Chemistry of the Household

Principles of Cookery

Food and Dietetics

Care of Children

VOL. XXIII

"W

ELL, of all the crazy-mad things I ever heard of! My dear, I am devoured with curiosity! When I read it among the marriage notices of The Times, I thought it was a joke; when I read your note, I nearly fainted!"

"It's sober earnest," and the shortstory writer faced the Editor of The Children's Page. "I realized that when I bid my Major goodbye three hours ago. But your surprise is quite justifiable. Fifteen years ago last June you and I graduated from Smith's, and behold me, at years of discretion, detached suddenly from my literary labors and joined to the ranks of the short-skirted, flapperish, romantic war brides."

"Your skirt is shorter," her friend grew sharply observant, "and, save us, a solitaire set in platinum beside the regulation wedding ring!"

"Oh, I picked up a gown or two before the wedding, and I helped the Major choose those rings at Tiffany's rather a record, that, even for a war bride, an engagement and a wedding ring in the same day" and the bride's eyes grew dreamily reminiscent.

"I'm sorry you weren't at the ceremony, but, you know, you were in Boston, and there wasn't much time."

"How long since you first met him?" the, Editor of the Children's Page was struggling hard for light on this amazing marriage.

"Nineteen years," answered the writer of short stories, "in my Freshman year; he was in West Point; I was up there for a football game."

"And you have kept up ever since at long range?"

No. 4

"Short range sometimes," smiled the Major's wife, "when his sailing orders came, everything seemed suddenly changed. He wanted a home feeling, somebody to come back to," and the bride wiped her eyes.

"Oh, an Interlude! Put it in a story!" exclaimed the Editor hurriedly, dismayed by her friend's tears; "the Major is on the briny deep, and you are back in your comfortable bachelor apartments. Let's go out for some lunch then I recommend to you an afternoon of work on your new story. I saw the start as you left it on the typewriter, and it seemed to me distinctly hopeful."

The bride had opened a suit case and shaken out a blue charmeuse gown, and the memory of fragrant tobacco surprised the feminine atmosphere. A match box rattled sharply against the cover of her typewriter. It seemed to the Editor that a vigorous and alien personality. dominated the familiar little

room.

"Prepare yourself for a shock, my friend," said the Major's wife solemnly her brown eyes grown black with her quick emotion; "this war bride of a week is done with bachelor apartments, with hotel dining rooms - yes, for the present, at least, with the writing of short stories."

Her friend gasped, but the steady voice went on. "I've accepted some things, Jane, my Jimmy's name, his bank account, and fortunate it is, when an army officer has a private income beside his. pay. Best of all I've accepted my Major himself. Now be good and tell me something nice. What would a man admire in me?"

"You?" exclaimed the Editor, "why, your cleverness, your smart look, your literary ability."

"Jane, Jane, bless you, but you're off the track; for none of those pleasing reasons attained I my present elevated position in military and domestic circles. Jane, Jimmy married me for what small claim to good looks are mine; but, don't laugh, first and foremost he chose me because he wanted a pleasing, home-loving, domestic wife. Mind you, he has never told me so, but it is my firm belief that for my cleverness, my ability as a writer (we thank you, Jane), he cares not at all."

The Editor subsided helplessly into a chair, "You poor thing, cast for an impossible role, and I had half envied you your luck!"

"Impossible, not so," the bride's cheeks flushed warmly, "domestic possibilities are latent in every woman, and, worse luck, I have some lonesome time for a try out. My soldier, bless him, is doing his bit, and this is mine, to realize his ideals, just as far as I can and transform Margaret Brown, writer, into Mrs. Jimmy, domestic character, before his return."

The Editor glanced critically around her friend's habitat the little living room, with a few good pictures, its simple, severe furniture, its big desk and typewriter, was really a work shop. Here books, manuscripts, publishers' letters, neatly docketed, spoke of a laboriously attained business side, which had made of practical value a modest literary gift.

Only one suggestion of the new incarnation of the short-story writer was to be seen. On the foot of the narrow brass bedstead, in the sleeping room beyond, hung a pink chiffon negligee.

Gloomily, and with a sense of impending loss, the Editor pointed to the bit of frilly pink: "Take it with you, Margaret, and leave everything else when you go to your suburban home, it's the only provision that will fit your new scheme of life."

"Suburban, never, come out and help

In an

me find my up-town apartment. interval of my brief honeymoon I wrote. to Cousin Mary Brown, who lives a hundred miles or so 'up state,' and who is the greatest homemaker that I ever knew. Dear soul! I'll give her a cheerful winter away from her bumptious daughter-inlaw. Jimmy wanted me to have her to keep me company, but I'll sit at her feet, yes, and cook at her elbow, and knit out of her bag. She is an expert along my chosen line, the path of Jimmy's unexpressed, but evident ideals. My first thought was to learn from some domestic member of his family connection, but I was afraid to disclose the depths of ignorance from which I must rise. I can trust Cousin Mary."

Three weeks later, on an autumn afternoon, the Editor of the Children's Page. her head throbbing from a long and fruitless survey of a pile of hopefully submitted manuscripts, presented herself at the door of a big, sunny, up-town apartment. She held at arm's length her friend, the Major's wife, who opened the door. She must have time to grasp the situation.

The bride's hair proclaimed the touch of the professional waver of tresses; her soft white gown, and strictly unpractical shoes, breathed an "in-for-the-afternoon condition. Beyond her stretched an unfamiliar setting, a large living room with big, lazy looking chairs, a wide couch with many pillows, a tea wagon with a silver equipment of obvious newness, with an accompanying well-stocked "curate." A wide center table littered comfortably with magazines and books, but graced by a soft-toned reading light, and a big spilly jar of roses. By the largest and deepest of the chairs was a strong little table holding pipes, tobacco and ash tray.

"Give me time! give me time!" exclaimed the Editor, "I am suddenly conscious of unshined shoes and inky fingers. Before I view this newly-wed place, let me see the inspiration for this miracle," and the visitor stepped in the direction of