The Brandon news. (Brandon, Miss.) 1892-1961, 1915-12-09
CHAPTER XIV.


1t was good to be home! Gail won
dered that she could ever have peen
content away from the loving shelter
OF her many, many friends. She had
grown world weary in all the raise
gayety of New York! She was dis
illusioned! She was blase. She was
tired of friyolity; and she immedi
ately planned or enthusiastically
agreed to take part in a series of gay
cites which would have made an aver
age Woodworking man anticipate them
with an already broken constitution.
The house was full of them, morn
ing, noon and night; young girls, Sc
date and jolly, and all of them excit-
eddy glad that Gail was among them
again; and young men, in all the de-
grees from social butterflies to plod-
ding business pluggers. equally glad.
Good, comfortable home folks these,
who were deliciously nice to the state
ly, black-haired Ariy, and voted her
tremendous beauty, and stood slight
ly In awe of her. The half cynical
Arfy, viewing them critically, found in
them one note of interesting novelty
a certain general clean-hearted whole
someness, and, being a seeker after
the unusual, and vastly appreciative,
she deliberately cultivated them; fiat
tering the boys, but not so much as to
make the other girls hate her. To
the girls she made herself even more
attractive, because she liked them
better. She compHmented them indi-
vidually on the point of perfection for
which each girl most prided herself;
she told them that they were infinitely
more clever than the women of New
York, and better looking, in general;
for the New York women were mostly
clothes and makeup, and, above all,
she envied them their truer lives!
No group of young people could re-
sist such careful work as that, espe-
cially when performed by young
woman so adroit and SO attractive,
and so well gowned; SO they lost their
awkwardness with her, which removed
any sense of discomfort Gail might
have felt. which was the aim to be ac-
complished. In those first few days
Gail was the happiest of all creatures,
in spite of the fact that the local pa
pers had carried potter echo of that
despicable slave story. At nights.
however, beginning with the second
one, when the girls had retired to the
mutual runway of their adjoining
suites, the conversation would turn
something like this:
Let's see, this Is the seventeenth,
isn't it?" thus Arly.
Yes; Tuesday" concentratediy Sc
lecting chocolate, the box OF which
bore New York name.
MRS. Matson's ice skating ball is
tonight" A sidelong glance at the
busy Gail "She always has such orig
inal affairs" 4
Doesn't she!" Gall draws her san
daled feet up under her and stretches
down her pink negligee. so that she
looks like a stiff statue in tinted
ivory.
And such interesting people. That
new artist is certain to be there.
What's his name? Oh. yes. Vlodow.
could adore him.
You're a mere verbal adorer,"
laughs Gail, studying anxiously over
the problem of whether she wants
another piece of chocolate or not. AL
lison had sent such good ones. "Vlo-
dow eats garlic"
That's why adore him, from a
distance. or course all the nice regu-
lar fellows will be there-Dick, Rod.
lev and Ted, and Houston, and Oh,
oh! forgot to1write Gerald" and with
a swift passing kiss somewhere be-
tween Calls ear and her chin, she hur-
ries into her own dressing room, with
q backward glance to make sure that
Gail is staring, with softehed brown
eyes, down. into her chocolate box. and
seeing there amid the CONNECTIONS. the
laughing. swirling skaters In Mrs.
Matson's glistening ballroom. There
were some who would not be at that
ball-Ailison, and Rev. Smith Boyd.
and-Arlene has plenty of time to
write her formally dutiful letter with.
out disturbance.
Gail has letters, too, as the days
wear on. She scarcely has time for
them amid all the impr0mptu gayeties,
hut she does find chance TO read
them: some of them twice. Ii shed