The Wilmington daily Republican. (Wilmington, Del.) 1890-1902, 1899-05-12
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"Howf''
lyon have taken me down literally.
word for word, point for point. You
have caught the exact spirit Of my idea.
Mrs. Conway, il You can keep it up we
shall get on splendidly." 80
She had flushed up scarlet In her ex-
element and suspense, and Alan Stacey,
looking at her. said to himself that
surely his star had been in the ascendant
when such,a dainty creature bad sud
denly fallen from the skies in lieu Of
the bulldog features and staring google
eyes of the patient individual who had
but just left him.
II am no glad" she said with her
pretty, shy air; $50 proud to be able to
help you. I'll try hard never to be any
thing but your interpreter.
He laughed aloud and held out his
hand. "That's good name for you,
Mrs. Conway" he said. II can never
say my typist does this or my stenog-
rapher does that. You're not my sec.
rotary, and it would sound pretentious
to call you 80. But 'interpreter'--that's
splendid name for you. I shall always
call you by it."
And 90 he did. She went that very
evening and looked at various rooms in
the neighborhood, fixing ON some in a
quaint out of the world nook which
they call Parsons Green. / don't mean
all that intricate bswilderment Of small,
featureless, mean little streets which
lie between Fulham palace and the
cemetery, but a corner on the other side
of the railway line, corner which then
was still rejoicing in tall old trees and
spacious wide fronted houses, such az
kept an air Of dignity about them
which came as surprise to the stranger
wandering through the nsighborhood.
And then began long spell Of hard
work, yet work that was intensely en-
joyable in character. It is almost i'm
possible adequately to describe the
effect which this way Of earning her
living had upon Mary Conway. She
was still quite young, little more than
a girl, and during all her early years
romance and the joy Of life had never
had any chance Of growing and flourish
ing within her.
There is nothing Of romance about
the life of board school mistress, more
especially when under the continual in
fuence Of mother who never forgot
her gentility or that her daughter was
the child Of a gentleman. The board
school mistress who can love and be
loved again by young man whose
sphere is the same as. her own, 4 young
man whose aims and ambitions are on
a level with her own, can revel In TO-
nance as entirely as the hero Of novel
or the lord Of the manor. A young girl
may spend her life in the stuffy class
room of the state schools and yet invest
her lover with all the tender and idyllic
romance Of knight Of old, but il she
is cut off by class grade from inter-
course with those men among whom
she is thrown by circumstances all the
romance which may be in her heart is
Of necessity bottled up for sheer want
Of an outlet.
Mary Conway, frail and delicate Of
being az she was, gentlewoman to her
finger tips, a girl in whom all the signs
of good breeding were present to very
marked degree, was of a nature in
which romance was indigenous, and nm
til the time when she became associated
in work with Alan Stacey, the novelist,
no sort Of outlet had afforded itself,
and all the natural love in her heart
had been pent up until it was filed
nigh to bursting and was ready to over
flow at the first kind word from d sym
pathetic soul, at the first touch of
kind hand, at the first glance of pair
Of magnetic eyes.
In Alan Stacey, Mary found not an
employer, but an idol. From the first
day she worshiped him. I know that it
is not commonly accepted idea that
woman should love man at first
sight. In sense she did not do so, and
yet she idolized him. The possibility
that one day she might be something
more to Alan Stacey than his interpreter
never for moment entered her head.
But she loved him with dim, faroff,
almost a religious, feeling. He was so
brilliantly clever both in his work-for
where were such vivid, brilliant, haunt
ing human books to be found as those
which bore his name and in himself.
There We're times when be worked at
fever heat untiringly, restlessly, almost
passionately times when the tit was on
him, when he almost wore her out call
ing on her to come early and to stay
late; times when they snatched their
meals and when she went home to her
bed dog tired and brain weary.
Yet always with the same charm and
sweetness of way: Mrs. Conway, l
must get on with this while the idea IS
alive in me You'll help me through
it, won't youf' or NEED you go?
know it's time, but cannot we take
little holiday when it's done? Surely
it's best to make hay while the sun
shines.
n .