Contrary Mary

xed Institution and is Met by Flaming Arguments;

r the New Year. But before she

ything to you abo

t Por

ng him. Anybody can see that he's

dy. She's an independent little creature

any future for Barry, unless he marries Leila. If he were not so irrespon

her mending, and Aunt Fra

. He's-- Did you notice on Christmas Day, I

es had seen things which Mary had thought were hidden. She had not nee

r lips. She would not tell Frances

deprecatingly, "and I am sorry that Ge

trong but himself. I wish he had some of Porter Bigelow's steadi

in time

might have been rich when he died, if he hadn't been such a dream

ore. They had been shopping, and had lunched together at a popular tea room. It was while they sat in t

Constance is s

Mary responded; "

mple and marry Porter Bigelo

Porter, Aunt Frances. I d

ette, "If you don't marry," she de

t under

on. And the house is rapidly losing its value. The neighborhood isn't what it was when your father bought it, and you can't rent rooms when nobody wants to come out here to live.

Frances, a woman hasn't any right to marry just because she thinks it is her best chance. She has

dame opposite her, "but as I said before, if

met it defiantly. "If the worst co

Aunt Frances told her coldly; "don't be sill

the two ate their salad with diminished appet

th just the difference between the ideals of twenty years ago and to-day. You haven't either of you an idea of the world as

e's voice which amazed Aunt Frances. "She'll make things come right

o bend for hours over a yellow pad on which she made queer hieroglyphics. And it was throug

ne morning, haggard a

rison. What, after all, were those thousands who wended their way every morning to th

tenographer who sat next to him. "Miss Terr

sprinkle of gray in her hair. But she was well-groomed and ni

d, snapping a rubber ba

ays at t

t nine hundred, and now I

ays in t

een here as long as I, and some of them much longer. There's Maj

as if you were s

ation. "It really isn't bad for a woman. There aren

He waked every morning with the day's routine facing him-knowing that not once in the eight hours w

t to the diversions of a prisoner in his cell. And, when he ate lunch with a group of fellow clerks in

ually ate, inexpensively, he entered a luxurious up-town hotel. There he read the pa

his own kind and class. Musketeers of modernity, they found their adventures on the cit

y. "Here's Whittington," he said. "You ought to hear his poem, fel

looseness of his phrasing, the flush on his cheeks were

erry's car to the Country Club, and you can give it

h, well, if you don't want to, you needn't," he

until he was lost in the crowd, then

t of pink hyacinths. She sat up, yawned, and welcomed him with a little coaxing note. When he had set

was roused an hour later

to find Mary o

lle is at the opera with some old friends. Barry expected to be here with me, but he hasn't com

, but he saw that

t. But I seemed suddenly to have a sort of nervous panic, and I tho

going to give me an evening with

r. Poole, I wonder if you can tell me-about the examination

se they require sp

enough, but I wonder if

red. "

o hampering sometimes-they'd all object-except Aunt Isabelle, but

s Terry and her machine-made personality. What had this girl with the fai

. "A woman's place is in the home-it

t a man to fight a

ays be some one

But what if I don't care to

o be other things,

for e

ov

. I want a man to say to me, 'Come, let us fight the battle together.

anguage, yet there was that

men enough in the world to take care of

t I let Barry take care of me, or Constance-and go on

t you to know that there'll be a live-h

and she couldn't love again. And if she had had an absorbing occupati

nd think of it," she ended, "right here in our gard

, then Mary said: "So that's why I'm trying to learn something-that will have

d he set himse

, "to acquire speed, is to

oes sometimes, b

t. I should

mind? Could we pra

dship in which he served

ed his eyes, the slim white figure in the bi

d by, until with a s

what is kee

. "I saw him down-town. I think he was on his way to t

fri

lled one of

hate Jerry Tuckerman, and Barry promis

it, but he saw that she was st

ing? And what a brave little thing she

the Country Club-I might be able

f you

even while they spoke of him, Bar

n the stairs, and a voice was singing-a strang

a slender shrinking figure; was coming with her brother up the lower flight. Bar

e threshold of the boy's room. The door opened and shut, and she was alon

her sides, then turned and laid her face against th