Omaha daily bee., 1922-04-30
The Girl Who Pleases Only Her.
self Colides With the Girl
Who Prefers to
Please Others.

soften times three It's stood for IL. and what
they meant was Rsadin'. 'letiR' and Rithmeue.
Tho three letters which would sYmboliss II
now are INT. a useful substance. but with
diseoneeriing possibilities II II happens to back.
fire.
The young know 10, more than the old
. this We eheertully eonesde-but let them be-
ware how they educate ua There's an ocea-
sonai harmless Victorian TO be found here
and there. born away back In the last decade
ot the last century before the grand old lady
died. who Ii capable. under sufficient stimua.
ton. Of taking leaf out OF the new book.
Charlotte Blunt. who had been Charlotte Fulton
until she married wiifred-charotte. at tho
ripe old age OF ss-proved 10 be one OF those
too apt pupils.
Until her sister. Anne. aged Is. came home
from school TO spend tho Easter holidays with
her and wiifred. IL had never occurred 10 Char
iotie 10 think OF herself victim. Let alone
slave or q sroselins worm. lf asked she'd
have snid. In the benIghted. unrenlistie way
which characterized her coeyas. that she was
an unusually lucky person and fully nz happy
as IL was good for any one TO be.
Shed grown up In IL roomy honey. suburban
\ house. Her parents were nice. regular people.
well enough Off. and seriously enough disposed.
to insure that everything they provided for
their children should have tho sterling mark
OF conventional approval stamped upon II.
Since she was pretty and amiabc. and amusing
from the time she was a baby. they made some-
thing Of domestic pet Of her. especially her
father. Her mother took her a little moro seri-
ously: concerned herself moro constantly than
Charlotte thought necessary with such details
as rubbcrs. drafts tooth brushes slang. Sunday
school lessons. hair curling. and so on-but
then. that was tho way OF mothers, wasn't 1T
These minor drawbacks were magnificently
compensated for. anyhow when on Charlottes
eighth birthday. her mother presented her.
miraculously. with a live doll. baby sister
whom they named Anne.
II never occurred to Charlotte to scrutinize
any Of these people very closely. with the eye
" dislnterested analysis; to ask herself how
admirable they really were, nor to define her
own feelings about them. What was there to
think about them? They were hers. and she
loved them. OF course. you loved your own
father and mother and sister. Didn't every
body?
Il don't mean to say that there never were
any free acids of the spiritual sort in Char
lotte's thoughts or emotions. She suffered dis
appointments and. occasionally. humiliations;
she had to be told now and then not to sulk;
she sometimes lay awake for quite while. after
she'd been sent to bed. feeling exquisitely sorry
for herself; once in q blue moon she got so
angry that she cried But no appalling ter
minology had, as yet, been applied to these phe-
nomena and no one took them any more seri-
ously than Charlotte herself. This ID old stufl.
you see-nineteenth century.
She went growing up in the regular way.
She discovered how nice 1t was to be pretty
ard have the boys like you.. She learned TO
dance the Hesitation aud the Castle Walk. She
ler., h'.ad the stra Egtm Of asking for things she
wasn't at al sure she was going to get. during
the first ten minutes Of her fathers after-dnner
cigar; and, being a kind-hearted young thing
she spared her mother occasional bits of knowl-
edge which that estimable lady might have
found distressing.
They didn't send her away to the smart fin
which of her friends at.
tended, but to nice private day school few
miles up the shore instead. This was IN order
not to interfere with her piano lessons. Back
in those days, Of course, piano playing was
still considered seriously as feminine accom-
plishment, but 1t was little more than that to
Charlotte. She had a certain amount OF real
musical capacity. She practiced at the piano
con amore, and by IS 1t was the old part OF
her education that she herself regarded seri-
ously.
She was entertaining project. as yet coldly
received at home. of going to Berlin to study
with Mme Carreno, and then bursting upon the
world as a first magnitude concert pianist, when
tho outbreak OF the war, In 1914. knocked all
that In the head. Her mother needed lot OF
her time, what with all the benefits and drives
and relief movements that were springing up
on every hand: and her father got to seeming
. lot more affectionate and dependent upon her
than he'd ever been before.
And then she met Wilfred Blunt and liked
him awfully. and pretty soon got to liking him
q lot more than that, and they fell into one Of
those typically suburban undefinable, perfectly
understood relationships which nice young
American boys and girls seem to have invented
for themselves He was only two years older
than she, and. having nothing to live on beyond
what he could earn, he was according to sub
urban ideas Of the PERIOD more marriage
able during the two years which followed his
graduation from school Of architecture than
- school boy.
They didn't call themselves engaged even
when he went up to the Sheridan training camp
in the summer Of IT. She kept her week ends
swept perfectly clean for him, and their ca
resses. though they didn't 60 much farther than
they had gone before, abandoned an air. scru-
pulously maintained up to then. OF fortuity:
but he didn't ask her to be war bride. and she
having been born in the last century, hadn't
proposed to him--just waited for him like the
nice little Victorian thing she was.
Indeed. the status quo ante bellum might have
continued for quite while after Wilfred
emerged from his captains uniform-Qute in
tact The had been useful to his country. but not
especially glorious)--if it hadn't been for Char
lctte's father. He remarked. one Sunday. after
sermon he hadn't liked and rather too carna
Sunday dinner. that young Blunt was all right, Of
course, and, for anything he knew to the con-
trary, talented in his line: and boy and girl
affair all right, Of course. for boys and girls;
hut. after ALL the war was over.
"Wifred and going to be married right
after Easter" Charlotte said, bright pink and a
little breathless. II just thought I'd tell you."
She was waiting in the hall with her things on
for the aforesaid Wilfred when he came for his
regular Sunday afternoon call. took him out for
a walk and told him--not what her father had
said, but simply what was going to happen
Which was news to Wilfred.
She'd never realized how rapturously in love
with him she was until she saw how he took It,
the panic of happiness it threw him into There
was something shy about him. and mysterious
underneath his imperturbable surface and his
thoroughly nice. conventional manners, and she
cot fairer clirlnse of IL intnxicatiug