Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Herald, 1906-11-23, Page 3"I dinna ken what's come to ye," said Uncle Sandy, in very discontented tones, as he pushed away his plate and held out the tea cup he had just emptied, to be replenished. "There canna be better or purer air than at Oraigdarrach. It's aye west or south; yet there's Mona wi' a bad headache, wanting her her break- fast in her room, an' Mr. Leslie loolin' —nae, but ye look better than ye did yesterday,' looking at him, 'only ye dinna eat. What's a bit haddie an' a mouthfu' o' toast to stay a coon's stomach i' the moraine" "Oh, I'm all the better for my ram- ble with Kenneth yesterday." 'You are well-nigh yoursel' again; but She met itis eyes as she spoke, dlnd something of indescribable tenderness' in them made her heart stand still.: She rose and went to the window. "It is cold and raw to -day," she said, with a slight shiver. Returningto the fire, she leaned against the mantel -piece. Waring put his arms on the top of a high-backed chair opposite her, and said, with a quick sigh: "The days cannot be too dark and dreary to suit my spirit. 1 cannot gather courage enough to think of Monday!" "It is coming very fast," said Mona, softly, and keeping. her eyes fixed on the fire, but feeling that Waring's were fas- tened on herself. I was feared ye'd be goin' too far when "Will you think me weak, selfish, I heard ye hadna come back at tea time." warthless, if I cannot leave you without I left Kenneth, because be was going saying how dearly I love you? To think further on. I came back by Monkscleugh how near I came to calling you my wife; and the oak wood. I hope Miss Craigs and now we are but strangers to each headache is not severe." other. Don't you. sea how bitterly hard "She's more tired -like than in pain. it was? Oh, you were right to break She wants quiet. Aweel, she went to with me it you could not love me. It bed airly enough," quoth Uncle Sandy, would have .been misery to us both if "to get it." you could not 'have loved me. But it "I dare say she will come down soon. Jessie says there is a new brood of chickens out, Mr. Craig, said Mary. "Twelve wee birdies, all strong and lively." "Ay, that's varra good. Now there's anther fast early train to Glasgow, we'll dispose o' good pairt o' the poultry varra profitably. I'll go down and look at the chuckies, if Mona were here." "And wouldn't you take my arm, Mr. Craig, for want of a better?" said Mary, blushing very sweetly. "Yes, I wilt, my •bairnie," said the old man, ]coking at her indulgently. Sandy Graig had a great liking for a pretty face. "We'll go and have a crack wi' the hen -wife." Later, Mona, thinking from the pro- • found stillness that she had the house to herself, came from the seclusion of her own room to the drawing -room. She bad been greatly agitated by her interview with Lisle, and greatly distressed, on reflection, to think she had trusted the secret of her love for Waring to a inan whom she could not help Considering an enemy. Yet she did not quite wish her was all utter despair at the time! To think that you preferred poverty and the desertion of your •relatives to me, and all I could have•given you then!" "Ah, Mr. Waring!" cried. Mona, cover- ing her face with her hands, "can you forgive me?" "I do not reproach you," he returned, `I was not worthy of you, or I should not have gone to the bad as I did, be- cause I was disappointed. But when 1 came back to life from that terrible fever, I felt another man. I felt I had d, duty to myself that forbade this un- manly abandonment, and I have been stronger ever since. I was even getting over the painful longing for you. And naw we have met, and I am worse titan ever! And you, you seem sweeter than ever. I feel as if I could not leave you!" He pushed the chair from him, and came to stand beside her, his eyes full of love and sorrow, his plain face beauti- fied by the spirit that animated him. The fire of heaven seemed to Mona to have descended on her heart, and filleli it with Joy unspeakable. She let her words unsaid. She wished .to honor the hands drop, and, quivering from head to man she preferred, in the eyes of the foot, she almost whispered: rival who despised him; but she hoped and !prayed that the knowledge of this admission aright never reach Waring. Perhaps, indeed probably, he had formed some fresh attachment, which held his heart against her. "After all," she thought As she stopped to look at her- self in a long glass at, the end of the room, and saw that the long, straight folds and close -fitting bodice of her dark blue serge, with the broad band and buckle that showed the easy roundness of her waist, the scarf of old lace round her throat, the soft., wavy masses of her red- dish -gold hair, became her well—"after ale I am not worse -looking than I used to be; but that does not matter," Witr a sigh she opened the piano, and began to play dreamily. How fast the days were •slipping away. Tomorrow would be his Iast at Craigdarroeh, and then good-bye forever. "Is the headache quite gone?" said Waring, coming up behind her. Mona started, and changed dolor. "Yes, nearly gone. You startled me, Then do not leave me." "Ah, Mona," said Waring, drawing close to her, "do not tempt me to a re- newal of suffering! I am too desperate- ly in earnest to be playedfwith; and I dare not hope that you, who rejected me When I could have given you a life of ease, would share my wild, uncouth home with me now. Sweetest, how dare 1 hope!" He drew her gently into his arms. "Take me with you," said Monza, rais- ing her eyes to his, and letting him read in them more than words could say, "My darling, it is more than I can believe! Mona, in our short engagement I do not believe you ever gave me a kiss. If you will give yourself to me now, put your arms around my neck and kiss me of your own free will." There was an instant's hesitation, and then her arms stole gently to his neck, and her lips were pressed to the brown cheek he bent to them, but for a second, before his own lips were on hers, cling- ing to them softly, passionately, as if he (0'0'04' 4 00 10 0 i4 4 Girlhood and Linked together. Scott's Emulsion are The girl who takes Scott's Emul- sion has plenty of rich, red blood; she is plump, active and energetic. The reason is that at a period when a girl's digestion is weak, Scott's Emulsion provides her with powerful nourishment in easily, digested form. It is a food that builds and keeps up a girl's strength. ALL DRUGGISTS; 50o. AND $,1 .00. 0414000440101044041100 Ifteris 45) 0 drew hi soul's life wfr rn that sweet mouth. ``No, not yet! r cannot let you go yet. Tell me, when did you lin to love me?" "1 cannot tell, 7,eerie, I have never been indifferent to yot! 'et'nce—since Ie refused to marry you; Ana .when I saw your soon began to thunk 'T' should like to atone to you"• "Then it is only pity, Perhaps?„ "I do not know what it is: said Mona, with a sigh, as she rested her head against his shoulder; "I only know that you must not leave me,” "And all this time of delicious tor- ture!" cried Waring, "when I ruled my- self with a rod of, iron lest I should show, you the Iove the -ewes burning my heart out, you imposed upon me with iciness of mere friendship. No man could have dreamed that there was any warmth under such an exterior." "How did you cometo speak to me at last?" asked Mona, with a smile. "It was an inspiration," said Waring. "I do not know ho* ';many kisses you owe me for the miserable moments 7 have had here." "No more now, dear, Leslie," she said, in a low voice, her check growing pale, her frame trembling, se he drew her to him. "Not one?" he whispered, and he re- leased. her. while his heart beat with the glorious consciousness that she loved as passionately as he did himself. "I am afraid, Mona," he resumed, after a de- licious silence, "that young:uncle will not like to let you come into the wilds with me. But the place is not really bad; it has been cleared for a considerable time, and—" "Poor Uncle Sandy!" she interrupted. "1 think he would be willing to give you the best he had; and I'am by no moans sure that he considers me that." "Needs must. He will miss you dread- fully" "Then will be the opportunity to sug- gest Mary as my successor." ".Exactly. Shall I ask Kenneth to join me in making a double demand? You are the ruling spirit Here.". "That would be too much. But, pray, speak to my uncle to -day. He deserves to he told at once." * * * * * * * Dinner was got through somehow. Both Kenneth and Marys instinctively felt that something or other had taken place, the former hada shrewd idea what. About a couple of hours after the fam- ily meal, a knock was heard. at the door of Mona's room, where she had entrench- ed herself till the been explanation with her uncle had been accomplished. "Your uncle wants to speak to you, Mona," said Waring. �� "Oil, Leslie! How is i>ie? "The glass is .at fair ]weather. Come along." Uncle Sandy was looping pale, and was sitting unusually ;upright in his arm -chair in the libra -'' when Mona, with downcast eyes, and e air of a eu- rit, came in, closely f ed by Waring. "Aweel" he said in inn and some- what tremulous ton ,been hear- ing what the grandso g auld mais- ter has to say. No, Me my bairn, are you willing to tak' this mon to be your wedded husband?" "I am,• uncle," she said, softly but clearly. A you were both seated here. I hesitated and lost my chance of appearing, until I heard too much to make it advisable to show myself. Then' 1 listened, and if even a fellow was lifted into the high- est heaven of pride and delight, I was that day." "What! Did you hear everything I said?" "Every word! So that I did not know how to behave myself like a rational creature, and pretended all the evening to be dead tired. You see, it would nev- er have done to let you know. But if I had not heard from your own lips that you liked me—well, better than Lisle, ( should never have ,broken silence." "It it possible? h undestand though! It is well you kept the secret. 1 should have been so awfully vexed." "Yes, I knew that." "Just imagine my ever baying hidden things from you, and being a stranger, and fearing you should look into my heart and see what a goose I was. We could never misunderstand each other now,. we have grown so like." "`As the husband, so the wife is— thou art mated. to a clown!'" quoted Waring, laughing. "Hush!" she interrupted; "you shall not say impertinent things of my guid man! But it 'is nearly half -past four; we must go back. Mary ordered the car- riage for us to go and meet General and Mrs. Fielden at five, and you know what a punctual little house -mother she it." "Very well; but first you might give a fellow a kiss for the sake of old times." "Yes, for past and present both, my own dear." "If ye are, nane has a right to with- stan' you. I would be weele content if ye had not to gas sae far awa'; and I'll feel your loss air, but ye maun follow the husband you've chosen." "Dear uncle," said Mona, ' the tears hanging on her long Iaches,, "it will grieve me, too, to leave you; you have been a father to me, and I thank you." She knelt beside hint and kissed his thin hand. "An' a father I'll be to ye, my lambie. Mrs. Leslie, my niece, shall have five thoosand pounds to her tocher; and it's glad. I'll be that some of my hard earn- in's go to the son of the hoose by which I earned it. But I'll be a lonely mon when ye leave me." "You need not be, unless you choose. 'You can have aniece to read to you and write for you, and take care of you. Think of it, uncle dear! Make Kenneth as happy as—as I am." "Yes, uncle—for you must let me call you so. There could not be a. better or more suitable wife fotmd .for Kenneth than the one he has found for himself," cried Waring. "Aweel, aweel, I will think of it; but, my lad, ye maun pro- mise me you'll bring Mona back to see me once mair before I. die:' "I do promise you, Uncle Sandy; faith- fully promise you.' The dramatic taste of moderns will not permit that minute description of fortune to each character which all well constituted readers ought to demand. None of ours came however to any tragic end. nor was Leslie's confirmed bachelor- hood very detrimental to his happiness. For the satisfaction of that estimable but diminutive portion of the public who would "ask for more," the curtain shall go up for a few minutes on the last tab- leaus. Winter and summer had come and gone three times, and a glorying autumn sun was gilding the hills and deepening care in avoiding the use of second roto the purple heather, when Mona and her expressions, a care specially needed husband strolled together once more to among those whose circle of acquaint - the sent by the big milt tree, asses is small. In addition, it is always "After all, Leslie,' I believe I love this view the best of any." worth while to knowthe meaning of the words "I am quite sure I do," said Waring, a 0j_d f me ousnovelist, whose books are smile stealing mho his brown eyes and just now widely read, has literally spreading over his healthy,:, happy face. asked strewn the pages of one of them with a word which a glance at the dictionary (The End.) SOME ERRORS OF SPEECH. 111 Selected Words and Expressions That Are Often Used. I am sometimes surprised when a man or woman—usually a woman, though why I cannot say—af quite excellent education fairly flounders in a sea of ill selected words, says a writer in the Queen. Her worst faults are often due to re- dundancy; site will net give utterance to a simple, straightforward statement. If she expresses an opinion, it is to say, "I think it is very unwise to do that—that is what. I think." If she reads a letter aloud it is studded with "she says" from start to finish. "She says, 'We intend going to town soon for a week, and then abroad for July,' she says," and so on. From. a person of wide culture and education I have been ,truck demi) by an assurance that she "never would be any different," with the added comment that, after all, "1.1 makes no matter." HOW anyone with the merest vestige of an ear can coin such a verb as "to make a matter" it is difficult to understand. But it is not only in conversation that these and similar expressions find. place. It becomes harder each year to discover a novel in which the characters, intended to be those of cultured people, discourse as such. I note with distressing fre- quency that someone has "saved"—not her money, when the expression is per - featly correct, nor her household goods from the flames, but a yard of ribbon or her grandmother's letters. 'What is the matter?" is surely ex- plicit enough. Why, therefore, ssvy "Whatever is the matter?" But (worse than this is the slipshod "You will never do that?" rather than "You don't intend doing that?" or "Nothing would surely persuade you to do that?" perhaps fol- lowed, on the unexpected arrival of a friend, by "That is never you!" or "You are quite a strangers" I have on one occasion heard a woman of • outward refinement and amazingly careful manner observe: "You must take those gloves off Ethel; they will fit you better than they do her." May gardener having informed me a few days previously that he had had some plants "off" another gardener, I was able to understand the meaning the expression was intended to convey. My plea is, first of all, for greater very. large 'one, for limited is the con- trary' to unlimited, and is not eysion- yanous with small, "A verbal message" means a message in• words, and may be either written or spoken. If spoken, it is an oral message. The daily papers in their Paa)iamentary reports. aro cornet in referring to "questions not orally an- swered," and their reporters are among the few who use the word in its true sense. To "replace" a thing is to put it back where it was. A Prime Minister resigns, but he is afterwards replaced in office. Thus replace is not synonymous with substitute. To decimate is to take one-tenth, so an army if decimated has •lost a tenth of its men. 1 have too many weak spots in my , own. English to do more than draw at- • tention to common mistakes, into many of which I have myself fallen, sometimes to be dragged out again by a mark of exclamation and a comment in the mar- gin by a much tried editor, and. to this salutary treatment I owe, at any rate, a diminution in my verbal errors. There are certain expressions which at one time were used exclusively by a. sin gle class. They were copied by one lower in the social sealo, and have consequent- ly been abandoned by the other. Of these "mama" is a notable instance, and pos- sibly "auntie," though I think the latter was never used except among somewhat homely people. Still more striking ex- amples are "lady" and `gentleman," for which `woman" and "man" are now al- ways substituted. Mona, settling her head comfortably against his shoulder. "Because --well, I will tell you a secret, the only one I have had from you." "How dare you, sir? Confess at once!" "Well, I don't think you'll mind now. The day before you deigned to accept me, 1Ahad been roaming about with Ken- neth, and got tired of everything, life included, so I Ieft and strolledtip the hollow there until 1 found myself beside those big.• stones, where the bracken still grows so high, and I threw myself down among them, and . thought what an unhappy devil I was, when I heard Lisle's 'voice close by, and before I could stir, would have told. her has a very unpleas- ant meaning, quite other than that else attributes to it. It is even desirable to avoid such very common errors as "it appeared to be a paradox," "mutual friends," "a limited income," "a verbal message,' "replaced by another," "enitrelq decimated,' etc. A paradox is "a seeming absurdity," therefore a thing either is or is not a paradox—It cannot semi to be a seeming absurdity. Ieriendship «nay be mutual, but if two know another person they have a common. and not a mutual, Mold, "A limited income" may be a 40 STARVED BY ANAEMIA. Health Restored by the Rich Blood Dr. Williams' Pink Pills Actually make Thousands and thousands of young girls throughout Canada are literally passing into hopeless decline for the want of the new, rich, red blood so abundantly supplied by Dr. Williams' Pink Pills. They are distressingly weak, pale or sallow, appetite fickle, subject to headaches, -dizziness, are ,breathless and the heart palpitates violently at the least exertion. The doctors call this an- aemia—which naemiawhich is the medical name for bloodlessness. Dr. 'Williams' Pink Pills actually make new blood—they euro anaemia. just as surely as food cures hun- ger. Ilere is a bit of the strongest kind of evidence: "Dr. Williams' Pink Pills and nothing else saved. my two daugh- ters when doctors had failed to help them." This statement is made by Mrs. Joseph Martel, St. Oliver street, Quebec. She adds: "My daughters are aged re- spectively twenty-two and twenty-three years. For two years they suffered from the weakness and distress of anaemia, and had I learned of Dr. Williams' Pink Pips earlier, it would not only have savedire money, but much worry and affeedety as well. Both girls were as pale as a sheet. They suffered from head- aches, poor appetite, and grew so feeble that they could hardly go about. They were under a doctor's eune, but did not improve a bit. I despaired of ever seeing them in good health again, when a friend called my attention to Dr. Wil- liams' Pink Pills. Soon after they began the pills there was an Improvement in their condition; and in less than a couple of months they were again enjoying good health, active, robust girls. I am so grateful for what Dr. Williams' Pink Pills have done for my children that 1 strongly recommend them to every mo- ther who has a weak, pale -faced boy or girl." Dr. Williams' Pink Pills do only one thing. but they do it well—they ac- tually make new, rich blood. They don't tinker with symptoms. They don't act en the bowels. They sim- ply change bad blood into good blood and thus strike straight at the root of such common ailments as headaohes, sideaches •and backaches, dada gestien, anaemia, nervous exhaustion, neuralgia, St. Vitus' dance, partial par- alysis, and the special, painful secret ail- ments of growing girls and women. Sold by all m•edicise dealers, or by mail at from the Dr. Williams Medicine :Co,. Brookville, Ont. o,r Selling Snow in Syria. Consul Jesse B. Jackson, of Alexan- dretta, describes the method in Asia, Minor of providing a substitute for ice: Snow is gathered in the adjacent mountains and packed in a conical pit, tamped in tightly and covered with straw and leaves. At the bottom of the pit a well is dug with a drain eonneetedi at the Bottom to carry off the water : formed from melted snow. As the oost of collecting and storing'is very small, the only labor is in delivering to the con- sumers, which is accomplished by pack horses. The selling price is 10 to 25 cents a hundred pounds and often cheaper. CARE OF THE BABY. A mother's work and work in rasing for her little ones is greatly light- ened if she has on hand a safe remedy for the cure of indigestion, colic, sour stomach, constipation, diarrhoea, simple fevers and the other little ailments that are apt to come to children suddenly. For these troubles, Baby's Own Tablets are better than any other medicine. They are mildly laxative, prompt in their action, and a few doses usually. Ieaves the child in perfect health. Thee do not contain an atom of opi- ate or poisonous soothing stuff. They always do good—'they cannot possi- bly do barns, and may be given with equal safety to the new born infant or well grown child. Mrs. Reginald James, I+enagltvale, Ont., says: "Y have used Baby's Own Tablets, and find them unexcelled as a medicine for children. Thee promote sleep and general good health." Yon can get the Tablets from your druggist or by mail at 25 cents a box by writing The Dr. Williams' Medicine Co., Brock- ville, Ont.