Coulee City dispatch. [volume] (Coulee City, Wash.) 19??-19??, 1939-07-06
CHAPTER III

Edith Towne had lived with he
Uncle Frederick nearly four year.
when she became engaged to Della
field Simms. Her mother was dead
as was her father. Frederick wa!
her fathers only brother, and had {
big house to himself, after his moth
er's death. 1t seemed the only ha
ven for his niece, so he asked her
and asked also his fathers cousin
Annabel Towne, to keep house fol
him, and chaperone Edith
Annabel was over sixty, and rath-
er indefinite, but she served to play
propriety, and there was nothing
else demanded of her in Frederick S
household of six servants. She was
driedup and desiccated person,
with fixed ideas of what one owed
to society. Frederick's mother had
been like that, so he did not mind.
He rather liked to think that the
woman of his family kept to old
ideals. 1t gave to things an air of
dignity.
Edith, when she came, was differ
ent. So different that Frederick was
glad that she had three more years
at college before she would spend
the winters with him. The sum-
mers were not hard to arrange.
Edith and Annabel adjourned to the
Towne cottage on an island in Maine
and Frederick went up for week.
ends and for the month of August.
Edith spent much time out-of-doors
with her young friends. She was
rather fond of her Uncle Fred, but
he did not loom large on the horizon
of her youthful occupations.
Then came her winter at home,
and her consequent engagement to
Delaield Simms. It was because of
Uncle Fred that she became en-
gagged. She simply didn't want to
live with him any more. She felt
that Uncle Fred would be glad to
have her go, and the feeling was
mutual. She was an elephant on his
hands. Naturally. He was a great
old dear, but he was a Turk. He
didn't know it, of course. But his
ideas of being master of his own
house were perfectly archaic. Cous-
in Annabel and the servants, and
everybody in his office simply hung
on his words, and Edith wouldn't
hang. She came into his bachelor
Paradise like a rather troublesome
Eve, and demanded her share of
the universe. He didn't like it, and
there you were.
1t was really Uncle Fred who
wanted her to marry Delafeld
Simms. He talked about it lot. At
first Edith wouldn't listen. But Del
afield was persistent and patient.
He came gradually to be as much of |
part of her everyday life as the
meals she ate or the car she drove.
Uncle Fred was always inviting
him. He was forever on hand, and
when he wasn't she missed him.
They felt for each other, she de-
cided, the thing called Glove" 1t
was not, perhaps, the romance
which one found in books. But she
had been taught carefully at college
to distrust romance. The emphasis
had been laid on the transient quail
ity OF adolescent emotion. One mar
ried for the sake of the race, and
one chose, quite logically, with ones
head instead, as in the old DAYS.
with the heart.
So there you had it. Delafeld
was eligible. He was healthy, had
brains enough, an acceptable code
OF morals-and was willing to let
her have her own way. If there
were moments when Edith won
dered if this program was adequate
to welded bliss, she put the thought
aside. She and Delafield liked each
other no end. Why worry?
And really at times Uncle Fred
was impossible. His mother had
lived until he was thirty-fve, she
had adored him, and had passed on
to Cousin Annabel and to the old
servants in the house the formula
by which she had made her son
happy. Her one fear had been that
he might marry. He was extreme
ly popular, much sought after. But
he had kept his heart at home. His
sweetheart, he had often said. was
and over sixty. He
basked in her appreciation; was
soothed and sustained by it.
Then she had died, and Edith had
come, and things had been differ
emit.
The difference had been demon y
strated In dozen ways. Edith was =
affectionate, but she =
didn't yield an inch "Dear Uncle Z
Fred" she would ask, when thew :.
disagreed on matters of manners .
Or morals, or art or athletics, or G
'eligion or the lack of it, "isn't NV =
opinion as good as yours?"
apparently my opinion isn't e
worth anything"
"Oh, yes it is-but you must let n
ne have mine" #