A Hoosier Chronicle

nd to say good-night a momen

oo early to go to bed. That draft's not goo

looked tired and discouraged. Mrs. Owen brought a bottle of

ly take a thimbleful mys

d spirit. Mrs. Owen measured his whiskey, and poured it into a tall glass, explaining as she did

this morning. Don't imagine I'm a heavy consumer. A 'bar'l' lasts me a long time. I divide it around among my friends. Remind me

ther too kind to me. It's mighty

mber that I'm getting on and you're just a trifle

l youth, Sally. I feel ab

alk about something that's on your mind, and the sooner i

with his glass and mov

sterday and I've got exactly twelve thousand four hundred and eighteen dollars and eleven cents down at Tom Adams's bank. If you can use it you're welcome; if it ain't

ad come to the city for the purpose, his adventures of the day with banks and trust companies had given a new direction to his needs. But the habit of secrecy, of fighti

ever come to me with troubles. I'd begun to think you were among

merely wanted you to look her over. She's got to an age where I can't trust my judgment about her. I had a plan for her that I t

and let me give her a little motherly counsel while you borrowed the

Adams is all right; he

g imbecile. How much

a good name on the paper besides the collateral, and that I'd better try my home bank. I didn't do that, of course, because Montgomery is a small town and-w

ell, well! So money is tight, is it? I must speak to Tom Adams about that. He told me yesterday they had more money than they

not being in business, and not

have come to me. You spok

. Everybody seemed to make money in the canning business and I though

ed the old lady dryly. "Let me

He was one of t

U

ad been a reorganization and

at canning scheme. You can charge it off, Andrew. Let's drop the m

s to know what

y County Evanses? I remember perfectly. The old original Evans came to this country with Robert Owen and started in with the New Harmony community

ny years. Sylvia is the picture of her mother. It's a st

ondency that he had begun to th

estion before, and maybe I oughtn't to ask it now; but I've

dn

ed to Edna, Andre

he crossed the room; then he flung himse

ad a good natural voice and wanted to study music, so after we had been settled at Madison College a year I left her in New York with a woman I knew pretty well-the widow of a brother officer. It was a horrible, terrible, hideous mistake. The life of the city w

rew; you don't have to

I had counted on to look out for her and protect her seemed utterly astonished at her disappeara

is arms with a gesture

hings are hard, but it's better for you to tell me. You can't tell everybody and som

ing all these years and have never mentioned it. My friends at the college are the n

d told me you had brought your daughter's child home. It's perfectl

lose his marriage to his family, but that it would all be right soon. The woman with whom I had left her couldn't help me to identify him in any way; at least she didn't help me. There had been a number of young men boarding in the neighborhood-medical and law students; but there was no Garrison among them. It

rrors of commission or omission. Her menta

ied; did you find any proo

r a moment befor

. All I have is Edna's

nt; there was nothing to say to this, nor did she show surprise or repug

rison-wh

nal schools; but whether law or medicine, art or music-I couldn't determine. The whole colony of students

was straight or not, Edna felt bound to shield him. That's

pital at Utica that Edna was there very ill. She died before I got there. Just how she came to be in that particular place I have no idea. The hospital authorities knew nothing except that she had gone to them, apparently from the train, seriously ill. The little girl was with her. She asked them to send for me, but told them nothing of herself. She

e letters would have giv

s had to be straightened out first, and that she was perfectly happy. They were traveling about, she said, and she asked me not to try to write to her. The first letters came from Canada-Montreal and Quebec; then one from Albany; then even these mess

e to-night that she was born in

an to ask me when her birthday came-well, Sally, I felt that I'd better give he

right. She's likely to ask a good many

uestion about her father and mother I've ignored it or feigned not to hear; but within the past year or two I've had to fashion a background for her. I've surrounded her o

ood thing; the denser the better maybe, as long as there's any doubt at all. Your good name p

've told it I've realized more than

rying over what's done. It's the future you've got to figure on for Sylvi

I can talk to; it's helped me more than I can tell you to shift som

w woman business looks awful queer to me, but so did the electric light and the telephone a few years ago and I can even remember when people were lik

efully,-fearing that she would grow to be like her mother; but she's another sort, and I doubt if she will change. You can already see the woman in her. That child, Sally, has in her the making of a great woman. I've been careful not to crowd her, but she has

club fussers,-always studying poetry and reading papers and coming up to town to state conventions or federations and speaking pieces in a new hat. Hallie's smart at it. She was president of the Daughters once, by way of showing that our folks in North Carolina fought in the Revolution, which I reckon they did; though I never saw where Hallie proved it; but the speech I heard her make at the Propyl?um wouldn't have jarred things much if it hadn't been for Hallie's feathers. She lik

ents, real scholars have always been rare in the world-men and women. I shoul

o it. How much does a colle

erest you in the money sid

y questio

ive thousand dollars. The actual tuition isn't so mu

s Kelton with a smile o

ke to help other people's little girls; you know I helped start Elizabeth House, a home for working girls-and I'm getting my money back on that a thousand times over. It's a pretty state of things if an old woman like me, without a chick of my own, and with no sense but ho

ioned iron safe in which she kept her account books. A print of Maud S. adorned one wall, and facing it across the room hung a lithograph of Thomas A. Hendricks. Twice a week a yo

e up a mile in 2:08-3/4-the prettiest thing I ever saw. You know Bonner bought her as a four-year-old-the same Bonner that owned the 'New York Ledger.' I used to read the 'Ledger' clear through, when Henry

ing from the shadows all the Hoosier statesmen of the post-bellum period to aid her,

check she examined it carefully and placed it near him on the edge of her desk. "Now, Andrew Kelton, there's a check for six thousand dollars; we'l

ey yet; I shan't need it

at life insurance to me again, I'll cut your acquaintance. You go to bed; and don't you ever let on to that baby upstairs that I have any hand in her schooling." She dropped her check book into a drawer and swung round in her swivel chair until she faced him. "I don't want to open up that affair of Sylvi

, in fact, which crystallized my own ideas about Sylvia's education. A letter was sent to me by a str

ng track of her, and must be kindly disposed

y the messenger who brought me the letter, ac

anything in this world; you must have

Montgomery and had never seen the college before. Time had begun to soften the whole thing, and the knowledge that some one ha

I wouldn't know how to account for it in any other way. If it's a case of conscience, it may

lvia sometime when I am not here to help her. It's an awful thing for a woman to go out in

at's gnawing some man's conscience-and I reckon it is-you can forget all about it. A man's conscience-the kind of man that would a

-night an experience that he had not known in years-that of unb

ay. She heard presently her grandfather's step below as he "stood watch," marking his brief course across the dim garden by the light of his cigar. Sylvia was very happy. She had for a few hours breath