The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1898-04-21
Her Laurel :: ::
:: Crowned Defeat.
By Ida Rose McCabe.
Qopytight le9lD

ure. If her bewildered little brain
had INDUCED a misgiving to the con-
trary, it was ruthlessly dispelled as she
followed Mrs. Col. Raget and the Miss
Eaget with her retinue of galIants from
the ballroom of the .'atriarchs.
Social successes are born, not made.
remarked Mrs. Raget sententiously as
the family carriage rolled down the
avenue.
Miss Haget, the superb" to quote
the society column, yawncd acquies-
cence.
'Men are such a 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 it 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 colonel's
wife. "And manners SO refreshingly
artless and winsome-the manners OF
her mother. Lucretia was thorough.
well-brcd woman"
"And yet" said the superb
"Pauline fell flat. hopelcssIy fiat. or
like rocket. down like stick"
Mrs. Raget sighed. 'Not mar
sought her for n second dance after
midnight"
Mrs. Col. Raget's supremacy in
the "slnart set" was invincible. Not
only had she successfully launched the
household on the capricious upper crust
of the social wave and piloted each tt
snug harbors in the way Of well ap
pointed establishments and presentable
figure heads that served all the pur
poses of husbands, but she was the
adered social sponsor of scores of pref
ty women, who owed to her manipu
lations their title of Madam. While
Mrs. Raget's tactics elected admiration
they eluded analysis. This lady wa:
credited with being able to determine
twenty minutes after a girl crossed :
ballroom for the first time, whether
she was destined for success or failure
So unerring was her judgment in thi
pivotal matter that she is said to have
sent home on the occasion of her debu
no less parsonage than the fourth Mis-
Raget; and never was the latter per
mitted, during her maidenhood, to max,
second appearance ut Patriarch
But for once in her long reign Mrs
Raget had miscalculated.
The Louis XIV. pendulum chimet
three.
"Well?" said the superb"
Again the colonels wife sighed.
There's no alternative. We mus
send her home"
The place was a stuffy gable cham
ber in a third-rate hotel at a popua
Virginia summer resort. In all tn
loyeliness 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 lam
that would restore them to the station
they once held in the gay world.
was the first time the gown had bee
taken from its box since Pauline
summary departure from the Rage
mansion. Mother and daughter gaze
at the airy, Elusive creation which Mrs
Raget's generosity had provided, bu
only with the detached interest of Wis
ltors to a musem; it did not appeal t
them as personal possession. Nothin
could be more out of touch with tn
life they had been leading in the shah
by little hostelry in which they wcr
grateful to have found shelter for tn
summer Notwithstanding, like tn
sparrows, to Providence for winte
nest. But as her eyes rested on the L
france roses encircling the low bodic
the mother revived in fancy the tr
umphs of her youth, quenched all to
quickly by widowhood and poverty.
last desperate effort to save the oil
homestead had emboldened her I
make her way to the metropolis an
seek the advice OF discarded suito
Coi. Raget, who in the interval ha
grown rich beyond the dream Of q,