The Milwaukee Leader

Cleo Madison, entertaining a few friends, decides to read her grandmother's diary. Grandmother's diary is so quaint, so modest, that these modern-day girls are thunderstruck. When the girls go, Cleo thinks of her elopement with Paul Winthrop planned for the immediate future. Her conscience is pricked by a passage of the modest, old-fashioned diary. For, though engaged to Paul she, only the night before enjoyed the kisses of Chick Adams. Both sets of parents opposed the match because at one time the families had been rich but now were social climbers, and the parents wanted each to marry money. Connie Terhune, wealthy, wanted to marry Paul. At a party Chick Adams draws Cleo aside protesting that she should have come with him. Cleo doubts her love for Paul. Her grandmother's diary makes Cleo wonder. Paul protests his love for the girl. They are wed. Cleo's mother becomes hysteric. Connie shows again her jealousy. The fathers of the newlyweds rejoice. The honeymoon begins. The fierce flame of her love almost overwhelms Cleo. The honeymoon grows more fulgent. The reception for the newlyweds shows Connie in her true light. Cleo becomes jealous. Chick Adams enters a plot. The young wife foils her "friend." The first tears of her married life come to Cleo. Paul and his wife decide to start out for themselves. Paul and Cleo quarrel. Chick Adams offers sympathy to the young bride. Cleo sees Paul and Connie in fervent embrace. Almost crazed by liquor and jealousy Paul threatens Chick. The young husband accuses his wife as to a past. Contritely, Paul expresses his belief in Cleo. The quarrel is settled. Paul has forgotten to get the railroad tickets, but the matter is settled peaceably. Paul gives Connie the cold shoulder at the station, which pleases Cleo. The newlyweds start on their honeymoon. After a snappy discussion with Paul, Cleo goes to sleep in the Pullman chair when Paul goes to the smoking compartment. Paul said it had only been eight minutes since he had left me when he returned from the smoking room, but I could not believe him. In the few minutes of that dream I went through the agony it seemed possible for human courage to endure and still fight on. "When I came back Cleo," he said after shaking me awake and looking rather apprehensively into my fear-filled eyes, "I found you sleeping very soundly." "Oh Paul I hope I didn't make any noise." As I said this I looked across the aisle at the man who had smiled at me so kindly and understandingly just a few minutes earlier. "No you were not making any particular noise until I tried to move you into an easier position. Then you suddenly developed a Dempsey wallop which took me under the chin and nearly knocked me out." "What's the matter dear," I exclaimed and I am afraid I shook you a bit for you drew a long breath and opened your eyes which were filled with fear. For an instant you clung to me. Then you awakened and whispered 'Oh Paul I am so glad it was only a dream.'

I did not tell Paul at that moment what I had been dreaming, but I wrote it down here just as soon as I got the chance, for I am sure that in that few minutes' sleep I had been given a prophetic glance into the future which lay before me. I dreamed that Paul and I were walking along a beautiful shady path. The air was fragrant with flowers that bordered its sides with pink and blue and yellow and purple. The birds were singing in the trees overhead. Holding hands, Paul and I were swinging just as children do in play. We had no thought of the present or the future we were just being happy. We did not know where the path ended. It was sufficient to us that it was beautiful now. All at once Paul stopped and pointed to a distant spot where the dearest little house I ever saw stood on a sunny slope. Paul seemed to understand immediately. "That is ours," he said. I hastened along toward it. Then all at once the scene changed. I was alone. I couldn't find Paul. The sky was overcast. The little house was enveloped in a murky veil. Out of it came mutterings and other queer sounds that struck terror to my soul. "Paul, Paul," I cried, where are you? "I don't know," he answered, "I'm trying to find the little house. Come to me." "No, you must come to me. I am afraid Paul," I said in my dream. "I dare not go on one step without you." Then I seemed to hear his voice raised in fear-the fear of some unseen thing. Again I called. "Come my husband, come and help me to find again the little house." "I can't." Paul shouted. "I know we shall find each other only inside its doors. Lets go to it immediately by ourselves." The atmosphere lightened a little and I saw the faint outlines of the little house through the misty grey, but I recoiled with a cry, for in front of it lay a great scaly monster with long tentacles growing out of its side and ending in ugly claws. They were squirming all about as though on the lookout for Paul and me. "Where are you? Where are you Paul?" I called in an agony of fear. "Here." he said. "But your voice sounds so far away and I can not see you. I can only see that great ugly dragon that guards the door." Suddenly I sensed that I didn't know my real husband that I would not know him if I saw him that I would never find him and happiness until I had vanquished that terrible serpent that guarded the threshold of my home. Trembling, I moved nearer and nearer and then I saw that each one of those long ugly tentacles had a name made of shining brass scales along its squirming claws. One was thoughtlessness; one was selfishness; one was extravagance; one was uncharitableness; one was jealousy, and one--perhaps the longest--was misunderstanding. Each one seemed to be trying to get me in its fearsome clasp. I knew I had to cut each one of those tentacles off that loathsome body and conquer the dragon before I would cross the threshold of my home which had only been a house before. Copyright, 1925, John F. Dille Co. To Be Continued.