People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 27-25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 January 1896 — GOOD RESOLUTIONS. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

GOOD RESOLUTIONS.

BY VIOLA ROSEBORO’.

[Copyright, 1885, by American Press Association. ] “Papa, I want to talk to you a little.” It was the last day of the old year when Mrs. Marinont, with these words, stepped into Mr. Lelaud’s “den.” Mrs. Marmont’s low voice was sad, andher slender, dark clad, listless figure was sad, and her small, aquiline beautiful face was sad, and if there was anything Mr. Leland disliked it was sadness. He was finding things gloomy enough before Linda entered in this creepy way with this request for a little talk. “God bless my soul, Linda,” said her parenv ‘I don’t want any solemn little talk now, with the old year dying under our noses. ’ ’ The poor man threw himself baok in his big leather chair and scrutinized his daughter resentfully and reflectively. Mrs. Mamiont got up from the rug, where she knelt, ministering to the fire, and stood staring at the light leaping flames. “I don’t know why people think that only the old have any right to be seri-

1 “GOING TO GET MARRIED AGAIN?” ous,” said she. “It seems to me it is when you aro young and have all your life to make or mar before you that you have the best right to be serious.” “Why, why, Linda, my girl! It isn’t—you haven’t come to tell me you are going to get married again?” “Married again!” oxclaimed the young woman. “No one ought to get married again; it doesn’t sound pretty.” “I didn’t mean to say that. I am an unfortunate, blundering old ancestor. Don’t bo too hard on me. You know,' daughter, I’d love to see you happy, even if you did leave me to the mercy of the housemaids.” “ Would you, father, would you?” Linda came and sat on tho arm of his chair and stroked his grizzled hair. “Out with it! Who is it? I’m braced,” said the father grimly. “Oh, I’m not going to marry. I’m not,” cried Mrs. Marinont, with even unnecessary fervor. “You ought to know that. You know, I wasn’t very happy, and—and I want to be a deaconness!” “A what?” “You know, the order of deaconnesses they have in the church, papa. They give their lives to good works.” “Lord, Lord! It sounds as if they wore bloomers. They don’t, do they?” “The costume is very becoming,” said the widow, with frosty severity. “Well, that’s something to be thankful for.” “Papa, you must treat me like a grown person for three minutes. I want to tell you that I have made up my mind. I’m going to enter the novitiate. I’m going to be a deaconness.” She stood in the middle of tho room, her hands clasped before her and looking terribly formidable for such a slender young beauty in good clothes. “It’s my ono resolution for the new year,” she went on very quietly, but her breath coming in irregular pants. “I thought I ought to tell you as soon as I had made up my mind, and I made it up today', on this last day of the old year, and it’s tho last, too, of my old life. I’m tired of the frivolity and emptiness of the old life.” She moved toward tho door; as she laid her hand on the knob she turned and said to the silent man: “I’m not going to the ball tomorrow night, but don’t let my movements disturb yours.” “I trust you have not at this hour concluded to throw over your Aunt Sarah’s dinner, too,” he said, with sarcastic intonations. “No,” was the answer. “I don’t know how Aunt Sarah’s dinners could ever be looked upon as festivities. I’m only trying to sober my mind, and I expect that to bo a very sobering function.” Aunt Sarah’s dinner was to be eaten that very evening, and the guests were to dance and play whist and watch the old year out. It was to be a family party with a sprinkling of such other people as could be brought to join a family party—certainly not likely was it that they would be very gay members of society. “I don’t care what you do with it,” said Mrs. Marinont, when her maid was doing her hair. “It’s not important how I look.” “Why, madame, it ees not a ladees’ luncheon you dross for! There will be the gentlemen. Is it not so?” The mistress laughed and answered that It didn’t matter. Mrs. Marinont went to the despised dinner looking uncommonly imposing and handsome. When she entered her aunt’s drawing room, a little admiring hush and then a little admiring murmur greeted the softly draped white figure, such as was hardly to be expected from a company so familiar with the sight of her. But all were not equally familiar with it; an athletic, bronzed young man who was talking to Mrs. Lounders (his hostess, Aunt Sarah) contributed to the hush, so to speak, by stopping short in the middle of his sentence as his eyes rested on Mrs. Mamiont, and then ejaculating, “Is it—it is”— “Linda,” interrupted Mrs. Lounders, “of course. Didn’t you expect to see her?” “I had hoard she was abroad—she hasn’t changed so much as I first thought.” “Oh, no, a woman doesn’t change much between 24 and 26, Mr. Lester. The fashions change, but you mustn’t talk to her as if you were surprised—she isn’t decrepit —nor to me either; it’s not flattering to a woman of my age.” “She’s handsomer than ever, as, of coarse, she ought to be,” he added, smiling with a little bow to the elderly lady. “Youmust take her in to dinner, Mr. Lester. She’ll think it a godsend to have a new partnor in my bouse.” Mrs. Marinont seemed a little surprised, too, at seeing Mr. Lester. Sho looked for just an instant as if he Were a ghost, and thojiJ sho took his arm, saying gayly: “Why, I thought you were in South ■4.inoripa. Arejmu sure you _are not and

that this is not your astral body here among your drill old friends?” “I know too well that it is my very self,” he answered quietly. “I came back with a New Year’s resolution to stay at heme,” he continued. “I suppose I ought to dothat. My mother and my mother’s affairs need me, and we always resolve to do wiiat we ought at the beginning of the new year,, don’t we? But I don’t know; already I’m thinking of flight, of going to Egypt on something that can be called business.” “Why, it’s terrible to think how New York must bore you.” Mrs. Marinont spoke half drawlingly—rather as if she were bored herself. “Bore me? Von don’t remember me as

a bofed person, cp’you?” Mr. Lester did not dance. He devoted himself to whist with ancient and nervous partners. Mrs. Marniont never played whist, and she danced eagerly for awhile with young cousins and old uncles, but she lost her interest in that exercise early. Perhaps it was too frivolous to suit a budding deaconness. She sat down at a piano in an alcove away from all the company and softly played bits of old melodies. Lester turned his head and listened to the faint sound of a “song without words” till au indignant partuer sternly recalled him to business. Mrs. Marinont and lier father were among the first to leave. Sho came up to Lester just after tho new year began, lookiug very stately and yet very kind and put out a straightforward littlo hand. “I hope you won’t go away,” she said, “and”—there was a little break in tho continuity of her speech, then sho went on —“and I hope you’ll come and see me.” “Thank you,” said Lester and nothing more. “Let’s not talk now,” sho said wearily when her father began to speak of her “wild scheme” on the way home. Sho dismissed her maid and quietly and swiftly prepared for bed, but after tho lights were out, as she lay in tho dark, sho began to sob like a littlo lonely, famished child, and the gray winter dawn was creeping into the room before tho sobs sank into long quivering sjghs, that did not break t-lie light slumber that at last blessed her. The next day Lester was standing listlessly at a club window. Ho had tried to talk to his mother that morning about the probability of his again leaving her, and that lady had, first impatiently and then plaintively, refused to listen to, any such

Suggestion, as lie stood there Mrs. Marfflont passed. Lester’s face flushed and paled. He turned from the window. Ho callod a cab. “Drive where you like for ten minutes,” he said to the cabby, and at tho cud of eight he told him where to go, and presently the cab drew up in front of one of the old fashioned, luxurious houses of North Washington square. “Mrs. Lindsay,” said Lester when he was shown into the presence of tho white haired, bright eyed old lady ho’ had como to see, a friend he had known from his childhood, “I’m not going to beat about the bush. I’ve come to ask you something. I” “Sit down. Once I’d havo thought it

must bo an offer of marriage; now I suppOSO YOll’vc CIKIIO tO (IcCilii* Sj.'l) J Wi.giT UCcortiing to mv nic-iiior/bf au? ko.it lL tory.” “No, but I have come Uisc.ui you know everything, and because you are so discreet. This is it: Where—no! Who did Linda .Marinont marry:-’ “Which Linda Mnrmoni?” “What! There are two? Great Jove!” Lester only bivalu-.-d tnis apostrophe. It was as if lie had not strength left for vocal effort. “of course there are two. Though it is rather odd. witli a name like that. You didn't meet —no, you weren't hero that season that Tom MarinontV youngV niece came here from back in the country somewhere, and Linda, our Linda, brought her

out aridTiiarriod her oft to Mark Weber. They are traveling in Spain now.” “How in tlie world did she come to do such a cheeky thing as be named Linda Marniont?” Lester ip-kcd tlie question with deep resentment. The old lady’s dark eyes twinkled as sho looked at him shrewdly. “Why, she was named for Linda Leland —tho families were very intimate, you kuow. That was tho way that marriage of Linda’s came about; the families made it up. My son, your silence tells that you’ve said all you have to sa.v, and I beg that no sense of thodiity of politeness will

keep yon here. Perhaps your wager fs a Very important one.” “ You arc the best woman in the world”— “And very discreet.” “And very discreet. ” Ami witli a happy laugh Lester stooped and kissed her withered hand and was gone. But liis happy mood was . not to remain unbroken through that winter afternoon. When ho seat up his card to Mrs. Marmoul he received not even /the politely fictitious message that she was “out.” It came in tlie more brutal form—she was engaged and could see no one. Lester took

out a'nother card and was about to pencil a line on it, but he stopped. How should he dare to send the lady an imperious prayer for an audience. Whnt right had lief “What time will Mr. Leland be in?” The servant answered that lie was to be expected in about half an hour. Threequarters of an hour later Lester was again ringing that doorbell. He sent up his card to Mr. I -eland and in his abstraction Bteppod, not into tho drawing room, but into a littlo sitting room oif the other side of tlio hall, and tlioro, in a soft black gown and gazing motionlessly out of tho window, sat Linda Marmont. “Linda,” exclaimed tho man in a queer, choking “don’t start! Oh, you must let me speak to you! Nothing oau

take away our happiness. You tire not married, not married!” And he (•aught both her bands in his as she stood startled and silent before him. “You don't know what I’ve lived through > iaeo I hoard that Linda Marinont was married.” “You thought that I was married lo Mark Weber?” Linda found imii-.ji ant voice at last, and she wits trying to draw ■away her hands, but there, was a new color and light in her face and a hint of a smile on her lips. “I thought so, I thought- so last night. No one at i hat place called you anything but Liuda. It is the si ranges! thing how stupid I 'was. Bu., Linda, you looked sweet and kind last night—l thought you were willing to bo sorry for me. Oh, be

sorry for iifo now, but be something more —let mo think you wore willing t o remember the past last night and to make it. up to ino a little.” At the last words his voice- sank to a passionate whisper. “You were very rude to me last night,” said Liuda plaintively, like a grieved child. “I was what I had to be. I was knocked down when you came in. I wouldn't have risked mooting you for a fortune. I thought you wore in Spain.” “With Mark Weber!” Linda n.mde a little face. Then of course there had to come soon,

as soon as they could talk at all, explanations and confessions about tho past, and tho woman told tho man how sho had seemed to'scorn him only because she felt an unacknowledged at i ruction toward him, and the man told her how he had watched for some sign of favor and laid at last gone away to the ends-of the earth because ho con ill find none. There was another interruption, mid after some moments'of silence Linda said, “I drove papa nearly wild. ” “Great Jov* I” “What is it?” “I sent my card up to your father hours

ago. I suppose tlie servant couldn't iiml mo. Well, my business wit ii him has accumulated since then. 1 had better go and bo.vo it out with him, or will lie be upset •nd cross about my forge tting him? That was awful!” * “He’ll forgive you when he hears. He’s ready to welcome any kind of a son-in-law now in preference to a deacon ness!” A. uronson Aicott crystallized a gicn* truth when he said, “ We mount to heaven mostly on Iho ruins of our cherished schemes, finding our failures woro successes.” John Wesley showed how foolish it is for men who hope to will to spend their time in fretting when lie said, “I dare no more fret, than I dure curse ar.d svv«u*r ”

PUBLIC SCHOOL BUILDING. ERECTED 1892.

SHE SOFTLY PLAYED BITS OF OLD MELODIES.

RESIDENCE OF HON. ROBERT PARKER. BANKER. REMINGTON. IND.

MAKEEVER HOUSE, RENSSELAER, MRS. S. A YEOMAN. PROP.

NEW SHOP OF G. P. KAHLER, MAIN ST., NEAR DEPOT. SEE SKETCH.

LIVERY BARN OF PHEGLEY BROTHERS. SEE SKETCH.