The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1916-08-05
ExTINGUISHED STARS


face was white despair.
"And so she passed out of his life
into the golden sunset"
Henrietta Coleman sat back in her
chair, shifted with disgust, let the
magazine slip from her fingers to the
floor of the train, and patted her
yawning mouth.
What jokes were editors trying to
play on an easy-going public anyhow!
How dare they charge fifteen cents a
copy for the miserable attempt. The
heroines of these short stories
humph--they seemed as guiltless of
brains as a pea. This particular las
sic, in the romance Henrietta had just
| finished, had fairly flung herself at the
head of the hero, a sleek-haired youth
in white fiannels, who loved her much
but stubbornly thought his chances
hopeless. After being indicate to
the point of almost proposing to him,
Miss Heroine was silly enough not to
be little more indicate and settle
the matter by proposing. Alas! she
elected to sail away at the close of
| her summer vacation, leaving him in
ignorance of her preference for him
saddened that his native stupidity
would not let him learn what she had
tried so hard to teach him. And thus
the mutual want of pinch of COM
mon sense wrecked two lives!
Henrietta shifted again and selected
pink-tinted bon-bon from the box of
Huyler's, a Dutch treat. in her lap.
well, authors must ive," she con-
ceded largely. "And if they could sell
only, their sensible material, they
would have to accomplish that neces-
sity on air." Charity, however,
promptly flew away before another
flare of resentment, which brought a
new viewpoint. And if they could
sell only their sensible stories, they
wouldn't be eating fricassees and own
ing Fords, at martyred readers ex-
pense!"
From which it appears that Henri
eta had her own ideas on life in gen.
eral and love in particular, and that
they did not tally with those of story
writer's. She knew that, if she were
fond" of somebody, and had reason
to believe that somebody was fond of
her, she would speak plainly and hon.
estly if somebody didn't. Why should
silence be allowed to lose happiness
| when word could find it?
But there seemed to be little pros
pect of her ever having opportunity to
put her conviction to the test. She
was twenty-seven and plain. A nurse
| by profession, she had fallen into the
habit of affecting simplicity and com
fort in attire, depriving herself of all
the vague and modish little feminine
touches which could have made a
much palmer woman more attractive.
| Having supported herself for at least
eight years, she had unconsciously
| taken on a stiffness and independence
of bearing Whichs seemed to bid the
other sex begone.S Yet she possessed
| fine blue eyes that could be soft as
evening stars Though she generally
| kept them as hard as steeD, and a
| heart which sometimes wanted to be
a sponge (but which generally man
aged to stay stone). Her work had
| brought her into contact with all
specimens of the male of the species
and of this she was proudly certain
not one of them exactly suited her
Also, she was humbly aware that
| those who. almost suited her were not
at all impressed with her. She some
times suspected that she looked too
forbidding and commonplace. The
older she got, however, the less she
cared So she told herself.
Her life was spent in ether-breath.
ing hospitals, where physicians forgot
to notice that she was perhaps some
| thing more than a marble woman or
a feminine machine; in boarding
houses where pert and picturesque
blonde stenographers imperiously de-
manded and lavishly received the
masculine attentions; and in trains
where gentlemen had the knack of i'm
prisoning their eyes and noses in the
| columns of newspapers. One could be
sure that when. Nurse Coleman was
on duty there would be no fiirtatious
nonsense with dapper young doctors;
her value in wards and operating
rooms was undisputed. Little did the
apostles of healing think that she was
daily fighting down a sickness in her
| bosom, and ruthlessly cutting the soft
tendrils of sentiment away from her
/ - he
was an accomplished nurse eminently
because she was constantly practising
her art on herself. For Henrietta,
though secretly, was lover of ro-
nance. She had indeed cured herself
to the extent of believing that she
wanted it in fiction rather that in real
life. But women never know what
they want SO definitely as they want
what they know.
To think of the flower of romance
ever being crushed always made her
angry. She would like to scalp any
author who dared write unhappy end
ings. She could not conceive of a
hero or heroine being brainless
enough to let the sweet and precious
blossom die. If it should ever, by
some miracle, sprout in her arid life
with what care and solicitude she
would cultivate and guard it! This
was thought, however, which she
permitted herself only when she
couldn't prevent it; that is, on heaven
ly nights, when the moon, huge
pearl in bed of white velvet, dropped