Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1917-03-24

TT 1 had planned my campaign for weeks
L | could not have thought of anything
better calculated to rivet my mother-in-
laws attention than the luncheon at
trauncess Tavern
When she had announced her intention
of abandoning our sightseeing trip in order
that she might go home and discuss with
her son some mysterious secret connected
with his past life and that of Lillian Gale,
! had told her that She would be unable to
see him, and suggested luncheon at the old
Revolutionary inn, / was determined that no
one should talk to Dcky on the subject be-
fore l did, but ! had been very doubtful at
the reception my suggestion would receive.
To my surprise the ruse succeeded per-
fectly. The elder Mrs. Graham enthusiastic
caly adopted my suggestion, and from the
moment she made the decision no one would
have dreamed from her appearance or her
actions that she had just been swept by a
storm of emotion, or had undergone a heart
attack.
I began to understand what Dicky had
meant when he said that his mother was
like a child in many things She was the
last person in the world, l had thought, to
whom one could compare child but there
was something very youthful in her whole
hearted enjoyment of the place and her
mercurial forgetfulness of the emotional
storm through which we had both passed.
There is only one word that describes
this" she said when our cab drew up be-
fore the door of the old hostery 1T is one
of the most abused words in the language,
but it surely fits this place.
"I suppose you mean quaint" l said
smiling; "it always comes into my mind
when l see the building"
Exactly" she returned good-naturedly.
mo, we will not go in for little while.
~ 60 x-in Nf tlA IL
first"
This is really wonderful doorway"
said
She examined 1t critically.
"Yes, it is a good doorway" she assented
at last. THE knocker is a fine example Of
Colonial work also"
q / smiled to myself at the note of absolute
fnality in her voice Evidently Richards
mother was herself again.
'Have you seen the sign?" I asked indi-
eating the curiously inscribed metal sheet
which hung above our head announcing, as
it had in the days before the Revolution,
that Sam Fraunces, the half-breed West
Indian, was mine host of the inn."
She looked at it with interest "How
queer it is" she commented, that these
inanimate objects remain in the world while
the brains that planned them and the hands
that executed them have been dust for
century"
HERE WASHINGTON TOOK
FAREWELL"
She had voiced my own thought so ac-
curately that 1 looked at her in wonder
ment. I was finding many points of view
in common with my husbands mother. A
tiny spring of hope began to sprout in my
heart. a belief that some time might break
down her prejudice against me and find
in her the womanly companionship which /
so sorely needed.
We passed to the side and read the
tablet placed upon the building after its
restoration by the Sons OF the Revolution.
"Here Washington took farewell of his
officers" my mother-in-law read aloud
These are the things which alone make
those patriotic societies worth while" 1
commented idly.
My mother-in-law stiffened. ITO any
one having the right to belong to them
they are worth while in any case" she
said frigidly.
flushed hotly, both at the needless re.
buke and my own tactlessness. had for
gotten what Dicky had once told me of his
mother
"She has the ancestor bug" ne nad said
III there's an ancestral So
ciety In existence which she hasn't Joined
I'd like to see II, for II must be curio /
think she'd 70 out and burn Income on fhs
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