Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1918-06-28

| dine would meet each other at hotels
with benevolent, kindly disposed PEG.
pie like Mr.. JudsOn, and there they
would dance to their hearts content,
For several weeks Julie could not
get the idea of this possibility of free
dom and enjoyment from her mind
and before long she began actually to
| feel envy of Geraldine, instead of the
pity that had come when she had first
heard of her loss of fortune. At leaS
II Jack should lose his fortune ther
would be an end of the deadly routine
He would have to work nights, like
Bob, and there would be a chance fol
diversion and amusement. To jules
youthful mind, the picture was allur-
ing, and sometimes in her dreams Of
the possibility of such enjoyment, Jack
would catch her gazing off into space
and she would come back with a guilty
little laugh.
Then one day Jack telephoned, with
tired, joyless note in his voice, that
he would have to work that night
For several nights in succession he had
to work, and Julie saw him only at
breakfast, when he was too deep in the
stock quotations to be interested in
her girlish prattle. Here were the
symptoms of the financial reverses
that Julie had been thinking about
And after Jacks moodiness had con-
tinued fer three or four weeks, and he
had confessed that the cause of his
preoccupation was financial worry,
and had actually got her to sign over
to him the house he had given her,
Julie knew that the time had come
her pluck. 1t was actually her duty to
Jack, Geraldine had convinced her,
not to NOPE at home. There was moth
ing so gloomy to a husband on the
brink of financial failure, Geraldine
had told her, as wife as worried and
detected as himself.
When Julie had planned bit be-
fore, it seemed quite easy-making tea
dates with her husbands friends and
discovering old bachelors willing to
make out checks for sealskin coats.
But apparently Jacks friends were
different from Bob's, and though Julie
assumed her most debonnaire manner
when she met Jacks associates, there
own suggestion, she Joined Geraldine
and Bob for a little dinner party at
which few men friends of Bob'S were
also present, she had no better sue
cess, and her dinner companion talked
necessarily of Jack. Although she
knew it was not intentional, she felt
that she had been reproved by him for
ever having thought of seeking any
other mans society. Still Julie perse-
vered. Above all things, she wanted
to be modern, and she wanted to be
like Geraldine, her idol. But the effort
told upon her, and although she wore
her prettiest clothes and was at all
times animated in her mood, the dark
circles under her blue eyes widened
and the tiny wrinkles that always
showed on her fair forehead when she
had lost a little weight, became more
and more apparent.
1t was one night at dinner when she
had not seen Jack, excepting at break
fast, for more than two weeks.
The beginning of the end came when
she told Jack that she thought 1t was
only fair to her that he should tell her
"all." She had though she did not tell
him, gone over her entire possessions
and made out list of those she could
move out of the house at short notice.
Jack answered by saying that he was
sure she had been going through more
than he had, and 1t was not very
strange that such an honest little blue
eyed wife as Julie should have con-
fessed, then, her whole scheme. 81
must be terribly unattractive," she
said. 1--WE tried so hard to be thor
oughly up to date and to take things
the way Geraldine has. But somehow
l couldn't get anybody even to take
me to tea. And there Is nothing so
disheartening in the world as a wife
who mopes at home when her husband
is on the verge Of failure"
ION the verge of what" laughed
Jack. "Who said I was on the verge of
failure" Julie admitted that 1t was
the signing over Of the house that had
convinced her of the fact. "And now I
want you to take 1t back again." Jack
told her. I've just been through the
biggest strain Of my life. My own af-
fairs were all right, but Bob was in
position where, with q little backing,
he could get back on his feet again.
He didn't ask me to help him, bit I
offered-and I needed every bit of
money l had for security. I would
have told you, only I knew II / did
that you would go and tell Geraldine,
and Bob wanted 1t to be a surprise.
And now we're through the ordeal, and
we both made money, and here's
little surprise. Bob and Geraldine and
you and are going out for bang-up
good time. They'll call for us In few
minutes"
When Geraldine came she wore her
last years coat. Julie whispered to
har. "YOu dacided NOT IN oet tho