Jewel Weed

s delicious days. There is the mingling of repose with all the joys of activity. To be planning to do things has in it more of triumph than the a

ted by and he seemed to drift with them, though both mind and body were alert. All the things he learned and all the things he meant to do were tripled and quadrupled in interest when he passed them on to his two counselors-i

with the blissful knowledge that there was no Sunday edition, would meet Percival, stocked with a week's accumulation of experiences. In the hearts of both would be deep rejoicing as, at week-end after

ge, older men who did less sport and more business, but all of these were neither more nor less than a

ntrusion in its myriad forms might come upon them, but off somewhere, either on the bosom of the waters or on the boso

resence of Norris at these sacred conclaves. He seemed so much an outsider. Dick she had known all her life and she could talk to him with perfect freedom, but his friend often sat silent during their chatter, as though he were an onlooker before whom spontaneity was impossible. Yet as Sunday after Sunday the two young men strode up together, sh

of it, like the gentle half-warmth that comes before the sun has quite peeped over the horizon on a summer morning; and it was well that this dawn to their day should be a long one. Madeline had been away the greater part of four years, and she was now in no hurry to cut short her reunion with the old home life. Dick, too, had his beginnings to make, man-fashion, and they ought to be m

heir crumbs. If hard work, oblivion and lovelessness were to be his lot, the hardest of these was lovelessness. Much as he loved Dick he continually resented that young man's careless acceptance of the good things of life, and most of all did his irritation grow at Percival's way of taking Madeline for granted, enjoying her beauty, her sympathy, t

ening, at first dimly felt by Madeline alone,

unconscious, absorbed in his own dawning career, delighting in his two

have lost its fury, a not too strenuous breeze drove their tiny yacht through a c

ne exclaimed suddenly. "It

hat came to the very water's edge, and enshrined in a great wild grape-v

ard and ran their prow

is thy servant's pla

wondered," Ellery said as he jumped ashore

throw the supper basket, under penalty of liquidating the sandwiches. I think there's a

d sprang to the shore, where a kind of throne was built for her against a prostrate lo

atisfaction, "that this was a favorite picnic place fo

et," Madeline retorted. "Surely

id Ellery. "T

omfortably dow

sinking canoe and brought her here, dripping but safe. Over there on the mainland her father came running out of the woods in an agony of fear. He saw her here, saw her signals, but the shriek of the storm and the roar of the waters drowned out the words t

this became a bower for the eat

ng through the tangle of grape and map

e this new land had any legends. It all gives me

ew land because he's lived here only about a half-century. Th

hings?" Norris

which twists mysteriously through the forests, black with the bodies of dead men rotting in its mire. I don't wonder they thought the rough life more fascinating than kings and courts. I'd like to have seen sun-dances and maiden-tests; I'd like to have eaten food strange e

the American to mispronounce; but you may come down later, Mr. Norris, and find how law and or

gends, don't you?" Ellery l

u?" Madel

th genuine feeling. "I love it without its legends. It does not seem to

ultantly. "Gitche Manito the Mighty has got you-the s

? What is it that makes the leaves fairly radiate light? What is it that, every time you take a breat

wo were loo

above the sea-le

thing more than air-it's atmosphere. Yo

proud of yo

sponsibility for my own life too soon and it took out of me that assurance that most of you had-that complacent confidence

ditor of the Star, you know, Madeline-and he insisted on stopping me and congratulating me on having brought Mr. Norris to St. Etienne; said he was irritated at first by having a

ner. "Of course I can write better than I can talk. My tho

irst time, gave her real attention to Mr. Norris, whom she had not hitherto thought worth dw

ence

orris asked, manifestly gra

nothing against them, but I'm in rebellion against the bird fad. I'm so tired of meeting people and having them start in with a gushing, 'Oh, how

ghed, and

e you going to

o invent a f

on the gr

wo trees sound alike. Hear that sharp twitter of the maples? The oak has a deep sonorous son

ose our souls twist the breath of the spirit to

ked at him a

of byplay. "I move that we celebrate the occasion by a cold collation. Last week, your mother kindly made inquiries a

fairs, which to the young are the chief interests. It takes years "that bring the philosophic mind" to make abstractions stimulating. Finally they wafted homeward under a sky dark at the zenith

primitive in aspect, fought with a never-ending stream of logs which came down with the current and raised themselves like uncanny water-monsters, up a long incline, finally to meet their death at the ha

of which poured an equally unceasing stream of bags and barrels laden with flour. Around the wide interiors wandered a few men, gray too, who peeped now and then into caverns where hidden machinery did all the wo

because it was in him to see all things as the work of men, an

ndisturbed. But here were meager little wooden huts, flanked by rusting piles of scrap-iron, or flats along the river-bottom where the high waters of spring were sure to send the dwellers in these shabby apologies for homes scrambling to the roofs, or drive them to the shelter of the neighboring brewery. Here as the waters swept under the stony arches of the bridges, old women t

n phases of life, for though he believed in himself, Percival also believed in the other man, an

were pitchforked into one another's evil-smelling company, so that it r

laces, Dick? It's nausea

into the neat systematic package that you prefer, I shall start a soul-upliftin

orted saucily. "I'm afraid mine is nothing but the tri

d to normal life. These were tales of foul sounds and foul air, where men and women gathered and drank and gambled and laughed with laughter that was like the grinning of skulls, hollow and despairing. They were stories of girls with sodden eyes and men with wooden faces-of

ature both in gross and in detail, and to know the world, from the fight last night in Fish Alley up to the doings of statesmen and kings. Madeline had little to tell, for she was living quietly at home, taking the housekeeping off her mother's hands and driving her father to the morning train. She had few episodes more exciting

ons in the bottom of the boat and sang and chattered the twilight out. They played golf and tennis, and the blood leaped in their veins, for whatever they did, they did it with heart and soul. A

purpose, and, after a little self-questioning, Norris ventured alone for his afternoon with Ma

ick, Miss Elton," he said. "Wi

young woman, I'm wil

feminine

e of seizing the helm myself if

ine that you shall get it only by fa

te well," Madeline

ehensive of storms in

hey are that I do not want to think of fa

ied with to-day

fect

light with little heat. The lake was so pale as to be hardly blue, and girdled with soft yellow, touched only here and there with the intenser red of the rock mapl

perience of Paradise. Ellery watched the light tendril of hair that touched her cheek, lifted itself and touched again, near that lovely curve above her e

ith a sudden wonder if she had missed the titillation

ll. I enjoyed myself so much th

ted sigh that filled him with delight. "I was this moment thinking what a comfort it was to

s heart leaped with the consciou

use there was little that belonged to him and to him alone. Sometimes, in the ru

-when she is Dick's wife?" he questioned

quiet fireside evenings, and yet another summer of the same close friendship that began to take on the semblance of

world saw little done, these three young people h