THE BOOKWORM TURNS
"'Tis ill work trying to ride Pegasus on a side-saddle," Cousin Eunice said this morning as she hurriedly threw aside her pencil and paper and ran to tell Dilsey about not putting any starch in the legs of Waterloo's rompers. "He's not a lady's horse anyhow," she continued as she came back and sat down on the grass again, "especially after a man, a baby and a gas stove have come into the lady's life."
"Gas stove?" I questioned, looking up from my book, a heavy old French book, it was, for mother's remark about my neglected education had made me feel a little uneasy after all. Cousin Eunice is not the kind of woman to fill her letters full of household matters, hence my surprised question.
"A good cook, with me, is only a memory," she said with a sadly reminiscent air. "I have a girl whose name is Pearl, but alas it is a lie! Even the day I learned that my book had found a publisher I had to get up out of my trance and peel potatoes for luncheon."
"Surely not!"
"Yes. I peeled them, but they were never cooked, for when Rufe came home and heard the news he hustled us all off to town and we had luncheon in Beauregard's privatest dining-room. We ordered all the things that disagree with us most—by way of reckless indulgence."
"How did you feel when you heard that news?" I asked with interest, for the book manuscript which Cousin Eunice had been working on since the days of her single blessedness had grown to be like a member of the family with us all, especially of late years, after a certain critic had pronounced it good. It suddenly grew so valuable after that that she kept it in a little brown leather bag all the time and would never leave the house without telling somebody where that bag was (in case of fire) and making them promise to play Casabianca to those precious sheets until they should be rescued.
"Just dazed!" she answered simply. "Pretty much as I felt when I found that Rufe was going to be mine—only a great deal less so, you know."
"I wonder if you are ever going to be really great?" I pursued, for since I have grown so old I share all her hopes and fears, just as if we were sisters. "With a trip around the world as a starter, and a quiet little castle on the Italian coast as a next step. Then you can sign checks for a thousand dollars and get your pictures taken for nothing."