The Topeka State Journal

The Evening Story: Letitia's Lecture.

(By Catherine Cooper.)

"My dearest, that you are no more suited to the lecture platform than I am to open a mothers' meeting." Norman Prince gazed fondly down at his sweetheart. There was, however, sufficient of masculine superiority in his expression to irritate Letitia.

"Men always make such absurd comparisons," she retorted quickly. "Just because you cannot preside at a mothers' meeting is no reason to suppose I cannot lecture successfully on better babies."

"The idea is absurd," Norman said, more hotly than he realized. "A girl of your age can't know anything about either better or worse babies, and as for lecturing on the subject to women who have brought up children as old as you are—well, your own common sense should teach you the folly of such an idea."

"And your own sense should tell you that I would not consider lecturing on a subject I had not mastered. Just because women have brought up children is no sign they have brought them up properly."

"And you are going to teach these mothers what their children might have been had they heard your lecture first." Norman laughed long and heartily.

Letitia's eyes were fixed wrathfully upon him. She was very serious over her proposed series of lectures before the club and she did not like being laughed at. She was sorry Norman was so fine a specimen of manhood. It was difficult to give him up, but perhaps when she had succeeded in showing him and her world that she was an efficient speaker he would come back to her and bow in acknowledgment of her gift.

Before she could speak the fiery words that would terminate their engagement Norman himself gave expression to his quickly matured resolution.

"Letitia, I am sorry to have hurt you, but I think I understand you better than you do yourself. I also realize that you are going to give me back my ring and tell me never to darken your door again. Isn't that right?"

"Yes!" retorted Letitia defiantly.

"Well, under the circumstances, I think you are right. But I see no reason why we should sever our friendship. I have always been your best friend and always want to be." He looked earnestly into Letitia's surprised eyes. "Can't you manage to promise me that?"

"Y-yes," agreed Letitia, trying not to seem amazed at his readiness to sever the closer tie. "But I will be very busy during the next week or two preparing my lecture," she added by way of introducing the new Letitia.

She more or less reluctantly pulled off the beautiful ring from her plump little finger and gave it to Norman.

"Oh, thanks," he said, with a merry smile, "we almost forgot to end things properly." He put the ring in his pocket with the casual remark, "I suppose it is up to me to find another girl before this solitaire burns a hole in my pocket."

Letitia's head went up into the air, but she made no comment. She was frightfully hurt, but defiant.

"I want to help you all I can," Norman told her, with his usual gentle manner toward her. "If you just study up your lecture and practice it on me it will help you wonderfully. You've no idea how difficult it is to speak the things out that you have conceived in your mind, especially before a seething mass of people. Your voice sounds like a lost soul when you first speak and you get positively ghastly weak in the knees." He laughed in recollection of his own first attempt. "So if you just practice upon me a bit you'll find it will help a lot when it comes to the nerve-racking ordeal."

Letitia essayed a smile, but she felt rather weak in anticipation of her first speech. "You are certainly cheerful and encouraging," she said finally. "However, I think your suggestion is a good one. I will be very glad to speak my lines over before you. It is good of you to think of it."

In her gratitude Letitia would have offered him the habitual lover's kiss, but she remembered just in time that they were no longer lovers but only friends.

Norman smiled but made no comment. He had seen her swiftly withheld caress and in his heart rejoiced. He did not press the advantage, but shook hands in most friendly fashion and left her.

After that Letitia threw herself heart and soul into the preparation of her lecture to be delivered before the club women of the town. She felt very important and very much in earnest. Norman seemed to have suddenly realized that she was a woman of some purpose, and was helping her in every way. He listened patiently to her speech sometimes twice during an evening, until Letitia felt that she could stand before a thousand people and say it without a tremor or mistake.

"I don't know what I would have done without you," she told him on the night before the meeting. "You are going to stand in the wings and prompt me if I need it, aren't you?"

"Sure—you can't lose me," laughed Norman. He had tried, and with remarkable success, to stifle entirely any loverlike feeling he had for Letitia. If the girl missed the comfort of his great, strong arms she did not say so.

The following morning Letitia awoke with a peculiar sense of premonition. She felt strangely weak in the knees, and without apparent reason all the nerves in her body were twitching so that she had no desire to eat. She tried desperately to fling off the sickening dread that had gripped her. During the day she did succeed and toward evening her qualms had so far left her that she could laugh at her early morning silly weakness.

She dressed with habitual care and the result, a mass of soft pinks, was a joy to behold. Even Norman, who thought her wonderfully beautiful, had never seen her so altogether adorable. He had difficulty in restraining the desire of his arms, but he smiled joyfully and gripped her hands in a friendly clasp before Letitia went forward to the platform to deliver her lecture on "Better Babies."

The hall was crowded. When Letitia stood out and faced her audience she would have smiled in friendly greeting save that her lips were parched. Also her sight was blurred and she seemed swaying on a bottomless platform. Every line of her lecture had escaped her dazed brain. She stood, it seemed to her for an endless time, tortured with dumb fright, then turned and went swiftly behind the curtain and into Norman's waiting arms.

Never in all her life long did his arms seem so wonderful a haven of rest as with masterful tenderness he swept her into a chair, then went out to the platform. Once there, he told the friendly audience who had come to hear Letitia's lecture, all that she would have told them. Norman knew it practically word for word. The club women were amused and charmed. When he had finished a long and loud applause was given him.

Norman then turned back into the wings. Letitia was smiling and there was a world of relief in her eyes. She flung herself happily into Norman's arms and felt in his pocket for the ring she had given him.

"I will be engaged to you again," she said, "if you still love me and will never make me step on a platform again."

Since Norman's answer was most satisfactory, she added: "I might have known I could never succeed in anything well except in loving you. I suppose all the women will be wanting you to lead the mothers' meetings now."

Norman only smiled.—(Copyright, 1914, by the McClure Newspaper Syndicate.)