Bab: A Sub-Deb Read Free

too, that he would be jealous. The eyes would be of the smouldering type, showing the green-eyed monster beneath.
    I was very much cheered up. At least they could not ignore me any more, and I felt that they would see the point. If I was old enough to have a lover--especialy a jealous one with the aformentioned eyes--I was old enough to have the necks of my frocks cut out.
    While they were getting their wraps on in the lower hall, I counted my money. I had thirteen dollars. It was enough for a Plan I was beginning to have in mind.
    "Go to bed early, Barbara," mother said when they were ready to go out.
    "You don't mind if I write a letter, do you?"
    "To whom?"
    "Oh, just a letter," I said, and she stared at me coldly.
    "I daresay you will write it, whether I consent or not. Leave it on the hall table, and it will go out with the morning mail."
    "I may run out to the box with it."
    "I forbid your doing anything of the sort."
    "Oh, very well," I responded meekly.
    "If there is such haste about it, give it to Hannah to mail."
    "Very well," I said.
    She made an excuse to see Hannah before she left, and I knew THAT I WAS BEING WATCHED. I was greatly excited, and happier than I had been for weeks. But when I had settled myself in the Library, with the paper in front of me, I could not think of anything to say in a letter. So I wrote a poem instead.
    "To H---- "Dear love: you seem so far away, I would that you were near. I do so long to hear you say Again, `I love you, dear.'
    "Here all is cold and drear and strange With none who with me tarry, I hope that soon we can arrange To run away and marry."
    The last verse did not scan, exactly, but I wished to use the word "marry" if possible. It would show, I felt, that things were really serious and impending. A love affair is only a love affair, but Marriage is Marriage, and the end of everything.
    It was at that moment, 10 o'clock, that the Strange Thing occurred which did not seem strange at all at the time, but which developed into so great a mystery later on. Which was to actualy threaten my reason and which, flying on winged feet, was to send me back here to school the day after Christmas and put my seed pearl necklace in the safe deposit vault. Which was very unfair, for what had my necklace to do with it? And just now, when I need comfort, it--the necklace--would help to releive my exile.
    Hannah brought me in a cup of hot milk, with a Valentine's malted milk tablet dissolved in it.
    As I stirred it around, it occurred to me that Valentine would be a good name for Harold. On the spot I named him Harold Valentine, and I wrote the name on the envelope that had the poem inside, and addressed it to the town where this school gets its mail.
    It looked well written out. "Valentine," also, is a word that naturaly connects itself with AFFAIRS DE COUR. And I felt that I was safe, for as there was no Harold Valentine, he could not call for the letter at the post office, and would therefore not be able to cause me any trouble, under any circumstances. And, furthermore. I knew that Hannah would not mail the letter anyhow, but would give it to mother. So, even if there was a Harold Valentine, he would never get it.
    Comforted by these reflections, I drank my malted milk, ignorant of the fact that Destiny, "which never swerves, nor yields to men the helm"--Emerson, was stocking at my heels.
    Between sips, as the expression goes, I addressed the envelope to Harold Valentine, and gave it to Hannah. She went out the front door with it, as I had expected, but I watched from a window, and she turned right around and went in the area way. So THAT was all right.
    It had worked like a Charm. I could tear my hair now when I think how well it worked. I ought to have been suspicious for that very reason. When things go very well with me at the start, it is a sure sign that they are going to blow up eventualy.
    Mother and Sis slept late the next morning, and I went out stealthily and did some shopping.