CHAPTER III.
"In the midst of life is death."
It was a warm, sultry day in early April. The Hastings family were just settled in their summer home in Allendale. Venna had been "to town" all the morning on a shopping expedition, and had returned home somewhat fatigued by the warmth of the early spring. She had lunched and was resting alone in her room. She sat by her open window with her book in her lap, unheeded. Her head resting back upon the cushions, she dreamily watched the robins busying themselves with nest building in the tree outside.
"Poor little birds!" she mused. "You're working so hard for your little home and the first storm may blow it down!"
The robins continued to chirp happily.
"You'll be happy anyway while it lasts," she thought, "and if your nest falls, you'll build another—just as we all do!"
Venna certainly was in a dreamy mood. Her mind wandered over the entire winter's doings, since her debut.
Her debut! How well she remembered the keen enjoyment of it! But the months following! Had she found them all satisfying? She had to admit that she had not. One whirl of gayety had been hers. She had been the acknowledged belle of the season. Among her many admirers, Mr. Hadly pushed himself always to the front and assumed "the right of way" with such firmness that her friends took it for granted that it would culminate in a brilliant match. Venna did not repulse, neither did she encourage, him. She was so busy having "a good time" that she let admiration take its course and if the other men were so easily pushed aside, Venna did not care. She liked Hadly's masterful way of doing things. If he invited her anywhere, it was always in a manner which said, "You'll be sorry if you don't go." And she had to admit that his invitations resulted in the most pleasurable times of the winter.
"Am I in love with him?" she asked herself today, as she had many times before.
"No, decidedly not!" was her answer, which always pleased herself, for Venna didn't want to be in love yet, and be married like all the other girls who had gone out ahead of her. She wanted "to do something" first. Just what she meant to "do" she hadn't decided, but the married girls she knew led such monotonous lives—society, society and always the same dressing, entertaining and being entertained.