== — Bellefonte, Pa., August 27, 1926. RA Ii. IT WILL ALL COME OUT RIGHT. Whatever is a cruel wrong, Whatever is unjust, The honest years that speed along Will trample in the dust; In restless youth I railed at fate With all my puny might, But now I know if I but wait, It all will come out right. Though Vice may don the Judges gown And play the censor’s part, And Fact be cowed by Falsehood’s frown And nature ruled by art; Though labor toils through blinding tears And idle Wealth is might, I know the honest, earnest years ~ Will bring it out all right. Though poor and loveless creeds may pass For pure religion’s gold; Though ignorance may rule the mass While truth meets glances cold— I know a law complete, sublime, Controls us with its might, And in God’s own appointed time It all will come out right. —XElla Wheeler Wilcox . REALITY. Just as quietly and mysteriously as Helen Tennant had disappeared from the great Flemish oak settle two years ago, she reappeared now on that same settle. Except indeed that the cushions be- hind her back were rose-colored now instead of blue, and that the filmy white frock of two years ago was faintly antedated and rusty-looking, the scene itself was set exactly as be- fore—a lovely pastel-tinted room with French windows opening widely to- ward the garden and the sea; great bowls of ping phlox on the mantel- piece; two men and two women play- ing bridge at a marvelous teakwood table inlaid with mother-of-pearl— and that vague, filmy, fifth figure in one corner of the settle, No one had specially noted two years ago either the manner or the measure of her going, so quiet it had been, so perfectly casual, so seeming- ly unportentious: just four people glancing idly up to note that where there had been some one, there sud- denly was no one. : But now—four people glancing idly up to note that where there had been no one, there suddenly was some one. Ah! That was quite a different mat- ter. A gasp! A scream! Four peo- ple jumping wildly to their feet, and Torrey Bradence, of all people, Torrey Bradence, the cool, the calm, the per- fectly conditioned, toppling over ig- nominiously in a crumpled heap on the floor! Yet considering the fact that Tor- rey Bradence had been engaged to Helen Tennant when she disappeared, and was now engaged instead to the pale and pastel-tinted girl and part- ner, sitting opposite him at the bridge table, what else in the world was there for Torrey Bradence to do except to acknowledge with thanks the single merciful moment of oblivion which Fate was kind enough to accord him? “Merciful heavens,” said the appa- rition, perfectly casually, “haven’t you people finished that game yet?” Pretty Lois Wharton, bending fren- ziedly over her lover’s prostrate form, lifted a stricken face to the question. “Loosen his collar,” suggested the apparition casually. “Torrey always fas a lad who liked his collar loosen- ed—if your fingers weren’t too cold!” Smiling a little as she said it, the girl came out of the shadow of the settle and stood before them, reassur- ingly corporeal, indisputably alive. Wainright, with his hand already on | the telephone instrument—Alice Wainright with her hand clutching at her husband’s shoulder—stayed their purpose instinctively at the look in Helen Tennant’s eyes. “What in the world were you plan- ning to do?” she demanded. “Telephone your step-father,” stam- mered Wainright. He was her cousin and spoke with authority. “Cut it!” said Helen Tennant. “I’ll do my own ‘risin from the dead,’ thank you!” Her nostrils, faintly dilating, picked up some sudden scent, appar- ently, that pleased her utterly. “Do I smell coffee?” she questioned, and started for the dining-room. Gibbering like an imbecile, Lois Wharton jumped up and ran to pour it for her. : Still gasping with astonishment and shock, Wainright and his wife went stumbling after them. Perching herself nonchalantly on the arm of a chair, Helen Tennant took the proffered cup and bent her lips with palpable satisfaction. “Oh,” she said, “cocoa may be a frivolity and tea little more than a subterfuge, but coffee is certainly one of the realities!” “ ‘Realities?’ ” gasped a pice from the hall. Vaguely framed in the door- way, clutching desperately at door- jamb, loomed Bradence’s towering fig- ure. Yearningly, Lois Wharton reached a succoring hand to him, and drew it sharply back again with a purely ner- vous titter of self-consciousness. “Don’t mind me,” said Helen Ten- nant, and drained her steaming cup. “Where—where in the world have you been, Helen?” demanded Bra- dence. “Away,” glowed Helen. Thus viv- idly might she have boasted, France, Spain—some far, strange country of the Orient. “Away!” “But your d-dress?” stammered Alice Wainright. Almost furtively as she stammered, she took a crush- ed, filmy fold of the fabric in her hands and twittered it through her fingers. “Yes, isn’t it a fright?” deprecated Helen Tennant. “And I thought, you know, I looked rather nice, till I saw you and Lois. “Oh, no, no, not that!” babbled Al- ice Wainright. “But—but it’s dry!” “Did you think it would be wet?” frowned Helen. She looked just a lit- tle bit surprised. - “And your hair?” babbled Alice. “F-forty f-fathoms deep, forty— f-fathoms deep, forty—f-fathoms—" Impulsively Wainright clapped his hand across his wife’s mouth. “You see—we thought you had been drowned, Helen,” he explained labor- iously. ! “Your family were distracted,” gasped Bradence. “Your friends—” “Perfectly sure it wasn’t that th hoped I'd been drowned?” giggle Helen Tennant quite frankly. “Helen!” protested Bradence. “Helen!” protested Lois. Wide-eyed and serene, Helen Ten- nant bent forward suddenly to scan Their problem of course was appall- ing, and its solving, it would seem, being mental as well as physical, lay rather between woman and woman, than between man and woman. Al- most tenderly, she reached her hand toward the woman. “Don’t worry so, Lois!”’ she implor- ed her. “I am nothing to Torrey any more, nor he to me, ever, ever any more!” “Helen!” gasped Lois. “Helen!” gasped Bradence. “Another cup of coffee, please,” de- manded Helen with frank greediness. Eagerly they plied her with anoth- er. “It’s you who need it most, Harry,” she murmured gravely over Wain- right’s shaking hand. “But—but, Helen ?”” protested Alice. The girl on the arm of the chair stopped swinging her heels suddenly, and looked at her companions. A rather curious interlaying of estab- lished health and transient delicacy lay over her face, pallor masking sun- burn, as it were—all the lovely, rud- dy-brown tints of summer and sea glowing like an unquenchable fire un- der the pallor. “Silly duds!” she said. “You think I'm crazy, don’t you? But you also thought I was drowned, please re- member; and it turned out quite defi- nitely that I wasn’t!” “Helen! Where have you been?” persisted Wainright stubbornly. Im- pulsively, as he asked, he reached in- to his breast pocket for a miniature line-a-day book and began to rumple through the pages. “Yes! By Jove!” he cried out triumphantly, “it is just exactly two years ago tonight that you went away! This is the second anniversary!” Once again the girl on the arm of the chair looked just a little bit sur- prised. “Why, of course, it’s just two years ago tonight that I went away!” she said. “The second anniversary; I would have come back for the first one,” she added suddenly, with a faint flicker of amusement, “except that— You see, I happened to be extraotrdi- narily busy with something else!” Like the mirth of a child hex laugh rang out suddenly. “You were sitting there,” pointed Yejmgnt, “in the corner of the set- tle. “No,” corrected Helen Tennant, perfectly gravely, “it was in the oth- er corner!” : “I—I wore a dark blue dress,” bab- bS) Atiee Wainright. **Wery dark blue,” acquiesced Hel- en. “I had just knocked over a vase of roses,” stammered Bradence. “A bowl of reses,” corrected Helen. “It was my deal,” faltered Lois. “Your deal,” conceded Helen. It was then, for the first time, that all the shock and ghostliness of the amazing incident seemed to drop away from everybody like a clammy i cloak, leaving only the facile, warm- blooded undergarment of old friend- i ship, or at least of old association, { waiting to wrap itself in all tender- ness and mercifulness around such stark or naked facts as had best be kept from the world. At any cost, at | any price, they had all decided, as if iby a single intutition, this eerie girl { before them must not be startled, af- i frighted, driven back upon herself, i until the truth itself were told, and, being told, was ready to be acted upon. | “But Helen dear, how did you go?” implored Alice Wainright. Her arms | were ’round the girl as she asked it. i “Through the ceiling ? | floor? Out the window?” | “Through the French window,” ; smiled Helen Tennant. Hcwever na- i ked the truth might prove, it at least : stalked unashamed apparently. “Toward the garden, or toward the sea?” insisted Wainright. “Through the French windows, to- ward the sea,” said Helen Tennant. “Yes, but, Helen—" protested Bra- dence. A little frown showed sudden- ly on his forehead. “Yes, but, Helen, I sat directly facing the French win- dows that open toward the sea. You couldn’t possibly have slipped that way without my seeing you.” Absolutely without guile, yet with a certain half-humorous sort of shrewd- Sess, the girl turned and looked at im. “You seem to forget, Torrey,” she said, “that on that night, as tonight, it was Lois Wharton who was sitting opposite you, and already, even then, her little head was beginning to block horizon.” “Yes, but, Helen, why did you go?” interrupted Alice Wainright, just a bit hectically. “I went because I was tired,” said Helen Tennant, quite simply. “Tired 7” gasped Wainright. “Tired? You?” “But you said you liked your work 80 much,” fluttered Lois Wharton. “Just those few hours every morn- ing at the library?” puzzled Alice Wainright; “and you certainly didn’t need to do even that unless you really wanted to. Surely, your step-father Jith his great income and his posi- ion—" Very slowly, very softly, Helen Tennant’s hand went creeping up to her forehead, brushed a bright strand of hair away from her eyes. “It—it was play that I was tired of,” she said. “Play?” stammered Bradence. “Games!” said Helen Tennant. “Tennis, golf, baseball, archery, the | whole gamut. Tired of house parties, out various larger things from your | the two dismayed faces before her. | | | Through the Sp Nhs tired of dancing, tired of flirting and fooling, tired, I mean, of always and forever being expected to prance, when the only thing in the world I wanted to do was just to plod, plod, plod, and thén rest.” “