Evening star., 1926-11-30
BY FRANCES MOVES HART.

| ildiI SlGppeu QOWn ITOIH Tic WlluCSS
box yesterday, pulling the black fur
collar about her throat as though she
were cold, she remained as battling a
figure to most Of us as she had proved
to Senator Simpson. After hours of
devastating probing, her remote per-
sonality remained perfectly intact; If
there Is a chink in her armOr 1t has
lescaped the explorations of Simpsons
restless rapier and Of our prying eyes.
Some curious force has preserved her
privacy inviolate from all these vio-
lent invasions. At the center of the
whirlwind she sits impassive, knowing
that even WhirlWinds must spend
their force.
! She Is in danger of becoming a leg
end, the legend of a rich, powerful,
| strong-willed Frances Hall, capable
Of anything because she is incapable
of showing us her heart. Already the
outlines of that legend are fixed. How
can she have heart? Not once have
we seen it on her sleeve!
Some of us think that she may be
hiding it because it is broken-and
broken things are rarely put up for
exhibition. But most Of us are sure
that that is nonsense. How can it be
broken? We never heard it break.
Estimate of Witness.
! Before she moves away from US,
| turning before our beWildered eyes
from lady to legend, let us try to get
one clear look at her. Let us dismiss,
IL possible, this conception of a marble
heart moving through marble halls,
and try to reconstruct something that
may approximate little more closely
| to the truth.
| The woman in the witness box has
a face of so serious a pallor that it
| looks as if she had powdered it with
| ashes. 1t is only when we recall
atrocities that have appeared as pho
tographs Of her that we could call
her comely-compared to them, this
might well be the face that launched
a thousand ships.
| Leaving the knavish tricks of pho
Biography aside, we see a woman who
looks every one Of her So years
heavy features, but stamped with
something of authority and distinc-
unobservant. She is in black-the
| black coat with the black fox collar
and cuffs, the black hat with it's
round pearl pins and concealing brim,
| the black frock with it's discreet white
linen collar and string of pearls.
The despair of those reporters who
seek color for their stories in the cos
| tunes worn by the central figure,
Mrs. Hall has possibly taken a mildly
ironic satisfaction in furnishing them
| with little meat for their discourses.
She might as we'll be wearing a uni
| form. Enthusiastically, in this
careless and ungloved age, she is
gloved.
Face of Arresting Mold.
| There are small bruised shadows
under her eyes-her lips are barely
/ distinguished by more marked pal
| lor from the rest of that set coun-
| tenance-a countenance that might
seem simply pale, full, rather stodgy
face, If it were not for something that
fixes it's uncertain contours into an
arresting mold. Her hair is plainly
gray--her eyes, heavy with fatigue,
with disdain, with sleepless nights and
unshed tears, are gray, too-until
she smiles. When she smiles, her
eyes are blue. To those of us who
| find her, for all her cool aloofness,
heartbreaking figure, her smile is the
most tragic thing about her. A small,
starved, careful little smile, curiously
sweet-and yet disquieting.
1t is as though she were practicing
1t, experimenting cautiously with an
old trick, that was hardly worth the
effort OF reviving. 1t Is only when
she looks at Willie that the stiff, gray
lips curve easily, and the level gray
eyes flower into blue.
It is difficult to disentangle the real
woman from the figure that legend
makes the controlling force of the
political, social and economic life of
New Brunswick. You might well
gather that the Carpenters and
Stevens are as aWe-inSpiring forces In
that f1ourishing industrial community
as the Borgias, the Medicis, the Tu-
doris or the Vanderbilts in their respec-
tive home towns.
Fables About Her POise.
There is, to the easily impressed,
something fabulous in their prestige
and power Those who are not easily
impressed swing to the opposite con-
clusion and yield to unseemly derislon
at the idea of New Brunswick posses
sing any kind of society at ALL They
visualize Mrs. Hall as a dowdy figure
in a bungalow apron, pattering around
the preserve kettle in the kitchen,
lording it over the hired girl, and COM
ing out to rock for a while on the
back porch and chat over the fence
with the neighbors. We venture to
think that one conception Is as absurd
as the other.
Mrs Hall is, in the most stringent
sense of the word, a lady. She has
that most irrefutable hallmark of
breeding, a beautiful voice, low
pitched, we'll modulated, faStidiously
distinguished as to accent. She lives
in house on which she has recently
spent $32 900 to make more livable-a
house in which she has lived for many
yearS-its non-committal walls have
known her as girl and as a woman.
1t is now a comfortable looking, spa
cious affair of Georgian tendencies
set well back from the streets in
grounds occupying the better part of
a city block.
| 1t is not at all pretentious-doZ
! of houses can be seen in any COM
| Portable community of the same type.
| The rooms within she designates by
| old, homely names - the parlor, the
study-a far cry from the solariums,
morning rooms and music rooms of
| the latter day architects. In this
| house on that September day four
| years ago life was going on, homely
and pleasant and unaSSuming, as it
goes on in a hundred homes in a
hundred towns.
PrOsaic Eve of Slayings.
| Peter Iumulty, the decent, rosy
! faced old gardener, was banking cell
cry, Mrs. Hall was busy superin-
tending the putting up of pears in
! the big kitchen-Dr. Hall had taken
one of the two cars from the garage
| to take some flowers to the hospital,
and with him went little Frances
| Voorhees,, his niece, who had come
| to spend a week with them, and her
small friend, Barbara Webb.
| The Scotch chambermaid was off
| for the day, but Louise, the pretty,
dark eyed waitress, was still at her
nost II was fine warm day. and