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The Huron Expositor, 1921-06-10, Page 7By Frances Hodgson Burnett (Continued from last week.) Re was trying, to "bluff it . out." Somehow he felt he had to, He felt it more than ever when a momentary silence'fell upon those who sat about the table. It fell when he said "three hundred and fifty thousand dollars a. year." No one could find voice to malice and remark 'for a few seconds after that. "Are you a lord .— or a duke?" some one asked after breath had re- covered itself. "No, I'm not," he replied with re- lief. "I just got out from under that; but the Lord knows how I did it:" "What are you going to do first?" said Jim Bowles. "I've got to go and take posses- sion." That's what Palford calls it. I've been a lost heir for nearly two years, and I've @tot to show myself," Hutchinson had not joined the cla- mor of greeting, but had grunted dis- approval more than once. He felt that, as an Englisipnan, he had a cer- tain dignity to maintain. Ile knew something about big estates and their owners. lie was not like those com- mon New York chaps, who regarded them as Arabian Nights tales to make jokes about. He had grown up as a village boy in proper awe of Temple Barholm. They were ignorant fools, this lot. He had no patience with them. He had left the village end gone to work in Manchester when he was a boy of twelve. ,but as long as he had remained in his mother's cot- t tage it had been only decent good manners for him to touch his fore- t head respectfully when a Temple Bar - holm, or a Temple Barholm guest or y carriage or. pony phaeton passed him i by. And this chap was Mr. Temple t Barholm himself! Lord save us! a Little Ann said nothing at all; but then, she seldom said anything during g meal -times. When the rest of the boarders laughed, she ate her dinner B and smiled. Several times, despite t her caution, Tertrlbarom caught her eye, and somehow held it a second with- his. She smiled at him when this happened; hut there was some- thing restless and eager in his look which made her wish to evade it. She knew what he felt, and she knew why he kept up his jokes and never once spoke seriously,, .She knew he was not comfortable, and did not enjoy talking about hundreds of thousands a year to people who worked hard for ten or twenty "per." To -morrow morning was very near, she kept thinking. To -morrow night she would be lying in her berth in the steerage, or more probably taking care of her father, who would be very uncomfor- table. "What will Galton dol" Mr. Strip- er asked. "I don't know," Tembarom answer- ed, end he looked troubled. Three hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year might not be able to give aid to a wounded society page. "What are you going to do with your Freak?" called out ,Julius Stein - be rge r. Tembarom actually started. As. things had serged over him, he had had too much to think over. He had not had time to give to his strange responsibility; it had become one nevertheless. "Are you going to leave him behind when you go to England?" He leaned forward and put his chin on his hand. "Why, say," he said, as though he were thinking it out, "he's spoken a- bout England two or three times. He's said he must go there. By jings! I'll take him with me, and see what'll happen." When Little Ann got up to leave the, room he followed her and her father into the hall. "May I come up and talk it over with you?" he appealed. "I've got to talk to someone who knows some- thing 'about it. I shall go dotty if I dwelt. It's too much like a dream." "Come on up when you're ready," M1lrifu't0b010ir, "°Amts eqd aria can give yoq.'a tip.or two,,e "'Ittri gong. 'to he rutting the last tblbgs in the trunkg ':,said Ann, "but I dare- say :you won''nrnd at, The express ll be ,here by eight In the morning," "0 Lordl" .groaned Temlbaroats, When, he went up to the fourth floor a Iittle later, -Hutchinson had fallen into a doze in bis chair over his newspaper, and Adn Mnwas kneel- ing by a trunk in the hall, folding small articles tightly, and fitting them into corners. To Tembarom she looked even more than usual like a slight child thing one could snatch up in one's arms and carry about or set an one's knee' without feeling her weight at all. An inferior gas -jet on the wall just 'above her was doing its beet with the lot of soft, red hair,. which would have been an untidy bundle if. it had not been hers. Tembaram sat down on the' trunk next to her. "0 Little Ann!" he broke out un- der his breath, lest the sound of his voice might check Hutchinson's steady snoring. "0 Little Ann!" Ann leaned back, sitting upon her small heels, and looked up at him. "You're/ all upset, and it's not to be wondered at, Mr. Temple Tembar- oni," she said. "'Upset! You're going away to- morrow morning! And, for the Lord's sake dealt call one that!" he protest- ed. "You're going away yourself next Wednesday. And you are Mr. Tem- ple Tembarom. You'll never be call- ed anything else in England. "How am I going to stand it?" he protested again. "How could a fel- icity like me stand it! To be yanked out of good old New York, and set down in a place like a museum, with Central Park round it, and called Mr. Temple Temple Barholm instead of just 'Tern' or 'T. T.'I It's not as turas." "What you must do, Mr. Temple Barholm, is to keep your bead clear, that's all," she replied maturely. "Lord! if I'd got a head like yours." She seemed to take him in, with a benign appreciativeness, in his en- irety. "Well, you haven't," she admitted, hough quite without disparagement, merely with slight reservation. "But ou've got one like your own. And Os a good head—,when you try to hink steady. Yours is a man's head rid mine's only a woman's." "It's Little Ann Hutchinson's, by Ce!" said Tenrlbarom, with feeling. "Listen here, Mr. Tem --'--Temple arholm," she went on, as nearly dis- urbed as he had ever seen her out- wardly. 'It's a wonderful thing that's happened to you. It's like a novel. That splendid place, that splendid name. It seems so queer to think I should ever have talked to a Mr. Temple Barhuim as I've talked to you." He leaned forward a little as though something drew him. "But—" there was unsteady appeal in his voiee—"you have liked me, haven't you, Little'Ann? Her own voice seemed to drop into an extra quietness that made it re- mote. She looked down at her hands en her lap. "Yes, I have liked you. I have told father I liked you," she answered. Ile got up, and made an impetuous rush at his goal. "Then—say, I'm going in there to wake up Mr. Hutchinson and ask him not to sail to -morrow morning." "You'd better not wake him up," she answered, smiling; but he saw that her face changed and flushed.. "Pt's not a good time to ask father anything when he's just been waked up. And we haveeto go. The express is coming at eight." "Send it away again; tell 'em you're not going. Tell ant any old thing. Little Ann, what's the matter with you? Something's the matter, Have T made a break?" He had felt the remoteness in her even before he bend heard it in her dropped voice. It had been vaguely there even' when lie sat down on the trunk. Actually there was a touch of reserve about her, as though she wee keeping her little place with the self-respecting propriety of a girl speaking to a man not of her own world. "I dare say I've done some fool thing without knowing it, I don't know where I'm at, anyhow," he said woefully. "Don't look at me like that, Mr. Temple Barholm," she said—"as if I was unkind. I—I'm not." "But you're different," he implored. "I saw it the minute I came up. I food CCC HOLDING its freshness and full flavoe to the last pipeful, Master Mason in the big plug is the tobacco for the man who knows a good smoke. Satisfying, honest tobacco at the rock bottom price. '1ito*daeke, Neuralgia heq!fnatio, kiaeke j' note 80/410 sial ()violin' Pains, Ii One or two DI%.: MILES' ANTI F4,IN' , PI:LLS--an4...the pain is gone..: Guar- anteed sago and Sure. Prloe 30v, , ran upstairs just crazy to ,talk to'yoti —yes, crazy to 'talk to you—and you , :well, you were different. Why are you, if you're not mad." r Then she- rose and stood. holding cue of her neatly rolled pac-kagea in her hand. Her eyes were soft and' clear, and appealed maternally to his reason. " Beepuse everything's different. You just think a hit," she answered. Be Stared at her ,a few seconds, and then understanding of her dawn- ed upon him. He' made a. human young dash at her, and caught her arm. "What! he cried out. "You mean this Temple Barholm song and dance makes things different? Not on your life! You're not the girl to work that on me, as If it was my fault. You've got to hear me speak my piece. Ann—you've just got to." He had begun to tremble .a little, and she herself was not steady; ,but she put at hand on his arm. "Don't say anything you've not had time to think atfout," she said. "I've .been thinking of pretty near nothing else since I came here. Just tie soon as I looked at you across the table that first day I saw my finish, and every day made me surer. I'd never had any comfort or taking care of,—I didn't know the first thing a- bout it,—anal it seemed as if all there was of it in the world was just in you." "Did you think that?" she asked falteringly. "Did I? That's how you looked to me, arid it's how you look now. The way you go about taking care of everybody and just holding out solid little chunks of good sense to every darned fool that needs them, why—" There was a break in his voice— "why, it just knocked -me out the first round." He held her a little away from him, so that he could yearn over her, though he did not know he was yearning. "See, I'd sworn I'd never ask a .girl to marry me until I could keep her. Well, you know how it, was, Ann. ' I couldn't have kept ri goat; and I wasn't such a fool that I didn't know it. I've been pretty sick when I thought how it was; but I never worried you, did I?" "No, you didn't," "I just got busy. I worked like— well, I got .busier than I ever was in my life. When I got the,page sure, I let myself go a bit, sort of hoping. And then this Temple Barholm thing hits roe." "That's the thing you've got to think of now," said Little Ann. "I'nr going to talk sensible to you." "Don't, Ann! Good Lord! don't!" "I must." She put her last tight roll into the trunk and tried to shut the lid. '"Please leek this fur me." Ile locked it, and then she seated herself on the top of it, though it was rather high for her, and her small feet dangled. Her eyes looked large and moist like a baby's, and she took out a handkerchief and lightly touch- ed thern," "You've made me want to cry a bit, she said" "but hr -n not going to." "Are you going to tell me you don't want me?" he asked, with anxious eyes." "No, I'm not." "God bless you!" He was going to make a dash at her again, but pulled himself up because he must. "No, by li til Ilk w an th ngs!" he said. "1'm not going to I you let me." 1 "You see, it's true your head's not c mine," she said reasonably. "Men's heads are nrustly not like omen's. They're men, of course, d they're superior to women, but , cy're what I'd call more fluttery - Homes and buildings roofed with Brantford Asphalt Slates lend distinction to the neighborhood. The red and green slates are in Nature's own •colors, unfadeable, and harmonize perfectly with the surroundings. 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I'm nothing but Ann Hutchinson, and I talk Man- chester—and I drop my h's." "'I love to hear you drop your little h's all over the place," he burst forth impetuously. "I love it." She shook her head. ' "The girls that go to garden -par- ties, atTemple Barholm look like those in the 'Ladies' Pictorial,' and they've got names and titles same as those in novels." He answered her in genuine an-' gulch. He had never made any mis- take about her character, and she was beginning to make him feel afraid of her in the midst of his adoration. "What do I want with a girl out of a magazine?" he cried. "Where should I hang her up? She was not unfeeling, but unshale. en and she went on: - "I should look like a housemaid among then). How would you feel with a wife of that sort, when the other sort was about?" "I should feel like a king, that's what I should feel like," he replied • indignantly. " "I shouldn't feel like a queen. I sfiould feel miserable" She sat with her little feet dangl- ing, and her hands folded in her lap. (ler infantile blue eyes held hinr as the Ancient Mariner had been held. He could not get away from the clear directness of them. Hey <lid not want to exactly, but she frightened him more and more. "I shouii be ashamed," she pro- ceeded. "I should feel as if I had taken an advantage. What you've get to do is to find out something no one else can find out for you, Mr. Tem,ple Barholm." "How can I find it out withoutr'ov? It was you who put me on to the wedding -cake; you can put me on to other things." "Because I've lived in the place," the answered 'unswervingly. "I know s how funny it is for any one to think of me being Mrs. Temple Barholm, You don't." "You bet I don't," he ;utswered; "but I'll tell you what I ,I , know, ' and that's how funny it it that I should be Mr. Temple Barholm. I've got on to that all right, all right. Have you?" She looked at him with a reflec- tion that said much. She tarok him in w-ith a judicial summing up of which it notal be owned an added respect was part. She had always believ,•-1 he had more sense than most young men, and now she knew it. "When a person's clever enough to sec things for himself. he's gen- erally clever enough t, manage them," she replied. He knelt down beside the trunk and took both her hands in his. I held them fast and rather hard. "Are you throwing nit. down for good, Little Ann?" he .salt. "If you' are, I can't stand it, 1 went stand it." "If you care about me like that, you'll de what T tell you," she itrter- rupted, and she slipped Iwo from the top of her trunk. "d know what Mother would say. She'd ay, 'Ann. you give that young man a chance.' And I'm going to give you line. I've said all I'm going le, ?L. Temple Barholm.k" lie tooboth her elh"ws :end looked at her closely, feeling a somewha awed conviction. "I--believe—you have." h, said, And here the sound of Plc. Hutch 'non's loud and stertor"u: breathin ceased, and he walked up. and cam to the door to find out venal Ann wa doing, "What .are you two tai<ing about?' he asked. "People think when they whisper it's not going 1., .1k;orb arty - body, but it'k worse than shouting in a man's ear." Tembarom walked int„ the room. "I've been asking Liu le Ann to marry lire," he announced, "and she won't." He sat clown in a shat" helplessly, and let his head fall into his hands. "Eh"" exclaimed Hill neon, He Wince! and In -,ked at Ann disturbed - y. "I thought abit ago tha didn't deny but what tined t"t i, t„ him?" "i didn't, Father," sire ,nrswered. "i don't change my mind that quick. Iwould have he -en willing .to say 'Yes' when you wouldn't have been willing to let nue i didn't lnrow he wan Mr. Temple Barholm then." liutehinson rubbed lite hark of his head, reddening and rather bristling. "Post tha think t.h' Temple Bar - helms would look down on thee?" "I should look down no myself if I took him up at hin first words, when he's all upset with excitement, and hasn't had time to find out what things mean. I'm --well, ['m too fond of him, Father." Hutchinson gave -her a lung, steady ook. "You are?" he said, "Yes, I am." Tembarom lifted his head, and coked at her, too. "Are you?" he asked. She put her hands behind her back and returned his lonk with the calm of ages. "I'm not going to argue about it;"• he answered. Arguisug's silly." His involuntary rising and standing Continued on page six "Auto -Shoes" Mean Mileage The mileage given by the best tire you ever used would just about approximate the average given by Ames Holden "Auto -Shoes" year after year. Ames Il olden "Auto -Shoes" are miles better than ordinary tires. The Warne "Auto -Shoes" is to help you to remember that—to make it easy for you to get the cheapest mileage you can buy. 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