, 1923-02-25

6 tHdl Ler parallS
was gone again.
She had so little hope that she did
not mention the experience to Leya
She had no ambition to promulgat,
her failures. 1t was success that sh,
wanted.
For once her gloomy foreboding.
were justified. And ever after SHE
trusted her gloomy f~orebodings, of
ten as they fooled her.
The ext DAY passed with no sum
mons from the studio. But the mai
brought her a letter from Mrs. Dack
1t was written in such script as one
might expect from a hand tina
clutched a cake OF soap or a hot
boiler handle and scrubbed clothe;
against a washboard all day six days
n week. 1t said:
Dear Mrs. Woodville: I was awful.
glad to get your letter. Been meanln
to anser it but trying to fix up my
Affairs SOS l and Terry could come
up to your city. Yesday I was to Mrs
and she said she had a tel
lagrnm for you but had no aGress ant
so could not forword It. 1t said YOU
mother was SO worrit not having hat
no anser to her letters she was come
ing u on the first train and woult
reach I'alm Springs day after tomor
row. Hoping to see you soon ether
there or here. MRS. p. DACK.
p. S.-Both I and Terry send you
lots of love.
Mem was petrified. Nothing could
stop her mother from coming. Thu
first blaze of joy at the thought Of the
reunion was quenched in the flood o.
impossible situations her presence
would create.
Alone with her skyish ambitions
her contempt for village standards
had been sublime. But that was in
the absence OF the village. It madt
an amazing difference in the look Of
her new ideals and practices that
they must be submitted to a moth
er's eyes.
Her mother did not know los An
geles.
But then. Mem did not know hel
mother. Daughters have not all beer
mothers. but all mothers have beer
daughters.
Mems courage turned craven be
fore the wilderness of her problems
UNEMPLOYMENT, poverty, ambition
Terry back to launch and e mother
to educate.
CHAPTER xxx.
Remember steddon was o exactly
a runaway. She was a walkaway
She was not included in the p!tifu.
deadroll Of the 5000 girls who van
ished from American homes that yeai
and causec a vast pother, though
girls have been running away from
nome since girls and homes were.
They have followed the cave men
the barbarian invaders, the allied
troops, the caravans. the argosIes
They filled the .urImeval factories ant
the places of merriment. the Cor
inths and A~lexandrias. Some of them
became slaves and some su.tanas
p~riestesses, royal favorites, EN-
presses. tsarinas. queens of song and
art. Some starved, some flourished,
Mem felt that to go back would con
dem her to ignominy and futility,
while to stay away promised a chance
for wealth and glory. She heard
voices calling her. saw spirits sum
monlng her to the skies. no less than
Jean of Arc lid. and perhaps with
no more insanity.
But now her mother had found her
out and was pursuing her. Her
would be as grave a problem
to her as she to her mother.
The fall from the cliff that did
not quite free Mems soul from her
body n quite freed the little para
site sou hat was to have been her
conspicuous fardel to bear through
life. But the tiny leech had begun
to drink her blood and in its death
It tore open a wound that would
never quite heal. Her soul had bled
and she had been stricken with awe
before the two miracles hat fastened
a life upon hers and then wrested it
from her before 1t was quite a life.
The letter she had written her
mother then had been the instructive
cry of a child beset in the dark by
some enormous presence passing
overhead.
Just as instructive was the COM