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Newspaper Page Text
mmmmmmmmmmmmxmiKKKKKu husband. "I never thought a daugh ter of mine would disgrace me by taking a foreign noodle head for a husband." Mrs. Bridges wept, declared her heart was broken. She had read in the newspapers about "titled misery" until she had created a positive bug bear in her mind. Her husband was grumpy and restless for a day or two, then savage and wrathful. He brightened up at the end of the week, coming into the elegantly furnished parlor, to which he had not yet become accustomed. "Nancy," he announced, with a grim chuckle, "I've found a way out" "Out of what?" questioned the wife desolately, for she was still mourning over her daughter's mes alliance, as she called it "That duke," responded Mr. Bridges. His wife groaned. She wrung her hands. "You know and I know and every body knows that these foreign princes never marry except for money," continued Mr. Bridges. "Yes, John," assented his wiffe woefully. "I've got some money," pursued her husband, "but he isn't going to get it I've planned it all out I'm going to put that duke through a course of sprouts that will either wear him out and send him back to j 'Yoorup' post haste or make a man -J of him." "But if he deserts our darling!" "She's brought it on herself, hain't she?" sniffed Bridges, "and good rid dance to bad rubbish, hey? Get ready to move, Nancy." "Get ready to move!" repeated Mrs. Bridges, marveling. "Right away." "Where to, for goodness sake?" "Back to the old home." "Why, John!" "Not a word now," directed Brid ges, with a decisive wave of his hand. "Can't you see through a millstone with a hole in it? I'm poor, don't you understand poor! poor! poor!'1 and there was a vengeful, gloating satisfaction in the emphatic repeti tion. "I I think I see, John," faltered Mrs. Bridges, "but, oh! what a tear ing up." "Worth it, if it scares away this scamp of a duke!" declared her hus band. "Oh! Ill make it real to the public to Hazel and this precious sprig of nobility of hers. Poverty, howling, grinding pauperism! Now then no sentiment We'll furnish up the old house just as bare and unin viting as it can be done. As to the meals, no fatted calf, wife! Give his ludship a genuine workhouse diet It will take some of the grand notions out of him." So the plot was laid. The new neighbors of the Bridges pitied their "sudden fall from affluence." The old ones back at the home town commiserated them for making a costly splurge only to come back to even more humble and restricted sur roundings than before. And one day bride and groom ar rived. At the sight of the sunny happy face of winsome Hazel, the mother broke down and the father's heart softened. To the duke, how ever, the mother was distant and the father fairly, uncivil. "Duke Edward," however,, broke the ice of severity, despite his gloomy reception. He praised the meals, he was like some high cheva lier in his respect for Mrs. Bridges, in his love for HazeL Early the next morning he strolled outside to join his father-in-law on the porch. "Mr. Bridges," he began in his brisk animated way, "Hazel was tel ling me that you had over two hun dred acres in your place here." "Oh, yes, such as it is," growled the old man. "Not much good without capital to work it" "Why," enthused Duke Edward, "there you are mistaken! I'm up on soils and you've got the right sort here." tfajiMMMJMiO ---- --