Bab a Sub-Deb Part 37

"I hope you bought some stockings and underclothes," she observed.

"Hannah cannot mend your chemises any more, and as for your----"

"Mother!" I said, turning scarlet, for George--who was the Butler, as Tanney had been found kissing Jane--was at that moment bringing in the cheeze.

"I am not going to interfere with your Allowence," she went on. "But I recall very distinctly that during Leila's first year she came home with three evening wraps and one nightgown, having to borrow from one of her schoolmates, while that was being washed. I feel that you should at least be warned."

How could I then state that instead of bying nightgowns, et cetera, I had been sending violets? I could not. If Life to my Familey was a matter of petticoats, and to me was a matter of fragrant flours, why cause them to suffer by pointing out the diference?

I did not feel superior. Only diferent.

That evening, while mother and Leila were out at a Festivaty, I gave father his neck-tie. He was overcome with joy and for a moment could not speak. Then he said:

"Good gracious, Bab! What a--what a DIFERENT necktie."

I explained my reasons for buying it for him, and also Tom Gray's objecting to it as to juvenile.

"Young impudense!" said father, refering to Tom. "I darsay I am quite an old fellow to him. Tie it for me, Bab."

"Though old of body, you are young in mentalaty," I said. But he only laughed, and then asked about the pin, which I wore over my heart.

"Where did you get that?" he asked in quite a feirce voice.

I told him, but not quite all. It was the first time I had concealed an AMOUR from my parents, having indeed had but few, and I felt wicked and clandestine. But, alas, it is the way of the heart to conceal its deepest feelings, save for blushes, which are beyond bodily control.

My father, however, mearly sighed and observed:

"So it has come at last!"

"What has come at last?" I asked, but feeling that he meant Love. For although forty-two and not what he once was, he still remembers his Youth.

But he refused to anser, and inquired politely if I felt to much grown-up, with the Allowence and so on, to be held on knees and occasionaly tickeled, as in other days.

Which I did not.

That night I stood at the window of my Chamber and gazed with a heaving heart at the Gray residense, which is next door. Often before I had gazed at its walls, and considered them but brick and morter, and needing paint. Now my emotions were diferent. I realized that a House is but a sh.e.l.l, covering and protecting its precious contents from weather and curious eyes, et cetera.

As I stood there, I percieved a light in an upper window, where the nursery had once been in which Tom--in those days when a child, Tommy--and I had played as children, he frequently pulling my hair and never thinking of what was to be. As I gazed, I saw a figure come to the window and gaze fixedly at me. IT WAS HE.

Hannah was in my room, making a list of six of everything which I needed, so I dared not call out. But we exchanged gestures of afection and trust across the void, and with a beating heart I retired to bed.

Before I slept, however, I put to myself this question, but found no anser to it. How can it be that two people of Diferent s.e.xes can know each other well, such as calling by first names and dancing together at dancing school, and going to the same dentist, and so on, and have no interest in each other except to have a partner at parties or make up a set at tennis? And then nothing happens, but there is a diference, and they are always hoping to meet on the street or elsewhere, and although quareling sometimes when together, are not happy when apart! How strange is Life!

Hannah staid in my room that evening, fussing about my not hanging up my garments when undressing. As she has lived with us for a long time, and used to take me for walks when Mademoiselle had the toothache, which was often, because she hated to walk, she knows most of the Familey affairs, and is sometimes a nusance.

So, while I said my prayers, she looked in my Check Book. I was furious, and snached it from her, but she had allready seen to much.

"Humph!" she said. "Well, all I've got to say is this, Miss Bab. You'll last just twenty days at the rate you are going, and will have to go stark naked all year."

At this indelacate speach I ordered her out of the room, but she only tucked the covers in and asked me if I had brushed my teeth.

"You know," she said, "that you'll be coming to me for money when you run out, Miss Bab, as you've always done, and expecting me to patch and mend and make over your old things, when I've got my hands full anyhow.

And you with a Fortune fritered away."

"I wish to think, Hannah," I said in a plaintive tone. "Please go away."

But she came and stood over me.

"Now you're going to be a good girl this Summer and not give any trouble, aren't you?" she asked. "Because we're upset enough as it is, and your poor mother most distracted, without you're cutting loose as usual and driving everybody crazy."

I sat up in bed, forgetful that the window was now open for the night, and that I was visable from the Gray's in my ROBE DE NUIT.

"Whose distracted about what?" I asked.

But Hannah would say no more, and left me a pray to doubt and fear.

Alas, Hannah was right. There was something wrong in the house. Coming home as I had done, full of the joy of no rising bell or French grammar, or meat pie on Mondays from Sunday's roast, I had noticed nothing.

I fear I am one who lives for the Day only, and as such I beleive that when people smile they are happy, forgetfull that to often a smile conceals an aching and tempestuous Void within.

Now I was to learn that the demon Strife had entered my domacile, there to make his--or her--home. I do not agree with that poet, A. J. Ryan, date forgoten, who observed:

Better a day of strife Than a Century of sleep.

Although naturaly no one wishes to sleep for a Century, or even approxamately.

There was Strife in the house. The first way I noticed it, aside from Hannah's anonamous remark, was by observing that Leila was mopeing. She acted very strangely, giving me a pair of pink hoze without more than a hint on my part, and not sending me out of the room when Carter Brooks came in to tea the next day.

I had staid at home, fearing that if I went out I should purchace some CREPE DE CHENE combinations I had been craving in a window, and besides thinking it possable that Tom would drop in to renew our relations of yesterday, not remembering that there was a Ball Game.

Mother having gone out to the Country Club, I put my hair on top of my head, thus looking as adult as possable. Taking a new detective story of Jane's under my arm, I descended the staircase to the library.

Sis was there, curled up in a chair, knitting for the soldiers. Having forgoten the Ball Game, as I have stated, I asked her, in case I had a caller, to go away, which, considering she has the house to herself all winter, I considered not to much.

"A caller!" she said. "Since when have you been allowed to have callers?"

I looked at her steadily.

"I am young," I observed, "and still in the school room, Leila. I admit it, so don't argue. But as I have not taken the veil, and as this is not a Penitentary, I darsav I can see my friends now and anon, especialy when they live next door."

"Oh!" she said. "It's the Gray infant, is it!"

This remark being purely spiteful, I ignored it and sat down to my book, which concerned the stealing of some famous Emerelds, the heroine being a girl detective who could shoot the cork out of a bottle at a great distance, and whose name was Barbara!

It was for that reason Jane had loaned me the book.

I had reached the place where the d.u.c.h.ess wore the Emerelds to a ball, above white satin and lillies, the girl detective being dressed as a man and driving her there, because the d.u.c.h.ess had been warned and hautily refused to wear the paste copies she had--when Sis said, peavishly:

"Why don't you knit or do somthing useful, Bab?"