Richmond Palladium (Daily), Volume 33, Number 64, 19 April 1908 — Page 9

By Porter Emerson Browne M all

THE FOILING OF LYDIA

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w HISTLING blithely, if unmusically, Don nelly mounted the three cement steps that led into the little hallway of the flat-house -wherein abode the One Woman and vigorously pushed the button above the letter-box. Ordinarily the eager, welcoming clicking of the door-lock wa3 almost coincident with the pressure of his thumb. But to-night it was not; and there ensued a long, long pause. And when at length the lock did click, it seemed to do so hesitatingly, doubtfully, uncertainly. But Donnelly was too happy in his thoughts and hopes and plans to notice; and he leaped up the narrow stairs, three at a time, to the third floor. And there, as ordinarily, she was awaiting him in the door of the little parlor. Mr. Malone, as Donnelly entered, looked up from his newspaper. " 'D avenln', Macchew, me bye," he greeted cordially. " 'Tis th' dlvvle's own toime they do be havln' at Aubenny, be bivins. Such a lot av lallygaggin' an' shenanigin' Oi niver did see in all me born da-ays. After r'adin' it all over an' considerin it careful loike, - ix . Oi've med up me moind they ain't a honest rich ma-an ' In th counthry nor a dishonest poor wan, an' if th' Tich should become poor an' th' poor grow rich, 'tis a dlvvle av a hole th' counthry'll be in, he hivins! What wid Tiddy Roseyvilt callin' ivery ma-an thot don't agree wiJ him a liar an' ivery ma-an tliot don't Agree wid Tiddy Roseyvilt callin' him th' sa-ame an' manny av thim, shure a poor workin' ma-an"s put to ii. bad to ma-ake hid 'r tail out av th' whole domm'd blz'ness, he Is so, be hivins!" To the unmusical accompaniment of the clattering ,of dishes, the shrill voice of Mrs. Malone was heard from where she was at work in the kitchen. 'Tathrick! Pathrick! Oi sa-ay!" It was enough. Mr. Malone had been well trained; and so, meekly abandoning that which was to have toen, to him, at least, a most interesting political discussion, and taking his evening paper in one hand and hi3 shoes in the other, he humbly quitted the room, leaving his daughter and Donnelly alone. For l'sooth, he was a welcome suitor, was Donnelly! Donnelly proceeded to seat himself spaciously on the sofa. "Come over here, Nellie, girl," he said, spreading ,a broad palm at the vast vacancy beside him. "I've got it all fixed, ring an' all," he announced exuberantly. "Le me tell yuh all about it." The girl, from her seat on the piano-stool, looked up shyly and shook an indecisive, hesitating negative. Donnelly sat up straight. "What's the matter, Nellie?" he asked. "Why, what is It, girlie? Has anything gone wrong with you?" She did not reply. Quickly Donnelly rose and went to her. "What is it?" he demanded tensely. "Something's happened something must 'a' happened tun make yuh ac' like this. Tell me what it is." He had placed a tender, eager hand upon her lithe shoulder; and the girl, slowly, reluctantly, withdraw from its touch. For an Instant she was silent; and then, the quivering lips firmly set, she said slowly, very slowly, and chokingly: "I I I can't marry you. Matt." He started back quickly. "Why, wha' d' yuh mean, Nellie?" he demanded, amazed. "Can't marry me! Why? Why Don't yuh love me no more? Don' yuh?" Her hands, closed one over the other in her lap, clenched nervously; her eyes filled with tears. "It isn't that," she replied hastily. "I do love you, Matt, dear. Really, really, I do! But " "Then why can't yuh marry me':" he asked bewilderlngly. She did not reply; her hands clenched more tightly. "Tell me why," he commanded. Still she made no response. "Yuh gotter tell rr.e some time. Nellie." he said slowly. "Yuh owe me that much. An' yuh might

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PALUDIll CLASSIFIED ADS BRING RESULTS I m

as well tell me now as to tell me later." The girl lowered dark lashes over tear-laden eyes. "I will," she replied very softly; and then quickly, with a great effort, as one anxious to be done with a pain-fraught duty as soon aa may be, she said hurriedly, breathlessly, brokenly: "Lydia Love says I can't." Donnelly started. "Who's she?" he demanded savagely. "An' what's she butfin' in here for anyhow, I'd like tub know?" The girl gazsd up at him in surprise. "Why, don't yci know who Lydia Love is?" she asked, in amazed tones. Donnelly shook his head reflectively. "No," he replied. "Never heard of her. Who is she?" "Why," explained the girl, "she's the lady who runs the 'Balm for the Heartsick and Advice to Young Lovers' department in the Evening Gazette. She knows everything." "Oh, she does, does she?" queried Donnelly invidiously. "Why, yes, of course," returned the girl. "If she didn't, she couldn't have charge of a department like that, could she, and in a newspaper, too? Of course, she knows everything about such things as engagements and wedding3 and who we should marry, you know. Why, she tells everyone what to do!" "An do they do it?" demanded Donnelly wonderingly. "Why, of course they do," replied the girl positively. Donnelly was silent. His brain in the performance of his daily duties ai; chauffeur of a grocery wagon, received but little exercise, and here was something that was, for the moment, quite beyond it. "So," continued the girl, and she was talking brokenly now, "although I felt perfectly sure that it was all right for me to marry you, still I thought I'd better ask Lydia Love and make sure. And and and she says I can't!" She buried her face in her hands and wept bitterly. Donnelly eyed the sobbing girl with much perturbation. "Don't cry, Nellie, girl," he pleaded weakly. "I guess mebbe we can find some way out of it. Mebbe she di'n' understand all the circumstances. Aw, don' cry, Nellie. Please don't. Can' yuh see yuh're breakin' me all up, an' if yuh don' stop pretty soon I'm goin' tuh spill, too. Aw, say, listen, Nellie. Don' go on like that 'r yuh paw 'n maw '11 come beatin' it, in here, t'inkin' I'm treatin' yuh like we was married already. There, now. It's all right. It's all right." He led the weeping girl to the sofa, and. seating himself beside her, gently drew her head down upon his shoulder and stroked the tumbled hair with a tenderness that one would not have thought possible from a hand the size of bis. Slowly the girl's sobbings ceased; and at last she sat erect and wiped the tears from her dark eyes. "Tell me all about it, Nellie," said Donnelly gently. The girl brushed a stray wisp of hair back from her cheek and caught it among the piling masses on her head. "1 think I have a copy of the letter I sent," she said, at length. "I wrote it over several times. I'll see if I can find it."

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ir.She rose and went to the little pine writing-desk in one corner of the room. It required only a slight search to find the document in question. "Here it is," she announced, as she again seated herself beside Donnelly on the sofa. "Shall I read it?" He nodded; and, slowly, the girl read: MISS LYDIA LOVE, Dear Madam: I am a young lady twenty-one years old and I am very much in love with a young man five years older. He wants me to marry him and I love him very dearty and my parents have no objection nor have his. He has a good position and he is getting a very large salary, almost, seventeen dollars a week, and he has no bad habits at all. Do you Think that I should marry him? Please answer soon because, it you say it is all right, we want to get mar-

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ried right off. Yours sincerely, ' NELLIE MALONE. P. S. I forgot to say that once, at a chowder party. I saw him take a glass of beer. But I never knew that this was a bad habit until I read it in your column once. "Fine." Donnelly commended. "That's what I call a grand letter. But I don't see what license she's got tuh crab our weddin' on no such t'ing as that. What's the row? Where's her kick?" The girl, without replying, rose and went again to the little desk and from a pigeon-hole took a copy of the Gazette. A heavily underscored paragraph stood out blackly in the center of the page, under a picture of a couple of inordinately corpulent and insufficiently adorned Cupids who were engaged in weaving a clothes-line around a. pair of bleeding hearts. Donnelly directed his small, deep-set eyes upon it. He read laboriously, for Donnelly's school-days had been spent for the main part in the accumulation of other knowledge than that of books. "By no means marry the young man. my dear. It hurts me deeply to say this, but you must remember that youth is the period of development and as the twig is bent so will the tree incline. At present the young man doubtless appears to be of good habits. But the seeds of intemperance have been sown, and. I fear me, will but grow greater with time, thereby making of him a drunkard and you, should you wed him, that most miserable of human kind, a drunkard's wife, Instead, let me suggest that you join some good Sunday-school class, where you are sure to meet some nice, refined, pleasant young men, and among those you will, I am sure, find such a mate as I am sure you deserve to have." Donnelly's interest in the letter saved him from comment until he had reached the end. And once there, he was incapable of comment; which was, perhaps just as well. For he was a strong man in anger. "Now wha' d' yuh think o' that?" he demanded, when he had finally regained his speech. "Wha' d' yuh think o' that? Wouldn' that hump yuh an' hump yuh good? Gee!" and he again became incoherent. "One glass o' suds at Fat Tom Grady's picnic an' I'm a souse!" he cried when again he was able to articulate. "An' me duckin' poolrooms an' hoss-races an' gin-mills all th' time an' never doin nothin' that no one could find fault wit' bein trusted by every guy what knows me an' holdin' responsible jobs, an' standin' ace high wit' th' choich! Well, wouldn't that frost yuh? Wouldn' it?" The girl was crying again; and he forgot his grievances that, he migV. help comfort her. "Never mind. Nellie, girl." he said tenderly. "I'll fin' somo way tuh fix it. Sure I will. There, there, little girl! It's all right." When Nellie had regained control of her emotions he croFsed slowly to the tabic and took his hat from where it lay. His indignation had obsessed him again. "I'm poing out in th' Park an' walk myself tuh death," he announced fiercely in reply to her unspoken query. At the door he turned. "Say, listen. Nellie," he said, "'f yuh Men' Lydia says it's all right, we can get married, can't we? Yuh'll marry me then, won' yuh?"

i . man r V - "COME OVER HERE, NELLIE GIRL." She rose. Quickly she ran to his side and threw her arm3 about bis neck. "Yes!" she cried jubilantly. "Yes! Yes! Yes!" t The four o'clock afternoon edition of the Evening Gazette. went to press somewhere about the hour of six in the morning; thus did its enterprising publishers not only take time by the forelock but by the fetlock as well. And, as a rule, Lydia Love came on duty at about nine or ten o'clock in the evening and stayed from then until about two in the morning. It was a bare and barren waste of work that Lydia trod, a waste relieved only by occasional cheerless oases of food and sleep and drir.k. For 'the lives of those who perform tha routine work cn night-blooming- newspapers are

filled with little but monotony. It is a constricted sphere. Those who dwell thereon work while others play. They piay while others work. They sleep while others are awake, and they are awake while others sleep. And on their one weekly night off. which is arranged by the law of supply and demand rather than by the law of God, they, for they commonly have few friends and fewer interests outside of their business, helplessly haunt the scenes of their labor or drift apathetically to some temple of Bacchus where they are sure to meet other night-offers such as themselves, and thus torture idle moments away until it is time for them to return to their work. The night before had been Lydia's time of trial: and to-night Lydia re-entered the sphere of endeavor and. slumping heavily into a wide, worn chair, pressed a gentle hand to a throbbing brow. Aunt Elvira, of the "Woman's rage." turned from a stack of half-opened letters. "Good evening. Lydia," came the greeting in tones of affected solicitude. " You don't look a bit well this evening. I do hope it's nothing more serious than usual." Lydia Love favored the other merely with a morose and sullen glare. A red-headed copy-boy who. bthind an ensconcing wall of old papers in the corner, was devoting his budding intellect (which was in a fair way to become rotten before it waxed ripe) to the perusal of a dirty, dog-eared copy of "From the Tomb; or the Brigand's Bride," hastily thrust his treasure into the place where a pants-pocket had once been and prepared to attend to his duties; for it was quite patent to bis experienced eye that, as he expressed it beneath hid breath, "ol" Lydia has got anoder grouch on"; heme were storm signals set. Lydia Love turned to the desk and prepared to attack the mail that had accumulated during a day's absence. A dozen letters were opened deftly; and then, from the first envelope Lydia extracted a muchfolded sheet and read: DEAR LYDIA LOVE: I am a young man eightyseven years old, and I am in love with a young lady fifty-one years my junior. Do you think Lydia Love sniffed scornfully. "I think you're old enough to know better," was the caustic comment with which the letter was consigned to the wastebasket. The next was this: I, DEAR MISS LOVE. For eleven years I have been engaged to a young man but I think his love is growing cold for he has not been to see me for over nine months now though he lives right across the street and 1 see him going to work every morning and I think my heart will break and I would be very grateful to you if you will tell me how I may win back his affections and I Lydia Love read no further, but threw the letter across the desk into a basket marked, "To Be Answered," and turned to the next. It was: MY DEAR MISS LOVE: I am a tall dashing blonde, (natural) with kissable red lips and a perfect figure and glorious blue eyes and every one says my manners are quite some fascinating. I hope I don't seem conceited in telling you these things but it ain't no harm for a girl to appreciate her good points, is It?

' JJ,aii?i!L.v it if." , JbU, f.)t'i M mm,: I am in love with a young feKow. I think he's a millionaire because I always see him going past my house in a red automobile or maybf he's the chafer I I think that's the way to spell it.) Will you tell me how I can get acquainted with him because I love him very dearly. J This letter, too, went into the basket, and Lydia turned to the next: ) DEAR MADAM: This Is the nin'h time I have written to you to tell you that I was engaged to marry a girl and everything was going Sne until you butted in and queered it. You told the girl I was a drunkard. You're wrong. I ain't. And I think it's up to you to square things for me because you've put me in a awful muss ar.d I don't see no way out of It unless you take back what you said. I am willing to p.ove

by every cne whe knows mo that I am all right and on the le el and have got no tad habits and you ought to let me. You have broke her heart by butting in like you did. She don't do nothing all day but set around and cry and I feel that I could commit murder with a great deal of pleasure. Flease do something at once. I mean ft. Yours, MATTHEW DONNELLY. P. S. I wisht you was a man. Lydia Love sniffed indignantly. "Well, if there ain't that sorehead again!" ex claimed Lydia -I wonder if I'm going to keep on gpulcg those wails all the rest of my life!" and the offending communication was cast angrily into tha waste-basket as has been its eight predecessor. "This job li have me in the psychopathic ward ra about a week more," muttered the aggrieved Lydia; and with a venomous swing of one arm, the arbiter of affaires du coeur wrathfully swept from the desk into the waste-basket a full half a hundred mora tommunications requesting Advice for Young Lovers and drawing a long, black cigar from his pocket, smelt of it tentatively and then slowly Inserted it beneath the ragged fringe of his mustache. Then he sat ther caressing an aching head with an affectionate and tender palm "Never again!" exclaimed Lydia Ixve fervently. "Never again! This time I swear off. and I swear oft for keeps. Gee! How my head aches!" Aunt Elvira, with a grin, lifted his gaze from his mail. The daily renunciations and remorse of Lydia Ixsve were as unfailing as the hum of the presses: and yet they never failed to evoke their tribute from him of th "Woman's Page." "Nine hundred and 6lxty-seventh appearance of Miss Lydia Love in her famous recitation. 'Doubl Crossing the Bar,' " he announced dramatically. "I say, Lydia " He was interrupted by a knock on the door; and a large, square young man appeared before them. "My name's Donnelly," he announced curtly. ! wan' tuh see Miss Lydia Love." Aunt Elvira, with a debonair and Delsartlc swoop of his pencil, indicated the other occupant of tha room. "There is Miss Love," he eald politely. "And I don't believe It will take you long to see all you want to." Donnelly started and stared; and then he atared again. Then he rubbed his eyes carefully and focussed them painstakingly upon the man indicated; and a great, surging Joy swirled through him. beginning at the ends of his toe and rushing turbulently to the roots of his hair, and his hands clenched and unclenched itchingly as he surveyed a Burly, grumpy, dissipation-marked male face Instead of the claaslo female lineaments and high, Grecian forehead that he had expected to sets and had expected to face with such helplessness that only hla great love and the thoughts of his weeping Nellie had made It possible for him to carry out the plan he had begun. He turned to the man whose word In matters of the heart and hand had been his law. "Are you Lydia Love?" he demanded eagerly, hopefully, and perhaps a bit fearfully, for he dreaded lest there might be some mistake. "Yes," grunted the other. "Wha d'yer want?" "An' there ain no other Lydia Love, la theref queried the other anxiously. "Naw," was the surly response. "Wba d'yer want, anyhow?" Donnelly didn't bother to make reply. He couldn't wait. All through the long days and longer nights there had been swirling In hla tortured brain the thought of Nellie's suffering, and his own the throbbing of dashed hopes and the burning sting of a future blasted. His cup of bitterness was full. And he emptied It at a turn. Aunt Elvira and the copy-boy looked on with Infinite glee, and encouraged Donnelly with well-timed advice and helpful comment. Lydia Love was not popular tave with her readers; and with them only because they knew her through print and by her picture, which was really that of a stage favorite of twenty years ago. And when, at length, Donnelly grabbed Lydia by one coat-tail and dragged him from under his desk, the copy-boy for he had heard Lydia's assailant say through the thick of battle cry: "Now you come along wit' me" ran quickly to prevent any aid being given Lydia by the presiding genius of the elevator. Thus It was that there was no Interference as Donnelly dragged the arbiter of affairs of the heart out into the elevator and thence to the street. Donnelly explained to the inquiring conductor of the car they boarded that he "was on'y takin' bis frlen home, an he'd see he di'n make no distolbance." They alighted at East Twelfth street and with Donnelly holding Lydia Love firmly by one arm, they progressed a few doors eastward; and then up the cement steps and Into the little hallway. And Donnelly pushed the little button Just above the letterbox. There was an utter lull In the proceedings. Donnelly stood silently triumphant. Lydia Love said things that he could never have printed. "13 that you. Nellie?" Bald Donnelly, at length, to the speaking-tube. "Yes, it's me. Say, listen. Come down, will yuh? What? No, there's a frien' o' yourn down here Well, not eggsactby a frien but someone you'd ought tuh meet No, we can't come up. He I mean she can't stay long All right. Don' be long." rf The ceremonial of Introduction waa quickly performed; and Lydia's consent and approval, after all, was found not to be essential to the question of the marriage ceremony. And, though it wa3 late, the arbiter of affaires du coeur was soon left alone in the little hallway to listen to the retreating steps of two pairs of feet on the stairs. Whereat Lydia Love heard and heeded the call of Bacchus and repaired to hi3 most convenient temple. It was not far away; for the followers of the god In New York are many, tis temples not few; and the Evening Gazette next morning gave no Balm to the Heartsick nor Advice to Young Iovtrs. And such was the sincerity and devoutnesa of t:3 worship that, by the time morning had again dawned, Lydia Love tai forgoen completely even the addrss of those v.'o Lai parsed forever beyond Li3 aid and counsel.