Photoplay (Feb - Jun 1921)

You don t love me," she said. "It was one of your imaginative flights. You don t want to be married. You were play-acting as always. Well, you are free ! Don t look so tragic. They found the town-house and the church — one cannot fail to find the landmarks of so small a village. But Elspeth almost sobbed openly at sight of their smallness, their total lack of the beauty which had fired her imagination. But the lad, holding her tightly by the hand, stood silent for a moment, gazing, while the bitter chagrin and disappointment of his own eyes turned slowly to a far-off, tranquil gaze which seemed to look far, far beyond the mean little buildings, at something shining and splendid. "Elspeth," he almost whispered, "do you na ken? We're in Thrums! Here our mother stood when she was a wee bit lassie; there's the town-house she saw, all fine and shining in new paint; that clock on the front is gold, with jewels flashing from its hands. And there's the Auld Licht Church, with a steeple that touches the sky, and stained glass windows, and a gold bell with a silver tongue to ring the chimes. And inside's the grand pew with a velvet cushion, where our mother knelt in her white dress and said her wee prayer. And all around us are the houses she loved, all fine and shining with their stairs going up so straight and proud — do ye na see, Elspeth?" And the girl, her round, adoring eyes cm her brother's face, breathed a long, happy sigh. "Ay, I ken," she whispered. "It's — it's bonnier than 1 dreamed of, Tommy! Let's go to find the Cuttle Well now." So they turned and went back through the narrow, dirty street, two brave little souls, beginning again the game that had furnished all tin brightness their young lives had ever known tin1 game of make-believe. I [alf-way up the playing marbles. a snot where they might watch without be hill they came suddenly upon some boys orrimy (hew a quick, ecstatic breath, as he whisked Elspet h to ing noticed. "Capey-dykey!" he breathed. "They're playin' it. It's never played bul in Thrums!" Whether he would have deserted his little sister to try the mysteries of this game will never be known, for all at once the boys left off playing and began to dance up and down, crying out with loud, jeering laughter. "Ho, ho! The painted lady's brat! The painted lady's brat! What's a father? What's a father?" A little girl had come down the street, from the hill above. She was taller than Elspeth or Tommy — thirteen years old, Tommy decided, after one quick, comparing look. She was a bonny lassie, too, he thought, with her cheeks scarlet and her eyes flashing rage at her tormentors. She had a mop of long, dark hair, and one of the boys ran up to her now. jerking at it viciously, while the others sent a shower of stones falling around her. She refused, disdainfully, to hurry her movements, and the boy at her side received a well-directed blow which sent him reeling to a safe distance. Elspeth began to cry from sympathy and fright, and Tommy called out sharply: "What's the matter o' ye all? Win torment a lassie?" They whirled and looked at him. forgetting the girl in the new diversion of sizing up a strange boy. "She's only the painted lady's brat !" one volunteered. "Her mother's a reg'lar bad mi. So the girl's a bad tin! She asked us once 'what's a father?' That's a question for a lassie to ask! Oh, oh!" And again they took up the cry "What's a father! What's a father!" Suddenly the girl darted straight at the largest of the boys and began belaboring him \ iolently. "You lie!" she screamed. "My mother is sweet! And I'm not a bad one. And I'm not afraid of the whole of you!" Over Tommy's face had come the strange, far-seeing look again. Cone was the shabby street, the jeering lads, the girl with the ready lists and the mop of Hying hair. There before him lay a smooth, wide field of green where a blue-eyed, goldenhaired princess wrung her hands in distress while a villain in black armor dragged her away by her streaming curls of gold. And there was he. Tommy, in shining armor, galloping up on a snow white steed, with strong lance gleaming in the sun, flinging himself oil his horse — 40