St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1902-08-02
A JUDITH Of SOCIETY.
By NixoIa Greeley Smith.


THERE was no reason why sh,
should not have been called .
beautiful girl. though her shines,
was such that when seen in her slip
shod home attire she looked more
like the X-ray picture of one. But
In tho street, built out to the fash
aonable size, and equipped with that
seh-assurance necessary to complete
effectiveness, she would have been
noticeable anywhere.
Very tall, with smooth, low fore.
head, an exceptionally straight nose
and large brown eyes that looked at
men and women with the same glance
often Of disapproval, sometimes
OF easy friendliness, but never of
coquetry or sentimental required
hypercritical observer to remark
the expression of fretfulness that
often marred her small, rather thin
Tipped mouth. But for this there was
some excuse.
Brought up in comparatively easy
circumstances, upon her graduation
from a fashionable school, whose ed
ucational value may be judged by
tho comment of friend that life
10 too short to realize what Elizabeth
doesn't know" she had anticipated
several years of uninterrupted pleas
ure, and had been met by the failure
Of her fathers business, and, six
months later, by his death.
For the first disaster Mr.. Coles held
one man alone responsible, the Hon.
orable Reading Payne, a politician
welded to his art, and, incidentally,
married to a pocketbook. Their en-
nifty was of long standing. Having
come to New York from western
town, they had known each other
as boys, had lived in the same board
ing house in the city, and, possibly
from the difficulty of making out
side acquaintances, had both fallen
in love with the landlady's pretty
daughter. And Coles had married
her.
The disappointed lover had subse-
quently congratulated himself upon
an escape which made it possible for
him to wed Miss Longstreth, whose
father owned the best-paying patent |
medicine in America. But it had
been widely said that Miss Long
streth must have sat for the before
taking pictures Of the celebrated
anti-dyspeptic tablets, and often, in
looking at the blooming and effect
i've Mrs. Coles, the Honorable Read
ing Payne would momentarily forget
his father-in-law's ten millions and
feel the old hatred of his rival rise
hot and insistent in his heart.
He had been one of the first to
know of the threatened failure of the
large wholesale business the Coles
had established in the city, and at
the outbreak of the Spanish war,
when the firm was making feverish
efforts for government contracts, his
political pull had turned the scale in
favor OF another New York bidder, l
Ind made the Coles failure inevitable.
1t was in the midst of the con- (:
fusion attending the firms assign :
ment that Elizabeth had returned !
home to a mother wholly occupied {
~ the demands Of a peevish son /
md father almost hysterical with I
ago and hatred. The debut, the I
inc gowns, the pleasant attentions )
o which she had looked forward for v
hree years were now, Of course, out t
# the question, and when her father Q
led and she emerged from two years v
4 mourning, it was into a society of
mall requirements and lower tone. a
Yet, despite her undeniable beauty, c
er tomboy ways and careless II
peech, she went about with these u
len to ball games, and to the opera, "
eturning, Of course, after midnight fl
18th perfect safety, attributing +,
heir unfailing respect to some in Ct
ate dignity Of her own, and never p
roaming that with a girl Of less o,
eauty and more attraction they c.
light have been less sedate. Il
An. ong these young men there was m
ut dne person-and he was almost al
personage-she appeared to like,
10 others all ranking according to p,
,e luncheons and theater tickets vi
icy provided. He was a young col fl
re professor, who, with a small tai &C
It for natural science, and genius 81
y responsibility, had worked his us
az in life by slow and painstahng de
fort, and was trying to fall in love
it'll Miss Coles by the same method. Y
enough. the most fire. fu
rent manifestations of their mu- tn
n partially was an excessive rude an
~ to each other. Miss Coles so
ought the professor conceited, in GO