The day book. [volume], April 11, 1916, LAST EDITION, Image 18

About The day book. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1911-1917

Image provided by: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library, Urbana, IL

                
THE LONELY YEARS
By May Elsie Barrett
(Copyright, 1916, W.-G. Chapman.)
All the town agreed hat Arnold
Gresham was Lucy Lane's last
chance and that she might be
thankful she had it At 36 proposals
may be common enough, but not in
small towns among domesticated
people. After 30, as a rule, they are
either married or confirmed bache
lors and spinsters.
Arnold Gresham had come back
from the metrnnolis. where he had
gone ten years before, as a young
man. He had come back with a
comfortable capital, to take charge
of a large produce business. He was
a gentleman and handsome. It was
certainly a good chance for Lucy.
Among those who had ventured to
hint at what was expected to be an
nounced was Dorothy Field. Five
years younger than Lucy, she had
never been a close friend of hers. Yet
she had come in and taken the elder
woman by the hands and gravely,
very gravely, said:
"I hope you and Arnold will be very
K. liappy."
And Lucy remembered vague talk
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the two. She had wondered: she had
been troubled.
"Don't make the mistake I the
mistake so many women make,"
Dorothy had continued. "Don't
don't let your pride "
Suddenly she had burst into tears
and run out of the house. And Ar
nold, coming in, had met Dorothy at
the gate.
That was all. -It had happened a
week before and Lucy had seen Ar
nold several times since. They were
discussing the announcement Lucy
had not loved Arnold so very much
until he asked her to marry him; she
had even wondered whether she
would accept him, but when he
bspoke she felt a rush, of tenderness
in her heart and she knew that she
loved Arnold with all her souL
He had been just the same since
that evening, and yet Lucy won
dered whether she had really divined
that the old passion for Dorothy had
been stirred again. Or whether it
was imagination.
She left the house and walked
down the leafy street, still musing.
Arnold was to call that night and
Mr
Suddenly She Stopped Dead
they were to make the arrange
ments. There were two hours, and
a sense of the irrevocable nature of
the impending meeting came strong
ly over the woman. Mingled with
this, and with the wonder about Dor
othy, came a vague sense of futility.
She had been engaged twice before,
in girlhood, and each tune it b d
been broken off by her. When Ar-
g