Newspaper Page Text
HEN Fanny Offord married Gerald
Revere, she knew she was running a
certain risk. There was no lack of
counselors among her female friends
w
to represent to her what she was doing.
“He’s five years younger than you,” said
Miss Credentia Cruller.
“He’s handsome, my dear, as an Apollo,”
said Mrs. Speakplain. “And you know very
well‘you are inclined to be pale and insigni
ficant.”
“And he’s a decided society man,” added
Aunty Critic, “and you always preferred a
quiet life. ’ ’
“He’ll be young when you are an old wo
man,” nodded Miss Cruller. “Oh, my love,
I dread to think of what is in store for you.”
But what avails advice when love is in
question? Fanny and Gerald were heartily
in love with each other; and Fanny chanced it
and married him.
“I’m determined, however,” said the bride,
“not to risk any domestic pitfalls. So when
Gerald spoke of his mother and sister com
ing to make their home with us, I frowned it
down decidedly.”
“Quite right,” said Credentia Cruller, “I
knew a house that was entirely broken up
by a meddling half-sister.”
“And mothers-in-law are proverbial mis
chief-makers,” declared Mrs. Speakplain.
“I know one thing,” asserted pretty little
Mrs. Mildway. “I could’t keep house without
Frank’s mother. Frank says he would marry
no woman whose heart is not big enough to
take in his mother, too.”
When old Mrs. Revere died, Juliet wrote
her sister-in-law a simple, pathetic letter.
“She will know how homeless I am,”
thought Juliet, “and surely she will ask me
to come to her. ’ ’
But Fifnny did not make any such proposi
tion. She wrote back a conventional note
fu'l of glittering generalities, and said not a
word about welcoming the orphan to her east
ern hearth-stone.
“We are too happy as we are,” said Fanny
to herself, steeling her heart against the pangs
of conscience by a variety of sophistical argu
ments.
Juliet dried her tears and set herself to work
considering what it was best to do. She had
been educated expensively, but not in away
to warrant her in teaching. She was accom
plished, but none of her accomplishments were
marketable. In despair she went to New York
and entered her name on the books of a popu
lar employment office.
“Work is honorable,” thought Juliet. “I’ll
go to work.”
About a week from that time Miss Credentia
Cruller bustled into the Revere house.
“I’ve got you a gem of a seamstress, my
dear,” said she. “I inspected some of her
needle-work and she understands cutting from
patterns, and makes such sweet button-holes.”
“You are very kind,” said Fanny, who sat
beside the ribbon-draped crib of her first baby,
looking supremely happy. “I don’t think I
could possibly have left dear little Dimple long
enough to go myself.”
“Yes, I knew you were wanting a seam
stress,” smirked Miss Credentia; “and hap
pened to be at the office engaging a cook for
Mrs. Jermyn Jackelson, so I just thought of
you.”
But Miss Credentia neglected to state that
HUSBAND AND WIFE
the keeper of the “office” was under sibsidy
to pay a neat little commission to her for ev
ery family she put upon the books.
“There’s only one objection to this Miss
Johnson,” said Miss Cruller. “She’s pretty.”
Fanny laughed.
“Is that an objection?” said she. “I like
pretty people around the house.”
“Perhaps Mr. Revere does also?”
The wife frowned.
“Mr. Revere is not a flirt,” she said.
“Oh, my dear, gentlemen can’t help flirting,”
declared Miss Credentia. “It’s their nature.
And Mr. Revere wasn’t allowed with those
melting black eyes for nothing. You see, a
woman that will marry a handsome man does
so at her peril. He, he, he!”
Fanny, however, did not echo the laugh.
She did not relish that sort of a joke.
Miss Johnson arrived —a pale, stately young
woman, in rather shabby black, with a profile
like a cameo and large dark eyes shaded with
a close fringe of jetty lashes.
“She is pretty,” thought Mrs. Revere; “but
how very cold and silent! It’s just as well,
however, I hire her to sew, and not to talk.’
She set Miss Johnosn at work on a white
cashmere cloak for little Miss Dimple, as they
had nicknamed the baby, and went out that
same afternoon to buy some swan’s-down to
border it. It was dark when she came back.
Gerald stood looking into the fire in the library,
his head resting on his hand.
“Where’s baby?” cried she.
“I believe they have taken her intol the
sitting room. She cried, and no one could
comfort her but the sewing girl.”
“Oh, you’ve seen the new seamstress?”
“Yes.”
“She’s very pretty, isn’t she?”
“Rather,” i ’ !
“Credentia Cruller got her for me.”
“Did she?”
“Gerald, aren’t you well?”
“Are you vexed with me?”
“Quite well, thank you, Fanny.”
“Why should I be vexed with you?”
“Perhaps I oughtn’t to have been so long
away from Dimpie,” said Fanny, beginning in
a hurried way to untie her bonnet-strings; and
she made haste to the sitting room, where the
tiny autocrat of the family was fast asleep.
Miss Johnson sat sewing diligently, with one
foot on the rocker of the cradle.
“I’m so much obliged to you, Miss John
son,” said Mrs. Revere, graciously.
“I’m glad to be of service,” said the young
woman. “The nurse seemed inexperienced,
and the child cried as if she would go into
convulsions. I am naturally fond of children,
and fortunately I succeeded in quieting her.”
“I’ve got a treasure in my new seamstress,”
thought Fanny.
For a few days all went well. Then Miss
Credentia descended like an element of evil
into the current of affairs.
“I told you so, Fanny!” she said.
“Told me what?”
“That seamstress is a deal too pretty.”
“Nonsense!”
“Nonsense, is it? You were out yester
dav afternoon?”
“Os course, I was out. It was Clara Mild
may’s birthday, and Dimple is perfectly good
under Miss Johnson’s supervision—why
shouldn’t I be out?”
“Humph! Dimple is fond of Miss Johnson?”
The Golden Age for April 3, 1913
By SHIRLEY BROWNE.
“Yes.”
“So is somebody else!”
Fanny drew herself up.
“I don’t understand you,” said she.
“Mr. Revere was in the sitting room from
the time he came home from the office until
you came back,” solemnly spoke Miss Cruller.
“He wanted to be where Dimple was, I sup
pose.”
“My dear, don’t delude yourself,” said Miss
Crueller, with a vicious toss of her head. “But
truth is truth, Fanny Revere, and, if you’ll
remember, I warned you of this before you
ever married that handsome scapegrace!
“Miss Crueller, no woman shall speak to
me of my husband in such terms as that!’
said Fanny, with dignity, as she rose and held
the door open for the fair Credentia to de
part. Which she did, merely reiterating the
four fatal words:
“I told you so!”
“If this is really true I ought to know it,’
thought Fanny, with a dull, sickeneing sensa
tion as if her heart were turning to ice with
in her. “I will accept the invitation to Mrs.
Speakplain’s Scientific Symposium this after
noon, and will return when they least expect
me. 1 hate myself for condescending to a
strategem like this; but what else remains
to me?”
She was good as her word, and at least an
hour before the regular adjournment of the
Scientific Symposium she quietly glided into
her own hall-way.
Yes, it was true. Up in the nursery she
could hear the nurse singing baby Dimple to
sleep with a drowsy lullaby, but in the sitting
room below there was the sound of voices—
Gerald’s own tones, alternating with the deep,
soft contralto of Miss Johnson.
“I cannot remain here any longer, Gerald,”
the latter said. “I love darling Dimple, and
it is happiness to be here near you, but I feel
your wife ought to know that —” ■;
“She does know it!” cried Fanny, sweeping
into the room like an evening Medea. “She
knows that she is a wronged wife —that you,
Miss Johnson, are false and wicked—”
Both Gerald and the sewing woman had risen
to their feet.
“Be careful. Fanny, what you say,” stern
ly spoke Gerald. “If all wives were as truly
loved and as loyally honored as yourself,
there would be little cause of complaint in the
■world! ’ ’
“And I,” said the young girl, proudly, “am
neither false nor wicked! I do love Gerald.
Why should we not love each other? I am his
sister! Don’t look so amazed, Mrs. Revere. I
did not come to you purposely. I did not even
know the name of the family for whom Miss
Cruller engaged me until I was already in the
house! You had declined to receive me as a
guest, but as long as I rendered you honorable
service in return for my board and wages, I
felt no weight of obligation. Even Gerald could
not send me away while I remained only the
seamstress. ”
Fanny looked from her husband to his sis
ter. She had grown very pale, her lip quiv
ered.
“I have been selfish and cruel,’’.she mur
mured. “Is your name Juliet?”
“It was Juliet Revere,” said the girl, “but
when I came to New York and left the tradi
tions of my earlier life behind me, I changed
(Continued on page 13.)
3