Told in a French Garden / August, 1914

NE D

of an A

dering how the United States, with her dislike for Japan, would view the entering into line of the yellow man, but the spark flickered out, and I imagine we settled down for the story with more eagerness than on the previous evening, especially when the Doctor thrust

answered, running his keen brown eyes over u

se days much more English in appearance than it is now,-there was in one of those squares a famous private school. In those days it was rather smart to go to a private school. It was in the days before Boston had much of an immigrant quart

the time of which I speak, what one

, and with a lack of self-consciousness or pretension. Every one admired her. Some of her comrades would have loved her if she had given them the chance. But no one could ever get intimate with her. She came and went from school quite alone, in the habit of the

taught history and literature, and I imagine girls get more int

t has to adore something, and the literature teacher, as she was smart and g

lf inside out, almost always something comes out that is not her business. That was how it happened that one day the literature teacher was told that the "Principal Girl" was receiving wonderful boxes of violets at

y shocked. She warned her pet to talk to no one else, and then she went at once to the clergyman who was at the head of the school. She knew that he felt responsible for his

onfidence between them which one traditionally supposes to exist between parents and children. I imagine that there is no doubt

rned to the family lawyer. As they were too cowardly to take his first advice-perhaps they were afraid the daughter would lie, they sometime

igation was at first con

so bespoke herself at a smart livery stable where she was known. When she entered it, she was at once driven to the Park Street station, where she bought a round trip ticket to Waltham. There she walked to the river, hired a boat, rowed herself up stream, tied h

bs she told were harmless enough-well, why? The literature teacher, who had been watching her carefully, had her theory. She knew a lot about girls. Wasn't she once one herself? So it was by her advice that the family doctor was taken into the

rents like t

re moderately intelligent and temperamental, he knew a great deal about the dangers of the imagination. No one ever heard just what passed between the two. One thing is pretty sure, he made no secrets regarding the affair, and at the

that it was never talked over between the parents and daughter, who soon

iage of the Principal Girl to the son of the fami

years after the school adventure it happened one beautiful day in early September that the teacher w

ch the dragging stones made weird music, the literature teacher, supposing the old story to be so much ancient history that it could, as can so many of the incidents of one's teens, be referred to lightly, had

, wiped her eyes in which, however, ther

is everything that is kind and generous-only, alas, he is not the lover of my dreams. My children are nice handsome boys, but they are the every day children of every day life. I dreamed another and a different life in which my children were oh, so differe

t up, and

ound no word to say. When the Wife came back to the hammock, ten minutes later, the cloud was gone from her face, and she never mentioned the su

Lawyer, "Take off your laurels

ic. "Never! That has not a bit of litera

said the Sculptor. "Of co

as much imagination in that story as in the morbid rigm

story compared with this one. It is a shocking ta

"then we had all better go insi

Journalist, "to pretend tha

truth which no one thinks of denying-that the spirit has its secrets. Imagination plays a great part in most of our lives-it is the glory that gilds our facts-it is the brilliant barrier which separates us fr

d to struggle for her living, the fact that her imagination did not run

e been a great novelist, or a poor one, and all woul

ed the Critic, "I think

d-" Here the Doctor cast a quick look in the direction of the Youngs

ained Nurse, "he is fast

, "though it does not speak so

tor. You have been spontaneously applauded by the man of law, and s

ptor. "There are some of us who have not spoken yet. I am going to p

rs?" yawned the Youngs

ry distinguished and unexpected star per

e, is the story of the Principal Girl all

know now," s

ic, "you would not under

like yo

y another phase of the Dear Little Josephine

e Doctor, as we we

se-the tragic-when my turn comes," and I was the