Jasper County Democrat, Volume 19, Number 97, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 March 1917 — READJUSTMENT [ARTICLE]

READJUSTMENT

By ALICE WEBBER.

Ann Morgan was trying to get hold of herself and finding It the hardest proposition sfie had ever attempted. It was a struggle to reach out for common sense after the blind of affection, and there was nothing to help except the newness of the life about her.> It was, its if she had gone back to the very beginning of-things. In a way she had. She and her father were living outside a French village in a weather-beaten house across the border from New Brunswick; with a cook stove, two beds, a ’rough table and a couple of chairs. Her father was like a boy in this environment and did tlie .cooking» wly I 0 Ailn. made a'l <■ t• rfi 1 iti.ed effort to find a glimmer of light, Otherwise called sanity, in the darkness that encpnrpassed her. When she reached St. Attegat, during the early days of .lime, she had been too indifferent to ••are for the. quaintness of tier surroundings. Her father had been alarmed* about her health, and tlie family physician, unable to discover cause for her illness, had sent her where he knew the air was sweet and pure. As she sat listless under the shadow of a sugar maple, Ann thought of his words. She had honestly tried to bring herself into touch, with the life about her, but health was as yet too far away for her to have any other feeling than one of indifference. Her life was primitive in the extreme. She was miles from a railroad and tfie mail came but once a' month. She and her father were dependent upon a neighbor, Mr. Chandler, for that and he had brought it for the first time that evening. There were no letters. She had expected none, but the longing of the spirit cannot always be subjected to pride and there were times, like the present, when it seemed as if nothing mattered but the sight of the man she cared for. And she had given him up. The cruelty of it was that she had learned she was but the means to an . end, had stumbled, upon the knowledge within a week of her wedding day. In the Corcoran art gallery she had paused beside the entrance to one of the rooms when the murmur of voices caught and held her attention. “No, I do not love her,” she heard. “Fortunately I am interested in no other Woman, else it- might go hard with me. Her father is wealthy. She is rich in her own right and I will be able to gratify ambitions hitherto merely dreanis.’? As he finished speaking two men came face to face With Ann and she looked directly into the eyes of the man she had expected to marry. Pride came to her aid in her effort to adjust herself to her new. qutlook upon life, but in the end shy .was bundled off to St. Attigaf. ami here she met Mr.- Chandler, wit# Whom her father foundcongenial companionship, lie had a way of watching her that was dis'eoncertiug. and this, in time, made her conscious she was not good to look at. She became ■oversensitive about her lack of color and 'one day rummaged through her trunk for her vanity box and was chagrined not to find It This incident marked a change. Imperceptibly the outdoor life was making a difference in Ann. She took long walks, and would stroll off for hours alone. One evening she did not return. Chandler, with her father, found her on the edge of the river with a twisted ankle and dislocated shoulder. She had slipped from the rock where she had been .fishing, she told them later.

When they discovered her Mr. Morgan promptly went to pieces. She was all he had, and if anything happened to her he was of no more use than a baby. Mr. Chandler carried her home with about as much feeling as if she had been a bundle of rags, she thought, in the moment when a glimmer of reason made her try to recover her dignity and slip from, his arms. It-was then he gave her a little shake and tolcfdrer to lie still. Just the merest jingle, but it sent needles of flame all over her, and she knew nothing more until she was on her bed with the two bending oyer her. Between them she was made comfortable ; yet she was not comfortable in her mind. She could not understand the odd look in Mr. .Chandler’s eyes when she bad first opened her own, and now, after a month of inactivity, she was still puzzled She had not seen it since. He gave her understanding and pleasant friendship, but that was all. And she had begun to care. The thought troubled her. Was she lacking in constancy that she could so soon forget one man for another?. But as slier looked back upon those feverish days, she told herself she had been in love with love. That, she knew, was not the real thing, and she had discovered this, here in the midst of na-ture-had learned to distinguish between the false and the true, and with all her heart she prayed that the thing that makes life perfect would come to her. Apd it came unexpectedly, as so often"happens. She was alone, trying for the first .£&%e to walk about the house, clinging to whatever offered support, when she heard footsteps. Turning hastily, she sav? Mr. Chandler standing in the doorway with arms outstretched. He said no word and she did not speak, but with shining eyes and heightened color she limped straight into them and hid her face against his coat sleeve. (Copyright, 1917, by the McClure Newspaper Syndicate.)