Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer and David Widger

BAB: A SUB-DEB

By Mary Roberts Rinehart

Author Of "K," "The Circular Staircase," "Kings, Queens And Pawns," Etc.

CONTENTS

I THE SUB-DEB II THEME: THE CELEBRITY III HER DIARY IV BAB'S BURGLAR V THE G.A.C.

CHAPTER I

THE SUB-DEB: A THEME WRITTEN AND SUBMITTED IN LITERATURE CLASS BY BARBARA PUTNAM ARCHIBALD, 1917.

DEFINITION OF A THEME:

A theme is a piece of writing, either true or made up by the author, and consisting of Introduction, Body and Conclusion. It should contain Unity, Coherence, Emphasis, Perspecuity, Vivacity, and Presision. It may be ornamented with dialogue, discription and choice quotations.

SUBJECT OF THEME:

An interesting Incident of My Christmas Holadays.

Introduction:

"A tyrant's power in rigor is exprest."--DRYDEN.

I HAVE decided to relate with Presision what occurred during my recent Christmas holaday. Although I was away from this school only four days, returning unexpectedly the day after Christmas, a number of Incidents occurred which I believe I should narate.

It is only just and fair that the Upper House, at least, should know of the injustice of my exile, and that it is all the result of Circumstances over which I had no controll.

For I make this apeal, and with good reason. Is it any fault of mine that my sister Leila is 20 months older than I am? Naturaly, no.

Is it fair also, I ask, that in the best society, a girl is a Sub-Deb the year before she comes out, and although mature in mind, and even maturer in many ways than her older sister, the latter is treated as a young lady, enjoying many privileges, while the former is treated as a mere child, in spite, as I have observed, of only 20 months difference? I wish to place myself on record that it is NOT fair.

I shall go back, for a short time, to the way things were at home when I was small. I was very strictly raised. With the exception of Tommy Gray, who lives next door and only is about my age, I was never permitted to know any of the Other Sex.

Looking back, I am sure that the present way society is organized is really to blame for everything. I am being frank, and that is the way I feel. I was too strictly raised. I always had a Governess taging along. Until I came here to school I had never walked to the corner of the next street unattended. If it wasn't Mademoiselle it was mother's maid, and if it wasn't either of them, it was mother herself, telling me to hold my toes out and my shoulder blades in. As I have said, I never knew any of the Other Sex, except the miserable little beasts at dancing school. I used to make faces at them when Mademoiselle was putting on my slippers and pulling out my hair bow. They were totaly uninteresting, and I used to put pins in my sash, so that they would get scratched.

Table of contents (by pages)

• 1: Bab: a Sub-Deb by Mary Roberts Rinehart
• 2: Carter Brooks is the well known Yale Center
• 3: See notice enclosed you football game
• 4: And saw that Sis had had her room done over
• 5: But Sis sat on my bed and watched me
• 6: Owing to the appearance of Hannah with a mending basket
• 7: I addressed the envelope to Harold Valentine
• 8: I may say here that I chose Harold
• 9: Elaine Adams was there waiting for me
• 10: They fell on the muffins like pigs
• 11: But I told him that the Familey objected to him
• 12: I How about calling him Grosvenor
• 13: I dropped my manacure scizzors
• 14: And if the Familey is half as upset as I am
• 15: I hope you have saved the Cotillion for me
• 16: If we are to overcome the Familey objection to me
• 17: Second couzin once removed or no second couzin once removed
• 18: When I was going through a tradgedy
• 19: If she was speachless for the next half hour
• 20: He developed the whooping cough later
• 21: The way the nuns wear whatever they call them
• 22: Had brought a man out of a perfectly empty Cabinet
• 23: It being Xmas and her brother in law having a wake
• 24: The Familey is crazy about him
• 25: All addressed to him as Grosvenor
• 26: And she brought in the milk and the tablets
• 27: But I have a gleam of intellagence
• 28: We'll order a taxicab and get you home
• 29: Grosvenor he went to college with
• 30: Her favorite Poem and the favorite child of her Brain
• 31: I had got the aformentioned cinder in my eye
• 32: I don't care anything about Furnature
• 33: And dipped into the Suitcase again
• 34: A bare recitle of a meeting may be News
• 35: Don't anser one question with another
• 36: And I beleive in a world beyond
• 37: And Leila was complaining about me
• 38: There was no Claret or anything with dinner
• 39: Black silk stockings and tennis rackets
• 40: I was not realy in love with anyone
• 41: We now approach the Catastrofe
• 42: And I'm doing a bath towle to match
• 43: Tanney was the butler who had taken Patrick's place
• 44: Or you've done somthing you're scared about
• 45: But I felt that I must talk to somone
• 46: I was still hanging to the latice
• 47: I don't get enough new clothes to worry about
• 48: Patten came down their walk and crossed to us
• 49: Mother had been very cool about the Pattens
• 50: And brought a Dictionery and some pens and ink out
• 51: Beecher said in a terrable voice
• 52: But I could hear a pen scraching on paper
• 53: It was about five o'clock when I heard Jane approaching
• 54: I don't beleive they would fit me
• 55: We were once interupted by Hannah looking for me for dinner
• 56: The Pattens and the one peace lady were at dinner
• 57: And he left behind a bath towle that does not
• 58: As the great English dairy keeper
• 59: And give us a chance to live this Scandle down
• 60: For Reginald Beecher is no longer my ideal
• 61: A few helpfull Deeds nothing worth putting down
• 62: Egleston being in love with the Leading Character
• 63: And Leila ought not to be worried
• 64: The terrable thought has come to me that I am fickel
• 65: And was about to begin on sausage
• 66: Half the girls in the store are crazy about Mr
• 67: Having uterly failed with Hannah
• 68: I darsay you can lend me five dollars for a day or so
• 69: Sent Sis a huge bunch of orkids today
• 70: That was merely an afectionate diminutive
• 71: Had my afections not been otherwise engaged
• 72: Not in the ordinery use of the word
• 73: Suppose I do think of somthing what then
• 74: As though I sneazed because I liked to sneaze
• 75: Evadently have promised father to restrain themselves
• 76: I beleive you are up to some mischeif
• 77: I darsay I should not have written it
• 78: There's a screan for that very purpose
• 79: Although we have never had a mat with Welcome on it
• 80: And except for an ocasional sneaze
• 81: I have said nothing about violance
• 82: He was with the woman that plays the Adventuress
• 83: Didn't I say it was my lucky day
• 84: There's nothing foney about it
• 85: I left off where Adrian had disapeared
• 86: I know nothing further of your daughter's Skeme
• 87: He's probably only been run over or somthing
• 88: I gave no thought to the smallpox he had mentioned
• 89: And learn that it is not possable to make a good appearence
• 90: I haven't noticed any cherishing
• 91: Tommv maintaining that I gave an impression of fridgidity
• 92: What a what a DIFERENT necktie
• 93: Hannah staid in my room that evening
• 94: Which concerned the stealing of some famous Emerelds
• 95: I want you to do somthing for me
• 96: And flours to DEBUTANTES except Barbara
• 97: I have always desired an aristocratic noze
• 98: For is not Romanse itself but breif
• 99: I said to Carter Brooks Why don't you stop hanging round
• 100: Especialy when I told him to whom it was
• 101: I was exultent yet terrafied at this result of my Experament
• 102: At last we found one I could aford
• 103: And recieve nothing but indiference
• 104: Smoking father's cigar at intervals
• 105: Although I did not regard the Arab as such
• 106: I am an old Bird and hard to decieve
• 107: As Leila was not going to marry
• 108: This took fifty six dollars more
• 109: His hand was tied up in a bandige
• 110: I therfore submitted to an embrase
• 111: With perhaps a large familey and unable to seperate
• 112: He then looked at a piece of MAUVE NOTE PAPER
• 113: And no Archibald is ever a sneak
• 114: Just what do you mean by afectionate
• 115: He said a man liked to be engaged to a clinging Vine
• 116: But I am not that kind of a Theif
• 117: I use dissapated in the sense of spent
• 118: I therfore went in and took my Revolver from his bureau
• 119: The second Theif was now aproaching
• 120: And the Theif had his arms around her
• 121: If permitted and not considered imodest by my Familey
• 122: Like Plattsburg only more Femanine
• 123: War has already made changes in my Familey
• 124: War certainly has changed my Familey
• 125: What sort of a Unaform will we have
• 126: We then gave the Milatary Salute and disbanded
• 127: I therfore went upstairs to my father's dressing room
• 128: And then get terrably serious about nothing at all
• 129: A Chaperone to a Milatary Camp
• 130: Being muddy and needing a bath
• 131: I shall tell you my Milatary secrets
• 132: He was opening and closing the pantrey drawers
• 133: William brought up the Eggnogg
• 134: You might at least take your Familey into your confidence
• 135: And must therfore use their brains
• 136: A real Butler cuts an orange the other way
• 137: I therfore stood still and felt like screaming
• 138: Feeling that he had met a terrable Death
• 139: 3 Squeeze the Triger properly
• 140: And voted to give up everything but signaling
• 141: For although I reported this being in the Garage to mother
• 142: As although usualy making steel
• 143: That I continue to think about his pating my foot
• 144: She also ofered me a wrist watch
• 145: I put a dressing gown over my ROBE DE NUIT
• 146: We want tonight's Password at the Mill
• 147: But I would not tell the Password
• 148: We only get realy acquainted with our Families when they die
• 149: When I heard the milk waggon coming back
• 150: When Leila came in and kissed me
• 151: I therfore asked for his Handkercheif again