The state capital., 1892-04-30
THE WORLDS WAY.


Their names were Marion Gray, Annabel
Summers and Susie Lee, and the docu-
ment which they drew up on a winters
afternoon, when they ought to have been
writing an essay On the reign of Henry
VIII, was as follows:
I'VE, the undersigned, being fully con-
vinced of the degeneracy and inferiority OF
the male sex, and being assured that the
friendship of each of the two others for the
third lit took them IA long time to bring
this idea into shapel will be amply suffi-
cient for our wants in life, solemnly under
take never to marry, but to stay by each
other. admitting no fourth party to our
circle, and when we leave school to live all
together happily in little house until
death dc us part"
Then each of them pricked her finger
and scratched her initials at the foot of the
page. They could not do more, for the
supply of fluid ran short, and you see they
did not want to hurt themselves more than
was absolutely necessary.
Marion and Annabel were the leading
spirits in this conjuration. Marion had an
elder brother who delighted in ferreting
and shooting rabbits, and said that Tenny-
son and Mrs. Browning were all rot" SO
her contempt for man is ineligible. An
mabel, who had no brother, based her mis-
anthropy on grounds of pure reason. But
Susie, the youngest, who thought that if
all men were only half as nice as her father
they could not be altogether vile, wavered
for moment before signing She had only
just lately been building up for herself out
Of surreptitiously read novels hero COM
pounded of all the salient qualities of all
the heroes of romance and history. 1t was
very hard to give up this wonderful being,
as she was corscientiously bound to do if
she entered into the compact, especially as
he had already condescended to allow her
| to worship him and seek the protection of
his strong right arm. OF course she did
not tell her friends this, but they noticed
her reluctance. Annabel overpowered her
with metaphysics and Marion came out
with the much more practical argument:
IF you don't sign you don't care little
bit about us, and we will live in the little
house without you"
So Susie, finding that two solid girl
friends outbalanced one imaginary hero.
however weighted he was with noblest at
tributes, signed him away in little red
scrawl, though it seemed to be her hearts
blood she was sacrificing instead of her
thumbs.
NOW LndIueIlS db ScflOOl may propose
unto themselves all kinds of delightful
plans, but when they go out into the world
they find circumstances too strong for the
execution thereof. Thus it happened that
years afterward, not very many, but
vaguely long to these maidens, when
fingers were no longer inky, and oranges
were no longer eaten, with delicious sense
of wrongdoing, in their bedrooms, and
when Henry VIII himself was mere dim
impression, they thought no more of the
| little house, that miniature Castle Ada
mant, in which they were to lead their
idyllic existence.
Marion, who was rich, lived in great
country house in Perthshire; Annabel, who
was poor, was making her way upon the
London stage, and Susie was taking care
of her father in Il little Devonshire town.
They corresponded voluminously, as is the
way of maidens who have sworn eternal
friendship, but since that dark and fearful
day when Marion left school the three had
never once found themselves together.
But at the beginning of one August, aft
er dancing through q long London season.
Marion found herself among the pines and
larches and the glories of the Perthshire
hills, together with Annabel and Susie. OF
the three Susie had changed least; she was
the same quiet, plain frocked little maiden
she had been at school; but Annabel had
the actress tousled hair and daring grace
fulness of costume, and Marion was the
fashionable young lady with u taste for
satire and epigram.
"Do you remember this?' asked Marion
the day after her guests had arrived. She
was showing them her treasures The one
designated was an old leaf torn out of an
exercise book, with three faint yellow
scrawls at the bottom of it. Something of
the schoolgirl was in them still, for they
! did not laugh at themselves.
II have not altered my views" said An
mabel, land shall always hold to them.
The more see of men, and | see a good
deal of them on the stage, the more am
convinced that they are a very inferior lot.
I chucked one only the other day"
| what do You mean?" asked Susie in
some alarm.
| II mean that | have refused one offer of
marriage already"
.'Well. so have l." said Marion "And
you, Susie? Have you nobly kept to your
bond and taught one these lower animals
his position?"
| Yes" sighed Susie. She looked away,
and her eyes filled with tears. Evidently
/ she did not find the rejection of suitors SO
amusing.
Tell us all about it, Susie"
II can't; don't ask me about it, please
don't" And rising huzriedly she left the
lawn, where the three were sitting, and
ran into the house. The two girls looked
| at one another.
| II wonder whether the little goose looks
upon this nonsense as binding" said Ma
rion.
Il think that you and weren't hit, and
she is" said Annabel smoothing her gown.
HIM. Perhaps more is learned from
omission than admission" replied Marion.
She said no more but that evening, be-
fore she went to sleep, her fancies were not
strictly in accordance with the tenor of the
compact. Some one was coming soon whom
she could not look upon as an inferior an
imal. He had not yet given her the chance
Of refusing him, it is true, but-and at this
'but" she staid very pleasantly until she
dropped asleep. As for Susie, a tender spot
had been touched rather rudely. She lay
awake, too, some time that night She
thought of Il certain handsome, penniless
scapegrace, in whose arms she had cried
bitterly on that last day when she had told
him that she could not leave her father
against his will, and had promised to wait
and wait until he made name and fame for
himself. Indeed, old General Lee had
threatened to horsewhip him if ever he
dared speak or write to his daughter again.
k4-d the scapegrace, being an intelligent
scapegrace, and knowing that the general
was a man of his word, had prudently van
ished into the unknown, taking Susie's
heart with him.
Now, on the 18th of August the grouse,
who for long months had lived a happy life
in the heather, enjoying all the privileges
of social order and protective force, sud
denly awoke to the fact that chaos was
come again, and that the gathered or bare
kneed beings, who once guarded their in
terests so jealously, had turned into relent-