Different Girls by Various

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"Am I"--he glowed--"could I have looked like that?" Then in the
poignancy of the moment he saw how disloyal to the moment it was even to
hint at what should have been, without snapping the link now into the
welding present. He straightened himself and spoke brusquely, but to
Mary:

"I'll go back and write that letter. Here is the one I wrote last
night."

He took it from his pocket, tore it in two, and gave it to her. Then he
turned away and walked with the soldier's step home. Jerome could not
look at her. He began moving back the picture.

"There!" he said, "it's finished. Better make up your mind where you'll
have it put. I shall be picking up my traps this morning."

Then Mary gave him his other surprise. Her hands were on his shoulders.
Her eyes, full of the welling gratitude that is one kind of love, spoke
like her lips.

"Oh!" said she, "do you think I don't know what you've done? I couldn't
take it from anybody else. I couldn't let him take it. It's like
standing beside him in battle; like lending him your horse, your sword.
It's being a comrade. It's helping him fight. And he _will_ fight.
That's the glory of it!"

The Bitter Cup

BY CHARLES B. DE CAMP

Clara Leeds sat by the open window of her sitting-room with her fancy
work. Her hair was done up in an irreproachable style, and her
finger-nails were carefully manicured and pink like little shells. She
had a slender waist, and looked down at it from time to time with
satisfied eyes. At the back of her collar was a little burst of chiffon;
for chiffon so arranged was the fashion. She cast idle glances at the
prospect from the window. It was not an alluring one--a row of brick
houses with an annoying irregularity of open and closed shutters.

There was the quiet rumble of a carriage in the street, and Clara Leeds
leaned forward, her eyes following the vehicle until to look further
would have necessitated leaning out of the window. There were two women
in the carriage, both young and soberly dressed. To certain eyes they
might have appeared out of place in a carriage, and yet, somehow, it was
obvious that it was their own. Clara Leeds resumed her work, making
quick, jerky stitches.

"Clara Leeds," she murmured, as if irritated. She frowned and then
sighed. "If only--if only it was something else; if it only had two
syllables...." She put aside her work and went and stood before the
mirror of her dresser. She looked long at her face. It was fresh and
pretty, and her blue eyes, in spite of their unhappy look, were clear
and shining. She fingered a strand of hair, and then cast critical
sidelong glances at her profile. She smoothed her waist-line with a
movement peculiar to women. Then she tilted the glass and regarded the
reflection from head to foot.

"Oh, what is it?" she demanded, distressed, of herself in the glass. She
took up her work again.

"They don't seem to care how they look and ... they do wear shabby
gloves and shoes." So her thoughts ran. "But they are the Rockwoods and
they don't have to care. It must be so easy for them; they only have to
visit the Day Nursery, and the Home for Incurables, and some old, poor,
sick people. They never have to meet them and ask them to dinner. They
just say a few words and leave some money or things in a nice way, and
they can go home and do what they please." Clara Leeds's eyes rested
unseeingly on the house opposite. "It must be nice to have a rector ...
he is such an intellectual-looking man, so quiet and dignified; just the
way a minister should be, instead of like Mr. Copple, who tries to be
jolly and get up sociables and parlor meetings." There were tears in the
girl's eyes.

A tea-bell rang, and Clara went down-stairs to eat dinner with her
father. He had just come in and was putting on a short linen coat.
Clara's mother was dead. She was the only child at home, and kept house
for her father.

"I suppose you are all ready for the lawn-tennis match this afternoon?"
said Mr. Leeds to his daughter. "Mr. Copple said you were going to play
with him. My! that young man is up to date. Think of a preacher getting
up a lawn-tennis club! Why, when I was a young man that would have
shocked people out of their boots. But it's broad-minded, it's
broad-minded," with a wave of the hand. "I like to see a man with ideas,
and if lawn-tennis will help to keep our boys out of sin's pathway,
why, then, lawn-tennis is a strong, worthy means of doing the Lord's
work."

"Yes," said Clara. "Did Mr. Copple say he would call for me? It isn't
necessary."

"Oh yes, yes," said her father; "he said to tell you he would be around
here at two o'clock. I guess I'll have to go over myself and see part of
the athletics. We older folks ain't quite up to taking a hand in the
game, but we can give Copple our support by looking in on you and
cheering on the good work."

After dinner Mr. Leeds changed the linen coat for a cutaway and started
back to his business. Clara went up-stairs and put on a short skirt and
tennis shoes. She again surveyed herself in the mirror. The skirt
certainly hung just like the model. She sighed and got out her
tennis-racquet. Then she sat down and read in a book of poems that she
was very fond of.

At two o'clock the bell jangled, and Clara opened the door for Mr.
Copple herself. The clergyman was of slight build, and had let the hair
in front of his ears grow down a little way on his cheeks. He wore a
blue yachting-cap, and white duck trousers which were rolled up and
displayed a good deal of red and black sock. For a moment Clara imaged a
clear-cut face with grave eyes above a length of clerical waistcoat, on
which gleamed a tiny gold cross suspended from a black cord.

"I guess we might as well go over," she said. "I'm all ready."

The clergyman insisted on carrying Clara's racquet. "You are looking
very well," he said, somewhat timidly, but with admiring eyes. "But
perhaps you don't feel as much like playing as you look."

"Oh yes, I do indeed," replied Clara, inwardly resenting the solicitude
in his tone.

They set out, and the clergyman appeared to shake his mind free of a
preoccupation.

"I hope all the boys will be around," he said, with something of
anxiety. "They need the exercise. All young, active fellows ought to
have it. I spoke to Mr. Goodloe and Mr. Sharp and urged them to let Tom
and Fred Martin off this afternoon. I think they will do it. Ralph
Carpenter, I'm afraid, can't get away from the freight-office, but I am
in hopes that Mr. Stiggins can take his place. Did you know that Mrs.
Thompson has promised to donate some lemonade?"

"That's very nice," said Clara. "It's a lovely day for the match." She
was thinking, "What short steps he takes!"

After some silent walking the clergyman said: "I don't believe you know,
Miss Leeds, how much I appreciate your taking part in these tennis
matches. Somehow I feel that it is asking a great deal of you, for I
know that you have--er--so many interests of your own--that is, you are
different in many ways from most of our people. I want you to know that
I am grateful for the influence--your cooperation, you know--"

"Please, Mr. Copple, don't mention it," said Clara, hurriedly. "I
haven't so many interests as you imagine, and I am not any different
from the rest of the people. Not at all." If there was any hardness in
the girl's tone the clergyman did not appear to notice it. They had
reached their destination.

The tennis-court was on the main street just beyond the end of the
business section. It was laid out on a vacant lot between two brick
houses. A wooden sign to one side of the court announced, "First ----
Church Tennis Club." When Clara and Mr. Copple arrived at the court
there were a number of young people gathered in the lot. Most of them
had tennis-racquets, those of the girls being decorated with bows of
yellow, black, and lavender ribbon. Mr. Copple shook hands with
everybody, and ran over the court several times, testing the consistency
of the earth.

"Everything is capital!" he cried.

Clara Leeds bowed to the others, shaking hands with only one or two.
They appeared to be afraid of her. The finals in the men's singles were
between Mr. Copple and Elbert Dunklethorn, who was called "Ellie." He
wore a very high collar, and as his shoes had heels, he ran about the
court on his toes.

Clara, watching him, recalled her father's words at dinner. "How will
this save that boy from sin's pathway?" she thought. She regarded the
clergyman; she recognized his zeal. But why, why must she be a part of
this--what was it?--this system of saving people and this kind of
people? If she could only go and be good to poor and unfortunate people
whom she wouldn't have to know. Clara glanced toward the street. "I hope
they won't come past," she said to herself.

The set in which Clara and the clergyman were partners was the most
exciting of the afternoon. The space on either side of the court was
quite filled with spectators. Some of the older people who had come with
the lengthening shadows sat on chairs brought from the kitchens of the
adjoining houses. Among them was Mr. Leeds, his face animated. Whenever
a ball went very high up or very far down the lot, he cried, "Hooray!"
Clara was at the net facing the street, when the carriage she had
observed in the morning stopped in view, and the two soberly dressed
women leaned forward to watch the play. Clara felt her face burn, and
when they cried "game," she could not remember whether the clergyman and
she had won it or lost it. She was chiefly conscious of her father's
loud "hoorays." With the end of the play the carriage was driven on.

Shortly before supper-time that evening Clara went to the drug-store to
buy some stamps. One of the Misses Rockwood was standing by the
show-case waiting for the clerk to wrap up a bottle. Clara noted the
scantily trimmed hat and the scuffed gloves. She nodded in response to
Miss Rockwood's bow. They had met but once.

"That was a glorious game of tennis you were having this afternoon,"
said Miss Rockwood, with a warm smile. "My sister and I should like to
have seen more of it. You all seemed to be having such a good time."

"_You all_--"

Clara fumbled her change. "It's--it's good exercise," she said. That
night she cried herself to sleep.

II

The rector married the younger Miss Rockwood. To Clara Leeds the match
afforded painfully pleasurable feeling. It was so eminently fitting; and
yet it was hard to believe that any man could see anything in Miss
Rockwood. His courtship had been in keeping with the man, dignified and
yet bold. Clara had met them several times together. She always hurried
past. The rector bowed quietly. He seemed to say to all the world, "I
have chosen me a woman." His manner defied gossip; there was none that
Clara heard. This immunity of theirs distilled the more bitterness in
her heart because gossip was now at the heels of her and Mr. Copple,
following them as chickens do the feed-box. She knew it from such
transmissions as, "But doubtless Mr. Copple has already told you," or,
"You ought to know, if any one does."

It had been some time apparent to Clara that the minister held her in a
different regard from the other members of his congregation. His talks
with her were more personal; his manner was bashfully eager. He sought
to present the congeniality of their minds. Mr. Copple had a nice taste
in poetry, but somehow Clara, in after-reading, skipped those poems that
he had read aloud to her. On several occasions she knew that a
declaration was imminent. She extricated herself with a feeling of
unspeakable relief. It would not be a simple matter to refuse him. Their
relations had been peculiar, and to tell him that she did not love him
would not suffice in bringing them to an end. Mr. Copple was odious to
her. She could not have explained why clearly, yet she knew. And she
would have blushed in the attempt to explain why; it would have revealed
a detestation of her lot. Clara had lately discovered the meaning of the
word "plebeian"; more, she believed she comprehended its applicableness.
The word was a burr in her thoughts. Mr. Copple was the personification
of the word. Clara had not repulsed him. You do not do that sort of
thing in a small town. She knew intuitively that the clergyman would
not be satisfied with the statement that he was not loved. She also knew
that he would extract part, at least, of the real reason from her. It is
more painful for a lover to learn that he is not liked than that he is
not loved. Clara did not wish to cause him pain.

She was spared the necessity. The minister fell from a scaffolding on
the new church and was picked up dead.

Clara's position was pitiful. Sudden death does not grow less shocking
because of its frequency. Clara shared the common shock, but not the
common grief. Fortunately, as hers was supposed to be a peculiar grief,
she could manifest it in a peculiar way. She chose silence. The shock
had bereft her of much thought. Death had laid a hand over the mouth of
her mind. But deep down a feeling of relief swam in her heart. She gave
it no welcome, but it would take no dismissal.

About a week after the funeral, Clara, who walked out much alone, was
returning home near the outskirts of town. The houses were far apart,
and between them stretched deep lots fringed with flowered weeds
man-high. A level sun shot long golden needles through the blanched
maple-trees, and the street beneath them was filled with lemon-colored
light. The roll of a light vehicle approaching from behind grew distinct
enough to attract Clara's attention. "It is Mrs. Custer coming back from
the Poor Farm," she thought. It was Mrs. Everett Custer, who was
formerly the younger Miss Rockwood, and she was coming from the Poor
Farm. The phaeton came into Clara's sight beside her at the curb. As she
remarked it, Mrs. Custer said, in her thin, sympathetic voice, "Miss
Leeds, won't you drive with me back to town? I wish you would."

An excuse rose instinctively to Clara's lips. She was walking for
exercise. But suddenly a thought came to her, and after a moment's
hesitation, she said: "You are very kind. I am a little tired." She got
into the phaeton, and the sober horse resumed his trot down the yellow
street.

Clara's thought was: "Why shouldn't I accept? She is too well bred to
sympathize with me, and perhaps, now that I am free, I can get to know
her and show her that I am not just the same as all the rest, and
perhaps I'll get to going with her sort of people."

She listened to the rhythm of the horse's hoof-beats, and was not a
little uneasy. Mrs. Custer remarked the beauty of the late afternoon,
the glorious symphonies of color in sky and tree, in response to which
Clara said, "Yes, indeed," and, "Isn't it?" between long breaths. She
was about to essay a question concerning the Poor Farm, when Mrs. Custer
began to speak, at first faltering, in a tone that sent the blood out of
Clara's face and drew a sudden catching pain down her breast.

"I--really, Miss Leeds, I want to say something to you and I don't quite
know how to say it, and yet it is something I want very much for you to
know." Mrs. Custer's eyes looked the embarrassment of unencouraged
frankness. "I know it is presumptuous for me, almost a stranger, to
speak to you, but I feel so deeply on the matter--Everett--Mr. Custer
feels so deeply--My dear Miss Leeds, I want you to know what a grief his
loss was to us. Oh, believe me, I am not trying to sympathize with you.
I have no right to do that. But if you could know how Mr. Custer always
regarded Mr. Copple! It might mean something to you to know that. I
don't think there was a man for whom he expressed greater
admiration--than what, I mean, he expressed to me. He saw in him all
that he lacked himself. I am telling you a great deal. It is difficult
for my husband to go among men in that way--in the way _he_ did. And
yet he firmly believes that the Kingdom of God can only be brought to
men by the ministers of God going among them and being of them. He
envied Mr. Copple his ability to do that, to know his people as one of
them, to take part in their--their sports and all that. You don't know
how he envied him and admired him. And his admiration was my admiration.
He brought me to see it. I envied you, too--your opportunity to help
your people in an intimate, real way which seemed so much better than
mine. I don't know why it is my way, but I mean going about as I do, as
I did to-day to the Poor Farm. It seems so perfunctory.

"Don't misunderstand me, Miss Leeds," and Mrs. Custer laid a hand on
Clara's arm. "There is no reason why you should care what Mr. Custer and
I think about your--about our--all our very great loss. But I felt that
it must be some comfort for you to know that we, my husband and I, who
might seem indifferent--not that--say unaffected by what has
happened,--feel it very, very deeply; and to know that his life, which I
can't conceive of as finished, has left a deep, deep print on ours."

The phaeton was rolling through frequented streets. It turned a corner
as Mrs. Custer ceased speaking.

"I--I must get out here," said Clara Leeds. "You needn't drive me. It is
only a block to walk."

"Miss Leeds, forgive me--" Mrs. Custer's lips trembled with compassion.

"Oh, there isn't anything--it isn't that--good night." Clara backed down
to the street and hurried off through the dusk. And as she went tears
dropped slowly to her cheeks--cold, wretched tears.

His Sister

BY MARY APPLEWHITE BACON

"But you couldn't see me leave, mother, anyway, unless I was there to
go."

It was characteristic of the girl adjusting her new travelling-hat
before the dim little looking-glass that, while her heart was beating
with excitement which was strangely like grief, she could give herself
at once to her stepmother's inquietude and turn it aside with a jest.

Mrs. Morgan, arrested in her anxious movement towards the door, stood
for a moment taking in the reasonableness of Stella's proposition, and
then sank back to the edge of her chair. "The train gets here at two
o'clock," she argued.

Lindsay Cowart came into the room, his head bent over the satchel he had
been mending. "You had better say good-by to Stella here at the house,
mother," he suggested; "there's no use for you to walk down to the depot
in the hot sun." And then he noticed that his stepmother had on her
bonnet with the veil to it--she had married since his father's death and
was again a widow,--and, in extreme disregard of the September heat, was
dressed in the black worsted of a diagonal weave which she wore only on
occasions which demanded some special tribute to their importance.

She began smoothing out on her knees the black gloves which, in her
nervous haste to be going, she had been holding squeezed in a tight ball
in her left hand. "I can get there, I reckon," she answered with mild
brevity, and as if the young man's words had barely grazed her
consciousness.

A moment later she went to the window and, with her back to Lindsay,
poured the contents of a small leather purse into one hand and began to
count them softly.

He looked up again. "I am going to pay for Stella's ticket, mother. You
must not do it," he said.

She replaced the money immediately, but without impatience, and as
acquiescing in his assumption of his sister's future. "You have done so
much already," he apologized; but he knew that she was hurt, and chafed
to feel that only the irrational thing on his part would have seemed to
her the kind one.

Stella turned from the verdict of the dim looking-glass upon her
appearance to that of her brother's face. As she stood there in that
moment of pause, she might have been the type of all innocent and
budding life. The delicacy of floral bloom was in the fine texture of
her skin, the purple of dewy violets in her soft eyes; and this new
access of sadness, which was as yet hardly conscious of itself, had
thrown over the natural gayety of her young girlhood something akin to
the pathetic tenderness which veils the earth in the dawn of a summer
morning.

He felt it to be so, but dimly; and, young himself and already strained
by the exactions of personal desires, he answered only the look of
inquiry in her face,--"Will the merchants here never learn any taste in
dry-goods?"

Instantly he was sick with regret. Of what consequence was the too
pronounced blue of her dress in comparison with the light of happiness
in her dear face? How impossible for him to be here for even these few
hours without running counter to some cherished illusion or dear habit
of speech or manner.

"I tell you it's time we were going," Mrs. Morgan appealed, her anxiety
returning.

"We have thirty-five minutes yet," Lindsay said, looking at his watch;
but he gathered up the bags and umbrellas and followed as she moved
ponderously to the door.

Stella waited until they were out in the hall, and then looked around
the room, a poignant tenderness in her eyes. There was nothing congruous
between its shabby walls and cheap worn furniture and her own beautiful
young life; but the heart establishes its own relations, and tears rose
suddenly to her eyes and fell in quick succession. Even so brief a
farewell was broken in upon by her stepmother's call, and pressing her
wet cheek for a moment against the discolored door-facing, she hurried
out to join her.

Lindsay did not at first connect the unusual crowd in and around the
little station with his sister's departure; but the young people at once
formed a circle around her, into which one and another older person
entered and retired again with about the same expressions of
affectionate regret and good wishes. He had known them all so long! But,
except for the growing up of the younger boys and girls during his five
years of absence, they were to him still what they had been since he was
a child, affecting him still with the old depressing sense of distance
and dislike. The grammarless speech of the men, the black-rimmed nails
of Stella's schoolmaster--a good classical scholar, but heedless as he
was good-hearted,--jarred upon him, indeed, with the discomfort of a new
experience. Upon his own slender, erect figure, clothed in poor but
well-fitting garments, gentleman was written as plainly as in words,
just as idealist was written on his forehead and the other features
which thought had chiselled perhaps too finely for his years.

The brightness had come back to Stella's face, and he could not but feel
grateful to the men who had left their shops and dingy little stores to
bid her good-by, and to the placid, kindly-faced women ranged along the
settees against the wall and conversing in low tones about how she would
be missed; but the noisy flock of young people, who with their chorus of
expostulations, assurances, and prophecies seemed to make her one of
themselves, filled him with strong displeasure. He knew how foolish it
would be for him to show it, but he could get no further in his effort
at concealment than a cold silence which was itself significant enough.
A tall youth with bold and handsome features and a pretty girl in a
showy red muslin ignored him altogether, with a pride which really quite
overmatched his own; but the rest shrank back a little as he passed
looking after the checks and tickets, either cutting short their
sentences at his approach or missing the point of what they had to say.
The train seemed to him long in coming.

His stepmother moved to the end of the settee and made a place for him
at her side. "Lindsay," she said, under cover of the talk and laughter,
and speaking with some difficulty, "I hope you will be able to carry out
all your plans for yourself and Stella; but while you're making the
money, she will have to make the friends. Don't you ever interfere with
her doing it. From what little I have seen of the world, it's going to
take both to carry you through."

His face flushed a little, but he recognized her faithfulness and did it
honor. "That is true, mother, and I will remember what you say. But I
have some friends," he added, in enforced self-vindication, "in Vaucluse
if not here."

A whistle sounded up the road. She caught his hand with a swift
accession of tenderness towards his youth. "You've done the best you
could, Lindsay," she said. "I wish you well, my son, I wish you well."
There were tears in her eyes.

George Morrow and the girl in red followed Stella into the car, not at
all disconcerted at having to get off after the train was in motion.
"Don't forget me, Stella," the girl called back. "Don't you ever forget
Ida Brand!"

There was a waving of hands and handkerchiefs from the little station,
aglare in the early afternoon sun. A few moments later the train had
rounded a curve, shutting the meagre village from sight, and, to Lindsay
Cowart's thought, shutting it into a remote past as well.

He arose and began rearranging their luggage. "Do you want these?" he
inquired, holding up a bouquet of dahlias, scarlet sage, and purple
petunias, and thinking of only one answer as possible.

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