Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1912-01-21

l mentioned this one day to Mrs. Cobb
First she stared at me in perfectly stupefed
way; then the color came up into her face
just as it did the day she first saw Aunt
Elizabeth's card. She looked at me hard for
a moment with those funny, prominent eyes;
then she began talking about her son.
nH, my good Victor! How much knew
- about YOU, before ever these eyes of
mine were privileged to rest upon your per-
fections! What a sweet baby you were,
twenty-four years ago,-blond as the wheat,
and pretty as a hart. What wonderful
boy you were,-so brilliant that if you had
only applied yourself you could have done
anything; but SO sensitive, studying made
you i'll! Tall, handsome, distinguished, set
ting fashions in waistcoats, and breaking the
hearts of all the girls, it appeared that you
were boy to be proud Of Your one mis-
fortune, indeed, was the envy that your
superior qualifications excited all about you
your one defect, the ardent, unsuspicious
soul that made you always the victim of
designing persons fat this point Mrs.
Cobb stopped short, shifted, and relapsed
into silence.
A moment later, when the ships telegraph
boy arrived with the wireless, she jumped
for him as though he had been the precious
baby himself. The message, however,
seemed to give her little satisfaction A
moment later it was crumpled into a ball
and flung out of the window, while Mrs.
Cobb was trailing up and down her little
salon like person in perfect rage.
Suddenly she turned to me. What am
to do about Victor?" she asked.
Now, naturally, as didn't know Victor,
and wasn't mother myself, l found it
rather hard to know what to answer. So
said the first thing that came into my head.
"Wire him. said.
"Yes," she answered; "but what?'
To that, of course, | couldn't make any
answer; so | sat quite still, like a little
mouse behind trunk. Mrs. Cobb sat there
with her eyes staring fiercely before her. and
her throat muscles swelling inside the tightly
wired collar of her expensive, embroidered
dress. Her face had a strange expression, as
though her soul were uncovering itself, and
naturally she, of an age and race SO far away
from mine, and of an experience SO different,
she whose life mine had barely touched,
seemed for the moment quite near and real,
much nearer than any of my own blood re-
lations at Brent. who never showed their
souls nor even probably had any to I'M
cover, except a little tag with "Ladylike'
on it. 1t is true, Mrs. Cobb face reflected
no such tag: the expression OF it at this mo-
ment was harsh and resolute almost to
cruelty. Yet there was something in it that
was pitiful too; for one could see that her
eyes were looking, not inward on her own
affairs, but outward and beyond to someone
dearer than herself.
And for the moment as | looked at her
realized that, in spite of being a young girl
and philosopher, | was woman too, and
for the moment within my soul shadowy
vista opened, of mysterious depths that per-
haps some day might wake to life, and bring
to my face, too, that look l now saw on the
woman's face before me,-that look of
wanting, 1canfing something SO terribly;
more than Aunt Elizabeth wanted money,
or Lii husband! Is that what it means to
be woman. asked myself, to want some
thing more than one wants ones life, and
know that never, never one will be able to
have it? Then my thoughts passed like a
flash: for Mrs. Cobb began to speak.
"I've done everything for that boy she
said violently "Lord knows he never had
to ask me twice for anything he wanted; but
now
She gulped, clenched her fists then came
suddenly and sat down by me-
ats no use,' she said. ave got to tell
someone about it, and you, my dear, though
you are so young, yet there's something SO
distinguished and aristocratic about you,
YOU seem to me really like a relation The