The Annals of Ann

by Kate Trimble Sharber

He said he hated shams, and she said well, that wasn't any sham for every blowsy-headed girl wears them nowadays and everybody knows it, even the poets and novel-writers that always make their heroines so fuzzy-headed. Then she called him a prig and he said something back at her and she gave him back the ring, which was a brave thing to do, it being a grand diamond one with Mizpath marked in it.

Of course the next thing that happens after an engagement is broken is for it to get mended again. All day we have hung around Miss Merle to see just when she gets the ring back again, but up to a late hour to-night, as the newspapers say about the election returns, there was nothing doing. Oh, it does seem a pity that they would let the news go down to their children or be put on their tombstones that their lives were blighted on account of a rat!

I've neglected you, my diary, for the last few days because my mind has been on other things. It rained all the next day after I wrote last and I couldn't go over to Jean's, which put me out greatly. I finally thought about sending a note by Lares and Penates and paid them in chicken livers, me being so uneasy in my mind that I didn't have any appetite for them, and knowing that they loved them enough to fight over them any time.

I told Jean in the note to fix some kind of signal like Paul Revere to let me know the minute the ring got back to Miss Merle, for I was deeply worried, me and Waterloo and Jean being to blame for it. Then, too, it is dangerous for an engagement ring to stay returned too long for it might get given to another girl.

Jean was delighted with my note and said she would certainly hang a lantern in the garret only she never could undo the chimney of a lantern to light it, and never saw a lady person that could; but it was a romantic idea. So she thought hanging a white towel in the window that faces our house for a signal would do very well, and I could know by that if it kept on raining and I couldn't get over there.

Well, I was so interested that I hardly moved from that side of the house all day, until it got so dark that I couldn't see the house, much less a towel. So I went sorrowfully to bed. The next morning I was delighted to see that I was going to get rewarded for my watching, for long before breakfast I discovered a white thing, and it was waving from Mr. St. John's window, which made it all the surer in my mind.

Although it was cakes and maple syrup I didn't waste much time over breakfast, but grabbed my hat and started for Jean's.

Miss Merle was on the front porch and I noticed Mr. St. John just inside the hall, looking like he would like to come out, but was waiting for her to give him lief. She looked up at me quick.

"Why, Ann," she said, "what are you in such a big hurry about?"

I've often noticed, my diary, that when people are in a hurry and can't think of anything else to tell they tell the truth, although they don't intend to. It was that way with me.