Sunny Slopes | Page 9

white dress, with its baby blue ribbons, and with a wide band of
the same color in her hair, and tiny curls clustering about her pink ears,
she was a very infant of a minister's wife.
David took her in his arms appreciatively. "You little baby," he said
adoringly, "you look younger every day. Will you ever grow up? A
minister's wife! You look more like a little girl's baby doll."
Carol giggled, and rumpled up his hair; When she took her place at the
table she artfully snuggled low in her chair, peeping roguishly at him
from behind the wedding-present coffee urn.
"David," she began, as soon as he finished the blessing, "I've been
thinking all day of what you said about Mrs. Waldemar, and I've been
ashamed of myself. I really have avoided her. She is so old, and clever,
and I am such a goose, and people said things about her, and--but after
last night I was ashamed. So to-day I went to see her, all alone by
myself, without a gun or anything to protect 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