Contrary Mary

* * * * * * Coming in, shivering and excited after her ride with Porter, Mary had

found evidence of Aunt Isabelle's solicitous care for her. Her fire

was burning brightly, the covers of her bed were turned down, her blue

dressing-gown and the little blue slippers were warming in front of the

blaze.

"No one ever did such things for me before," Mary said with

appreciation, as the gentle lady came in to kiss her niece good-night.

"Mother wasn't that kind. We all waited on her. And Susan Jenks is

too busy; it isn't right to keep her up. And anyway I've always been

more like a boy, taking care of myself. Constance was the one we

petted, Con and mother."

"I love to do it," Aunt Isabelle said, eagerly. "When I am at Frances'

there are so many servants, and I feel pushed out. There's nothing

that I can do for any one. Grace and Frances each have a maid. So I

live my own life, and sometimes it has been--lonely."

"You darling." Mary laid her cool young lips against the soft cheek.

"I'm dead lonely, too. That's why I wanted you."

Aunt Isabelle stood for a moment looking into the fire. "It has been

years since anybody wanted me," she said, finally.

There was no bitterness in her tone; she simply stated a fact. Yet in

her youth she had been the beauty of the family, and the toast of a

county.

"Aunt Isabelle," Mary said, suddenly, "is marriage the only way out for

a woman?"

"The only way?"

"To freedom. It seems to me that a single woman always seems to belong

to her family. Why shouldn't you do as you please? Why shouldn't I?

And yet you've never lived your own life. And I sha'n't be able to

live mine except by fighting every inch of the way."

A flush stained Aunt Isabelle's cheeks. "I have always been poor,

Mary----"

"But that isn't it," fiercely. "There are poor girls who aren't

tied--I mean by conventions and family traditions. Why, Aunt Isabelle,

I rented the Tower Rooms not only in defiance of the living--but of the

dead. I can see mother's face if we had thought of such a thing while

she lived. Yet we needed the money then. We needed it to help Dad--to

save him----" The last words were spoken under her breath, and Aunt

Isabelle did not catch them.

"And now everybody wants me to get married. Oh, Aunt Isabelle, sit

down and let's talk it out. I'm not sleepy, are you?" She drew the

little lady beside her on the high-backed couch which faced the fire.

"Everybody wants me to get married, Aunt Isabelle. And to-night I had

it out with--Porter."