The Baltimore County union, the Towson news. (Towson, Md.) 1909-1912, 1909-10-30
Self-Abnegation.
(From the Outlook.)

plete than the contrast between Susan
Somerset's old life in her brothers
home and the new life in her hus-
bands. 1t sometimes seemed to her
that the whole thing was incredible,
as if she must have changed places
with her brother, she received from
her husband so exactly the same SER
vices she was used to giving Peter.
She ascribed it to the difference in
theirtraining. Peter had always been
the only man in New England
household of women, and he expected
as matter of course to be considered
first and waited upon by whatever
petticoated creature happened to be
nearest him.
One by one the aunts had died, the
cousins had married or gone away,
and Susan and Peter were left alone
in the big house, so that it fell natur-
ally to Susan's lot to make up to
Peter for the absence of the others.
She had never thought consciously
of it, taking it as the inevitable
course of nature that everything
should be as Peter wished it, with
no regard for her. Peter did not
like onions, and so she never cooked
them, although she was very fond
of them. Peter did not like the
sun shining in the windows, his eyes
not being very strong, and so the
shutters were always closed, although
to Susan, alone day after day, the
yellow glow would have been cheer
ing companion. Once in a while,
when Peter was at work in field far
from the house, she ventured to throw
open the shutters and bask in the
warmth, but she always took pains to
close them before the time for his re-
turn, lest he cast one of his sharp
words at her. Peter liked boiled
dinner" and they had it always for
Thursday, although Susan disliked the
smell of boiling cabbage so that she
never could eat anything on that day.
Peter took pride in the fire and spirit
of his young horses, and they always
drove to church behind a prancing,
curvetting pair whose antics made the
timid Susan sick with apprehension,
while the staid old farm-horses, whose
quiet jog would have been so mex
pressibly soothing to her, ate their
hay in the barn.
1t must not be supposed for mo-
ment that Susan resented any of this !;
she never once even thought of it, in
her entire devotion to her brother and
in her absorbing desire to do her duty
by him. She accepted the terrors of
the ride to church quite as she ac-
cepted the horrors of thunderstorm
when she found herself alone in the
big house. There was as little
thought in one case as in the other of
rebelling against the inevitable.
1t was a perpetual amazement to
her to see how differently her husband
looked at things. During their brief
engagement she had not noticed the
change so much /; but he could stay
but short time on his visit East, and
insisted on marrying her and taking
her back to Montana with him. On
the way there Susan was like one in
a dream. Jack was so surprisingly,
so overwhelmingly kind to her ! She
was almost afraid to express a wish,
it met with such an instant compli-
ance; but the whole journey was so
new an experience to the untraveled
New England girl that she hardly
realized that any of it was real.
After they had settled down in the
bright new Montana town, in the COM
Portable house Jack had bought, and
the familiar business of housekeeping
began, the reality of the difference be-
tween her husband and her brother
was borne in on her. Jack had
grown up on the frontier among men,
and it seemed like a daily miracle to
his superstitious admiration ofwomen
that he had been able to persuade the
shy and fower-like Vermont girl to
share his life. He looked at her
adoringly as she moved about the
pretty rooms, occupied with her care
full reproduction of New England
housekeeping, and felt a passionate
desire to think of more services he
could do her. Her surprise at his
kindness touched his tender heart,
and stirred him to wrath against
the absent Peter. Great Scotland !
Your brother must be hog and no
mistake !'' he exclaimed. in the unre-
served Montana fashion which Susan
found so disconcerting.
This was apropos of conversation
on the subject of boiled dinner. Su-
san had prepared one for him, and he
enjoyed it vastly, as he did all of her
cooking, although he was disturbed
by her eating nothing. Little by lit
tie he extracted from her the confes-
sion that it made her sick to cook cab
bage. In fury of indignant tender