The Topeka state journal., 1916-05-20
The Euening Story
Too Victorian.
(By Jane Osborn. J


solutely Victorian just go ahead and
NOPE around the way you are doing
now" Seventeen-year-o Ruth Les
ter-Ida's pretty golden-haired sister
looked up from her algebra and
glanced whimsically over her study
spectacles- Thank fortune, I've never
been in love-Oh, there's no use say
ing you aren't. Nowadays girls come
right out and say SO when they are.
But 1 suppose if you insist on being
Victorian you just won't be frank
about it. 1 was saying that if I ever
did fall in love and then lost out the
way you have-well, you needn't look
so offended, you know you have
why, wouldn't NOPE around about it
I'd use my brains, same as a man
would.
Il suppose you would go on this
way all your life and never lift your
little finger to mend matters. You are
about as progressive in your methods
as that poor Miss Faversham in
Dickens that wore her wedding dress
all her life just because she ran
against snag in her first love affair.
Use your brains, girl. and cut out this
eariy-decline business. Your pose now
is to say that you aren't in love with
Matthew. 1t makes you perfectly fur
ious just to have me mention it, and
then you go around looking as love-
sick as Romeo in the first act. Now
the really up-to-date, advanced thing
to do is to say right out that you are
crazy about him and then look as if
you weren't And, in the meantime,
think up plot. That's what a man
would do.''
Ida heaved the sigh of the lovelorn-
well, Smarty, since you know it
all" she said, going over to her sister
and closing the algebra she was study
ing, what sort of plot would you per-
petrate. Would you go down to Mat
thews apartment through the dumb
walter shaft and steal the young hero
away in the Silly night?"
Now you're talking!" said Ruth.
springing to her feet. That might be
good plot if the hero wasn't six feet
one and the heroine only five feet
three. I've thought out something
even Ncraftier than that. The facts in
the case are thus" Here Ruth be-
gan tabulating. Hero is really very
fond of heroine if not actually in love
with her. Hero naturally timid and
not much of a lady's man. Hero lives
IN same apartment house as heroine,
and just before heroine gets him to
the proposing point she plays her
cards wrong and tries to make the
nero Jealous-one of the most usual
mistakes of the game when played by
the young and inexperienced female
Ruth There was deep reproof in
!da's voice. What would mother saw
If she heard you?''
Mother isn't going to hear. Won
may be jolly, certain, and. besides, 1
am only giving you the good sound
adv1ce which if mother wasn't an
otner Victorian she'd be giving you
nerse1-onIy perhaps not just this
way AS said, heroine gets the hero
70 think that she is Indifferent and
oenDerately arranges to have other
suitors hanging around at the time he
calls Result: Hero, instead of get
nng Jealous, just gets a case of cold
pedal extremities. Deadlock follows.
Heroine won't either-too Victorian.
What you want to do is to do some
thing that will make the hero think
enat the heroine does care without
actually calling him up over the
phone and saying, Matthew, 1 love
you!-which You know you do That
would be bold, brave stroke, but it
might be a little too crude for the
torian standards.
Here is where the craft comes in
Ycu remember that little baby ring
with the blue-ename1 forget-me-nots
that the hero gave the heroine in a
moment of sentimental fervor at
picnic last summer. Now, don't look
| surprised. OF course I know he gave
it to you. Haven't 1 seen you wear it
wash ribbon every night since? Do
you think 1 keep my eyes in my pa
jana pockets? Now if the hero
thought the heroine had lost that ring
and thought she cared a lot for it hed
think that she cared a lot for him
without actually having to be told so
He'd also have the satisfaction of
| thinking himself something of a Sher-
lock Holmes in making the deduction.
Do you follow the proposition?
"Of course you haven't lost the ring,
but just the same you can put an ad-
vertisement in all the papers like this:
LosT-A baby ring with small
worth, but highly priced by the own
er- Reward, S75.'
Il know you haven't got seventy
five dollars all your own, silly, but
what difference does that make? You
haven't lost the ring either Now,
sooner or later, the hero is bound to
read that advertisement and after he
puts his shrewd masculine wits to
work for about half an hour it will
begin to dawn on him that the poor
little five-feet three heroine misses
him, wants to see him, loves him
dearly. You didn't know that? That just
shows that you aren't so wise as your
little sister Ruthie, even if you have
been to boarding school
And what will come of it?" Ruth
continued, anticipating Ida's query.
That's the question. 1t is also where
The hero is bound to do something,
and since you don't know just what
that something is the interest is sus-
tained till the story ends
1t was week later and the adver
tisement had appeared for five days
in the three local papers. Then one
day Ida came to Rut11's room and in
terrupted her in the midst of her al
zebra Ruth removed her spectacles
and focused her blue eyes on her sis
ter.
THE plot has thickened. / can tell
it in your face. Tell me, tell me-