The Birmingham age-herald., 1922-05-18

evidently worked very hard for years as her knotted fingers show.
 After Stratton began to make money he bought a little place for her and the children. Now, after sending her certain part of his in- come each week. he thinks he has him."
 How horriblel And he-and he-, Oh. Mrs. Chester. do you know what sob
 Yes. I know my child. It gave me the toothache"
 l smiled even through my tears. Do you mind my telling you, you remind me of Aunt Virginia, Mrs. Chester? You are very different in your way of expressing 1t but I am sure you think the same about things"
 T am just young woman grown old. Virginia. Not quite old enough to have forgotten that I once was young and l loved and I hated and l wept and sung and l laughed and l grieved Not quite old enough yet to have settled down into apathet tic waiting for the qualification of the last two senses left me. In other words, my dear, am still extremely critical of my red pepper" I looked at Mrs. Chester so inquir- ingly that she went further into ex- planations, more because she was trying to calm my nerves than any thing else.
 Don't you know. virgie. that every woman. yes and every man who lives his allotted three score and ten reaches tha9 time in life when his food means more to him than anything else. Taste seems the last sense to become blunted. First we lose our eyesight. then perhaps we detect that we do not hear as well as we used to do. Then one day we find that which used to grieve us is passed by with indiffer- ence. With that lack of sublimat- ed feeling I believe also the physi- cal feeling is deadened but smelling and tasting--the senses which make our dinners more than mere eating almost always become more acute as person grows older.
 Some day you will wonder. as you think back upon tonight, what made your heart ache so. Some day with a laugh you might probably tell your husband of my toothache and say the other"
 T may think it, dear Mrs. Chester, but 1t Is one of sthe things that l shall never tell to my husband if have one. It hurts too much for me to ever forget enough to smile about it.'
 You had better try and sleep now. Before I came upstairs to- night I heard the assistant director saying that we were going to be all day on location doing exteriors and interiors of the yacht. I think 1t IS going to be rather cold too. espe- cially if they take the deck dance at night instead of the afternoon
 Obediently I turned over and crept to the further edge of the narrow bed with my face against the wall.
 I tried to think what l could do in the morning. I tried to think what I would say when l met Theo- dore Stratton and Maud Samson and the rest of the company. l was so ashamed for I felt that in their hearts they had all suspected that I had acquiesced in Theo's scheme.
 How could I make them under stand without shouting 1t from the housetops, that I knew nothing about 1t. It was all a maze and the only light l saw in the whole murky darkness of the present was that Aunt Virginia was coming. Wheth- CT I told her or not I could snuggle up close to her on the little stool beside her rocking chair--for l de- termined ttat there would be stool and a rocking chair just as there were back home-a place where, putting my head upon her knee. l could feel her delicate hands upon my head.
 Although my eyes were tightly closed a picture spread itself before my inward vision. I saw Theodore Stratton with the same expression in his eyes that had seen as he looked into mine that day on the garden seat, but this time he was looking into a glass of charged water into which he was pouring whisky from pocket flask!
 The idea was humorous and won dering If we would work on the morrow, or if Theo would have one of his bad colds. felt my mouth turning upa at . thea cornerss and that IIXs now f fetf asfeSp sl4 i-'Tsst't'
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