Where Two Ways Met Read Online Free Page A

accordingly.
    And at last Paige went on his way thoughtfully, wondering just what was coming of all this, and whether he had been an utter fool to make this stand. Yet he knew in his heart that he was still troubled over the situation, without in the least being sure what it was that made him feel so doubtful.

Chapter 2
    W ell,” said Priscilla Brisco, the suburban dressmaker, placing the last three pins of her mouthful carefully between her thin lips and talking skillfully between pins, “I see Mary Madison has got her son back from the Philippines at last, poor thing! I hope to goodness she’ll be happy for a while. I just hated to see that sweet, patient look in her saintly loving eyes. I always felt condemned for any frets I had whenever I saw her. Me, with no children, not even a distant nephew left to go!”
    “Yes,” said Mrs. Harmon, the Madisons’ next-door neighbor, who was having a dress refitted, “she is a good woman, and she did feel her boy’s going a lot. He was such a good boy. But I don’t know but I’d feel more worried about him now he’s home. He’s bound to be somewhat changed now he’s been out in the world, away from that sheltered home his mother and father made for him. They simply can’t expect him to stay the way they brought him up, of course. They’ll probably find out a number of things about their mistakes now he’s home. I suppose he’ll have an awful time now finding a job, like so many of the returned servicemen.”
    “Oh, no, I don’t believe he will,” said Miss Brisco, shifting a pin to the other corner of her mouth. “Hadn’t you heard? He has one already! Yes, isn’t it wonderful? An important job with Harris Chalmers. Yes, that’s definite. I had to stop at the Chalmerses’ house last night to get a frock I promised to alter for Mrs. Chalmers, and I had to wait in the hall for the maid to go upstairs and get it, and I heard Mr. Chalmers telling about it. And he said they were going to have young Madison over for dinner Saturday night.”
    “You don’t say so! Over for dinner! Are you
sure
? Then that must mean that Mr. Chalmers has really taken up the young man. Well, that’s something to be proud of. Mr. Chalmers is an outstanding man. He’s very prominent in our church, and very benevolent. Well, now it will be up to Paige, whether he can make good. And of course Mr. Chalmers has a daughter, very pretty and smart, and quite worldly. If Paige can just make up to her, his fortune will be made.”
    “It sure will,” said the dressmaker, extracting the last pin from her mouth and fixing it firmly in the seam she was taking up.
    “But then,” she went on with speculative lips free to converse thoughtfully, “there again will be something for his mother to worry about. That Chalmers girl wouldn’t be at all the style of Paige’s saintly mother. But then I suppose she must expect that in these days of modern young people, there are girls everywhere, and he’s probably been thrown with a lot worse across seas where he’s been. Oh, I guess she’s an all-right girl, only, of course, she’s not at all religious, and his mother is. But then, after all, they may not take a notion to each other. That Chalmers girl can have
anybody
she wants. She’s good looking and wealthy.”
    “Well,” said Mrs. Harmon, “Paige Madison is very handsome, of course, and that goes a great way with a girl. With almost
any
girl. I guess if
she
wants him, she can have him. He certainly seems to have landed on his feet.”
    “Well, it’s all as you look at it,” said the dressmaker dubiously. “I’m just afraid his mother won’t look at it that way.”
    “She’d be an awful fool if she didn’t,” said the neighbor. “Now, about this dress. When do you think you can have it done? I’m thinking of going away next week, and I’d like to take it with me.”
    And so the talk drifted to other matters, and presently the dressmaker took herself away with the big bundle