New Britain herald., 1926-07-12
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f with a chatter, and pushed back her chair from the table.
 What are you talking about?" she asked. looking stunned. Have you your mind? Where would you go if you left home, I'd like to know ."
 Helen flushed. and pushed back her struggling hair with a work hardened hand.
 I'm going to keep house for Bill 'Hepworth," she said calmly and then added, we've been married for more than a month. Moms." Mons dropped back into her chair. Probably for the first time in her talkative life, she coldn't think of a word 10 say. She just sat and stared at Helen as If she were someone she never had laid eyes on before.
 Well" she said with a loud gasp, after long pause, well. l never heard of such thing. When have you seen Bill Hepworth lately?'
 Helen ian nervous finger along the tablecloth, as she answered. "Oh, at different times,' she said, not meeting her mothers eyes. Usually when l went down to the store 10 see Dad. And sometimes I'd meet him and we'd go for a drive, and then one day We've just got married"
 Mons lip curled.
 q don't see why he didn't come here to see you like a gentleman" she remarked severely. That's one thing like about Merry's young man. He comes here to the house to see her, the way he should not sneaking her off into his auto mobile like Morley Kaufman does with Cassie. as if he were ashamed of being seen here. In my day girl didn't go out with man until lie had her parents consent.
 She shot a sharp glance at Cas- sic as she spoke.
 Cassie said nothing. She, her self, couldn't understand why Nor ley Kaufman never came to the house. It worried her, because he never had. IL didn't look as if he meant busi css."
 Well" Mons sighed, T don't know what I'm going to do with out you, Helen. Right in the mid dle of the canning season, too" she sighed again.
 This was Merrys chance.
 'Tll tell you, mother" she cried eagerly, "I'll take Helen's place in the house. I'll help you with the work"
 "You!" Mons tone vas wither- ing. You, that can't even boil an egg Or make a bed 20 it's fit to sleep in. You'd be lot Of good to me, wouldn't you ,"
 If I'm going to get married, I ought to learn something about housework," Merry went on stub. bornly.
 You're not married yet" Mons reminded her, and right now we need money more than anything else. Thank goodness you're thru with your business course and can go right into an office"
 Merry drew a long breath. But I'm not through with it." she said with a h,Le gasp, T flunked-J funked pert of it.
 CHAPTER XII
 Mons did not launch into the flow of angry words that Merry fully ex- pect@d to hc.r.
 All she did was to shrug her shoulders, and heaye a long sigh that seemed to come from the bot tom of her soul.
 "Oh, we'll" she said in discour- aged way, "Tm not surprised, Merry. It was too much to hope that you ever would finish business school. l should have known il was just throwing away rood money to send you there. You've never tried to mako anything of your self-'
 Her voice trailed off into silence. and she got up and walked out of the neat, sunny kitchen with a slow dragging step.
 What. she had said was perfectly true, of course.
 Merry had no ambition beyond having a good time.
 She hated any and all kinds of work around the house. School had always seemed like prison to her, and she never could get her mind down to study. She never looked at a book unless 1t was the frothiest kind of owe story.
 "Why waste your time reading novels" was Merry's way of look ing at. it, when life itself is so much more exciting?"
 What she meant was that it was a waste of time 10 read a love story in book, when you could have plenty of your own if you happened to be pretty and alluring.
 She was particularly pretty and aluring on this particular morn ing, as she s. { at the breakfast table in a ligh' blue house dress that Helen had made for her.
 T. she knew nothing about house. work or office work, she knew all there was to know about caring for herself. Every thread of her soft hair "as like a golden thread burnished by the brushing it had every night and morning-a hun dred strokes, always. Merry counted them.
 Her skin was sweet in it's sheer cleanliness, and satiny under its film of face powder. Her little finger nails shone like bits of mother-of-pearl, and her teeth were polished ivory.
 She looked as fresh as if she had come out of bandbox.
 But the room she left behind her, upstairs, always looked "as if cyclone had struck it," to quote Mons.
 Merry never aired her bed. She never picked up her nightgown, but left it in a heap on the floor. Her brush was always filled with comb ings, and the carl would be free 1v sDrinkled with talcOn in the