The Crux | Page 6

her."
"She could afford to have more variety," said Miss Rebecca. "The
Lanes are mean enough about some things, but I know they'd like to
have her dress better. She'll never get married in the world."
"I don't know why not. She's only twenty-five and good-looking."
"Good-looking! That's not everything. Plenty of girls marry that are not
goodlooking and plenty of good-looking girls stay single."

"Plenty of homely ones, too. Rebecca," said Miss Josie, with meaning.
Miss Rebecca certainly was not handsome. "Going to the library, of
course!" she pursued presently. "That girl reads all the time."
"So does her grandmother. I see her going and coming from that library
every day almost."
"Oh, well she reads stories and things like that. Sallie goes pretty often
and she notices. We use that library enough, goodness knows, but they
are there every day. Vivian Lane reads the queerest things doctor's
books and works on pedagoggy."
"Godgy," said Miss Rebecca, "not goggy." And as her sister ignored
this correction, she continued: "They might as well have let her go to
college when she was so 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