Jewel Weed

Lena was extraordinarily pretty, and he had a theory that pretty girls

were made to be talked to. Lena thought so too, yet all she said was, "I

should think the digging would be very dirty work, though."

He glanced at her swiftly, and, though there was nothing unfriendly in

the look, she felt an uncomfortable shiver. She fell into a miserable

silence which she hardly broke when the others addressed her with a

deliberate question or made some manifest effort to include her in

topics introduced for her benefit. These attempts were only too apparent

to her and rasped her soul the more. These people had such a perplexing

way of saying whatever came into their heads. They were serious and

frivolous at unexpected places. They were not at all "elegant"; they

were natural, but their naturalness was not of Lena's kind. Mr. Lenox

rose and smiled at his wife.

"I think I must go and have a look at my latest son," he said. "He is a

very interesting person. At present he seems to be composed of two

simple but diverse elements, a stomach and a sense of humor." At the

door he paused again and said, "Have you seen our new coat of arms,

Madeline?--two kids rambunctious?"

He went away and sounds of manifest hilarity floated down the stairs.

And then dinner was announced, and he looked so good-tempered when he

returned and gave Lena his arm that her spirits were again lifted up.

She had never before been escorted to a meal as though it were an affair

of ceremony.

"I met an old fellow to-day," her host began with persistent attempt to

draw her out, "that told me that for two years he had dined on bread and

milk. And then I felt that I was a favorite of fortune to be able

fearlessly to storm the dining-room. Happy the appendix that has no

history."

Lena giggled helplessly. Was it amusement that she saw in Mr. Lenox's

eyes as he unfolded his napkin and surveyed her?

"It's an awesome thing, isn't it, to be living in a world darkened on

one side by the servant question and on the other by the appendix, like

Scylla and Charybdis?"

She found herself sitting down to face the mysteries of a meal whose

type was different from any hitherto met in her brief experience of

life. Her internal summing up was, "Of course I can't make any

impression on Mr. Lenox. He likes the other kind of woman."

She looked at Mrs. Lenox, a woman of restraint and dark hair and

straight lines, and contrasted her with herself, a thing of curves and

sunshine colors. She did not know that a man never cares for a type of

woman, but only for woman in the concrete. Poor little Lena! When the

evening was over and she found herself at last in her too-splendid

bedroom, she put arms and head down on the dressing-table and sobbed.

These people were simple where she was complicated and complicated where

she was simple. It was all uncomfortable and different. She thought of

Jim Nolan's unfrilled conversation, of his clumsy, rather inane

compliments, of his primitive amoeba-like type of humor. She saw the

whole course of her life of mean shifts and wranglings with her mother;

and though its moral niggardliness was unappreciated, its physical

meagerness sickened her in contrast to the ease and beauty of these

newer scenes. She must climb out of that life, somehow, by hook or

crook; if this were the alternative, she must grow to its likeness, no

matter how the birth-pangs hurt. She would face it. She would even

rejoice in the opportunity to study these women and mold herself to

their outward form of bien aise. She would--she would. Faint and

far-away voices came to her, and she wondered if Mr. and Mrs. Lenox were

discussing her and laughing, as she would do in their place, at her

gaucheries. The meaner you are yourself, the easier it is to believe in

the meanness of others. It was the most godlike of men who taught the

godliness of all men. Lena could not imagine that these people could

either like or respect her unless she were molded after their pattern

and had as much as they had.