The Crux | Page 6

set on it."
"College! I don't believe she'd have learned as much in any college, from what I hear of 'em, as she has in all this time at home." The Foote girls had never entertained a high opinion of extensive culture.
"I don't see any use in a girl's studying so much," said Miss Rebecca with decision.
"Nor I," agreed Miss Josie. "Men don't like learned women."
"They don't seem to always like those that aren't learned, either," remarked Miss Rebecca with a pleasant sense of retribution for that remark about "homely ones."
The tall girl in brown had seen the two faces at the windows opposite, and had held her shoulders a little straighter as she turned the corner.
"Nine years this Summer since Morton Elder went West," murmured Miss Josie, reminiscently. "I shouldn't wonder if Vivian had stayed single on his account."
"Nonsense!" her sister answered sharply. "She's not that kind. She's not popular with men, that's all. She's too intellectual."
"She ought to be in the library instead of Sue Elder," Miss Rebecca suggested. "She's far more competent. Sue's a feather-headed little thing."
"She seems to give satisfaction so far. If the trustees are pleased with her, there's no reason for you to complain that I see," said Miss Rebecca with decision.
Vivian Lane waited at the library desk with an armful of books to take home. She had her card, her mother's and her father's all utilized. Her grandmother kept her own card and her own counsel.
The pretty assistant librarian, withdrawing herself with some emphasis from the unnecessary questions of a too gallant old gentleman, came to attend her.
"You have got a load," she said, scribbling ' complex figures with one end of her hammer-headed pencil, and stamping violet dates with the other. She whisked out the pale blue slips from the lid pockets, dropped them into their proper openings in the desk and inserted the cards in their stead with delicate precision.
"Can't you wait a bit and go home with me?" she asked. "I'll help you carry them."
"No, thanks. I'm not going right home."
"You're going to see your Saint I know!" said Miss Susie, tossing her bright head. "I'm jealous, and you know it."
"Don't be a goose, Susie! You know you're my very best friend, but she's different." '
"I should think she was different!" Susie sharply agreed. "And you've been 'different' ever since she came."
"I hope so," said Vivian gravely. "Mrs. St. Cloud brings out one's very best and highest. I wish you liked her better, Susie."
"I like you," Susie answered. "You bring out my 'best and highest' if I've got any. She don't. She's like a lovely, faint, bright bubble! I want to prick it!"
Vivian smiled down upon her.
"You bad little mouse!" she said. "Come, give me the books."
"Leave them with me, and I'll bring them in the car." Susie looked anxious to make amends for her bit of blasphemy.
"All right, dear. Thank you. I'll be home by that time, probably."
In the street she stopped before a little shop where papers and magazines were sold.
"I believe Father'd like the new Centurion, she said to herself, and got it for him, chatting a little with the one-armed man who kept the place. She stopped again at a small florist's and bought a little bag of bulbs.
"Your mother's forgotten about those, I guess," said Mrs. Crothers, the florist's wife, "but they'll do just as well now. Lucky you thought of them before it got too late in the season. Bennie was awfully pleased with that red and blue pencil you gave him, Miss Lane."
Vivian walked on. A child ran out suddenly from a gate and seized upon her.
"Aren't you coming in to see me ever?" she demanded.
Vivian stooped and kissed her. "Yes, dear, but not to-night. How's that dear baby getting on?"
"She's better," said the little girl. "Mother said thank you lots of times. Wait a minute"
The child fumbled in Vivian's coat pocket with a mischievous upward glance, fished out a handful of peanuts, and ran up the path laughing while the tall girl smiled down upon her lovingly.
A long-legged boy was lounging along the wet sidewalk. Vivian caught up with liim and he joined her with eagerness.
"Good evening, Miss Lane. Say are you coming to the club to-morrow night?"
She smiled cordially.
"Of course I am, Johnny. I wouldn't disappoint my boys for anything nor myself, either."
They walked on together chatting until, at the minister's house, she bade him a cheery "good-night."
Mrs. St. Cloud was at the window pensively watching the western sky. She saw the girl coming and let her in with a tender, radiant smile a lovely being in a most unlovely room.
There was a chill refinement above subdued confusion in that Cambridge-Bainville parlor, where the higher culture of the second Mrs. Williams, superimposed upon the lower culture of the first, as that upon