Bab a Sub-Deb Part 26

"To disobey!" she went on. "To force yourself on the atention of Mr.

Beresford, in a borowed dress, with your eyelashes blackend and your face painted----"

"I should think, mother," I observed, "that if he wants to marry into this family, and is not merely being dragged into it, that he ought to see the worst at the start." She glired, without speaking. "You know," I continued, "it would be a dreadfull thing to have the Ceramony performed and everything to late to back out, and then have ME Sprung on him. It wouldn't be honest, would it?"

"Barbara!" she said in a terrable tone. "First disobedience, and now sarcasm. If your father was only here! I feel so alone and helpless."

Her tone cut me to the Heart. After all she was my own mother, or at least maintained so, in spite of numerous questions enjendered by our lack of resemblence, moral as well as physicle. But I did not offer to embrase her, as she was at that moment poring out her tea. I hid my misery behind the morning paper, and there I beheld the fated vision.

Had I felt any doubt as to the state of my afections it was settled then. My Heart leaped in my bosom. My face sufused. My hands trembled so that a piece of sausage slipped from my fork. HIS PICTURE LOOKED OUT AT ME WITH THAT WELL REMEMBERED GAZE FROM THE DEPTHS OF THE MORNING PAPER.

Oh, Adrian, Adrian!

Here in the same city as I, looking out over perchance the same newspaper to perchance the same sun, wondering--ah, what was he wondering?

I was not even then, in that first Rapture, foolish about him. I knew that to him I was probably but a tender memory. I knew, to, that he was but human and probably very concieted. On the other hand, I pride myself on being a good judge of character, and he carried n.o.bility in every linament. Even the obliteration of one eye by the printer could only hamper but not destroy his dear face.

"Barbara," mother said sharply. "I am speaking. Are you being sulkey?"

"Pardon me, mother," I said in my gentlest tones. "I was but dreaming."

And as she made no reply, but rang the bell visciously, I went on, pursuing my line of thought. "Mother, were you ever in Love?"

"Love! What sort of Love?"

I sat up and stared at her.

"Is there more than one sort?" I demanded.

"There is a very silly, schoolgirl Love," she said, eyeing me, "that people outgrow and blush to look back on."

"Do you?"

"Do I what?"

"Do you blush to look back on it?"

Mother rose and made a sweeping gesture with her right arm.

"I wash my hands of you!" she said. "You are impertanent and indelacate.

At your age I was an inocent child, not troubleing with things that did not concern me. As for Love, I had never heard of it until I came out."

"Life must have burst on you like an explosion," I observed. "I suppose you thought that babies----"

"Silense!" mother shreiked. And seeing that she persisted in ignoring the real things of Life while in my presence, I went out, cluching the precious paper to my Heart.

JANUARY 15TH. I am alone in my BOUDOIR (which is realy the old schoolroom, and used now for a sowing room).

My very soul is sick, oh Dairy. How can I face the truth? How write it out for my eyes to see? But I must. For SOMETHING MUST BE DONE. The play is failing.

The way I discovered it was this. Yesterday, being short of money, I sold my amethist pin to Jane, one of the housemaids, for two dollars, throwing in a lace coller when she seemed doubtful, as I had a special purpose for useing funds. Had father been at home I could have touched him, but mother is diferent.

I then went out to buy a frame for his picture, which I had repaired by drawing in the other eye, although licking the Fire and pa.s.sionate look of the originle. At the shop I was compeled to show it, to buy a frame to fit. The clerk was almost overpowered.

"Do you know him?" she asked, in a low and throbing tone.

"Not intimitely," I replied.

"Don't you love the Play?" she said. "I'm crazy about it. I've been back three times. Parts of it I know off by heart. He's very handsome. That picture don't do him justise."

I gave her a searching glanse. Was it posible that, without any acquaintance with him whatever, she had fallen in love with him? It was indeed. She showed it in every line of her silly face.

I drew myself up hautily. "I should think it would be very expencive, going so often," I said, in a cool tone.

"Not so very. You see, the play is a failure, and they give us girls tickets to dress the house. Fill it up, you know. Half the girls in the store are crazy about Mr. Egleston."

My world shuddered about me. What--fail! That beautiful play, ending "My darling, my woman"? It could not be. Fate would not be cruel. Was there no apreciation of the best in Art? Was it indeed true, as Miss Everett has complained, although not in these exact words, that the Theater was only supported now by chorus girls' legs, dancing about in uter ABANDON?

With an expression of despair on my features, I left the store, carrying the Frame under my arm.

One thing is certain. I must see the play again, and judge it with a criticle eye. IF IT IS WORTH SAVING, IT MUST BE SAVED.

JANUARY 16TH. Is it only a day since I saw you, Dear Dairy? Can so much have happened in the single lapse of a few hours? I look in my mirror, and I look much as before, only with perhaps a touch of paller. Who would not be pale?

I have seen HIM again, and there is no longer any doubt in my heart.

Page Beresford is atractive, and if it were not for circ.u.mstances as they are I would not anser for the consequences. But things ARE as they are. There is no changing that. And I have reid my own heart.

I am not fickel. On the contrary, I am true as steal.

I have put his Picture under my mattress, and have given Jane my gold cuff pins to say nothing when she makes my bed. And now, with the house full of People downstairs acting in a flippent and noisy maner, I shall record how it all happened.

My finantial condition was not improved this morning, father having not returned. But I knew that I must see the Play, as mentioned above, even if it became necesary to borow from Hannah. At last, seeing no other way, I tried this, but failed.

"What for?" she said, in a suspicous way.

"I need it terrably, Hannah," I said.

"You'd ought to get it from your mother, then, Miss Barbara. The last time I gave you some you paid it back in postage stamps, and I haven't written a letter since. They're all stuck together now, and a totle loss."

"Very well," I said, fridgidly. "But the next time you break anything----"

"How much do you want?" she asked.

I took a quick look at her, and I saw at once that she had desided to lend it to me and then run and tell mother, beginning, "I think you'd ought to know, Mrs. Archibald----"

"Nothing doing, Hannah," I said, in a most dignafied manner. "But I think you are an old Clam, and I don't mind saying so."

I was now thrown on my own resourses, and very bitter. I seemed to have no Friends, at a time when I needed them most, when I was, as one may say, "standing with reluctent feet, where the brook and river meet."