The Lambertville record. [volume] (Lambertville, N.J.) 1872-1968, 1902-12-10


and polished till it cleaned like French
plate, and between the prim ruffles of
an old fashioned dimity curtain peered
face in whose soft, blue gray eyes
hopefulness and inconsistencies strug-
gled for supremacy.
The train had slowed up for curve,
and she studied the quaint picture hun
grily till the cars swept round the
bend. The next morning she watched
for the clean window, the dimity cur
tains and the sweet English face and
the next morning and the next.
The figure In the window was not
always idle. Once the supple hands
were polishing tinware, which. to the
woman who writes, recalled faraway
farmhouse, where rows of milk pans
once cleaned In the sunshine Follow
Ing an unaccountable impulse, she
nodded cheerily. The blue gray eyes
opened wide in friendly surprise, the
flush on the fresh English face deep
ened, and from that day the morning
greeting was exchanged regularly.
The summer quivered and simmer
ed into fall. and fall tossed Its smart
colors and sparkling hours into the
outstretched arms of winter. The
winds howled and the storms ragged at
the tenement window, now closed and
stuffed about with bits of rags. The
blue gray eyes still smiled their greet
Ing across row Of scarlet geraniums
to the woman behind the car window,
who, after the train had swept round
the curve. would lean back half wea-
rily and weave romances of the life
behind the white curtains and crimson
blossoms. She could see the English
husband coming in from his work. He
would be strong and straight and
young, of course, very gentle and ten
der with the girl who had come to him
from across the seas. Wherefore the
happy lovellght in the blue gray eyes
IL all these things were not so? Then
a frugal supper, smoking hot, would
be placed on the table. The teapot
would be of brown and yellow stone,
like the one at the farm. But the
woman who writes never mounted the
narrow stairs leading to the tenement
room. She had been disillusionized SO
often.
One morning in early spring she
caught her breath as the train slowed
up before the window. No face peered
between the ruffied curtains. A friend
ly hand had bowed the shutters to the
glaring sunlight That afternoon she
hurried TO shop where all sorts Of
dainty baby garments are sold. When
she had selected piece of flannel rich
ly embroidered and robe of sheer
linen, edged with filmy lace she actu-
ally felt angry at the careless fashion
In which the clerk tossed the small
garments to the wrapper. 1t seemed
almost like Dissertation. AS she car
ried her package to the waiting han
som she said to herself:
ut Is perfectly absurd. considering
their station in life. But how her eyes
will sinner
She could not send her gift, for she
knew neither name nor exact address,
but she waited and watched. At last
one morning the shutters were thrown
back, and In high backed rocking
chair, close to the window, sat the little
English wife, her blue gray eyes shin
ing proudly above long roll of white
flannel, topped by a very small and
very red face.
Then the woman who writes did re-
marRaDTe thing. She took deliberate,
careful aim and tossed into the tene-
ment window bulky, oblong package
For more than a week she had carried
that package back and forth every
day, waiting for this very opportunity,
and yet her arms felt strangely empty.
All day long between the woman
who writes and her work came the
proud mother light In those blue gray
eyes. Wherever she turned 1t haunted
her till her pen lost its cunning and
her heartstrings thrilled with vague
longing and unrest.
When night came to her brilliantly
lighted parlors, where clever men and
women gathered to laugh at her witty
sayings and TO drink the punch she
brewed with cunning hand. she was
the gayest of them all. Never had she
looked more queenly In her clinging
gown OF scintillating Jet; never had the
clever words come so easily to her
smiling lips. She would forget it all
the narrow, pinching life In the tene-
ment, the red geraniums. the ruffied
curtains--yes, even that tantalizing
mother love in the other woman's eyes.
But when they had oil gone, the men
who admired her and the women who
feared her, the memory of the blue
gray eyes came back with inslstent
strength. She turned out the lights,
leaving only the dun crimson glow