The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1918-08-06

any rate the meeting of Helen Ferrel
and Bob Lamar was not quite what
anyone concerned had expected it
would be. To be sure, Helen had
changed almost none since the picture
that Bob had treasured had been
taken. She was the same Helen and
Bob was the same Bob, but there was
no quick look of understanding be-
tween them that was part of the meet
ing as every one had planned it. Per-
maps this vas because Bob was pre-
occupied. AS soon as he could con-
veniently do so he made a strange re-
quest of Gregory. Il want to see
Grizelda," he told him. 81 can't get
her out of my mind. / want to talk to
her. Poor youngster-we all sow our
wild oats, and hers have been Of
very tame sort-but she's going
through worse torture for it than you
and l did for the worst crop we ever
sowed."
Under protest, therefore, Gregory
did secrete Bob up the back stairway
and into Grizelda's prison--a room that
had been the schoolroom when the
children were young and was now the
barest room in the house. Bob asked
to talk with the girl alone.
He told her to begin with that he
had come to her as the best friend that
she had, and then laughing q little
and taking her warm young hand,
asked her to tell him all about it.
swell, you see, they wouldn't let me
tell them. / said I didn't mean to do
1t, and they said / did, so / thought
If they thought l wasn't telling the
truth wouldn't tell. Well, 1t was this
way. You know Helen has that nice
glinty kind of hair and so has Gregory,
and they've always told me my hair
was potato color. And there was girl
at school and she said If let her wash
my hair with something her mother
had in bottle my hair would come
out with glints In 1t, and no one would
know, but they'd just think it was
getting that way. Well, went home
with her and first time we used it, it
didn't make much difference, so we
used more the next time and when
when 1t dried It was this color. And
that's how 1t happened and now we're
all disgraced and I'm just DIS wicked
as If I'd done something perfectly
dreadful. They're going TO send me
away" she said without tear. IF
they really loved me they wouldn't"
Poor little girl" said Bob and then
he took the little blonde head on
his shoulder and smoothed the hair
tenderly back from her fair young
forehead. EVERY one makes mis-
take once In while he began.
"But you never did," said Grizelda
definitely. Gregory told Helen you
hadn't and Helen says she never could
marry man that had sowed any Wild
oats. Nice people don't do foolish
things like this, DO they7 Helen would
be furious If she knew you had seen
me-did you think Helen was beauti-
ful?" eagerly asked the girl, who had
wormed 1t out of Gregory before that
Bob Lamar had He'en's picture.
'rm not thinking about Helen Just
now, except perhaps to think that she
would never want to marry me, any
way. I was thinking Of way out Of
this. I'm going out to Japan--next
week. I'll be gone six months. The
hair would be in brown again by that
time, and in the meantime what differ
ence would 1t maker Little GrIzelda-
I decided never to go away from civil
izatlon again without one Of my own
kind. Could you go with me-would
you marry ME, right away quietly,
right here and slip back to New York
and off to Japan with met"
1t was Grizelda's only way out of
her difficulty. but she was supremely
happy, and even Helen Ferret forgave
the slight. since 1t saved the family
honor.
1T really Is wonderful" she some
times remarked to Gregory, that a
man who had never done anything
wild himself could sympathize so with
one who had been so foolish"
And Gregory never suggests that
perhaps there were chapters in Bob
Lamars life that had been as wild as
the bleaching Of Gfizelda's hair.