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"v ll' """" . J CONQUEST By BOOTH 1 Author of "Cherry." "f COPYRIGHT. 1903. BY t j t (Continued from last w-ek.) CHAFTER XXVI. HE woke to the chiming of bells, and as his eyes slowly opened the sorrowful people of a dream, who seemed to be lending over him, weeping, swam back Into the darkness of the night whence they had come and returned to the imperceptible. leaving their shadows in his heart. Slowly be rose, stumbled Into the outer room and released the fluttering shade, but the sunshine, ppringing like a golden lover through the open window, only dazzled him and found no answering gladness to greet Jt or Joy in the royal day It heralded. It would l>e an hour at least before time to start to church, when Ariel expected him. He stared absently up the Street, then down and, after that began slowly to walk in the latter direction with no very active consciousness or care of where he went. He had fallen into a profound reverie, so deep Ka K nA tKa V\ rrA UWi l* utru uc uou uvoocu iuc v. ted turned into a dusty road which ran along tbe river bank be stopped oacbanically beside tbe trunk of a fallen sycamore and, lifting bis bead for tbe first time since be bad set out, fooled about him with a melancholy perplexity, little surprised to tin^i himself tuere. . . For this was tbe spot where be bad first seen tbe new Ariel, and on that fallen sycamore they had sat together. "Remember, across Main street bridge at noon!" And Joe's cheeks burned as he recalled why be had not understood the clear voice that had haunted him. But that shame had fallen from felxn; she bad changed all that, as she bad changed so mauy things. He sank down in tbe long grass, with bis back against the log. and stared out over tbe fields of tali corn shaking in a steady Wind all the way to the horizon. "Changed so many thingsT be aaid, ? half aloud. "Everything!" Ah, yes. She had changed the whole world for Joseph Louden? at his first sight of to: y^nd now it seemed to bim that he was t3 jgge her, hut not in the WIT be had thought. r'Spoet from the very first be had the feeling that nothing so beautiful a that she should stay in Canaan oould happen to him. He tyae gtj^e that she was bat for the little while, that her coming was like the flying petals of Yfhlcbbe her. ttrtinAAA.l svtarkw* ihlnfrc V | # 3V wauj iu4uj,w . Tbe bars that had been between him and half of his world were down, shattered, never more to be replaced, and the ban of Canaan was lifted. Conld this hare been save for her? And upon that thought be got to his feet, uttertag an exclamation of bitter self reproach, asking himself angrily what be jrts doing. He knew bow much she gave blm^ what full measure of her affection. Was not that enough? Out upon you, Looden! Are you to sulk In your tent, dour In tbe gloom, or to play g man's part, and If she be happy turn cheery face upon her Joy? And thus this pilgrim recrossed the bridge, emerging to tbe street with his bead up, smiling, and his shoulders thrown back, so that none might see the burden he carried. Ariel was waiting on tbe porch for him. 6be wore tbe same dress she bad wort that Sunday of their tryst?that exquisite dress, with the faint lavender ?vertint, like the tender colors of the beautiful day be made his own. She bad not worn it since, and he was far distant when he caught tbe first flickering glimpse of her through the lower branches of the maples, but he remembered. And again, as on that day, be beard a faraway, ineffable music, the elfiand horns, sounding the mysterious reveille which had wakened his soul to her coming. She came to the gate to meet him and gave him her hand in greeting without a word ?or the need of one?from either. Then together they set forth over the sun flecked pavement, the maples swisuiug auuve lucrn, uratm branches crooning in the strong breeze, under a sky like a Delia Robbia background. And up against the glorious blue of it some laughing, invisible god was blowing small rounded clouds of pure cotton, as children blow thistledown. When he opened her parasol as they came out into the broad sunshine beyond upper Main street there was the faintest mingling of wild roses and cinnamon loosed on the air. "Joe," she said, "I'm very happy 1" "That's right," he returned heartily. "I think you always will be." "But, oh, I wish," she went on, "that Mr. Arp could have lived to see you come down the courthouse steps!" "God bless him!" said Joe. "I can bear the argument.'" "Those dear old men have been so loyal to you, Joe." "No," be returned; "loyal to Eskew." "To you both." she said. "I'm afraid the old circle is broken up. They haven't met on the National House corner since he died. The colonel told me lie couldn't bear to go there again." "I don't believe any of them ever * 0 11 1 V CANAAN r ARKINGTON, J Monsieur Beaucaire." Etc. I HARPER C. BROTHERS >c. i I will,""lie returned. "Ana yet l never i pass the place that I don't see Eskew j in his old chair. I went there last ; night to commune with hiin. I couldu't ' sleep, and I pot up and went over ! there. They'd left the chairs out, the I I ^ town was asleep, and it was beautiful moonlight"? | "To commune with him? What about?" . "You." "Why?" she asked, plainly mystified. "I stood in need of pood counsel." he j answered cheerfully, "or a friendly word, perhaps, and as 1 sat there after awhile it came." "What was it?" "To forpet that I was sodden with selfishness, to prefend not to be as full of meanness as I really was. Doesn't that seem to be Eskew's own voice?" "Weren't you happy last night, Joe?" "Oh, it was all right," he said quickly. "Don't you worry." And at this old speech of his she I broke into a little langb, of wbicb be ( had no comprehension. "Mamie came to see me early this morning," she said after they bad walked on in silence for a time. "Everything is all right with her again? that is, 1 think it will be. Eugene Is coming home. Andj" she addefl thoughtI w111 l>e "est ^or "lfu! Ills old place on the Tocsin again. She Showed me his letter, and I liked it 1 think he's been through the fire"? Joe's distorted 6mile appeared. "And has come out gold?" be asked. "No," she laughed, "but nearer It. And I think he'll try to be more worth ber caring for. She has always thought that his leaving the Tocsin In the way be did was heroic. Thut was her word for it. And it was the finest thing he ever did." "I can't figure Eugene out." Joe shook his bead. "There's something behind bis going away that I don't nniioM*iui" This vm Altogether the troth, nor was there ever to come a time when either he or Mamie would understand what things had deter, mined the departure of Eugene Ban. try, though Mamie never questioned, as Joe did, the reasons for it or doubt* ed those Eugene had given her, which were the same he bad given ber father, for she was content with his return. Again the bells across the square ran* out their chime. The path; were decorously qjlijcned^ with family allcl ralo*hnrh/vu1 er/">n?ri? TtfVind church ! ward, and the rumble of tbe organ, ! playing the people Into their pews, shook on the air. And Joe knew that be must speak quickly If he was to say what he had planned to say before be and Ariel went Into tbe church. "Ariel!" He tried to compel his voice to a casual cheerfulness, but it would do nothing for him except betray a desperate embairassment. She looked at him quickly and as quickly away. "Yes?" "I wanted to say something to yon, and I'd better do it now, I think?before I go to church for the first time In two years." He managed to laugh, though with some ruefulness, and con I j "Ah, I've seen how much he cares for you!" I tinued stammeringly, "I want to tell ! you how much I like him?how much I admire him"? "Admire whom?" she asked, a little i coldly, for she knew. "Mr. Ladew." "So do I," she answered, looking straight ahead. "That is one reason why I wanted you to come with rne today." "It isn't only that I want to tell you?to tell you"? He broke off for a second. "You remember that night in ! my office before Fear came in?" | "Yes, I remember." "And that I?that something I said ! troubled you because it?it sounded as I if I cared too much for you"? i "No; not too much." She still looked ; straight ahead. They were walking ' very slowly. "You didn't understand. I You'd been In my mind, you 6ee, all fOoKC years, no much more man I in yours. 1 hadn't forgotten you. But to you I was really a stranger"? "No. no!" he cried. "Yes. 1 was." she said gently, but ! very quickly. "And I?I didn't want you to fall in love with me at first sight. And yet?perhaps I did! But 1 hadn't thought of things in that way. I had just the same feeling for you that i always bad?always! I had never cared so much for any one else, and it seemed to me the most neces- | sary thing in my life to come back to that old companionship. Ikiu't you remember?it used to Rouble you so when I would take yourhandV I think 1 loved your being a little rough with me. And once when 1 saw how you had been hurt that day you ran away"? "Ariel!" he gasped helplessly. "Have you forgotten?" He gathered himself together with all biR will. "I want to prove to you," be said resolutely, "that the dear kindness of you isn't thrown away on me. I want you to Know wnui 1 ucgau i? gay?that it's all right with me, and I think Ladew"? He stopped again. "Ah. I've seen how much he cares for you!" "Have you?" "Ariel." he said, "that isn't fair to me, if you trust me. You could not have helped seeing"? "But I have not seen it." she interrupted. with great calmness. After having said this, she finished truthfully: "If he did. I would never let him tell me. I like him too much." "You mean you'fe not going to"? Suddenly she turned to him. "No!" she Raid, with a depth of anger he bad not beard In her voice since that long ago winter day when she struck Eugene Bantry with her clinched fist. She swept over him a blinding look of reproach. "How could I?" And there, upon the steps of the church, in the sudden, dazzling vision of her love, fell the burden of him who had made his sorrowful pilgrimage acrosf Main street bridge that morning. ? ??* | TUB EXD. ' ' * The Tobacconist's Effigy. One of the most peculiar things ' in the whole history of signs is the fact that while all other shopkeepers were patronizing the embryo painters the tobacconist always call- , ed upon the woodcarver on the con tinent as well as in England. As 1 long ago as Elizabeth's reign the wooden image of the black boy was the favorite 6ign of the tobacco dealers. Later the customary sign was the highlander or a figure of Sir Walter Raleigh. In Holland, for some 6trange reason, the tobac- j coni6t adopted the dairymaid as their sign, with the motto, "Conso-, lation for sucklings." The Indian, naturally enough, has always been the predominant sign in this coun- ) try, although once in awhile a reversion to type crops out with the ancient black boy. ?????? '--t Paris Has No Wash Day. Paris sends all her washing out in the country?that i6, the bonton Parisian. The city laundries that do ! up the linen of the foreigners from t*L_I ? j ? ? J A :? I J&ngJauu, AHlil ttuu niiicuta woou vjj ; machine and dry by steam heat nn- ' der the pavement or near the sewer arteries. It is against the law to hang out wash, if a tenant put a , pocket handkerchief or a towel in j the window to dry the concierge would have a fit, and if he couldn't persuade her to remove the nuisance J the gendarme would. Large and i small concerns 6end delivery wagons about for work, which is expressed to the country and returned in a week or ten days. The work is ex?uisite and prices are reasonable, ut the strain on the garments is treble the wear. Space Filler*. Two chance acquaintances on a train between Washington and Phil- j adelphia discovered that they had come originally from the same j neighborhood in Delaware and fell I to conversing about old times. "By the way," said the passenger in the 6kullcap, "whatever became of Ham* Mull ins ?" "Oh, "he's a special writer on one I of the New York papers," replied the passenger wit^ the red tie. j "Gets $10 a column. Good thing." ; *'And his brother Dick ?" "Dick's a fat man in a museum. Weighs 410 pounds. Gets a good salary." "Well, well," mused the man in the skullcap. "Both of 'em have j achieved success as space fillers,1 eh?"?New York Times. Fearless Divers. The black boys of the Sandwich or Indian islands think nothing of diving fifty or sixty feet for the sake of a few coppers or a silver piece. At all the ports of these islands tourists are met and sent on their way by the diving boys. As soon as a steamer is sighted outside the harbor half a dozen or more j lithe limbed, dark skinned blacks leap into the water and swim out a mile or more to be the first to "beg I you a quattie, missus." They follow the steamer in and climb up the side when she slides up to the dock, and they shove their woolly heads over the railing to look for a generous and curious tourist who will pay j for the exhibition they are willing to give at a moment's notice. % < POISON IN FLOWERS. Certain Daath Lurk* In Many of tfca Beautiful Plants. Beautiful as flowers appear to the eye, there lurks behind their attractiveness certain death. They may be handled with impunity and their odors enjoyed without any danger, but let any one taste the juice of some of the sweetest, and with every drop he is taking deadly poison into his system. Even the bulbs of such dainty flowers as the snowdrop, narcissus, hyacinth and the jonquil are poisonous. The oxalis also is not a safe thing to put between the lips, and all the lobelias will produce dizziness and general disease. The monk's hood and the lieautiful foxglove are noxious affair.-., from which powerful drugs are obtained, more than a few drop? of their extracts being usually a fatal dose. Certain of the crocuses if eaten, even if nothing is swallowed but the juice, produce vomiting. The bulb of the intr'ccfcly bountiful lady's slipper po;sor;< externally as the noxious ivy, dogwood and sumac. The quaint old jack-in-the-pulpit, although I.'"! a garden plant, is another ene:..y to health and life, and so also is the marvelous Queen Anne's ]ane, whi n now and then will creep in through the paling and look? so enchanting when far | and wide it embroiders field and | roadside. The laughing little buttercup, that might be a drop of visible sunlight, is by no means as innocent as it looks. The cow in the pasture knows enough to avoid it. That and all its cousins, the rich, profuse peonies, the dazzling blue larkspurs pnd the rest, are full of toxic prop cities. The oleander tree that is pet outdoors when spring comes and that rlines the streets of various of our southern cities is another hive of deadly poison. The 6uperb catalpa tree, towering with its great leaves and its masses of white and fragrant flowers, is a charming thing in the garden, but 1 its bark is exceedingly injurious, and the laburnum, that looks like < a fountain of gold leaping into the , 6un, is poison in leaf and flower and seed, and even the grass beneath it is best thrown away when cut instead of being fed to cattle. Would B? a Queen. She was eight years old and had been reading fairy tales until she could think of nothing else. One . day recently she astonished her mother by quietly saying, "Mamma, I'm going to run away from home and go to England." "What in the world do you want to go to England for?" "I want to go there to become a kitchen girl in the king's kitchen." "Gracious 1" exclaimed the moth- ' er. "What put that idea into your head?" "Well, perhaps if I became a IritrhfiTi <rirl Rome orince will see me and marry me and make me a princess, and then when the king dies I'll be a queen." "I think," said the mother, "that you had better lay your fairy books aside and help me darn these stockingB."?Columbus Dispatch. Wh a Collector Himself. Saint-Saens while walking along one of the Paris boulevards one afternoon encountered a very miserable begear, to whom he gave 2 sous and passed on. a weauny ransian hastened up to the beggar and said, "Here, mv man, I'll give you 5 francs for those 2 sous that gentleman just dropped in your hat." "What'6 that'for?" asked the astonished beggar. "I want them for my collection. The man who gave them to you is Saint-Saens, the poet." "What?him?" asked the beggar, pointing toward the fast retreating figure of the donor. "Yes. That's Saint-Saens." "That being the case," returned the beggar, "I think I'll keep the coins. I'm a collector myself." Not the 8ame Growl. A noted woman suffrage leader was talking in Philadelphia about divorce. "Ill temper is at the root of divorce," she said. "Men and women are not so vicious as some people think. Impatience causes Biore divorces than immorality. When I was living in Pittsburg I rmo dnr nn a rertain married woman. At dinner time mf hostess rang for the maid. She said: " 'Mary, is that Mr. Brown downstairs ? I thought I heard him just now/ " 'Xo'm/ Mary answered. 'That wuz tlie dawg what wuz growlin'/ " ?Minneapolis Journal. Webster'* Compliment. Mr. Webster said one of the heartiest compliments ever paid him was by a Maine farmer for whom when a young man he had gone into Maine and tried a case. As they left the courtroom?it is to be presumed flushed with victory?the client with flat hand struck him a blow on the back that made the dust fly, saying. "Dan, you're a hoss!" I Stop That Cold To check early coldi or Grippe with "Preventicg" i means sure defeat for Pneumonia. To stop a cold ; with Preventics it safer than to let it run and be i obliged to cure it afterwards. To be sure. Pre Ten tin will cure even a deeply seated cold, but taken early?at the tneete stage?they break, or bead off these early colds. That's surely better. That's why they are called Preventics. Preventics are little Candy Cold Cures. No Quinine. no physic, nothing sickening. Nice for the children?and thoroughly safe too. If you feel chilly, if you sneeze, if you ache all over, think of Preventics. Promptness may also save half your usual sickness. And don 't forget your child, if there is feverishness. night or day. Herein probably lies Preventics' greatest efficiency. 8old in I 6c boxes for the pocket, also in 25c boxes of 48 Preventics. Insist on your druggists giving you Drat/anti/v i I IIVUIUVJ D. C. SCOTT. 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