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About The Alliance herald. (Alliance, Box Butte County, Neb.) 1902-1922 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 24, 1916)
Miami Iin i IMiillSioini uncle, O you desire me to marry him?" asked Miss Castle, quietly. "Let mc finish," said her "Jane," he alleil, turning on his sister, "if you could avoid sneer.ing for n few moments, I should be indebted to you." Miss Jane Garride, a sallowlady of forty, who suffered with colds all winter and hay-fever all summer, meekly left the room. Miss Castle herself leaned on the piano, tearing the pink petals from a half-withered rose, while her guard ian, the lion. John Garride, finished what he liad to say and pulled out his cigar-case with decision. "I have only to add," he said, "that James J. Crawford is one man in a million." Her youthful adoration of Garcide had changed within a few years to a sweet-tempered indifference. He was aware of this; he was anxious to learn whether the change had also affected her inherited passion for truth fulness. "Do you remember a promise you once made?" he inquired, lighting his cigar with care. "Yes," she said, calmly. "When was it?" "On my tenth birthday." lie looked out of the heavily cur tained window. "Of courseyou could not be held to such a promise," he remarked. "There is no need to hold metoit," she answered, flushing up. Her delicate sense of honor amused him; he lay back in his arm chair, enjoying his cigar. "It is curiouvs" he said, "that you cannot recall meeting Mr. Craw ford last winter. "A girl has an opportunity to forget hundreds of faces after her first season," she said. There was another pause; then Garride went on : "I am going to ask you to marry him." Her fare paled a trifle;; she bent her head in acquiescence. Garcide smiled. It had always been that way with the Castles. Their word, once given, ended all matters. And now Garcide was gratified to learn the valueof a promise by a child often. "I wonder," said Garcide, plaintively, "why you never open your heart to me, Hilda?" "I wonder, too," she said; "niv father did." Garcide turned his flushed face to the window. Years before, when the firm of Gar cide & Castle went to pieces, Peter Castle stood by the wreck to the end, patching it with his last dollar. Hut the wreck broke up, and he drifted piteously with the debris until a kindly current carried him into the last harbor of all the port of human derelicts. Garcide, however, contrived to cling to some valuable flotsam and paddle into calm water, and anchor. After a few years he built a hand some house above Fiftieth Street; after a few more years he built a new AmftlhiQr ff MA(MlSe,w "Tfo& CvmssKsm Law,1 BS t- n j"iarTifc ft Tk.i if t - w w r - -t v . ij t n; ilA' - ..Li "J f , . ' r T .Vr 3 i4re Vou Afr. Crawford? wing for Saint Berold's Hospital; and after a few more years he did other things equally edifying, but which, if mentioned, might identify him. Church work had always interested him. As a specula'. ion in moral oMiga tion, he adopted Peter Castle's orphan, who turned to him in a passion of gratitude and blind devotion. And as she bade fair to rival her dead mother in beauty, and as rich men marry beauty when it is in the market, the Hon. John Garcide decided to control the child's future. A promise at ten years is quickly made, but he had never forgotten it, and she could not forget. And now Garride needed her as he needed mercy from Ophir Steel, which was slowly crushing his own steel syndicate to powder. The struggle between Steel Plank and James J. Crawford's Ophir Steel is histotical. The pure love of fighting was in Crawford; he fought Garcide to a standstill and then kicked him, filling Garcide with a mixture of terror and painful admiration. But sheer luck caught at Garcide's coat-tails and hung there. Crawford, prowling in the purlieus of society, had seen Miss Castle. The next day Crawford came into Garcide's office and accepted a chair with such a humble ami uneasy smile that Garcide mistook his conciliatory demeanor and attempted to bully him. But when he found out what Crawford wanted, he nearly fainted in an attempt to conceal his astonishment and delight. "Do you think I'd buy you off with an innocent child?" he said, lashing himself into a good imitation of an in sulted gentleman. Crawford looked out of the window, then rose and walked towards the door." "Do you think you can bribe me?" shouted Garcide after him. Crawford hesitated. "Come back here," said Garcide, firmly; "I want you to explain your self." "I can't," muttered Crawford. "Well try, anyway," said Garcide, more amiably. And now this was the result of that explanation, at least one of the results; and Miss Castle had promised to wed a gentleman in Ophir Steel named Crawford, at the convenience of the Hon. John Garcide. The early morning sunshine fell across the rugs in the music room, filling the gloom with golden lights. It touched a strand of hair on Miss Castle's bent head. "You'll like him," said Garcide, guiltily. Her hand hung heavily on the piano keys. "You have no other man in mind?" he asked. "No, ... no man." Garcide chewed the end of his cigar. "Crawford's a bashful man. Don't make it hard for him," he said. She swung around on the gilded music-stool, one white hand lying among the ivory keys. "I shall spare us both," she said: "1 shall tell him that it is settled." Garcide rose; she received his caress with composure. lie made an other grateful peck at her chin. "Why don't you take a quiet week or two in the country?" he sug gested, cheerfully, "Go up to the Sagamore Club; Jane will go with you. You can have the whole place to yourselves You. always liked nature and er all that, eh?" "Oh, yes," she said, indifferently. That afternoon the Hon. John Gar cide sent a messenger to James J. Crawford with the following letter: "My dear Crawford, Your manly and straightford request for permission to address my ward, Miss Castle, has pro foundly touched me. "I have considered the mat ter, I may Bay earnestly con sidered it. "Honor and the sacred duties of guardianship forbid that I should interfere in any way with my dear child's happiness if she desires to place it in your keep ing. On the other hand, honor and decency prevent mc from attempting to influence her to any decision which might prove acceptable to myself. "I can therefore only grant you the permission you desire to address my ward. The rest lies with a propitious Providence. "Cordially yours, John Gaiicioe." "P. S. My sister, Miss Gar cide, and Miss Castle arc going to the Sagamore Club to-night. I'll take you up there whenever you can get away." (Continued on Page 7) tWTMtMW M4 I II wm vf.nhoii nrrli: and W.11 known thruout the Valley. er ca wee a large quoi oi local - II o Kiistmnn. casVor of the First news of a general nature and con- the lands north of the river were