The Eureka sentinel. [volume] (Eureka, Nev.) 1902-current, 1913-03-01

ing md. with Il sort of worship. look
ing for the first time Mt women with
uncovered nccks and arms emerging
white as wax from their ~diaphahous or
glittering gowns. To me they were
radiant, transported to a sphere of ex-
istence beyond my own. something
never would attain to. I recall them
as Il vague, drcamlike spectacle. In
all of il there is but one incident that
I remember clearly, and that is. when
whirling out of the crowd and into an
empty space. that the dancers had left
clear for a moment. came a coupled
large blond girl and a young man. a
boy, hardly as old as she, but so hand
some. so dark. so full of life II n
sparkling sort of mischief, that it made
one feel quite gay just to look at him.
AS they danced past the place where
Halle and | were sitting he was hold
ing his partners gauzy train in his
long. fine fingers, and they went by us
laughing.
who is that?' I whispered.
That's Johnny Montgomery Halle
whispered back.
who's he?"
why, don't you know?" Halle cried.
She dearly loved to give information.
''The Montgomerys were n of the
very best families here, and he's the
last of them. Old Lady Montgomery
died the year we went away to school,
and he had heaps of money, but he
lost it,
That same season there was another
notable occasion, when Halle led me
to the bedroom of her grownup sister
and exhibited to me with awestruck
pride the dress her sister was to wear
to the Sumner Light guards ball that
night. 1t was a blue tulle with a fine
frost of spangles over the bodice, and
IL seemed too dazzling to belong to a
creature less wonderful than a fairy.
But when Halle went on, in a cautious
whisper lest we be discovered, TO on
fide to me that when she was grown
up and out of school her mother had
promised to give her a party and that,
since I was her best friend. of course
she was going to invite me first of all,
I began to realize that 1, too, might
some day grow up into a young lady
and be laced into a gown perhaps as
beautiful as the n spread out on the
bed before us.
Such a dazzling idea gave me an en-
tirely new set of fancies and was a
pleasant book companion and bedfel-
low to take back to the convent. Hal
lie, who was a year older and half a
head taller than I. had already begun
to lengthen her dresses and do up her
hair, and I found 1t humiliating to be
so small that at sixteen l had still to
wear mine down my back in long
curls and my skirts above my ankles.
The only thing that comforted me was
that whenever father came to see me
he always said: "Child, how tall you
are! You're almost q woman" And,
though he was the one person who
seemed to think so. 1t was quite sufi-
cient for me. When my graduation
day came 1 was much excited to think
how absolutely grown up ] would ap-
pear to him in my first long frock.
But when I came to him after the ex-
ercises were over he looked at me as
if he were sad and said, "Child, how
little you arer'
That was a dreadful disappointment
to Inc, but when l reminded him how
he had always told me 1 was tall he
laughed and said, You were tall for a
schoolgirl, but you're very little to be
the mistress of a house"
That puzzled me. but on the way
home. driving up through the valley,
he told me more about what he meant.
He said: NOW that you have stopped
being a child, you are going to be a
very gay young ~lady-going to have
fine gowns and dance about like a but
terfy, and you're going to keep on be-
ing my little girl. But at the same
time am afraid you will have to be
a little lady of the house, too, and take
care of me and Abby, now that Alb
by's rheumatism Is so bad, and go to
call on the ladies who were your moth
er's friends and are going to be yours.
Do you think you are tall enough to
do all that?'
was so surprised and so happy that
L nugged him right there in the buggy
and said, ID you really mean it?"
Father laughed, just as he does to
cover up being rather serious, and
said, "You are your mothers daugh-
ter, for she was a little fair woman,
but there was never anything too big
for her to manage"
/ was happier than ever to hear him
say that-he so seldom spoke of moth
Grand the idea of a whole house to
manage and of sitting at the foot of
the table and calling on grownup mar
ried women seemed to me as merry
and exciting as going to parties and
having beaus.
] had not been in the city for a year,
spending my last vacations at the
ranch at Menlo Park. and though l
knew from what Halle had told me
thai the city was very different vet