The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1942-12-04
CHAPTER Nv

Mrs. Porter was a stout, SOFT,
pretty woman of seventy-four. Some
physical difficulty, perhaps not
more serious than her weight itself,
made it inconvenient for her to ever
walk more than a few steps at a
time. She took a drive every day,
she could get to the bathroom for
the comfort of long, leisurely bath,
and every morning she moved to
her favorite chair in sunny bay
window or beside an old-fashioned
fire.
AS Dewey Glashell, Mrs. Porter
had had an adored, f1irtatious, giddy
girlhood. Hers had been the gem
GRAFTON that twined flowers in hair
and danced kid slippers to pulp at
formal balls. Upon marrying the
richest and most eligible young man
in a city full of mining and rail-
way, banking and land barons' sons,
she had flashed upon stunned
group of friends the news Of a pro-
spective European honeymoon trip
with her bridegroom.
Emma was Indispensable; she
kept the whole enormous machine
running; she knew where business
papers were, and what the lawyer
came about, and when to. call the
doctor. But there was nothing soft,
friendly, companionable about EN-
ma, and at the telephone or when it
came to special shopping she was
gfrinly inadequate. Also, she was a
n1onotofious and disinterested read
err. Mrs. Porter had large mail;
she had long been unequal to it, and
had employed unsatisfactory girls to
act as secretary from time to time
with wearying results.
Cherry began her duties with the
trembling feeling that by no chance
could her lines have fallen perma-
nently iii such pleasant places. To
be. able to creep away from the
world that in one brief encounter
had hurt her so terribly and to hide
herself here, with a lovely room for
her own, a houseful Of books for
company, amazing meals served at
regular - or indeed. irregular =
hours, and only a gentle, sweet,
helpless old lady to amuse seemed
too good fortune to be true.
From this she passed to a sort
of exiltation that she had succeeded.
She answered the telephone and
wrote letters and drove out in the
park in her new brown coat and be-
coming brown hat, in a pleasant
CULVER of feeling herself liked and
needed and approved.
The third phase came only after
several weeks, and was one OF
doubt, boredom and WEAKNESS. She
wanted exercise, and interest and
companionship; she wanted sense
of living; instead she was like a
girl caught in dream.
Outwardly, it was all easy and
delightful. Cherry came into her
employers room not earlier than
half past ten o'clock every morning,
not later than eleven. Mrs. Porter
only lost sight of the girl for brief
intervals thereafter until ten o'clock
at night. Cherry had Immediately
discovered her. appetite for fiattery
and had innocently gratified it in
their first days together. Now she
had to pay the price for this con-
cession with constant pleasantries.
II like you because you're SO
frank with me, Cherry" Mrs. Por-
ter said to her once. IT told Emma
that you were a blunt little thing
and she was afraid ] didn't like it.
But I do! I love people to be abso-
lutely frank with me.
With her first sight Of Emma,
Cherry had had the feeling that the
long years since last they had met
were as nothing and that she was a
little girl Of seven again, living in a
small tiled house with patio and
a fountain, and running in and out
of the bedroom where her mother
lay always in bed. A thousand de-
tails, half forgotten until now. had
rushed back to her, and she had
longed for the moment when she
might talk freely to Emma of the
past.
To include any exercise at all in
the twenty-four hours she formed
the habit of rising early and taking
a long walk about the streets or
into the eucalyptus-shaded roads Of
the Preside before breakfast.
In the freshness and sparkle Of
4hn1a xu;y,tar mornings life seemed