“Although,” Jane said, “you will
never be able to live your own Life until she is gone,
Bab.”
“There is Carter Brooks,” I suggested.
“But he is poor. And anyhow she is not
in Love with him.”
“Leila is not one to care about Love,”
said Jane. “That makes it eazier.”
“But whom?” I said. “Whom,
Jane?”
We thought and thought, but of course it was hard,
for we knew none of those who filled my sister’s
life, or sent her flours and so on.
At last I said:
“There must be a way, Jane. There
must be. And if not, I shall make one.
For I am desparate. The mere thought of going
back to school, when I am as old as at present and
engaged also, is madening.”
But Jane held out a warning hand.
“Go slow, dearie,” she said, in a solemn
tone. “Do nothing rash. Remember this,
that she is your sister, and should be hapily married
if at all. Also she needs one with a strong hand
to control her. And such are not easy to find.
You must not ruin her Life.”
Considering the fatal truth of that, is it any wonder
that, on contemplateing the events that folowed, I
am ready to cry, with the great poet Hood: 1835-1874:
whose numerous works we studied during the spring
term:
Alas, I have walked
through life
To heedless where I
trod;
Nay, helping to trampel
my fellow worm,
And fill the burial
sod.
If I were to write down all the surging thoughts that
filled my brain this would have to be a Novel instead
of a Short Story. And I am not one who beleives
in beginning the life of Letters with a long work.
I think one should start with breif Romanse.
For is not Romanse itself but breif, the thing of
an hour, at least to the Other Sex?
Women and girls, having no interest outside their
hearts, such as baseball and hockey and earning saleries,
are more likely to hug Romanse to their breasts, until
it is finaly drowned in their tears.
I pass over the next few days, therfore, mearly stating
that my affaire de COUER went on rapidly,
and that Leila was sulkey and had no
male visitors. On the day after the
Ball Game Tom took me for a walk, and in a corner
of the park, he took my hand and held it for quite
a while. He said he had never been a hand-holder,
but he guessed it was time to begin. Also he
remarked that my noze need not worry me, as it exactly
suited my face and nature.
“How does it suit my nature?” I asked.
“It’s—well, it’s cute.”
“I do not care about being cute, Tom,”
I said ernestly. “It is a word I despize.”
“Cute means kissible, Bab!” he said, in
an ardent manner.
“I don’t beleive in kissing.”
“Well,” he observed, “there is kissing
and kissing.”
But a nurse with a baby in a perambulater came along
just then and nothing happened worth recording.
As soon as she had passed, however, I mentioned that
kissing was all right if one was engaged, but not
otherwise. And he said:
