)
At eleven o'clock the mail came in, and mother sorted it over, while
father took a gold piece out to the post-man.
There were about a million cards, and mother glanced at the addresses
and passed them round. But suddenly she frowned. There was a small
parcel, addressed to me.
"This looks like a Gift, Barbara," she said. And proceded to open it.
My heart skipped two beats, and then hamered. Mother's mouth was set as
she tore off the paper and opened the box. There was a card, which she
glanced at, and underneath, was a book of poems.
"Love Lyrics," said mother, in a terrable voice. "To Barbara, from
H----"
"Mother----" I began, in an ernest tone.
"A child of mine recieving such a book from a man!" she went on.
"Barbara, I am speachless."
But she was not speachless. If she was speachless for the next half
hour, I would hate to hear her really converse. And all that I could do
was to bear it. For I had made a Frankenstein--see the book read last
term by the Literary Society--not out of grave-yard fragments, but from
malted milk tablets, so to speak, and now it was pursuing me to an early
grave. For I felt that I simply could not continue to live.
"Now--where does he live?"
"I--don't know, mother."
"You sent him a Letter."
"I don't know where he lives, anyhow."
"Leila," mother said, "will you ask Hannah to bring my smelling salts?"
"Aren't you going to give me the book?" I asked. "It--it sounds
interesting."
"You are shameless," mother said, and threw the thing into the fire.
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