Life, after being so eagerly called, was beginning to squeeze Mabel a little. Saturday noon found her half ill for food, as she had spent her small allowance almost at once and had had to live on the faithful box of shredded wheat biscuit and the milk for which she did not have to pay the milkman until the first of the month.
After luncheon, consisting of a nut sundae which took all her remaining change, she spent a few moments peering in at the vegetables and chickens displayed in a grocer's window. She did not see Miss Gere pass. When Mabel returned to the office, Miss Gere sent her up Fourth Street to study the delicatessens and bread shops. It was agony. Mabel had never seen such delicious articles of food, had never dreamed of such penetrating and tantalizing odors. Mabel wondered if she could ever stand it until six o'clock when she would be paid. She jotted down her notes and, wending her way back to the office, settled down in a corner to put her material in shape. It did not take long, and while she waited for Miss Gere who was almost always out, she reviewed the experiences that had beset her during the past few days. Of them all this day had been the worst. And Mabel, who had fondly expected to have most of her Saturdays to herself, reflected that after six o'clock she would have to take her hungry and weary self back to the apartment and attempt to clean things up.
The dainty rooms looked as though a whirlwind had struck them. Poor Mabel was not wholly to blame. She was carrying too great a load. She had school to think of, and as soon as she was released at noon she was obliged to rush off to the dusty office for her orders for the rest of the day. She never reached home again until six and later, and on several occasions she had been obliged to accompany Miss Gere on long tiresome night trips by automobile or trolley into the surrounding country. Of her mother she had seen but little. Twice her mother had called while she was out with Miss Gere, and Mabel, not knowing that this had been by arrangement between Mrs. Brewster and Miss Gere, was honestly disappointed. Several times she had met her mother down town, and once they had had luncheon together at a cafeteria.
On these occasions Mabel was forced to notice that her mother, whom she had rather looked down on as a common or garden variety of parent, was really a most attractive and charming woman. She treated Mabel not at all like a little girl, spoke only of the surface things that interested Mrs. Brewster herself and lightly passed over all Mabel's wistful references to home and Frank. Mrs. Brewster did say that they missed Mabel and added with a rather sad smile that she had never thought to lose her little daughter and so on. Mabel felt herself saddened by these meetings. She found that she was thinking of her mother all the time, and sometimes she almost wished that she was just an ordinary girl and not a genius, so she could stay at home and be taken care of. When the second Sunday came Mabel permitted herself the luxury of a good cry. She was too stubborn to confess that she was desperately sick of her foolishness and wholly and utterly homesick, but angrily dried her tears and started to dress.
The telephone rang. It was Mrs. Brewster. She sent a cheery good-morning over the wire and asked if Mabel had had breakfast. Mabel hopefully said no, that she was just commencing to dress.
"Why, we are all through!" laughed Mrs. Brewster. "We are getting an early start, because the Morrissons have asked us to drive to Lexington with them. They wanted to ask you too, but I told them that you were always too taken up with your other affairs and your writing to accept any invitations and they were so disappointed."
"Who is going?" asked Mabel.
"Just the two Morrisson boys and Frank and myself."
The two Morrisson boys were quite the most popular young fellows in Louisville and Mabel saw, with a sense of defeat, that her biggest social chance had slipped from her grasp.
Her mother went cheerily on: "So Frank and I got up early and fixed our share of the luncheon, and prepared and ate our own breakfast, and now we are all ready."