THE STORYTELLER.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 185, 14 January 1915, Page 6

THE STORYTELLER.

A DAUGHTER S HERITAGE. 1 read tin: wedding announcement, *ighocl ami smiled. "That marriage must have meant a great deal to Mrs. Allen," I thought; and I wondered what it meant to Laura. What could marriage mean to a girl brought up as •she had been, (o love money, to scorn work, and to look upon the, social life as ai: opportunity for meeting engdile men rather than as a change to vxpress ami realise herself through contact '.villi other natures in the gayer, freer, more spontaneous human associations'; "It mest seem to her." I thought, ' as if the thing she had set out to do u i re deli", as if the altar were the end of thlife instead of the beginning. 1 wonder whether it does'.'"

And, wondering, 1 sat besi.-h my disk,' d o wedding-card iu my hand, and ni\ thoughts drifted back along the course of my friendship with Ill's Allen, Laura's mother, since the t»n-; \vh?n we had been at school together. She was elder than I—one of the beautiful, lazy, upper classmen, whom the yoiing energy of the school always delights in senilis. She had a great, open heart, and even ar. a girl had loved eve:/ nood thing :n the woiv) except work. Jjut the result of this one lack had been ihat her attitude toward life was al.vavs governed by her material cond'.l'on. When she was rich she was (.'onerous when she was poor she was bitt.'-. And, since her husband's fortunes .ver" 1 oi the kind that vavcrcd, Mrs. All ;■ disposition, too. 1 ail I)>'came unsi.tVe as the v< ars passed In one respect alone had she lvmainj firm, and that w.>s in ln i belief that the necessity fo•• work wa= a taint, an:! that her daughter's happiness depended i:of upon what they could do. nor ,ip< n what they kne v, u)r o\»-r upon \v}:>i tli<-y wnv, but upon tlioir marrying rich

The lust time 1 visited 111■"> Ifi 11- wa; 1 the year that Laura ca:ue <.ut in socii ly, three winters ago. As I thought of this visit I re tim/ic'ivd a ivhispoed smiling conference between mother end daughter, and th«n Mrs. AH-u's ::;y : ng confidentially to hp: "Lama lifts been invitej to go !.o the tlieatr> to-ivghi.'' "How ileliglitf.il l ' s;\i l I. to v. hum a mention of the. theatre always c<.injured lip the vision of a Draeu I eacne l,u 1 Min about some p T ny that woulil add a new interest to ;if. ' Wb-.t i-. t'x |-lso j ''The play?" sail Mrs Alien doubtfully. "T don't know.* ''Who is acting?' I asked. "Acting? I'm P.ir». I don't know." And then, as in return for my bl.r.ik wonder, she added: "Mr. ferry has ecme to tlie city especially to take her. They say be is making ten thousand a year."

And now I.aura Allen was Mrs. Walter Cullen Terry and had cohm to live in our town. J looke'l at the wedding announcement again. •'\t Home after Vovembcr first,'' I read, "and it's the fifteenth now. I'll go to Laura'* and take her some chrysanthemums. - ' "Ts Mrs. Terry at home?" T asked the maid, and was glad when she anMvetvd. ".She is at home, hut she's dressing; will you wait a few minutes?" and gave me a chance f o see what Laura's home was like, before I saw the new Laura. The room was not an interesting one. Hie pictures on the wail might have been anybody's pictures, and there were no books to speak of. The fresh new curtains, the bright and scattered orna- j nients, the iindinuued cretonnes showed it to be a bride's house, and that w;k all J

After a moment I heard Laura's lijjlit footstep on tile stairs, and when she camo into the room, in iier pretty, pale sown, I saw how lovely she was, how fresh and fair and voting, and I saw, too, that all the room needed was Laura herself, as bright and iindiimned as the cretonnes, to fit into it and j;ive it. !"'e. I knew, tinn. that to be a bride's home was enough to (ill a house with meaning. "-My dear Mrs. TVlhani!" Laura Terry egan, rushing over to kiss me on both cheeks. "It s so pood of you to come, and r can't tell you how jrlad T am to see von! I've wanted you, above everyone, to see our house. Isn't is just the dearest place?" A note in the voice jarred, something in the enthusiasm seemed not quite sincere, but T brushed aside the thought of it.

\our house looks as happv us you do,' I said, "I've come to wish you joy in it. the same jov that Mr Pelham and I had in our first home. And IYe brought you these," holding out the flowers. "Chrysanthemums!" she said, taking them with evident pleasure. "Oh. thank you so much! They're quite mv favorite Covers. Although ! suppose you'll frown " hen I tell you why. Uecaii.se" -she whispered dramatically— "they're always a sign that the season's !><-■ iun in - The season': said T, uonderinn just what she meant.

"Tl" ; real -illy season." said Mrs. Terry, laughing. "Dancing and theatres and pal-ties and fun in general. Summer We„ Hie awfully 7 have just fo ha.e something to do. Look," sh,. said, tniguo ii'mii iier chair and drawing aside tin' hangings that separated us from an inner room. "I've measured and we em put four tables info this <,ne room. I didn't hint it to Mr. T,rry. but I really think ffiat was what made nir take 'he house. I (p.n't suppe-,. Miu eave f,, r ljrirl.ue though. T don') cither, r.-allv. 1 play so li;i<U\. but one l U s to entertain people in tlieve S'nall rowiw .lin li, Miother."

lor a moment I „ M s „ (1 | v . ill" whaf to all-u er. , on-,<,i,K ~f M Certain hurt that a new hone- eoii!,| |„. i., for ai-. ;„ji bri.Ue piirties. "You will en joy bavin:.' V onr ft i. aid-," I said. "'That's on,' of til:- real pleasures of a home.'''

"T knew you would appreciate it," ~aid Mrs. Teirv. "Most, married people aiv so poky, liut mother alwavs slv< v,,u have 111., re eompany in a month (ban anybody else in a year. That's what I want- somebody all V". .miu noil f. ' -aid I. "I >r yon won't very Von miss y..isr hi:; familv just iniv . it is always hard To adjust ■'- 1 for I'M, after (hat. But 11 ir I am greatly mi s tak,|, you, will i be likin.ir the lions,, best wii-J you ni . Mr. Terry are iih.iie j,i it." '

Mrs. Terry shook her head. "Not I," she said. "I'm not romantic, mats tlii use? You got over it so quickly, anyhow. You might just as well stick to your . friends from llio beginning, anil not luivo to go back when you nnil yoiu husband bogin to boiv each other." T looked at the bright, fair fare of the girl who spoke. "Ia it really she?" I asked myself. "Is it the voice of youth, in its hour of dreams, that talks of boredom, and the folly of romance? Is it the eye of youth, that, seeing only the fair beginning, is looking for the end of the love and happiness?"

1 hardly noticed that the voice was raised again until I found myself called back by the words: "Mr Terry doesn't like them, but everybody says they are the smartest set in town. T tell him it does not matter with whom you dance and play cards and cat dinners, as long as they do things the way you do. But he says he would rather stay at home and read than go with people he doesn't care about. Heavens! even in the city if T liad stopped to find people I liked T should have been at home alone and bored to death most of the time. Here it would be too awful, with nothing in the world to do. -And as there is every chance that i'll have to live, my life here I've made up my mind to fight it through right now. until he gives in. Don't you think I'm right?" I could stand it no longer, and Laura Terry's direct question gave me my. opportunity to speak out. "No!" I said decidedly.

"No?"' said she, surprised. T shook my head vigorously. "Mr. 'li.'ry is right/' I said. "You can work with people you don't like and not have the association do more than spoil your temper. But you can't for any len-th of time, spend your leisure with peoole you don't like and not pay the price." "The price?" asked Mrs. Terry. "What price? We give as much as we Set."

"Von give Inn much," said T, "'when von give vour youth. You're not -join;,' to 1)0 under thirty all .your days, yon know. ' The time will come when you Hurt your husband will want something more of life than ran he gathered from a pack of cards and a well-set dinnertable. "Where do you expect lo get it? Whore do you expect a lumber merchant like your husband to get it if not from the people with whom you associate: 1 "1 don't think you would talk th.it way," said Mrs. Terry. "All tl u . girls here seem to feel as if you were one «f them, and I understood that young people did not want to bo serious all the time."

"Be as frivolous as you please," I insisted. "But be frivolous with people you respect, and with whom you can be serious when von want to be, or you'll find yourself old beyond redemption at thirty-five."

The smile had pone from Mrs. Terry's face, and as I looked at her now T sawthat the soft white skin had traces of cruel lines about the mouth, the lin-s which bitterness brings to youth. ''She s older now than twice her years," 1 thought, "anil idleness has done i l . That's how mother's sins are visited on eliiMivn.''

| "Ultra, my dear," T said, moved by [ail irresistible impulse, ''come here and S : t by me. T want to talk" to you." Mrs. Terry flushed, hesitated, then took' the seat next to me. '•no you know," I began, "that what you* said about tlie girls' feeling that I was one of them pleased me more than anything else could have done? That's Why r earn,, hero to-day, in the hope that we might be friends, too, you and T. Rut we can't." "Why not ?" said Mrs. Terry "Because in the half-hour that T've been here you have talked three tinns of being bored. You're too old for me." Uura Terry laughed, but it- was a laugh without glee. "I mean it," T went on. "Real youth "ever bored. Xobody who is hopeful or happy is bored, and nobody can help being happy who is doing sonietliim' worth while."

Mrs. Terry got up and walked away. '•That's sentimental," she said. "Tt's practical," said T. "You've tie/or tried work as a cure for boredom, so von don't know." T have nothing to do." said Mrs. lerry. "Mr. Terry can afford to give - should 1 take it?" 'There s all the work of the world lo do," said I. "Oh charity!" said Laura Terry scornfully.

'There's all the work of the world to 'lo- T repeated, ignoring the scorn and the nnkindness, which were after all but luck of understanding. ''There's such a lot that it is bewildering, and so few of us (o help with it!" "There's nothing I can do," said Mrs. Terry with a catch in her voice, halt weary, half resentful... There, in that one, sentence, was the answer I had sought. This was what Mr-. Allen's scorn of work had brought her daughter to at twenty-one, (hi., incapacity (o hive the summer, to int. rest her husband, to find companionship in her own soul.

'There's plenty y,,u can learn," said 1. "if you want to. And if you really do. perhaps we can be friends after all. T'll put up with your age until T see von growing young again. Then you can put i'i' »'ith mine, fs it a bargain'" For an-wer. Laura Terry put her arms on the mantel beside which she stood, put her head on her arms, and began to cry. T gave a sigh of relief. "Thai's a real woman's an-wi r." -aid i („ mv--e]l. " I here's hope for her,"