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Show Christmases Of Emmeline w,... mcc,, I J 1 1 CHRISTMAS is Emmeline's birthday. The family celebrated it twenty-eight times with double gusto religious and congenial. But a year ago when the nineteen hundred and ninth anniversary of Christianity was the twenty-ninth of Emmeline's virginity, the dinner's joys were hazed by the thought that the next natal occasion would turn the girl into old-maidenhood unless "You should have been married long ago," said her mother, in fond sadness; "you are amiable, quick-witted, tactful, pretty and very willing. Why not?" "I have no fortune," said Emmeline; "that's reason enough. Never mind about others if there are any. That's why husbands pass me by. I mean future husbands now bachelors or widowers. widow-ers. Men already husbands come to me and what did Mr. Muckmuddy say to you about me at Mrs. Topgrady's reception? I stopped his taffy-talk taffy-talk by congratulating him on his wife's recovery recov-ery from typhoid. Then he crossed the room to you. What did he say?" "I don't like to tell you." "You needn't. He had hinted it to me. He couldn't marry me, but would like to maintain me." "Why dared he?" "Why not?" The facts about Emmeline may seem curious cu-rious in Utah. They are common In New York, where she was one of the thousand of poor young women qualified for rich men's wives but unable to get the jobs. At sweet sixteen, she widened her eyes to look for her Prince Charming to come across the seas to her. At less romantic twenty, she was willing to be wooed by an untitled native Croesus in smart society. At utilitarian twenty-Are twenty-Are you always quite sure that your determination deter-mination isn't the other man's obstinacy? The oldest woman in the world is Baba Va-leska, Va-leska, a Bulgarian, aged 126 years. She is not a chorus girl. A noted French actress says that to dress well a woman must have kindness and tact. That is, if she happens to be a married woman, we opine. I A Russian law forbids marriage after the age of eighty. It's time then for the government to step in and protect the foolish young things from themselves. An Indianapolis woman, seeking a divorce, charges her husband with twenty-three different forms of cruelty. He certainly must be the original orig-inal skiddoo kid. Ornithological experts declare that the Mongolian Mon-golian pheasant does not thrive in California. Sociological authorities have observed the same with regard to the Mongolian peasant. ! In a confidential letter to Tettrazlnl's man-lager, man-lager, Oscar Hammerstein, referred to the "unbounded "un-bounded meanness" of Mary Garden. That "ham-Imer" "ham-Imer" in Oscar's name fits like the paper on the wall. Yes? "i I Arthur Brisbane warns against high collars on the ground that they press upon the pheumogas-" trie nerve. But, politically speaking, Mr. Hearst's ?40,000-a-year-beauty is not able to tell his boss how to avoid getting it In the neck. According to Plutarch, naptha was known in j, five, she became less shy of manner, more sly of method, and shrewdly aggressive in her quest of affluent wedlock. It was in a Newport summer that Emmeline took the initiative. Wbat hooks she baited in the surf at Bailey's Beach. What traps she set at the Casino. For her the cling-close bathing suit that published the symmetry of her lower half in the sunlight, and the ball gown that advertised the intima les of her torso uner electric illumination. And the duo walks under the cliffs to Spouting Rock. Yet tactful was Emmeline. She showed her legs to throngs only by day and her arms by night, for well she knew that semi-nudity before all the army officers from Fort Adams was safe, while with one cadet from the summer naval school it would be dangerous. As you perceive, this is a tabloid novel of realism real-ism and not a bulky volume of romanticism. And at this period the heroine was keen to the prevailing pre-vailing conditions. , "The nut Is hard to crack with an iron hammer, ham-mer, mamma," she said, "but it would open and let out its kernel at the touch of a golden wand." For "kernel" read "colonel," for she had operated op-erated in vain on that very seldom personage, an opulent regimental commander Colonel Strutt. She went on: "How the dickens I may say how the devil can a maiden get the Colonel away from matrons who flirt with him in ways that would damn me to the hell of social taboo. Why, he told me a story that he'd got from Mrs. Vogue, and if I'd snickered at the wicked point of it, he'd have thought me too knowing; so I looked blank and he thought me too dull. So he goes into my album of things that have almost happened ' , B I to me." 'IjI'I Thus it was that, at the Chwstmas table of last '' 11 B-1 year, Emmeline's parents found it difficult to got Hi I Into a holiday spirit; and she, observing their f I slumpy-dumps, said resolutely. "Mamma papa 1 I shall never turn the corner into the thirties un- 1 ' a I married. I am frayed around the edges and I . jfjB have played all the tricks in my catch-'em bag in I jUll vain. But I won't live beyond another year with- j 01 out a rich husband." j IB "Child what are you saying?" said the mother. ! i I "Do you intend suicide?" said the father. Nl "No" said the daughter; "wait till Christmas, ; MB nineteen ten." t 4m This is a problem story, A puzzle tale. Read ' !' 'I the rest and try to solve the question why a fl woman on the stage is an enchantress of men i ' ;l whom she couldn't get a second look from if she J, I were not an actress. Emmeline had sung in pri j 111 vate concerts, played in amateur theatricals and j III practiced habitually the wiles of coquetry that are $1U almost guiles. Her name made it easy to pass lll from society to the stage as a show girl, and her II facility sent her forward to the front row. Her ' age of thirty looked when footlighted like twenty. jy I The forwardness that had repelled as cheek now liMI allured as chic. At the end of the season, Mr. 11 I Muckmuddy offered to install her in luxury. ff "Declined," she said with a cuff." , I Colonel Strutt made a proposal of marriage. H "Yes," she said with a kiss. A j fl That's all. Not much? But there's the prob 4 H lem. And, oh, yes. Colonel Strutt will take his 1 H Christmas dinner with Emmeline and her folks on ! H her thirtieth birthday after a wedding on the pre- i H vious day. W H |
