Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1909-01-14
Her Quiet Cousin.

Her Quiet Cousin.
s'You would have thought she'd have
had more sense!' said the girl will
the ar-gold purse. II never was sc
surprised! Right at this time Of year,
tool"
did you say she came from Osh-
kosh?" inquired her sympathetic friend
With the mink muff.
mo" said the girl with the near-gold
purse ut was Kansas. l don't know
what possessed father to insist that we
should look up his brothers family on
our way back from Colorado last sum-
mer None of us had ever seen Uncle
tradition. He had, gone West when
young and had stayed there. Yet
father insisted that mother and I stop
off at Three Windsor was it Turkey
Run?
''Uncle Joshua's farm was so big
that I never saw the end of it. l was
surprised at the house, with electric
lights and a water plant. They were
all very nice to us, but somehow l
wasn't interested in my cousin Hilda.
She was little and invariably wore blue
ginghams with Dutch necks and her
hair in a braid. She had pretty hair,
but it seemed so silly not to do it up.
She said she rode horseback SO much
it all fell down anyway. SO there wasn't
any use
81 couldn't get here bit interested
in the most ordinary things. She did
MT know about the Merry Widow waltz
or the rumor about sheath skirts and
S1a All che seemed fO
for was racing across the prairie on
wild horse.
"Of course when we left we asked
them to return our visit. ANY time |
told Hilda. Still, you'd think she'd
have known better than ask if she
couldn't come and visit me ten days
before Christmas.
Il didn't tell any one she was coming.
I wanted to hustle her and her carpet
bag and poke bonnet into the house
quickly and unseen. 1t was rather
relief when I met her to find her in
remarkably well-fitting tailor suit and
a hat as big as my own and carrying
a handsome English bag.
"Hilda was so interested in every
thing, because it was her first visit to
Chicago, she said. She didn't seem to
mind in the least when I had to leave
her at home after explaining that /
had accepted these invitations before
knew she was coming and didn't dare
ask for cards for her. She said she'd
just wander around by herself But
I simply couldn't leave her out of our
big Christmas eve party.
"She was SO Independent that didn't
CT, no xyf1,ipc emit n hi
to wear and I was really worried. 1t
would be just like her with her disre-
gard for clothes, to put on one of the
alue ginghams with its square-cut neck
and think it was all right. And she
persisted in wearing her hair so funny
and plain without a row of puffs or a
rat or anything. She said she hated
false hair when I tried to point out the
aids to ones toilet in a hairdressers
window. The queer thing was that
she looked pretty in spite of it.
Really, Hilda was lots of help the
day of the party. I was so busy with
the dressmaker's assistant and the
manicure and the hairdresser that
-urned over a lot of little things to
Hilda. She ran up and down stairs
ali day, but then she always was crazy
about exercise and I'm not. The only
aensible thing 1 had noticed about
Hilda was that she didn't seem to care
about men and never wanted to come
downstairs when 1 had callers. In
fact I never asked her to come, for l
knew she'd be lots happier with a book
or a magazine
Mother suggested that 1 send the
y, irf1r in fn n 1o'c 1oi 1n-
cause she had worked on the decora-
tons downstairs SO late she had very
little time to dress, but I hate to rush
my own toilet and besides what was
the use of her marching her hair
here when she was going back to Kan
eas?
"Just as I got downstairs Chauncey
Leftmore came in and I was 50 busy
with him never noticed Hilda's APP
pearance till Chaunceys attention
wandered and looked to see what he
was staring at.
my dear, T always knew that girl
was deceitful. I knew it wasn't pos
sible for any one to be so eternally
amiable and happy and unassuming
and pleased with anything. She just
did it to blind me, to throw me off the
track: 1 don't know what it was about
her, because her hair was done just
loosely puffed out Of itself as always
and she didn't have on a scrap of
rouge or touch of eyebrow pencil-all
the other girls use it nowadays, sof
onurse-but she looked simply stun
ming. And her dress-well, afterward
She said quite casually that she got all
Ter clothes from one shop in Paris.
She said she just sent over to a special
woman who knew what she could best
wear and she never bothered her head
about fussiug over styles herself! 1t
was a. simple dress, too-but there
wasn't one Like it in the rnnni