The day book. [volume], January 18, 1913, 2, Image 18

About The day book. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1911-1917

Image provided by: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library, Urbana, IL

                
SHEILA'S LOVERS
By Frank Filson.
(Copyright by W. G. Chapman.)
Sheila Linton looked into the
mirror set into the partition of
her cabin aboard the "Glenavon."
The face that looked back at her
was a singularly beautiful one,
and, try hard as she might, Sheila
could not detect a line that had
mwfmk
It Had Made Many Things Clear.
not come through laughing, nor
one gray hair. Yet there was a
certain maturity about it the
maturity that comes to all of us
with thirty years of wear and
tear which evidently displeased
her, for she compared it with the
photograph which she held in her
hand, and frowned. And then a
little wrinkle did appear, and
Sheila noticed it
The photograph showed Sheila
as she had looked ten years be
fore, when she bade a tearful fare
well to her lover, Thomas Shane,
on the wharf at Queenstown.
Thomas was going to America to
make his fortune, and send-for
her the next year. And ten years
had passed and Thomas was still
there.
It was not that he had been
disloyal. He had wrjtten loving
ly all those years, letters that sent
Sheila into ecstacies of happiness.
But after five years had passed
and Thomas Shane still remain
ed, poor Sheila had begun to fear
the day of their marriage would
never arrive.
Twice, thrice lately, Thomas
had written saying that he was
doomed to failure, that she had
better give him up and marry
somebody else who would be able
to take care of her. He had lost
position after position, he wrote;
things were going from bad to
worse; he saw no prospect of
their union. But these letters
had precisely the opposite effect
to that which was intended, for
Sheila's loyal little heart went
out the more to Thomas in his
trouble. And year by year she
had put a little away twenty
pounds one year, twenty-five an
other; then her mother's long ill
ness and death had sadly depleted
the fund, and she had begun
again. And now at last, with
three hundred pounds in gold,
she had taken her passage with
out writing, so that she could
surprise Thomas and bring him
a little dowry.
,
MMHHMI