It confused him to think that an honest ploughmaker
should have a letter from his little girl talking of the kind of
living that he believed could only lead a woman to destruction.
And then the next day there sat beside him at his table a new and
commanding figure demanding his attention. David got up from the table
and hurried away to his room. He wanted to readjust his thoughts. On
his desk was a photograph brought home by the daughter from school. He
had the common experience of being told by the photograph what he had
been trying to grasp. Instead of a wife and child there were two women
in the house with him.
Margaret had come out of college a thing of beauty in face and figure.
Her tall straight well-trained body, her coal-black hair, her soft
brown eyes, the air she had of being prepared for life's challenge
caught and held the attention of men. There was in the girl something
of her father's bigness and not a little of the secret blind desires
of her mother. To an attentive household on the night of her arrival
she announced her intention of living her life fully and vividly. "I
am going to know things I can not get from books," she said. "I am
going to touch life at many corners, getting the taste of things in my
mouth. You thought me a child when I wrote home saying that I wouldn't
be cooped up in the house and married to a tenor in the church choir
or to an empty-headed young business man but now you are going to see.
Pages:
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194