Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 June 1894 — MOTHER’S PLANNING. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

MOTHER’S PLANNING.

Lonion Black and White.

AM invited down to Bulkeley-s on purr pose—l am perfectly aw,are °f the sact —■ an d I because I k now can mana £0 the situation. No

one ever called me a “nice girl,” but they have often said I am clever — and even spiteful. I am, He is an only son—l am an only daught.er. He has money and position. So have I. That makes all the difference. It would not be of the slightest advantage to either of us that we should marry, and yet there is an imbecile desire on the part of our mutual parents that Algernon Bulkeley and I should hit it off together. Algernon and I played togetheras children. lam two years his senior, though he does not know it. I am thoroughly acquainted with his character, but he knows absolutely nothing of mine. He considers me charming, but eccentric; pretty but not —‘smar tj’-’he hasn ’ t the slightest in ten -

IF I HAD NOT SEEN THE PAIR ADVANCING TOWARD US HAND IN HAND. tion of proposing. I am the standing dish on the sideboard, always there and never cut. Algernon knows I don’t want, to be cut and respects me accordingly. He and I are the best of friends and he is stolidly delighted when I accept his mother’s frequent invitations to Bulkeley. I have been down there at least a half dozen times this season. Why should I not? It is a charming place [it will never be mine,) the air is good and revives my faded roses. I meet nice people there and occasionally do a little flirtation on my own accoun t. A Igernonlooking tamely on. His father is devoted to me and his mother loves me like the daughter-in-law I never shall be. Algernon is a young mam with a heavy, dough-like consistency, with the air of . a gentleman. He has a bad figure, but he is faultlessly dressed. He has settled opinions on politics, the wheat crop and the poor laws. He does everything decently and in order, and never mixes his wines. I respect him, but as for

loving him--! No girl could, I think —no offense to Algernon. His mother loves him so jealously and keeps Such a strict watch on his tardy affections and pulls them up by the roots so often that it is no wonder that at the. age of twenty-nine Algernon is still a bachelor. Only to me does she allow a free hand, but should he tend by so much as the flicker of an eyelid to any other woman she notes it and makes life a burden to him. Algernon naturally prefers a quiet life and is careful to give her no cause for umbrage as regards other girls, but he distinctly discourages her plans for me by a carefully studied system of . neglect in public. The cold shoulder which Algernon heaves at me at breakfast,lunch and dinner is quite unmistakable. His program never alters. On Saturday night he hardly addresses a syllable to me. On Sunday he goes a long bicycle ride and comes home to supper hungry and sleepy. On Monday morning he breaks through the ice of his reserve —the end is so near—

and takes me a solemn walk around the garden. Then he talks twenty to the dozen—and all about himself. Oddly enough, this adamantine young gentleman has a heart of the softest, and it has been touched several times, as I happen to know — once in Australia, where he was sent to open his mind, and once in Hong Kong, where there is a girl he writes to. Then there is an American girl in Buffalo who sends him her photograph once a year ever since she left England. These are safe distances: Then, in town—Algernon goes up now and then, but I shall never forget the row there was when he wanted to take rooms there —Algernon, had a good time. He is like Tony Lampkin, too shy to cope with women of the world, and his social successes have been chiefly among young ladies one knows by name rather than reputation. No, that’s unfair; Algernon has too great a sense of his own dignity to—l only mean that suburban and bohemian tea tables know him best, where he meets people who are not quite Bulkeley “form.” If his mother only knew! She watches us promenading among the roses and hope springs anew in her withered heart and she expects great things. Algernon and I know better. There was a second-rate sort of musical girl with a banjo staying at Bulkeley last time I was there. It may be taken for granted that she was not eligible or Mrs. Bulkeley would not have had her down. I

don’t think I could have brooked a rival near the throne, even though I did not intend to ascend it myself. But Algernon took no particular notice of her. She spent most of her time upstairs with a headache, and only came down in the evenings to play to us. She had pretty eyes, but that was all, \ . On that particular Sunday morning Algernon went a bicycle ride as usual, Miss \Vakely went to her room with a headache and a cargo of peaches, and I to the high garden with Mrs. Bulkeley. I lay down on the grass a little way behind hen>and lazily surveyed her massive profile, which her son, unluckily, had inherited. She sat there, idly gazing straight before her. Poor woman! She was wondering if I was wondering where Algernon was. Not I ! I had a most amusing novel. “Where is Algernon?” she asked at last, fretfully. I answered cheerfully, “Out on his beloved bicycle, I fancy.” As I spoke I distinctly saw two figures walking by the brink of the toy lake. One was very like Algernon, the other —no, Miss Wakely n was lying down. “Algernon is profoundly cynical, don’t you think, Aloysia?” murmured his mother presently. “His views, if you once get .at them, on men and manners are ” “Most entertaining,” I replied. I was thinking of my book just then, and I had come to the conclusion that it couldn’t have been Algernon I had seen. ’

“Algernon is like his father. William was the most self-contained and secretive of men till I married him. I brought him out. I wish some woman would do the same with Algernon.” “You never give any woman the chance,” I thought, and slowly raised my eyes from my book. Good heavens! that was Algernon and Miss Wakelyn; and she “was drawing him out” with a vengeance! They entered an arbor on my left and sat down— the cold shoulder wasn’t in it. “My boy will make his wife very happy when he does make up his mind,” Mrs. Bulkeley continued, wistfully. “That time seems to be" fast approaching. You and he have always got on so well. Algernon and Aloysia—both beginning with Al. It is a strange coincidence!” What of that? The other girl’s name was Alice! I was getting rather angry. “Algernon is not a flirt,” his mother continued. “No!” I said, for just then her son stooped and kissed Miss Wakelyn, and even at that distance I could tell it was the first time he had ever kissed a woman in his life. “* * * I don’t think he could flirt, do you? He would think it beneath his dignity to trifle with a girl’s affections.” Then it was probable that the scrupulous Algernon would in a very few moments approach and present her with a daughter-in-law. He evidently meant business. Somehow, I had never contemplated Algernon marrying anybody but myself—and certainly not myself. In fact, I had never considered it seriously,but now I felt that Algernon had violated the tacit convention between us. He might have proposed and trusted me to refuse him! I ought to have been allowed to march out with the honors of war. I felt deeply defrauded and began to cast about for a revenge. I soon found it. I have mentioned before that I was not a nice girl. “Oh, do you think so, dear Mrs. Bulkeley?” I said, sneeringly. “Of course he never flirted with me”— she sighed—“but then he knows me too well"—she sighed again. “Still I must say I have seen dear Algernon “Moved?” she said, excitedly. “Moved is a strong word,” I replied, mildly; “bu—these quiet men are always the worst.” . “Aloysia, you frighten me!” . I meant to. I began forthwith to make things warm for Algernon. I mentioned the girl in Hong Kong — I’m not sure it wasn't Tokio, but I wasn’t sure, so I made it Hong Kong,

“Then there was Miss- Miss —I forget her name.” Mrs. Bulkeley, with the light of battle beaming in her eyes, did not allow me to forget it for long. Eagerly did she drink in all the details necessary for her son’s discomfiture —she had thought him foolishly, , idiotically immaculate! He would never hear the last of it, nor would Miss Wakelyn. A troop of cosmopolitan ghosts all ready to claim the faithless Algernon, who had given them hostages—that was the image I evoked! Oh, it was too funny! But the American girl was the best “draw.” I told her how Miss Valence had once pulled Algernon’s hair and called him Ally at a picnic before my very eyes. It is true he was only sixteen at the time, but I omitted, like a true artist, to mention that. I was determined that Algernon and the girl who shammed headache to meet him on the sly—l couldn’t do such a mean thing as that — should rue the day they treated me so unfairly. Mrs. Bulkeley had a way of pegging away at a grievance that had often annoyed me —and I they would have to live with her! They would have Hong Kong for breakfast, Australia for tea and Buffalo girl for dinner every day, and I hoped they would enjoy it. I suppose I should have gone on forever playing Algernon’s Leporello to an attentive parent if,l had not seen the pair advancing toward us, hand, with the rays of the sunset gilding her white dress aud his

curly and red hair, to meet the plentiful crop of dragon’s teeth that I had sown for them. I got up gently and stole back for my third volume. I think I said before I was not a nice girl, and now you know I am not.