Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905   By: Various

VOL. XV. JUNE, 1905. No. 5.

CONTENTS

The Outgoing of Simeon Elizabeth Duer Concerning the Heart's Deep Pages Sewell Ford Song Charlotte Becker Synopsis of Chapters I XIII of "The Deluge" Editorial The Deluge (Continued) David Graham Phillips The Window Theodosia Garrison Americans in London Lady Willshire The Blood of Blink Bonny Martha McCulloch Williams Monotony Philip Gerry "Plug" Ivory and "Plug" Avery Holman F. Day Supper With Natica Robert E. MacAlarney By The Fountain Margaret Houston Bas Bleu Anna A. Rogers The Vagabond M. M. The Doing of the Lambs Susan Sayre Titsworth The Unattained William Hamilton Hayne The Flatterer George Hibbard The Miracle of Dawn Madison Cawein The Song of Broadway Robert Stewart Green Devils and Old Maids Emerson G. Taylor Two Sorrows Charles Hanson Towne Love and Mushrooms Frances Wilson Some Feminine Stars Alan Dale For Book Lovers Archibald Lowery Sessions

THE OUTGOING OF SIMEON

By ELIZABETH DUER

Simeon Ponsonby the professor of botany at Harmouth had married when over forty the eldest daughter of a distinguished though impecunious family in his own college town. His mother, on her deathbed, foresaw that he would need a housekeeper and suggested the match.

"Simeon," she said, "it isn't for us to question the Lord's ways, but I am mortally sorry to leave you, my son; it is hard for a man to shift for himself. I was thinking now if you were to marry Deena Shelton you might go right along in the old house. The Sheltons would be glad to have her off their hands, and she is used to plain living. She would know enough to keep her soup pot always simmering on the back of the range and make her preserves with half the regular quantity of sugar. I like her because she brushes her hair and parts it in the middle, and she has worn the same best dress for three years."

Soon after Mrs. Ponsonby died and Simeon married Deena.

She didn't particularly want to marry him, but then, on the other hand, she was not violently set against it. She saw romance through her mother's eyes, and Mrs. Shelton said Professor Ponsonby was a man any girl might be proud to win. If his sympathies were as narrow as his shoulders, his scientific reputation extended over the civilized world, and Harmouth was proud of the fact. Deena's attention was not called to his sympathies, and it was called to his reputation.

He proposed to Miss Shelton in a few well chosen words, placed his mother's old fashioned diamond ring on her finger, and urged forward the preparations for the wedding with an impatience that bespoke an ardent disposition. Later Deena learned that his one servant had grown reckless in joints after Mrs. Ponsonby's death, and the house bills had shocked Simeon into seeking immediate aid.