THE QUILL

cause you are working yourself up to a sense-
less state of excitement about literally
nothing.”

“Is it nothing that for the first time in my
whole life I should be madly in love with the
only man I. . . .”

“I don't want to hear any more of that
ridiculous nonsense. You are too young to
know your own mind and. . . .”

Recklessly, passionately Elspeth flung her
last bomb:

“What of you then? You didn’t think you
were too young to marry at my age. You
went ahead and did as you liked, and I can do
the same.”

“Ellie, I want to go to sleep. You forget
that I am a working woman.”

“Who started this anyway?”
“Never mind that. Lie down there. We'll
talk this over to-morrow."

UT when to-morrow came, the clock
pointed to 8.30 when Mrs. Maitland
awoke, after a few hours hours sleep snatched
toward morning. Elspeth lay with her flushed
cheek turned into the pillow. The turbulent
emotions of the night were all sunk into the
deep sleep of health and youth, and her mother,
with a sigh that had in it an element of com,-
punction—after all, she should not have taken
the child seriously she told herself—bent above
her to drop a kiss upon the petulant young
lips, ere, too late for breakfast, she hurried
out for her day's work.

That day was long and hot. Part of the
time her head ached and all day long she
thought of Elspeth—Elspeth, sharp tongued
and hot hearted. After all, her side to the
question has to be considered. To her at least
her love affair was a serious matter. She felt
that she had handled the situation very badly.
She should have kept her head and not allowed
the ohild’s extravagant expressions to offend or
hurt her. Her self reproach was followed by
an attempt to formulate some plan by which
she might bring about a change in their mode
of living. That was it—a change. They
both needed it. They needed to break away
from the habits and ties that chained them
down like galley slaves. Elspeth was entitled
to a real home, such as other girls had, and not
the makeshift careless establishment over
which there was no real head, and which
floundered like a crazy derelict perilously near
to the rocks. And Elspeth was entitled to a
real mother. Not this business machine that
could only throw to her a few snatches of her
time. No wonder they had drifted so far
apart that the girl preferred to pour her confi-
dences into the ears of a stranger rather than

ELSPETI-I

her mother’s. It was her own attitude, not
Ellie’s, that was to blame for their estrange-
ment. Her nature was the antithesis of her
daughter’s. Shy, guarded, reticent, she held
everyone at arm’s length. But her little
daughter_—that was not right! They should
not be so far apart; she should have affected
some of that buoyancy of spirit so peculiar to
her child, and which she sadly lacked. She
wondered if it was because of her long life
of work. She had been working now for
seventeen years. That was quite a record.
She took the full blame for Elspeth’s angry
retorts, her insolence, even her outburts of
temper. Elspeth had never been properly
“raised”. Her mother excused or drew a veil
over each and all of her defects. She told
herself that it was a career in itself to be a
mother. She had stolen the greater or part of
herself from Elspeth to whom it rightfully
belonged and given it to an office—a mechani-
cal business that ran along from day to day and
year to year, built up and cultivated and toiled
over for just one purpose, the unlovely pur-
suit of the everlasting dollar.

0 F what are you thinking?”

The question came from the desk adjoining
her own. For some time, her employer had
been engaged in the pleasing study of Mrs.
Maitland’s lovely profile, pink ear and flushed
cheek.

She came back to earth with a sigh, and met
the quizzical glance with a troubled one.

“I was just thinking,” she said, “that I’ll
have to quit.”

He was moved enough to stare at her with
dropped jaw. She had always been an enigma
to him, this pretty woman content to labor
along from year to year, without any of the
pleasures or compensations that should have
been the portion of one such as she. He knew
of Elspeth, and surmised that “that girl” was
the reason why her mother had never mar-
ried, nor permitted herself even the friendship
of a man. Once or twice Elspeth had come to
the office, and there was that about her thorny
little personality which apprised the employer
of her mother that she was violently opposed
to any one encroaching upon her mother’s
thought or time besides herself. Once he had
escorted Mrs. Maitland home, after some night
work at the office, and ascending the little
steps to the house, he had made a slight motion
to follow Mrs. Maitland into the house, when
Elspeth, behind her mother's back, had deliber-
ately closed the door in his face. It was such
a quick act, so final and eloquent of the girl's
opinion of him, or for that matter, any man
who might be interested in her mother. Els-
peth’s attitude was similar to that she took
about her mother’s clothes and personal pos-

Tzventg/—seven