Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1927-02-12
Illumination.

n K.ARCIA DIBBLE had mourned
NH for him for 9 years. and her
WI friends and relatives had
mourned with her. AS for
him he had gone on into the
unknown. What had happened to him
could only be conjectured, but it was
to be presumed that he had become
extraordinarily successful and rich.
had married and lived the ordinary
life of an authoritative business man.
II knew you'd live to regret it,
Aunt Juturnia said to her niece.
Personally, felt at the time, dear,
that you were making a mistake, .
went on Cousin Louise Eldridge.
Mrs. Ferguson sighed
''Of course, you didn't know. No
one does until it is too late"
But Mrs. Dibble told her daughter
what she thought in unmistakable
terms.
II don't know what got into you.
Marcia. to refuse Vincent Dean. Prob
ably YOU wouldn't If you'd known
then what you do now--that you d
never have another chance. Just
think, You might have been happy
wife and mother these 20 years in
stead of shaving in that office trying to
sell real estate"
Il do sell real estate, mother" Mar
cia said with slight shade of eX.
ASPIRATION in her lovely voice She
might have added, And we lv. well
on the income therefrom," but her
mother would not have listened. Mrs
Dibble was an old-fashioned woman
who thought that her daughter disre-
garded all the rules of the game when
she bought and sold like man and
also tiE H.,
ster whose chief virtue was power
All this was narrowing to Marcia
to say the least whereupon she flung
herself more and more earnestly into
her business life, with corresponding
great success and benefit to herself.
And she might have been happy but
for Vincent Dean.
The truth as Marcia alone knew it
was this: She had not refused Vincent
for the reason that he had never
offered himself to her. He had got a
chance to work away from Earlville
and he had simply gone without more
than saying good-by to her. And once
out of his sight he had apparently
forgotten her.
She had cared for him tremendously
and there had never been any other
man she had thought as much of:
there never would be. She was dis
tinctly the lone man" sort of woman.
But she loved her work and might
have enjoyed It thoroughly but for
her friends constant reminders.
She came home to lunch one day
tired and a bit disheartened Some
thing had gone wrong at the office
and she had lost an important sale.
She found lunch scrappy affair of
salmon, bread and butter and cookies,
and she needed hot. stimulating food.
But her mother was cleaning the
storeroom.
"And look what | found, Marcia"
Mrs. Dibble said. laying something
beside her daughters plate. THAT
picture of you as you looked the
Summer you were going with Vincent
Dean"
Marcia looked at the picture and
laughed out loud. 1t was SO perfectly
ridiculous from the high collar to the
fiat hat. And her face and hair.
Goodness she gasped. mo Won
der" She stopped in time. mo
wonder he had run away
''That hat was the most becoming
one YOU ever had said Mrs. Dibble.
81 remember you got it at Miss
Appley's and paid S. for it-what are
you laughing att"
"At-everything." Marcia choked.
She drove back to work in a better
humor than she had known In weeks.
There was great mirror in the lobby
OF the building where she had her
Office and she saw advancing toward
hera full figured woman in tailored
black suit and glowing little hat. With
the remembrance of the picture In her