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1892.]

SUCCESS.

4I

She did talk to him on Monday, and I saw him on Tuesday. As should always happen after such conferences between a liberal-minded husband and a persuasive, intelligent wife, I found him, not convinced, but mollified; hesitating, but open to conviction.

"I feel so certain that it means everything for me. professionally, that I am willing to bear my own expense to Honolulu, and return, if you will let me go," I said.

He gazed meditatively out of the window, suppressed a yawn, and then said, "Well, I suppose you may as well go."

I walked out of his office without delay, fearing that he might reconsider his decision. My heart was swelling with pride and triumph- a frame of mind that, in the uncertainty of human affairs and the vanity of human ambition, I might have known could not endure.

THE

CHAPTER II.

DISAPPOINTMENTS AND DELAYS.

HE staff correspondent of a newspaper is like a soldier - always under marching orders. The necessity of being in readiness induces one of two conditions: he, or she, has always at hand a stock of serviceable clothing; or the supply is reduced to a minimum, and this remnant so dilapidated that nothing can make it worse.

Thanks to very thorough domestic training in early girlhood, which included a mastery of the art of patching, darning, and mending, my belongings were ready to be packed on short notice. Only three gowns were required the orthodox black silk for solemn ceremonials, a white satin to be worn when I should make my bow at court, and a flannel dressing-gown for the steamer.

Shopping has always been to me a purgatorial penance, and I have learned that its torments may be appreciably mitigated by deciding in the privacy of one's chamber just what is required, the colour and fabric, and what it ought to cost. These are requi

1892.]

A FAREWELL DINNER.

43

sites that any one with ordinary common sense ought to decide in a few minutes, and it will be found to save an immense deal of time and of nervous wear and tear. The purchases were made within an hour, and in the hands of the dressmaker without delay. Four days later the gowns were finished, quite splendid, well-fitting, and altogether satisfactory-an example of Chicago skill and dispatch. They were accompanied, when they were sent home, by a bill as long as the train of the court dress.

a festal occasion at

a delightful comToasts were drunk, ices came in with

There was a farewell dinner which a dozen friends assisted pany of artists and journalists. speeches were made, and the a tiny American flag in each pink and yellow mould a delicate reminder that this protecting ægis was soon to be left behind, and life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to be sought and found under quite a different arrangement of colours and symbols.

On Saturday, December 1oth, the final arrangements were made. I went to the newspaper office for the last official instructions. There I was given my railway tickets, the ticket for my berth in the Pullman, a telegram reserving a state room on the Australia of the Oceanic steamship line, with another from my cousin, who was then at the Mare Island Navy Yard, and to whom I was asked to wire the exact time of my arrival in Oakland. A series of

entertainments had been arranged during the brief stop I was to make in San Francisco to rest from the fatigue of the long overland journey.

Several invitations had come for Sunday; but wishing to spend the day with Mr. and Mrs. C—, of whose household I had been a member for two years, I declined them all. Friends called, and made their farewells during the afternoon; and at six o'clock I went to my room to change my gown, preparatory to paying the one visit I felt could not be neglected, upon the aged mother of a dear friend.

We left the house together, Mr. and Mrs. Cand myself. We took a horse-car, and at the corner of Thirty-First Street I left them to catch a crosstown car, which took me almost to the door of my friend's house. Even in the rehabilitated state of the city since the fire there are many things neglected and left undone by the municipality of Chicago that would shock the conservative ideas of Europe. Its side-walks in the outlying streets are one of these evils, and one from which I was destined to suffer, probably for the remainder of my life.

At the corner where I stood waiting for the car, whose green light I saw approaching far off, the sidewalk was elevated at least two feet above the level of the street. There was not the slightest protection in the way of a railing or coping; so when the car halted, throwing a dense shadow across the gutter

1892.]

A DISASTER.

45 a black abyss - I stepped down into it without in the least realising its depth. I had planned for a slight descent of two or three inches; I made a plunge of two feet, with the momentum that can never be computed until one feels the sudden fetch-up that follows. I felt it in the next instant in every nerve, and in one burning agony that seemed to concentrate itself in the heel and ankle on the right foot. shriek which I gave ought to have collected a mob; but it was Sunday evening, and the righteous persons passing by on their way to church were so occupied with pious meditations that they either did not hear or did not heed.

The

I managed to crawl up out of the slippery chasm where I lay in a limp heap, and sat down on the curb, wringing my hands, and crying, "Will no one help me! oh, will no one help me!"

This moving appeal did finally penetrate the earmuffs of two stout men, and they picked me up and carried me into a drug store on the corner. For the first time in my life I fainted; and when I recovered consciousness, the druggist himself was holding a wineglass of brandy to my lips, and a motherly woman was kneeling down beside me unbuttoning my boot. When I came back to life, the first thought that flashed across my mind was, "I have lamed myself, and now I cannot go!"

It was Sunday; the time for my departure was Tuesday night! After more than a year's effort, and

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