The Co-Citizens Part 23

After an ineffable pause, during which her lover had laid a laughing tribute upon her lips and brow, she added:

"Poor father, I wonder where he is?"

"Saw him going down the avenue as I came up, with an enormous bunch of flowers in his hand," Bob told her.

"Poor father" was, in fact, approaching Mrs. Sasnett at that moment, who was seated in mournful but resplendent grandeur upon a rustic bench beneath the trees in her yard.

She was indignant at the day's doings. She had been indignant for months, but she thanked G.o.d that she was still a lady, and she was determined to remain one, to which end she had contributed that day enough to make up for the deficit in the women's missionary collections of her church. And she had dressed herself in purple and fine linen by way of making out that she was a lady and nothing but a lady.

"Colonel Adams!" she exclaimed softly, as the Colonel approached.

"Madam, the sight of you is grateful after what I've been through this day!" he said, kissing her hand, and depositing the flowers upon the ground at her feet.

"Oh! Colonel, no one can have had more sympathy with you than I have felt during these trying months," she sighed.

"I have felt it," he returned, parting his coat tails and seating himself beside her.

"No one could have sympathized with you so keenly in your sorrow," she murmured.

"I divined as much. I have suffered!"

"I know!" she breathed.

"My one pleasure has been the offering I have placed upon your doorstep each evening," he sighed.

"So the flowers were from you, then?" she said, gazing at the bouquet so significantly laid now at her feet.

"I trusted your woman's intuition to know that," he answered, with a shade of offended dignity.

"I suspected, of course, but how could I know? You never confessed."

"Who else in this shameless town would have the sense, the feeling, to approach a lady with flowers--they give 'em the ballot instead!"

"Don't speak of it!" she implored, lifting her hand tragically as if to ward off a blow.

"But I _must_ speak of it, Lula," he exclaimed, seizing the despairing hand. "As much as I hate to mention a matter so indelicate, I must, because it concerns us." They looked at each other like two old doves.

"How should it matter to us?" she asked sadly.

"Because if we do not unite against this awful situation, we--well, we are lost!"

She sighed, as if she saw no hope anywhere in the moonlight.

"Will you marry me, Lula?"

"Oh! Colonel Adams----"

"Under ordinary circ.u.mstances I'd never dare hope for such a boon. I'm unworthy of you. No man can be--but consider what will happen if you refuse?"

"What will happen?" she exclaimed.

"You must pa.s.s the remainder of your days, the sweetest, most beautiful years of a woman's life, in intimate daily contact with a suffragist, with a young woman who votes like a man!"

"G.o.d help me! What do you mean?" she cried in genuine alarm.

"Bob's going to marry Selah! that's what I mean. You'll have to live with them. And if you don't marry me, I'll have to live with them!"

THE END