FullReads

Shortly after Midnight she blew, arriving at headquarters just in time to participate in a Chafing-Dish Jubilee promoted by only Brother, just back from the Varsity.

She approached the Porcelain in a chastened mood that Sabbath morning. She was thinking of the Night Before and of playing cards for Money.

She remembered the glare of Light from overhead and the tense, eager Faces peering above the Paste-Boards.

Then she recalled, with a sharp catch of the Breath and a little tug of Pain at the Heart, that she had balled herself up at the one Stage and got dummied out of a Grand Slam.

“It would have meant a long pair of the Silk Kind,” thought she, as she sighed deeply and turned the cold Faucet.

After Breakfast she took a long Walk up the Avenue as a Bracer.

After which to the Kirk, for she taught a class of Little Girls in the Sunday School, and she had to fake up an Explanation of how Joshua made the Sun stand still, thereby putting herself in the Scratch Division of Explainers, believe us.

She listened to a dainty Boston Sermon, trimmed with Ruching, singing lustily before and after.

Then back home with the solemn Parade to sit among the condemned waiting for that superlative Gorge known as the Sunday Dinner.

While she was waiting, a male Friend dropped in. His costume was a compromise between an English Actor and a hired Mourner.

On Week Days he sat at a Desk dictating Letters and saying that the Matter had been referred to the proper Department.

He looked at Loretta, so calm and cool and collected in her pious Raiment, and the Smile that he summoned was benevolent and almost patronizing.

“I was wondering,” said he. “I was wondering if a Girl like you ever gets tired of sitting around and doing nothing.”

Loretta did not cackle. She had read in a Book by a Yale Professor that Woman is not supposed to possess the Sense of Humor.

MORAL: The Settlement Campaign is not getting to the real Workers.