Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1917-01-26

II T was well for me that / was too
shy to do very much talking dur
ing the week l spent with Mrs.
Henderson, Mr.. Colby's sister Had 1
thrust myself in the foreground among
her guests doubtless l should have
made many mistakes in manner and
conventions. For l had been plunged
at once into a world that was complete
ly new to me. To be sure, had caught
glimpses of this kind of life through
the brothers and husbands of women
like Mrs. Henderson. But always when
1 had known these men it had been in
the course of their having what they
called "a good time" For the moment
they had cast aside the letters of the
society in which ordinarily they moved.
So now 1 found myself at a loss, I'M
able to understand the point of view
which governed the lives of Mrs. Hen
dersons' women guests.
TO me these women were strangely
assorted in their friendships. To begin
with, there was one matron, a Mrs Nor
man, who apparently had a great deal
of money. 1 guessed the extent of her
wealth, not from anything she said, but
from glimpses of her life l caught
through the conversation of the others.
Also one might have known from the
exquisite rarity of her jewels which she
Mrs. Norman's main diversion was to
rise very early and work in the garden
for hours before breakfast. l think she
knew every leaf and bud by its name.
She talked fertilizers and germicides
for hours with the men who worked on
Mrs. Henderson's place.
And Mrs. Norman's closest friend was
a young girl just over from Paris,
where she had studied, who was trying
to gain a foothold as an illustrator. This
young girl seemed to have almost no
income of any kind and was perfectly
willing to admit it. She laughingly told
me one day that eff Cora, Mrs. Hender-
son, had not been willing to put her up
for a few weeks until a check or two
arrived she would have been living on
crackers and milk in some hall bedroom
in that beastly city" What was per-
fectly understandable to me was that
this girl took her poverty as a great
joke. Likewise Mrs. Henderson's other
guests seemed to think nothing of it
unless ii were to admire the courage
with which the girl was making her
fight for a livelihood. AS for her she
seemed to feel it was all in the days
work; that whether one were poor for
year OF two in the course of ones ca
reer scarcely mattered. Indeed, she re-
marked to me:
'Poverty's jolly good for you. Don't
you think so? 1t gives you a new
angle on life"
Among these strange people l moved
bewildered. For the first time in my
life 1 felt tongue-tied. L learned that
men might be friends with women with
no thought of love between them; that
women might be merry and happy with
out men to entertain them or make love
to them and that many people in this
world found absorbing occupations out
side the great game to which sex calls
us. Unfortunately for me, my mind
was not as yet sufficiently awake to APP
preciate all this at it's full value.
was as one who has absorbed too much
of the hectic unrealities of cheap liter
ature to be able to enjoy or to under
stand the works of the great masters.
1 was interested in Mrs. Henderson's
tea parties, where only women were
present, only because they were of
kind quite new to me. Almost at once
they were bound to pail. Thus it was
not without a fiutter that 1 heard sew