Sunny Slopes | Page 9

me."
David laughed, nodding at her approvingly. "Good for you, Carol," he cried in approbation. "That was fine. How did you get along?"
"Just grand. And isn't she interesting? And so kind. I believe she likes me. She kept me a long time and made me a cup of tea, and begged me to come again. She nearly hypnotized me, I am really infatuated with her. Oh, we had a lovely time. She is different from us, but it does us good to mix with other kinds, don't you think so? I believe she did me good. I feel very emancipated to-night."
Carol tossed her blue-ribboned, curly head, and the warm approval in David's eyes cooled a little.
"What did she have to say?" he asked curiously.
"Oh, she talked a lot about being broad, and generous, and not allowing environment to dwarf one. She thinks it is a shame for a--a--girl of my--well, she called it my 'divine sparkle,' and she said it was a compliment,--anyhow, she said it was a shame I should be confined to a little half-souled bunch of Presbyterians in the Heights. She has a lot of friends down-town, advanced thinkers, she calls them,--a poet, and some authors, and artists, and musicians,--folks like that. They have informal meetings every week or so, and she is going to take me. She says I will enjoy them and that they will adore me."
Carol's voice swelled with triumph, and David's approval turned to ice.
"She must have liked me or she wouldn't have been so friendly. She laughed at the Heights,--she called it a 'little, money-saving, heart-squeezing, church-bound neighborhood.' She said I must study new thoughts and read the new poetry, and run out with her to grip souls with real people now and then, to keep my star from tarnishing. I didn't understand all she said, but it sounded irresistible. Oh, she was lovely to me."
"She shouldn't have talked to you like that," protested David quickly. "She is not fair to our people. She can not understand them because they live sweet, simple lives where home and church are throned. New thought is not necessary to them because they are full of the old, old thought of training their babies, and keeping their homes, and worshiping God. And I know the kind of people she meets down-town,--a sort of high-class Bohemia where everybody flirts with everybody else in the name of art. You wouldn't care for it."
Carol adroitly changed the subject, and David said no more.
The next day, quite accidentally, she met Mrs. Waldemar on the corner and they had a soda together at the drug store. That night after prayer-meeting David had to tarry for a deacons' meeting, and Carol and Mrs. Waldemar sauntered off alone, arm in arm, and waited in Mrs. Waldemar's hammock until David appeared.
And David did not see anything wonderful in the dark, deep eyes at all,--they looked downright wicked to him. He took Carol away hurriedly, and questioned her feverishly to find out if Mrs. Waldemar had put any fresh nonsense into her pretty little head.
Day after day passed by and David began going around the block to avoid Mrs. Waldemar's hammock. Her advanced thoughts, expressed to him, old and settled and quite mature, were only amusing. But when she poured the vials of her emancipation on little, innocent, trusting Carol,--it was--well, David called it "pure down meanness." She was trying to make his wife dissatisfied with her environment, with her life, with her very husband. David's kindly heart swelled with unaccustomed fury.
Carol always assured him that she didn't believe the things Mrs. Waldemar said,--it was interesting, that was all, and curious, and gave her new things to think about. And minister's families must be broad enough to make Christian allowance for all.
But, curiously enough, she grew genuinely fond of Mrs. Waldemar. And Mrs. Waldemar, in gratitude for the girlish affection of the little manse lady, left David alone. But one day she took Carol's dimpled chin in her hand, and turned the face up that she might look directly into the young blue eyes.
"Carol," she said, smiling, "you are a girlie, girlie wife, with dimples and curls and all the baby tricks, but you're a pretty clever little lady at that. You were not going to let your darling old David get into trouble, were you? And quite right, my dear, quite right. And between you and me, I like you far, far better than your husband." She smiled the crooked smile and pinched Carol's crimson cheek. "The only way to keep hubby out of danger is to tackle it yourself, isn't it? Oh, don't blush,--I like you all the better for your little trick."
CHAPTER V
A MINISTER'S SON
"Centerville, Iowa.
"Dear Carol and David:
"I am getting very, exceptionally wise. I am really appalled at myself. It seems so