The Green Forest tribune., 1916-01-28
CHAPTER XIV.
The Message From New York.

RaMThe Message From New York. Fe%H was good to be home! Gail won-
 dered that she could ever have been
 content away from the loving shelter |0f her many, many friends. She had
 H0wn world weary in all the raise
 gayety of New York! She was dis
 lllusioned! She was blase. She was
 tired of frivolity; and she immedi-
 Ately planned or enthusiastically kaGreed to take part in a series of gay Eeties which would have made an aver kk8e hard-wOrking man anticipate them With an already broken constitution. The house was full of them, morn i Ing, noon and night; young girls, se- |nAte and jolly, and all of them excit- 1edly glad that Gail was among them Again; and young men, in all the de- [gr9es from social butterflies to plod- Fding business pluggers, equally glad Good, comfortable home folks these,
 who were deliciously nice to the state ", black-haired Arly, and voted her Fh htrSmendous beauty, and stood slight in awe of her. The half cynical
 A11y, viewing them critically, found in
 them one note of interesting novelty . certain general clean-hearted whole [00meness, and, being a seeker after the unusual, and vastly appreciative, She deliberately cultivated them; fiat [tctng 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 f0etter She complimented them indi- [v1dually 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 |3Or the New York women were mostly eclothes and makeup; and, above all, [She envied them their truer lives! No group of young people could re- |Nist such careful work as that, espe- |ctally when performed by a young |Woman so adroit and so attractive, |Nnd so we'll gowned; so they lost their |aMkwardness with her, which removed |any sense of discomfort Gail might 1ave felt, which was the aim to be ac- |cQm plished. In those first few days |1ail was the happiest of all creatures, IT spite of the fact that the local pa- |Ders had carried a politer echo of that |Nespicable slave story. At nights, |However, beginning with the second lone, when the girls had retired to the mutual runway of their adjoining ouites, the conversation would turn |oomething like this:
 Let's see, this is the seventeenth, |1en't it?" thus Arly.
 Yes; Tuesday" concentratedly SC. |Secting a chocolate, the box of which bore New York name.
 sMrs. Matson's ice skating ball is Tonight" A sidelong glance at the
 Qsy Gail. "She always has such orig |1nAl 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. | scould adore him."
 You're mere verbal adorer," |aaughs Gail, studying anxiously over the problem of whether she wants another piece of chocolate or not. AL
 liecn had sent such good ones. "vlo- dow eats garlic"
 "That's why I adore him, from a dtstance. Of course all the nice regu- liar fellows will be there-Dick, Rod ley and Ted, and Houston, and Oh, |oh! forgot to write Gerald" and with |a swift passing kiss somewhere be- tween Calls ear and her chin, she hur- |rtes into her own dressing room. with |e backward glance to make sure that Gall is staring, with softened brown |Ayes, down into her chocolate box, and |6eeing there amid the confections, the |aaughing, swirling 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 |jWrite her formally dutiful letter with |ott disturbance.
 Gail has letters, too, as the days |Wear on. She scarcely has time for [them amid all the impromptu gayeties,
 lf ,she does find a chance to read
 o1: some of them twice. If she'd