The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1911-02-09
THE EVENING Story
AN Answer in Person.

Il
.stepmother had Just said she should
not go to the Mayhew dance. This
after she had counted on it for weeks.
She loved to dance. footing it light as
tnlstledown but it was not for the
pleasure of measured motion that she 7
so rebelled
Jimmy Carroll indeed was the head
and front of her rebellion She had
not seen him for three months-and
she loved him with all her heart He
mad left Ryegate for a bigger town,
AFTER his father died. He had come
10 see her upon the eve of going, but
again the stepmother had interviewed.
She hated Jimmy, piously, holding
MIN desperately wicked. She had |
peen full Of good counsel to him, so |
Iull IN fact she had left him no time
to talk to Observation-Disclosures, she had |
given him no opportunity So the girl |
and her sweetheart had parted with |
no more than a handclasp
All through the three months since.
christine had fed her heart with the |
as they touched her own She had |
been sure he would write. but not a |
line had come to her She knew, |
though, through his cousin, Alice |
Ware, that he was enchanted with city |
lie, and making good in his new
career.
The knowledge made his silence
nurt the more. But she had been
sure things would straighten them
selves at the dance. Jimmy had not
courted her outright. AS long as his
invalid father lived he had been too
fair minded to bind her. But there
had been looks and lingerings, and
lonce-under the mistletoe-a kiss.
Christine had known what was in his
heart, and been sure he, likewise.
knew what was in her own.
| She had been high and mighty with
young Manning, who was her step
h. - 1.
be her heir. AT first Mrs Gray had
rather resented his enthrallment. but
suddenly she changed front, and did
all she could to further his suit. If
he was a minister, she said. his wife
would never have occasion to stint or
scant herself. nor to be beholden to
the parish in any way. Then John
was so good, so high minded and
pure-the girl that got him would be
lucky indeed. At that, Christine al
lessly that that was a piece of luck
she would not envy anybody-not even
her secret enemy.
Naturally that had bred unpleasant
ness. Yet Mrs. Gray tried hard to
smother it-she was indulgence itself
to her stepdaughter save in regard to
Jimmy Carroll. Though she did not
name him outright, he was the text
OF many a SermOn-a wild fellow,
goddess, unstable and Eighty; he was
!
prayed her Christine might escape
Christine wondered. Not until after
her father died had the step-parent
been so tender of her. She did not
dream the truth-that Mrs. Gray had
suddenly found out that her step
daughter was in a mild way an heir
ess-coming into her mothers por-
ton. which had been held in trust,
under the will of her grandmother,
the day she was twenty-one. 1t was
mot
than, Mrs. Gray would be able to
leave John Manning. She was a
grasping woman and selfish-Chris-
tines happiness weighed nothing in
the balance with her, against the ag
grandizement of her nephew. Further,
| she hated to think of Jimmy Carroll
getting either the girl or the money.
Still she persuaded herself that her
sole concern was Christine's good
and that almost any means were law
full to achieve the thing she had de-
cided to be best for the girl.
| Upon the night of the dance, she
| gave select dinner party. There were
| the rector and his wife. Miss Mann,
the missionary lecturer, John Manning,
with two of his seminary colleagues,
and Violet More, a young woman who
felt a missionary call, which she would
answer provided it turned out to in
| clude a husband.
Christine, very fine and very nliser-
able, ate hardly anything, and listened
in a daze to Manning's labored love-
making. 1t was under breath of course.
and well covered by Miss Mann's strid-
ent discoursing.
Above the stridency, and the whis
pers, Christine sensed other sounds
Jimmy's laugh, his deep soft voice
and high and thin. She answered
hardly at all, and SO at random that
Manning maryeled. At last a crafty
CLEAN came into his eye-he slid his
hand to seize hers under the table,
saying tensely: st love you, I want
you. Don't answer know silence
means consent
Before Christine could snatch away
her hand there came yell: Fire!
Fire. Fire!"
/ In the commotion that followed she
saw nothing clearly. But presently
when the fire, which had caught in
the library, was out with no greater
damage than to the rector's best after
dinner stories, and Miss Mann's digni-
ty, she stole to the door of the wreck
| ed room, concerned to find out if her
fathers portrait had been scorched
Shyly she ran to it, peering up into
the kind eyes. An unaccountable i'm
pulse made her lift it from the wall.
and hold it toward the light. AS she
staggered under the weioht of it, she
saw something jar loose from the back
la letter, sealed, and unopened, adj
dressed to herself.
1t was dated almost three months
| back. After she had read it she kissed
the portrait implusively, whispering in
her heart: ''Daddy-you know-you
impelled me to come to you. Goodby
for little, little while"
Exactly half an hour later she walk
ed alone and unheralded into the
Mayhem ballroom. It was big and
bare, hardly more than a garnet in
4 fact running the whole breadth of
the big house. Riddles sang through
it even higher and sweeter than the
dream f1ddles had sung-they played
of all tunes, 1.-The Girl I Left Behind
Me" And Jimmy Carroll was not
dancing to it. He was standing with
| Swallowed eyes, talking sedately with
! Auntie Mayhem.
Christine went straight to him,
/ needless of eyes or ears. She held out
to him the letter. saying, her eyes