Astra Read Online Free PDF

Astra.
    “Now Clytie,” her mother would say, “I want you to go straight to the library and get those books you say you have to have for your schoolwork and come right home! I don’t want you lingering to talk with anyone or to take a walk or anything. I want you at home inside of an hour to try on the dresses that the dressmaker has been altering. Astra, you walk down with her and see that she gets back on time. Just remind her, won’t you?”
    Clytie would frown behind her mother’s back and make a mouth of annoyance at Astra, but Miriam would see that Astra went.
    Always Clytie had her plans, as Astra had known she would have, and instead of going to the library herself to pick out her books, she would send Astra in, telling her she simply couldn’t stay in the house, she had such a bad headache and needed a bit of air.
    “I’ll meet you right here on the step, Astra,” she would say, and settle down serenely on the bench beside the door. So Astra would go. For Clytie was well versed in ways to make her suffer for it if she didn’t. Clytie knew how to create a scene at the dinner table afterward and show how unaccommodating her cousin had been, when she had “such a blazing headache,” and Astra would be left to bear the disapproval of both mother and father while poor Clytie would be pitied and petted. So Astra often did things which her conscience did not approve. It seemed the only way.
    And when she would come out from the library with her arms full of books Clytie had ordered, there would be no Clytie sitting on the bench; neither was she to be seen either up or down the street.
    Astra would settle down at last, knowing full well that all this had been planned for her undoing. She knew that Miriam would blame her if Clytie was not back at the proper time. Nearly two years’ experience had taught her this only too well. It was a little thing perhaps, but she would be filled with vexation as she watched anxiously, meantime glancing at her watch. An hour would have gone by since she left Clytie on the bench and Astra would start to wonder. Was it conceivable that Clytie had grown weary of waiting and gone back home without her? Should she dare go to the telephone and call the house to see? But if Clytie was not yet home, what kind of a storm would that raise? She could well conceive the light in which she herself would be placed.
    So she would worry along for another fifteen minutes, and then just as she rose with her armful of books to go and telephone, she would sight Clytie’s coronet of pink roses which she called a hat, tilted over her right eye, as she sauntered leisurely down the street surrounded by three young men! That was just about what she had always to expect of Clytie. It had happened too many times. And there was nothing for Astra to do but turn and follow the hilarious young gang down the street like a humble minion till they reached the corner where Clytie always parted with what her mother considered “undesirable escorts,” and hastened on home.
    “Clytie, where in the world have you been?” her mother would ask. “It is two hours since you left the house, and I told you to come right back! What on earth have you been doing all this time?”
    “Why, Mother dear, I hurried just as fast as I possibly could,” Clytie would respond. “Didn’t I, Astra? You know, Mother, it takes the
longest
time to get waited on in that library. I simply
implored
that woman to wait on me at once, but she said she couldn’t show preference, and there was a long, long line of people waiting for books. Schoolchildren, you know, and all that.”
    And then her mother would say, “Clytie! That’s perfect nonsense! What were you doing? Who were you talking to in the library?”
    “Not a soul, Mother dear,” Clytie would chirp blithely. “Was I, Astra?”
    Cousin Miriam’s quick glance would give a passing search to Astra’s face as she turned away to lay the books down on the table and then look