The Mathews journal. (Mathews C.H. [Court House]) 1903-1937, 1910-08-11
WEEKLY SHORT STORY
THE SUBSTITUTES.
By Constancs D,Arcv Nal,

BY Constance Darcy Mackav.
To look at Miss Miranda Eldridge
you would never dream that she was
one Of those who keep alight the hid
den fire. She was small and thin and
careworn, and her eyes, except when
she smiled, were full of the tiredness
that dreary procession of days had
put there.
The other boarders seated around
the long, narrow table of Mrs. Pen
nington's basement dining room filled
In the pauses bteween soup and roast
with friendly popularity, in which Miss
Eldridge took no part
To be sure, she answered pleasantly
enough If any one spoke to her, vet
she always lapsed into silence imme-
diately afterward, and as soon as din
ner was over sought the narrow con-
Zines Of her little hall bed room. I'M
four flights of creaking, ill-lit stairs.
But as no way is ever really dark
to those who have the inner vision. so
to Miss Eldridge her skylight room
was not the cherries place il seemed.
To others it might look sparse and
cramped and lonely, but to her It was
a sanctuary of dreams, where night
after night she lived over again the
one great event that had crowned her
meager life.
Once in a past now growing very
dim and far, romance had touched her
with sweep of ROSY pinions That
was II years before-12 dreary. un-
eventful. work-worn years-and vet
Miss Eldridge had never forgotten.
She still held the vision as If it were
yesterday.
IT had begun commonplacely enough
A wealthy aunt had chosen to remem-
Der Miss Eldridge's existence and had
sent her bit of pasteboard that babe
her be present at an evening musicale
Tremblingly and unexpected little
Miss Eldridge had gone and found it
like most musicales until the magical
moment when tall young man who
looked like a Greek god in evening
dress came up to her and wanted to
know if he couldn't bring her an ice
Then he had stood with her chatting
lightly and easily OF this thing and
that. so brilliant, so apart from all
that made up her humdrum little
round that she had listened TO him,
rapt and spellbOund, as if he were in
deed the true bringer of the Prone
thean fire.
And from that time on she had never
forgotten him. He was the ideal be-
side which all other men were COM
pared and found wanting. And though
she had never seen him again, and
though he moved in worlds quite other
than her own, the hope that she would
enc day meet him still made her heart
leap, still filled her days with eXpec-
fancy and her nights with dreams.
She faded, but her hope never did.
Perpetual alteration kept it alive and
vital Yet there were times when even
her high spirit faltered times when
something in her reached out for a
more actual companiOnship than that
of visions, and il was on one of these
days that she first met the professor.
Really met him, that is; for she had
sat opposite him at the table month
in and month out with no deeper ac-
workmanship than that which arises
from politely passing the bread or
intimating ones willingness to share
the salt and pepper.
But now the professor had met her
face to face in the lower hall one sui
try September night when tn crest of
the boarders were scrambling for
places of vantage on the stone steps.
Perhaps he read a fellow feeling in
Miss Eldridge's eyes; perhaps he
guessed that there were moments
when she, too. found Mrs. Penning-
tons uncomfortable. Be that as it might
on the spur of the moment he stopped
as asked her if she wouldn't rather
go for a stroll than "join that pande-
monium out there" indicating the
doorstep and it's occupants by a vague
wave of the hand.
Miss Eldridge paused, hesitated and
accepted Not that by this was her
idol removed from the niche Far from
it.