Life — October 7, 1897 — page 6: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

286 Our Fresh-Air Fund. URING the season just passed, from June 26th to September 8th, Lire entertained at Branchville twelve hundred and twenty-five children. These children were well fed, slept in fresh, clean beds, and were carefully looked after in every way. We were fortunate in securing a most admirable staff of caretakers, who were fertile in concoct- ing amusements for the children. Every day had its wholesome sports and pas- times. There was scarcely a case of homesickness. The only thing to mar the season's pleasure was the breaking out of measles about the middle of July. The home was at once closed for five days, when the buildings were thor- oughly disinfected. There were no more cases. We thank our readers for the liberality which has enabled us to accomplish these results. Previously acknowledged... . Harriet and Marjory Richards and Kate L. Knapp. The Golden Circle Baby. May, Sallie and Helen, Expenses at Lire’s Farm.$ Pay roll.. a Rent Balance to next year. As Told by the Girl. IN THREE CONVERSATIONS. [ill,) HAD felt very brave up to the moment that I stepped into the lift and the iron gate clicked behind me. Till then 1 don't think I had had a full consciousness of what I was about ; how could I have had? 1 had been in a haze ever since I was told he was going abroad, ten days before, and this was the first act of volition on my part during that dreary time, in which I had waited passively, helplessly, for something to turn up. But the days dragged by till they numbered ten, with no word from him, and he was to sail on the day after the morrow. With the reali tion of that drumming at my brain, 1 had summoned my courage to the sticking point, thrown pride to the winds, and in the dusk of the after- noon slipped off to tell him. In my * LIFE: few moments of clear vision no idea of consequences had en- tered my mind. Now,asI glided up, their portentous possibilities overwhelmed me, and I could feel that my courage, instead of sticking, was slip- | ping from me floor by floor, ull I was landed on the fifth a quaking craven. If I had thought of the stairs I should have fled; but the empty shaft before me seemed to preclude any possibility of escape, and I felt as if I had been marooned on some barren Pacific island. Gradually, how- ever, I began to recover myself, and I moved toward the door. The sight of his card tacked underneath the knocker seemed to renerve me, for I knocked without a tremor. Williams, his man, opened, s Mr. Appleton at home?” “No, ma’am I hesitated fora moment, then turned. “Any word to leave, ma‘am he called after me. “None,” and I fled down the stairs, into my cab, and ten minutes later stood, almost tin a state of collapse, on my own doorstep. James let-me in. I was hurrying by him and up the stairs when he said: ‘* There is a gentleman in the drawing-room to sce you, miss.” “To see me? Did you tell him I was not at home?” * Yes, miss, but he said he'd wait.” “ Who,js.it?" I asked, impatiently, bored at the mere idea of conversa- tion then, ‘Mr. Appleton, miss.” “Mr. Appleton!" I cried, turning on him with wide-questioning eyes. “Yes, miss.” “T'll see him at once.” And as he disappeared | took the first long breath I had had for six weeks—since that horrible night at Mrs.Keith’sdance. Surely my guard- ian angel was hovering near earth that day, “I'm sorry to have kept you BLOOD WILL TELL. First mosquito: WWAT GIVES THAT PECULIAK CURVE TO JERRY'S BILL? Second ditto AND 1 GUESS HV iM. VIIY, HE'S BEEN IN SARATOGA, GOT SOME JEWISH BLOOD IN waiting,” said 1, as 1 went toward him. . “You are very kind,” he answered, taking my outstretched hand and looking at me rather doubtfully. He was puzzled and discomfited by my greeting, having prepared him- self for something quite different, and I realized that the situation was mine. He should pay, too, for the past ten days of wearying anxiety and for my mad indiscretion of half an hour ago—could it have been but that time since I stood shivering on his very threshold! “lam going away,” he was saying when I issued from the maze of these thoughts, « Yes," I said, ‘I had heard.” “Oh, had you?” he answered. ‘'] thought perhaps you hadn't.” “Why, I thought the whole town