Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 65, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 March 1918 — Irish Eyes [ARTICLE]

Irish Eyes

By HILDA MORRIS

(Copyright, IMS, by the McClure Newspaper Syndicate.) When Bob Ellison was very young he had an Irish nurse. She was a pretty colleen, that nursemaid, her big blue Irish eyes fringed with lashes as black as the glossy braids of hair. Little Bob idolized his Maggie, and years afterwards, when she was but a memory, the sight of blue eyes rimmed with black would recall her dancing feet, her merry voice, her tales of goblins and the “wee folk.” He never hoped to see Maggie again, of course, but he did hope, in some vague, subconscious way, to meet eyes like hers, in a face like hers, sometime, somewhere. AH of us cherish ideals whether we know it or not, and most of them have curious foundations. No one could have been more surprised than Bob Ellison at the suggestion that the ideal of the girl he wished to marry was patterned after the bewitching Maggie of his nursery days. Nevertheless, It was so. Bob went through school and college with none of the love entanglements from which his fellows suffered. There were girls, of course, some of them very nice girls' with whom he liked to dance and swim and occasionally flirt, but —none of them looked like Maggie. The Irish ones were red-haired, or their eyes were brown, or they had too many freckles. It was not until Bob was twenty-six years old and a decided “catch” that he saw a girl with Irish eyes and blue-black hair, a girl whom even Maggie might have envied. It was at a dance that he met her, a debutante affair to which his mother had bade him go with particular injunctions to meet Miss Wayne, “the Miss Wayne of Boston.” Bob’s mother was not unaware of the fact that her son was clever enough and handsome enough to marry whom he would, and she liked 'to fancy an alliance with some old aristocratic family. After Bob had gone to the dance, his mother sat at home, picturing to herself a daughter-in-law, tall, distinguee, a little aloof and awe-inspiring. As for Bob, however, he shook off his mother’s injunctions as soon as he had left the house. Miss Wayne of Boston, Indeed! He knew all about those Boston girls; he had had them for teachers. They were mostly thin and wore spectacles and liked to talk about the English essayists. He had no intention of seeking an acquaintance with Miss Wayne. And as soon as he reached the ballroom he saw the girl with the Irish eyes. She wore blue, a misty floating blue that matched the blue of her eyes, and her sleek hair was black as the twinkling slippers on her trim little feet Some one called her “MaggieRose.” Maggie-Rose, of all lilting Irish names! Some one introduced her to Bob and they danced off together. Maggie-Rose Flynn! He did not care who she was or where she came from, except that she seemed to have come from his land of dreams, his shrine -of ideals. She danced divinely, and when she spoke her voice was divine, too, a merry musical voice such as only Irish maids may have. She was his Maggie to the life, only Car more lovely. But of this Bob was entirely unaware. He had forgotten Maggie; it was only her essence that survived to weave the fabric of his heart’s ideal. Maggie-Rose seemed to like him, too. They danced together a great deal that evening, they had supper together, they sat for a dreamy halfhour in the conservatory. She talked a good deal, but Bob was not really conscious of much that she said; it was the sound ofc her voice that enchanted him, the curve of her red lips when she smiled, the blue of her eyes. If she told him anything about herself he was not aware of it, she remained to him a mysterious fulfillment of a long-cherished dream, a bewitching embodiment of all that was most charming in women. 1 Later some one else claimed her for a dance, and Bob watched her from the shelter of a doorway until some one reminded him that he ought to be dancing with another girl. Reluctantly he turned away his eyes from the graceful form of Maggie-Rose, and the girl with whom he danced found him very silent and stupid and a very bad dancer; in fact, she said that he never would look where he was going, but insisted on gazing over the heads of people as if he were looking for some one, which seemed to her very rude.

Afterwards he tried to find MaggieBose, but she had vanished. No graceful shape in floating bine appeared on the ballroom floor, that is, no shape that was graceful according to Bob’s idea. Maggie-Rose had parently disappeared as completely As If at the stroke of 12, her fairy godmother had changed her Into another form. “What’s become of that Miss Flynn, the one in blue?” Bob asked several of his friends, but no one seemed to know. He hung about the place until almost the last guest had departed, but there was no further sign of MaggieBose. Stranger still, no one seemed to have even heard the name. •’ “Flynn?" they would ask. “Why no, I don’t remember meeting any Miss Flynn." Bob forebore to ask his busy hostess i—« dose friend of his mother’s. He

Could do so later if he had to, but he resolved in the meantime to conduct his own search for Maggie-Ros® Flynn. , After Bob reached home that night he looked up all the Flynns in the directory and marked the ones he thought most likely to be related in some manner to Maggie-Rose. Next day he tried calling them up from a public telephone booth, in each case asking casually for Maggie-Rose, and in each case being misunderstood, maligned and disappointed. By midafternoon he had ascertained that she did not belong to any of the Flynns listed in the directory of his native city. Perhaps she lived with an aunt, or perhaps—horrible thought, she had left town, gone back to some faraway place which she honored by her residence. There seemed'but one thing to do—go back to his hostess of the night before and ask for full particulars regarding Miss Maggie-Rose Flynn, divulging, if need be, his reason for wishing to know. Mrs. Banning herself was not at home that afternoon, but the debutante daughter was; peals of laughter from the library told that she was entertaining some young people at tea. Perhaps she could tell him about Maggie-Rose. Perhaps— But as he entered the door the first person Bob saw was Maggie-Rose herself, sitting by the fire, her blue eyes blue as the shimmery frock she wore, her .gmile more bewitching than ever. “Why, Mr. Ellison;” exclaimed little Miss Banning, much flattered by this visit. “Do come in and have some tea with us. I suppose you met Miss Wayne last night, didn’t you? Maggie Rose has been telling me about some nice man who took her out to supper and from her description I couldn’t think who it could possibly be but you. Now was it?”

“It was,” confessed Bob, “only I didn’t know —Maggie-Rose—was Miss Wayne—” “And I didn’t catch your name, either,” confessed Miss Wayne. “Wasn’t it stupid? I thought all the time that your name was Murphy because you look like a boy I used to know, years ago, whose name was Timmy Murphy. He had brown and a nose like yours—” “Good gracious, Maggie-Rose,” broke in Miss Banning, “Mr. Ellison isn’t Irish!” “Well, I am,” declared Miss Wayne, making a charming moue, “that is one of my grandmothers was. For the rest Pm plain American but Pm glad of a little Irish to balance the Puritan part.” “So am I,”, declared Bob Ellison devoutly. “I was wondering. Miss — Maggie-Rose, whether you wouldn’t like to take a walk in the park this afternoon, or some time —” At dinner that evening Mrs? Ellison, who had permitted herself to indulge in dreams of daughters-in-law for several hours during the day, asked her son what vtfis, to her, a burning question. “Did you meet Miss Wayne last night, the one fropi Boston?” Her son looked slightly qpnfused, as though roused suddenly from dreams of his own. “Eh? Oh, Maggie-Rose? Yes, I met her last night. I meant to tell you— ’* “Maggie-Rose! I mean did you meet Miss Margaret Roseborough Wayne, the Miss Wayne of Boston?” “I met her,” he nodded.” Her name’s Maggie-Rose, and she’s the sweetest girl in all the world, and we’re going to be married. I was just trying to tell you, mother.”