Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 261, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 October 1919 — Page 2

The Magnificent Ambersons

BY BOOTH TARKINGTON

Copyright by Doubleday, P«« & Company. CHAPTER XXI I—-Continued. At this he laughed, but not very heartily, and walked slowly to the house, leaving her bending over a rose bush, and a shade more pensive than the most pensive garden lady in any Victorian engraving. r . Next day. it happened that this same “Vendonah” or “Rldes-Down-Everythlng" became the subject-of-a-chance conversation between. Eugene, and his old friend Kinney, father of the fire-topped Fred. The two gentlemen found thetnselves smoking in neighboring leather chairs beside a broad window at the chib, aftewlunch. Mr. Kinney had remarked that he expected to get his family established at the seashore by the Fourth of July, and. following a train of thought, he paused and chuckled. “Fourth of July reminds me.” he said. “Have you heard what that Georgie Minafer Js doing?” “No, I haven't,” said Eugene, and his friend failed to notice the crispness of the utterance. “Well, sir,” Kinney chuckled again, “it beats the devil! My boy Fred told me about It yesterday. He’s a friend of this young Henry Akers, son of F. P. Akers of the Akers Chemical company. It seems this young Akers asked Fred If he knew a fellow named Minafer. because he knew Fred had always lived here, Akers had heard some way that Minafer used to be an old family name here, and was sort of curious about It. Well, sir, you remember this young Georgie sort of disappeared, after his grandfather’s death, and nobody seemed to know much what had become of him — though I did hear, once or twice, that he was still around somewhere. Well, sir, he’s working for the Akers Chemical company, out at their plant on the Thomasville road." He paused, seeming to reserve something to be delivered only upon inquiry, and Eugene offered him the expected question, but only after a cold glance through tlie. nose-glasses he had lately found it necessary to adopt. “What does he do?” ° ’ ’ Kinney laughed and slapped the arm of his chair. “He’s a nitro-glycerin ext pert I” He was gratified to see that Eugene was surprised, if not, indeed, a little startled. “He’s what?" . “He’s an expert on hitro-glycerin. Doesn't that beat the devil! Yes, sir! Young Akers told Fred that this George Minafer had worked like a houn'-dog ever since he got started out at the works. They have a special plant for nitro-glycerin, way off from the main plant, o’ course —in the woods somewhere —and George Minafer’s been working there, and lately they put him iq charge of it, JHe overaees shooting oil wells, too, andL shoots ’em himself, sometimes. They aren't ynn know—have to team it. Young Akers says George rides around over the bumpy roads, sitting on as much as three hundred quarts of nitro-glycerinT My Lord! Talk about romantic tumbles! If he gets blown sky-high some day he won’t have a bigger drop, when he comes down, than he’s already had! Don’t it beat the devil I Young Akers said he's got all the nerve there is in the worid-.Says he gets a fair salary, - and I should think he ought to 1 Seems to me I’ve heard the average life in that sort of work is somewhere around

four years, and agents don't write any insurance at all for nitro-glycerin experts.- -Hardly-!'’ Kinney rose to go. "Well. it's a pre<ty funny thing—pretty -odd, I mean —and I suppose it would be pass-around-the-hat for old Fanny Minafer if be blew up. Fre«l told me that they're living in some apartment house, and said Gdorgie supports her. He was going to study law, but couldn't earn enough that way to take care of Fanny, so he gave it up. Fred's wife told him all this. Says Fanny doesn’t do anything but play bridge these days Got to playing too high for awhile and lost more than she wanted to tell Georgie about, and borrowed a little from old f rank Bronsoiu Paid him hack, though. Don't know how Fred's wife heard it. Women do hear the darndest things!” ■“They do,” Eugene agreed. “Weil. I’m off to the store,” said Mr. Kinney briskly; yet he lingered. “I suppose we'll all have to club in and keep bld Fanny but of the poorhouse if he does blow up. From all I hear it’s usually only a question of time. They say she hasn’t got anything else to depend on." “I suppose not.” Z u\y e ll—l wondered —” Kinney hesitated; “I was wondering why you hadn’t thought of finding something around your works for him. You used to be such a tremendous friend of the family—l thought perb-ns you—of course I know he's a queer lot—l know he's—” -

“Yes, I think he is,” said Eugene. “No. I haven’t anything to offer him.'’ ‘1 suppose not," Kinney returned thoughtfully, as he went on. “I don’t know that I would myself. Well, we ll • probably see his name in the papers • some day if he stays with that Job!” ; . , . However, the nltro-glyccrin ' ■ expert of whom they spoke did not get i into the papers as a consequence of being blown up, aithougfilils daily life. ’ was corffitnly a continuous exposure to ‘ that risk. Destiny lias a constant pas- ' sion for the incongruous, and it was | George's lot to manipulate wholesale , quantities of- terrific ftnd V<>laUle ex- j plosive* in safety, and to be laid low , ■ by an accident so commonplace and in- : i consequent that it was a eoroedy. | Fate had reserved for him the final in- j suit of riding him down under the I wheels .of one of those juggernauts at i which he had once shouted “Git a hoss!” Nevertheless. Fnfe’s ironic choice far. Georgia's undoing was not a big and swift and momentous ear, such as Eugene manufactured; If wits a specimen of the hustling little tj-pe that was flooding the country, the cheapest, ' commonest, hardiest* little car ever mipie. The accident took place upon a Sunday morning, on a downtown crossing, with th<* streets almost empty, and no reason in the world for such a thing to happen. He had gone out for his Sunday morning walk, and he was thinking of an automobile at the very moment when the little ear strqck him; he was thinking of ts shiny landuulet and a charming figure stepping into it. and of the quick gesture of a white glove toward the chauffeur, motioning him to go on. George heard a shout, but did not look up. for not imagine anybody’s shouting at him, and he was too engrossed in the question “Was it Lucy?” He could not decide, and his lack of decision In this matter probably superinduced a lack of decision In another, more pressingly vital. At the second and louder shout he did look up; and the car was almost

on him; but he could not make up his mind if the charming little figure he had seen was Lucy’s and he could not make up his mind whether to go backward or forward; these questions became entangled in his mind. Then, still not being able to decide which of two ways to go. he tried to go both — and the little car ran him down. It was not moving very rapidly, but it went all the way over George. He was conscious of gigantic violence; of roaring and jolting and concussion ; of choking clouds of dust, shot with lightning, about his head; he 'heard snapping sounds as loud as shots from a small pistol, and was stabbed by excruciating pains in his legs. Then he became aware that the machine was being lifted off of him. People were gathering in a circle round him, gabbling. His forehead was bedewed with the sweat of anguish, and he tried to wipe off this dampness, but failed. He could not get his arm that far. “Nev’ mind,” a policeman said; and George could see above ‘his eyes the skirts of the blue- coat, covered with dust and sunshine. “Amb'lahce here in a minute. Nev* mind tryin' to move any. You want ’em to send for some special doctor?” “No." George’s lips formed the wprd. “Or to take you to some private hospital?” “ZT T "Tell th?m to take me,” he said faintly, “to the City hospital.” “A’ right.” A smallish young man in a duster fidgeted among the crowd, explaining and protesting and a strident-voiced

girl, his companion, supported his argument, declaring to everyone her {court of law that every blessed won! ’Tt's the j liceman said, looking down on George. |“I guess he's right; you must of b’en , thinkin’ about sotnep’n’ or other. It’s I wunnerful the- damage them little machines can do—you’d never think it —

but I guess they ain’t much case ag'in this fella that was I “You bet your life they ain’t no case on me 1” the young man in the duster agreed, with great bitterness. He came and stood at George’s feet, addressing him heatedly: “I'm sorry fer you all ’ right, and 1 don’t say I ain't. I hold 4 nothin' against you, but it wasn't any 1 more my fault than the statehouse! i- Wasn't goin' a step over eighr miles 11’m. sorry for you though, and.so's the - lady with me. We’re both willing to say that much, but that’s all, understand!" - . George’s drawn eyelids twitched; his misted glance rested fleetingly upon the two protesting motorists. and the old imperious spirit within him flickered up in a single word. Lying on his back in the middle of the street, where he was regarded by an increasing'public as an unpleasant curiosity, he spoke this word clearly from a imouth filled with dust, and from lips smeared with blood. ... It was a word which interested the policeman. When the ambulance clanged away, he turned to a fellow patrolman who had joined him. "Funny what he says to the little cuss that done the damage. That’s all he did call him—nothin’ else at-all —and bthe-cuss had broke both his legs fer d him and God-knows-what-all!" “I wasn’t here then. What was it?’ “•Riffraff!”’

CHAPTER XXIII. Eugene’s feeling about George had not been altered by his talk with Kin- i ney in the club window, though he was ; i somewhat disturbed. ’ Kinney had repr resented Georgie as a new Georgie—at least in spots—a Georgie who was proving that decent stuff had been hid lin him; in fact, a Georgie who was do- ,

THE EVENING REPUBLICAN. REN

ing rnther a handsome thing in taking a risky job for the sake of his aunt, poor old silly Fanny Minafer! Eugene • didn't care what risks Georgia took, or i how much decent stuff he had in him; I nothing that Georgie would ever do in this world or the next could change Eugene Morgan’s feeling toward him. : If Eugene had wished, he could easily have taken -George out of the nitro glycerin branch qf the chemical works. 'Always Interested in apparent impossibilities.of invention. Eugene had encouraged many experiments in such gropings as those for the discovery of i Substitutes for ruiJ?«s4and. though his mood had withheld the pinformation from K timey, he bad Cei cently bought from the elder Akers a ; substantial quantity of stock on the I condition that the chemical company i should establish an experimental laboratory. He intmided to buy more; Akers was anxious to please him; ami a word* from Eugene would have pla<-ed George almost anywhere in the chemical works. The possibility just edged itself in to Eugene’smind; that is, he let It become part of bis perceptions long enough for it to prove to him that it was actually 1 a Tlren he half started with disgust that he should be even idly considering such a thing over .his last cigar for the night, in his library. "No-!” And he ; threw the cigar into the empty fire- ' place and went to bed. His bitterness for himself might have worn away, biif never his bitternessf<rr Isabel. Jle_took that thought to bed withjiirn—and it was true that nothing George could do would ever change tiffs bitterness of Eugene. Only George’s mother could have changed it. And as- Eugene fell asleep that night, thinking thus bitterly of I Georgie, Georgie in the hospital was • thinking of Eugene. He thought of Eu-_ gene Morgan and of the Major; they seemed to be the same person for awhile, but he manged to disentangle

them and even to understand why he had confused them. Long ago his grandfather had been the most striking figure of success in the town: “As rich as Major Amberson !” they used to say. Now it was Eugene. “If I had Eugene M<rrgan’s money,” he would hear the workmen day-dreaming at the chemical works; or, “If Eugene Morgan had hold of this place you’d see things hum 1” And the boarders at the table d’hote spoke of “the Morgan Place” as an eighteenth-century Frenchman spoke of Versailles. Like his uncle, Geftrge had perceived that the “Morgan Place” was the new Amberson mansion. His reverie went back to the palatial days of the mansion, in Ids boyhood, when he would gallop his pony up the driveway and order the darkey“stablemen" about, whilethey whooped and obeyed, and his grandfather, observing from a w-indovv, would laugh and call out to him: “That’s right, Georgie. Make those lazy rascals jump!” He remembered his gay young “uncles, and how the town was eager concerning everything about them, and about himself. What a clean, pretty town it had been I And in his reverie he saw like a pageant before him the magnificence of the Amber- I sons —its passing, and the passing of the Ambersons themselves. They had been slowly engulfed without knowing how to prevent it, and almost without knowing what was happening to them. The familyTot.in the shabby old quarter, out at the cemetefjr, held most of them now; and the name was swept altogether from the new city. The Ambersons had passed, and the new people would pass, and the new people that came after them, and the nextnew ones, and the next —and the next- _ 2___„ Hehad begun to murmur, and the man on duty. as..Jilght -nqrse Xor the

ward came and bent over him. ' : “Did you want something?” , “There’s nothing in this family business,” George told him confidentially. “Even George Washington is only something in a book.” Eugene read a report of the accident in the next morning's paper. He was on the train, having just left for New York, on business, and with less leisure would probably have overlooked the obscure item: UEGS BROKEN. G. A. Minafer, an employee of the Akers Chemical company, was run down by an autornoblle-yesteFday-at the-eerner- of er,..was: tonSarne aecndent. ’according to Patrolman F. A. Kax. who witnessed the affair. The automobile was a small one driven by Herbert Cottieman of 2173 Noble avenue, who stated that he was making less than four miles an hour. Minafer is said to belong to a family formerly of considerable prominence in the city. He was taken to the City hospital, where physiciahs stated later that he was suffering from internal injuries besides the fracture of his legs, but might recover. Eugene read the item twice, then tossed the paper upon the opposite seat of his compartment, and sat dfiokHtg <mt of the window. Hi? feeling towanl Georgie ”w?is "Hia’nged not a jot by lys human pity for Georgie’s human pain and injury. He.thought of Georgie’s tall and graceful figure, and he shivered, but his bitterness was untouched. He had never blamed Isabel for the weakness which had cost them the few years of happiness they- might have had together; he had put the blame all on the son. and it stayed there. He began to think poignantly of Isabel. He closed his eyes and saw her as she had been long ago. He saw the brown-eyed, brown-haired, proud, gentle, laughing girl he had known when first he came to town, a boy just out of the State college. He remembered —as he had remembered ten thousand times before —the look she gave him when her brother George introduced him to her at a picnib; it was “like hazel starlight” he had written her, in a poem, afterward. He remembered

his first call at the Ambersonmansion, and what a great" peffibnage she seemed, at home in that magnificence; 1 and yet so gay and friendly. He remembered the first time he had danced with her —and the old waltz song began to beat in his ears and in his i heart. „ I All the way to New York it seemed to him that Isabel was near him, and j he wrote of her to /Lucy from his hotel the next night: “I saw ah account of the accident of George Minafer. I’m sorry, though thepaper_states that it was plainly liis uwn TaXfit. —rwjlpbso it toay have been aS a result of my attention fall-, ing upon the item that I thought of his mother a great deal on the way here. It seemed to me that I had never seeii her more distinctly or so constantly, but, as you know, thinking of his moth'er Is not very apt to make me admire him I of course, however, he has my best wishes for his recovery.” He nested the letter, and by- the morning’s mail received one from Lucy written a few hours after his departure from home. She inclosed the item he had read on the train and wrote: “I thought you might not see it. “I have seen Miss Fanny and she has got him put into a room by himself. Oh, poor Rides-Down-Everything! I have been thinking so constantly of his mother and it seemed to me that I have never seen her more distinctly. How lovely she was —and how she loved him!” If Lucy had not written this letter Eugene might not have done the odd thing he did that day. He was an adventurer; if he had lived in the sixteenth century he would have sailed the unknown new seas, but having been born in the latter part of the nineteenth, when geography was a fairly well-settled matter, he had become an explorer in mechanics. But the fact that he was a “hard-headed business ■ man” as well as an adventurer did not keep him from having a queer spot in his brain, because hardheaded business men are as susceptible to such spots, as adventurers are. Two weeks after Isabel’s death, gene was in New York on urgent business and found that the delayed arrival of a steamer gave him a day with nothing to do. His room at the hotel had become Intolerable; outdoors was Intolerable; everything was intolerable. It seemed to him that he must

“No, Just to Take His Hand—Gently.”

once more; that he must find some way to her, or lose his mind. Under this pressure fee had gone, with complete scepticism, to a “trance-medium” of whom he had heard wild accounts from the wife of a business acquaintance. The experience had been grotesque, and he came away with an encouraging message from his father, who had failed to identify himself satisfactorily. but declared that everything was “on a higher plane” in his present state of being, find that all life was “continuous pnd progressive.” Mrs. Horner spoke of herself as*, a oddly unpretentious and matter-of-fact; and Eugene had no doubt at all of her sincerity. He went to Mrs. Horner’s after his directors’ meeting today. He used the telephone booth in the directors’ room to make the appointment; and he laughed feebly at himself, and wondered what the group of men in that mahogany apartment would think if they knew what he was doing. Mrs. Horner had changed her address, but he found the new one, and somebody purporting to a niece of hers talked to him and made an appointment for a “sitting” at ffve’ o’clock.

Mrs. Horner appeared in the doorwayv a wan and unenterprising looking woman in brown, with thin hair artificially waved —but not recently—and parted in the middle over a bluish forehead. Her eyes were small and seemed weak, but she recognized the visitor. “Oh, you been here before,” she said, in a thin voice, not unmusical. “I recollect you. Quite a time ago, wa’n’t it?” ' --. ■- - “Yes, quite a long time.” “I recollect because I recollect you was disappointed. Anyway, you was kind of cross.” She laughed faintly. “I’m sorry if I seemed so,” Eugene said. “Shall we—” “All right,” she assented, dropped into the leather chair, with her back to the shqded window. “You better set down, too, I reckon. I hope you’ll get

IND.

something this tihie so you won’t feel cross, but I dunno. I can’t never tell what they’ll do. Well —” She sighed, closed her eyes, and was silent, while Eugene, seated in the stiff chair across the table from her, watched her profile, thought himself an idiot, and called himself that and other names. And as the silence con- i tinned, and the impassive woman in the easy-chair remained impassive, he began to wonder what had led him to such a fool. What had brought him back to this absurd place arid caused him to be watching this absurd Woman taking a nap in a chair? In brief: What the devil did he mean by it? He had not the slightest interest in Mrs. Horner’s naps—or In her teeth, which were being slightly revealed by the unconscious parting of her: lips', as her breathing became heavier. How long was he going to sit here presiding over this unknown woman’s slumbers? It struck him that to make the picture complete he ought- to be shooing flies away from her with a palm-leaf fan. Mrs. Horner’s parted lips closed again abruptly, and became compressed; her moved a little, then jerked repeatedly; her smaTT chest heaved; she gasped, and the compressed lips relaxed to a slight contortion, then began to move, whispering and bringing forth indistinguishable mutterings. Suddenly she spoke in a loud, husky vbice: “Lopa is here I” “Yes,” Eugene said dryly. ‘"Ant's what you said last time. I remember ‘Lopa.’ She’s your ‘control’ 1 think you said.” “I’m Lopa,” said the husky voice. “I’m Lopa herself.” “You mean I’m to suppose you’re not Mrs. Horner now?” “Never was Mrs. Horner!” the voice declared, speaking undeniably from Mrs. Horner's lips—but with such conviction that Eugene, in spite of everything, began to feel himself in the presence of a third party, who was none the less an individual, even though she might be another edition of the apparently somnambulistic Mrs. Horner. “Never was Mrs. Horner or anybody but just Lopa. Guide.”

“YQjJ.i mean you’re Mrs. Horner’s guide?” he asked. “Your guide now,” said the voice with emphasis, to which was incongruously added a low laugh. “You came here once before. Lopa remembers.” “Yes—so did Mrs. Horner.” Lopa overlooked his implication, and contintfed quickly: “Yon build Build things that go. You came here once and old gentleman, on this side, he spoke to you. Same old gentleman here now. He tell Lopa he’s your grandfather—no, he says ‘father.’ He’s your father.” “What’s his appearance?” “How?” . s “What does he look like?” . “Very fine"! White beard, but not long beard. He says some one else wants to speak to you. See here. Lady. Not his wife, though. No. Very fine lady ! Fine lady, fine lady!” — “ls.it my sister?” Eugene asked. “Sister? No. She U shaking her head. She has pretty brown hair. She is fond of you. She is some one who' knows you very wel 1, but she is not your sister. She is very anxious to say something bo you—very anxious. Very fond of you; very anxious to talk to you. Very glad you came here —oh, very glad!” “What is her name?”

“Name,” the voice repeated, and seemed to ruminate. “Name hard to gpt—atwnva vory h «trd T Name. Shg wants to tell me her name to.-tell you.Shewaatsyoutounderstn nd" names are ha rd to make. She says you must think of something that makes a sound.” Here the voice seemed to put a question to an invisible presence and to receive an answer. “A little sound or a big sound? She says it might be a little sound or a big sound. She says a ring—oh, Lopa knows! She means a bell! That’s it, a bell.” Eugene looked grave. “Does she mean her name is Belle?” “Not quite. Her name is longer.” “Perhaps,” he suggested, “she means that she was a belle.” “No. She says she thinks you know what she means. She says you must AL-Sk.-*.- a*” « : 'CVWSrr' c aw um, WWC ■ Again Dopa addressed the unknownfljutthlS time seemed to wait for an answer. “Perhaps she means the color of her eyes?” said Eugene. “No. She says her color is light—it’s a light color and you can see through it.” “Amber?” he said, and was startled, for Mrs. Horner, with her eyes still closed, ejapped her hands, and the voice cried out in delight: “Yes!- She says you know who she is from amber. Amber! Amber! That’s it! She says you understand what her name ts from, a bell and from amber.. She is laughihg and waving a lace handkerchief at me because she is pleased, She says I have made you know who it is.”

This was the strangest moment of Eugene’s life, because, while it lasted, he believed that, Isabel Amberson, who was dead, had found means to speak to him. Though within ten minutes he doubted it, he believed it then. His-elbows pressed hard upon the table, and, his head between his hands, he leaned forward, staring at the commonplace figure in the easychair. “What does she . wish to say to. me?” “She is happy because you know her. No —she is troubled. Oh —a great trouble! Something she wants to tell you. She wants so much to tell you. She wants Lopa to tell you.

This is a great trouble. She says—oh, yes, she wants you to be —to be kind! That’s what she says* That’s it. To be kind.” « “Does she —” “She wants you toub® kind,” said the voice. “She nods when I tell you this. Yes; it must be right. She is a very fine lady. Very pretty. She is so anxious for you to understand. She hopes and hopes you will. Someone else wants to speak to yon; This is a man. He says—” “I don’t want to speak to any one else ” J said TSTugene quickly. “I warit—r” “This man who has come says , that he- is a friend of yours. He says—” Eugene struck the table with his fist. “I don’t want to speak to any one else, I tell you!” he cried passionately. “If she is there I —” He caught his breath sharply, checked himself, and sat In amazement. Could his mind so easily accept so stupendous a thing as true? Evidently It could! . ' Mrs. Horner spoke languidly in her own voice: “Did you get anything satisfactory?” she asked. “I certainly it wasn’t like that other time when you was cross because they couldn’t get anything for you.” “No, no,” he said hastily. “This* was different. It was very interesting.” He paid her, went to his hotel, and thence to hip train for home. Never did he so seem to move through a . world of dream-stuff; for he knew that he was not more credulous than other men, and if he could believe what he had believed, -though he had believed 4t for no longer than a moment or two, what hold had he or any other human being on reality? His credulity vanished (or so he thought) with his recollection that it was he, and not the alleged “Lopa,” who had suggested the word “amber.” Going over the mortifying, plain facts of his experience, he found that Mrs. Horner, or the subdivision of Mrs. Horner known as “Lopa,” had told him *0- think of a bell and of a color, and that being furnished with these scientific data, he had leaped to the conclusion that he spoke with Isabel Amberson!

For a moment he had believed that Isabel was there, believed that she was close to him, entreating him —entreating him “to be kind.” But with this recollection a strange agitation came upon him. After all, had she not spoken to him? If his own unknown consciousness, had told the “psychic’s” unknown consciousness how to make the picture of the pretty brown-haired, brown-eyed lady, hadn’t the tme Isabel—oh, indeed her very soul! —called to him out of his own true memory of her? , And, as tne train roared through the darkened evening he looked out beyond his window, arid saw’ her as he had seen her on his journey, a few days ago—an ethereal figure flying beside the train, but now it seemed to him that she kept her face toward his window with an infinite wistfulness. .' e . “To be kind!” If it had been Isabel, was that wliat she would have said? If she were anywhere, and could come to him through the invisible wall, what would be the first thing she Kvould say to him? » Ah, well enough, and perhaps bitterly enough, he knew the answer to that question! “To be kind” —to Georgie I . . A red cap at the station, when he arrived, leaped for his bag, abandoning another which the Pullman porter had handed him. “Yessuh, Mist’ Morgan. Yessuh, You’ car waitLuC Station'id you, inist jj±vx• gan, sub!” gates turned to stare, as he passed through, whispering, “That’s Morgan.” Outside, the neat chauffeur stood at the door of the touring car like a soldier in whipcord. “I’ll not go home now, Harry," said Eugene, w’hen he had got in. “Drive to the City hospital.” “Yes, sir,” the man returned. “Miss Lucy’s there. She said she expected you’d come there before you went home.” ' ’

-She did?” “Yes, sir.” Eugene stared. “I suppose Mr. Minafer must be pretty bad,” he said. his lever into high speed, and the car went through the heavy traffic like some fast, faithful beast that knew its way about, and knew its master’s need of haste. Eugene did not speak again until they reached the hospital. Fanny met him Jn the upper corridor, and took him to an-open door. He stopped on the threshold, startled; for, from the waxen face on the pillow, almost it seemed the eyes of Isabel herself were looking at him: never before had the resemblance between mother and son been so strong —and Eugene knew that now’ he had once seen it thus startlingly, he need divest himself of bo bitterness “to be kind” to Georgie. George was startled, too. He lifted a white hand in a queer gesture, halfforbidding, half-imploring, and then let his arm fall back upon the coverlet. “You must have thought my mother wanted you to Vome,” he said, “so that I could ask you to —to forgive me.” . But Lucy/who sat besid? him, lifted ineffable eyes from him to her father, and shook her head. “No, just to take his hand —gently She wms radiant. But for Eugene another radiance filled the room. He knew that he had been true at last to his true love, and that through him she had brought her boy under shelter again, Her eyetf would .look wistful no more. j [THE END.]