No More Learning

Do you know what I'm
telling you? It'd be an act of God to take a hold of a fellow the like
of that and throw him in the bloody sea. Justifiable homicide, so it
would. Then sloping off with his five quid without putting up a pint of
stuff like a man. Give us your blessing. Not as much as would blind your
eye.

--Charity to the neighbour, says Martin. But where is he? We can't wait.

--A wolf in sheep's clothing, says the citizen. That's what he is. Virag
from Hungary! Ahasuerus I call him. Cursed by God.

--Have you time for a brief libation, Martin? says Ned.

--Only one, says Martin. We must be quick. J. J. and S.

--You, Jack? Crofton? Three half ones, Terry.

--Saint Patrick would want to land again at Ballykinlar and convert us,
says the citizen, after allowing things like that to contaminate our
shores.

--Well, says Martin, rapping for his glass. God bless all here is my
prayer.

--Amen, says the citizen.

--And I'm sure He will, says Joe.

And at the sound of the sacring bell, headed by a crucifer with
acolytes, thurifers, boatbearers, readers, ostiarii, deacons and
subdeacons, the blessed company drew nigh of mitred abbots and priors
and guardians and monks and friars: the monks of Benedict of Spoleto,
Carthusians and Camaldolesi, Cistercians and Olivetans, Oratorians
and Vallombrosans, and the friars of Augustine, Brigittines,
Premonstratensians, Servi, Trinitarians, and the children of Peter
Nolasco: and therewith from Carmel mount the children of Elijah prophet
led by Albert bishop and by Teresa of Avila, calced and other: and
friars, brown and grey, sons of poor Francis, capuchins, cordeliers,
minimes and observants and the daughters of Clara: and the sons of
Dominic, the friars preachers, and the sons of Vincent: and the monks
of S. Wolstan: and Ignatius his children: and the confraternity of the
christian brothers led by the reverend brother Edmund Ignatius Rice. And
after came all saints and martyrs, virgins and confessors: S. Cyr and
S. Isidore Arator and S. James the Less and S. Phocas of Sinope and S.
Julian Hospitator and S. Felix de Cantalice and S. Simon Stylites and
S. Stephen Protomartyr and S. John of God and S. Ferreol and S. Leugarde
and S. Theodotus and S. Vulmar and S. Richard and S. Vincent de Paul and
S. Martin of Todi and S. Martin of Tours and S. Alfred and S. Joseph and
S. Denis and S. Cornelius and S. Leopold and S. Bernard and S. Terence
and S. Edward and S. Owen Caniculus and S. Anonymous and S. Eponymous
and S. Pseudonymous and S. Homonymous and S. Paronymous and S.
Synonymous and S. Laurence O'Toole and S. James of Dingle and
Compostella and S. Columcille and S. Columba and S. Celestine and S.
Colman and S. Kevin and S. Brendan and S. Frigidian and S. Senan and S.
Fachtna and S. Columbanus and S. Gall and S. Fursey and S. Fintan and S.
Fiacre and S. John Nepomuc and S. Thomas Aquinas and S. Ives of Brittany
and S. Michan and S. Herman-Joseph and the three patrons of holy youth
S. Aloysius Gonzaga and S. Stanislaus Kostka and S. John Berchmans
and the saints Gervasius, Servasius and Bonifacius and S. Bride and S.
Kieran and S. Canice of Kilkenny and S. Jarlath of Tuam and S. Finbarr
and S. Pappin of Ballymun and Brother Aloysius Pacificus and Brother
Louis Bellicosus and the saints Rose of Lima and of Viterbo and S.
Martha of Bethany and S. Mary of Egypt and S. Lucy and S. Brigid and
S. Attracta and S. Dympna and S. Ita and S. Marion Calpensis and
the Blessed Sister Teresa of the Child Jesus and S. Barbara and S.
Scholastica and S. Ursula with eleven thousand virgins. And all came
with nimbi and aureoles and gloriae, bearing palms and harps and swords
and olive crowns, in robes whereon were woven the blessed symbols of
their efficacies, inkhorns, arrows, loaves, cruses, fetters, axes,
trees, bridges, babes in a bathtub, shells, wallets, shears, keys,
dragons, lilies, buckshot, beards, hogs, lamps, bellows, beehives,
soupladles, stars, snakes, anvils, boxes of vaseline, bells, crutches,
forceps, stags' horns, watertight boots, hawks, millstones, eyes on a
dish, wax candles, aspergills, unicorns. And as they wended their way by
Nelson's Pillar, Henry street, Mary street, Capel street, Little Britain
street chanting the introit in _Epiphania Domini_ which beginneth
_Surge, illuminare_ and thereafter most sweetly the gradual _Omnes_
which saith _de Saba venient_ they did divers wonders such as casting
out devils, raising the dead to life, multiplying fishes, healing the
halt and the blind, discovering various articles which had been mislaid,
interpreting and fulfilling the scriptures, blessing and prophesying.
And last, beneath a canopy of cloth of gold came the reverend Father
O'Flynn attended by Malachi and Patrick. And when the good fathers
had reached the appointed place, the house of Bernard Kiernan and Co,
limited, 8, 9 and 10 little Britain street, wholesale grocers, wine
and brandy shippers, licensed fo the sale of beer, wine and spirits for
consumption on the premises, the celebrant blessed the house and censed
the mullioned windows and the groynes and the vaults and the arrises and
the capitals and the pediments and the cornices and the engrailed arches
and the spires and the cupolas and sprinkled the lintels thereof with
blessed water and prayed that God might bless that house as he had
blessed the house of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and make the angels of
His light to inhabit therein. And entering he blessed the viands and the
beverages and the company of all the blessed answered his prayers.

--_Adiutorium nostrum in nomine Domini. _

--_Qui fecit coelum et terram. _

--_Dominus vobiscum. _

--_Et cum spiritu tuo. _

And he laid his hands upon that he blessed and gave thanks and he prayed
and they all with him prayed:

--_Deus, cuius verbo sanctificantur omnia, benedictionem tuam effunde
super creaturas istas: et praesta ut quisquis eis secundum legem et
voluntatem Tuam cum gratiarum actione usus fuerit per invocationem
sanctissimi nominis Tui corporis sanitatem et animae tutelam Te auctore
percipiat per Christum Dominum nostrum. _

--And so say all of us, says Jack.

--Thousand a year, Lambert, says Crofton or Crawford.

--Right, says Ned, taking up his John Jameson. And butter for fish.

I was just looking around to see who the happy thought would strike when
be damned but in he comes again letting on to be in a hell of a hurry.

--I was just round at the courthouse, says he, looking for you. I hope
I'm not. . .

--No, says Martin, we're ready.

Courthouse my eye and your pockets hanging down with gold and silver.
Mean bloody scut. Stand us a drink itself. Devil a sweet fear! There's
a jew for you! All for number one. Cute as a shithouse rat. Hundred to
five.

--Don't tell anyone, says the citizen,

--Beg your pardon, says he.

--Come on boys, says Martin, seeing it was looking blue. Come along now.

--Don't tell anyone, says the citizen, letting a bawl out of him. It's a
secret.

And the bloody dog woke up and let a growl.

--Bye bye all, says Martin.

And he got them out as quick as he could, Jack Power and Crofton or
whatever you call him and him in the middle of them letting on to be all
at sea and up with them on the bloody jaunting car.

---Off with you, says

Martin to the jarvey.

The milkwhite dolphin tossed his mane and, rising in the golden poop the
helmsman spread the bellying sail upon the wind and stood off forward
with all sail set, the spinnaker to larboard. A many comely nymphs drew
nigh to starboard and to larboard and, clinging to the sides of
the noble bark, they linked their shining forms as doth the cunning
wheelwright when he fashions about the heart of his wheel the
equidistant rays whereof each one is sister to another and he binds them
all with an outer ring and giveth speed to the feet of men whenas they
ride to a hosting or contend for the smile of ladies fair. Even so did
they come and set them, those willing nymphs, the undying sisters. And
they laughed, sporting in a circle of their foam: and the bark clave the
waves.

But begob I was just lowering the heel of the pint when I saw the
citizen getting up to waddle to the door, puffing and blowing with the
dropsy, and he cursing the curse of Cromwell on him, bell, book and
candle in Irish, spitting and spatting out of him and Joe and little Alf
round him like a leprechaun trying to peacify him.

--Let me alone, says he.

And begob he got as far as the door and they holding him and he bawls
out of him:

--Three cheers for Israel!

Arrah, sit down on the parliamentary side of your arse for Christ' sake
and don't be making a public exhibition of yourself. Jesus, there's
always some bloody clown or other kicking up a bloody murder about
bloody nothing. Gob, it'd turn the porter sour in your guts, so it
would.

And all the ragamuffins and sluts of the nation round the door and
Martin telling the jarvey to drive ahead and the citizen bawling and Alf
and Joe at him to whisht and he on his high horse about the jews and
the loafers calling for a speech and Jack Power trying to get him to sit
down on the car and hold his bloody jaw and a loafer with a patch over
his eye starts singing _If the man in the moon was a jew, jew, jew_ and
a slut shouts out of her:

--Eh, mister! Your fly is open, mister!

And says he:

--Mendelssohn was a jew and Karl Marx and Mercadante and Spinoza. And
the Saviour was a jew and his father was a jew. Your God.

--He had no father, says Martin. That'll do now. Drive ahead.

--Whose God? says the citizen.

--Well, his uncle was a jew, says he. Your God was a jew. Christ was a
jew like me.

Gob, the citizen made a plunge back into the shop.

--By Jesus, says he, I'll brain that bloody jewman for using the holy
name.

By Jesus, I'll crucify him so I will. Give us that biscuitbox here.

--Stop! Stop! says Joe.

A large and appreciative gathering of friends and acquaintances from
the metropolis and greater Dublin assembled in their thousands to bid
farewell to Nagyasagos uram Lipoti Virag, late of Messrs Alexander
Thom's, printers to His Majesty, on the occasion of his departure
for the distant clime of Szazharminczbrojugulyas-Dugulas (Meadow of
Murmuring Waters). The ceremony which went off with great _eclat_ was
characterised by the most affecting cordiality. An illuminated scroll
of ancient Irish vellum, the work of Irish artists, was presented to
the distinguished phenomenologist on behalf of a large section of the
community and was accompanied by the gift of a silver casket, tastefully
executed in the style of ancient Celtic ornament, a work which reflects
every credit on the makers, Messrs Jacob _agus_ Jacob. The departing
guest was the recipient of a hearty ovation, many of those who were
present being visibly moved when the select orchestra of Irish pipes
struck up the wellknown strains of _Come back to Erin_, followed
immediately by _Rakoczsy's March_. Tarbarrels and bonfires were lighted
along the coastline of the four seas on the summits of the Hill of
Howth, Three Rock Mountain, Sugarloaf, Bray Head, the mountains of
Mourne, the Galtees, the Ox and Donegal and Sperrin peaks, the Nagles
and the Bograghs, the Connemara hills, the reeks of M Gillicuddy, Slieve
Aughty, Slieve Bernagh and Slieve Bloom. Amid cheers that rent the
welkin, responded to by answering cheers from a big muster of
henchmen on the distant Cambrian and Caledonian hills, the mastodontic
pleasureship slowly moved away saluted by a final floral tribute from
the representatives of the fair sex who were present in large numbers
while, as it proceeded down the river, escorted by a flotilla of barges,
the flags of the Ballast office and Custom House were dipped in salute
as were also those of the electrical power station at the
Pigeonhouse and the Poolbeg Light. _Visszontlatasra, kedves baraton!
Visszontlatasra! _ Gone but not forgotten.

Gob, the devil wouldn't stop him till he got hold of the bloody tin
anyhow and out with him and little Alf hanging on to his elbow and he
shouting like a stuck pig, as good as any bloody play in the Queen's
royal theatre:

--Where is he till I murder him?

And Ned and J. J. paralysed with the laughing.

--Bloody wars, says I, I'll be in for the last gospel.

But as luck would have it the jarvey got the nag's head round the other
way and off with him.

--Hold on, citizen, says Joe. Stop!

Begob he drew his hand and made a swipe and let fly. Mercy of God the
sun was in his eyes or he'd have left him for dead. Gob, he near sent it
into the county Longford. The bloody nag took fright and the old
mongrel after the car like bloody hell and all the populace shouting and
laughing and the old tinbox clattering along the street.

The catastrophe was terrific and instantaneous in its effect. The
observatory of Dunsink registered in all eleven shocks, all of the fifth
grade of Mercalli's scale, and there is no record extant of a similar
seismic disturbance in our island since the earthquake of 1534, the year
of the rebellion of Silken Thomas. The epicentre appears to have been
that part of the metropolis which constitutes the Inn's Quay ward and
parish of Saint Michan covering a surface of fortyone acres, two roods
and one square pole or perch. All the lordly residences in the vicinity
of the palace of justice were demolished and that noble edifice itself,
in which at the time of the catastrophe important legal debates were in
progress, is literally a mass of ruins beneath which it is to be
feared all the occupants have been buried alive. From the reports of
eyewitnesses it transpires that the seismic waves were accompanied by
a violent atmospheric perturbation of cyclonic character. An article of
headgear since ascertained to belong to the much respected clerk of the
crown and peace Mr George Fottrell and a silk umbrella with gold handle
with the engraved initials, crest, coat of arms and house number of
the erudite and worshipful chairman of quarter sessions sir Frederick
Falkiner, recorder of Dublin, have been discovered by search parties
in remote parts of the island respectively, the former on the third
basaltic ridge of the giant's causeway, the latter embedded to the
extent of one foot three inches in the sandy beach of Holeopen bay near
the old head of Kinsale. Other eyewitnesses depose that they observed
an incandescent object of enormous proportions hurtling through the
atmosphere at a terrifying velocity in a trajectory directed southwest
by west.
Messages of condolence and sympathy are being hourly received
from all parts of the different continents and the sovereign pontiff has
been graciously pleased to decree that a special _missa pro defunctis_
shall be celebrated simultaneously by the ordinaries of each and every
cathedral church of all the episcopal dioceses subject to the spiritual
authority of the Holy See in suffrage of the souls of those faithful
departed who have been so unexpectedly called away from our midst.
The work of salvage, removal of _debris,_ human remains etc has been
entrusted to Messrs Michael Meade and Son, 159 Great Brunswick street,
and Messrs T. and C. Martin, 77, 78, 79 and 80 North Wall, assisted by
the men and officers of the Duke of Cornwall's light infantry under the
general supervision of H. R. H. , rear admiral, the right honourable sir
Hercules Hannibal Habeas Corpus Anderson, K. G. , K. P. , K. T. , P. C. , K.
C. B. , M. P, J. P. , M. B. , D. S. O. , S. O. D. , M. F. H. , M. R. I. A. , B.
L. , Mus. Doc. , P. L. G. , F. T. C. D. , F. R. U. I. , F. R. C. P. I. and F.
R. C. S. I.

You never saw the like of it in all your born puff. Gob, if he got that
lottery ticket on the side of his poll he'd remember the gold cup, he
would so, but begob the citizen would have been lagged for assault and
battery and Joe for aiding and abetting. The jarvey saved his life by
furious driving as sure as God made Moses. What? O, Jesus, he did. And
he let a volley of oaths after him.

--Did I kill him, says he, or what?

And he shouting to the bloody dog:

--After him, Garry! After him, boy!

And the last we saw was the bloody car rounding the corner and old
sheepsface on it gesticulating and the bloody mongrel after it with his
lugs back for all he was bloody well worth to tear him limb from limb.
Hundred to five! Jesus, he took the value of it out of him, I promise
you.

When, lo, there came about them all a great brightness and they beheld
the chariot wherein He stood ascend to heaven. And they beheld Him in
the chariot, clothed upon in the glory of the brightness, having raiment
as of the sun, fair as the moon and terrible that for awe they durst not
look upon Him. And there came a voice out of heaven, calling: _Elijah!
Elijah! _ And He answered with a main cry: _Abba! Adonai! _ And they
beheld Him even Him, ben Bloom Elijah, amid clouds of angels ascend
to the glory of the brightness at an angle of fortyfive degrees over
Donohoe's in Little Green street like a shot off a shovel.



The summer evening had begun to fold the world in its mysterious
embrace. Far away in the west the sun was setting and the last glow of
all too fleeting day lingered lovingly on sea and strand, on the proud
promontory of dear old Howth guarding as ever the waters of the bay, on
the weedgrown rocks along Sandymount shore and, last but not least, on
the quiet church whence there streamed forth at times upon the stillness
the voice of prayer to her who is in her pure radiance a beacon ever to
the stormtossed heart of man, Mary, star of the sea.

The three girl friends were seated on the rocks, enjoying the evening
scene and the air which was fresh but not too chilly. Many a time and
oft were they wont to come there to that favourite nook to have a cosy
chat beside the sparkling waves and discuss matters feminine, Cissy
Caffrey and Edy Boardman with the baby in the pushcar and Tommy and
Jacky Caffrey, two little curlyheaded boys, dressed in sailor suits with
caps to match and the name H. M. S. Belleisle printed on both. For Tommy
and Jacky Caffrey were twins, scarce four years old and very noisy and
spoiled twins sometimes but for all that darling little fellows with
bright merry faces and endearing ways about them. They were dabbling in
the sand with their spades and buckets, building castles as children do,
or playing with their big coloured ball, happy as the day was long. And
Edy Boardman was rocking the chubby baby to and fro in the pushcar while
that young gentleman fairly chuckled with delight. He was but eleven
months and nine days old and, though still a tiny toddler, was just
beginning to lisp his first babyish words. Cissy Caffrey bent over to
him to tease his fat little plucks and the dainty dimple in his chin.

--Now, baby, Cissy Caffrey said. Say out big, big. I want a drink of
water.

And baby prattled after her:

--A jink a jink a jawbo.

Cissy Caffrey cuddled the wee chap for she was awfully fond of children,
so patient with little sufferers and Tommy Caffrey could never be got to
take his castor oil unless it was Cissy Caffrey that held his nose and
promised him the scatty heel of the loaf or brown bread with golden
syrup on. What a persuasive power that girl had! But to be sure baby
Boardman was as good as gold, a perfect little dote in his new fancy
bib. None of your spoilt beauties, Flora MacFlimsy sort, was Cissy
Caffrey. A truerhearted lass never drew the breath of life, always with
a laugh in her gipsylike eyes and a frolicsome word on her cherryripe
red lips, a girl lovable in the extreme. And Edy Boardman laughed too at
the quaint language of little brother.

But just then there was a slight altercation between Master Tommy and
Master Jacky. Boys will be boys and our two twins were no exception
to this golden rule. The apple of discord was a certain castle of sand
which Master Jacky had built and Master Tommy would have it right go
wrong that it was to be architecturally improved by a frontdoor like the
Martello tower had. But if Master Tommy was headstrong Master Jacky was
selfwilled too and, true to the maxim that every little Irishman's house
is his castle, he fell upon his hated rival and to such purpose that the
wouldbe assailant came to grief and (alas to relate! ) the coveted castle
too. Needless to say the cries of discomfited Master Tommy drew the
attention of the girl friends.

--Come here, Tommy, his sister called imperatively. At once! And you,
Jacky, for shame to throw poor Tommy in the dirty sand. Wait till I
catch you for that.

His eyes misty with unshed tears Master Tommy came at her call for their
big sister's word was law with the twins. And in a sad plight he was
too after his misadventure. His little man-o'-war top and unmentionables
were full of sand but Cissy was a past mistress in the art of smoothing
over life's tiny troubles and very quickly not one speck of sand was to
be seen on his smart little suit. Still the blue eyes were glistening
with hot tears that would well up so she kissed away the hurtness and
shook her hand at Master Jacky the culprit and said if she was near him
she wouldn't be far from him, her eyes dancing in admonition.

--Nasty bold Jacky! she cried.

She put an arm round the little mariner and coaxed winningly:

--What's your name? Butter and cream?

--Tell us who is your sweetheart, spoke Edy Boardman. Is Cissy your
sweetheart?

--Nao, tearful Tommy said.

--Is Edy Boardman your sweetheart? Cissy queried.

--Nao, Tommy said.

--I know, Edy Boardman said none too amiably with an arch glance from
her shortsighted eyes. I know who is Tommy's sweetheart. Gerty is
Tommy's sweetheart.

--Nao, Tommy said on the verge of tears.

Cissy's quick motherwit guessed what was amiss and she whispered to
Edy Boardman to take him there behind the pushcar where the gentleman
couldn't see and to mind he didn't wet his new tan shoes.

But who was Gerty?

Gerty MacDowell who was seated near her companions, lost in thought,
gazing far away into the distance was, in very truth, as fair a specimen
of winsome Irish girlhood as one could wish to see. She was pronounced
beautiful by all who knew her though, as folks often said, she was
more a Giltrap than a MacDowell. Her figure was slight and graceful,
inclining even to fragility but those iron jelloids she had been taking
of late had done her a world of good much better than the Widow Welch's
female pills and she was much better of those discharges she used to
get and that tired feeling. The waxen pallor of her face was almost
spiritual in its ivorylike purity though her rosebud mouth was a genuine
Cupid's bow, Greekly perfect. Her hands were of finely veined alabaster
with tapering fingers and as white as lemonjuice and queen of ointments
could make them though it was not true that she used to wear kid gloves
in bed or take a milk footbath either. Bertha Supple told that once to
Edy Boardman, a deliberate lie, when she was black out at daggers drawn
with Gerty (the girl chums had of course their little tiffs from time to
time like the rest of mortals) and she told her not to let on whatever
she did that it was her that told her or she'd never speak to her
again. No. Honour where honour is due. There was an innate refinement,
a languid queenly _hauteur_ about Gerty which was unmistakably evidenced
in her delicate hands and higharched instep. Had kind fate but willed
her to be born a gentlewoman of high degree in her own right and had
she only received the benefit of a good education Gerty MacDowell might
easily have held her own beside any lady in the land and have seen
herself exquisitely gowned with jewels on her brow and patrician suitors
at her feet vying with one another to pay their devoirs to her.
Mayhap it was this, the love that might have been, that lent to her
softlyfeatured face at whiles a look, tense with suppressed meaning,
that imparted a strange yearning tendency to the beautiful eyes, a charm
few could resist. Why have women such eyes of witchery? Gerty's were of
the bluest Irish blue, set off by lustrous lashes and dark expressive
brows. Time was when those brows were not so silkily seductive. It
was Madame Vera Verity, directress of the Woman Beautiful page of the
Princess Novelette, who had first advised her to try eyebrowleine which
gave that haunting expression to the eyes, so becoming in leaders
of fashion, and she had never regretted it. Then there was blushing
scientifically cured and how to be tall increase your height and you
have a beautiful face but your nose? That would suit Mrs Dignam because
she had a button one. But Gerty's crowning glory was her wealth of
wonderful hair. It was dark brown with a natural wave in it. She had cut
it that very morning on account of the new moon and it nestled about
her pretty head in a profusion of luxuriant clusters and pared her nails
too, Thursday for wealth. And just now at Edy's words as a telltale
flush, delicate as the faintest rosebloom, crept into her cheeks she
looked so lovely in her sweet girlish shyness that of a surety God's
fair land of Ireland did not hold her equal.

For an instant she was silent with rather sad downcast eyes. She
was about to retort but something checked the words on her tongue.
Inclination prompted her to speak out: dignity told her to be silent.
The pretty lips pouted awhile but then she glanced up and broke out into
a joyous little laugh which had in it all the freshness of a young May
morning. She knew right well, no-one better, what made squinty Edy
say that because of him cooling in his attentions when it was simply a
lovers' quarrel. As per usual somebody's nose was out of joint about the
boy that had the bicycle off the London bridge road always riding up
and down in front of her window. Only now his father kept him in in the
evenings studying hard to get an exhibition in the intermediate that was
on and he was going to go to Trinity college to study for a doctor when
he left the high school like his brother W. E. Wylie who was racing
in the bicycle races in Trinity college university. Little recked he
perhaps for what she felt, that dull aching void in her heart sometimes,
piercing to the core. Yet he was young and perchance he might learn
to love her in time. They were protestants in his family and of course
Gerty knew Who came first and after Him the Blessed Virgin and then
Saint Joseph. But he was undeniably handsome with an exquisite nose and
he was what he looked, every inch a gentleman, the shape of his head too
at the back without his cap on that she would know anywhere something
off the common and the way he turned the bicycle at the lamp with his
hands off the bars and also the nice perfume of those good cigarettes
and besides they were both of a size too he and she and that was why Edy
Boardman thought she was so frightfully clever because he didn't go and
ride up and down in front of her bit of a garden.

Gerty was dressed simply but with the instinctive taste of a votary of
Dame Fashion for she felt that there was just a might that he might be
out. A neat blouse of electric blue selftinted by dolly dyes (because it
was expected in the _Lady's Pictorial_ that electric blue would be worn)
with a smart vee opening down to the division and kerchief pocket (in
which she always kept a piece of cottonwool scented with her
favourite perfume because the handkerchief spoiled the sit) and a navy
threequarter skirt cut to the stride showed off her slim graceful figure
to perfection. She wore a coquettish little love of a hat of wideleaved
nigger straw contrast trimmed with an underbrim of eggblue chenille and
at the side a butterfly bow of silk to tone. All Tuesday week afternoon
she was hunting to match that chenille but at last she found what she
wanted at Clery's summer sales, the very it, slightly shopsoiled but you
would never notice, seven fingers two and a penny. She did it up all by
herself and what joy was hers when she tried it on then, smiling at the
lovely reflection which the mirror gave back to her! And when she put
it on the waterjug to keep the shape she knew that that would take the
shine out of some people she knew. Her shoes were the newest thing in
footwear (Edy Boardman prided herself that she was very _petite_ but she
never had a foot like Gerty MacDowell, a five, and never would ash,
oak or elm) with patent toecaps and just one smart buckle over
her higharched instep. Her wellturned ankle displayed its perfect
proportions beneath her skirt and just the proper amount and no more of
her shapely limbs encased in finespun hose with highspliced heels and
wide garter tops. As for undies they were Gerty's chief care and who
that knows the fluttering hopes and fears of sweet seventeen (though
Gerty would never see seventeen again) can find it in his heart to
blame her? She had four dinky sets with awfully pretty stitchery,
three garments and nighties extra, and each set slotted with different
coloured ribbons, rosepink, pale blue, mauve and peagreen, and she aired
them herself and blued them when they came home from the wash and ironed
them and she had a brickbat to keep the iron on because she wouldn't
trust those washerwomen as far as she'd see them scorching the things.
She was wearing the blue for luck, hoping against hope, her own colour
and lucky too for a bride to have a bit of blue somewhere on her because
the green she wore that day week brought grief because his father
brought him in to study for the intermediate exhibition and because
she thought perhaps he might be out because when she was dressing that
morning she nearly slipped up the old pair on her inside out and that
was for luck and lovers' meeting if you put those things on inside
out or if they got untied that he was thinking about you so long as it
wasn't of a Friday.

And yet and yet! That strained look on her face! A gnawing sorrow is
there all the time. Her very soul is in her eyes and she would give
worlds to be in the privacy of her own familiar chamber where,
giving way to tears, she could have a good cry and relieve her pentup
feelingsthough not too much because she knew how to cry nicely before
the mirror. You are lovely, Gerty, it said. The paly light of evening
falls upon a face infinitely sad and wistful. Gerty MacDowell yearns
in vain. Yes, she had known from the very first that her daydream of a
marriage has been arranged and the weddingbells ringing for Mrs Reggy
Wylie T. C. D. (because the one who married the elder brother would be
Mrs Wylie) and in the fashionable intelligence Mrs Gertrude Wylie was
wearing a sumptuous confection of grey trimmed with expensive blue fox
was not to be. He was too young to understand. He would not believe in
love, a woman's birthright. The night of the party long ago in Stoer's
(he was still in short trousers) when they were alone and he stole
an arm round her waist she went white to the very lips. He called her
little one in a strangely husky voice and snatched a half kiss (the
first! ) but it was only the end of her nose and then he hastened from
the room with a remark about refreshments. Impetuous fellow! Strength of
character had never been Reggy Wylie's strong point and he who would
woo and win Gerty MacDowell must be a man among men. But waiting, always
waiting to be asked and it was leap year too and would soon be over. No
prince charming is her beau ideal to lay a rare and wondrous love at her
feet but rather a manly man with a strong quiet face who had not found
his ideal, perhaps his hair slightly flecked with grey, and who would
understand, take her in his sheltering arms, strain her to him in all
the strength of his deep passionate nature and comfort her with a long
long kiss. It would be like heaven. For such a one she yearns this balmy
summer eve. With all the heart of her she longs to be his only, his
affianced bride for riches for poor, in sickness in health, till death
us two part, from this to this day forward.

And while Edy Boardman was with little Tommy behind the pushcar she was
just thinking would the day ever come when she could call herself his
little wife to be. Then they could talk about her till they went blue in
the face, Bertha Supple too, and Edy, little spitfire, because she would
be twentytwo in November.