Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 March 1910 — THE SECOND EDITION [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE SECOND EDITION

:Mt—’ Mary Molyneux live here’” The stout, ruddy, prosperous-looking man, whose black coat and silk hat looked out of *>lace in this north country farmyard, gazed about him as he spoke, with a smile which puzzled the recipient of his query. ‘‘One might fancy the place belonged to him," thought Jim Molyneux, with natural proprietary resentment. “Yes,’’ he said, aloud. "Can I see her?" pursued the other.’ , Jim looked at him with a growing sense of inquiry. “I’ll see,” he remarked, grudgingly. “Aunt Polly’s very likely upstairs.” The visitor, stepping into the room, responded before Jim had time to formulate the query. "I’ll wait till MisS Molyneux comes down, thank ydu. We’ve met before.” “Set a cheer and ax the gentleman to tak’ a seat,” came the mandate from above. Mary Molyneux was a middle-aged woman, comfortably stout, her round, ruddy face was now shining from the recent application of yellow soap; her brown hair was smoothed on either side of her broad brow and plaited with uncompromising tightness behind. “I’m sure I’m very sorry to ha’ kept you so long waiting,’ she began. Then she gasped, "It’s never you. Will Prescott!” “It’s me, though,” returned that gen-

tieman. “And how are you, Mary, my dear?” Mary dropped into the nearest chair, staring as though unable to believe her eyes. “Coom back <arter all they years!’ “Yes, I’ve come back,” said Mr. Prescott; “and what's more, I’ve come back with a tidy bit of money.” “Have ye?’ said Mary, reviving in some measure and smiling. “That’s great news.” “I’ve more news for you than that, my dear,” said Will, with a knowing look; “but I want to.hear what you’ve got to tell me first. A man doesn’t stay away for twenty years in America without expecting to hear of a few changes. I was more than a little bit surprised to find that you were single still, my dear. Why, what were the young fellows about that they didn’t snap you up?” “If I didn’t get wed, it wasn’t for want of being axed,” said Mary, with a toss of the dead. "I’d my reasons for keepin’ single.” “I wonder if I can guess what they were,” said Will, edging his chair a little nearer and gazing sentimentally at her.

“Nay, I don’t suppose you can,” returned she, briskly. “Our Tom—my brother, you know—his wife died, you see, when our Maggie was born—that's her youngest, and he axed me to comA here and. keep house for him and bring up childer, so I agreed and I’ve been here ever since. Our Tom died ten years ago and left farm to me to keep a home for all three childer, so they can never turn me out, even If they was minded to; but they wouldn’t do that. They’re good tads—very good ,lads; and our Maggie is as nice a ■wench as ever stepped shoe-leather.” "Ah,” said jMr. Prescott. “So the farm’s yours. Well, you’ll have no need of It now; you can make it over altogether to your nephews and nieces. Tve come back from America to make you a lady, my dear.* “Eh!” said Mary, flushing to the roots of her hair, and gazing at him ■with a dropping jaw. Something within her. something long dead and forgotten, stirred faintly when he called her "my.dear": no one ever addressed ner after that fashion. “I don’t think I could manage very

well to wed you, Will’um, thank you,” she said, with a polite firmness which belled her Inward trepidation. “I’m too old to change my ways now, and I’m wanted at this place.” “I have your promise, Mary.” "Why, you never so much as wrote a fine after the first year,” said Mary. “That wasn’t altogether my fault, my dear,” returned he. “I was traveling about, you know, and one thing or another. Well, I may as well make a clean breast of it —I was married for some years, Mary.” “Oh, and was you! Well, then, I think you needn’t go casting up promises at me.” “You’d have nothing to do,” said Preseott, grandiloquently.—“l can well

afford to keep two maids and a man. When you are not driving in your own trap, you can be sitting in your own drawing room.” “Sit wi’ my hands before me!” exclaimed Mary. “That’s the last thing I’d like, and so I tell you. I doubt I couldn’t do wi’ you, Will’um Prescott.” “You gave me your word to marry me if I came back for you,” insisted Will,-“and I have come; back,” so you must keep your promise.” “Dear, I wish you’d kep’ away altogether, since you kep’ away so long. I’m sure I don’t want no swethearts to come moiderin’ here at my time o’ life.” “Sweethearts!” exclaimed an astonished voice; and as the startled‘couple turned round a young girl entered the room. The ruddy light which streamed in from the open door gilded hair .as smooth as Mary’s own, but it a warmer brown, and made a glowing rim around a soft cheek, dimpled and delicately fosy as hers had once been.

William Prescott beheld the reincarnation of the girl-sweetheart of twenty years ago, and his heart gave a sudden leap. Here was the lass whom he had courted in his dreams. Mary, yonder, if the ample figure and determined ways, had much changed. “And whatever you are cryin’ for, Aunt Polly?” asked the girl. “Who la this gentleman? What is he coom for?” “Eh, lass, I cannot choose but cry! Eh, I scarce know how to tell thee. Dear o’ me, when I think o’ partin’ with thee as I took in my arms the very minute thou was born, I may say.” “Partin’ wi’ me?” gasped Maggie, turning very pale. “But I didn’t know the gentleman. Dear auntie, you know I alius sjdd I’d never leave yop.”

Clasping the wooden arms of her chair, Mary Molyneux gazed fixedly at the girl, a sudden light coming into her blue eyes the while. “Bide a bit, my dear,” she said, faintly; “urait till thou’s heerd all as the gentleman’s got • to say.” Turning quickly to Will Prescott, she saw the dawning light of understanding interest in his eyes, and continued hastily: “This Is Mr. Wlll’um Prescott, as used to be a neighbor if ours in old days, when I were young. I knowed him well then, and I know as he’s the kindest heart as ever beat in a man's breast.”

Mr. Prescott cleared his throat and looked keenly at Mary, a smile flickering somewhere In the meshes of his black beard; then he looked at Maggie, realizing even more fully than before that she was certainly very handsome, handsomer than Mary had ever been, though amazingly like her.

“He’s coom back from America,” resumed the elder woman, “on the lookout for a wife. He’s made his fortune out there, and he says his wife’s to be a lady. Mr. Prescott's only 42," said Mary; “quite young for a mon-rand you must own he’s noan 11 to look at." Maggie glanced slyly at the suitor from beneath her long eyelashes '•gid William fidgeted in his chair. *

“He’s a very religious mon,” went on Mary, “awful religious—’tis a great comfort to a woman to know that. And he’s thinkin’ of coming here tomorrow in a taxicab and taking you for a spin, if you fancy it.” William Prescott made up his mind. “If your aunt will trust you with me, Miss Molyneux,” he said, “I shall be delighted to take you for a drive, and I hope it may means of our becoming better acquainted.” “Well, I’d like the drive,” admitted Maggie, with blunt north country candor, “but I’m sure I don’t know about anything else. It seems so sudden, doesn’t it, aunt? I can’t think how ever Mr. Prescott came to think o’ me,” Mary rose to the occasion. > — “Mr. Prescott really came to see me, my dear, bein’ an old friend and that, and we got atalkln’ and he telled me how he were lookin’ for a wife, and I mentioned as I brought you all up—you see, knowln’ me so well, he’d be sure to think any lass as was upbrought by me would be like to turn out well—and then the very minute you coom in the room he lost his heart to ye—didn’t ye, Will’um ?’ ' —‘WilPum,” with a bewildered air, admitted that he had. "Well, then,’ said Mary, with a conclusive air and a look of deep satisfaction, "I really think as you couldn’t do better nor consider him, my lass.” —Country Life.

“PARTIN WI' ME.”