The Connecticut labor press., 1919-11-01
By
Doth Harrington
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dinner, even when George Anderson
returned. Sunday evening was the
time, he explained, for going over the
weeks work with his factory man
ayers.
When Lucy came home the autumn
was far enough advanced to smell of
burning leaves, and for the annual
editorials, in the papers, on the purple
haze, the golden branches, the ruddy
fruit, and the pleasure of long tramps
In the brown forest. George had not
heard of her arrival, and he met her,
on the afternoon following that event,
at the Sharons', where he had gone in
the secret hope that he might hear
something about her. jamie Sharon
had just begun to tell him that she
heard Lucy was expected home soon,
after having "a perfectly gorgeous
t1me"-informatiOn which George re-
ce1Ved with no responsive enthusiasm
when Lucy came demurely in,
proper little autumn figure in green
and brown,
Her cheeks were flushed and her
dences, as George supposed, of the
excitement incidental to the perfectly
gorgeous time just concluded; though
JAMIE and Mary Sharon both thought
they were the effect of Lucy's having
seen Georges runabout in front of the
house as she came in. George took on
color, himself, as he rose and nodded
indfferently; and the hot suffusion to
which he became subject extended its
area to include his neck and ears.
Nothing could have made him much
more indignant than his consciousness
of these symptoms of the icy indiffer-
ence which it was his purpose not only
to show but to feel.
She kissed her cousins, gave George
her hand, said "How d'you do" and
took a chair beside jamie with a COM
dignation.
How dyou do?" he said. 81 trust
that ah-I trust-I do trust"
He stopped, for it seemed to him
that the wo,d trust" sounded idiotic
Then, to cover his aw1zwardness, he
coughed, and even to his own rosy
ears his cough was ostentatiously a
false one. Lucy sat silent and the
two Sharon girls leaned forward, star
ing at him with strained eyes, their
lips tightly compressed; and both were
but too easily diagnosed as subject to
self-control. He began again.
Il tr-I hope you have had "a
pleasant time. l tr-I hope you are
lT-
hope ely-extremely-"
II beg your pardon?" Lucy said.
George was never more furious; he
felt that he was making a spectacle
OF himself" and no young gentleman
in the world was more loath than
George Anderson Minafer to look a
figure of Iun. And while he stood
there, undeniably such a figure, with
jamie and Mary Sharon threatening to
burst at any moment, if laughter were
longer denied them, Lucy sat looking
at him with her eyebrows delicately
lifted in casual, polite inquiry. Her
own complete composure was what
most CALLED him,
"Nothing of the slightest impor-
tance!' he managed to say 81 was
leaving.
with long strides he reached the door
and haste1eu through the hall; but
before he closed the door he heard
from jamie and Mary Sharon the out
burst of wild, irrepressible emotion
which his performance had inspired
He drove home in a tumultuous
mood, l almost ran down two ladies
who were engaged in absorbing con-
ver3ation at a crossing. They were
his Aunt Fanny and Mrs. Johnson; a
jerk of the reins at the last instant
saved them by a few inches; but their
conversation was interesting that
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