The Wit and Humor of America Volume VII Part 16

"True as preachin'," declared Mrs. Pendleton, adding that you could have knocked her down with a feather when she discovered it.

Elsie Howard came into her mother's room just then and Mrs. Pendleton repeated the exciting news, adding, "Gladys says they don't live together because of incompatibility of humor!"

Elsie smiled and remarked that it certainly was a justifiable ground for separation and unkindly went off, leaving the subject undeveloped.

The next day Mrs. Howard had a caller. It was the friend whose cousin had a friend that had known Mrs. Pendleton. In the process of conversation the caller remarked casually:

"So Mrs. Pendleton has got her divorce at last."

Mrs. Howard smiled vaguely and courteously.

"Some connection of our Mrs. Pendleton? I don't think I have heard her mention it. Dear me, isn't it dreadful how common divorce is getting to be!"

The guest stared.

"You don't mean to say--why, my dear Mrs. Howard--is it _possible_ you don't know? It _is_ your Mrs. Pendleton."

Mrs. Howard remained looking at her friend. Once or twice her lips moved but no words came.

"Her husband is dead," she said at last, faintly.

The caller laughed. "Then he must have died yesterday. Why, didn't you know that was the reason she spent last year in Colorado?"

"For her husband's health," gasped Mrs. Howard, clinging to the last shred of her six months' belief in Mrs. Pendleton's widowhood. "I always had an impression that it was there he died."

The other woman laughed heartlessly. "Did she tell you he was dead?"

Mrs. Howard collected her scattered faculties and tried to think.

"No," she said at last. "Now that you speak of it, I don't believe she ever did. But she certainly gave that impression. She seemed to be always telling of his last illness and his last days. She never actually mentioned the details of his death--but then, how could she--poor thing?"

"She couldn't, of course. That would have been asking too much." Mrs.

Howard's guest went off again into peals of unseemly laughter.

When her caller had left, Mrs. Howard climbed up to the chilly skylight room occupied by her daughter and dropped upon the bed, exclaiming:

"Well, I never would have believed it of Mrs. Pendleton!"

Elsie, who was standing before her mirror, regarded her mother in the gla.s.s.

"What's up. Has she eloped with Billie Barlow at last?"

Mrs. Howard tried to say it, but became inarticulate with emotion. After five minutes of preamble and exclamation, her daughter was in possession of the fact.

"That explains about her hair," was Elsie's only comment. "I am so relieved to have it settled at last."

"Why didn't she tell me?" wailed Mrs. Howard.

"Oh, people don't always tell those things."

Mrs. Howard was silent.

As they pa.s.sed the parlor door on their way down to dinner, Mrs.

Pendleton's merry laugh rang out and Elsie caught a glimpse of the golden hair under the red lamp and the fugitive glimpse of Mr. Barlow's bald spot.

About two days later, as the girl came in from an afternoon's shopping, and was on her way upstairs, her mother called to her. Something in the sound of it attracted her attention. She hurried down the few steps and into her mother's room. Mrs. Howard was sitting over by the window in the fading light, with a strange look upon her face. An open telegram lay in her lap. Elsie went up to her quickly.

"What is it, mother?"

Mrs. Howard handed her the telegram.

"Your father," she said.

Elsie Howard read the simple announcement in silence. Then she looked up, the last trace of an old bitterness in her faint smile.

"We will miss him," she said.

"Elsie!" cried her mother. It was a tone the girl had never heard from her before. Her eyes fell.

"No, it wasn't nice to say it. I am sorry. But I can't forget what life was with him." She raised her eyes to her mother's. "It was simply h.e.l.l, mother; you can't have forgotten. You have said it yourself so often. We can not deny that it is a relief to know--"

"Hush, Elsie, never let me hear you say anything like that again."

"Forgive me, mother," said the girl with quick remorse. "I never will. I don't think I have ever felt that death makes such things so different, and I didn't realize how you would--look at it."

"My child, he was your father," said Mrs. Howard in a low voice. Then Elsie saw the tears in her mother's eyes.

"_Such_ a shock to her," Mrs. Pendleton murmured, sympathetically, to Elsie. "I know, Miss Elsie; I can feel for her--" Elsie mechanically thought of the last hours of Mr. Pendleton, then recalled herself with a start. "Death always _is_ a shock," Mrs. Pendleton finished gracefully, "even when one most expects it. You must let me know if there is anything I can do."

Later in the evening she communicated the astonis.h.i.+ng news to Mrs.

Hilary, who e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed freely: "Only fancy!" and "How very extraordinary!"

"Didn't you think he had been dead a hundred years?" exclaimed Mrs.

Pendleton.

"One never can tell in the states," responded Mrs. Hilary conservatively. "Divorce is so common over here. It isn't the thing at all in England, you know."

Mrs. Pendleton stared.

"But they were not divorced, only separated. Do you never do that--in England?"

"Divorced people are not received at court, you know," explained Mrs.

Hilary.

Mrs. Pendleton's glance lingered upon the Englishwoman's immobile face and a laugh broke into her words.

"But when you are in Rome, you do as the Romans--is that it, Mrs.