Evening star., 1926-11-29
MRS. HALL RETAINS
NERVE IN ORDEAL
Unruffled by Fierce Attack Of
Simpson, She Never
FaIters in Story.
BY DOROTHY DIX.
Special Dispatch to The star.

special Dispatch to The star.
SOMERVILLE, N. j., November 80.
Mrs. Hall to the witness stand"
A little excited murmur ran through
the crowded courtroom Saturday after
noon, and then it was as still as death.
The audience leaned forward in its
| chairs, every face strained and tense.
The big moment Of the Hall Mills
trial had come. The moment for
which we had waited. The moment
! to which everything else led up, for
| Mrs. Hall is the center Of the tragedy
In the four years that have elapsed
since the Staying of Rev. Edward
Wheeler Hall and Mrs. Eleanor Mills
Mrs. Hall has become a figure of ira
| dition and all sorts of myths have
grown up about her. She has been
that strangest and most inexplicable
OF creatureS-A woman who doeSn't [
talk, a woman who keeps her own
| counsel. a woman who draws a veil
over her wounds and who masks her
feelings with reserve.
So we have heard of her as an iron
| woman. as an ice woman, as a cold
hard. unfeeling woman. We have had
her depicted to US as a fury, taking
bloody revenge on her faithless hus.
band and his inamorata. We have
seen her painted as woman with
no charms of body or mind or soul
with which to hold a man, and we
have not known which of these sto-
! ries to believe, which protrait was the
true one.
Friends Call Her Lovable.
For her friends have said that Mrs.
Hall is a very lovable woman, good
| and kind and simple and shy and re.
pressed. They say that for all her
money and social position she
| has had a dull and drab life. and that
! until her mother died, only a few
years ago, after she was a middle
aged woman. she had been kept In
| leading strings like a little child
| They said that she grew up in a
| stern and puritanical home. that she
| never had any fun or freedom as a
! girl, and that with such a rod Of iron
| did Nine. Stevens rule her house
| hold that Frances and Willie even
! thought it great lark when their
| mother went away for a day or two
| and they could order what they liked
| to eat.
They say that although Nine
| Stevens cut her daughter off from the
gayety Of girlhood, she still wanted
| her to marry. and that she favored
| her daughters marriage to the young
preacher. although he was seven years
they said that she always liked Mr.
Hall, and when she died left hin,
$4,000.
So no wonder that every eye was
turned on Mrs. Hall, this woman OF
| whom we had heard so much and
| knew SO little, as she went to the wit
ness stand. The secrets Of her soul
| were about to be torn from her, and IL
was as much a case of thumbs down
as II we had been in the Coliseum
ages ago. watching some helpless
creature thrown to the wild beasts tc
make a Roman holiday.
Handsomer Than Pictures.
| The Mrs. Hall that we saw was a
woman of medium height. with the
thickening Of middle-age beginning to
come upon her. She has iron-gray
hair and dark eyes, and good features
She doesn't, as the movies say, flln
we'll. and is a far handsomer woman
than any of her pictures indicate
Her face now Is gray with fatigue
and anxiety, and it is generally set ir
an immobile mask, but when she
smiles 1t lights up as If lamp had
famed out through a transparent
vase. Then her face becomes very
sweet and womanly and kind.
She was dressed, as she always Is
| in a handsome black gown, over
which she wears a long coat with a
fur collar. Her only jewelry was a
string Of pearls around her throat
Her skirts are cut at least eight
inches longer than the prevailing
! mode, and in the way she wears her
clothes she makes you think Of Queen
| Mary of England. She might have or
every CONNECTION on the Rue de Ia
Paix, and yet she wouldn't look
dressed up or In the fashion.
Behind Mrs. Hall are many genera
tions Of men and women who have
been taught to control themselves
and so she was calm and collected as
she faced her ordeal. Only twice did
she show any emotion. Once. when
Mr.. McCarter asked her if she had no
ticed any difference in her husbands
attitude toward her in the last year
OF his life. her voice broke and trem
/ bled as she answered, absolutely
nothing" When she began telling
about her husbands leaving home or
the fatal Thursday night, tear she
could not suppress ran down her
cheek. and she raised quick hand
and brushed 1t away.
Cold at Simpsons Taunts.