Bab: A Sub-Deb | Page 6

was going out, but not until
nine thirty, and mother and Leila went over my clothes. They sat, Sis in
pink chiffon and mother in black and silver, and Hannah took out my
things and held them up. I was obliged to silently sit by, while my rags
and misery were exposed.
"Why this open humiliation?" I demanded at last. "I am the family
Cinderella, I admit it. But it isn't necessary to lay so much emphacis on
it, is it?"
"Don't be sarcastic, Barbara," said mother. "You are still only a Child,

and a very untidy Child at that. What do you do with your elbows to
rub them through so? It must have taken patience and aplication."
"Mother" I said, "am I to have the party dresses?"
"Two. Very simple."
"Low in the neck?"
"Certainly not. A small v, perhaps."
"I've got a good neck." She rose impressively.
"You amaze and shock me, Barbara," she said coldly.
"I shouldn't have to wear tulle around my shoulders to hide the bones!"
I retorted. "Sis is rather thin."
"You are a very sharp-tongued little girl," mother said, looking up at
me. I am two inches taller than she is.
"Unless you learn to curb yourself, there will be no parties for you, and
no party dresses."
This was the speach that broke the Camel's back. I could endure no
more.
"I think," I said, "that I shall get married and end everything."
Need I explain that I had no serious intention of taking the fatal step?
But it was not deliberate mendasity. It was Despair.
Mother actually went white. She cluched me by the arm and shook me.
"What are you saying?" she demanded.
"I think you heard me, mother" I said, very politely. I was however
thinking hard.

"Marry whom? Barbara, answer me."
"I don't know. Anybody."
"She's trying to frighten you, mother" Sis said. "There isn't anybody.
Don't let her fool you."
"Oh, isn't there?" I said in a dark and portentious manner.
Mother gave me a long look, and went out. I heard her go into father's
dressing-room. But Sis sat on my bed and watched me.
"Who is it, Bab?" she asked. "The dancing teacher? Or your riding
master? Or the school plumber?"
"Guess again."
"You're just enough of a little Simpleton to get tied up to some wreched
creature and disgrace us all."
I wish to state here that until that moment I had no intention of going
any further with the miserable business. I am naturaly truthful, and
Deception is hateful to me. But when my sister uttered the above
dispariging remark I saw that, to preserve my own dignaty, which I
value above precious stones, I would be compelled to go on.
"I'm perfectly mad about him," I said. "And he's crazy about me."
"I'd like very much to know," Sis said, as she stood up and stared at me,
"how much you are making up and how much is true."
None the less, I saw that she was terrafied. The family Kitten, to speak
in allegory, had become a Lion and showed its clause.
When she had gone out I tried to think of some one to hang a love
affair to. But there seemed to be nobody. They knew perfectly well that
the dancing master had one eye and three children, and that the
clergyman at school was elderly, with two wives. One dead.

I searched my Past, but it was blameless. It was empty and bare, and as
I looked back and saw how little there had been in it but imbibing
wisdom and playing basket-ball and tennis, and typhoid fever when I
was fourteen and almost having to have my head shaved, a great wave
of bitterness agatated me.
"Never again," I observed to myself with firmness. "Never again, If I
have to invent a member of the Other Sex."
At that time, however, owing to the appearance of Hannah with a
mending basket, I got no further than his name.
It was Harold. I decided to have him dark, with a very small black
mustache, and Passionate eyes. I felt, too, that he would be jealous. The
eyes would be of the smouldering type, showing the green-eyed
monster beneath.
I was very much cheered up. At least they could not ignore me any
more, and I felt that they would see the point. If I was old enough to
have a lover--especialy a jealous one with the aformentioned eyes--I
was old enough to have the necks of my frocks cut out.
While they were getting their wraps on in the lower hall, I counted my
money. I had thirteen dollars. It was enough for a Plan I was beginning
to have in mind.
"Go to bed early, Barbara," mother said when