New Britain herald., 1926-08-19
THE PETER s. s.. s::':;;; ;:; 7; a;;; s:';:
READ THIS FIRST:

Merry Locke, pretty and gay as her name, is a born flirt. She is the
 kind of girl who has no ambition beyond having a good time and
 plenty of beaux.
 At twenty she fails in her steno- graphic course and takes a job in Lillie Dale's beauty shop. At that time she is having the first real love affair of her life. The man in the case is Tony Gaines, a serious young lawyer, who wants to marry her. Their engagement ends when Merry. in fit of jealousy. admits to him
 that she lets other men make love to
 her. ..
 He goes away to Montana. A let ter comes from him, but it mysteri-
 ously vanishes from the hall table of
 the house, before Merry has a
 chance to read it. A year later she
 hears that he is going to marry a
 girl in Montana, and she tries not to care.
 Cassie, her older sister, marries her rich employer, Morley Kaufman.
 Then Mons, her widowed mother, | CT into the house as boarders. Later she marries MT. Hefflinger. Jimmy, Merry's youngest sister. elopes with Derrick Jones, and goes to live with This parents.
 Through Cassie, Merry meets Bill Erskine, a wealthy bachelor. She becomes engaged to him. But when she gets tangled up in the divorce case of Les Purcell and his wife, Bill marries another girl.
 The years go by, and Merry finds herself slipping into an under standing" with George Leet, who cannot marry until his invalid moth- CT dies. Ore spring, during the housecleaning. Merry finds Tony's lost love letter, and Cassie confesses that she hid it long ago. because she wanted Merry to marry Bill Frs kline and his money.
 Tony Gaines breaks into print all over the country when he is engaged by Mrs Ruck." who has been charged with the murder of her hus- band. The Buck murder case be- comes famous, and Tony becomes famous along with it. Merry decides she cannot marry George Leet, after all, and tells him so. George asks her who has come between them. Merry says that no one has. But she knows it is news 1 paper picture of Tony Gaines that l made her realize she doesn't love | l George enough to marry him. NOW GO ON WITH THE STORY |
 CHAPTER LX
 ] The murder trial of Mrs. RucR ' kept the whole country on tiptoe !. through June and July of 1926.
 But for Merry Locke the trial | was interesting only because of one | Iperson in it-young Anthony Gaines, i the lawyer for the accused woman.
 Merry kept every newspaper clip ! ping that mentioned his name. She | kept them as carefully as the proud | wife of a prominent man might |. hoard newspaper clippings that l mentioned his name.
 She put them, away in an ex- l travagant handkerchief box with pink roses painted all across it's satin i l top. A box that had been gift from Bil Erskine, long ago, in the days when he showered presents upon | her.
 What on earth are you saving all those clippings for?" Lillie Dale ask | ed her one morning when she came into Merry's room to borrow clean | handkerchief. | Lillie never had enough clean | things. She would forget to send her clothes to the laundry until a sudden lack of fresh linen remind ed her of them. i She stood now, in a crumpled blue lawn dress, peering into the mass of paper that was in the box where she had expected to find Merry's handkerchief. i
 Then she swung around from the dresser and faced the girl. | You're not crazy about that fel- | low, still, are you?" she said, her little bright eyes wide with won der. Not after all these years?"
 Merry looked back at her coldly !. and steadily. There are plenty of | clean handkerchiefs in my top | drawer, Lillie," she answered, and ! Lillie took one and went without | another word. |
 Merry went on dressing It did | not take her as long as it had once ! upon time. For she no longer wore l the thick mask of makeup that | Lillie had taught her to wear. She had found out that it was bad | for her skin, and now she used the | tiniest bit of rouge and powder. ! Curiously enough, it was baby-pow- | der that came in white tin box. Merry loved the sweet, clean smell | of it on her skin, although Lillie told | her a dozen times a day, at least, | that her nose was shiny. She told her so that morning at ! breakfast.
 q don't care" Merry said, look | ing at her from over her coffee ! tcup. "Id rather have it shiny than all pasty with powder. I'm so sick of looking at made-up women that | shiny nose looks positively beau | tiful to me - I'm getting to the l place where I wish I never had to | step inside of that beauty shop of ours again, as long as l lived"
 Lillie laid down her knife and | fork with a chatter.
 That's quite an idea, Merry" she answered. Eve been thinking for a | long time that I don't need you there. Almost anybody could do the work you do. I could hire girl for [ five hours q day for very little money"
 At first this was a blow to Mer- ry.. But after two or three days she made up her mind to leave the shop.
 You can give me back the thou sand dollars l put into the shop. Lil." she told Lillie Dale, and I'll take a business course, l think" | After all the beauty shop was q