Marion2.xml

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            <title>Marion (Part 1)</title>
            <title type="sub">The Story of an Artist’s Model</title>
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                     <bibl xml:id="bibl74"><author><name ref="pers:WE1">Herself</name></author>, and
                              <author><name ref="pers:WE1">the author of <title level="m"
                              >Me</title></name></author>. <title level="m">Marion: The Story of an
                           Artist’s Model [Part 1]</title>. Illustrated by <author
                           role="illustrator"><name ref="pers:HH1">Henry Hutt</name></author>.
                           <publisher ref="org:Hearsts"><title level="j">Hearst’s
                              International</title></publisher>, <date when="1916-04">Apr.
                           1916</date>, vol. <biblScope unit="volume">29</biblScope>, no. <biblScope
                           unit="issue">4</biblScope>, pp. <biblScope unit="page">254-257,
                           304-306</biblScope>.</bibl>
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      <pb n="254"/>
      <body>
         <head>Marion: The Story of an Artist’s Model</head>
         <opener>
            <byline>By <name ref="pers:WE1">The Author of Me</name></byline>
            <byline>Illustrated by <name ref="pers:HH1">Henry Hutt</name></byline>
            <byline><emph>This instalment includes themes and depictions of grooming and sexual
                  harassment.</emph></byline>
         </opener>
         <div type="content">


            <milestone unit="sectionBreak"/>




            <div type="paratext">
               <p>The debate is lively: Who wrote <q>Me</q>, that excellent story? And right into
                  the midst of the discussion comes a second challenge, a new novel by the same
                     author—<q>Marion</q>. Here’s the challenge: You couldn’t place <q>Me</q>; can
                  you place my sister <q>Marion</q>? This is more than <q>the story of an artist’s
                     model</q>. It is an intimate chronicle of the heartaches, the problems of life
                  and love, of a young French-Canadian girl, who hears the call of art and forsakes
                  home and native land to follow it. Instead of becoming an actress or a painter she
                  is forced by dire necessity to earn a living as a model for other more successful
                  artists. Her struggles, her many adventures in <q>Bohemian</q> life, told in the
                  gripping language of a gifted, experienced author—they are <q>Marion</q>. This new
                  novel by the author of <q>Me</q> will only serve to enhance further the deserved
                  repute of the anonymous writer, who chose to strike out along new lines unhampered
                  by a literary reputation. <q>Marion</q> will increase the desire of many thousands
                  to answer the question, <q>Who is the Author of ‘Me’?</q></p>
            </div>


            <milestone unit="sectionBreak"/>

            <div>

               <p>I present my sister Marion’s story in practically her own simple language, as I
                  have taken it from her notes and journals that she kept over the years.—The
                  Author.</p>



               <p><q>In dat familee there are eleven cheeldren, and more—they come! See dat leetle
                     one? She is très joli, très joli, n’est ce pas? De father he come from England
                     about ten year ago. He was joost a young man, mebbe twenty-seven or
                     twenty-eight year old, and he have one leetle foreign wife and six leetle
                     cheeldren. They were all so cold. They are not use to dis climate of Canada. My
                     wife and I, we keep de leetle ‘otel at Hochelaga, and my wife she take all dose
                     leetle ones and she warm dem before the beeg hall stove, and she make for dem
                     the good French pea-soup</q>.</p>



               <p>Mama had sent me to the corner grocer to buy some things. Thebeau, the grocer, was
                  talking, and to a stranger. I felt ashamed and humiliated to hear our family thus
                  discussed. Why should we always be pointed out in this way and made to feel
                  conspicuous and freaky? It was horrid  that the size of our family and my mother’s
                  nationality should be told to everyone by that corner grocer. I glared haughtily
                  at Thebeau, but he went garrulously on, regardless of my discomfiture.</p>



               <p><q>De eldest—a boy, monsieur, he was joost nine year old, and my wife she call
                     him, ‘Le petit père.’ His mother she send him out to walk wiz all hees leetle
                     sisters, and she say to him: ‘Charles, you are one beeg boy, almost one man,
                     and you must take care your leetle sisters; so, when the wind she blow too
                     hard, you will walk you on the side of dat wind, and put yourself between it
                     and your sisters.’</q></p>



               <p><q>‘Yes, mama,’ <foreign xml:lang="fr">il dit</foreign>. And we, my wife and I, we
                     look out de window, and me? I am laugh, and my wife, she cry—she have lost her
                     only bebby, <foreign xml:lang="fr">Monsieur</foreign>—to see dat leetle boy
                     walk him in front of his leetle sisters, open hees coat, <foreign xml:lang="fr"
                        >comme ça</foreign>, <foreign xml:lang="fr">monsieur</foreign>, and spread
                     it out wiz hees hands, to make him shield the wind from his sisters</q>.</p>



               <p>The man to whom Thebeau had been speaking, had turned around, and was regarding me
                  curiously. I felt abashed and angry under his compelling glance. Then he smiled,
                  and said:</p>



               <p><q>You are right. She <emph>is</emph> pretty—quite remarkably pretty!</q></p>



               <p>I forgot everything else. With my little light head and heart awhirl, I picked up
                  my packages and ran out of the store. It was the first time I had been called
                  pretty, and I was just twelve years old. I felt exhilarated and utterly
                  charmed.</p>



               <p>When I reached home, I deposited the groceries on a table in the kitchen and ran
                  up to my room. Standing on a chair, I was able to see my face in the oval mirror
                  that topped a very high and scratched old <foreign xml:lang="fr"
                     >chiffonier</foreign>. I gazed long and eagerly at the face I had often heard
                  Thebeau say was <q><foreign xml:lang="fr">très joli</foreign></q>, which French
                  words I now learned must mean: <q>Pretty—quite remarkably pretty!</q> as had said
                  that Englishman in the store.</p>



               <p>Was I really pretty, then? Surely the face reflected there was too fat and too
                  red. My! my cheeks were as red as apples. I pushed back the offending fat with my
                  two hands, and I opened my eyes wide and blinked them at myself in the glass. Oh!
                  if only my hair were gold! I twisted about, and then I made grimaces at my own
                  face.</p>



               <p>Suddenly I was thrilled with a great idea—one that for the moment routed my
                  previous ambition to some day be an artist, as was my father. I would be an
                  actress! If I were pretty, and both that Frenchman and Englishman had said so, why
                  should I not be famous?</p>



               <p>I slipped into mama’s room, found a long skirt, and put it on me; also a feather
                  which I stuck in my hair. Then, fearing detection, I ran out on tiptoe to the
                  barn. There, marching up and down, I recited poems. I was pausing, to bow
                  elaborately to the admiring audience, which, in my imagination, was cheering me
                  with wild applause, when I heard mama’s voice calling to me shrilly:</p>



               <p><q>Marion! Marion! Where in the world is that girl?</q></p>



               <p><q>Coming, mama</q>.</p>



               <p>I divested myself hastily of skirt and feather, and left the barn on a run for the
                  house. Here mama thrust our latest baby upon me, with instructions to keep him
                  quiet while she got dinner. I took that baby in my arms, but I was still in that
                  charmed world of dreams, and in my hand I clasped a French novel, which I had
                  filched from my brother Charles’ room. Charles at this time was twenty years of
                  age, and engaged to be married to a girl we did not like.</p>



               <p>After dinner, which we had at noon, I received the cherished permission, and ran
                  along to papa’s room. Dear papa, whose gentle, sensitive hands are now at rest! I
                  can see him sitting at his easel, with his blue eyes fixed absently upon the
                  canvas before him. Papa, with the heart and soul of a great artist, <q>painting,
                     painting</q>, as he would say, with a grim smile, <q>pot-boilers to feed my
                     hungry children</q>.</p>



               <p>I pulled out my paints and table, and began to work. From time to time I spoke to
                  papa.</p>



               <p><q>Say, papa, what do I use for these pink roses?</q></p>



               <p><q>Try rose madder, white and emerald green—a little Naples yellow</q>, answered
                  papa patiently.</p>



               <p><q>Papa, what shall I use for the leaves?</q></p>



               <p><q>Oh, try making your greens with blues and yellows</q>.</p>



               <p>From time to time I bothered him. By and by, I tired of the work, and getting up
                  with a clatter, I went over and watched him. He was painting cool green waves
                  dashing over jagged rocks, from a little sketch he had taken down at Lachine.</p>



               <p><q>Tell me, papa</q>, I said after a moment, <q>if I keep on learning, do you
                     think I will ever be able to earn my living as an artist?</q></p>



               <p><q>Who? What—you? Oh!—</q> Absently papa <pb n="255"/>blew the smoke about his
                  head, gazed at me, but did not seem to see me. He seemed to be talking rather to
                  himself, not bitterly, but just sadly: <q>Better be a dressmaker, or a plumber, or
                     a butcher, or a policeman. There is no money in art!</q></p>



               <milestone unit="sectionBreak"/>
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            <div>

               <p>Next to our garden, separated only by a wooden fence, through which we children
                  used to peep, was the opulent and well-kept garden of <foreign xml:lang="fr"
                     >Monsieur</foreign> Prefontaine, who was a very important man, once Mayor of
                  Hochelaga, the French quarter of Montreal, in which we lived. Madame Prefontaine,
                  moreover, was an object of unfailing interest and absorbing wonder to us children.
                  She was an enormously fat woman, and had once taken a trip to New York City, to
                  look for a wayward sister. There she had been offered a job as fat woman for a big
                  circus, Madame Prefontaine used to say to the neighbors, who always listened to
                  her with great respect:</p>



               <p><q><foreign xml:lang="fr">Mon Dieu</foreign>! That New York—it is one beeg hell!
                     Never do I feel so hot as in dat terreeble city! I feel de grease it run all
                     out of me! Mebbe, eef I stay at dat New York, I may be one beeg
                        meelionaire—<foreign xml:lang="fr">Oui</foreign>! But, <foreign
                        xml:lang="fr">non</foreign>! Me? I prefer my leetle home, so cool and quiet,
                     in Hochelaga than be meelionaire in dat New York, dat is like
                  purgatory</q>.</p>



               <p>We had an old, straggly garden. Everything about it looked <q>seedy</q> and
                  uncared for and wild, for we could not afford a gardener. My sisters and I found
                  small consolation in papa’s stout assertion that it looked picturesque, with its
                  gnarled old apple-trees and shrubs in their natural wild state. I was sensitive
                  about that garden. It was awfully poor looking, in comparison with our neighbors’
                  nicely kept places. It was just like our family, I sometimes treacherously
                  thought—unkempt and wild and <q>heathenish</q>. A neighbor once called us that. I
                  stuck out my tongue at her when she said it. Being just next to the fine garden of
                     <foreign xml:lang="fr">Monsieur</foreign> Prefontaine, it appeared the more
                  ragged and beggarly, that garden of ours.</p>



               <p>Mama would send us children to pick the maggots off the currant bushes and the
                  bugs off the potato plants and, to encourage us, she would give us one cent for
                  every pint of bugs or maggots we showed her. I hated the bugs and maggots, but it
                  was fascinating to dig up the potatoes. To see the vegetables actually under the
                  earth seemed almost like a miracle, and I would pretend the gnomes and fairies put
                  them there, and hid inside the potatoes. I once told this to my little brothers
                  and sisters, and Nora, who was just a little tot, wouldn’t eat a potato again for
                  weeks, for fear she might bite on a fairy. Most of all, I loved to pick
                  strawberries, and it was a matter of real grief and humiliation to me that our own
                  strawberries were so dried-up looking and small, as compared with the big,
                  luscious berries I knew were in the garden of Monsieur Prefontaine.</p>



               <p>On that day I had been picking strawberries for some time, and the sun was hot and
                  my basket only half full. I kept thinking of the berries in the garden adjoining,
                  and the more I thought of them, the more I wished I had some of them.</p>



               <p>It was very quiet in our garden. Not a sound was anywhere, except the breezes,
                  making all kinds of mysterious whispers among the leaves. For some time my eye had
                  become fixed, fascinated, upon a loose board, with a hole in it near the ground. I
                  looked and looked at that hole, I thought to myself: <q>It is just about big
                     enough for me to crawl through</q>. Hardly had that thought occurred to me,
                  when down on hands and knees I dropped, and into the garden of the great Monsieur
                  Prefontaine I crawled.</p>



               <p>The strawberry beds were right by the fence. Greedily I fell upon them. Oh, the
                  exquisite joy of eating forbidden fruit! The fearful thrills that even as I ate
                  ran up and down my spine, as I glanced about me on all sides. There was even a
                  wicked feeling of fierce joy in acknowledging to myself that I was a thief.</p>



               <p><q>Thou shalt not steal!</q> I repeated the commandment that I had broken even
                  while my mouth was full, and then, all of a sudden, I heard a voice, one that had
                  inspired me always with feelings of respect, and awe, and fear.</p>



               <p><q>How you get in here?</q></p>



               <p><foreign xml:lang="fr">Monsieur</foreign> Prefontaine was towering sternly above
                  me. He was a big man, bearded, and with a face of preternatural importance and
                  sternness.</p>



               <p>I got up. My legs were shaky, and the world was whirling about me. I thought of
                  the jail, where thieves were taken, and a great terror seized me. <foreign
                     xml:lang="fr">Monsieur</foreign> Prefontaine had been the Mayor of Hochelaga.
                  He could have put me in prison for all the rest of my life. We would all be
                  disgraced.</p>



               <p><q>Well? Well? How you get in here?</q> demanded <foreign xml:lang="fr"
                     >Monsieur</foreign> Prefontaine.</p>



               <p><q>M’sieu? I—I—<emph>crawled in</emph>!</q> I stammered, indicating the hole in
                  the fence.</p>



               <p><q><foreign xml:lang="fr">Bien</foreign>! <emph>Crawl out</emph>, <foreign
                        xml:lang="fr">madame</foreign>!</q></p>



               <p><q><foreign xml:lang="fr">Madame</foreign></q> to me, who was but twelve years
                  old!</p>



               <p><q>CRAWL OUT!</q> commanded <foreign xml:lang="fr">Monsieur</foreign>, pointing to
                  the hole, and feeling like a worm, ignominiously, under the awful eye of that
                  ex-Mayor of Hochelaga, on hands and knees and stomach, I crawled out.</p>



               <p>Once on our side, I felt not the shame of being a thief so much, as the
                  degradation of <emph>crawling out</emph> with that man looking.</p>



               <p>Feeling like a desperate criminal, I swaggered up to the house, swinging my
                  half-filled basket of strawberries. As I came up the path, Ellen, a sister just
                  two years older than I, put her head out of an upper window and called down to
                  me:</p>



               <p><q>Marion, there’s a beggar boy coming in at the <pb n="256"/> gate. Give him some
                     of that stale bread mama left on the kitchen table to make a pudding
                  with</q>.</p>



               <p>The boy was about thirteen, and he was a very dirty boy, with hardly any clothes
                  on him. As I looked at him, I was thrilled with a most beautiful inspiration. I
                  could regenerate myself by doing an act of lovely charity.</p>



               <p><q>Wait a minute, boy</q>.</p>



               <p>Disregarding the stale bread, I cut a big generous slice of fresh, sweet smelling
                  bread that Sung Sung, our one very old Chinese servant, had made that day. Heaping
                  it thick with brown sugar, I handed it to the boy.</p>



               <p><q>There, beggar boy</q>, I said generously, <q>you can eat it all</q>.</p>



               <p>He took it with both hands, greedily, and now as I looked at him another fiendish
                  impulse seized me. Big boys had often hit me, and although I fought back as
                  valiantly and savagely as my puny fists would let me, I had always been worsted,
                  and had been made to realize the weakness of my sex and age. Now as I looked at
                  that beggar boy, I realized that here was my chance to hit a big boy. He was
                  smiling at me gratefully across that slice of sugared bread, and I leaned over and
                  suddenly pinched him hard on each of his cheeks. His eyes bulged with amazement,
                  and I still remember his expression of surprise and pained fear. I made a horrible
                  grimace at him and then ran out of the room.</p>



               <p>There was a long, black period when we knew acutely the meaning of what papa
                  wearily termed <q>Hard Times</q>. Even in <q>Good Times</q> there are few people
                  who buy paintings, and no one wants them in <q>Hard Times</q>. A terrible epidemic
                  of smallpox broke out in the city. The French and not the English Canadians were
                  the ones chiefly afflicted, and my father set this down to the fact that the
                  French resisted vaccination. In fact, there were anti-vaccination riots all over
                  the French quarter, where we lived.</p>



               <p>And now my father, in this desperate crisis, proved the truth of the old adage
                  that <q>Blood will tell</q>. Ours was the only house on our block, or for that
                  matter the surrounding streets, where the hideous yellow sign <q><foreign
                        xml:lang="fr">PICOTTE</foreign></q> (small pox) was not conspicuously nailed
                  upon the front door, and this despite the fact that we were a large family of
                  children. Papa hung sheets all over the house, completely saturated with
                  disinfectants. Every one of us children were vaccinated, and were not allowed to
                  leave the premises. Papa himself went upon all the messages, even doing the
                  marketing.</p>



               <p>He was not absentminded in those days, nor in the gruelling days of dire poverty
                  that followed the plague. Child as I was, I vividly recall the terrors of that
                  period, going to bed hungry, my mother crying in the night and my father walking
                  up and down, up and down. Sometimes it seemed to me as if papa walked up and down
                  all night long.</p>



               <p>My brother Charles, who had been for some time our main support, had married (the
                  girl we did not like), and although he fervently promised to continue to
                  contribute to the family’s support, his wife took precious care that the
                  contribution should be of the smallest, and she kept my brother, as much as she
                  could, from coming to see us.</p>



               <p>A day came when, with my mother and it seemed all of my brothers and sisters, I
                  stood on a wharf waving to papa on a great ship. There he stood, by the railing,
                  looking so young and good. Papa was going to England to try to induce
                  grandpapa—that grandfather we had never seen—to help us. We clung about mama’s
                  skirts—poor little mama, who was half distraught—and we all kept waving to papa,
                  with our hats and hands and handkerchiefs, and calling out:</p>



               <p><q>Good-by, papa! Come back! Come back soon!</q> until the boat was only a dim,
                  shadowy outline.</p>



               <p>The dreadful thought came to me that perhaps we would never see papa again!
                  Suppose his people, who were rich and grand, should induce our father never to
                  return to us        !</p>



               <p>I had kept back my tears. Mama had told us that none of us must let papa see us
                  cry, as it might <q>unman</q> him, and she herself had heroically set the example
                  of restraining her grief until after his departure. Now, however, the strain was
                  loosened. I fancied I read in my brothers’ and sisters’ faces—we were all
                  imaginative and sensitive and excitable—my own fears. Simultaneously we all began
                  to cry.</p>



               <p>Never will I forget that return home, all of us children crying and sobbing, and
                  mama now weeping as unconcealedly as any of us, and the French people stopping us
                  on the way to console or commiserate with us; but although they repeated over and
                  over, <q><foreign xml:lang="fr">Pauvres petits enfants</foreign>! <foreign
                        xml:lang="fr">Pauvre petite mère</foreign>!</q> I saw their significant
                  glances, and I knew that in their minds was the same treacherous thought of my
                  father.</p>



               <p>But papa did return! He could have stayed in England, and, as my sister Ada
                  extravagantly put it, <q>lived in the lap of luxury</q>, but he came back to his
                  noisy, ragged little <q>heathens</q>, and the <q>painting, painting of pot-boilers
                     to feed my hungry children</q>.</p>



               <p><q><foreign xml:lang="fr">Monsieur</foreign> de St. Vidal is ringing the
                     door-bell</q>, called Ellen. <q>Why don’t you open the door, Marion. I believe
                     he has a birthday present for you in his hand</q>.</p>



               <p>It was my sixteenth birthday, and <foreign xml:lang="fr">Monsieur</foreign> de St.
                  Vidal was my first beau! He was a relative of our neighbors, the Prefontaines, and
                  I liked him pretty well. I think I chiefly liked to be taken about in his stylish
                  little dog-cart. I felt sure all the other girls envied me.</p>



               <p><q>You go, Ellen, while I change my dress</q>.</p>
               <p>I was anxious to appear at my best before St. Vidal. It was very exciting, this
                  having a beau. I would have enjoyed it much more, however, but for the interfering
                  inquisitiveness of my sisters, Ada and Ellen, who never failed to ask me each time
                  I had been out with him, whether he had <q>proposed</q> yet or not.</p>



               <p>Ellen was running up the stairs, and now she burst into our room excitedly, with a
                  package in her hand.</p>



               <p><q>Look, Marion! Here’s your present. He wouldn’t stop—just left it, and he said,
                     with a Frenchy bow—Whew! I don’t like the French!—‘<foreign xml:lang="fr">Pour
                        Mamselle Marion, avec mes compliments</foreign>!’</q> and Ellen mimicked St.
                  Vidal’s best French manner and voice.</p>



               <p>I opened the package. Oh, such a lovely box of paints—a perfect treasure!</p>



               <p><q>Just exactly what I wanted!</q> I cried excitedly, looking at the little tubes,
                  all shiny and clean, and the new brushes and palette.</p>



               <p>Ada was sitting reading by the window, and now she looked up and said:</p>



               <p><q>Oh, did that French <emph>wine merchant</emph> give that to Marion?</q></p>



               <p>She cast a disparaging glance at the box, and then, addressing Ellen, she
                  continued:</p>
               <p><q>Marion is disgustingly old for sixteen, but, of course, if he gives her
                        <emph>presents</emph>—</q> (he had never given me anything but candy before)
                     <q>he will propose to her, I suppose. Mama married at sixteen, and I suppose
                        <emph>some</emph> people—</q> Ada gave me another look that was anything but
                        approving—<q><emph>are</emph> in a hurry to get married. <emph>I</emph>
                     shall never marry till I am twenty-five!</q> Ada was twenty.</p>



               <p>This time, Ellen, who was eighteen, got the condemning look. Ellen was engaged to
                  be married to an American editor, who wrote to her every day in the week and
                  sometimes telegraphed. They were awfully in love with each other. Ellen said
                  now:</p>
               <p><q>Oh, he’ll propose all right. Wallace came around a whole lot, you know, before
                     he actually popped</q>.</p>



               <p><q>Well, maybe so</q>, said Ada, <q>but I think we ought to know that French wine
                     merchant’s intention pretty soon. I’ll ask him if you like</q>, she
                  volunteered.</p>



               <p><q>No, no, don’t you dare!</q> I protested. <pb n="257"/></p>



               <p><q>Well</q>, said Ada, <q>if he doesn’t propose to you soon, you ought to stop
                     going out with him. It’s bad form</q>.</p>



               <p>That evening St. Vidal called and took me to the rink, and I enjoyed myself
                  hugely. He was a graceful skater, and so was I, and I felt sure that everyone’s
                  eye was upon me. I was very proud of my <q>beau</q>, and I secretly wished that he
                  was blond. I did prefer the English type. However, conscious of what was expected
                  of me by my sisters, I smiled my sweetest on St. Vidal, and by the time we started
                  for home I realized, with a thrill of anticipation, that he was in an especially
                  tender mood. He helped me along the street carefully and gallantly.</p>



               <p>It was a clear, frosty night, and the snow was piled up as high as our heads on
                  each side of the sidewalks. Suddenly St. Vidal stopped, and drawing my hand
                  through his arm, he began, with his walking stick, to write upon the snow:</p>



               <p><q>Madame Marion de St. Vida—</q></p>



               <p>Before he got to the <q>l</q> I was seized with panic. I jerked my hand from his
                  arm, took to my heels and ran all the way home.</p>



               <p>Now it had come—that proposal, and I did not want it. It filled me with
                  embarrassment and fright. When I got home, I burst into Ada’s room and gasped:</p>



               <p><q>It’s done! He did propose! B-but I said—I said—</q> I hadn’t said anything at
                  all.</p>



               <p><q>Well?</q> demanded Ada.</p>



               <p><q>Why, I’m not going to, that’s all</q>, I said.</p>



               <p>Ada returned to the plaiting of her hair. Then she said skeptically:</p>



               <p><q>H’m, that’s very queer. Are you <emph>sure</emph> he proposed, because
                        <emph>I</emph> heard he was all the time engaged to a girl in Côte des
                     Neiges</q>.</p>



               <p><q>Oh, Ada</q>, I cried, <q>do you suppose he’s a bigamist? I think I’m fortunate
                     to have escaped from his snare!</q></p>
               <p>The next day <foreign xml:lang="fr">Madame</foreign> Prefontaine told mama that
                  St. Vidal had said he couldn’t imagine what in the world I had run away suddenly
                  from him like that for, and he said:</p>



               <p><q>Maybe she had a stomach-ache</q>.</p>



               <milestone unit="sectionBreak"/>
            </div>
            <div>

               <p><q>Ellen, don’t you wish something would happen?</q></p>



               <p>Ellen and I were walking up and down the street near the English church.</p>



               <p><q>Life is so very dull and monotonous</q>, I went on. <q>My! I would be glad if
                     something real bad happened—some sort of tragedy. Even that is better than this
                     deadness</q>.</p>



               <p>Ellen looked at me, and seemed to hesitate.</p>



               <p><q>Yes, it’s awful to be so poor as we are</q>, she answered, <q>but what I would
                     like is not so much money as fame, and, of course, love. That usually goes with
                     fame</q>.</p>



               <p>Ellen’s fiancé was going to be famous some day. He was in New York, and had
                  written a wonderful play. As soon as it was accepted, he and Ellen were to be
                  married.</p>



               <p><q>Well, I tell you what I’d like above everything else on earth</q>, I said
                  sweepingly. <q>I would love to be a great actress, and break everybody’s hearts.
                     It must be perfectly thrilling to be notorious, and we certainly are miserable
                     girls</q>.</p>



               <p>We were chewing away with great relish the contents of a bag of candy.</p>



               <p><q>Anyhow</q>, said Ellen, <q>you seem to be enjoying that candy</q>, and we both
                  giggled.</p>



               <p>Two men were coming out of the side door of the church. Attracted by our laughter,
                  they came over directly to us. One of them we knew well. He was Jimmy McAlpin, the
                  son of a fine old, very rich, Scotch lady, who had always taken an interest in our
                  family, and especially mama. Jimmy, though he took up the collection in church,
                  had been, so heard the neighbors whisper to mama, once very dissipated. He had
                  known us since we were little girls, and always teased us a lot. He would come up
                  behind me on the street and pull my long plait of hair, saying: <q>Pull the
                     string, gentlemen and ladies, and the figure moves!</q></p>



               <p>Now he came smilingly up to us, followed by his friend, a big stout man, with a
                  military carriage and gray moustache. I recognized him, too, though we did not
                  know him. He was a very rich and important citizen of our Montreal. Of him also I
                  had heard bad things. People said he was <q>fast</q>. That was a word they always
                  whispered in Montreal, and shook their heads over, but whenever I heard it, its
                  very mystery and badness thrilled me somehow. Ada said there was a depraved and
                  low streak in me, and I guiltily admitted to myself that she was right.</p>



               <p><q>What are you girls laughing about?</q> asked Jimmy, a question that merely
                  brought forth a fresh accession of giggles.</p>



               <p>Colonel Stevens was staring at me, and he had thrust his right eye into a shining
                  monocle. I thought him very grand and distinguished looking, much superior to St.
                  Vidal. Anyway we were tired of the French, having them on all sides of us, and as
                  I have said, I admired the blond type of men. Colonel Stevens was not exactly
                  blond, for his hair was gray (he was bald on top, though his hat covered that),
                  but he was typically British, and somehow the Englishmen always appeared to me
                  much superior to our little French Canucks, as we called  them.</p>



               <p>Said the colonel, pulling at his moustache: <q>A laughing young girl in a
                     pink-cotton frock is the sweetest thing on earth</q>.</p>



               <p>I had on a pink-cotton frock, and I was laughing. I thought of what I had heard
                  Madame Prefontaine say to mama—in a whisper: <q>He is one dangerous man—dat
                     Colonel Stevens, and any woman seen wiz him will lose her reputation</q>.</p>



               <p><q>Will I lose mind?</q> I asked myself. I must say my heart beat, fascinated,
                  with the idea. Something, now, was really happening, and I was excited and
                  delighted.</p>



               <p><q>Can’t we take the ladies</q>—I nudged Ellen—<q>some place for a little
                     refreshment</q>, said the colonel.</p>



               <p><q>No</q>, said Ellen, <q>mama expects us home</q>.</p>



               <p><q>Too bad</q>, murmured the colonel, very much disappointed, <q>but how about
                     some other night? To-morrow, shall we say?</q></p>



               <p>Looking at me, he added: <q>May I send you some roses, just the color of your
                     cheeks?</q></p>
               <p>I nodded from behind Ellen’s back.</p>



               <p><q>Come on</q>, said Ellen brusquely, <q>we’d better be getting home. You know
                     you’ve got the dishes to do, Marion</q>.</p>



               <p>She drew me along. I couldn’t resist looking back, and there was that fascinating
                  colonel, standing stock still in the street, still pulling <pb n="304"/> at his
                  moustache, and staring after me. He smiled all over, when I turned, and blew me an
                  odd little kiss, like a kind of salute, only from his lips.</p>



               <p>That night, when Ellen and I were getting ready for bed, I said: <q>Isn’t the
                     colonel thrillingly handsome, though?</q></p>



               <p><q>Ugh! I should say not</q>, said Ellen. <q>Besides, he’s a married man, and a
                     flirt</q>.</p>



               <p><q>Well, I guess he doesn’t love his old wife</q>, said I.</p>



               <p><q>If she is old</q>, said Ellen, <q>so is he—maybe older. Disgusting!</q></p>



               <p>All next day I waited for that box of roses and late in the afternoon, sure
                  enough, it came, and with it a note:</p>

               <q>
                  <floatingText type="letter">
                     <body>
                        <opener><salute>Dear Miss Marion:</salute></opener>
                        <p>Will you and your charming sister take a little drive with me and a
                           friend this evening? If so, meet us at eight o’clock, corner of St. James
                           and St. Denis streets. My friend has seen your sister in Judge Laflamme’s
                           office <note type="parenthetical">(Ellen worked there)</note> and he is
                           very anxious to know her. As for me, I am thinking only of when I shall
                           see my lovely rose again. I am counting the hours!</p>
                        <closer>
                           <salute>Devotedly,</salute>
                           <signed>Fred Stevens.</signed>
                        </closer>
                     </body>
                  </floatingText>
               </q>

               <p>The letter was written on the stationary of the fashionable St. James Club. Now I
                  was positive that Colonel Stevens had fallen in love with me. I thought of his
                  suffering because he could not marry me. In many of the French novels I had read
                  men ran away from their wives, and I thought: <q>Maybe the colonel will want me to
                     elope with him, and if I won’t, perhaps he will kill himself</q>, and I began
                  to feel very sorry to think of such a fine-looking soldierly man as Colonel
                  Stevens killing himself just because of me.</p>
               <p>When I showed Ellen the letter, after she got home from work, to my surprise and
                  delight, she said:</p>



               <p><q>All right, let’s go. A little ride will refresh us, and I’ve had a hard week of
                     it, but better not let mama know where we’re going. We’ll slip out after
                     supper, when she’s getting the babies to sleep</q>.</p>



               <p>Reaching the corner of St. James and St. Denis streets that evening, we saw a
                  beautiful closed carriage, with a coat of arms on the door, and a coachman in
                  livery jumped down and opened the door for us. We stepped in. With the colonel was
                  a middle-aged man, with a dry yellowish face and a very black—it looked
                  dyed—moustache.</p>



               <p><q>Mr. Mercier!</q> said the colonel, introducing us.</p>



               <p><q>Oh</q>, exclaimed Ellen, <q>are you related to the Premier?</q></p>



               <p><q>Non, non, non</q>, laughed Mr. Mercier, and turning about in the seat, he began
                  to look at Ellen, and to smile at her, until the ends of his waxed moustache
                  seemed to jump up and scratch his nose. Colonel Stevens had put his arm just at
                  the back of me, and as it slipped down from the carriage seat to my waist, I sat
                  forward on the edge of the seat. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings by telling him
                  to take his arm down, and still I didn’t want him to put it around me. Suddenly
                  Ellen said:</p>



               <p><q>Marion, let’s get out of this carriage. That beast there put his arm around me,
                     and he pinched me, too</q>. She indicated Mercier. She was standing up in the
                  carriage, clutching at the strap, and she began to tap upon the window, to attract
                  the attention of the coachman. Mr. Mercier was cursing softly in French.</p>



               <p><q><foreign xml:lang="fr">Petite folie</foreign>!</q> he said, <q>I am not meaning
                     to hurt you—joost a little loving. Dat is all</q>.</p>



               <p><q>You ugly old man</q>, said Ellen, <q>do you think I want <emph>you</emph> to
                     love me? Let me get out!</q></p>



               <p><q>Oh, now, Miss Ellen</q>, said the colonel, <q>that is too rude. Mr. Mercier is
                     a gentleman. See how sweet and loving your little sister is</q>.</p>



               <p><q>No, no!</q> I cried, <q>I am not sweet and loving. He had no business to touch
                     my sister</q>.</p>



               <p>Mr. Mercier turned to the colonel.</p>



               <p><q>For these children did you ask me to waste my time?</q> and putting his head
                  out of the carriage, he simply roared:</p>



               <p><q><foreign xml:lang="fr">Rue</foreign> Saint Denis! <foreign xml:lang="fr"
                        >Sacré</foreign>!</q></p>



               <p>They set us down at the corner of our street. When we got in a friend of papa’s
                  was singing to mama and Ada in the parlor:</p>



               <p><q>In the gloaming, oh, my darling, When the lights are dim and low</q>.</p>



               <p>He was one of many Englishmen, younger sons of aristocrats, who, not much good in
                  England, were often sent to Canada. They liked to hang around papa, whose family
                  most of them knew. This young man was a thin, harmless sort of fellow, soft spoken
                  and rather silly, Ellen and I thought, but he could play and sing in a pretty,
                  sentimental way, and mama and Ada would listen by the hour to him. He liked Ada,
                  but Ada pretended she had only an indifferent interest in him. His father was the
                  Earl of Albemarle, and Ellen and I used to make Ada furious by calling her
                     <q>Countess</q>, and bowing mockingly before her.</p>



               <p>Walking on tiptoe, Ellen and I slipped by the parlor door, and up to our own room.
                  That night, after we were in bed, I said to Ellen:</p>



               <p><q>You know, I think Colonel Stevens is in love with me. Maybe he will want me to
                     elope with him. Would you, if you were me?</q></p>



               <p><q>Don’t be silly; go to sleep</q>, was Ellen’s cross response. She regretted very
                  much taking that ride, and she said she only did it because she got so tired at
                  the office all day, and thought a little ride would be nice. She had no idea, she
                  said, that those <q>two old fools</q> would act like that.</p>



               <milestone unit="sectionBreak"/>
            </div>
            <div>


               <p>Wallace, Ellen’s sweetheart, had not sold his play, but he expected to any day. He
                  was, however, impatient to be married—they had now been engaged over a year and he
                  wrote Ellen that he could not wait, anyway, more than two or three months longer.
                  Meanwhile Ellen secured a much better position.</p>



               <p>The new position was at a greater distance from our house, and as she had to be at
                  the office early she decided to take a room down-town. Papa at first did not want
                  her to leave home, but Ellen pointed out that Hochelaga was too far away from her
                  office, and then she added, to my delight, that she’d take me along with her. I
                  could make her trousseau and cook for us both, and it wouldn’t cost any more for
                  two than for one.</p>



               <p>Mama thought we were old enough to take care of ourselves, <q>for</q>, said she,
                     <q>when I was Ellen’s age I was married and had two children. Besides</q>, she
                  added, <q>we are crowded for room in the house, and it will only be for a month or
                     two</q>.</p>



               <p>So Ellen secured a little room down-town. I thought the house was very grand, for
                  there was thick carpet on all the floors and plush furniture in the parlor.</p>



               <p>We had been at Mrs. Cohen’s (that was the name of our landlady) less than a month,
                  when Wallace wrote he could wait no longer.</p>



               <p>He had not sold his play but he had a very good position now as associate editor
                  of a big magazine, and he said he was making ample money to support a wife. So he
                  was coming for his little Ellen at once. We were terribly excited, particularly as
                  Wallace followed up the letter with a telegram to expect him next day, and sure
                  enough the next day he arrived.</p>



               <p>He did not want any <q>fussy</q> wedding. Only papa and I were to be present.
                  Wallace did not even want us, but Ellen insisted. She looked sweet in her little
                  dress (I had made it), and although I knew Wallace was good, and a genius, and
                  adored my sister, I felt broken-hearted at the thought of losing her, and it was
                  all I could do to keep from crying at the ceremony.</p>



               <p>As the train pulled out I felt so utterly desolate, that I stretched out my arms
                  to it and cried out aloud:</p>



               <p><q>Ellen, Ellen, please don’t go! Take me, too!</q> I never realized till then how
                  much I loved my sister. Dear little Ellen, with her love of all that was best in
                  life, her sense of humor, her large, generous heart, and her absolute purity. If
                  only she had stayed by my side I am sure her influence would have kept me from all
                  the mistakes and troubles that followed in my life, if only by her disgust and
                  contempt of all that was dishonorable and unclean. But Wallace had taken our
                  Ellen, and I had lost my best friend, my sister and my chum.</p>



               <p>I was at the age—nearly eighteen now—when girls want and need chums and
                  confidantes. I was bubbling over with impulses that needed and outlet, and only
                  foolish young things like myself were capable of understanding me. With Ellen
                  gone, I sought and found girl friends I believed to be congenial.</p>



               <p>My sister Ada, because of her superiority in age and character to me, would not
                  condescend to chum with me. Nevertheless, she heartily disapproved of my choice in
                  friends, and constantly reiterated that my tastes were <pb n="305"/> low. Life was
                  a serious matter to Ada, who had enormous ambitions, and had already been promised
                  a position on our chief newspaper, to which she had contributed poems and stories.
                  To Ada, I was a frivolous, silly young thing, who needed constantly to be
                  squelched, and she undertook to do the squelching, unsparingly, herself.</p>



               <p><q>Since we are obliged</q>, said Ada, <q>to live in a neighborhood with people
                     who are not our equals, I think it a good plan to keep to ourselves. That’s the
                     only way to be exclusive. Now that Gertie Martin</q> (Gertie was my latest
                  friend) <q>is a noisy American girl. She talks through her nose, and is always
                     criticizing the Canadians and comparing them with the Yankees. As for that Lu
                     Fraser</q> (another of my friends) <q>she can’t even speak the Queen’s English
                     properly, and her uncle keeps a saloon</q>.</p>



               <p>Though I stoutly defended my friends, Ada’s nagging had an unconscious effect upon
                  me, and for a time I saw very little of the girls.</p>



               <p>Then one evening Gertie met me on the street, and told me that, through her
                  influence, Mr. Davis (also an American) had decided to ask me to take a part in
                     <q>Ten Nights in a Barroom</q>, which was to be given at a <q>Pop</q> by the
                  Montreal Amateur Theatrical Club, of which he was the head. I was so excited and
                  happy about this that I seized hold of Gertie and danced with her on the sidewalk,
                  much to the disgust of my brother, Charles, who was passing with his new wife.</p>



               <p>Mr. Davis taught elocution and dramatic art, and he was a man of tremendous
                  importance in my eyes. He was always getting up concerts and entertainments, and
                  no amateur affair in Montreal seemed right without his efficient aid. The series
                  of <q>Pops</q> he was now giving were patronized by all the best people of the
                  city and he had an imposing list of patrons and patronesses. Moreover the plays
                  were to be produced in a real theater, not merely a hall, and so they had somewhat
                  the character of professional performances.</p>



               <p>To my supreme joy, I was given the part of the drunkard’s wife, and there were two
                  glorious weeks in which we rehearsed and Mr. Davis trained us. He said one day
                  that I was the <q>best actress</q> of them all, and he added that although he
                  charged $25 a month to his regular pupils he would teach me for ten, and if I
                  couldn’t afford that, for five; and if there was no five to be had, then for
                  nothing. I declared fervently that I would repay him some day, and he laughed, and
                  said: <q>I’ll remind you when that ‘some day’ comes</q>.</p>



               <p>Well, the night arrived, and I was simply delirious with joy. I learned how to
                     <q>make up</q>, and I actually experienced stage fright when I first went on,
                  but I soon forgot myself.</p>



               <p>When I was crawling on the floor across the stage, trying to get something to my
                  drunken husband, a voice from the audience called out:</p>



               <p><q>Oh, Ma-ri-on! Oh, Ma-ri-on! You’re on the bum! You’re on the bum!</q></p>



               <p>It was my little brother, Randle, who with several small boys had got free seats
                  away up front by telling the ticket man that his sister was playing the star part.
                  I vowed mentally to box his ears good and hard when I got home.</p>



               <p>When the show was over Mr. Davis came to the dressing-room and said, before all
                  the girls:</p>



               <p><q>Marion, come to my studio next week and we’ll start those lessons, and when we
                     put on the next ‘Pop,’ which I believe will be ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin,’ we will
                     find a good part for you</q>.</p>



               <p><q>Oh, Mr. Davis</q>, I cried, <q>are you going to make an actress of me?</q></p>



               <p><q>We’ll see! We’ll see!</q> he said, smiling. <q>It will depend on yourself, and
                     if you are willing to study</q>.</p>



               <p><q>I’ll sit up all night long and study</q>, I assured him.</p>



               <p><q>The worst thing you could do</q>, he answered. <q>We want to save these
                     peaches</q>, and he pinched my cheek.</p>



               <p>Mr. Davis did lots of things that in other men would have been offensive. He
                  always treated us girls as if we were children. People in Montreal thought him
                     <q>sissified</q>, but I am glad there are some men more like the gentler
                  sex.</p>



               <p>So I began to take lessons in elocution and dramatic art. Oh! but I was a happy
                  girl in those days. It is true, Mr. Davis was very strict, and he would make me go
                  over lines again and again before he was satisfied, but when I got them finally
                  right and to suit him, he would rub his hands, blow his nose and say:</p>



               <p><q>Fine! Fine! Marion, there’s the real stuff in you</q>.</p>



               <p>He once said that I was the only pupil he had who had an atom of promise in her.
                  He declared Montreal peculiarly lacking in talent of that sort, though he said he
                  had searched all over the place for even a <q>spark of fire</q>. I, at least,
                  loved the work, was deadly in earnest, and, finally, so he said, I was pretty, and
                  that was something.</p>



               <p>We studied <q>Camille</q>, <q>The Marble Heart</q>, and <q>Romeo and Juliet</q>.
                  All of my spare time at home I spent memorizing and rehearsing. I would get a
                  younger sister, Nora, who was absorbedly interested, to act as a dummy. I would
                  make her be Armand or Armand’s father.</p>



               <p><q>Now, Nora</q>, I would say, <q>when I come to the word ‘Her,’ you must say:
                     ‘Camille! Camille!’</q></p>



               <p>Then I would begin, addressing Nora as Armand:</p>



               <p><q>You are not talking to a cherished daughter of society, but a woman of the
                     world, friendless and fearless. Loved by those whose vanity she gratifies,
                     despised by those who ought to pity her—her—<emph>Her</emph>—</q></p>



               <p>I would look at Nora and repeat: <q>Her—!</q> and Nora would wake up from her
                  trance of admiration of me and say:</p>



               <p><q>Camel! Camel!</q></p>



               <p><q>No, no!</q> I would yell. <q><emph>That</emph> is—</q> (pointing to the
                  right—Mr. Davis called that <q>dramatic action</q>) <q><emph>your</emph> way!
                        <emph>This</emph> way—</q> (pointing to the left) <q>is mine!</q></p>



               <p>Then throwing myself on the dining-room sofa, I would sob and moan and cough
                  (Camille had consumption, you may recall), and what with Nora crying with sympathy
                  and excitement, and the baby generally waking up there would be an awful noise in
                  our house.</p>



               <p>I remember papa coming half way down the stairs one day and calling out:</p>



               <p><q>What the dickens is the matter with that Marion? Has she taken leave of her
                     sense?</q></p>



               <p>Mama answered from the kitchen:</p>



               <p><q>No, papa, she’s learning elocution and dramatic art from Mr. Davis; but I’m
                     sure she’s not suited to be an actress, for she lisps and her nose is too
                     short. But do make her stop, or the neighbors will think we are
                  quarreling</q>.</p>



               <p><q>Stop this minute!</q> ordered papa, <q>and don’t let me hear any more such
                     nonsense</q>.</p>



               <p>I betook myself to the barn.</p>



               <milestone unit="sectionBreak"/>
            </div>
            <div>

               <p>The snow was crisp and the air as cold as ice. We were playing the last
                  performance of <q>Uncle Tom’s Cabin</q>. We had been playing it for two weeks, and
                  I had been given two different parts—Marie St. Claire, in which, to my joy, I wore
                  a gold wig and lace tea-gown—which I made from an old pair of lace curtains and a
                  lavender silk dress mama had had when they were rich and she dressed for
                  dinner—and Cassy. I did love that part where Cassy says:</p>



               <p><q>Simon Legree, you are afraid of me, and you have reason to be, for I have got
                     the devil in me!</q></p>
               <p>I used to hurl those words at him, and glare until the audience clapped me for
                  that. Ada saw me play Cassy one night, and she went home and told mama that I had
                     <q>sworn like a common woman before all the people on the stage</q> and that I
                  ought not to be allowed to disgrace the family. But little I cared for Ada in
                  those days. I was learning to be an actress!</p>



               <p>On this last night, in fact, I experienced all the sensations of a successful
                  star. Someone had passed up to me, over the footlights, if you please, a real
                  bouquet of flowers, and with these clasped to my breast I had retired smiling and
                  bowing from the stage.</p>



               <p>To add to my bliss, Patty Chase, the girl who played Topsy, came running in to say
                  that a gentleman friend of hers was <q>crazy</q> to meet me. He was the one who
                  had sent me the flowers. He wanted to know if I would not take supper with him and
                  a friend and Patty that night.</p>



               <p>My! I felt like a regular professional actress. To think an unknown man had
                  admired me from the front, and was actually seeking my acquaintance! I hesitated,
                  however, because Patty was not the sort of girl I was accustomed to go out with. I
                  liked Patty pretty well myself, but my brother, Charles, had one day come to the
                  house especially to tell papa some things about her—he had seen me walking with
                  Patty on the street—and papa had forbidden me to go out with her again. As I
                  hesitated, she said:</p>



               <p><q>It isn’t as if they are strangers, you know. One of them, Harry Bond, is my own
                     fellow. You know how his folks are, and but for them we’d have been married
                     long ago. Well, Harry’s friend, the one who wants to meet you, is a swell, too,
                     and he hasn’t been out from England long. Harry says his folks are big nobs
                     over there, and he is studying law here. His folks send him a remittance and I
                     guess it’s a pretty big one, for he’s <pb n="306"/> living at the Windsor, and
                     I guess he can treat us fine. So come along. You’ll not get such a chance
                     again</q>.</p>



               <p><q>Patty</q>, I said, <q>I’m afraid I dare not. Mama hates me to be out late, and,
                     see, it’s eleven already</q>.</p>



               <p><q>Why, the night’s just beginning</q>, cried Patty.</p>



               <p>There was a rap at the door, and Patty exclaimed:</p>



               <p><q>Here they are now!</q></p>
               <p>All the girls in the room were watching me—enviously, I thought—and one of them
                  made a catty remark about Patty, who had gone out in the hall, and was whispering
                  to the man. I decided not to go, but when I came out of the room there they were
                  all waiting for me, and Patty exclaimed:</p>



               <p><q>Here she is</q>, and, dragging me along by the hand, she introduced me to the
                  men.</p>



               <p>I found myself looking up into the face of a tall man of about twenty-three. He
                  had light curly hair and blue eyes. His features were fine and clear cut, and, to
                  my girlish eyes, he appeared extraordinarily handsome and distinguished, far more
                  so even than Colonel Stevens, who had, up till then, been my ideal of manly
                  perfection. Everything he wore had an elegance about it, from his evening suit and
                  the rich fur-lined overcoat to his opera hat and gold-topped cane. I felt
                  flattered and overwhelmingly impressed to think that such a fine personage should
                  have singled me out for especial attention. What is more, he was looking at me
                  with frank and undisguised admiration. Instead of letting go my hand, which he had
                  taken when Patty introduced us, he held it while he asked me if he couldn’t have
                  the pleasure of taking me out to supper. As I hesitated, blushing and awfully
                  thrilled by the hand pressing mine, Patty said:</p>



               <p><q>She’s scared. Her mother won’t let her stay out late at night. She’s never been
                     out to supper before</q>.</p>



               <p>Then she and Harry Bond burst out laughing, as if that were a good joke on me, but
                  Mr. Bertie (his name was the Honorable Reginald Bertie—pronounced Bartie) did not
                  laugh. On the contrary, he looked very sympathetic, and pressed my hand the
                  closer. I thought to myself:</p>



               <p><q>My! I must have looked lovely as Marie St. Claire. Wait till he sees me as
                     Camille</q>.</p>



               <p><q>I’m not afraid</q>, I contradicted Patty, <q>but mamma sits up for me</q>.</p>



               <p>This was not strictly true, but it sounded better than to say that Ada always sat
                  up for anyone in the house who went out at night. She even used to sit up for my
                  brother Charles, before he was married, and I could just imagine the
                  cross-questioning she would put me through when I got in late. Irritated as I used
                  to be in those days at what I called Ada’s interference in my affairs, I know now
                  that she always had my best good at heart. Poor little delicate Ada! with her
                  passionate devotion and loyalty to the family, and her fierce antagonistic
                  attitude to all outside intrusion. She was morbidly sensitive.</p>



               <p>Mr. Bertie quieted my fears by despatching a messenger boy to our house with a
                  note saying that I had gone with a party of friends to see the Ice Palace.</p>



               <p>Even with Ada in the back of my mind I was now, as Patty would say, <q>in for a
                     good time</q>, and when Mr. Bertie carefully tucked the fur robes of the sleigh
                  about me I felt warm, excited and recklessly happy.</p>



               <p>We drove over to the Square, where the Ice Palace was erected. The Windsor Hotel
                  was filled with American guests, who were on the balconies, watching the
                  torchlight procession marching around the mountain. My brother, Charles, was one
                  of the snowshoers, and the men were all dressed in white and striped blanket
                  overcoats, with pointed capuchons on their backs and heads and moccasins on their
                  feet. It was a beautiful sight, that procession, and looked like a snake of light
                  winding about old Mount Royal, and when the fireworks burst all about the
                  monumental Ice Palace, inside of which people were dancing and singing, really it
                  seemed to me like a scene in fairyland. I felt a sense of pride in our Montreal
                  and looking up at Mr. Bertie to note the effect of so much beauty upon him, I
                  found him watching me instead.</p>



               <p>The English, when they first come out ot Canada, always assume an air of patronage
                  toward the <q>Colonials</q> as they call us, just as if, while interested, they
                  are also highly amused by our crudeness. Now Mr. Bertie said:</p>



               <p><q>We’ve seen enough of this Ice Palace’s hard, cold beauty. Suppose we go
                     somewhere and get something warm inside us. Gad! I’m dry</q>.</p>



               <p>Harry told the driver to take us to a place whose name I could not catch, and
                  presently we drew up before a brilliantly lighted restaurant. Harry Bond jumped
                  out, and Patty after him. I was about to follow, when I felt a detaining hand upon
                  my arm, and Bertie called out to Bond:</p>



               <p><q>I’ve changed my mind, Bond. I’ll be hanged if I care to take Miss Ascough into
                     that place</q>.</p>



               <p>Bond was angry, and demanded to know why Bertie had told him to order dinner for
                  four. He said he had called the place up from the theatre.</p>
               <p><q>Never mind</q>, said Bertie, <q>I’ll fix it up with you later. Go on in without
                     us. It’s all right</q>.</p>



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               <fw type="continued" place="center">(Be sure to follow up these experiences of
                     <q>Marion</q> in the May issue of Hearst’s)</fw>





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