The Making of a Soul

well-educated and of exceptional intelligence. Quick, accurate, and possessed of a capital memory, she would seem to be the ideal typist for an office such as that presid

er announcing the fact Mis

, a rather full-blown young woman employed in a "drapery-house" at B

r, "and I know all about those short hours! Sound well, but they

recovered her spirits. "Anyway, even then it's a good pos

red by her experience in drapers' shops, cheered up also. "It's a

to-morrow, so this is my last free night. Are

r preparations for the tea-party. "Josh'll be pleased to

off her flannel blouse,

us! Don't know how it is, all the boys seem to take to you s

fter all, who is there to care for? Jack Brown, or young Graves, or that funny little Walter Brit

cousin. "I don't know how it is, Toni-you are my cousin, your father was Da

place lower-middle-class household was a great gulf fixed, a gulf which was the more

ghters, belonging, most of them, to the category of "fine" boys and girls, were a good-humoured, kindly people enough; yet between

ts and pursuits, helped her uncle with his books and her aunt with her housework, was Fanny's sworn confidante and ally in all matters of the heart. The younger children ador

the girl's superior education was responsible-for Toni had been to a real "Seminary for Young Ladies," in contradistinction to the Council School attended by her cousins; wh

und Antonia's position an interestin

of Yorkshire. The family, however, had begun, a few generations back, to die out. Instead of the usual lusty sons, only daughters had been born

to settle down on the farm and carry out the tradition of the family. Fred, always a pushing, commercially-minded lad, found farming too slow and unprofitable to satisfy him, and he took servi

ld have kept him at home, he realized that after all youth will be served, and le

tary, mechanic, groom-for he was equally clever with hands and head. In this or that capacity he travelled quite extensively for some years, and finally, having a natural bent for languages, came to Rome in the position of courier to a rich American family. It happened that the daughter of the house had an Italian maid, a beautiful, refined gir

in the South, and as their wants were simple he and his wife were able to live quite comfortably on Roger's own little bit of money and the few lire he made through the kindly office

for three years after her birth the little house on the hill-side was t

rl, died, after twenty-four hours' fever; and in one black hour Roger pa

esire to carry out his young wife's unspoken entreaty, to devote himself to his child; and wit

to lift from the young man's spirit, and the sunshine and the flowers, the blue sky and sea, and the

tonia-Toni, as they called her-grew straight and strong as she played on the mountain slopes, or ate the simple meals of grapes and bread and goat's flesh provided for her by

ge came. The good old priest died; and with the death of his

ved could have stunned his faculties into acquiescence with this sleepy, uneventful existence; a

spirit was aroused, and nothing would satisfy

ho has lost the woman of whom the child is his only memento, he yet felt that the time had come when he must shake himse

s comely spouse very willing to do. There were other children in the home who were only too ready to welcome the pretty little Toni; and after a stay of some weeks in the noisy Brixton house Roger Gibbs had bidden his little daughter farewell, and had gone for

ey for her maintenance; and she grew up with her cousins, attending the big Council Schoo

of which he had amassed a respectable sum of money, and father and daughter met

oice, used the colloquialisms of street and playground with unpleasing fluency. True, she wore her shabby clothes with an air of grace, but contact with other

traits with other and more pleasing characteristics. But thinking of the soft-eyed, gentle, loving Italian girl he had married, Roger resolved that her child should have another chance before it was too late; and with

ade things easy for the bronzed and handsome father; with the result that from that time Toni's connection with the Council School ceased, and

g other things, the virtues of gentleness, quietness in voice and movement, unselfishness, and many kindred things; and those years of happy, m

settled that her father was then to return to England and make a home for he

should have seen her emanc

, after a year in the East, went down in a mighty gale

r, the store of money left for her education was all spent; and though it seemed incredible that

Antonia. Let it be said at once that her relations behaved well. The Misses Holland, too, would have taken her to help in th

ed to obtain a post in a large typewriting office in order to learn the work, after which she was required to give her serv

eeks from the date of her aunt's tea-party, she would be free to earn her living in her own way, she wou

r slightly better ones, Antonia's quick mind had flashed back over those years which had, so she owned to herself, m

poke with more warmth than usual. "And as for the

cheap gold ring, set with imitation rubies, which adorned her plump han

a little foreign gesture peculiar to her. "Why, Fan, how could I marry Mr. Dowso

ically, "and it's not with age either, because he'

Toni rather grudgingly, "he must be, to be a dentist, b

own business best. Will you do me up, dear, and tell me h

asually in her hair and came to give her

rtainly was, in the sense that one felt inclined to collapse at sight of it. Miss Gibbs' figure being of the order which dressmakers call "full," the effect was distinctly startlin

, this daring juxtaposition of pink and violet was a trifle bizarre even for her taste; and she looked critica

anxious; and Antonia fl

rom a paper bag a bunch of violets she had intended for her own adornment.

y're you

ot a Josh waiting for me downstairs-and anyway, I don't m

round her waist, a pair of greenstone earrings put in beneath the clustering black hair

petising smell of roasting chickens came to t

very week! Isn't it fun having peop

sh we'd been goin

"but anyhow this is better than

it provided that half-way through the meal the butcher insisted on removing the vase of chrysanthemums which stood proudly in the middle on a green p

her; and from that vantage ground he played the part of prospective son-in-law to perfection, removing the plates, running a

sation with her as to the nature and effect of the various patent medicines they had mutually sampled; while the remain

most intimate speeches Toni

an, wher

er youngest cousin informed her unctuously. "My!

xed with her when I found her with her fingers in the jar! But there, she's been wanti

to to-night!" Toni's soft heart was wrung fo

s. Gibbs' tone was uneasy now. "And she didn'

t I take her up so

h everyone at the table knew very well that her mot

y; and amid much laughter and sympathetic joking a tray was fitted out

darkness, Lu herself lying sullenl

the visitors downstairs would know both the cause and the method of her punishment. Therefore she turned away and pretended to be asleep;

he light of the candle Toni carried, and allowed herself to be

m the hot little forehead. "Now eat that up and then I must run away. They're waiting fo

the girl's kind tone. "I'll go to sleep all ri

linging to the mother who had punished her. "I'll tell her you

; and then, picking up the tray, she ran swiftly downstairs again

ly as she slipped into her seat beside him. "Lots of people wou

hed Toni, with a vivid remembrance of her aunt's corrective powers. "

... to punish you, Miss Antonia?" His pale-blue

"She's whipped me heaps, of times.... I expect I deserved

" said Mr. Dowson earnestly-too earnestly for Toni's liking. "M

er in the young man's ear; and Mr. Dowson, blushing to the very

mind not to allow Mr. Dowson another opportunity to make the avowal which she knew very well trembled on his

rowned little figure represented a dream-the fulfilment, rather, of an ideal which he had

as a dentist, he was under no delusion as to his social position. He came of humble, illiterate folk,

, after five years' strenuous toil, he was beginning to pay his way, beginning also

sional bunch of flowers, or, more rarely still, a box of sweets of some variety which his professional soul warranted harmless, for Mr. Dowson was conscientiousness its

t if she came to him he could at least offer her a decent home; and every a

a being of another race than her own. She knew-the minx-that the man was deeply and quietly in love with her, but with the unconscious cruelty of youth she i

ave off the declaration which still trembled on the young man's lips, she played games with him in the most friendly fashion, and bade him good-n

roceeding would have annoyed his divinity; and instead he merely squeezed her hand and mur

ome, he went to bed

w dreams of happy youth-were