Herald and news. [volume] (West Randolph, Vt.) 1878-1943, 1898-09-08
Her Laurel !: ):
!: Crowned Defeat.
By Ida Rose MoCabs.
Copyright, isss.)

IDAULINED ETMARwas dismal fail
ure. If her bewildered little brain
had INDUCED misgiving to the con-
trary, it was ruthlessly dispelled as she
followed Mrs. Col. Raget and the Miss
Raget with her retinue of gallants from
| the ballroom of the Patriarchs.
Social successes are born. not made, .
remarked Mrs. Raget sententiously as
the family carriage rolled down the
avenue.
Miss Raget, the superb" to quote
the society column. yawned acquies-
| cence.
"Men are such stupid lot" said the
belle Of two seasons.
| When Pauline had been dismissed
with an osculatory good night, mother
and daughter sat down in their night
dresses, after the manner of woman
kind, to talk 1t over.
"She was by all odds the loveliest
girl" said Miss Raget, tossing her pink
satin slipper TO the farthest end of the
room.
"Unquestionably," said the colonies
wife. "And manners so refreshingly
artless and winsome-the manners Of
her mother. Lucretia was thoroughly
well-bred woman"
"And vet" said the superb"
pauline fell fiat. hopelessly fiat. Of
like a rocket. down like stick"
Mrs. Raget sighed. "Not man
sought her for second dance after
midnight"
Mrs. Col. Raget's supremacy in
the smart set" was invincible. Not
only had she successfully launched the
innumerable daughters of her own
household on the capricious upper crust
of the social wave and piloted each 70
snug harbors In the way of well APP
pointed establishments and presentable
figure heads that served all the pur-
poses of husbands, but she was the
adored social sponsor of scores Of pref
ty women, who owed 20 her manipu-
lations their title of Madam. While
Mrs. Raget's tactics ELECTED admiration.
they eluded analysis. This lady was
credited with being able TO determine.
twenty minutes after girl crossed
ballroom for the first time. whether
she was destined for success or failure.
So unerring was her judgment in this
pivotal matter that she Is said TO have
sent home on the occasion of her debut
no less parsonage than the fourth Miss
Raget; and never was the latter per-
mitted. during her maidenhood. to make
a second appearance at a Patriarch.
But for once in her long reign Mrs.
Raget had miscalculated.
The Louis XIV. pendulum chimed
three.
-Well ?" said the superb"
Again the colonel's wife sighed.
There's no alternative. We must
send her home"
The place was a stuffy gable cham
Der in third-rate hotel at popular
Virginia summer resort. In all the
loneliness of its Partisan artful artless-
ness it lay-the gown in which an ambi-
tious mother had dreamed that her be-
loved would find the Aladdin's lamp
that would restore them TO the station
they once held in the gay world. II
was the first time the gown had been
taken from its box since Pauline's
summary departure from the Raget
mansion. Mother and daughter gazed
at the airy. Elusive creation which Mrs.
Raget's generosity had provided. but
only with the detached interest of Wis
itors to musem; 1t did not appeal to
them as personal possession. Nothing
could be more out of touch with the
life they had been leading in the shah
by little hostelry in which they were
grateful to have found shelter for the
summer Notwithstanding, like the
sparrows, to Providence for a winter
nest. But as her eyes rested on the La
France roses encircling the low bodice
the mother revived in fancy the tri
umphs of her youth, quenched all too
quickly by widowhood and poverty. A
last desperate effort to save the old
homestead had emboldened her TO
make her way to the metropolis and
seek the advice of discarded sutton,
Col. Raget, who in the interval had
grown rich beyond the dream of av-
arice. In her calculations she had over
looked the colonel's wife-for she who
had attained that enviable dignity was
an obscure, unconsidered factor in the
bellehood of Lucretia Detmar. Had the
widow been less guileless she might
have OWNED in Mrs. Col. Raget's ad-
miration of Pauline's beauty, to which
her attention had been called by the
colonel, and her offer to launch the
girl at the Raget expense in the smart
SET" hint of malicious self-satisfac-
ton rather than sincere desire to bet
ter their fortunes.
"She was beautiful as a dream"
wrote the colonel's wife, "but times
and standard have changed. my dear
Lucretia. There's no counting on the
vagaries of the modern wife hunter"
"You must have looked lovely. dear
est" said the mother. venturing TO