Rebecca's Promise

by Frances R. Sterrett

At the table beside the ungrandmotherly looking grandmother was a young man the very sight of whom sent Rebecca Mary into a quiver of delight. She had seen his picture in the Gazette too many times not to recognize him. He was young Peter Simmons, who had left college in his sophomore year to drive an ambulance in France during the second year of the great war. He had been awarded a croix de guerre for "unusual bravery under fire," and later had gone into the French flying service until he could fight under his own flag. He had been with the American Army of Occupation in Germany and had only recently returned to Waloo. No wonder Rebecca Mary thrilled all down her back bone as she realized that she was looking at a hero. She stared and stared for she might never see one again, and the hero raised his eyes and saw awed admiration written in huge letters all over her flushed face.

Evidently young Peter Simmons did not care for awed admiration, perhaps he had had too much of it, perhaps it made him unpleasantly self-conscious, for he scowled blackly and murmured an impatient something to the grandmother which made her look at Rebecca Mary again. Rebecca Mary turned a deep crimson and was horribly uncomfortable. She knew very well what they were saying, that such a shabby girl had no business among the fine birds in the Viking room, and she scowled, too. She could give scowl for scowl as well as any one. Peter's black frown made you laugh, but there was something rather pathetic about Rebecca Mary's bent yellow-brown brows, perhaps it was because her lower lip quivered as she hastily averted her shamed eyes.

On the other side of young Peter was a girl no older than Rebecca Mary, and she was so prettily and smartly clothed that she made Rebecca Mary feel like Cousin Susan's kitchen curtains, old and ragged. But every one in the room made her feel like that, she thought miserably, and she tossed her head higher to show how little she cared as her glance roamed on to the man on the other side of the grandmother. Of course the grandmother must be old Mrs. Peter Simmons, and old Mrs. Peter Simmons was one of the most important women in Waloo, so important that a poor little school teacher like Rebecca Mary could never hope to know her. Rebecca Mary rather liked the face of the man on the other side of Mrs. Peter Simmons. He was older than young Peter, and the most doting friend could not have called him handsome, but he had something much better than perfect features. He was the type of man who would do things, she decided, and then she saw Mrs. Simmons turn to speak to him and with a little shrinking feeling of horror Rebecca Mary knew that they were talking of her, for the man who could do things raised his head and looked directly at her. For a moment their eyes met. Rebecca Mary was furious to feel her cheeks burn and her heart thump. She scowled before she turned her head quickly. She wouldn't look at that table again. I should say not!

There were other tables and other family parties, and, oh, dear! other couples. Old Samuel Johnson knew exactly what he was talking about when he said that "envy is almost the only vice which is practicable at all times and in every place." Rebecca Mary did find it so very very easy to be envious. About the only person she did not envy that afternoon was a short, stout, middle-aged man with a red face, who sat at a table by himself and consumed vast quantities of hot buttered toast.

Rebecca Mary had never imagined there were so many gay, light-hearted people in the world as there were in the Viking room that May afternoon and more would have entered if it had not been for the silken barrier which was held in front of the door by two very haughty waiters. Rebecca Mary felt blue and depressed to the very toes of her common-sense little shoes. She felt so hopelessly out of the gay and brilliant picture. She almost wished that Cousin Susan had not asked her to the Waloo for tea.

"Which shall we have, Rebecca Mary?" Cousin Susan found herself quite incapable of making such a momentous decision without assistance. "Lettuce or foie gras."

Rebecca Mary did not hesitate a second. She knew. "Foie gras," she said promptly. "I've never tasted them, and I've made hundreds of lettuce sandwiches, just thousands of them. What is the use of going to new places if you don't try new things?" There was just a trace of impatience in her low voice as if she thought that Cousin Susan should have known that without being told.

"H-m," murmured Cousin Susan. "The foie gras, then. They certainly sound mysterious and adventurous." And having given her order, Cousin Susan looked about her. "Isn't this an attractive place? I've read in the Gazette about the afternoon teas in the Viking room and how popular they were. I suppose all these people are very rich and important. None of them will pay for tea with kitchen curtains." And Cousin Susan's eyes twinkled.

Rebecca Mary's eyes twinkled, too, although really there was nothing very amusing to her in paying for tea with ten yards of any kind of material. It was rather sordid to her and poor and generally horrid, like her very existence.