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Underneath The High-Cut Vest
by
“How-do, dearie!” exclaimed the vision. “You poor kid, you! I heard you was sick, and I says, ‘I’m going up to cheer her up if I have to miss my train out to do it.’ Say, I was laid up two years ago in Idaho Falls, Idaho, and believe me, I’ll never forget it. I don’t know how sick I was, but I don’t even want to remember how lonesome I was. I just clung to the chamber-maid like she was my own sister. If your nurse wants to go out for an airing I’ll sit with you. Glad to.”
“That’s a grand little idea,” agreed Ed Meyers. “I told ’em you’d brighten things up. Well, I’ll be going. You’ll be as good as new in a week, Mrs. McChesney, don’t you worry. So long.” And he closed the door after himself with apparent relief.
Miss Haney, the nurse, was already preparing to go out. It was her regular hour for exercise. Mrs. McChesney watched her go with a sinking heart.
“Now!” said Miss Riordon, comfortably, “we girls can have a real, old- fashioned talk. A nurse isn’t human. The one I had in Idaho Falls was strictly prophylactic, and antiseptic, and she certainly could give the swell alcohol rubs, but you can’t get chummy with a human disinfectant. Your line’s skirts, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Land, I’ve heard an awful lot about you. The boys on the road certainly speak something grand of you. I’m really jealous. Say, I’d love to show you some of my samples for this season. They’re just great. I’ll just run down the hall to my room–“
She was gone. Emma McChesney shut her eyes, wearily. Her nerves were twitching. Her thoughts were far, far away from samples and sample cases. So he had turned out to be his worthless father’s son after all! He must have got some news of her by now. And he ignored it. He was content to amuse himself up there in the Canadian woods, while his mother–
Miss Riordon, flushed, and panting a little, burst into the room again, sample-case in hand.
“Lordy, that’s heavy! It’s a wonder I haven’t killed myself before now, wrestling with those blamed things.”
Mrs. McChesney sat up on one elbow as Miss Riordon tugged at the sample-case cover. Then she leaned forward, interested in spite of herself at sight of the pile of sheer, white, exquisitely embroidered and lacy garments that lay disclosed as the cover fell back.
“Oh, lingerie! That’s an ideal line for a woman. Let’s see the yoke in that first nightgown. It’s a really wonderful design.”
Miss Riordon laughed and shook out the folds of the topmost garment. “Nightgown!” she said, and laughed again. “Take another look.”
“Why, what–” began Emma McChesney.
“Shrouds!” announced Miss Riordon complacently.
“Shrouds!” shrieked Mrs. McChesney, and her elbow gave way. She fell back on the pillow.
“Beautiful, ain’t they?” Miss Riordon twirled the white garment in her hand. “They’re the very newest thing. You’ll notice they’re made up slightly hob
ble, with a French back, and high waist-line in the front. Last season kimono sleeves was all the go, but they’re not used this season. This one–“
“Take them away!” screamed Emma McChesney hysterically. “Take them away! Take them away!” And buried her face in her trembling white hands.
Miss Riordon stared. Then she slammed the cover of the case, rose, and started toward the door. But before she reached it, and while the sick woman’s sobs were still sounding hysterically the door flew open to admit a tall, slim, miraculously well-dressed young man. The next instant Emma McChesney’s lace nightgown was crushed against the top of a correctly high-cut vest, and her tears coursed, unmolested, down the folds of an exquisitely shaded lavender silk necktie.
“Jock!” cried Emma McChesney; and then, “Oh, my son, my son, my beautiful boy!” like a woman in a play.
Jock was holding her tight, and patting her shoulder, and pressing his healthy, glowing cheek close to hers that was so gaunt and pale.
“I got seven wires, all at the same time. They’d been chasing me for days, up there in the woods. I thought I’d never get here.”
And at that a wonderful thing happened to Emma McChesney. She lifted her face, and showed dimples where lines had been, smiles where tears had coursed, a glow where there had been a grayish pallor. She leaned back a bit to survey this son of hers.