Newspaper Page Text
rnmmrnmmmmmmtmmm
rJT-r3-T
AN ARBOR DAY ROMANCE
By Mildred C. Goodridge
(Copyright by W. G. Chapman.)
It was a cruel act, that of cross
grained, prejudiced "Old .John Marsh,
when he parted his daughter and
Eustace Lee. They had grown up as
boy and girl. They had kissed each
other for the first time under two
spreading elm trees. She was 36,
Eustace was two years her senior
then. She had blushed, but with hap
piness. He was all a-thrill with cou
rage, love and hope.
"Dear," he spoke tenderly, "do you
remember that Arbor day six years
ago, when we planted each one of
these trees? They were saplings
then. Just as they have grown in
strength, so has my love for you. Now
I am going away. Oh, I hope when
I return I will be prepared to take you
in my arms as your future husband,
just as these growing branches en
twine and protect."
"It shall be so if my fidelity can
bring that happiness about," pledged
Elaine softly, perfect faith and affec
tion in her true blue eyes.
If was then that, with the vehe
mence of an onrushing storm, her fa
ther came upon them. He thrust the
fcmd lovers rudely apart. Then he
burst forth into bitter abuse of young
Lee. He taunted him with his pov
erty, he paraded "his own great
wealth. He ordered him from the
place, never to return.
"As to you," he shouted fiercely at
his daughter, "remember your prom
ise to your dying mother that you
would never leave me while I lived.
Think of one sister who married a
heartless scoundrel and was killed by
his neglect. Think of the other, an
alien, a lonely divorced woman. No,
no not to one your inferior, never to
any one will I allow you to go and
leave jne unless it be with my curse
and disinherited in my will!"
"My pledge to my mother is still
.sacred," spoke Elaine simply, but in
heart-broken tones. "Good-by, Eus
tace, my only love! We shall never
meet again, but I swear solemnly that
of you and of you only, I shall think
until I die."
"And I!" cried Eustace Lee, "the
memory of your love I will value and
cherish more than all the world of
women besides!"
Then a last sight of Elaine faint
ing in her father's arm, of the malig
nantly scowling face of the old tyrant
and Eustace Lee set out to enter a
new life with only the promise of
I IffivTI 1 1 Lb Jfvl Ira
ft vDyBr 1
"Quite an Order, Mr. Lee," He Said
Briskly
the woman he loved as a guerdon to
keep him steadfast and true.
It was five years later when he re
turned to his native village. He had
left it an orphan, poor, with his own
way to make in the world unassisted.
He came back as a skilled architect
of no little fame. It was to find the
old Marsh home burned down, its for
mer occupants reported traveling
abroad, in constant search of health
for the sour, complaining old man
whose money brought him no solace
or happiness.
