Chapter 38 - Page 2

to her crown in Heaven. And yet she wore no jewel upon her
person. Her black costume was beautifully fitted to her fine form,
but was almost severely plain. It occurred to me that she did not
quite understand her own heart, and, for that matter, who does?
But she had somewhat in her soul that passeth all understanding - I
shall not try to say what, with so little knowledge of those high
things, save that I know it was of God. To what patience and
unwearying effort she had schooled herself I was soon to know.

'Can you not find anyone to love you?' she said, turning to
McClingan. 'You know the Bible says it is not good for man to live
alone.

'It does, Madame,' said he, 'but I have a mighty fear in me,
remembering the twenty-fourth verse of the twenty-fifth chapter of
Proverbs: "It is better to dwell in the corner of the housetops than
with a brawling woman in a wide house." We cannot all be so
fortunate as our friend Trumbull. But I have felt the great passion.

He smiled at her faintly as he spoke in a quiet manner, his r s
coming off his tongue with a stately roll. His environment and the
company had given him a fair degree of stimulation. There was a
fine dignity in his deep voice, and his body bristled with it, from
his stiff and heavy shock of blonde hair parted carefully on the left
side, to his high-heeled boots. The few light hairs that stood in
lonely abandonment on his upper lip, the rest of his lean visage
always well shorn, had no small part in the grand effect of
McClingan.

'A love story!' said Miss Hull. 'I do wish I had your confidence. I
like a real, true love story.

'A simple stawry it is,' said McClingan, 'and Jam proud of my part
in it. I shall be glad to tell the stawry if you are to hear it.'

We assured him of our interest.

'Well,' said he, 'there was one Tom Douglass at Edinburgh who
was my friend and classmate. We were together a good bit of the
time, and when we had come to the end of our course we both
went to engage in journalism at Glasgow. We had a mighty conceit
of ourselves - you know how it is, Brower, with a green lad - but
we were a mind to be modest, with all our learning, so we made an
agreement: I would blaw his horn and he would blaw mine. We
were not to lack appreciation. He was on one paper and I on
another, and every time he wrote an article I went up and down the
office praising him for a man o' mighty skill, and he did the same
for me. If anyone spoke of him in my hearing I said every word of
flattery at my command. "What Tom Douglass?" I would say, "the
man o' the Herald that's written those wonderful articles from the
law court? A genius, sir! an absolute genius!" Well, we were