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good hearing distance, was used to keep
silence and criticise the talkers) was as
busy with tongues and hands as its neigh-
bors. So Mrs. Hardy, smiling a little at
her neighbor's absent glance, listened un-
til her thoughts wandered far afield. She
only half caught the enthusiasm of the
neighbor to her right, over an address on
village improvement, or the indignation of
the dames to the left, who were rehears-
ing the political baseness of Massachu-
She was recalling a day thirty-three
years ago. She did not see the secretary
behind the table, whispering to the presi-
dent; she did not notice a little group to
the left near where the silk banner of Mas-
sachusetts fluttered, putting their heads to-
gether and gesticulating above their whis-
pers. She forgot her surroundings and
saw only a tall young man whose ardent
eyes sank as they met her own, a handsome
young fellow, who caught her hand in his,
as they sat alone in the carriage, driving to
the depot, and kissed the fingers and the
wedding-ring, crying out he was not half
"He was in love
good enough for her.
with me, then!" she thought. But now?
Well, it was not to be expected a man with
a great business and cares and money to
think about and political affairs (for they
were importuning Darius to go to the Sen-
ate) should be paying romantic compli-
Never-
ments to his middle-aged wife.
theless, Darius had never forgotten their
On her re-
anniversary until last year.
minding him, he had whistled and laughed.
So it is," says he, "we ought to spend it
together; it's a shame I have to go to
Chicago; why don't you come with me?"
Smiling (yet a foolish something not
merry was twitching at her nerves), she
had declined. But she made a good ex-
cuse; Darius never guessed that she was
so silly as to mind; and he brought her a
sweet pigeon-blood ruby ring, set in dia-
monds, from Chicago; and he kissed her
when he slipped it on her finger-kissed
her cheek, not her hand. She wondered,
at this minute, why she should wish that
he had kissed the hand instead; an elder-
ly woman ought to be content with a calm,
assured, faithful affection, and let beauti-
ful youngsters have the frills. That even-
ing, she planned a dinner carefully to his
liking, and she would not let herself be dis-
appointed when he brought a political mag-

VOL. XXX.-26

nate, who talked politics, from the terrapin.
to the coffee. She smiled, again, as she
thought how much more of interest she
would have found in the conversation, to-
day, after the club's year on Our Colon-
ial Policies. This last anniversary Darius
had clean forgotten. In fact, he had ad-
vised her to go to the Federation meeting;
saying, lightly, that it came at an oppor-
"Milwaukee is a
tune moment because he must be away,
that week, himself.
pretty city," he ended, amiably. "and
there will be lots of hen-functions and
you'll enjoy yourself; but what's the ob-
ject of it all, your Federation ?”

"I don't know"-she astonished him with her frank levity-" when I do I'll tell you.”

"Well, don't get into any rows you can help," said he, easily; "want any more ? Got plenty?" money

66

Plenty, thank you," said she, “although I am going to be rather extravagant and get some very smart toilets."

He looked over his glasses at her; and she was not able to decipher his smile. Didn't he approve of her clothes? she sent her fine eyes into the mirror of her dressing-table, after he had gone, and studied the picture there with a frown and a smile, at last with a moisture over her eyes.

But, although he said nothing, when she next examined her bank-book she found her credit larger. "Maybe he does like my spending more money on my gowns," she thought.

She did not

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She went to Milwaukee. remind him of the anniversary. She said to herself that she would seriously try to disHer daughter-incover the object of the Federation; then, she would tell Darius. "Quite a family party,' law accompanied her; and her daughter was to meet her. well, I hope you girls will And, I say, Hester, said her son ; have a good lark! find out what it's all about--if you can!" At first, Myrtle Hardy was more bewildered than excited. The scene was unlike anything in her experience. The hotels glittering with feminine finery and humming with feminine voices; the placards over doorways in rotundas or corridors, announcing head-quarters; the vast crooning bulk of the lake, the iridescent gleam of water that came to one in glimpses

as one was whirled down the wide and breeze-swept avenues, amid a dazzle of lovely fabrics and smiling faces, blooming like flowers in swiftly passing victorias or rattling cabs, or rippling over the sidewalks into the wide vestibules where Milwaukee welcomed her guests; the noisy rush of the city; the ceaseless rattle and clang of the electric-cars which were like an orchestral accompaniment to the magnetic excitement pulsing under the decorous calm of the meetings in the flowerdecked theatres, or eddying through the foyer these at first dazed the woman unused to clubs. But only for a brief time. Presently, she began to be consulted; her advice was asked; she made a speech in a meeting of the state delegation. There was, in the speech, her natural clear sensewhich goes for something always and everywhere there was, also, the mark in voice and speech and pose, of her years' training with the teachers. “I believe you could be heard all right, in the theatre," said the president of the state delegation, afterward, "will you make a motion or two for us, this afternoon?" She made the motions; and, strangely enough, she wasn't so frightened as she had been in the state delegation; in fact, she proposed a simple short cut through an unnecessary dilemma with not much feeling beyond wonderment that so many clever women could get themselves into such a tangle. The applause and delight of her companions of the delegation touched her. "I'm in it, again," she thought, railing at her own vanity, but curiously pleased. Now, her thoughts were back, groping through the years when she was not "in it." Not the days of her youth, not at all; she had been the leader of her mates, an ingenious, tolerant, easygoing leader, admired and loved, shining among them by right of two years in an Eastern boarding-school and a trip to Europe.

Not in her early married life, either; although, at first, Darius was poor and the great wagon manufactory was but a daring experiment. In those days she knew all her husband's hopes and plans as well as his troubles. He used to say, often, that she had a good business head. Those days they lived in a little brown wooden house with a five-foot piazza; and Darius mowed the tiny lawn himself; and she put up her

own preserves and made all the children's clothes-pretty clothes they were, too; she was a housewife whose praise was in all the churches. But it does not follow that she had ceased to be a leader, far from it; she was the president of the "Ladies' Sewing Society " of her church; and of the first woman's club, classically named the "Clionian." She was a progressive spirit; she it was who introduced the regular motion into the business meetings; before her reign it having been the artless custom of the societies to talk until the discussion either languished or grew too violent, when some promoter of harmony would call out, "Let us put it to vote," whereupon there would be a few timid ayes and a selfrespecting silence instead of no; and the measure would be adopted. Pertaining to this custom was an inevitable sequel of plaintive criticism from all the modest souls who "didn't like to speak," but who were full of foreboding wisdom. Myrtle Hardy was one of the few who could speak; and she was considered to speak very much to the point. Those days, she was keenly interested in all the life of a young, hopeful, bustling little Western city. She belonged to a musical society and would rise at five in the morning to practice, and she was one of an anxious band of women who had bought a library and were running an amateur entertainment bureau to support it. Then, Darrie was in home-made knickerbockers; Myrtie was a sweet, little, loving hoyden who was her mother's despair because she would climb trees in her white frocks; Ralph was a baby, and the two little girls that died were their mother's tiny helpers, with the willingest little hands and feet. Sitting there in the crowded and noisy theatre, a quiver ran over the mother's face. Her friends had forgotten, the brothers and sisters had forgotten, even Darius seemed to forget; but, day and night, she remembered the eager little faces, lighting so happily at her praise, the shining little heads that used to nestle against her heart. The two died of scarlet fever in one terrible week. In that week, the first gray threads had crept into Myrtle Hardy's beautiful brown hair. She was nurse and comforter and helper, then, to Darius. She felt her eyes cloud with the vision of him, as he flung himself on the babies' little bed,

sobbing in the terrible, racking passion of a man's grief. "Not now, dear, not now, not till the others are safe," she had whispered; "we have them still; they need us."

She wondered was it after the babies went that she began to drop out of things. Somehow she was so busy comforting Darius and nursing the others back to health, and crowding back her own ceaseless grief out of sight; and thinking of cheerful things to say and new interests for the others, that the library passed out of corporate existence and into endowed rest with hardly a thought from her. Nearly at the same time, the musical society perished in a cataclysm, due to the sensitive musical temperament; and the literary society died of inanition, after browsing through literature from Milton to Dante; and after each member had written one or two papers, thus sating the natural curiosity of the other members. Myrtle did not lift a hand to save either of the societies. She heard the wrathful accusations of the musical warriors, and put in the unappreciated word for peace, but did not resent its She consoled the literary mourners with the reflection that they could read up about things in the magazines or the books of the new library; and masked her secret listlessness with perfunctory regret. Long after, she came to wonder whether it was not she who went into prison, then; rather than the world that left her on one side. Did she not gently but rigidly exclude the friends who would have called upon her, and shut herself apart with her own? Continually, she used to pray for cheerfulness, for patience; but it never occurred to her to pray for interest. When other societies were formed, she did not care to join them; she followed her own advice and read apart by herself. By and by, although so much more of a personage, she was no longer beset with invitations. The younger women organized a new club with new methods; and Myrtle Hardy read her books, peacefully, on her wide piazzas, amid her plants and flowers. When Myrtie came back from college, Darius asked her wasn't she going to help Myrtie by joining the club with her?

"Dear, no,” said she, blithely, "they are all so young."

"Why don't you get up a club of your

own, then, and take in the other left outs?" said he.

"I don't fancy women's clubs much; you know I did belong to them; they are half-baked things, and they take their own improvement with such deadly seriousness. And it is such a smattering that you get in them. A smattering is always forgotten; unless you know a lot about a thing you forget it all."

"Oh, well, you know best what you like," said Darius, easily; "I only thought you seemed a little dull." He dropped the subject; but she repeated his words, often to herself; he never had thought her dull, before. She noticed that Myrtie did not talk of her club. She was puzzled. Outwardly, Myrtie was a handsome young woman with a highbred repose of manner which she had acquired as a college editor and the protector of new girls; inwardly, she was still shy, desperately in dread of awkwardness, and brimming with enthusiasms. Not until she was about to be married did her mother find a trace of her little girl in this gently haughty young creature. And, then, there remained only Myrtie's last photographs and Myrtie's empty chamber, and the weekly letters for her mother's hungry heart. "I am not sure I know her," she would often muse, those days, "I am only sure she doesn't know me!'

Myrtie lived in Chicago; she had married very well indeed; and had a prosperous husband who was a graduate of Harvard and dallied with Reform; and there were two sweet little children who called Mrs. Hardy "Granny"; and Myrtie always consulted her mother when they were ill; she was a devoted daughter. "When my dear mother was alive," said Mrs. Hardy, smiling rather grimly, "grannies were not very nice old crones who smoked pipes in the chimney corner; and 'Grandma' was good enough for any grandmother; now, 'Grandma' is provincial and I am a granny, myself. It is a little puzzling."

The children were all out of the house, now. Ralph, the youngest, was at college; she was well acquainted with him; she used to write him about the books she read and he wrote her about the boys and football; she knew a great deal about football. She lived in a stately new colonial house

with quaint little window-panes wherever they would not obstruct the view, and snowy tiled bath-rooms, such as no colonial ever knew; and terraces decked with pink and blue hydrangeas; and dazzling window gardens. Myrtie had been as kind as possible about the house; and Myrtie's taste was charming; it had been an education in colonial history as well as architecture to have Myrtie help build the house; even the architect was deferential to her. Across the street was Darrie's less costly but no less correctly charming house. Hester had done Myrtie's architectural bidding, also. Darrie was the best of sons. She was proud of him; and his father depended more and more on him. She loved his wife; and his children were her vivid delight. Darrie used to fetch her flowers and new plants for the window gardens; and tell her about the children's funny sayings. Darius, her husband, grew kinder and more generous all the time; he gave her a check-book of her own; she told her old friends that she had the best husband and children in the world; and that she was a grateful woman she duly remembered her abundant mercies in her prayers; and yet—and yet she began to feel herself retired. A most respectable position, that of a retired officer; but, somehow, generals and admirals do not covet it. Nor did Myrtle Hardy. She had been in the centre of her own stage; now she felt herself most gently, most civilly, pushed into the wings. Her daughter-in-law, with all her admiration and her dutiful respect, had interests which she never discussed; had a point of view and ideals which were outside her comprehension.

She felt fatigued and puzzled when she heard the younger generation's familiar speech with itself. "I am not in it," she said to herself. Darius, too, no longer consulted her; the old fashion of confidence had somehow slipped away; he had not very much to say when they were alone; and he was beginning to call her "Mother." Myrtle Hardy considered. She thought for weeks and thought hard. She sat in her sewing-room, upstairs, where were the only two rocking-chairs that Myrtie's impeccable taste had allowed to bide in the house. She sat first in one then in the other of the chairs, her

needlework unheeded in her lap; and watched her little grandson and his sister playing while the nurse made an interminable German lace on the back porch ; and just across from her window, Hester, her daughter-in-law, sat amid a heap of books, reading and making notes. "That child has been studying for three months, every spare moment, on her paper about 'Scientific Plumbing in the Modern Mansion.'" Mrs. Hardy muttered, with a frown, "well, I hope she will know something, if she keeps her mind ! That was not the way we prepared club papers in my day; we decided on our subjects one meeting and we read our essays on them the next; and two weeks was enough for us; now, they spend a half year making a programme and have it hanging over them a year in advance." She watched her daughter-inlaw, smiling grimly; then, suddenly, she rose, with the motion of one who has come to a decision. "At least they are not superficial, nowadays," she said, "and perhaps it is better to take one's self too seriously than not seriously enough. And after all, Hester did find out what was the matter with the laundry faucets."

One day she told her daughter-in-law that she wanted to join a class in parliamentary law.

"But we haven't any," objected Mrs. Darius Hardy, Jr., meekly.

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Then get up one," said the one time president of clubs. "Get all you can to join a class, send for a teacher, and I will make up the deficit, in the subscription list."

A parliamentary teacher of renown came; she was also a teacher of expression-that was her poetical word. Hester caught her breath the first time her motherin-law rose in the class to "speak to the motion." She embraced her with beaming eyes and the prettiest rose of delight on her cheeks. "Oh, how did you learn it?" she sighed, happily, "you are the best of us all!"

"I took some private lessons in Chicago," said Mrs. Hardy-her quiet manner did not betray an unexpected thrill.

"You're beautiful!" cried Hester.

After that, Hester always seconded her mother-in-law's motions; and fought in the mimic debates as valiantly on her side as a natural, timid reticence would let her.

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