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One Way To Woo

One Way To Woo image
Parent Issue
Day
9
Month
July
Year
1897
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

Miss Shepherd was -an ernotional crfiiid grown vinder theglassof repression Ihrough which beat the nierciless rays if an abnormal conscience always at tropical zenith. Had she lived in the good old days when liberty and the stake were planted side by side ou New England soil, slw might liuve obtaincd a comfurtable soiace by burning yitohes and eshibiting other devotional graces iudicative of a deep auddisceniing spirituality. But this (pioua sedative to a restless conscieuce was denied her. Unfortunatcly her mortal advent had beeu delayed until this grosser age when the most spiritual iawgiver vonld think twice before condemning a lieretio to the flamcs and when many are so weak and vacillating as to admit that they do uot Isnow the whole trnth. She posBessed an unreasonable reason, which had to be satisfled vrith the plain food of transparent ruoralities and would take no other. To her obtuse spiritual visión abstract right appeared in the guise of an inevitable rule of conduct and this curious mental deformity naturally drew her into eudless predicaments of the most uucomfortable kind. As she carne up the steps of the Wells street station and pushed past th bus drivers and cabmen aloiig the curb she was rushing forward into the vortex of one of these conscience wbirlpool more swift and turbid than auy wlricJ had yet tossed and swirled her frail bu venturesonie bark on its black waters. Far from being weighed down by any prernonition of this impending condi 'ion, she was conscious only of the fa miliar smell of roasting coffee which carne on the lake breeze from the whole sale coffee houses to the east. The fragraucc made her hungry and she found herself tempted, at a scandalously early hour, into the refectory of a big State street department store where she went to shop. Her appetite always seemed to suffer a sudden inflation on coming from Gray Willow into the city. "Grace Shepnerd!" This exclamation arrested the delicate china oup on its initial trip to her lips, as she caught sight of a tall young im;u at her side standing with his uapkin in hand. She responded : "Frank - Mr. Hyatt! I thought yon were in London reveling in fog, ale and other bohernian et ceteras, victimizing publishers and writing yellow literatura íor yellow books. " "I guess you've been reading the j Gray Willow Gazette, Grace, eh? The country editor at home was siruplypracticing forruyobituary. They're delightfully anticipatory creatures. I'm pained to mako the confidential report, however, that at the present time I'ru grasping af ter a few literary gems with which to illumine the select advertising pages of a magazine : "She said sho never, never would elope And spurn a fathcr's care, a mother's sighs, So long as Golden Lily toilet soap Was kept ainong the family suppliesl "More on application. And it floats - me at $10 per. Tve used no other since. Incidentally I ara writing a novel - but that doesn't even float itself. But teil me about yonrself, Graoe. Are you staying in town now?" I begin today. I'm to be a corapanion, or somethiug of the kind, to Mrs. Chester P. Graves and her daughter in Prairie avenue. " "Yes?" And he smiled guiltíly. "I tbink you'll find the position rather pleasant. Irt fact, I've worked at it a bit myself. Cali there once or twice a fortnight. Phoebe is a rathor pretty girl - stylish and all that- hut, well, I'd hate to leave a package oí' 'tnty fruty' in any of her secret haunts today if I cared as much for it as when we three í used to sit in the back row at the Gray Willow school." In the disturbing recollectious of her. chance encovmter with one who had been constantly in her thoughtsince the irst time when he liad "seen her horne;' "rom conferpuce meeting in Gray Wilov sho almost forgot that she was to meet Mrs. Graves in the silk departnent and be driven to her new home in he Graves carriage. "This, " said Mra Graves after they had gone to the chambers of the Pr,airie avenue mansión, "is to be your room. I hope you will like it. Let me stay and chat with you as you unpack your ferunk. Goodness, what a staok of white paper! Olie would thiuk you wrote for the papers." A noücoiumittal srnile on the part of the young woman was a practical plea of guilt. "How lovely! Why didn't you teil me of this? It's just the very accomplishment I most desire in a companion for Phcebe. But I hope you write poetry. yes? Splendid! I shall have that lovely writiug desk which we noticed down town seut np to your room tomorrow, and you'lldo me some verses right away, won 't you, dear? Of course I shall pay you extra for them. I want to - well, they are just what I want. " Had it not been for something which startled the speculation out of her mind Miss Shepherd would have spent her first uight as a fashionable companion m solving the riddle of why Mrs. Graves should be in suohfrauticneed of poetry. That something was a coufidential interview with Miss Phoebe in the latter's loom. With a childish and generous impetnosity the girl slipped her arm about Miss Shepherd's waist and confided : "I'm going to begin by telling yon Eornething very important, Frank Hyatt s coming to cali toruorrow night 'and i ake me to a concert. He's just lovely. " "Yes?" Volumes of recollections were betrayed in the tone of Miss Shepherd's esponse. There was a moment of siencc. It broke iu a storm, a shower of sobs and tears from the face which buried itself against Miss Sliepherd's neck. "Oh, promise - promise me that you Vfill never, never do a single thing to i separate us. You won't, will you?" she pleaded. Pity for the impulsire young girl in the fear of her first love dictatcd Miss Shejsherd's soothing answer. "No, dear; nothing that I do shall j ever separate you from him. You don't think I coukl be so cruel and treacherous as to do snch t thing. " The proiuise had to bemany times repeated duririg the days which folio-wed. Sitting alone in the softly lighted library one evening, a sad processional of banished dreanis and remembrances passed theuiselves with intrusive persistence before her backward mental glance. Iu final desperation she turned the light to its full and took up the leading society paper froin the table. i or a moment onJy her face flushed with the lightof secret pleasure. There, in clear but dainty typography, was the last poem which she had written. The next moment her expression mirrored the changes of anger, grief, moral reeentment and indignation and finally betrayed a conflict of all these impulses. She leancd back in the chair, closed her eyes and sat motionless, without a sign of consciousness save the tears that escaped froin under her long, droopiug eyelashes. The cause? At the bottom of the poem was the signature Phcebe. When at last she arose from her lethargy she made a hurried exaruination of more papers. There she fouiother of her poems with the same falsbsignature attached. It was little sleep or rest that carne to her eyes until she had possessed herself of the principal elements in her complication of conscience. These were that the ambitious mother had placed the poems with the varionseditors, leaving the latter with the well.defined impression that they were the work of her daughter. This impression bocame generally communicated to the social circles in which tne Graveses moved and the compiiments which were brought to the young woman were certainly not repelled. The invitations and attentions received by the daughter were fiattering and Mrs. Graves was apparently happy in the snecess of her shrewd niovement. One moment Miss Shepherd was exnltant with determination to follow a high sense of duty and reasoned with herself : "Yes, I must exposé the whole thing. It is base, dishonest, oppressive and corrupt. It is worse than steahng. It will be an awfnl ordeal for all, but I must expose the wickeduess of it. " The next moment she would temper her high determination with the reflection, "But what about my promise to Phcebe? To exposé that sham would be to put an end to all relations between Frank Hyatt and the poor girl. He would despise ber forever and her ruother more than she. All their wealth would not weigh with his impulsivo judgment and flut; sense of honor against such a hollow and revolt iug sham, and it would crush the child. Then Mrs. Graves bought the jorrus and only the signatura of Phoebe was attached, just as any pen name might have been had it not hapjened to have been the giveu name of ler daughter. " One day, while passing the publicaion office of the society paper in which he poems of Phoebe had appeared, the mpulse to go in, have an interview with he editor and end the whole cruel gle seized her. She entered the corridor of the building and was walking to the elevator with the desperate haste of one fearful that courage mightgive place to hesitation when a cheerful voice exlaimed : "Oh, Graee! Pardon me for stopping you, but I wish to see yon for a moment. VVould you mind stepping over to the Masonic temple a moment with me? We can have au opportunity to chat in freedom and seqlusion on one of those inviting benches in the corridor of an upper floor. That place is a perpetual iuspiration to me. lts height seems to provoke in me acorrespondingelevation of thought. 1 dosome of my best thinking on tiiose benches, where I can peer over the rail into the depths below. " fche silently acceded to his suggestion. "Isn't that as artistic as an old fashioned hearthside settle?" he asked as they took seats on one of the oak benches. "First," he continued, "I want to teil you of the disgusting trick that the Graveses ire guilty of. You inay not know it, but I was out to luucheon with the editor of Society the other day and he told me that" - "Yes, I know all about that," interrupted his companion. "You do! Well, I shouldn't have been surprised, for it's just like your generosity and forbearauce to suffer a thing like that for the sake of others and the fear of injuring their feelings. But 1 wouldn't have your conscience not for an interest in The Century Magazine or a bicycle raanufactory. It simply siokened me, and I've not been to their house since, you know. "But, Grace, that isn't a beginning of what I want to say to you. Let me finish now. Ever since you tied rny red scarf for me at recess tht winter day in the old Gray Willow schooJhouse I have known that I loved you. But ambitiou has kept me out of the kingdom ; of your love. If I stav out anv longer. it will be because you shutmeont. " Then with an exultant laugh he added, "And you wouldu't do that when an easteru house has just accepted my novel, would you?" To cry or to laugh becomes a compulsory ehoioe at certain moments in a ■womau's life. This was snob a ïuomeiit, and as environments were nnpropitioua for weeping she cbose the otber alternative, and, echoing bis niood, laughingly responded: "Tiiat would seem a bit cruel, and, besides, all naycolleotion of printed slips from publisbors, 'Declined with thanks,' are at home." With the drop of the elevator whioh carried therennited Invers tol hegrounrl fioorended theliterary careerof ayouug society girl, and a burelen on the conscience of her Puritanical 'compauioir

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Subjects
Old News
Ann Arbor Democrat