FullReads

Lyman Duke was a kindly man, and shrewd, but the pride of ownership was a germ, and he was a sick man. Who, he meditated, had such a lamp? Could even the Honorable Gerard Randall point to such glowing rods of book backs?

Mrs. Duke organized personally conducted excursions to view the Axminster rug in the library. Janet forgot that she had ever stood brushing her hair before a pine bureau. Now she sat before a dressing table displaying candlesticks, an eyelash pencil, and a powder-puff box of gold lace over old rose. Janet moved graciously, and invited litt
le sister Theo to be cordially unpleasant to their grubby friends of grammar-school days.

The accumulation of things to make other people envious is nothing beside their accumulation because it’s the thing to do. Janet discovered that life would be unendurable without an evening cloak. At least three evening cloaks were known to exist within a block of the Broom mansion. True, nobody wore them. There aren’t any balls or plays except in winter, and during a Vernon winter you don’t wear a satin cloak—you wear a fur coat and a muffler and a sweater and arctics, and you brush the frozen breath from your collar, and dig out of your wraps like a rabbit emerging from a brush pile. But if everybody had them Janet wasn’t going to be marked for life as one ignorant of the niceties. She used the word “niceties” frequently and without quailing.

She got an evening cloak. Also a pair of fifteen-dollar pumps, which she discarded for patent leathers as soon as she found that everybody wore those—everybody being a girl in the next block, whose house wasn’t anywhere near as nice as “ours. ”

II

Theo was only half glad of their grandeur. Oh, undoubtedly she was excited about the house at first, and mentioned it to other girls rather often, and rang for maids she didn’t need. But she had a little pain in the conscience. She felt that she hadn’t kept up defending Stacy Lindstrom very pluckily.

She was never allowed to forget Stacy’s first call at the mansion. The family were settled in the house. They were anxious for witnesses of their nobility. The bell rang at eight one Saturday evening when they were finishing dinner. It was hard to be finishing dinner at eight. They had been used to starting at six-thirty-one and ending the last lap, neck and neck, at six-fifty— two. But by starting at seven, and having a salad, and letting Father smoke his cigar at the table, they had stretched out the ceremony to a reasonably decent length.

At the sound of the buzz in the butler’s pantry Janet squeaked: “Oh, maybe it’s the Garlands! Or even the Randalls!” She ran into the hall.

“Janet! Jan-et! The maid will open the door!” Mrs. Duke wailed.

“I know, but I want to see who it is!”

Janet returned snapping: “Good heavens, it’s only that Stacy Lindstrom! Coming at this early hour! And he’s bought a new suit, just to go calling. It looks like sheet iron. ”

Theo pretended she had not heard. She fled to the distant library. She was in a panic. She was ashamed of herself, but she didn’t trust Stacy to make enough impression. So it was Mr. Duke who had the first chance at the audience:

“Ah, Stacy, glad to see you, my boy. The girls are round some place. Theo!”

“Lyman! Don’t shout so! I’ll send a maid to find her,” remonstrated Mrs. Duke.

“Oh, she’ll come a-running. Trust these girls to know when a boy’s round!” boomed Mr. Duke.

Janet had joined Theo in the library. She veritably hissed as she protested: “Boys-s-s-s-s! We come running for a commonplace railway clerk!”