chune that's made war a pleasure in ivry part iv the wurruld. They've took no chances on bein® left out iv th’ parade. but started befure daybreak. There ar're Rreen rags with yellow harps on thim, and the tri-color flag of green, white and gold in tvry window, excipt O'Leary’s an’ he puts out what he calls th’ ‘pagan sunburst Iv ol Ireland, which was th' flag he says that we followed be- foure we were converted. “He's th' tureible haythen, but Father Kelley says, ‘Niver mind him. He's th' on'y citizen In th' ward, ex- cipt th’ foreigners, that I have to thry to convert,’ he says. ‘But f'r him,’ he eays, Td f'rget all me argyminta f'r it with me pipe in me she told him | BY FANNY HEASLIP LEA The rain had stopped and the stars were out. A scent of wet roses hung in the air, a freshness delightfully of «the earth earthy. Letty’s blue gown was a sflken blur in ihe shad- ows, her face a vague, delicate oval, her volce a murmuring wistfulness. They stood beside the white gate and looked at each other through the dark. “It wasn't a success, was it?” said Galloway at last. “I told you I waa out of practice. Your mother would have beed nice to me 1f she had dared, but I rather expected your father to heave at me at any moment. I know your father very well. He's an un- commonly good likeness of my own. “When do you go?" asked Letty She had cut through to the heart of things. But the low words shook & trifie, The man besids her caught her slender hands and held them hard against his heart, till she could feel the heavy tumult of it. “Dear,” he sald, in that amazingly tender volce of his, “has It got you, too?” . said Letty. He told her, still hands: “You know, it'd be a different world 'or you. No pretty clothes, no serv- ants, no tidy little house, nd mono- grammed linen, no family silver, no day at home—all that matters in & place like this. It's less than nothing with me! I'm going back to Hono- lulu—there's & man'll give me & job on a newspaper there, for a while. I want to be in Peking by November —1T've got a motion for a winter In Peking. I never make money—more than I need to get along on. It lsn't money I want of life; it's & look-see and a free foot!" More suddenly still he dropped bes hands and put both arms about her, drawing her back into the blackness of the high hedge, stooping his cheek to the satiny softness of her halr, anu muttering huskily. “I knew it would be Illke some day! Letty shut her eyes against the roughness of his coat. She held her breath for sheer, blind, reeling bap- piness. “I dare say I'd be a fool to let ¥ do it,” he told her, low and unstead | “but 1t'd be living! You don't know {what life can mean. You'd be ga too—TI feel it in you—and if we it at this, you'll have spolled the wholc show for me, Letty. I shall go ¢ wanting you the rest of my life.”” His lips were against her cheel now, his arms tightening crue | “There won't be a day of my life | shan’t want you—till Idie—do you hear She turned her face, and he kissed |her on the mouth. Her tears were on his cheeks. He kissed her desper- ately, long. g “Then—take me—with you!” Letty. He would not let her look & trom him. “I'm leaving here in two days. Wili 4 you marry me and go with me?” “Yes. Don't you know 1 wil “You know what you're leaving hina?” know whom I'm golng with." “Do you know—now—whom you've been walting for?" Letty knew. That was the thing that dazed her—dreams come true— in a pinchbeck world! * ¥ ¥ ¥ WO days later, Letty's father. standing on the church steps &t half after elght of a lowering, gray skied morning, commented grimly to his ever-available audience, Letty's mother: “Well, T sald from the first that would go through the woods and plc up a crooked stick.” Letty's mother made no reply. Bu with Letty's look of ineffably certain radiance fresh in her yearning memory, it Is barely possible that the dear lady was thinking how crooked sticks, like beauty and some other things, may be in the eye of th beholder. crushing her this— said (Copyright, 1923, maybe become Suft Don't bother him. He keeps me in intelechool exercise, he says. ‘And he's 2 good man besides,’ he says. “But ivrybody is an Irishman on Pathrl Day. Schwartzmeister { comes up, wearin' a green cravat an’ sa; ‘Faugh-a-allugh, Herr Dooley,’ | which he thinks is Irlsh fr ‘Good Mornin'. But ye niver can teach him annything. He's been in this counthry forty years an’ don’t know th’ lan- | guage. “Me good frind Ikey Cohen jines me an’ I obsarve he's left th' glass- ware at home an’ 1s wearin' emeralds in th’ front fv his shirt. In the old days along would come little Hip Lung fr'm down th’' sthreet with & package iv shirts undhr his ar'rm, an a green ribbon in his cue. jose e punch L §6§(ZVER at ye'er house there hasn's i been s0 much excitement since ¢ Chrig'mas mornin. Th' childher are up befure th' first milk wagon goes by an’' ye're up an' around not long afther, f'r ye can't sleep with thinkin® {v ye'er responsibility, This is th' day ye have to carry th' big banner in tb" front iv th’ second division an’ "tis no | sinycure. It takes a thoughtful man an’ a sthrong an’ sure-footed man an’ ye're all that, f'r a little man. *“Th® first thing ye ask whin ye get up ls: ‘What kind iv & fine mornin’ {8 1t7 An’ th’ good woman says: ‘It's rainin’ pitch-forks. “"What's a little dampnees on such a day? says ye. Afther ye've had ye're breakfast it's time to get out th' hat. It's In th’ closet In a band-box an’ th’ good wifo has had th' dens irned out iv it that little Packey kicked In it whin ye put it on N’ flure {v th* pew on Chris'mas éay. Ye thry It on an' ivrywan eays s most becomin® an’ as good as new. Thin yo hoist on th' regalia an’ out ye go lookin' like a whole pro-cissyen all be ye'ersilf an' with th' family noses flattened agaln th' window to see yu start. “will T march? T can’t, Hinnissy. I've got t6 a time tv life whin me feet ar're almost stationary. They stopped! Wontinued on Fourth Page.) Mr. Dooley On St. Patrick’s Day