The Rosie World Part 41

Rosie, listening, caught her breath sharply. Her phrase, which she had laboured hard to teach him! But where had he got the deep vibrating tone with which he spoke it? Rosie had never heard that before.

After a moment, Ellen quavered: "Even--even yet, George?"

"Even yet!" George cried in the same wonderful voice that sent little thrills up and down Rosie's back. "Why, Ellen girl, don't you know that ever since the first day I saw you you've been the onliest girl for me!"

His arm was around her now, straining her to him, and Rosie knew, but for her own presence, he would be kissing her.

"I--I don't see why, George."

"But it's so, Ellen, it's so!"

They walked on a few moments in silence. Then George began soberly: "Of course, Ellen, you know I'm only a farmer and you know you've always said you'd never live in the country."

"George, don't remind me of all the foolish things I've said! Please, don't! Why, if I could go to the country this minute, I'd go and never come back! I hate the city! I wish I'd never have to see it again!"

George gasped an incredulous, "Really, Ellen? Do you really mean it?"

"Yes, really!" Ellen declared vehemently and George, untroubled to account for this sudden revulsion of feeling, threw up his head with a joyous laugh.

When they reached home, George said to Ellen: "Don't you want to sit out here on the porch a little while?"

n.o.body invited Rosie to stay. She hesitated a moment, then said primly: "Good-night, everybody."

[Ill.u.s.tration: She read it again by the light of the candle.]

"Good-night," they chorused politely, as they might to any stranger.

Rosie started in, then turned back. "And, Jarge, I forgot to tell you about Monday afternoon. I'm sorry I can't go with you but Tom Sullivan invited me first."

"That so?" George said, and from his tone, Rosie knew that he didn't understand what she was talking about. Worse still, he wasn't interested enough to find out.

Rosie dragged herself slowly upstairs. In the bedroom, when she felt for matches, she discovered that her hand was still clutching the note which George had given her earlier in the evening. She read it again by the light of the candle. "_... Say, kid, I'm just crazy about you!..._"

Jackie turned over in his sleep and Rosie hastily blew out the candle for fear he should open his eyes and see her tears.

She groped her way to bed in the dark and wept herself miserably to sleep.

CHAPTER x.x.xV

ELLEN MAKES AN ANNOUNCEMENT

The next morning at breakfast Ellen declared herself. She addressed her mother, but what she had to say was for the whole family.

"I just want to tell you, Ma, I'm done with stenography forever. 'Tain't my line and I know it and I should have known it long ago. Now you needn't argue because that's all there is about it."

Mrs. O'Brien looked at Ellen blankly. "Why--why, Ellen dear," she stammered, "what's this I hear you saying?"

Ellen repeated her announcement slowly and distinctly.

"But, Ellen," Mrs. O'Brien protested, "how can you talk so and the beautiful way you've been getting on and the beautiful way Mr. Hawes has been treating you? And what will Mr. Hawes say--poor, kind-hearted gentleman that he is! Oh, Ellen dear, with your fine looks and your fine education I beg you not to throw it all away!"

Mrs. O'Brien mopped her eyes with her ap.r.o.n and pleaded on. It did not occur to her to ask the reason for Ellen's sudden decision. After all, sudden decisions were merely characteristic of Ellen. Terence, however, peered at his sister sharply.

"Huh! Seems to me stenography was all right yesterday! What's happened to make you change your mind? Did that Hawes fellow say something to you last night at the Island?"

Ellen had decided that the family were not to know the details of the previous night's adventure and, before they came down in the morning, she had pledged Rosie to secrecy. Yet some sort of explanation had to be offered. She looked at Terry now with a candour that was new to her and that did much to win his support.

"Terry," she began slowly, with none of her usual aggressiveness, "you always thought my going to that business college and trying to do office work was foolish. You've said so all along. I didn't use to believe you were right but I do now. I'd never do decent office work in a hundred years. I'm sorry all the money you and dad had to put up and I'll pay you back if I can."

"Gee!" murmured Terry in astonishment, "you sure must have got some blowing up to make you feel that way about it!"

"Well, that's the way I do feel," Ellen said quietly.

"But, Ellen," Mrs. O'Brien wailed, "you don't mean it--I know you don't!

Why, what'll you do if you throw up this fine position with Mr. Hawes?

Nowadays a girl can't sit at home and do nothing! She's either got to work or get married." Mrs. O'Brien paused with a new idea which her own words suggested to her. "Is it--is it that you're getting married?"

Ellen spoke quickly: "Ma, I expect to work and I'm going to work. But I'm going to do something I can do well."

"That you can do well!" echoed Mrs. O'Brien. "I don't rightly catch your meanin', Ellen. Here you've landed a fine position and your boss is a nice friendly gentleman and now you're turning your back on it all to take up something else! I don't understand you at all, at all! And to think," Mrs. O'Brien concluded brokenly, "of the skirts and s.h.i.+rtwaists that I've stayed up all hours of the night to iron for you, just to keep you lookin' sweet and clean down at that office!"

"Ma, I'm sorry to disappoint you--honest I am. But, don't you see, it's just this way: I've made a bad mistake and the sooner I get out of it the better it will be for me. What I ought to do is something I can do."

"Something you can do, indeed! And will you tell me, me lady, what is it you can do so much better than stenography?"

Ellen flushed but answered firmly: "I can trim hats."

"Trim hats!" screamed Mrs. O'Brien. "What's this ye're sayin'? Do you mean to tell me that you're willing to be a milliner when you might be a stenographer? Why, anybody at all can go and be a milliner!"

"Anybody can't be a fine milliner. And you needn't think there isn't good money in millinery. The head of a big millinery department gets a couple of thousand a year!"

Mrs. O'Brien blinked her eyes. "Has some one been offering you that kind of a position?" Her tears ceased to flow. Once again she beamed on Ellen with all her old-time pride. "Ah, Ellen, you rogue, you're keeping something back! Come, tell me what's happened!"

Ellen sighed helplessly. "Ma, I'm trying to tell you, but you make it awful hard for me. You go off every minute and don't give me a chance to finish."

Mrs. O'Brien folded her hands complacently. "Ellen dear, I won't utter another syllable--I promise you I won't. Now tell me in two words what's happened."

"Well, Ma, it's this: I'm through with stenography and I'm going in for millinery, which I think I can do better."

"But where, Ellen, where are you going in for it? That's the great p'int!"

"I'm going to try Hattie Graydon's aunt first. She always says that not one of the girls in her shop begins to have the taste that I've got, and one time she told me if ever I wanted a job to come to her."

The happy look in Mrs. O'Brien's face slowly faded. Tears again filled her eyes. "And is that all you've got to tell me?"