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Show t0 p r -i Fa to Ra r.s to r.a to ru to rjfjj; 5 HER ALOOFNESS S Pa F&s Pa Pa m By ISABEL FROST. 5a 6 to to Pa to to to ft, to to to Pa W If there was one thing more than another that Virginia prided herself on it was her aloofness, which in this particular case, showed itself in her ability to live months at a time in a New York apartment house without becoming acquainted with any of her neighbors. In spite of the fact that she had to earn her. own living now. she never forgot for one moment that she was Miss Carrington of Carrington Hall, Ga. She occupied the back suite "on the second floor. In the front there was a young sculptor whom she did not even know by sight. The rooms above her own were occupied by Wells Lewis, an incipient dramatist-; the floor below, be-low, by an interior decorator and his wife. On the very topmost floor were little skylight rooms where several birds of passage lived, students for the most part. The only personal mail she received was from Terry. He usually wrote once a week, a brief, jerky, boyish epistle, full of complaints, football, "eats" and railings at Latin, English and everything else under the sun except ex-cept mathematics and herself. This did not bother Virginia at all. She felt herself responsible for Terry and his proper upbringing as a Carrington. Car-rington. If she could work and support sup-port herself, their slendor income would suffice to send Terry through school and turn him out a civil engineer,' engi-neer,' as her father had wished. She had not realized until these days of early summer how fagged out she Was getting. "Miss Carrington, you'll break down if you don't stop working so hard," Peggy said at the office, as Virginia waited to see the buyer for the art goods department. Virginia went homethat day feeling rather puzzled. Was that -what was the matter with her? She studied her face in the mirror carefully, and then thoughtfully opened a letter she had picked up from the table in the lower hall. It was an invitation from the :hapins, for her to visit them on their houseboat over the week-end. She left that Friday night for the shore with a feeling of elation, as though she had escaped from a mild sort of prison. On the front steps she passed Wells Lewis. He was personally person-ally conducting several paper bags of surreptitious groceries that Virginia knew represented light housekeeping. Terry arrived at Mrs. Finnegan's at nine o'clock. Lewis heard the altercation alterca-tion in the lower hall while Terry tried to explain his relationship to Miss Carrington and his rights and privileges priv-ileges in her absence. But Mrs. Fin-negan Fin-negan was obdurate. It might be so and then again it mightn't. She would take no chances. "I saw Miss Carrington go away about 6 :30," called Lewis over the banister ban-ister rail. "Anything I can do? Won't you come up with me until she gets back?" Terry accepted with alacrity. He not only came up, but he pitched into the remains of Lewis' supper and cleared it up to the last crumb. Lewis listened sympathetically to everything, even when Terry told how he had been "bounced" from the "prep" school. There hud been a little lit-tle affair of guinea pigs, many guinea pigs hidden all around the assembly hall on a certain evening when the younger boys were excluded from a senior dances. "Some fellows can't take a joke," Terry concluded, scathingly. "I'm glad to be out of it. I'm sixteen and I ought to be at work instead of letting a girl sister support me. Wish you could get me a job before she 'gets back." Lewis considered the matter. ne liked the boy. It was the age of specialization. "I'll help you on your 'math' at night. I don't think your sister has room for you downstairs. I'd like it if you'd bunk up here with me, old man, and keep me company." Terry loved him for that phrase, "old man." He went to work the next morning, and walked in on Virginia that night a full-fledged business man, witlf a steady job and a salary. She listened to his explanations in silent amazement. "Why, Terry, I have only a bowing acquaintance with this person." "Well, we'll fix that," replied Terry, comfortably. "I'm going to share his room, and pay my bit, so you'd better get acquainted, Ginnie. If it hadn't been for him, think where your little brother might have ended up lost in a great city, while sister was house-boating house-boating gaysomely. I invited him down for dinner tonight with us. Of course, if you don't want him, we can go out." Virginia stood at the open window, looking down at the courtyard where one lone sumac tree braved the city's summer heat. From the windows above floated a whistle that had become familiar fa-miliar Lewis, holding forth on his favorite fa-vorite melody, "I'm going back, back, hack to Carolina ; buck where I was born." All at once she knew that she had been lonely. That isles of safety could be very desolate when one is a stranger stran-ger In New York. Even Terry could not realize that the walls of Jericho hud tumbled down, as she said : "You'd better run up and tell him it's all right, before he starts getting his dinner himself." (Copyright, 1917, by the McClure Newspaper Newspa-per Syndicate.) |