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Show PRELUDE to CHRISTMAS I 3JHBy PEGGY PERN KlKh" I 0 McClure Syndicate THE STORY SO FAR: Chloe Sareent returns to her home town, after three years away at school, with an Idea that Christmas is "hunk." But when her car itrikes and badly injures young Dr. Scott Kelvin, she cancels her plans for a holiday holi-day cruise and stays home to give the party he had planned for the children of employees at her father's mill. She enlists en-lists the help of Jennie Harwell and Sara Jenkins and is busy with preparations for the party when Jim Pearsall arrives. She explains that she cannot go on the cruise but consents when he asks her to marry him. After he leaves she learns that Scott Kelvin is also in love with her. ' Chloe arranges to run a day nursery. NOW CONTINUE WITH THE STORY INSTALLMENT IV Chloe turned her roadster towards Jennie Barwell's comfortable, cheerful cheer-ful looking house. Jennie came to meet her as she entered the small dark hall, and when they reached the glassed in "sun-parlor" she saw that Jennie had been crying. "Oh, I'm sorry. Your husband " she began, but Jennie shook her head. "No, he's as well as could be expected. ex-pected. It's his heart. He's overexerted over-exerted himself and his heart's badly bad-ly strained, but if he has quiet and care and all that, he'll be all right, the doctor says," answered Jennie. "It's them two poor kids Susie May and her little brother, Timmy. That good-for-nothin' mother of theirs has skipped out on 'em. Deserted them cold," said Jennie. Chloe looked down at the improvised impro-vised crib in which the small Timmy Tim-my lay sound asleep, one tiny crumpled crum-pled fist flung up, the other one curled on his tiny chest. She looked up at Jennie suddenly and said, "I'll take them both home with me, Mrs. Barwell." The two children were stowed into the car and Chloe drove home with them. She reached the stately old house in mid-afternoon. Her grandmother's grand-mother's car was parked in the drive as Chloe got out of her roadster road-ster and, with Timmy in her arms, Susie May clinging to her skirt, went into the house. She came face to face with Melissa, dressed for the drive home, and Jane, in the hall. Melissa stared at her as if she had never seen her before. "What on earth have you there?" demanded Melissa, while Jane was still trying to find breath to ask the question. "A baby," said Chloe proudly. "A very nice baby. And a cute little girl." "Here," said Melissa firmly, "let me have him." She scooped him out of Chloe's arms with the deft gesture ges-ture of a woman who adored children chil-dren and had had to content herself her-self with two. "Seems a healthy young man." Melissa nodded to Jane. "If Chloe intends to keep these children here, I suppose I may as well stay a while and look after them." The following morning Melissa insisted in-sisted on being taken to call on Scott Kelvin. Chloe knocked at the door and, hearing a voice from the other side, pushed it open and stood aside for Melissa to walk into the room ahead of her. "I remember your father and mother well," said Melissa as she seated herself in the chair beside the bed. "And I remember you when you were about so big." She held her gloved hands a few inches apart and grinned cheerfully at Scott, who was delighted with her. They were so absorbed, thought Chloe grimly, that they didn't even remember that she was in the room. She studied Scott as he lay with his head turned toward Melissa, his eyes alight, his ready laughter paying tribute to Melissa's pungent remarks. re-marks. He turned his head to look at her as if his eyes had been drawn to her by her own intense regard of him. For a moment they looked squarely at each other. It was a breathless moment that seemed to Chloe to stretch endlessly. endless-ly. But it could not have lasted more than a second, for the next moment mo-ment Melissa said something amusing. amus-ing. Chloe forced her eyes away from Scott's wide, startled regard and rose to her feet, saying a trifle hurriedly, "We must go, Gran. I've a million things to do this morning." morn-ing." That evening when Chloe and Melissa Me-lissa returned to the big old red brick house on the hill, Chloe found a fat letter waiting for her. Even before she saw the stamp, the bulk of the letter as well as the strong, dashing handwriting across its face told her that it was from Jim. The stationery bore the yacht's, name and its insignia at the top. Jim's bold handwriting filled the pages. She got up at last and went over to the desk. Switched on the shaded light, drew before her the thick creamy paper with her monogram in its upper left hand corner. Dipped her pen in ink and wrote firmly, with no hesitation: "Dear Jim: Your letter has just come. I've been thinking a lot about us, Jim, and I've decided that our engagement was a mistake. That, I'm sorry, Jim, but I don't love you. 1 hope you will apree with me that we were both mistaken. It's best just to end it now. I know that I never want to leave Oakton. I'll send the ring back to you by registered mail and I hope you won't be angry with me. Good-by and good luck, always." She stood up, squared her shoulders shoul-ders and went downstairs. In the living room Chloe found her father, Jane and Melissa chatting chat-ting comfortably before the fire. They looked up as she came in and her father said lightly, "Not dressed yet, darling? What have you been doing, taking a nap?" "No, Dad," said Chloe with a new serenity that they all noticed. "I've been writing to Jim. To tell him that our engagement was a mistake." mis-take." "Are you sure, Chloe?" asked her father. "Yes, Dad," said Chloe quietly, though her voice rang with a little note of sureness they could not miss. "Very sure. I have discovered that I want to stay here in Oakton with you and Aunt Jane and Gran. I want to be here, with the business and the town you helped to build. The peo-ple'here peo-ple'here know you and respect you. I want to be their friend, too, and not just 'The Little Crown Princess.' Prin-cess.' " It was late the following afternoon when she found time in a day that had been breathlessly crowded, to pay her daily visit to Scott. He was sitting up in a wheel chair beside be-side the window and the delight of finding him so well along toward recovery re-covery filled the first moment of greeting. She told him about the Day Nursery Nurs-ery which had opened formally that morning with a matron in charge, with Margaret and Ellen as assistants, assist-ants, excited and thrilled with their new importance. Suddenly while she talked, Scott's eyes fell upon her ungloved hands and he looked star- "The people here know yon and respect you." tied. "Your ring," he said suddenly. sudden-ly. "You're not wearing it any more." Chloe met his eyes bravely. She was flushed, starry-eyed, a little tremulous. "No," she said, her voice not quite steady. "I'm not wearing it any more." For the space of a moment they were both silent. The thing that she saw standing clear and shining in Scott's eyes brought a little' mist of tears to her own. It was Scott who spoke first and all he said was the one word, "Why?" "I sent it back," Chloe told him serenely, "because I realized that I that he that we had made a mistake." Scott only said soberly: "If anything any-thing I said caused this " Chloe's head went up and her eyes flashed blue fire. She had lowered low-ered her pride. She had made it quite plain that she had broken her engagement to Jim Pearsall because she had discovered that she was in love with Scott Kelvin instead. And if Scott didn't want her she drew a long hard breath and stood up drawing draw-ing her coat about her, her face pale and composed. "Please don't give it another thought," she said icily. "I have discovered that Oakton is a very nice place, after all. And since the Sargent Mills will some day be my responsibility, I think it is as well that I should stay here and learn more about them, don't you? I'm so glad to see you up. Perhaps you may even be well enough to be wheeled over to the Community House on Christmas Eve. I think you might like the party." "Thank you," said Scott, his face as cold, as composed as hers. "I'm sure I'd enjoy it immensely." The following day Chloe and a committee of six went to Atlanta for the final shopping. Such things as Oakton was unable to provide, and which Chloe felt the party needed need-ed to be complete. Jane chaperoned the group and they stayed overnight over-night at a hotel where Jane entertained enter-tained them at dinner and later at a movie. "After such dissipation," Jane told them tcasingly as they started for home at noon the following day, "I hope you wild young tilings will be able to settle down to a quiet, orderly life again." Chloe dropped the other girls at their homes before she turned toward to-ward her own. As she and Jane came within sight of the big old red brick house set in the midst of its spacious grounds, Chloe taw a wom- W. N. U. Release an loitering about the place. She looked quickly to the right and to the left and, to Chloe's surprise, the woman darted inside the grounds. A tall shrub offered her shelter. As the car turned in at the driveway, the woman started and whirled about. For a moment Chloe saw her full in the white light from the car. A thin, shabby looking woman scarcely more than a girL with wide dark eyes and a pallid face. And then, with a little sobbing gasp, the woman turned to run. Instantly Chloe brought the car to a halt with a sharp grinding of brakes and jumped from the car. Chloe easily overtook the stranger. "Let me go!" she wailed. "I haven't done anything wrong. I please " "Stop that," Chloe ordered swiftly. swift-ly. "Nobody's going to hurt you. What do you want here?" , "I I thought perhaps I might ( get work. A job of some kind. I need work so badly," stammered the woman, and would not quite meet Chloe's eyes. "But you should have gone to the administration Office at the mills. There's an employment office there," said Chloe, and released her ( arm now that the woman seemed less likely to flee. "Look here, how long since you've had anything to eat?" "I I don't remember. Maybe yesterday," she faltered. "Then you're coming to the house to have a good hot dinner, and per- j haps Dad can find something for you to do," said Chloe firmly. Chloe led the way down the hall to the small sitting room. There was a cheerful open fire and Chloe smiled at the stranger. "Here, sit down and get warm. Aaron will be here soon with some food," she was saying, when there came the sound of a childish treble voice on the stairs. Little pattering footsteps came along the hall, the door burst open and Susie May, dainty and fresh in an exquisite handmade frock, her tow-colored curls brushed and shining, stood in the doorway, Chloe's name on her childish eager lips. But whatever Susie May had been going to say to Chloe died unspoken as her eyes fell upon the stranger. For a moment Susie May stood breathless, a rigid little statue. And then she screamed wildly in a tone of incredulous delight, "Mommie! Oh, Mommie! Oh!" The woman fell to her knees, tears streaming down her white face. Susie Su-sie May flung her small ecstatic body into outstretched arms that closed hard about her. "We should have known Susie May's and Timmy's mother," said Jane, and Chloe nodded, tears sliding slid-ing down her cheeks as Susie May and her mother clung together. Melissa, who had followed Susie May downstairs, but at a necessarily necessari-ly slower gait, appeared in the doorway door-way and took in the scene with startled star-tled eyes. "Oh," said Melissa. "You are Susie May's mother?" The woman lifted her face still wet with her tears. "I'm sorry. I know I shouldn't have come," she said unsteadily. "But I was so hungry to see them. I didn't mean to be any trouble." Melissa asked gravely, "Why did you desert them?" "Because I had lost my job and I had no way of taking care of them. I knew that if I left them at Mrs. Bar-well's Bar-well's they would be taken to the Home. But the home is only open to the children whose parents are both dead. I couldn't see them starve and it seemed the only way," she answered with a sort of dreadful dread-ful simplicity. Melissa nodded. "I had an idea it was something like that," she said quietly. The three went out and left Susie May clinging to her mother, while the woman ate the food set before her with a pitiful effort to curb her hunger and to eat daintily what her starving body demanded. When Melissa came back to the library Howell had arrived and had heard the story from Chloe and Jane. As Melissa came in Howell was saying, frowning a little: "But of course I will have to find out first why she was fired before I can decide whether we can give her another job." "Oh, but Dad, she needs work " protested Chloe excitedly. "I know, darling, and we always try to give it to people who need it," her father pointed out, "But, after all, she wasn't fired without some reason." "But we've got to And her a job, so she can take care of Timmy and Susie May." "It's funny to me," said Melissa, "that not one of you three very smart people has decided that there is a grand job made to order for Ma zie, which, by the way, happens to be her name." "A job made to order for her, Mother?" asked Howell. "Of course matron of the Day Nursery. We can give her the salary sal-ary that the nurse, is getting now. That will give her a home for herself her-self and the babies and a job by which she can be self-supporting." Jane and Chloe and Howell exchanged ex-changed glances and Chloe said, pleased: "Gran, you're a genius!" Melissa chuckled. "Well, I do occasionally oc-casionally have an inspiration," she agreed modestly. (TO BE COSTIMED) |