The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1888-06-01
C~oNQUERING A QUAKER.

| don't know what you mean to take y
said Helena Marvin, looking into the room
where her sister was packing.
t'Take?" said Edith, hardly pausing to
answer as she moved about the open trunks
from closet to bureau. "Why, I'm going
to take everything"
"Don't you mean to make any conces-
sions!'
"Not a concession"
"You think it will be better to defy
them?"
"Defy them! no, indeed! What a hor-
rible idea! ! mean to please them"
"But how can you possibly please them
if you wear silk dresses and curl your
hair?'
Il don't know; perhaps | shan't; but
I'm going to try. And | know | never
should please anybody if | left my hair
straight and the pretty Cambridge belle
thought to herself that it wonld be a pity,
indeed, if she, who had always pleased
everybody without trying. could not please
Roberts relatives if she did try.
But this visit to Roberts relatives was
naturally contemplated with even more
than the usual trembling excitement ofthe
young iancee. For Roberts father and
mother and sisters were all Quakers, with
| traditions and beliefs and customs accord
ing to which they ought to contemplate
with horror and distress this union of their
only son and brother with a wording,
and such a wording! Such a fasci-
mating combination of laughing eyes
and merry lips and curling hair and
tinkling bangles and r%ustling long silk
skirts and coquettish bonnets and bewild-
But she had a faint hope that, once
brought in contact with her worldiiness,
they would find it %plcasanter than they
thought. Why not? She had conquered
Robert; why should she not conquer them?
Robert had not fallen in love with her in
spite of her airs and graces; he had fallen
in love with the airs and graces themselves.
He had often told her so. He had repeat
eddy pointed ont the particular little curl
over her adorable forehead that had first
won his attention, and had assured her
that it was a certain bit of lovely lace
about her throat that had completed his
subjugation. And that dear little curl was
not only a curl, but a bought curl, held in
its place by hairpins, and as ~fictitiously
worldly as a curl could be. True, Robert
was not exactly a Quaker; he was only a
descendant of Quakers. He had not def
nitely renowned the world, although there
chung to him, from the force of heredity
and training and circumstances, a certain
grave demeanor and atmosphere of earn
e~stness. He did not dance; he did not
even want TO dance; bat he did not exactly
disapprove of other people dancing if any
body did choose to indulge in so foolish a
caprice; and on the evening when he had
been lured by a friend to one of the Cam
bridge Assemblies" and had met there
his immediate, unquestionablc, i~rresisti-
BILE worldly little fate, he had even felt
suddenly a sort of impotent rage with
himself at not being able to dance. True,
he didn't want to dance any more than he
ever did; but then, she wanted to dance,
and how could he ever please her if he
conldn't do exactly the same things she
did?
Still, he had pleased her, and with very
little effort; for the quiet, earnest youth
was tall and very handsome, and would
graduate with honors; in consideration of
which attractions his earnestness might be
forgiven, even, indeed, if the earnestness
itself had not a certain charm of its own,
as at least a novelty. So, if Robert had
pleased her, and she had pleased Robert,
unlike each other as they were, and every
body acknowledged that it was a perfect
love match on both sides, why might it not
be possible that she would please Roberts
relations, though not so much as a slipper
bow would she sacrifice from her pleasant
worldliness to secure that much-to-be-de-
sired result.
AS it CHANGED, a test of her resolution in
this respect was offered Immediately.
Mrs. Marvin and Edith had hardly been
shown to their chamber, after their arrival
at the Longworth home. before Edith
opened her travelling bag and exclaimed in
dismay:
sOh, dear! oh, dear. Mamma, my slate
pencil is all broken into bits, and my
crimps are all ont of curl. Whatever shall
| do? Oh, l know. Esther said she
would be in the next room if / wanted any
thing"
In another minute she was tapping at
Esther's door.
81 I'm so sorry to trouble you, but my
slate pencil is all broken to bits in my
bag. Could you let me have one of
yours?"
'sThee would like a slate pencil?" said
Roberts serene sister, with evident be-
wilderment.
eyes, for my crImps, you know, they
are all out of curl and so tnmble6 that /
can't go down stairs looking So"
"But could thee not comb them out?
| could lend thee a comb to comb them
out"
81 could, of course, but you have no
idea what a fright am without my crimps.