Ladies In The Parlor Read Online Free PDF

eat. For in spite of Sally and Leora offering to help, she insisted on serving the children.
    Leora might have been a society girl slumming, so out of place did she seem.
    She looked about at her greedy brothers and sisters in the manner of one who hated poverty with every fibre of her being.
    It was at such moments that a shrewd observer might have sensed her greatest quality—a prescience as delicate as the whiskers of a cat—that would pay no price for so-called sin, and while she might go through life with lighter baggage than the philosopher, she would still have, in her own way, as much wisdom.
    In school she had slipped through her grades without effort. She might have had a harder time without Sally. But then, there was Sally. And if Sally had not been there, Leora would have found a neighbor girl. Though life may have ground her a grisly flour, according to our notions, she was not one to be without bread.
    Sally had perhaps a better mind than Leora in school, or, at least as good. She had to make an effort. Leora made none.
    She now ate daintily and precisely, and when the breakfast was over, she took Sally into the living-room.
    “Mother’s that way again,” she confided.
    “Yes,” returned Sally, “I know.”
    “How did you know?” asked Leora.
    “I could feel it,” answered Sally.
    “But she’s not going to have it,” said Leora.
    “Why, Leora!” said Sally.
    “I mean it.” Leora looked defiantly at the dingy street.
    “But—but—” Sally groped for words, “it’s sent here —God’s sending it.”
    “Let Him send it somewhere else—we’ve got enough.” Leora took Sally’s arm. “Now I want you, Sally, to tell Mother you just know she caught cold—you can tell her I told you what Aunt told me—and I’ll talk to Dr. Haley today—he might do something in a minute to change everything when he examines her, and she’ll never know the difference.”
    While Sally was trying to comprehend, Leora took her other arm, and turned her so they faced each other —”Then Sally—they’ve just got to sleep alone—if he ,” she said the word with contempt, “wants a woman, let him go to Maggie Queery down the track.”
    “But Leora,” Sally could say no more.
    “Now you talk to Mother today—do you hear.”
    “Yes, Lee—I will.” With eyes full of tears, Sally held her beautiful sister in her arms for a moment.
    Leora, not responding to the gesture of affection, stepped away, saying, “Now don’t forget what I’ve told you.”
    “I won’t,” returned Sally and went to bring Leora’s wrap.
    Before leaving, Leora went to her mother. Kissing her cheek as a bird would peck it, she said quickly, “Now cheer up, Mother.”
    Ignoring her father and the other children, she left the house.
    Leora always arrived an hour earlier at the doctor’s office. It gave her time with the doctor before the office opened.
    The doctor was beyond fifty, and he believed that the night was useful for restoring the battery of life.
    Before Leora allowed him to caress her she said to the doctor, “I want to ask you one favor.”
    “What is it?” he asked impatiently.
    “My mother thinks she’s that way again, and I want you to examine her.”
    The doctor, old in the ways of bringing and detouring babies, replied,
    “Certainly—she’s perhaps not that way at all. She probably caught cold.”
    “That’s what I told her,” lied Leora, “but she wants to come to you and make sure.”
    “All right, my dear—tell her to come tomorrow afternoon.”
    Leora put her arms about the doctor. For several minutes the man of medicine forgot his trade.
    Later, the radiant Leora asked, “Doctor—are things a sin when people are not married?”
    It was the doctor and not the deacon who answered. As usual with men of science, he asked another question while answering with,
    “Is it a sin to be alive?”
    “No—I think it’s grand,” Leora replied.
    “That’s your answer,” said the doctor, as the