Red Lodge daily news combined with Carbon County news., 1932-02-25
RAZn
I ! by GRACE PERKINS-A

awe at Goody's quiet bliss. Yes.
Goody was happy. and SO was Char
lie-so happy, both Of them, with
their nice, correct. ~paddy-cake mar
riage. Was that the right kin OF
love, Hope wondered-good and com
placent, doing the right things, seeing
the right people2 How ecstatic Goody
looked. How changed!
For the entire summer Mama n
Hope did the Continent alone. and
late in the fall Pana joined them.
Hope had rouna abstraction verging
on the romantic with one noble, good
looking, monocled, mustached, mill
itary attache of the royal house OF
Italy. 1t was Hopes .~oft-repeated
boast that no possible objection could
she must eventually be married, GER
tainly fate had sent her the best. A
Go0-sent answer to the old alterna-
tive of Rusty Crandall back home
mummifying loneliness n restless
ness.
County. as she insisted upon call
ing him, was agreeable and could
tango; and he would let her do as
she pleased ana had suggested to
Hope that after marriage each could
go or come as was desirable, each
could have their seperate friends, and
they could make dates with each
other when it appealed to them. II
sounded intriguingly and surprisingly
fair minded for an Italian; but ii left
Hope with just a wee spasm of nos
talgia, and with a sharper tongue. a
growing and a culver In her
left nostril that made her feel as If
the whole thing were distasteful. 1t
was, for that matter, but aside from
her private opinion of her finace. he
offered a new freedom. Didn't he
promise freedom from himself-and
in addition. there would be freedom
from Mama and Papa, and the sight
of Goody's contentment. from more
pleadings on Rusty's part-from the
whole United States that held Dickey
Dale.
Mama had agreed - without being
the slightest degree impressed. Pre-
sensations at Courts We're old whoop-
ees to Mama Ross, and who was sh
to raise an eyebrow over an aristoc-
racy that happened to equal her own?
What was a mere Count2
Still, however, she did agree. So
Papa was summoned, and for three
weeks great to-do and what-all was
made over the meeting of the two
unctuous. o-verpoweringly polite and
tiresomely concerned families. Bust
ness of looking into and being looked
into caused magnificent pastime, and
finally both American and italian
Papas and Mamas came to a delight
full agreement of hitching up names,
matching titles and assigning chattel;
a great ana refreshing little game,
especially when played with Duces
wild.
1t so happened. however, as soon
as complete arrangements were made.
that Hope decided to change her
mind. But Hope said no word of the
real reason. She put 1t down, and
tr%uthfully too q little matter of a
finance who despised cats. Her de-
cision was prompt and immovable;
yet that was hardly a fit explanation,
and left Papa and Mama Ross with a
new pastime that was neither enter
tanning nor comfortable, of undoifig
and unpromising and lodging q pay
ment for discomfited noble feelings.
Be that as ut may, Hope sailed
home to America with her nerve
wracked parents, and her shrewd and
plume-tailed Sassy early in Deem
Der. To spend Christmas Eve in
Goody's bravely furnished new home,
set near one of the dotting lakes Of
Westdhester, in q new residential
section that seemed to be a sort of
barnacle of a golf club. The house
itself was a stolid eight-room monu-
ment to the opinion Charles par
ents had held of the union. The en-
tire furnishings and equipment from
the black-and-rose tiled kitchen down
to the m"onogrammed door mat out
side the heavy green-painted front
door, were the contribution of the
lWo WIN Hdu bICe bttI utterly us
appointed because Goo0y was not a
boy.
Christmas and New Years were
spent with Goody. partly because
they were Goody's first big and inn
p~ortant parties, and she was so in
sistently anxious that her folks be
with her on her first Yuletide; part
ly because Mama and Papa were
barely speaking to Hope. and partly
because Hope, for the first time in
her life, didn't care to give a tree
party. and barely noticed that the
servants put up a tree.
After the holidays, life plodded re-
lentlessly onward, whether Hope liked
1t or not. With a shrug of her slop-
ing shoulders, Hope realized that In
the scandal of Yarmouth, she had
hammered the last nail down in the
coffin of her reputation.