A roof against the rain

Front matter

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT.

o o pf 2 by

ELIZABETH HIGGINS

Chapter One

Old Simeon Goodrich knew it was the end when he saw them deployed about his bedside—Dr. Newton, two nurses, Judge Ramsey, Mrs. Crowley, Bob Otis. Ramsey was his lawyer; Crowley, the housekeeper. Bob was his dead niece’s husband, one of these static widowers. Bob looked concerned. He had plenty to concern him, now that he was about to become the whole works and head of the Goodrich chain of ten-cent stores. Over the shoulders of fat little Newton and a stocky nurse, Simeon’s eyes rested on two oil portraits on the opposite wall—Junior and Ada, his children, killed in a car crash, fifteen years ago. Their mother’s picture, Meenie’s, was between them; but tall Judge Ramsey was planted in the line of vision and Simeon only saw an edge of the frame that inclosed Meenie’s fret¬ ful little face and drooping apologetic pose. Twenty years since Meenie had lain on this same bed—and went out, holding Junior and Ada close to her.

As he thought back, Simeon recalled his own feelings at his wife’s deathbed—an outsider, not in the picture at all.

She was a sickly woman, always telling him that he’d be married before the grass was green on her grave. Well, he hadn’t married—he’d fooled Meenie. She had it all wrong —no grave, no grass—a marble mausoleum instead. A lot of women had tried to get him, for his money, but he fooled them , too. After losing Junior and Ada, others bobbed up, then, avaricious relatives with an eye to his will —cousins, dozens of cousins, swarms of them! He fooled them, too; and saw to it that they couldn’t fool him in the end with a bunch of shyster lawyers to prove he was crazy and break his will. Not a red sou markee could any of his kin get hold of now. He wasn’t leaving a will. He was leaving everything tied up in trust funds for the Goodrich Memorial. The Memorial was one of these welfare centers in the slums, founded soon after he had lost Junior and Ada. In fact, there were two welfare centers—the Memorial proper and the branch house, the Annex. Simeon smiled at the thought of such secure repository. Absolutely safe. Popular opinion is behind a thing like that, the sentimental idealism of John Q. Public, who enjoys seeing the ten-cent profits go back to the poor,—and the relations whistling for them. Almost finished now, Simeon thought. He was going to the mausoleum, with no expectant heirs rejoicing at his exit. No crocodile tears on his coffin. Everybody, kin included, knew damned well where the Goodrich wad was already located.

Of course, Cornelia Cromwell was in for the time of her life from now on, cock-of-the-walk at the Goodrich Me¬ morial. Great God, that woman, Cornelia! She was presi¬ dent of the Memorial Executive Board. Simeon hated her and respected her. In his life’s experience, she was the one thing he had never been able to master. Nothing mastered her. The Executive Board members were just so many planks for Cornelia to walk on. She had the back of a Tammany sachem, the front of a Methodist bishop. And clever as hell. The man for the job ahead of her. There was another, too, of like stripe, Annie Elliot at the Annex. The two goddamnedest females that ever got hold of power, and each hating the other. Imagine Elizabeth Tudor, with Catherine the Great her rival across the border.

Well, let them go to it. Both hellions. What did he care so long as the Memorial and Annex accomplished his objec¬ tive, the satisfaction of going to the grave with the say-so of who wasn’t to have his money. Bunk, all this social work and uplift business. It had bored him from the start, round¬ ing up the tenement crowds for clean wholesome recreation and self-improvement. All he had ever cared to see of their doings was the shows they put on in the Memorial Theatre. The dramatic stuff was fun, so rotten he liked it. One of the actresses had amber hair—like Ada’s, his daughter’s, hair. The tenement girl was very appealing, not much of an actress, but damned decorative. Nothing like catchy decorations. Get the eye of the public, and the public is yours. He had learned that, long ago—it was the show in the Goodrich store windows that sold the goods over the counters behind them. By George, thinking of that girl now, he was going to leave her something!

Simeon looked around his bed and met a battery of eyes, fixed, staring at him. In for the kill, were they? Giving them a show, was he? Just for that, they’ll get no show— he’d die in private.

“Get out,” he told them; “get out of here, every jack of you! Ramsey, get them away—I’ve had enough of this ante-mortem inquest!”

As the room cleared, Simeon beckoned his lawyer to him. "Ramsey,” he said weakly, "hand me my checkbook. There’s a little girl at the Memorial that reminds me of Ada. I’ll leave a check for her, a thousand dollars. That’s not enough to spoil the kid, but it can get her set up in house¬ keeping when she marries a chauffeur or a clerk. She’s a smart little girl, the kind that should pick a good man for herself.”

"I’ll fill out the check,” the Judge told him, "and you can sign it. What’s her name?”

"The name’s Mary.”

"Her last name?”

"That’s slipped me. But you can place her—light brown hair and eyes,—blondish—very pretty, the theatre you know—she takes part in. . . .”

The voice failed to a murmur, and old Simeon Goodrich met death with a twisted smile that told his lawyer nothing.

Ramsey laid the checkbook back on the bedside table and called in Dr. Newton for a final service to a patient whose death had the same brittle quality as his living. A vision of tomorrow’s obituaries rose before the lawyer. The press, he knew, would chronicle the passing of a great philanthropist—a big heart that had ceased its benevolent beating! What bunk would be printed at old Simeon’s exit—padded, bolstered, synthetic!

Downstairs, in the library, the Judge found them as¬ sembled: Bob Otis standing in front of the mantel; Cor¬ nelia Cromwell posted by a window, looking out absently on Riverside Drive; Old Abner Johnson, asleep in Simeon’s chair at the roll-top desk that clashed harshly with the colonial pieces poor Meenie had collected. Of the three, old Abner was the only one who really cared. When he woke up, he would cry and shed a few honest, senile tears. Before the old fellow had become a doddering, repetitious chatterer, he had been a crony of Simeon’s. But Goodrich friendship was as peculiar as all Goodrich attributes—too brittle to be bored with Abner in his failing years.

"Is it all over?” asked Mrs. Cromwell, turning from the window at Ramsey’s entrance.

"Yes, Cornelia, all over; Simeon has just passed away.”

At that, she crossed the room, wakening the sleeper. The old man was her uncle, and very much under her thumb. Abner, too, must soon pass on and leave a goodly portion of the world’s goods. His heirs-at-law were Cornelia and her cousin, Herbert Johnson. The blood be¬ tween them was thin as water—but turbulent water, boil¬ ing, poisonous. At present, Herbert was in the discard. The Judge knew. Only last week, he had drawn up Ab¬ ner’s last will, entirely in Cornelia’s favor. The legal man’s lips straightened at the recollection—this business of piling up a tower of money! It seemed so grim, so ghastly com¬ ical—money, this short tenure of possession.

"They’re all gone now,” Johnson sobbed. "Alone, left all alone, the last of my generation.”

Ramsey noted the woman’s pose, an attitude of sym¬ pathy, one hand on the old man’s shoulder, the other with handkerchief in seemly gesture. But behind it the lawyer detected no tears. From now on, the Goodrich Memorial was Cornelia’s realm, hers to govern without interference. Bob Otis’s hands dug deeper into his pockets, his gaze fall¬ ing to the tiles about the mantel. Ramsey wished he could have caught what was behind the Otis eyes. This was Bob’s great day too; he was no longer a big man’s man; he was the big man himself now, sole head of the Goodrich system of ten-cent stores. What a setup it was: old Abner in tears; Bob Otis with his feet glued to the tiles before the mantel; Cornelia moving to the desk to jot a few hurried memos in her pocket diary. Upstairs, Simeon, waiting for the mortician. And himself, backed up against shelves and shelves of Congressional Records. What on God’s earth had possessed Simeon to accumulate all these Government documents? Probably a Goodrich idea of decorous lining for library walls.

The memos jotted down, Mrs. Cromwell summoned Mrs. Crowley. "I’m utterly exhausted,” she told the house¬ keeper. "Please serve tea, here in the library—and sand¬ wiches. You have a baked ham, haven’t you?”

"Indeed, I have, ma’am; spiced, delicious, a Smithfield.”

"Then, bring in the ham, I’ll slice it—and see the knife is quite sharp. And gluten bread. And an electric toaster, I prefer my toast fresh from the grill. A little watercress, hearts of lettuce, and some cream cheese. And don’t forget a little Bacardi rum for the tea, Mrs. Crowley, please.”

Great God, they were going to eat! Ramsey recoiled. Upstairs, over their heads—Simeon, death, morticians!

But Cornelia, he knew, would do the food ample justice —a tall, lank female, the lean type that may eat its head off without gaining an extra pound. All the years he had known her, since her girlhood, she had appeared neither younger nor older—always the same rangy, rawboned article. She had the face of a Siouan Indian, but it was a warrior’s, not a squaw’s. Then, the sentiment in Ramsey’s hard-boiled make-up came suddenly to the fore—the tene¬ ment girl, this Mary, had taken hold of his imagination. She must get her thousand dollars, paid from the Emer¬ gency Fund, one of the various endowments of the Goodrich Memorial. Fortunately, the Judge was a member of the Executive Board, in a position to make the matter a Board issue.

"Cornelia, there’s a subject we might just as well take up now,” he approached Mrs. Cromwell. "Just before Simeon died, he wanted to leave a check, a thousand dollars, to one of the tenement girls at the Memorial. I have had a trust imposed on me; Simeon’s dying wish must be respected.”

"But, Hector, who is the girl?”

"Simeon couldn’t recall the name further than Mary. But he said I could place her. She takes part in the dra¬ matic affairs, she’s pretty, blondish, brown eyes; she re¬ minded Simeon of Ada. You remember Ada Goodrich’s hair, rather remarkable as I recall, not exactly gold, not exactly red, wasn’t it?”

"I place the girl, it’s Mary Boots. I recall Simeon’s ask¬ ing me about her after we produced 'Outward Bound’— she was Ann. She did poorly in the role, indeed, very poorly.”

"But very pretty, isn’t she?”

"Men might call her pretty—you use that word so in¬ discriminately, Hector, a blanket term to cover everything that catches your eye.”

"Then, she isn’t pretty?”

"No,” Mrs. Cromwell corrected with her habitual ex¬ actness; "Mary Boots is beautiful. We worry about her at the Memorial, afraid something very unfortunate may hap¬ pen to her yet. She is far too attractive and besides, she is vain. She dresses extravagantly, quite above her station.”

"Suspiciously so?” asked Ramsey.

"No, I had that investigated and found out the Boots girl buys her things second-hand; exclusive models, usually, from Lucia Cutting’s 'Carry On’ Shop.”

"Oh, yes, Lucia’s pet charity where Park Avenue ward¬ robes relieve their over-pressure, isn’t it?”

"And I don’t approve of it—people should dress to their station, Hector.”

"But this Mary works, doesn’t she?”

"Yes, a typist.”

"For the United Can, I suppose?” Ramsey smiled with his question, a safe supposition—nearly everyone in the Memorial round-up worked for the United Can Company, a concern principally owned by the Johnsons and the Cromwells.

"Yes, Hector, for the United Can.”

"Now that we have Mary’s identity established, the next step is an arrangement to give her a thousand dollars out of the Emergency Fund. Simeon said that amount would not spoil her. Enough to set her up in housekeeping when she marries some good fellow.”

The Cromwell face froze on the instant. "But Hector, the Boots girl doesn’t intend to marry some good fellow. When I had her investigated, I discovered she has taken up with a dangerous character, the editor of 'The Rising Sun,’ that frightful Communist publication. His name is Stanley Hayden.”

"Oh, yes, that fellow. I’ve heard of him—rather striking looking, a forceful speaker—has quite a following, I hear.”

"Which makes him all the greater menace.”

"A good way to cure the young radical, Cornie. Let him have a comfortable home and a pretty wife, and he’s all the likelier to swing over to saner liberalism.”

"How do you know the Boots girl will put the money into a home? Isn’t it far more probable that she will give it to this menace and the further spread of Red propa¬ ganda?”

"Never, Cornelia; you’re all off on your psychology. No girl who buys the cast-off finery of the rich and privileged is Red timber—such raiment would burn like the gift gown of Medea into any Communist’s bones. No, the girl has a distinct ring in the opposite direction— I’d say she’s lower middle class to the marrow.”

"I know I am right, Hector, and I intend to curb the Boots girl at every possible point. Unfortunately, she has the trick of making herself popular. Only last week, the Girls’ Senior Guild elected her its president. I put my foot down on it. I would not permit her to take the office.” Mrs. Cromwell rose as she spoke. "Please excuse me for a few minutes; I have to call the Memorial. The flag must be set at half-mast in honor of poor Simeon’s passing.”

Ramsey watched her exit with twinkling eyes—he was in for a bit of grim fun. How it would hurt Cornelia to hand out one thousand dollars! But she would have to give in, all right. He would make Simeon’s dying request an issue, he’d bring it up at each succeeding meeting of the Executive Board, until the Cromwell opposition was worn down.

A pretty maid, quite young, wheeled in the tea-wagon. Abner Johnson’s eyes lighted at the sight of her, interested on the instant. "What’s your name?” he asked the girl. "Do you know how pretty you are?”

The maid was silent, her eyes on the table, her face reddening.

"How prettily you blush,” said Abner; "it almost makes me want to kiss you.”

The doddering soft-head was in a bad way, thought Ramsey. Rather a surprise to the family lawyer, this exhibition. Cornelia better look to it, the uncle was on the marry.

Bob Otis looked his disgust at the ludicrous spectacle of old Abner kissing the maid’s hand, and scowled as his eyes met Ramsey’s smile.

With a coy, over-the-shoulder glance, the maid with¬ drew, Abner trailing out in her wake.

"Judge, I feel you should interfere,” said Otis, his tone slightly anxious. "For all you know, that maid might be a designing person.”

"Why should I interfere?”

"You’re Mr. Johnson’s attorney, Judge Ramsey.”

"Bobbie, my boy, I’m his legal, not his moral director.”

"The flag will be set at half-mast for a month,” an¬ nounced Mrs. Cromwell, returning to the library. "All the Memorial activities shall go on to schedule, however. But where is Uncle Abner?”

"Gone out,” Otis said briefly.

Ramsey’s grin broadened. "Cornie, your Uncle’s de¬ parted on the trail of a pretty maid he is making up to.”

"Hector, go right after him, bring him back directly!”

"Go after him yourself; this is not a legal matter.”

"But he’d resent that, Hector,—my interfering.”

"By the same token, he’d resent my interference just as much.”

"But you’re my lawyer, you’re Uncle Abner’s lawyer— it’s your place to interfere.”

"No, Cornie, a man has a right to his private life, ir¬ respective of attorneys.”

"Bob, you go; please get Uncle Abner for me.”

Bob went.

"Hector, it is hard to tell even to you, but I feel you should know. Uncle Abner is developing alarming symptoms of an unsound mind.”

"A hell of a time to tell me, I must say, Cornelia! Why wasn’t I told last week, before I drew up Abner’s will?”

"But he was perfectly sane last week. His dementia, or whatever it is, comes over him in spells only. He was all right, then, had been for quite a while, nearly an entire month. But shocks are bad for Uncle Abner; I’m afraid poor Simeon’s death has given him a serious setback.”

"Does Cousin Herbert know of these spells, these little lapses into dementia, or whatever it is?”

"No, Herbert doesn’t know, and he is not going to know, either. I am taking good care of Uncle Abner; I am guarding his dignity. I could not think of subjecting him to Herbert’s cruel ridicule.”

"In other words, Cornelia, you’re covering a last will and testament, your mind on the day when the estate of Abner Johnson goes into probate?”

"I am. You can see what a frightful thing it would be, raising the question of Uncle Abner’s sanity, his mental fitness to dispose of his property.”

Ramsey saw it perfectly. The vision rather appalled him, the estate in litigation, dragging through the courts, year after year. He was tired now, worn out after a quarter century’s legal slaving for the Cromwells and the Johnsons. He had given to them without stint. He had saved them everything, their money, their reputations. And here he was, in his mid-fifties, drained mentally and physically. Ramsey thought of his nervous breakdown, four months in a sanitarium—and not yet fully recovered. The breakdown followed the herculean task of keeping Mortimer, Cornie’s husband, out of Federal prison. A close call for Mortimer, all right—the damned crook, evading his income tax for three consecutive years. Of course, his own attorney’s fee wasn’t so bad. But what his income tax had done to that fee was plenty! Ramsey cursed anew the irony of his position: having to pony up to the Government from what came to him for saving Mortimer from just retribution at the hands of the Gov¬ ernment.

Mrs. Cromwell sighed as she laid a large capable hand on the lawyer’s sleeve. "Hector,” she said, "Uncle Abner seems possessed of a mania to get married.”

"Wonderful, Cornie, simply marvellous, Abner’s youth¬ ful spirit, his virile outlook on life!”

"But at his age, Hector, almost eighty!”

"Functioning splendidly, I’d say, a lusty buck for his years.”

The Judge watched her discomfiture as he lighted a cigar, a pale roll of denatured tobacco. Since his break¬ down, no more fragrant Havanas, no liquor, no more any¬ thing to his physical liking. They had cost him dear, this house of clients. But he still had the fun of razzing them. And they had to take it, all right, as it suited his humor. They’d better take it. He was a damned good lawyer, and they knew it, the best they could get for their varied and dubious purposes.

"Hector, does it occur to you that some unscrupulous woman might take advantage of Uncle Abner and marry him for his money?”

"Cornie, if I were an unscrupulous woman, I certainly would concentrate on him.”

"Well, it means, Hector, that I must keep a very close guard on poor Uncle Abner.”

"Verily, I say unto you, be vigilant, Cornelia. Remem¬ ber, mortal man brings nothing into the world with him; he takes nothing out. But occasionally, mortal man plays right into the hands of hungry lawyers, only too happy to send a big estate into endless litigation.”

Bob returned with Abner. Mrs. Cromwell took her place at the tea table.

Ramsey took himself to a window. His idle gaze fol¬ lowed a robin that hopped across the space of lawn be¬ tween Simeon’s gray stone house and the pavement flank¬ ing Riverside Drive. Robins and spring again—spring by calendar, not thermometer. It was a chilly day, dismal, sunless—North River gray, mottled with floating ice.

"Let us keep a cheerful spirit,” Mrs. Cromwell chirped over her cup of steaming tea. "I am sure dear Simeon would not wish us to grieve for him, would he, Hector?”

"A damn Simeon would care, one way or another!”

Hector began to study the robin.

"Cornelia’s got a new laundress,” Mr. Johnson informed the company; "her eyes are different colors, a blue eye and a brown eye.”

The remark was met with the silence it deserved.

"Hector, what are you watching so intently?” Mrs. Cromwell asked, in an attempt to revive conversation.

"A robin.”

"Can a robin be so absorbing?”

"Yes, Cornie, he raises a moot question: where does in¬ stinct end and intelligence begin?”

"An animal hasn’t intelligence,” said Herbert Johnson; "he’s got only instinct—read Darwin.”

"This robin,” Ramsey insisted, "is going through mental processes—he taps the turf and listens, then considers. Yes, there he concludes that the report of his tap indicates animate matter below. He digs in—he’s right,—he gets it.”

"Gets what?”

"His bread, Cornelia.”

"Bread! Out of Simeon’s lawn?”

"His sustenance in some larval form or another.”

"Instinct,” pronounced Johnson, "blind animal instinct.”

"Whatever it is, I wish I had it,” said Bob Otis. "I wish I could tap a project, and discover if there is sustenance under it.”

Chapter Two

However moot be the faculty possessed by the robin, whether instinct or intelligence, Mary Boots had it, too, usually practicable. Her mental equipment was not of a very high order—if it were, she would not have sat at a typewriter, cutting stencils. But she cut excellent stencils, correct, neat; her co-ordination was perfect.

The girl had had every opportunity to fit herself for a better job. The night classes at the Mem (short for Good¬ rich Memorial) afforded all the advantages of a first-class business college, but Mary had not been overly ambitious in a professional way. She had seen no reason why she should give her energies to fit herself for a secretary’s job, and, too, she had had doubts of her own ability to qualify for a choice position in the can works.

Four months in a Mem commercial class had been enough to make Mary a good stencil cutter, which put her in the white collar class. And wasn’t she glad to get out of the industrial end of the concern, work that had been so hard on her beautiful hands, on her nails in particular? But some of the others, the smarter girls and boys, did them¬ selves much prouder—they were stenographers, clerks, sec¬ retaries, under-executives, things like that. Mrs. Cromwell had her good points, she always saw to it that the Mem crowd got jobs at the can works, nothing too good for those who could rate it. The majority, of course, were in the manufacturing end of it. But they, too, had their chances—wonderful night courses at the Mem for metal workers, machinists, mechanics, lithographers, designers. A chemistry course, also. Mary knew all about such mat¬ ters. Like the robin, she was conversant with all routes important to her own well-being and sustenance. Two fellows in the big pay class had fallen hard for her; she could marry either one, any time she wanted to. But she wouldn’t, because she didn’t love either of them. Thank God she wasn’t a gold-digger, ready to sell herself before the altar! However, no fellow without the cash would ever get herl Heavens knows, she had already seen enough poverty. The nights she had gone to bed hungry, a grow¬ ing kid with her stomach gnawing like a rat inside her!

Sometimes, when Mary wakened she heard Papa snoring off a drunk that Mamma had paid for. But don’t think Mamma Boots ever gave up her pay envelope of her own free will. Papa had strong-arm methods; at times, he wasn’t above choking Mamma, especially Saturdays, when she got home with her week’s pay on her.

Mary was twelve on one memorable occasion when she saw fried chicken, scalloped potatoes, and apple pie, right on the table before her. Then, she woke up, and remem¬ bered there wasn’t a bite to eat—nothing but some salt, a package of laundry starch, a can of baking powder, and a bottle of vinegar in the kitchen cupboard. She remem¬ bered, too, that she had wanted Mamma to cook the laundry starch for supper. But Mamma was afraid. Much better be hungry, she said, than risk getting poisoned.

Mary sat up in bed and listened. The flat was silent, not even the sound of Papa’s sleeping. This must be one of the nights when he wouldn’t come home at all, the child con¬ cluded, and went to the kitchen, cold as Greenland’s icy mountains, as it says in the hymn. The first lump of starch tasted queer and wouldn’t go down. On the way to the sink for a drink of water, Mary upset a chair in the dark, wakening Mamma. Just as well that she did—anything tasting so peculiar must be poisonous. Mamma made her spit it out, and carried her back to bed.

"How much money did you make this week?” the child asked.

"Fifteen dollars, dearie.”

"That could of bought a lot to eat, couldn’t it, Mamma?”

"It could that. But you just go to sleep, Mary dearie, and try don’t think no more about it.”

"Mamma, why don’t you get rid of Papa?”

"Laws me, child, how can a woman get rid of a man she’s married to?”

"But un-marry him, Mamma. Ain’t there no way to get un-married again?”

"Yes, there’s divorces, dearie.”

"Get one, Mamma, please un-marry Papa.”

"Divorces, dearie, is only for them as can afford it— like the wealthy ladies you read about in the papers. What luck some women in this world has, able to divorce a man and get good alimony from him!”

"What’s alimony?”

"What ladies with wealthy husbands get when they di¬ vorce them.”

"It’s money?”

"Yes, dearie, heaps of money, when the man is wealthy.”

"If Papa was wealthy, you could un-marry him and gets heaps of money?”

"Yes, dearie, and I’d see that I got plenty.”

"Mamma, why didn’t you get a wealthy man?”

"Land’s sake, child, what chance had the like of me to get hold of a wealthy gentleman?”

"I’m going to marry one, when I get growed up.”

"You’ll never get the chance to, dearie.”

"If I don’t get the chance, I’ll be an old maid.”

"No, Mary, you won’t. You’ll do like all the rest of us. You’ll fall in love with some handsome boy and take your chances for better or for worse with him; most probable, get worse, like I did.”

"I won’t fall in love,” Mary had cried hysterically. "I won’t, I won’t, not with no man that’s not got money.”

"Girls say such things, dearie. I said ’em myself in my day.”

"I mean it, Mamma; I won’t, I won’t, and I mean it!”

"But you will, just the same. Now, go to sleep, and try and forget about being hungry.”

Mary was too hungry to sleep, and Mamma was a fool. The girl was already convinced that poor darling Mamma was a perfect ninny in so many ways. Papa, at least, had the sense to get what he wanted, such as it was. Mamma, who did want the right things, never got anywhere. Mary felt she had Papa’s sense and Mamma’s good intentions; she would want the right thing—and she would get it.

“Mamma,” she asked, "did you ever try for a wealthy gentleman?”

"Yes, dearie, I did—and I almost got one once. But a miss is as good as a mile, and no use crying over spilled milk.”

"How did you come not to get him?”

"Because such things don’t come in real life. It only happens in story books, where a poor girl marries a wealthy gentleman.”

"It’s going to happen for me, Mamma.” The child rose in the bed as she spoke and fell to kneeling. "I swear to God, the Father,” she improvised from her memorized Episcopal catechism, "I swear to the Son, the Holy Ghost, the Blessed Trinity, Saint Michael, and all the angels, the communion of saints, that I won’t marry no poor fellow, never—I swear it by the scared blood of Jesus, shed on the cross, I swear it in Jesus’ name, amen.”

Mamma, a simple soul, had tried to interrupt but the vow was concluded, despite all interference.

"Mary dearie, you’ll never have a day of good luck, when you fall in love and break your oath,” Mrs. Boots gasped finally.

The entablature of the Memorial’s front pediment an¬ nounced to the world that the institution was "FOVNDED AND ENDOWED BY SIMEON GOODRICH FOR THE DISSEMINATION OF SCIENCE AND CVL- TVRE.” While this spelling of culture with "v’s” had never made sense to Mary, she had partaken freely of it. Science, however, she had left strictly alone—what need had she for Science? What fellow ever fell for a girl be¬ cause she was scientific? Looks, of course, came first—and she had the looks. But for the sort of fellow Mary sought, there must be more than that—a wealthy gentleman wanted a lady. Something fierce, making the grade, the time put in on night classes—French, Music, English Diction, Correct Deportment, Art Appreciation, Social and Esthetic Dancing, all kinds of culture. The dance stuff had been great fun. But music was easiest—no trouble whatever, not with Mary’s true ear and sense of rhythm. Rather well, too, with English Diction, a matter of a good memory and Mary’s memory was excellent. That she had a correct accent was the most that could be said of her French, another advantage of possessing the faculty of perfect co-ordination. The other items of culture had gone by the board, more or less, excepting, of course, cor¬ rect deportment, an essential in the formula of real lady¬ ship.