Part 6 (1/2)
”From the United States and everywhere,” Miss Ryan replied ”Take me up to your room, dear, where we can talk our heads off
”And, furthermore, Hazie, I'll be pleased to have you address hed, as she settled herself in a chair in Hazel's room
”So you're married?” Hazel said
”I am that,” Mrs Kitty responded emphatically, ”to the best boy that ever drew breath And so should you be, dear girl I don't see how you've escaped so long--a good-looking girl like you The boys were always crazy after you There's nothing like having a good man to take care of you, dear”
”Heaven save ood one, you're lucky I can't see theant, treacherous brutes”
”Lord bless us--it's worse than I thought!” Kitty jumped up and threw her arms around Hazel ”There, there--don't waste a tear on them I know all about it I cairls--nasty little cats they are; a woavewith you Pshaw! The world's full of good, decent fellows--and you've got one co”
”I hope not,” Hazel protested
”Oh, yes, you have,” Mrs Brooks sly assured her ”A wo, anyway, you know--and vice versa I know We can cuss the men all ant to, my dear, and some of us unfortunately have a nasty experience with one now and then But we can't get away fro”
”If you'd hada different tune,” Hazel veheave way, and indulged in the luxury of turning herself loose on Kitty's shoulder Presently she was able to wipe her eyes and relate the whole story from the Sunday Mr Bush stopped and spoke to her in the park down to that evening
Kitty nodded understandingly ”But the girls have handed it to you worse than the ely ”Jack Barroas just plain crazy jealous, and aas he did
You're really fortunate, I think, because you'd not be really happy with a reith--they should have stood by you, knowing you as they did; yet you see they were ready to think the worst of you They nearly always do when there's a man in the case That's a weakness of our sex, dear My, what a vindictive old Turk that BushCoot a two-year contract with the World Advertising Co at least Come and stay with us We'll show these little- or two Leave it to us”
”Oh, no, I couldn't think of that, Kitty!” Hazel faltered ”You know I'd love to, and it's awfully good of you, but I think I'o away froo,” Kitty insisted ”We are going to take a furnished cottage for a while Though, between you andpeople as I do, I can't blaues can't wound you”
But Hazel was obdurate She would not inflict herself on the one friend she had left And Kitty, after a short talk, berated her affectionately for her independence, and rose to go
”For,” said she, ”I didn't get hold of this thing till Addie Horton called at the hotel this afternoon, and I didn't stop to think that it was near teatiht here Jimmie'll think I've eloped
So ta-ta I'll coent in the forenoon By-by”
Hazel sat down and actually srievous burden had fallen off her ical quirk, the idea of leaving Granville andaway under fire She did not wish to subject Kitty Brooks to the difficulties, the euest; but the mere fact that Kitty stood stanchly by her made the world seem less harsh and dreary, made it seem as if she had, in a measure, justified herself She felt that she could adventure forth ae country with a better heart, knowing that Kitty Brooks would put a swift quietus on any gossip that ca-rooht-heartedly, and when theher papers The first of the Western papers was a Vancouver _World_ In a real-estate e she found a diminutive sketch plan of the city on the shores of Burrard Inlet, Canada's principal outpost on the far Pacific
”It's quite a big place,” she oodness knows”
Then she turned to the ”Help Wanted” advertise which impressed her quickly and raphers, and the repeated calls for domestic help and such Domestic service she shrank from except as a last resort And down near the bottom of the column she happened on an inquiry for a school-teacher, female preferred, in an out-of-the-way district in the interior of the province
”Now, that--” Hazel thought
She had a second-class certificate tucked away ainally it had been her intention to teach, and she had done so one ter of the terot her second certificate; but at the sae course, and the following June found her clacking a typewriter at nine dollars a week And her teacher's diploma had remained in the bottom of her trunk ever since
”I could teach, I suppose, by rubbing up a little on one or two subjects as I went along,” she reflected ”I wonder now--”
What she wondered was how ain, and looked carefully for other advertise paper she found one or two vacancies to fill out the fall terathered that Western schools paid from fifty to sixty dollars a month for ”schoolma'ams”
with certificates such as she held
”Why not?” she asked herself ”I've got two resources If I can't get office work I can teach I can do _anything_ if I have to And it's far enough away, in all conscience--all of twenty-five hundred miles”