The Daily Ardmoreite. [volume] (Ardmore, Okla.) 1893-current, 1911-02-15

For a bitter, bleak moment she
stood faced by her thirty-seven
years. Jem had told her that charm
such as hers, has no age. But the
pulsating girlhood OF Selma was,
after all, more potent elixir to the
senses than all her carefully cult
waited spells.
To the woman who has no other
aim in life than the admiration of
the opposite sex. all is lost when
first she doubts her power to hold
the man whom she has caught. The
very notion that she doubted was
to Laura treason against herself.
She must do something, anything al
most. to regain her lost ascendancy.
And first, last, and all the time, she
must steadfastly keep her temper.
Selma FASTENED towards her, full
of hospitality. will you not come
upstairs?" she asked; and led the
way, ascending the broad shallow
black oak steps which ran up one
side of the hall and then across.
Laura sighed to herself as she rec
ognized in this shabby old house,
the real thing, in contrast to her
own imitation of it. Selma's big com
Portable bedroom bore no signs of
any particular period, except the
great thickness of the walls, and the
mulhoned windows. The Sheffield
candlesticks upon the dressing-table
were Georgian, there was an ar
MORE of the first Empire, a Queen
Anne writing-table, a very modern
of hangngs. The carpent was Victo-
rian, and the pictures on the wall
"A funny medley, ranging from pho
otgraphs of Selma's dogs and ponies,
TO mezzotints after Reynolds and
Romney, and including the panel por-
tnait in oils of one Umfraville, known
to be earlier than Vandyck, and
worth a great sum.
The gentle-treading elderly wom-
an who had been Selmas' nurse was
putting not water in the basin,
covered with a fringed dam.
ask towel; and Selma had pulled
out three hairpins and was shaking
down her maze of bronze tossing
looks, which she proceeded to
brush numerically, afterwards re-
signing herself to her nurses hands,
who gathered the whole into bill
lowy knot, and again inserted the
three tortoise-shell forked pins.
How simple! Just dip of glow
ing face, colored like sea-shell,
into water, rubbing it vigorously dry
Just shaking out and rearrange
ment of tresses whose abundance de-
manded no management, no making
the most of; and there stood the
girl ready for lunch, blooming with
the effulgence of sixteen, while she
When Selma had gone downstairs,
with one of the dogs, she
had stealthily produced her bag
and with the aid of various powders
her complexion and art
fully rearanged her hair under her
becoming hat, she thought that her
adorned house bore the
the same relation to this house
which had as it were grown of it.
SELF as her cultivated charm bore
10 the unconscious insolent beauty
)f the young girl.
The luncheon gong was rumbling
beneath the hand Of old Druce as she
slowly descended those stairs which
she longed to possess.
They were all in the hall-Miss
Frampton came forward to greet
her. This lady was good-humored,
'oly-poly person, between forty and
fifty, devotedly attached to dear
Miles and dear Selma, but always
the victim of an immense admira
ion for Miss Tarlton and her max
inns. She had sat at the feet of that
lady, that she might
earn the neighborhood through and
through and be able to guide the
wayward steps of the child she had
brought mp. Thus, she knew the
exact social atmosphere surrounding
Mrs. Trent, and was by no means
pleased at her present intimate de-
scent into the family life.
There was no entree dishes at the
luncheon-table. The meal,
hot and cold, was placed upon the
sideboard and the table: and when