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Show SUITOI OF mm W KENNETT m' pi if 2? MELISSA TURNS DOWN A PRINCE AND A GOOD FELLOW. "I declare, It seems to me as If I hadn't &een you for about a month, Melissa," said Mrs.' Merriwid's maternal ma-ternal maiden aunt Jane. "Not more than long enough at a time to ask you when you expected to be home " Mrs. Merriwid laughed as musically as It is possible for a woman to laugh when she is bent double, with her back hair thrown forward. "I guess it is about a month since Mr. Stoxan began calling, isn't it?" pursued Aunt Jane, archly. Mrs. Merriwid resumed hr upright position with a jerk that threw her hair back. "About that, dearie," she replied, "and I don't mind owning that I'm beginning to breathe hard and get a stitch in my side. The pace Is certainly a little rapid for me. You know. Auntie, dear, I've not been accustomed ac-customed to it. Poor Henry never took me out oftener than four nights In a week." "I didn't suppose it was as often as that," remarked Aunt Jane. You re a clever little guesser," aid her niece. "Four times was about the average for a year with Henry. He was strong for the domestic domes-tic hearth and an early retreat to the excelsior, Henry was. Once in a while an interesting and Instructive lecture on 'Ethical Culture Among the Ancient Egyptians' would lure him out and keep him up to the unearthly hour of eleven at night, and of course Friend Wife shared In the giddy dissipation; dis-sipation; but the programme never Included things like broiled lobster and sizzly beverages. The only fizzy tuff Henry approved of was a temperate tem-perate Beidlitz powder, poor dear! No, Mr. Stoxan is different." "He must be very rich," Aunt Jane hazarded. "Xo, auntie, he's not very rich, he's merely made a killing," corrected Mrs. Merriwid. "When a board of trade speculator makes a killing the first thing he does is to buy a self-starting self-starting six with electric lights and all modern conveniences, and get into a 'bunch.' That puts him out of all danger of getting rich, especially when tie acquires the 'little supper' habit, ind Mr. Stoxan has got that in Its acute stages. His Idea of heaven is an everlasting round of hot birds, cold bottles and green Chartreuse, with the jelestial choir playing rag-time behind a clump of artificial palms In green tubs." "My dear!" protested Aunt Jane. In l shocked voice. Mrs. Merriwid wound a thick strand Df hair In an experimental coll on the top of her head and considered the reflection in her mirror. "Well, perhaps per-haps I'm wrong," she said. "I don't really suppose he gives much thought to a future state. May wheat Is about is far ahead as he cares to speculate. But that 'bunch!' They've certainly ?ot to cut the string and let me out it it." "I'm glad you feel that way, Melissa, Me-lissa, dear," said Aunt Jane. "This thing of high living and perox-de perox-de dyeing gets on my nerves," declared de-clared Mrs. Merriwid. "That's the female fe-male part of it. I hope I'm not too ! particular, but it does seem to me that a single rope of pearls is an awful poor chest-protector, and I don't like to look conspicuously different from my sister supper-eaters, at that. Well, I'm going to take the rest cure, auntie rest and change. Mr. Stoxan is up against a strong bear movement. move-ment. " "Of course, being a bachelor may account for his extravagance," Aunt Jane suggested. "If he married and settled down " "They never do," said Mrs. Merriwid. Merri-wid. "Once in a while they settle up, but that's only when they've guessed right; and every once in a while they guess wrong and then there's a self-starting self-starting six for sale at a sacrifice. Owner can give excellent reasons for selling. Don't you ever think that a stock gambler's wife is going to make him put his winnings into a -safe, three per cent, solution of brine and carry his lunch to the office, because she isn't, dearie. She's got to accept ner Russian sables and diamonds without a cheep of protest. If she doesn't, some other lady will, so she might - r I CONSIDERED HER REFLECTION IN THE MIRROR. as well resign herself to her fate and enjoy herself until hubby comes home and tells her that Pactolians have unexpectedly un-expectedly dropped six points. - Then she'll catch cold without the pearl rope." "I really thought that you thought seriously " Aunt Jane began. "I do, now and then," said Mrs. Merriwid. "That's all that saves me. If I hadn't taken three or four seconds to carefully weigh the advantages and disadvantages of Mr. Stoxan from a matrimonial standpoint, there's no telling what might have happened. As it is, I fear me that the gentleman will honk his horn beneath my bower window about one more time, and that will let him out. He's going to give a farewell supper tonight, only he doesn't know it. I'm not disposed to deny that he's a very nice man in very many respects, but he's not to be trusted with matches anywhere near money, and I don't want to go to the expense of a fire proof sate for what poor Henry loft me." "Well, I'm glad," observed Aunl Jane. "At the same time I'm a llttl surprised." "I don't see why you should bo 6ur prised," said Mrs. Merriwid. "1 don't say that I've any particular objectior to luxury. I like good things to eal and drink and pretty things to loot at and to wear; I like broiled lobster once in a while and I don't find cham panne hard to take; all my life I've wanted sables, and I certainly envied that woman the pearls she waB wear ing; but I also like to feel reasonablj sure of a continuance of breakfast ba con and eggs and the ability to spring myself for a hundred dollar tailor-made tailor-made and a twenty-five dollar hal once in a while. Isn't that sensible! Isn't it logical?" "That's what surprises me." said Aunt Jane. "If Mr. Stoxan could only think uf some way of enjoying himself, it wouldn't be so bad," sighed Mrs. Mer riwid; "but breaking the speed ordinances ordi-nances to the time of 'Good Bye, My Lover,' and imbibing cocktails at every stop, palls on a person of aver-ago aver-ago intellect after a little, and what Mr. Stoxan calls 'the show proposition' proposi-tion' gives one an acute pain. I'm fond or society, but 1 get sicK of it when it means nothing but stale cigarette cig-arette smoke and caviare sandwiches and red laces and white shirt-fronts and watery eyes and mandolin orchestras orches-tras and stories that you don't know whether you ought to listen to or not That makes me think tenderly of the ancient Egyptians. No, dearie; set your mind at rest. Mr. Stoxan Is a good fellow and a prince and the salt of. the earth, when he isn't fresh, but at the same time he's a horrible example ex-ample and I shall be obliged to turn bim down. Nevertheless I feel that 1 have deceived him cruelly." "How so?" queried Aunt Jane. "I've made him think I was a good fellow, too, and after all. I find that there's considerable of the old hen about me," replied Mrs. Merriwid. (Copyright. 1912, by W G. Chapman.) |