The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1910-01-17
ezM. ETERNAL

q, the funny side of things-but there z -A was undernote of real irritation in her
 voice as she answered, following him out .npon the platform, Good gracious, Uncle Henry, anybody'd think never taken a railway trip alone before. hope I've got sense enough to travel forty miles without getting lost!"
 f'But you change cars at Hoosac Junction." he called anxiously from the station platform as her train began to move. It the seventh time he had told her that. Well what if I dol" she shouted with some heat As she turned back she thought resentfully, "As if I were a child or a half witted--"
 Before she could finish the exclamation it had summoned suddenly to her mind the recollection Of that talk with her sister. She hurried to her seat and as train ratted and olted it's out of the Albany yards she composed herself to think things over.
 It was literally the first quiet moment she had had to recall that talk unexpected and extraordinary on her part as on Doy's. How could she have brought herself to speak openly of what she had only allowed herself to halfguess the cause of her uneasy discomfort of the last year! She still heard as though it something wholly disasso- ciated from her. her voice saying, "For mercy's sake, Dolly, don't torment me, as everybody else in the family does, trying to persuade me I ought to marry I'm single, not in the least because ob- ject to matrimony, but simply because nobody-nc body, do you hear-has ever proposed to mel"
 She had begun the sentence with her usual laugh
  she heard quaver in her voice at the end and felt the tears stinging her eyelids. It had been relief say it out, but she had been grateful to Dolly's matter-offact coolness when that young mafron had answered calmly "I thought all the time. It comes of your having had mother to tell you things The rest of the family think you must have had dozen offers from some of the men who spend so much time calling you and taking you out, but any woman with an eye in her head could see that not of them was in love with you. Now you listen to me and learn some thing."
 Tn the swaying train Elizabeth sat suddenly up- right, as startled she had been at the time by the revelation of cynical philosophy underlying the smiling serenity of their rosy little Dolly. She exclaimed to herself again she had to her mentor, ABht that's all out of fashion nowadays Men don't like clinging, helpless women any Why, eFerybody says sol"
 She saw again Dollys knowing little smile as she pooh-poohed this naivete. Don't you believe word of itt Its like change of fashion in hats! Mens may look different but they're just the under meath. They can't abide capable woman. She makes them seem less superior Why I thought every knew that!' But that's despicabe, if it's true of them!" Elizabeth had cried hoty. You can't believe such loW-down thing of Horace, when he's devoted!"
 Horaces wife laid down her embroidery and laughed outright. Are you really twenty-five, or are you seventeen? Why do you suppose Horace is devoted to me? Simply because he thinks Pm pretty little silly who couldn't draw the breath life if he didn't show how. As for it's being despicabe, what's the of calling names? You've got to take things they are, and if you want to like men, don't expect too much of them.'
 She embroidered for moment in silence, and then earnestly and internationally summed her doc trine, When men take for granted women idiots and don't know enough to come in when it rains, don't resent it. Learn to like it,"
 his ouf of hahinc had al DolIy's words of wisdom had stopped. But they had gone resounding portentously in her sisters ears. Even now the rumbling of the train made an accompaniment to the refrain, Don't resent it. learn to like it." and Elizabeth reviewed her life under the light of this sphorism. It certainly explained great number of things she had not derstood before. One incident after another to her illustrating the truth of what she had denied so hotly to Dolly. She thought of the women her platonic men-friends (she had never known any other variety) had married, and of their attitude towards their husbands; she thought of girls who had been debutantes when she was and who were still spinsters, and recognized in them the qualities of competent business-like capacity to take of themselves and their own lives of which she proud in herself; and finally she thought of the very last incident that had happened How exasperatng she had found Uncles Henrys belittling of her, and yet how hurt he had looked when she resented it! She supposed Dolly
 
 hung on his words, made him repeat his directions and sent him away full of happy importance and then would promptly have forgotten all about him, and asked the trainman if she had needed any in- formation.
 rustic bride and groom occupied the seat in of her, but she had hardly taken in the sgni- acance of their sefconscious laughter and whis- pered remarks before the train began to slow jerk fly down. The asked the conductor if they were approaching Hoosac Junction and if they needed to change there. Upon receiving the answer he turned to his wife and said, quite if she deaf and had not heard a remark ad- dressed to them both. Were almost at Hoosac Junction and have to change there get on your wraps" In spite of her depression Eliza beth smiled at the importance of his She noticed that he guided his bride down the aisle as though she blind cautioning her volubly against obstacles that she could not but we'll as he As he down the steps ahead of her, he ufrar ad md feII caeaD