1897-] seen in you all that is to be admired; the good, the true, and the beautiful, and, darling, now I love you.” I was about to say more when in the most quiet matter of fact tone that I had heard her use for a long time she broke in on me: “ Harry, what do you suppose your mother would say if she heard you talking that way. ’ ’ To say that I was wet blanketed, is feeble. I was utterly crushed. I had been flattering myself that I had her respect, if not her love, and that with the first, the second was only a matter of time and attention on my part. But to be treated like a child —to have what I then considered the most important utterances that I had ever made looked upon more lightly than the babble of a four-year-old was more than I could stand. Withdrawing hurriedly, and I suppose very ungracefully, from her presence, I made my way home, looking upon myself as a blighted being. To tell the truth, Iliad forgotten all about my literary aspirations in the excitement of the moment, but after thinking the whole thing over in the quiet of my own room I made up my mind that a girl that would treat any fellow the way Helen had treated me wasn’t worthy of my serious consideration. I would try it all over again with Kitty. To be sure, Kitty wasn’t as pretty as Helen, but she was much more vivacious. Still, it wouldn’t do to let anyone know what a rebuff I had had, and to keep others from suspecting things I must make the change of my attentions very gradual. I went at it very systematically, and was very much gratified to notice that no particular attention was paid to my motions. I called on Helen occasionally, but always in the afternoon, while my evenings were reserved for darling Kitty, for so I was in clined to call her to myself. We got along swimmingly together; there never could have been better friends than we were. What beautiful, long, lazy afternoons we spent together under the shade of her father’s trees she in the hammock, or sitting leaning against a tree, while I lay at her feet reading to her from the poets we both loved so well. Of course from poetry our talk drifted to love —at first in the abstract, gradually growing more concrete, until personalities began to enter. I flattered myself that I possessed her confidence and I know I revealed to her the hitherto unsounded depths of my soul. In fact, all went merry as a marriage bell, until, one afternoon when I called to play tennis, I was surprised to hear My Literary Aspirations.
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers