Bab: A Sub-Deb | Page 5

in their heads but football and
tobacco smoke. Women," I said, "are only their playthings. And when
they do grow up and get a little intellagence they use it in making
money."
There has been a story in the school--I got it from one of the little
girls--that I was disapointed in love in early youth, the object of my
atachment having been the Tener in our Church choir at home. I
daresay I should have denied the soft impeachment, but I did not. It
was, although not appearing so at the time, my first downward step on
the path that leads to destruction.
"The way of the Transgresser is hard"--Bible.
I come now to the momentous day of my return to my dear home for
Christmas. Father and my sister Leila, who from now on I will term
"Sis," met me at the station. Sis was very elegantly dressed, and she
said:
"Hello, Kid," and turned her cheek for me to kiss.
She is, as I have stated, but 2O months older than I, and depends
altogether on her clothes for her beauty. In the morning she is plain,

although having a good skin. She was trimmed up with a bouquet of
violets as large as a dishpan, and she covered them with her hands
when I kissed her.
She was waved and powdered, and she had on a perfectly new Outfit.
And I was shabby. That is the exact word. Shabby. If you have to hang
your entire Wardrobe in a closet ten inches deep, and put it over you on
cold nights, with the steam heat shut off at ten o'clock, it does not make
it look any better.
My father has always been my favorite member of the family, and he
was very glad to see me. He has a great deal of tact, also, and later on
he slipped ten dollars in my purse in the motor. I needed it very much,
as after I had paid the porter and bought luncheon, I had only three
dollars left and an I. O. U. from one of the girls for seventy-five cents,
which this may remind her, if it is read in class, she has forgoten.
"Good heavens, Barbara," Sis said, while I hugged father, "you
certainly need to be pressed."
"I daresay I'll be the better for a hot iron," I retorted, "but at least I
shan't need it on my hair." My hair is curly while hers is straight.
"Boarding school wit!" she said, and stocked to the motor.
Mother was in the car and glad to see me, but as usual she managed to
restrain her enthusiasm. She put her hands over some Orkids she was
wearing when I kissed her. She and Sis were on their way to something
or other.
"Trimmed up like Easter hats, you two!" I said.
"School has not changed you, I fear, Barbara," mother observed. "I
hope you are studying hard."
"Exactly as hard as I have to. No more, no less," I regret to confess that
I replied. And I saw Sis and mother exchange glances of signifacance.

We dropped them at the Reception and father went to his office and I
went on home alone. And all at once I began to be embittered. Sis had
everything, and what had I? And when I got home, and saw that Sis had
had her room done over, and ivory toilet things on her dressing table,
and two perfectly huge boxes of candy on a stand and a Ball Gown laid
out on the bed, I almost wept.
My own room was just as I had left it. It had been the night nursery,
and there was still the dent in the mantel where I had thrown a hair
brush at Sis, and the ink spot on the carpet at the foot of the bed, and
everything.
Mademoiselle had gone, and Hannah, mother's maid, came to help me
off with my things. I slammed the door in her face, and sat down on the
bed and RAGED.
They still thought I was a little girl. They PATRONIZED me. I would
hardly have been surprised If they had sent up a bread and milk supper
on a tray. It was then and there that I made up my mind to show them
that I was no longer a mere child. That the time was gone when they
could shut me up in the nursery and forget me. I was seventeen years
and eleven days old, and Juliet, in Shakspeare, was only sixteen when
she had her well-known affair with Romeo.
I had no plan then. It was not until the next afternoon that the thing
sprung (sprang?) full-pannoplied from the head of Jove.
The evening was rather dreary. The family