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Show Si Dorothy Dix Talks j j THE GIRL I LEFT BEHIND ME I Do you, 0 middle-aged woman, ever meet that person, who is the strangest strang-est person in all the world to you, the girl that you were when you were sweeL-and-twenty.'and whom you have left so far behind that you can t scarcely remember how she looked, or what manner of creature sho, was? Sometimes you come upon her picture pic-ture In nn old album, and you look at It curiously. How pretty and fresh the face is! How serene and untroubled. How trustingly the eyes look out upon' the world! What a bloom of rose was in those cheeks I What gold wa3 tangled tan-gled In that hair? How, lithe and slim, as a willow wand, that girlish figure! It is like the portrait of one long dead and half forgotten, and as youj look from it toyour reflection in a mirror, and see yourself, stout and' grizzle-headed, with tired eyes and! with lines of care and suffering on1 your face, you can scarcely believe' that you were ever she. I Sometimes the girl you left behind you comes and sits beside your bed in the silent watches of the night, and you marvel at how gay and light-heart-1 ed she is. Laughter ri,pples forever over her ll,ps, and her heart sings with just tho joy of living. She is sure that this is the best of all pos-j sible worlds, and that her path Is going go-ing to be strewn with roses with nev-j I or a thorn among them, and that the' , . t sun is always going to shine for her. - It. lms hrfn Vfnvc a-ni ini -.- -tnnr.l ('jsm you reaIIy laughed or thrilled to the fffl ccstacy of being. The path you have Wjf'jfj trodden has been hard and stony, with I'w'l few flowers blooming along its arid iffljl way and your sky lias had so many Wm more clouds than sunshine that you 111 have learned to be fearfully, forever nil expecting storms. Mm But as an echo of the girl's gay Mm laughter flits back to you you are filled Mm with a furious anger against those who ' Mm robbed her of her joyousness, who J (ljB stifled the song in her heart, and who film blotted out the sunshine from her. mm And as you look into the eyes of :- the girl you left behind you, vou see that they are filled with dreams the IB beautiful romantic dreams of maiden- hood that always end, like the fairy tale, with "And so they were married and lived happily ever afterwards." j Sho dreamed of a lover, as hand- s.ome as a prince, and as noble as Sir m Galahad, who would find her and claim her for his own, and that thoy would M go through the world with his strong jfS . arm about her, protecting hor from ev- 21 ery hardship, and their souls one, in p a-'V n ranturo of perfect companionship. KyjjH . You smile cynically at the girl's vis- J5r is ; J0n of married life, from which the last itmm tattered rag of romance has been torn iMBn Iov 'ou so long ago, Your prince has Wm grown fat and bay-windowed. Your ifi-M sir Galahad rows with you over the ;.l ui'ls. and doles out your carfare to . '1 J'ou it "has been ages since he gave J"ou a kfss that was not a duty kiss, I 1 flavored with ham and eggs, and you I know with a bitter certainty that no-thing no-thing you could do or say would raise I one-tenth of the thrill in his breast mmm that a two-point rise in stocks does. H But you could weep with pity for the mmt girl whose dreams were to be swept mum away -so soon. They might have left her Illusions. They might have let i her hide the sordidness of every-day lining even from her own eyes with i her cloak of romance, but no one took I the trouble to do it. They waked her from her dream, and life became ashes and dust and cinders in her teeth. The girl you left behind you was so full of faith in all that is fine and high and she had ideals that reached to the stars. She trusted life and was unafraid. un-afraid. Sho believed in humanity and ached to be of service to it. Her faifh and love was a religion. ! It sears your soul to remember how I the years and experience took from the girl her beliefs, one by one, and changed her into tho suspicious, cyni-cal.selfish, cyni-cal.selfish, worldling you have become, Sorrowing and suffering taught her fear. Ingratitude made her distrustful. distrust-ful. She saw love turn traitor to the ; breast that warmed it into life. Hard experience taught her that only the selfish and self-seeking can hold their own in a self-centered world. It was when she had learned this lesson that the girl's face lost forever the soft look It woro in the picture. Oftenest when we meet again, the girl we left behind us, we ask her wistfully wist-fully where it was, along the years, that she lost tho high intentions with which she so confidently started out. She was going to do great things. She was going to write a book, or compose music, or interpret a play that would be an inspiration to humanity. When sho married sho was not go-'ing go-'ing to sink into the rut of small domestic do-mestic interests that other women fall into, but she was going to live a broad free life, full of intellectual and artistic artist-ic interests. She was going to be a wifo who would keep her husband I keyed up to the best that was in him, a mother who Vo.uld develop her I children into super-men and super-wo-jmen, a housekeeper whose homo was limn without jar or friction, as if by magic. Alas for the good intentions of our girlhood! Tho book 13 unwritten, the song unsung. We are poor, weak, erring err-ing wives and-mothers just as our neighbors are, vexed over the servant problem and .wrestling inefficiently (with tho high cost of living, and we smile as wo remember the egotism of our youthful plans. Sometimes sho comforts us, sometimes some-times she saddens us, this girl we left behind us, whom we glimpse some-times some-times in a passing memory or in a rare, tender look in our husband's eyes. Dorothy Dbt's articles will appear in this paper every Monday, Wednesday Wednes-day and Fridav. 1 1 , nn |