Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 143, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 June 1910 — She Took a Chance [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

She Took a Chance

"ClSHce,” cooed the bride’s dearest <lrl friend, "you've nev'4r told Hie how you and Jack happened to get engaged.” . The bride held back her head and studied the effect of an embroidered tatitlal on something white and fluffy. “I never told a living soul," she said. “Goodness! How exciting! What In the world— r " “Not one living soul! But if you promise you’ll never tell anybody ”• “Clarice! You know me better than to think I’d ever breathe a word.” “Well, it was one night last spring. I'd been writing letters In my den and was bored to death. I’d just broken off with Howard and I hadn’t any hopes of a caller, for Tom was In Canada and Martin was working nights on his law cases and Herbert was out of town and that nice Mr. Seibert you girls were all crazy over ” "I wasn’t, if you mean me, Clarice, you horrid thing! I didn’t think he was nlci at all, and I always said he’d turn out something we didn’t expect.” "Well, he did, when they arrested him for bigamy. But, then, that hasn’t anything to do with how Jack and I got engaged. "It was one of those lovely spring nights, all lilacs and full moon, and people out walking, and I was cooped up in my deij all alone, with every blessed man I knew out of the question, and nobody at home except Mabel studying her Latin on the porch. You know my den opens right off the end of the front hall.” The bride paused. • ' . “I’d just fixed up that den,” she went on, “and I felt so proud of

had everybody come In there. So when I heard somebody mount the front steps as If he belonged to the family and then say something to Mabel, I didn’t budge. “When Mabel called, ‘Somebody you know to see yoh, Clarice,’ I just said, *Tell him to come straight to the den t ’ I thought maybe Martin had got tired of his law cases and come over for a few minutes. “Whoever it was walked in as confidently as if he’d been to see me the day before. I llkedi his step. Don’t you think there’s a lot of character in the way people -walk? This man’s walk was firm and even, just as if he knew what he wanted and npver wotild' stop until he got it if it took him years and years. “Then, what do you think? You’d never guess in a thousand years!” "How perfectly romantic!” murmured the girl friend. “I never could guess, so hurry and tell me.” “He came right into the den, and before I could turn around he put his hands over my eyes and said in the nicest voice, ‘Guess who!’ "I racked my brains for a minute, for I knew I’d heard the voice before, though whom it belonged to I hadn’t the slightest idea. * He might be almost anybody, but I knew he was nice, just from the way he walked and the way h|s voice sounded. Besides, I was half crazy for some excitement, and I—l 1 —I think it was just direct Inspiration —I said, softly: ’“There’s only one man In the world who has a right to do that, and I’d know him among a thousand.* "What do you think of that for nerve! But, goodness! I didn’t have time to reflect on what I’d done. Things happened toe fast. "The next thing I remember is that

I xyas all bunched up in Jack Phelps’ coat collar and asking him why he’d never written me from Colorado all these years. He’d been away ever since he left college, you know, and he was my first sweetheart —in fact, we were about half engaged when he went away, “When I saw how perfectly dear he was and how handsome he looked—don’t you think he has the loveliest nose? —why, I never said a word; anyway, I was in love with him before I knew what was happening. “He still thinks I remembered his voice and knew who he was when I said that—he thinks it’s perfectly wonderful. Maybe when I’m an old marriel woman and Jack’s baldheaded I’ll tell him about it.” “But not now!” murmured the girl friend, recovering her breath. “Oh, by no means!” said Cllrace. — Chicago Daily News.

“GUESS WHO!”