The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-12-04
SOME GOOD, SHORT STORIES
Her Fair Face Haunted Him.

washington PoSt.)
I'm addition to great beauty of per-
son and numerous strong mental
traits hereditary in my family" said
one of the buyers for a department
store, I've always prided myself upon
the possession OF q remarkable memory
for faces. But L was badly stumped on
my New York trip last week. The
head mar in one of the big wholesale
houses over there that is -Datronized
by my firm took me up to his nat for
dinner. His wife and his wife's sister,
a very charming pair of women, made
the dinner a delight. But the face OF
my hosts sister-in-law bothered me
she was a petite, dark woman, with
an extraordinarily fine figure, and q
face not so pretty as it was animated
and interesting. 1 had seen that face;
I knew that. 1 tried to think OF where
1 had seen it. It worried me a heap.
and 1 was out on q limb. L couldn't
for the life of me recall just where 1
had seen her countenance, and yet L
would have sworn that l had seen 1t
often. l mentally went over the Tea
lures of all the girls 1 ever knew:
nope, I had never known her, but 1
had seen her face slathers Of times.
Then, thinking that she might be an
actress, and thus have got her pictures
Oh eAulDlLlOn VI III luG L
raked my memory on actresses. No go.
She didn't seem actressy, anyhow, and
1 quit that line of guessing. Now, I've
never lived anywhere else except In
Washington, and it was in Washing
ton, 1 felt positive, hat I had seen her
face. Finally 1 asked her:
Have you ever visited Washing
ton?"
ono she replied, but I want to go
fIara CO r,,Y7oh Ts--a ~ haan 1Ou
miles outside of New York
1.-The reason L ask 1 said, is that
your face seems so extraordinarily IA
, mliar to me-
""Truly?' she said; and, although I
couldn't just make out why, L was con-
scious that 1 hadn't said just the right
thing, for her face flushed a good deal
as she looked at her plate, and my
host and his wife made haste to get
the conversation into another chan
mel.
Il went to my hotel in a sort Of
frenzy Of wonder as to where I had
seen my hosts sister-in-law's face. I
hate to let anything like hat get away
from me. L wasn't through wondering
about it when 1 reached the hotel. I
stopped at the news stand to buy q
couple of magazines wherewith to
read myself to sleep in my room. For
1OAA-S $500 VI OE@AC AOOLR4J 06OL49N
I'm a hopelessly commonplace business
mani always look over the ads. in
the back portion Of a magazine before
L tackle the reading matter.
Il was turning ver the rear pages OF
one of the magazines idly, when my
thumb clutched at one of the pages,
and l was momentarilY stunned. Now,
it was surely a modest enough picture,
otherwise it couldn't have found lodg-
ment among the ads. of a first-rate
family magazine; but, taken in connec-
ton with the Worriment I had under
gone over the countenance of my
friends sister-in-law. it sort of fioored
me and put me out. The quarter-0age
picture, reproduced from a photograph.
illustrated an advertisement of the
merits of union underwear. And so !
was able to go to sleep without any
botherment as to where [ a seen my
friends sister-in-law's face.
said my friend, when I saw him at
his place of business the next day:
My boy, this cultivation of the
memory business is a fake. What we
all need is the cultivation'of forgetful-
ness. My si~ster-in-law earned an easy
$1,000 by handing herself down to DOS
terity through the medium of a maya
zine ad., but she's been sore upon her
self ever since for doing it. So that
if you want to make a hit and be pop
ular in the bosom of my family, you'll
have to cut ou the Where have I seen
you befores?" and so on. See?'"