Feminist fiction; Women -- Social and moral questions -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
"I really don't see how I'm to meet the child, Kate," Honora said
anxiously to her friend. "Do you think you could manage to get down to
the station?"
Kate could and did go. This girl, like herself, was very much on her
own resources, she imagined. She was coming, as Kate had come only the
other day, to a new and forbidding city, and Kate's heart warmed to her.
It seemed rather a tragedy, at best, to leave the bland Californian
skies and to readjust life amid the iron compulsion of Chicago. Kate
pictured her as a little thing, depressed, weary with her long journey,
and already homesick.
The reality was therefore somewhat of a surprise. As Kate stood waiting
by the iron gate watching the outflowing stream of people with anxious
eyes, she saw a little furore centered about the person of an opulent
young woman who had, it appeared, many elaborate farewells to make to
her fellow-passengers. Two porters accompanied her, carrying her smart
bags, and, even with so much assistance, she was draped with extra
garments, which hung from her arms in varying and seductive shades of
green. She herself was in green of a subtle olive shade, and her plumes
and boa, her chains and chatelaine, her hand-bags and camera, marked her
as the traveler triumphant and expectant. Like an Arabian princess,
borne across the desert to the home of her future lord, she came
panoplied with splendor. The consciousness of being a personage, by the
mere right conferred by regal womanhood-in-flower, emanated from her.
And the world accepted her smilingly at her own estimate. She wished to
play at being queen. What more simple? Let her have her game. On every
hand she found those who were--or who delightedly pretended to
be--her subjects.
Once beyond the gateway, this exuberant creature paused. "And now," she
said to a gentleman more assiduous than the rest, who waited upon her
and who was laden with her paraphernalia, "you must help me to identify
my cousin. That will be easy enough, too, for they say we resemble
each other."
That gave Kate her cue. She went forward with outstretched hand.
"I am your cousin's emissary, Miss Morrison," she said. "I am Kate
Barrington, and I came to greet you because your cousin was unable to
get here, and is very, very sorry about it."
Miss Morrison revealed two deep dimples when she smiled, and held out so
much of a hand as she could disengage from her draperies. She presented
her fellow-traveler; she sent a porter for a taxi. All was
exhilaratingly in commotion about her; and Kate found herself
apportioning the camera and some of the other things to herself.
They had quite a royal setting-forth. Every one helped who could find
any excuse for doing so; others looked on. Miss Morrison nodded and
smiled; the chauffeur wheeled his machine splendidly, making dramatic
gestures which had the effect of causing commerce to pause till the
princess was under way.
"Be sure," warned Miss Morrison, "to drive through the pleasantest
streets."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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