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Show i them to her. And listening to these accounts of Blanche's happiness wan, to Mary, like having suit rubbed In a rnw wound. Blanche was blissful, I'hlllp was perfect, they were divinely happy, no two persons htul ever loved each other so much before. And so on. Places niul pastimes that hud always been mere names, conjuring up visions of delight, to be sure, but never within the reach of "anyone we know" were a mutter of course to Blanche. Not that Mary begrudged her that she hud, from the beginning, rejoiced whole-henrteilly whole-henrteilly in her cousin's happiness. But didn't she deserve a little happiness, happi-ness, too? Mnry was thoroughly hu-iiiiiu hu-iiiiiu and she was very intelligent. She would have known how to squeeze not only enjoyment, but education, out of every drop of pleasure that she could have had. But this was not the worst of it. The man whom Blanche loved, wanted to lavish all these good things on her, while the man whom she, Mary, loved, had neglected and Ignored her, and finally Insulted her and cast her from him. Mary listened to Blanche's letters In silence, or said merely, "I'm glad she's having such a good time," in a low voice, but when Violet left her alone again, she always al-ways sat for a time clenching and unclenching un-clenching her hands, dry little sobs of agony rising in her throat. But hardest of all harder than facing fac-ing the village gossip, harder than facing Violet's complacence was facing fac-ing her own bruised pride, her own accusing conscience. Long ago she knew it only too well she should have told Paul that unless he mended his ways their engagement must end. She had evaded an Issue which she should have met. She had been a coward. Because she feared losing Paul, she hud compromised with right, and now she had lost him after all. ij Qjn "You wait and nee I Bat I didn't send for you to talk about twlng. I've got a new scheme, nnd I want to see what you think of It. Now that David and Jacqueline- have built that splendid splen-did cottage hospital, think we've gone o long step forward In Hamstead. But after nil, that only looks out for the people when they're sick or convalescent. con-valescent. I want to build something that will look out for them when they're well." Mary dropped her sewing. "What do you mean?" she asked excitedly. "1 lanisteud's the loveliest place In the world to live In," went on Sylvia, without apparent connection, " that Is, I think so. But I can Imagine that I wouldn't have, when I was younger especially if I'd been a boy. There isn't much to do." "I see," said Mary, beginning to think that she did. "And so, as long as there Isn't, most boys try to find something. And what they find Isn't ulways very good for them." IIow much this kind, wise woman saw and understood and forguvel No wonder Austin worshiped her I "1 can't understand, myself," Sylvia went on, "why more parents don't send their boys away to good, really flrst-class flrst-class schools nnd colleges. They don't seem to realize what a difference It would make, Just at the nge when it's perfectly natural and normal for a boy or girl to crave excitement and pleasure pleas-ure nnd activity and change. I'm a pretty good Episcopalian, but I believe just ns ninny boys' souls have been saved by gymnasiums as by churches! And 1 want that nice new cousin of yours to start In on some plans for one as soon as he gets home from his wedding trip. I want It made suitable to use for dances, and want a billiard room, and a kitchen, and a swimming pool In it, too. I want. . . ." "Oh, Sylvia, no one in the world would have thought of this but you !" "Did you ever hear," went on Sylvia again without apparent connection, "how wild AustlD was when he was young?" "I yes, I have " "That was before I knew him. But he was twenty-seven when I came here. If I'd grown up with him, loving him all the time as of course I should have, for I loved him as much as I possibly could from the first moment I ever set eyes on him and never could help showing it I suppose it would have hurt me dreadfully to have him wild, I mean. I suppose I would have either mistaken immaturity for viclous-ness viclous-ness and condemned hira when he had really done nothing to condemn, or excused vlclousness for Immaturity and forgiven him when he should, some way, have been punished. Either would have been equally bad,- and equally likely to happen. We don't judge clearly when we're unhappy. Of course it hurts Austin and me, a little, now, to think that he ever slipped up at all. He and I have talked this plan over a good deal. He thinks it ought to help the fellows In Hamstead. some, anyway. Do you remember that poem by Coventry Patmore that Rus-kln Rus-kln quotes, Ah, wasteful woman, she who may On her own sweet self set the price, Knowing man cannot choose but pay How she has cheapened Paradise! How given for naught the priceless gift. How spoiled the bread and spilt the wine, Which, spent with due respective thrift, Had made brutes men and men divine! "Isn't that what we're all tempted to do when we love a man to walk straight Into his arms, without knowing know-ing whether his arms are ready for us?" "Or worthy?" "If they're really ready, they will be worthy. That's just the point" "I see," said Mary, very low indeed. "And then," continued Sylvia, "Austin "Aus-tin had Ideals, ahvuys, even if he didn't live up to them. There's a tremendous tre-mendous difference between that and not having any Ideals, not being able to see them yourself, and not having anyone care for you enough to give them to you. Austin's got a wonderful wonder-ful mother." "So have your boys," said Mary, sobs rising In her throat. There was no more direct allusloD to her trouble than that. No one but Sylvia In all Hamstead would have been clever enough to see that nothing would comfort Mary so much as to be able to think a little more gently of Paul. Indeed, no one else considered that she deseryed com fort or that this would be a legitimate means of giving it to her if she had. But this comfort, great though it was. did not last indefinitely. After that talk with Sylvia, Mary found that she got through the days very well. But the nights seemed to grow harder and harder. Formerly, she had gone straight to sleep when she went to bed, because she was so tired. Now she was so utterly weary, mentally and spiritually as well as physically, that she could not sleep. And when she could not sleep, she cried cried so violently that each morning found her more and more spent. Her overwrought over-wrought nerves, seeking some means of relief, found only this one, and they were, just then, stronger than her will-power. And at last something snapped, suddenly, and she broke down openly in the middle of the bedtime bed-time songs that she always sang to her little brothers. She had had a long hard day, and It seemed as If evening and the chance to rest would never come. When, on top of everything else, the small boys showed no disposition to settle down promptly for the night, she began to feel as if her self-control were slip ping from her like a cast-off garment "I want a drink of water," an nounced Algy, bouncing up and down on his mattress. (TO BR CONTINUED.! ; A Romance of the , Commonplace By Frances Parkinson Keyes WNU Sorvlca Oopyrtf ht by Frances Parkinson Koyo SYNOPSIS Motoring through Vermont, Philip Starr, young Boston architect, moots Blanche Manning, seventeen, with whom hs Is Immediately enamored. It being a long distance to Burlington, Starr's destination, Blanche suggests, the Tillage of Hamstead not boasting a hotel, that he become, for the night, a guest of her cousin, Mary Manning. Mary receives Philip with true Vermont Ver-mont hospitality, and he makes the acquaintance of her cousin Paul, recognized rec-ognized as her fiance. Starr finds Mary Is acquainted with Gale Hamlin, noted Boston architect, In whose ottlce Philip Is employed. He Informs her of his desire de-sire to win Blanche for his wife. She tells him of an old family superstition concerning the "Blanches" of the Manning Man-ning family. Paul Manning is Inclined to be dissipated, not realizing Mary's true worth. Mary's reproaches for his undue "conviviality" are badly received by Paul, and the girl begins to hae misgivings as to the wisdom of the Alliance. Gale Hamlin, long a suitor for Mary's hand, visits Hamstead but makes no progress in his lovemaking. Philip, poring over records of the Manning Man-ning family, learns the sorrowful story of the "Countess Blanche," French wife of a Revolutionary hero, Moses Manning, and of the peculiar "curse" she has transmitted to her descendants de-scendants and the women of Hamstead. The evening of Philip's marriage to Blanche, Paul, under the Influence of liquor, bitterly affronts Mary when she reproaches him for his condition, and tella her their engagement is ended. CHAPTER VII 7 The lot in life of the girl who has been jilted is probably not very pleasant pleas-ant anywhere, but there is no place on earth where It is quite as hard as in a small country village. But Mary went about her usual occupations, occupa-tions, after Blanche's wedding and the storm that followed it, with her head held high, and her back straighter than ever. She got, of course, no credit for this. It was set down against her that she had never really cared for Paul, after all, or she "would feel It more." Almost in the same breath she was accused by some one else or even by the same person of having worn her heart upon her sleeve, for all to see. If village gossip was hard to bear, however, the family attitude was worse. Cousin Jane had a good deal to say about the inevitable fate of girls who ran after men who didn't want them, instead of attending their plain Christian duty. Seth said very little, but his silent, dejected attitude made his daughter feel more than any unkind words could have done, that he felt she had disgraced him almost beyond be-yond utterance. As for Violet, she became so violently "nervous" about the whole affair, that Mary dreaded to see her more than all the others put together. She never guessed that Paul was also suffering from his mother's "nerves." "If you had the slightest consideration considera-tion for me, you never would have let It happen," she lamented over and over again to her son. "My life Is so full of grief and trouble that it takes a good deal of fortitude to bear it. Here Is Blanche married " "Yo were tickled to death over that larrttered Paul. "Paul ! How can you be so vulgar ! I tried to be cheerful, of course. But no one knows how I miss her. And Mary's money would have come in Very handy, too." "I didn't know Mary had any money." "She will have, as soon as she's twenty-one, and that's very soon now. Laura had a little property of her own, and she left it all to Mary. I don't know as Mary knows it herself, but of course Seth will tell her soon, now." But this was not the way Violet talked to Mary. She dwelt on the fact that the girl had not made herself "attractive enough" to Paul, that she was always neglecting to change her dress and tidy her hair, that she didn't join with him in those little pleasures that all young men like to "share with their fiancees." "But Paul didn't expect to share them with me!" flared Mary, stung beyond be-yond endurance. "He didn't even want to ! And I guess if you did all the cooking and cleaning and washing and ironing for four people, and took care of two children into the bargain, you wouldn't always look as nice as you do! Don't you suppose I've longed to be comfortable and rested and pretty whenever Paul saw me? I guess I'm Just as human as any other girl, and I guess I know 'the way to do things' Just as well as you do." "Well, I should manage to do them , then, and to look well at the same time!" retorted Violet. "That's every woman's duty to herself." "What about her duty to her family, If the two conflict?" "Mercy, Mary, what a temper you have! No wonder Paul couldn't stand It! I'm sure I do my duty to my family, fam-ily, If any woman ever did, but I keep myself up, too. If you had more system sys-tem about your housework you could get it done all right it's all in the way you do it." Violet felt that she had come out ahead in this tilt. Nevertheless, it "used her up" to have Mary so shockingly shock-ingly Impertinent to her, as she said to Jane in telling her about it afterwards, after-wards, and she did not attack her in this same way again. Instead, she brought Blanche's letters and read "Sylvlal You're You're Not a Bit Well, Are You?" She felt that she deserved her unhap-piness, unhap-piness, and this was more bitter than anything else except the way in which she had lost him. The thought of the words Paul had spoken to her in the hall that night after Blanche's wedding, wed-ding, the memory of his heavy breath and violent kisses, branded her with shame. She was cheapened, degraded in her own eyes, that any man should have dared to behave so to her, and that was Infinitely worse than being cheapened and degraded In the eyes of her family. Had she, after all, deserved de-served that, too? In all those dreadful weeks, Mary found only two sources of comfort, besides the walks she took up Countess hill to gain solitude, and the prayers she managed, with shaken faith, to say. The first of these sources was Sylvia Gray. She was extremely fond of Mary, and usually saw a good deal of her, but she was not well enough to do that now. The neighborly visiting visit-ing back and forth had been to a certain cer-tain degree interrupted. But one afternoon, Sylvia phoned that she was "having a pretty good day," and that she wished Mary would bring her sewing sew-ing and come over to supper. It was, as usual, hard for Mary to break away from her family, but she spread out an appetizing cold supper on the table, covered It carefully, left the kettle boiling for Seth's evening cup of tea, and took the two little boys to the barn for their father to watch while he was milking. Seth did not altogether approve of this arrangement, arrange-ment, but as usual, he said little, and she promised to be back early. She stopped a minute at the Old Gray homestead, where Mrs. Gray was sitting sit-ting on her back porch, feeling Instinctively In-stinctively that this kindly woman had spoken of her . less harshly than most of her neighbors, and that she did not need to shun her; then went down the shady road that led to the little brick cottage where Sylvia and Austin lived. She found her lying in the hammock on her deep and. sheltered piazza, looking, as always, supremely lovely, but also very friitl. The expression ex-pression on Sylvia's face shook Mary for the first time from the -thought of her own troubles. "Sylvia I You're you're not a bit well, are you?" "I'm perfectly all right. But I'm afraid I shall he tempted to pinch the twins, very gently, of course, sometimes, some-times, to make up for all the trouble they've caused me. Just think, they'll be the first twins in Hamstead since the Countess Blanche's only mine are going to be both girls!" Mary shivered a little. "Why do you keep talking about having twins?" she asked. "You'll have just one, another an-other boy." |