She had cares and duties and even sober-sided
responsibilities in this world, beyond the usual run of girls. Yet her
hat was decidedly of the mode that year; her suit was smartly and
engagingly cut; her furs were glossy and black and big. Her face, it may
be said here as well as later, had in its time given pleasure to the
male sex, and some food for critical conversation to the female. A good
many of the young men whom she met along the way this afternoon appeared
distinctly pleased to speak to her.
The girl was Sharlee Weyland, and Sharlee was the short for Charlotte
Lee, as invented by herself some score of years before. One baby-name in
a hundred sticks through a lifetime, and hers was the one in that
particular hundred. Of the young men along the way, one was so lucky as
to catch her eye through a large plate-glass window. It was Semple and
West's window, the ground-floor one in the great new Commonwealth
Building, of which the town is rightly so proud, and the young man was
no other than West, Charles Gardiner himself. A smile warmed his
good-looking face when he met the eye of the girl and the dog; he waved
a hand at them.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25