River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1915-10-21
CHAPTER XIV.

The Message From New York.
1t was good to be home! Gail won
dered that she could ever have peen
content away from the loving shelter
If her many, many friends. She had
grown world weary in all the raise
gayety of New York! She was dis
illusi0ned! She was blase. She was
tired OF frivolity; and she immedi.
ately planned or enthusiastically
agreed to take part in a series of gay
cites which would have made an aver
age handwriting 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 we're deliciously nice to the state
~ black-haired Arly, and voted her
a tremendous beauty, and stood slight
ly in awe Of her The half cynical
Ariy, viewing them critically, found in
them one note Of interesting novelty
q certain general clean-hearted whole
someness, and, being a seeker after
the unusual, and vastly appreciative,
she deliberately cultivated them; fiat
terfng 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 complimented them indi-
vdually 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 a young
woman SO adrOit and so attractive,
and SO we'll 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 a 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" concentratedly Sc.
lecting q chocolate, the box of which
bore q New York name.
Mrs. Matson's ice skating ball is
tonight" A sideIong glance at the
busy Gail "She always has such orig
NAL affairs"
Doesn't she!" Gail 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
hson had sent such good ones. "VIo-
dow eats garlic"
That's why | adore him, from a
distance. OF course all the nice regu.
lar fellows will be there-Dick, Rod
ley and Ted. and Houston, and Oh.
oh! forgot to write Gerald" and with
. swift passing kiss somewhere be-
tween Calls ear and her chin, she hur
ries into her own dressing room, with
a backward glance to make sure that
Gail is staring, with softened brown
eyes, down into her chocolate box, and
seeing there amid the CONNECTIONS, the
laughing, swirlinge skaters in Mrs.
Matson's glistening ballroom. There
were some who would not be at that
ball-Allison. 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 impromptu gayeties,
bat she does ind chance to read
them: some az them twice. If she'd