Alice Adams

eaning"-postponed until now by Adams's long illness-and Alice, on her knees before a chest of drawers, in her mother's room, paused thoughtfully afte

ottom drawer, weren't they some pap

t put 'em back where they were-or else

d if I read

I guess you can if you want to.

and she stared at these singular words. They gave her a shock like that caused by overhearing some bewilderi

BEAUTIF

ad of the firm kind of took a fancy to me from the first when I went in there, and liked the way I attended to my work and so when he took me on this business trip with him I felt pretty sure of it and now it turns out I was about right. In return I guess I have got about the best boss in this world and I believe you will think so too. Yes, sweetheart, after the talk I have just had with him if J. A. Lamb asked me to cut my hand off for him I guess I would come pretty ne

t, especially when I know we will be talking it all over together this time next week, and oh my darling, no

you be

iting life's troubles are over for you and me and we have nothing to do but to enjoy the happiness granted us by this wonderful, beautiful thing we

nk of the news. I kno

ome and I can be reading it o

lways

RG

e packet in its muslin covering, and returned it to the drawer. She had remained upon her knees while she read the letter; now she sank backward,

sees time fixed to a point: some people have dark hair, some people have blond hair, some people have gray hair. Until this moment, Alice had no conviction that th

lives of her father and mother, who had been young, after all-they REALLY had-and their youth was now so utterly passed from them that the picture of it

ght-gown, sat in a high-backed chair by a closed window. The weather was warm, but the closed window and the flannel wrapper had not sufficed him: round his shoulders he had an old crocheted scarf of Alice's; his le

pening his eyes, he spoke to her: "Don't go, de

near his. "I thoug

er do that. I just dri

mean you d

ed up-old times with times still ahead, like planning what to do, you know. That's a

What do you mean when you say you have pict

do when I get out and a

lice said, quickly. "You're going back

ain, sighing heavily, bu

e!" she cried. "What a

in a haggard stare. "I heard you the other night when you

ou don't know anything about it, because

crying? What'd you cry for if t

It wasn't anything

e said. "Your m

mised me

so upset and not ask about it, even if she didn't come and tell me on her o

a silly fit," Alice prote

's t

ded to do somethin

w; everything seems so changed these days. You've always been a good daughter, Alice, and you ought to have as much as any of these girls you go with;

e a lot of idiots didn't break their necks to get dances with me an

What you going to do with a boy nineteen or twenty years old that makes his own living? Can't w

me, and he thought that was pretty selfish in me, why, he felt he had a right to amuse himself any way he could

Adams agreed. "Just

ell, just a few years from now I probably won't even remember it! I bel

metimes

, papa: it seems to me I

t li

told him: "Well, I mean I ought to be something besi

, dea

I'd like to do. I'm su

ha

ckling of laughter; and when Alice, surprised and a little offended, pressed him for his reason, he tried t

lking about how she was certain she'd make a great actress, and all so on; and one day your mother broke out and said she ought 'a' gone on the stage, herself, beca

hey both felt it, why wouldn't that look as if the

expect ninety per cent. of all the women I ever knew were just sure they'd be mighty fine actresses if they eve

ubt the pleasantest development of her vision was a dialogue with Mildred; and this became so real that, as she projected it, Alice assumed the proper expressions for both parties to it, formed words with her lips, and even spoke some of them aloud. "No, I haven't forgotten you, Mrs. Russell. I remember you quite pleasantly, in fact. You were a Miss Palmer, I recall, in those funny old days. Very kin

innocently skeptical amusement reduced her bright project almost to nothing. Something like this always happened, it seemed; she was continually making these illuminations, all gay with gildings and colourings; and then as soon as anybody else so much as glanced at them-even her father, who loved her-the pretty de

hop her father had named, and asked for the cheap tobacco he used in his pipe. She fell back upon an air of amused indulgence, hoping thus to suggest that her purchase was made for some faithful old retainer, now infirm; and although the calmness

was bringing to the simple old negro or Irish follower of the family, she left t

begrimed gilt letters the information that Frincke's Business College occupied the upper floors of the building. Furthermore, Frincke here publicly offered

d never seen before. Yet it was conspicuous in a busy quarter; she almost always passed it when she came down-town, and n

an obscurity as dreary and as permanent as death. And like dry leaves falling about her she saw her wintry imaginings in the May air: pretty girls turning into withered creatures as they worked at typing-machines; old maids "taking dictation" from men with double

us reproach, which she did not seek to fathom. She walked on thoughtfully to-day; and when, at the next corner, she turned into the

ss Adams?" he asked. "Do y

rish of the shapely hands; and then, because she wondered if he had seen her coming out o

was

n quite ill, poor man, and he's so particular

t DO you know about 'em? Di

"Of course he wrote down the name of the kind he wanted and