Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 186, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 August 1914 — BEAUTIFUL MAID MARY [ARTICLE]

BEAUTIFUL MAID MARY

By HARMONY WELLER.

newspapers, yet there was no alternative. He must have some one to look after his home and he was old-fash-ioned enough to feel that a woman and not a man should do it.

When he answered Mary Perkins' ring at the door bell Everly hoped it would be an applicant waiting there. The girl standing outside was slight Her hair was neatly brushed back and her eyes looked curiously large through the thlck-lensed glasses she wore. Her skin was of a dull, almost Indian hue. “I have come In answer to your advertisement for a maSd,” she said, and Everly opened the door. * . His writing den was nearest to the entrance, and-thither he led Mary Perkins. • - “All that is essential for me is/' he said to her, “that yon pan keep house intelligently—and quietly.” He looked at the glr|,in so helpless a way that Mary was tempted to laugh. “If you could manage in half a day I would much prefer your being here only from ten o'clock until after my dinner in the middle of the day.” “That will suit me,” Mary replied. And from the very beginning Mary took complete possession of Everiy’s establishment. >

So excellent was Mary’s cooking that Everly ventured to suggest one of the dreams of his author’s mind. Always, since the beginning of his literary career he had wanted to have editors and publishers dining at his own table. " “That is,” thought Everly, “it is easy if Mary will stay and serve dinner.” He went forthwith to the door and called her. , * When she stood beside him, Everly found his eyes opening a trifle wider than was usual with them. Mary seemed so different, so altogether different from the girl she had been. It took him a moment or so to realize that the thick-lensed glasses had been discarded; that the skin was curiously fair and the. hair wonderfully riotous. “You called me, sir?” Mary suggested. •

“I called the old Mary. What have you done to yourself?* “I grew-tired of looking so plain,” she admitted. “When I applied for the position I was very much in need and I felt certain you would not engage me as a maid if—’’ she broke off with downcast eyes. "I most certainly would not!” said Everly with conviction. He sighed a second later and Mary asserted her rights as a successful domestic. “My fingers have not lost their cunning with the culinary art just because 1 am less homely than you thought me. I can serve as good a meal-and keep your house as clean as I ever did.” “1 am perfectly 'well aware of all these faqts,”' Everly admitted, “but that does -not alter fact that you are far too lovely, too altogether beautiful to—’’ he broke off and amilpd at the* humor of the situation.

“Too -beautiful to -v-what?” asked Mary. “Well—the fact is.” admitted Everly, “that it has been the dream of my life to have a home to which 1 can in* vite my. friends. I wanted, next Saturday night, to give a small dinner party to six men, that is—providing would have been willing to arrange everything for me." “And why may I not? I can stay all day Saturday and I will plan and a dinner that will make the editors accept every story you send them.” “And have them all vying .with each other for your attention when' they see you—no, thanks.” Because Everly was completely mystified as to his own sudden emotions and quite unable to cope with the situation he turned to his typewriter. That movement had always been Mary’s cue to exit.

It was scarcely five minutes before he heard her soft knock on his study door. When she came in he laughed aloud, partly from relief and partly because of his new emotion.’' Mary’s skin was dark; her heavy glasses were in place, and her hair was severely drawn-back. “How many covers shall I arrange for—for the dinner party, sir?” she questioned. Everly jumped to his feet, took the glasses from her eyes, dragged tho pinioned tendrils of soft gold hair from their captivity and laughed whimsically down into Mary’s flushed face. . “1 have thought of the only possible way to keep you,” he said breathlessly, for things had happened rather suddenly, “you understand—do you not, dear?” A moment later Mary looked np. “But" the dinner—l want to serve ♦hat” * “I have toM yon the one condition, under which you can preside," Everly said firmly; “either yoware here as my wife or not at all. I would have ! to get a strange girl If yon—” “If I let you—which I will not,** Mary whispered softly* f * * > (Copyright, IM4, by the McClUro Nawsp*- . -I* Svndlceta)