NEW FACES

BY

MYRA KELLY

AUTHOR OF "LITTLE CITIZENS" "WARDS OF LIBERTY" "THE ISLE OF DREAMS""ROSNAH" "THE GOLDEN SEASON" "LITTLE ALIENS"

[Illustration: Printers Mark]

_Illustrations by_

CHARLES F. NEAGLE

G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

_Copyright, 1910, By_ G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY

NEW FACES

[Illustration: "THERE'S NO QUESTION ABOUT IT, " HE RETORTED. "SHE KNOWSTHAT I SHALL MARRY HER. "]

 "Oh give me new faces, new faces, new faces I have seen those about me a fortnight or more. Some people grow weary of names or of places But faces to me are a much greater bore. "

 _Andrew Lang. _

CONTENTS

THE PLAY'S THE THING 17THERE'S DANGER IN NUMBERS 57MISERY LOVES COMPANY 83THE CHRISTMAS GUEST 115WHO IS SYLVIA? 147THE SPIRIT OF CECELIA ANNE 187THEODORA, GIFT OF GOD 219GREAT OAKS FROM LITTLE ACORNS 263

ILLUSTRATIONS

"There's no question about it, " he retorted. "She knows that I shallmarry her. "

Burgess gained an interest and an occupation more absorbing than he hadfound for many years

Uncle Richard's face, as he met John's eyes, was a study

She swooped under the large center table, dragging Patty with her

The changeless smile and the drooping plumes made three completerevolutions, and nestled confidingly upon the shoulder of the law

Celia Anne shut her eyes tightly and fired the rifle into the air

NEW FACES

"THE PLAY'S THE THING"

A business meeting of the Lady Hyacinths Shirt-Waist Club was inprogress. The roll had been called. The twenty members were all presentand the Secretary had read the minutes of the last meeting. Theseformalities had consumed only a few moments and the club was ready tofall upon its shirt waists. The sewing-machines were oiled anduncovered, the cutting-table was cleared, every Hyacinth had her box ofsewing paraphernalia in her lap; and Miss Masters who had been halfcajoled and half forced into the management of this branch of the St. Martha's Settlement Mission was congratulating herself upon the ease andexpedition with which her charges were learning to transact theiraffairs, when the President drew a pencil from her pompadour and rappedprofessionally on the table. In her daytime capacity of saleslady in aGrand Street shoe store she would have called "cash, " but as Presidentof the Lady Hyacinths her speech was:

"If none of you goils ain't got no more business to lay before themeetin' a movement to adjoin is in order. "

"I move we adjoin an git to woik, " said Mamie Kidansky promptly. Onlythree buttonholes and the whalebones which would keep the collar well upbehind the ears lay between her and the triumphant rearing of her shirtwaist. Hence her zeal. 

Susie Meyer was preparing to second the motion. As secretary shedisapproved of much discussion. She was always threatening to resign herportfolio vowing, with some show of reason, "I never would 'a' joinedyour old Hyacinths Shirt-Waists if I'd a' known I was goin' to have towrite down all the foolish talk you goils felt like givin' up. "

It seemed therefore that the business meeting was closed, when a voicefrom the opposite side of the table broke in with:

"Say, Rosie, why can't us goils give a play?"

"Ah Jennie, you make me tired, " protested the Secretary. 

"An' you're out of order anyway, " was the President's dictum. 

"Where?" cried Jennie wildly, clutching her pompadour with one hand andthe back of her belt with the other, "where, what's the matter with me?"

"Go 'way back an' sit down, " was the Secretary's advice, "Rosie meantyou're out of parliamentry order. We got a motion on the table an' it'stoo late for you to butt in on it. This meetin' is goin' to adjoin. "

But Jennie was the spokesman of a newly-born party and her supporterswere not going to allow her to be silenced. Even those Lady Hyacinthswho had not been admitted to earlier consultations took kindly to thesuggestion when they heard it. 

"I don't care whether she's out of order or not, " one ambitious Hyacinthdeclared, "I think it would be just too lovely for anything to have aplay. They have 'em all the time over to Rivington Street an' down tothe Educational Alliance. "

"Rebecca Einstein, " said the Secretary darkly, "if you're goin' to fireoff your face about plays an' the Educational Alliances you can keepyour own minnits, that's all! Do ye think I'm goin' to write down yourfoolishness? Well, I ain't. "

Again the President plied her gavel. "Goils, " she remonstrated, "thisain't no way to act. Say, Miss Masters, " she went on, "I guess the wholelot of us is out of order now. What would you do about it if you was me?"

"I should suggest, " Miss Masters answered, "that the motion to adjournbe carried and that the whole club go into committee on the questionraised by Miss Meyer. "

"I move that we take our woik into committee with us, " cried MissKidansky, not to be deflected from her buttonholes. And from such humblebeginnings the production of Hamlet by the Lady Hyacinths sprang. 

Hamlet was not their first choice. It was not even their tenth and tothe end it was not the unanimous choice. During the preliminary stagesof the dramatic fever Miss Masters preserved that strict neutralitywhich marks the successful Settlement worker. She would help--oh, surelyshe would help--the Hyacinths, but she would not lead them. She hadnever questioned their taste in the shape and color of their shirtwaists. Some horrid garments had resulted but to her they represented"self expression, " and as such gave her more pleasure than any servilefollowing of her advice could have done. She soon discovered that thelatitude in the shirt waist field is far exceeded by that in thedramatic and she discovered too, that the Lady Hyacinths, though theyseldom visited the theatre had strong digestions where plays wereconcerned. 

"East Lynne" was warmly advocated until some one discovered agrandmother who had seen it in her youth. Then:

"Ah gee!" remarked the Lady Hyacinths, "we ain't no grave snatchers. Weain't goin' to dig up no dead ones. Say Miss Masters, ain't there no newplays we could give?"

Miss Masters referred them to the public library, but not many plays areobtainable in book form, and the next two meetings were devoted to theplays of Ibsen, Bernard Shaw, Vaughan Moody. When Miss Masters descriedthis literature in the hands of the now openly mutinous Secretary shefelt the time had come to interfere with the "self activity" of hercharges. She promptly confiscated the second volume of "G. B. S. " "For, "she explained "we don't want to do anything unpleasant and the writer ofthese plays himself describes them as that. "

"Guess we don't, " the President agreed. "We got to live up to our name, ain't we? An' what could be pleasanter than a Hyacinth?"

"Nothing, of course, " agreed Miss Masters unsteadily. 

"There's one in this Ibsen book might do, " Jennie suggested. "It'scalled 'A Dolls' House, ' that's a real sweet name. "

"I am afraid it wouldn't do, " said Miss Masters hastily. 

"What's the matter with it?" demanded Susie Meyer. 

"Well, in the first place, there are children in it--"

"Cut it! 'Nough said, " pronounced the President. "Them plays wid kids in'em is all out of style. We giv' 'East Lynne' the turn down an' therewas only one kid in that. What else have you got in that Gibson book?Have you got the play with the Gibson goils in it? We could do that allright, all right. Ain't most of us got Gibson pleats in our shirtwaists?"

"I don't see nothin' about goils, " the Secretary made answer, "butthere's one here about ghosts. How would that do?"

"Not at all, " said Miss Masters firmly. 

"What's the matter with it?" asked one of the girls abandoning hersewing-machine and coming over to the table. "I seen posters of it lastyear. They are givin' it in Broadway. The costoomes would be real easy, just a sheet you know and your hair hanging down. "

"It's not about that kind of ghost, " Miss Masters explained, "and Idon't think it would do for us as there are very few people in the castand one of them is a minister. "

"Cut it, " said the President briefly, "we ain't goin' to have no hymnsingin' in ours. We couldn't, you know, " she explained to Miss Masters, "the most of us is Jewesses. "

"Katie McGuire ain't no Jewess, " asserted the Secretary. "She could bethe minister if that's all you've got against this Gibson play. I wishwe _could_ give it. It's about the only up-to-date Broadway success wecan find. The librarian says you can't never buy copies of JuliaMarlowe's an' Ethel Barrymore's an' Maude Adams' plays. I guess they'rejust scared somebody like us will come along an' do 'em better than theydo an' bust their market. Actresses, " she went on, "is all jest et upwith jealousy of one another. Is there anythin' except the minister thematter with 'Ghosts?'"

"Everything else is the matter with it, " said Miss Masters. "To beginwith, I might as well tell you, it never was a Broadway success. It's aplay that is read oftener than it's acted and last year, Jennie, whenyou saw the posters, it only ran for a week. "

"Cut it, " said the President. "We ain't huntin' frosts. "

The brows of the Hyacinths grew furrowed and their eyes haggard in thesearch. Everyone could tell them of plays but no one knew where theycould be found in printed form and whenever the librarian foundsomething which might be suitable Miss Masters was sure to know ofsomething to its disadvantage. 

And then the real stage, the legitimate Broadway stage intervened. Albert Marsden produced Hamlet and the Lady Hyacinths determined tofollow suit. 

"It's kind of old, " the President admitted, "but there must be somestyle left to it. They're playin' it on Broadway right now. An' we'llgive it on East Broadway just as soon as we can git ready. Me and Mamiewent round to the library last night an' got it out. It's got a dandylot of parts in it: more than this club will ever need. An' it's gotlots of murders an' scraps, an' court ladies an' soldiers an' kings. It's our play all right!"

The sea of troubles into which the Lady Hyacinths plunged with so muchenthusiasm swallowed them so completely that Miss Masters could onlystand on its shore, looking across to Denmark and wringing her handsover the awful things that were happening in that unhappy land. Fortunately she had a friend to whom she could appeal for succour forthe lost but still valiant Hyacinths. He was the sort of person to whomappeals came as naturally as honors come to some men and, since he hadnothing to do and ample time and money with which to do it, he wasgenerally helpful and resourceful. That he had once loved Miss Mastershas nothing to do with this story. She was now engaged to be married toa poorer and busier man, but it was to Jack Burgess that she appealed. 

"Of course I know, " said he when he had responded to her message and shehad anchored him with a tea-cup and disarmed him with a smile, "ofcourse I know what you want to say to me. Every girl who has refused mehas said it sooner or later. You are saying it later--much later--thanthey generally do, but it always comes. 'You have found a wife for me. '"

"I have done much better than that, " she answered, "I have found workfor you. " And she sketched the distress of the Hyacinths in Denmark andurged him to go to their assistance. 

"But, my dear Margaret, " he remonstrated, "What can I do? You havealways known that 'something is rotten in the state of Denmark, ' andyet you have let these poor innocents stir it up. I have often thoughtthat poor Shakespeare added that line after the first performance. Iintend to write that hint to Furniss one of these days. "

"You will write it, " said Margaret Masters, "with more conviction afteryou have seen _my_ Denmark. "

"Very well, " said he, "I'll visit Elsinore to-night, but I insist upon areturn ticket. "

"You will be begging for a season ticket, " she laughed. "They havereduced me to such a condition that I don't know whether they areamusing me or breaking my heart. Tell me, come, which is it? Did youever hear blank verse recited with tense and reverent earnestness and aBowery accent?"

"I never did, " said he. 

 * * * * *

"Shakespeare was right, " whispered Burgess to Miss Masters. "There issomething rotten in Denmark. I've located it. It's the Prince. " Theywere sitting together in a corner of the kindergarten room of thesettlement: a large and spacious room all decked and bright with thepaper and cardboard masterpieces of the babies who played and learnedthere in the mornings. Casts and pictures and green growing things addedto its charm and the Lady Hyacinths so trim and neat and earnest did notdetract from it. 

The sewing-machines and the cutting-table had been cast into corners andwell in the glare of the electric light the President was exclaiming ina voice which would have disgraced an early phonograph, "Oh that thistoo too solid flesh would melt. "

It was not a dress rehearsal but the too solid Prince wore his hair lowon his neck and a golden fillet bound his brows. Silent, he was noble. His walk as he came in at the end of a procession of court ladies andgentlemen was magnificent--slow, dejected, imperious, aloof. ButWittenberg had a great deal to answer for, if he had contracted hisaccent there. 

Gertrude, Queen of Denmark, was a Hyacinth who worked daily at hooks andbuttonholes for an East Broadway tailor. On this night she wore none ofher regalia save her crown and the King had done nothing at all todifferentiate himself from Susie Lacov who officiated as waitress in aJewish lunchroom. 

The Hyacinths had wisely decided to edit Hamlet. In this they followedan almost universal principle and their method was also time-honored. All the scenes in which unimportant members of the club or cast "cameout strong, " were eliminated. So far the Hyacinths were orthodox, butRosie Rosenbaum, Prince, President and Censor, went a step further. 

"Git busy. Mix her up, why don't you!" she commanded later from thewings. The other players were laboriously wading through persiflage andconversation. "You folks ain't _done_ nothin' the last ten minutes onlystand there and gas. Is that actin'? Maybe it's wrote in the book. WhatI want to know is--is it actin'?" Burgess sat suddenly erect and hiseyes glowed. Miss Masters half rose to assume authority but herestrained her. 

"You shut up and leave me be, " Polonius cried. "Ain't I got a right tosay good-bye to my son?"

"You can say good-bye all right, " Rosie reminded her, "without puttin'up that game of talk. Give him a 'I'll be a sister to you' on the cheekan' git through sometime before to-morrow. Cut it, I tell you. "

This "off with his head" attitude on the President's part delightedBurgess. But the caste enjoyed it less and when the ghost was docked ofa whole scene it grew rebellious. 

"If you give me any more of your lip, " said the princely stage manager, "I'll trow you out altogether. There's lots of people wouldn't believein ghosts anyway. Me grandfather seen this play in Chermany and he toldme they didn't use the ghost at all. Nothin' but a green light with avoice comin' out of it. "

"Well, I could be the voice, couldn't I?" the ghost argued; and it wasat this point that Miss Masters took charge of the meeting andintroduced Mr. Burgess. 

"Who has offered, " she went on in spite of his energetic pantomime ofdisclaimer, "to help us with our play. "

"That's real sweet of you, Mr. Burgess, " said the President graciously. 

"Not at all--not at all, " he answered. "It will be a pleasure, I assureyou. "

"You'll excuse me, I'm sure, " the Secretary broke in, "if we go right onwith our woik while you're here. We're makin' our own costoomes, asmuch as we can. That was one reason us young ladies chose Hamlet. It's aplay what everyone wears skoits in. It's easier for us and it ain't soembarrassing, and I guess our folks will like it better. You _have_ tothink of your folks sometimes. Even if they are old-fashioned. MissMasters got us pictures of Mr. Marsden's production an' every last oneof the characters has skoits on. Hamlet's ain't no longer than a bathin'suit, but anyway it's there. I don't think it's real refined, myself, for young ladies to wear gents' suits on the stage. "

"And of course, " a gentle-eyed little girl looked up from her sewing toremark, --"of course this club ain't formed just for makin' shirt waists. We've got a culture-an'-refinement clause in the club constitution, sowe wouldn't want to do nothin' that wasn't real refined. "

[Illustration: BURGESS GAINED AN INTEREST AND AN OCCUPATION MOREABSORBING THAN HE HAD FOUND FOR MANY YEARS. ]

"I understand, " said Burgess more at a loss than a conversation hadever found him, "And what may I ask, is your part of the play?"

"Mamie Conners is too nervous, " the lady President explained "to comeright out and act. She's 'A flourish of trumpets within an' a voicewithout an' a lady of the court an' a soldier an' a choir boy at thefuneral. '"

"Ah, Miss Conners, " Burgess assured this timid but versatile Hyacinth, "that's only stage fright, all great actresses suffer from it at onetime or another. "

 * * * * *

During the weeks that followed, order gradually gained sway in Denmarkand Burgess gained an interest and an occupation more absorbing than hehad found for many years. 

"My dear Margaret, " he was wont to assure Miss Masters, when sheremonstrated with him upon his generosity, "Why shouldn't I ordersupper to be sent in for them? and why shouldn't I ask them up to thehouse for rehearsals? There's the big music room going to waste andthose lazy beggars of servants with nothing to do, and you saw yourselfhow it brightened up poor old Aunt Priscilla. She likes it--they likeit--I like it--you ought to like it. And you certainly can't object tomy having taken them _en masse_ to see Marsden in the play. By George!I'll drag him to theirs. We'll show him an Ophelia! that Mary Conners isa little genius. "

"She is wonderful, " agreed Miss Masters. "The grace of her! The dignity!What she herself would call the culture-an'-refinement!"

"All my discovery. That tyrant of a Rosie Rosenbaum had cast her as aquick change, general utility woman. And in the day-time you tell meshe's a miserable little shop-girl in a Grand Street rookery!"

"That is what she used to be. But I went to the shop a day or two agoto ask her to come up to my house to rehearse with the new Hamlet. Iwatched her for a few moments before she noticed me. She was Ophelia tothe life. She conversed in blank verse. She walked about with thatlittle queenly air you have taught her. She was delicious, adorable. Atfirst she said that she could not rehearse that night, but I told heryou wished it and she came like a lamb. I often wonder if I did a wisething in introducing them to you. Your sort of culture-an'-refinement'may rather upset them when the play is over and we all settle back tothe humdrum. "

"You did a great kindness to me, " said he, "and the best stroke ofmissionary work you'll do in a dog's age. I'm going to work. "

"You are not, " she laughed. 

"I am. Shamed into it by the Lady Hyacinths. "

"Then perhaps the balance will be maintained. If you turn them againstlabor they will have turned you toward it. "

But Miss Masters' fears were groundless: the Lady Hyacinths thoughdedicated to a flower of spring were old and wise in socialdistinctions. The story of King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid would havedrawn only a contemptuous "cut it out" from the lady President. EveryHyacinth of them knew her exact place in nature's garden--all exceptMary Conners--now Ophelia--and she knew herself to be a foundling withno place at all. The lonely woman who had adopted her was now dead andMary was quite alone in her little two-room tenement, free to dream andplay Ophelia to her heart's content and to an imaginary Hamlet who wasalways Burgess. To her he was indeed, "The expectancy and rose of thefair state. " "The glass of fashion and the mould of form. " He was "herhonoured lord"--"her most dear lord. " But in Monroe Street she neverdeceived him. Never handed his letters over to interfering relatives. She could quite easily go mad and tuneful when she knew that eachrehearsal--each lesson taught by him and so quickly learned byher--brought the days when she would never see him so close that shecould almost feel their emptiness. 

It was well that she played to an idealized Hamlet for the real Hamletscame and went bewilderingly. One of Burgess's first triumphs of tact hadbeen to pry the part away from the lady President and give it to thesturdy Secretary. There followed two other claimants to the throne inquick succession and then the lot fell to Rebecca Einstein and stayedthere. Each change in the principal role necessitated readjustmentthroughout the cast and at every change the lady President was persuadednot to over exert herself. 

And still Burgess in the seclusion of the homeward bound hansom railedand swore. 

"I tell you, Margaret, that girl will ruin us. All the rest are funny. Overwhelmingly, incredibly funny! And pathetic! Could anything be morepathetic! But that awful President strikes a wrong note: Vulgarity. Takeher out of it and we'll have a thing the like of which New York hadnever seen, for Ophelia is a genius or I miss my guess and all the restare darlings. "

"But we can't throw out the President of the club. She must have a part. You have moved her down from Hamlet to Laertes--to the King--"

"I did, " groaned Burgess. "Will you ever forget her rendering of theline, "Now I could do it, Pat, " and then her storming up to me to know"Who Pat was anyway?""

"I do, " laughed Margaret, "and then how you moved her on to Guildensternand now you have got her down to Bernardo with all her part cut out andnothing except that opening line, "Who's there?" and the other: "'Tisnow struck twelve; get thee to bed, Francisco. ""

"Yes, and she ruins them. I've drilled her and drilled her till mythroat is sore and still she says it straight through her nose just asthough she were delivering an order of 'ham and' at her hash battery. Just the same truculent 'Don't you dare to answer back' attitude. She'simpossible. She must be removed. "

Meanwhile the Lady Hyacinths scattering to their different homesdiscussed their mentor. Ophelia and Horatio and Hamlet were goingthrough Clinton Street together. Ophelia was still at Elsinore butHoratio was approaching common ground again. 

"I suppose he's Miss Masters' steady, " said he to Hamlet. "He wouldn'tcome down here every other night just to help us goils out. "

But Ophelia was better informed. She knew Miss Masters to be engaged toquite another person. 

"Then I know, " cried Horatio triumphantly. "He's stuck on RosieRosenbaum. It's her brings him. "

Ophelia said nothing, and Horatio having experienced an inspiration, setabout strengthening it with proof. 

"It's Rosie sure enough. Ain't he learned her about every part in theplay? Don't he keep takin' her off in corners an' goin' 'Who's there, 'Tis now struck twelve' for about an hour every night? I wouldn't havenothin' to do with a feller that kept company that way, but I s'poseit's the style on Fifth Avenue. You know how I tell you, Ham, in theplay that there's lots of things goin' on what you ain't on to. Wellit's so. None of you was on to Rosie an' his nibs. You didn't ever guessit did you 'Pheleir?"

"No, " admitted Ophelia. "No, I never did. "

"Well it's so. You watch 'em. The style in wives is changin'. Actressesis goin' out an' the 'poor but honest workin' goil' is comin' in. One ofour salesladies has a book about it. "The Bowery Bride" its name is. Allabout a shop goil what married a rich fellow and used to come back tothe store and take her old friends carriage ridin'. If Rosie Rosenbaumtries it on me, I'll break her face. If she comes round me, " cried thePrince's fellow student: "with carriages and a benevolent smile, I'llclaw the smile off of her if I have to take the skin with it!"

When Horatio and Hamlet left her, she wandered disconsolate, down to theriver. But no willow grows aslant that brook, no flowers were there withwhich to weave fantastic garlands. 

"I've gone crazy all right, " said poor Ophelia as she watched the lightsof the great bridge, "but I don't drown myself until Scene VII. And I'mgoin' up to his house to-morrow night to learn to act crazy. I guess Idon't need much learning. "

 * * * * *

The performance of Hamlet by the Lady Hyacinths is still remembered bythose who saw it as the most bewildering entertainment of theirtheatrical experience. The play had been cut down to its absoluteessentials and the players, though drilled and coached in their linesand business, had been left quite free in the matters of interpretationand accent. The result was so unique that the daily press fell upon itwith whoops of joy and published portraits of and interviews with theleading characters. People who had thought that only ferries and dockslay south of Twenty-third Street penetrated to the heart of the greatEast Side and went home again full of an altruism which lasted threedays. And on the last night of the "run" of three nights, Jack Burgessbrought Albert Marsden to witness it. Other spectators had alwaysemerged dumb or inarticulate from the ordeal but the great actor was notone of them. He was blusterous and garrulous and, to Burgess' amazement, not at all amused. 

"Who is that girl who played Ophelia? Is she an East Side working girlor one of the mission people?"

"She's a shop-girl, " answered Burgess. "There's no good in your askingme to introduce you to her for I won't. That's been one of our rulesfrom the beginning. We don't want the children to be upset andpatronized. "

"Who taught her to act?"

"Well, I coached them all as you know, but she never seemed to requireany special teaching. Pretty good, isn't she?"

"Pretty good! She is a genius--a wonder. This is all rot about my notmeeting her. I am going to meet her and train her. I suppose you havenoticed that she is a beauty too. "

"But she's only a child, " Burgess urged. "She's only eighteen. Shecouldn't stand the life and the work and she couldn't stand the people. You have no idea what high ideals these girls have, and MaryConners--that's the girl's name--seems to be exceptional even amongstthem. "

"Too good for us, eh?" asked the actor. 

"Entirely too good, " answered Burgess steadily. 

"And do you feel justified in deciding her future for her! In condemningher to an obscure life in the slums instead of a successful career onthe stage?"

"I do not, " answered Burgess, "she must decide that for herself. I'llask her and let you know. "

To this end he sought Miss Masters. "I want you, " said he, "to ask MaryConners to tea with you to-morrow afternoon. It will be Sunday so shecan manage. And then I want you to leave us alone. I have something veryserious to say to her. "

Margaret looked at him and laughed. "Then you were right, " said she, "and I was wrong; I had found a wife for you. "

"For absolute inane, insensate romanticism, " said he, "I recommend youto the recently engaged. You used to have some sense. You were cleverenough to refuse me and now you go and forever ruin my opinion of you bymaking a remark like that. "

"It is not romanticism at all, " she maintained. "It is the best ofcommon sense. You will never be satisfied with anyone you haven'ttrained and formed to suit your own ideals. And you will never find sucha 'quick study' as Mary. "

It was the earliest peep of spring and Burgess stopped on his way toMiss Masters' house and bought a sheaf of white hyacinths and palemaiden hair for the little Lady Hyacinth who was waiting for him. 

As soon as he was alone with her he managed to distract her attentionfrom her flowers and to make her listen to Marsden's message. He set thecase before her plainly. Without exaggeration and without extenuation. 

"And we don't expect you, " he ended, "to make up your mind at once. Youmust consult your relatives and friends. "

"I have no relatives, " she answered. 

"Your friends then. "

"I don't think I have many. Some of the girls in the club perhaps. Theold book-keeper in the store where I work, perhaps Miss Masters. "

"And you have me, " he interrupted. But she smiled at him and shook herhead. "You were real kind about the play, " said she, "but the play's allover now. I guess you'd better tell your friend that I'll take theposition. I have been getting pretty tired of work in the store and I'dlike to try this if he don't mind. "

"Oh, but you mustn't go into it like that, " Burgess protested, "just forthe want of something better. Acting is an art--a great art--you must beglad and proud. "

"I'll try it, " she said without enthusiasm. "If you feel that way aboutit I'll try it. It can't be worse than the store. The store is justhorrible. Oh! Mr. Burgess you can't think what it is to be Ophelia inthe evening with princes loving you and then to be a cashier in theday-time that any fresh customer thinks he can get gay with. Maybe if Iwas an actress I could be Ophelia oftener. I'd do anything, Mr. Burgess, to get away from the store. "

Burgess did not answer immediately. Her earnestness had rather overcomeher and he waited silently while she walked to the window, surreptitiouslypressed her handkerchief against her eyes and conqueredthe sobs that threatened to choke her. Burgess watched her. The trimnessof her figure, the absolute neatness and propriety of her dress, thepoise and restraint of her manner. Then she turned and he rose to meet her. 

"Mary, " said he, "you never in all the time I've known you have failedto do what I asked you. Will you do something for me now?"

"Yes, sir, " she answered simply. 

"Then sit down in that chair and take this watch of mine in your handand don't say one single, solitary, lonely word for five minutes. Nomatter what happens: no matter what anyone says or does. Will youpromise?"

"Yes, sir, " she answered again. 

"Well then, " he began, "I know another man who wants you--this stageidea is not the only way out of the store. Remember you're not tospeak--this other man wants to marry you. "

A scarlet flush sprang to Mary's face and slowly ebbed away again leavingher deadly pale. She kept her word in letter but hardly in spirit forshe looked at him through tear-filled eyes, and shook her head. 

"Of course you can't be expected to take to the idea just at first, "said he, as if she had spoken, "but I want you to think it over. The manis a well-off, gentlemanly sort of chap. Miles too old for you ofcourse--for you're not twenty and he's nearly forty--but I think hewould make you happy. I know he'd try with all the strength that's in him. "

Blank incredulity was on Mary's face. She glanced at the watch and up athim and again she shook her head. 

"This man, " Burgess went on, "is a friend of Miss Masters and it wasthrough her that he first heard of the Lady Hyacinths. He was an idlerthen. A shiftless, worthless loafer, but the Lady Hyacinths made a manof him and he's gone out and got a job. "

Comprehension overwhelming, overmastering, flashed into Mary's eyes. Buther promise held her silent and in her chair. Again it was as though shehad spoken. 

"Yes, I see you understand--you probably think of me as an old man pastthe time of love and yet I love you. "

 "Doubt thou the stars are fire; Doubt that the sun doth move; Doubt truth to be a liar; But never doubt I love. "

"That's all I have to offer you, sweetheart. Just love and my life, " andhe in turn went to the window and looked out into the gathering dusk. 

Mary sat absolutely still. She knew now that she was dreaming. Just sothe dream had always run and when the five minutes were past, she roseand went to him: a true Ophelia, her arms all full of hyacinths. 

"My honored Lord, " said she. He turned, and the dream held. 

THERE'S DANGER IN NUMBERS

The Pennsylvania Limited was approaching Jersey City and the afternoonwas approaching three o'clock when Mr. John Blake turned to Mrs. JohnBlake, née Marjorie Underwood, a bride of about three hours, andprecipitated the first discussion of their hitherto happy married life. 

"Your Uncle Richard Underwood, " said he--the earlier discussions in thewedded state are usually founded upon relations--"is as stupid as he iskind. It was very good of him to arrange that I should meet oldNicholson. Any young fellow in the country would give his eyes for thechance. But to make an appointment for a fellow at four o'clock in theafternoon of his wedding day is a thing of which no one, except yourUncle Richard, would be capable. He might have known that I couldn't go. "

"But you must go, " urged the bride, "it's the chance of a lifetime. Besides which, " she added with a pretty little air of practicality, "wecan't afford to throw away an opportunity like this. We may never getanother one, and if you don't go how are you to explain it to UncleRichard when we dine there to-morrow night?--you know we promised to, when he was last at West Hills. "

"But what, " suggested her husband--"what if, in grasping at the shadow, I lose the reality? I'd rather lose twenty opportunities than my onlywife, and what's to become of you while I go down to Broad Street? Doyou propose to sit in the station?"

"I propose nothing of the kind, " she laughed. "I shall go straight tothe Ruissillard and wait for you. Dick and Gladys may be there already. "

Although Mr. John Blake received this suggestion with elaboratedisfavor and disclaimer it was clear to the pretty eyes of Mrs. JohnBlake that he hailed it with delight, and she was full of theories uponmarital co-operation and of eagerness to put them into practice. None ofher husband's objections could daunt her, and before he had adjustedhimself to the situation he had packed his wife into a hansom, given thecabman careful instructions and a careless tip, and was standing on thestep admonishing his bride:

"Be sure to tell them that we must have out-side rooms. Have the baggagesent up, but don't touch it. If you open a trunk or lift a tray before Iarrive I shall instantly send you home to your mother as incorrigible. "

"Very well, " she agreed; "I'll be good. "

"And then, if Gladys is there--it's only an off-chance that they comebefore to-morrow--get her to sit with you. But don't go wandering aboutthe hotel by yourself. And, above all, don't go out. "

"Goosie, " said she, "of course I shan't go out. Where should I go?"

"And you're sure, sure, sure that you don't mind?" he asked for thedozenth time. 

"Goosie, " said she again, "I am quite, quite sure of it. Now go or youwill surely miss your appointment and disappoint your uncle. "

After two or three more questions of his and assurances of hers the cabwas allowed to swing out into the current. John had given the drivercareful navigation orders, and Marjorie leaned back contentedly enoughand watched the busy people, all hot and haggard, as New York's peoplesometimes are in the first warm days of May. Her collection ofillustrated post-cards had prepared her to identify many of the placesshe passed, but once or twice she felt, a little ruefully the differencebetween this, her actual first glimpse of New York and the same firstglimpse as she and John had planned it before the benign, but hardlyfelicitous, interference of Uncle Richard. This feeling of lonelinesswas strongly in the ascendent when the cab stopped under an ornateportico and two large male creatures, in powdered wigs and white silkstockings, emerged before her astonished eyes. Open flew her littledoor, down jumped the cabman, out rushed other menials and laid handsupon her baggage. Horses fretted, pedestrians risked their lives, motorssnorted and newsboys clamored as an enormous police-appearing personassisted her to alight. He had such an air of having been expecting andlonging for her arrival that she wondered innocently whether John hadtelephoned about her. This thought persisted with her until she and herfollowing of baggage-laden pages drew up before the desk, but it fellfrom her with a crash when she encountered the aloof, impersonal, world-weary regard of the presiding clerk. In all Marjorie's happy lifeshe had never met anything but welcome. The belle of a fast-growing townis rather a sheltered person, and not even the most confiding ofingénues could detect a spark of greeting in the lackadaisical regard ofthis highly-manicured young man. 

Marjorie began her story, began to recite her lesson: "Outside rooms, not lower than the fourth nor higher than the eighth floor; the FifthAvenue side if possible--and was Mrs. Robert Blake in?"

The lackadaisical young man consulted the register with a disparaging eye. 

"Not staying here, " Marjorie understood him to remark. 

"Oh, it doesn't matter--but about the rooms?"

"Front!" drawled the young man, and several blue-clad bellboys ceasedfrom lolling on a bench and approached the desk. 

"Register here, " commanded the clerk, twirling the big book on itsturn-table toward Marjorie so suddenly that she jumped, and laying hispink-tinted finger on its first blank line. 

"No, thank you, " she stammered, "I was not to register until myhusband--" and her heart cried out within her for that she was sayingthese new, dear words for the first time to so unresponsive astranger--"told me not to register until he should come and see that therooms were satisfactory. He will be here presently. "

"We have no unsatisfactory rooms, " was the answer, followed by: "Front625 and 6, " and fresh pages and bellboys fell upon the yellow baggage, and Marjorie, in a hot confusion of counting her property and wonderinghow to resent the young man's impertinence, turned to follow them. 

"One moment, madam, " the clerk murmured; "name and address, please. " Thepages were escaping with the bags, and Mrs. Blake hardly turned as sheanswered, according to the habit of her lifetime:

"Underwood, West Hills, N. J. , " and flew to the elevator, which hadalready swallowed her baggage and the boys. Up to suite Number 625 and 6she was conducted by her blue-clad attendants, who opened the windows, pushed the furniture about--then waited; who fetched ice water, drewdown shades--and waited; who closed the windows, drew up the shades, shifted the baggage from sofa to armchair, unbuckled the straps of asuitcase, indicated the telephone--and waited; who put the bags on thebed, opened the windows, pushed the furniture back against the wall--andwaited. Marjorie viewed all these manoeuvres with amused butunsophisticated eyes. She smiled serenely at the smiling bellboys--whilethey waited. She thanked them prettily for their assistance--and theywaited. She dismissed them still prettily, and it is to be regrettedthat, in the privacy of the hall, they swore. 

She then took possession of her little domain. The clerk, howeverunbearably, had spoken the truth, and the rooms were charming. Therecould be no question, she decided, of going farther. She spread herpretty wedding silver on the dressing-table, she hung her negligée withher hat and coat in the closet. She went down on her knees andinvestigated the slide which was to lead shoes to the bootblack; shetested, with her bridal glove-stretcher, the electrical device in thebathroom for the heating of curling irons. She studied all the pictures, drew out all the drawers, examined the furniture and bric-a-brac, andthen she looked at her watch. Only half an hour was gone. 

She went to the window and watched the hats of the passing multitude, noting how short and fore-shortened all the figures seemed and howqueerly the horses passed along beneath her, without visible legs tomove them. Still an hour before John could be expected. 

And then their trunks, hers large and his small, made their thumpingentrance. The porter crossed to the window and raised the shade, crossedto her trunk and undid its straps, dried his moistened brow--and waited. Marjorie thanked him and smiled. He smiled and waited, drying his browindustriously the while. No village black-smith ever had so damp a browas he. She sympathized with him in the matter of the heat; heagreed--and waited. He undid the straps of John's trunk; he moved hertrunk into greater proximity to the window and the light; he carriedJohn's trunk into the sitting-room; he performed innumerable feats ofprowess before her. But she only smiled and commended in an unfinancialway. Finally he laid violent hands upon his truck and retreated into thehall, swearing, as became his age, more luridly than the bellboys. 

Once more Marjorie looked out into the street for a while and began toplan the exact form of greeting with which she should meet John. Italready seemed an eternity since she had parted with him. She drew thepretty evening dress which she had chosen for this and most importantevening from its tissue-paper nest in the upper tray of her trunk. Itsdaintiness comforted and cheered her, as a friend's face might havedone, and under its impetus she found calm enough to rearrange her hair, and, with many a shy recoil and shy caress, to lay out John's eveningthings for him, as she had often laid out her father's. How surprised, she smiled, he would be. How delighted, when he came, to find everythingso comfy and domestic. Surely it was time for him to come. Presently itwas late, and yet he did not come. She evolved another form of greeting:he did not deserve comfort and domesticity when he did not set morestore on them than on a stupid interview in a stuffy office. He shouldsee that an appointment with old Nicholson could not be allowed tointerfere with their home life; that, simply because they were marriednow, he could not neglect her with impunity. 

She practised the detached, casual sort of smile with which she wouldgreet him, and the patient, uninterested silence with which she wouldlisten to his apologies. Then, realizing that these histrionics would besomewhat marred by a pink negligée, she struggled into her dinner dress. 

It was then seven o'clock and time to practise some more vehement receptionfor the laggard. It went well--very well. Any man would have beenannihilated by it, but there was still no man when half-past seven came. 

Quite suddenly she fell into a panic. John was dead! She had heard andread of the perils of New York. She had seen a hundred potentialaccidents on her drive from the ferry. Trolley, anarchist, elevatedrailroad, collapsed buildings, frightened horses, runaway automobiles. Her dear John! Her mangled husband! Passing out of the world, even whileshe, his widowed bride, was dressing in hideous colors, and thinking sofalsely of him!

He must be brought to her. Some one should go and say something tosomebody! Telephone Uncle Richard! She flew to the directory, which hadinterested her so little when the polite bellboy of the itching palm hadpointed it out to her, and presently she had startled a respectable oldstockbroker, so thoroughly and so hastily that he burst into his wife'spresence with the news that John Blake had met with a frightful accidentand was being carried to the hotel in the automobile of some richgentleman from Paterson, New Jersey. 

"Hurry down there at once, " commanded Aunt Richard, who was as staidand practical as the wife of a stockbroker ought to be, "and bring thetwo poor lambs here in your car. Take the big one. They'll want plentyof room to lay him flat. I'll have the nurse and the doctor here and aroom ready. Get there if possible before he does, so as not to move himabout too often. "

Meanwhile Mrs. John Blake, bride now of nearly eight hours, lay in astricken heap upon the bed, bedewing with hot tears the shirt she had sodutifully laid ready for Mr. John Blake, and which now he was never moreto wear. And Mr. John Blake, in a hurricane of fear, exasperation andbewilderment, a taxicab, and the swift-falling darkness, fared fromhotel to hotel and demanded speech with Mrs. John Blake, a young lady inblue with several handbags and some heavy luggage, who had arrived atsome hotel early that afternoon. 

His interview with old Nicholson had been short and satisfactory, andat about five-thirty o'clock he was at the Ruissillard inquiring for Mrs. J. Blake's number and floor with a confidence he was soon to lose. Therewas no such person. No such name. Then could the clerk tell him whether, and why, she had gone elsewhere. A slim and tall young lady in blue. 

The clerk really couldn't say. He had been on duty for only half anhour. There was no person of the name of Blake in the hotel. Sometimesguests who failed to find just the accommodation they wanted went overto the Blinheim, just across the avenue. So the bridegroom set out uponhis quest and the clerk, less world-weary than his predecessor, turnedback to the telephone-girl. 

Presently there approached the desk a brisk, business-like person whoasked a few business-like questions and then registered in a bold andflowing hand, "Mr. And Mrs. Robert Blake, Boston. "

"My husband, " she announced, "will be here presently. "

"He was here ten minutes ago, " said the clerk, and added particulars. 

"Oh, that's all right, " replied the slightly-puzzled but quite unexcitedlady; "he'll be back. " And then, accompanied by bags and suitcases, shevanished aloft. 

"Missed connections, somehow, " commented the clerk to the stenographer, and gave himself to the contemplation of "Past Performances" in the_Evening Telegram_, and to ordinary routine of a hotel office for anhour or so, when, to prove the wisdom of the lady's calm, the excitedMr. John Blake returned. 

"There must be some mistake, " he began darkly, "I've been to everyhotel--"

"Lady came ten minutes after you left, " said the genial clerk. "Front, show the gentleman to 450. " And, presently, John was explaining hisdilemma to Gladys, the pretty wife of his cousin Bob. "She is somewherein this hotel, " he fumed, "and I'll find her if I have to search it roomby room. "

The office was hardly quiet after the appearance and disappearance ofMr. John Blake, when the clerk and the telephone-girl were againinterrupted by an excited gentleman. His white whiskers framed ananxious, kindly face, his white waistcoat bound a true and tender heart. 

"Has Mr. Blake arrived?" he demanded with some haste. 

"Just a minute ago, " the clerk replied, and was surprised at thedisappointment his answer caused. 

"I must see him, " cried the old gentleman. "You needn't announce me. I'll go right up. I'm his wife's uncle, and she telephoned me to come. "

"Front!" called the clerk. "This gentleman to 450. "

At the door of 450 he dismissed his guide with suitable _largesse_, andsoftly entered the room. It was brightly illuminated, and Uncle Richardwas able clearly to contemplate his nephew of eight hours in animatedconverse with a handsome woman in evening dress. 

"I think, sir, " said the woman, "that there is some mistake. "

"I agree with you, madam, " said Uncle Richard, "and I'm sorry for it. "

"But you are exactly the man to help us, " cried the nephew; "we are inan awful state. "

"I agree with you, sir, " repeated Uncle Richard. 

"You _must_ know how to help us, " urged the nephew. "I've lostMarjorie. "

"So I should have inferred. But she had already thrown herself away. "

"She's _lost_!" stormed the bridegroom. "Don't you understand? Lost, lost, lost!"

"I rather think he misunderstands, " the handsome woman interrupted. "You've not told him, John, who I am. "

"You are mistaken, " replied Uncle Richard with a horrible suavity; "Iunderstand enough. That poor child telephoned to me not twenty minutesago that her husband was injured, perhaps mortally, and implored myhelp. I left my dinner to come to his assistance and I findhim--here--and thus. "

"Twenty minutes ago?" yelled John, leaping upon his new relative andquite disregarding that gentleman's last words. "Where was she? Did shetell you where to look for her?"

"So, sir, " stormed Uncle Richard, "the poor, deluded child has left youand turned to her faithful old uncle! Allow me to say that you're ablackguard, sir, and to wish you good-bye. "

"If you dare to move, " stormed John Blake, "until you tell me where mywife is, I'll strangle you. Now listen to me. This is Mrs. Bob Blake, wife of my cousin Robert. She's an old friend of Marjorie's. We had ahalf engagement to meet here this week. Bob is due any minute, butMarjorie is lost. There is only one record of a Blake in to-day'sregister and that's this room and this lady--when Marjorie left me atthe ferry she was coming here, straight. I've been to all the possiblehotels. She is nowhere. You say she telephoned to you. From where?"

"She didn't say, " answered Uncle Richard, shame-facedly, and added stillmore dejectedly, "I didn't ask. She said in a letter her aunt receivedthis morning that she was coming here. So I inferred that she was here. "

"Then she is here, " cried Gladys. "It's some stupid mistake in theoffice. "

"I'll go down to that chap, " John threatened, "and if he doesn'tinstantly produce Marjorie I'll shoot him. "

[Illustration: UNCLE RICHARD'S FACE, AS HE MET JOHN'S EYES, WAS A STUDY. ]

"You'll do nothing of the sort, " his uncle contradicted, "the childappealed to me and I am the one to rescue her. I shall interview themanager. I know him. You may come with me if you like. "

Down at the desk they accosted the still-courteous clerk. Uncle Richardproduced his card, and, before he could ask for the manager the clerkflicked a memorandum out of one pigeon-hole, a key out of another, andtwirled the register on its turn-table almost into the midst of thewhite waistcoat. 

"The lady has been expecting you for hours, Mr. Underwood, " said he. "Looked for you quite early in the afternoon, so the maid says. Registerhere, please. Quite hysterical, she is, they tell me, and the maid wasasking for the doctor--Front! 625!"

Uncle Richard's face, as he met John's eyes, was a study. Thetelephone-girl disentangled the receiver from her pompadour so that shemight hear without hindrance the speech which was bursting through theswelling buttons of the white waistcoat and making the white whiskersquiver. 

"I know nothing whatever about _any_ lady in _any_ of your rooms, " heroared, greatly to the delight of the bellboys. "I know nothing aboutyour Underwood woman, with her doctors and her hysterics. I want to seethe manager. "

"If, " said the telephone maiden, adjusting her skirt at the hips andshaking her figure into greater conformity with the ideal she had setbefore it--"If this gentleman is 2525 Gram. , then the lady in 625 ranghim up at seven-thirty and held the wire seven minutes talkin' to himand cryin' to beat Sousa's band. All about her uncle she was talkin'. Iguess it was him, all right, all right. His voice sounds sort offamiliar to me when he talks mad. "

But John had neither eyes nor ears for Uncle Richard's wrath. Hesnatched the key and the paper upon which the supercilious clerk hadinscribed, at Marjorie's embarrassed dictation, "Mrs. Underwood, WestHills, N. J. (husband to arrive later), 625 and 6, " and, since love iskeen, he jumped to the right conclusion and the open elevator withoutfurther delay. 

An hour or so later the attention of the clerk and the telephone-girlwas again drawn to the complicated Blakes. A party of four sauntered outof the dining-room and approached the desk. 

"I'll register now, I think, " said John. And when he had finished heturned to the star-eyed girl behind him. 

"Look carefully at this, Marjorie, " he admonished. "Mr. And Mrs. JohnBlake. _You_ are Mrs. John Blake. Do you think you can remember that?"

"Don't laugh at me, " she pleaded, "Gladys says it was a most naturalmistake, and so does Bob. Don't you, Gladys and Bob?"

"An almost inevitable mistake, " they chorused mendaciously, "but, " addedBob, "a rather disastrous mistake for your uncle to explain to his wife, the doctor and the nurse. He'll be able for it, though; I never saw sogame an old chap. "

"And I'll never do it again, " she promised. People never do when they'vebeen married a long, long time, and I feel as though I had been marriedthousands and thousands of years. "

"Poor, tired little girl, " said John, "you have had a rather indifferenttime of it. Say good-night to Dick and Gladys. Come, my dear. "

MISERY LOVES COMPANY. 

"But, Win, " remonstrated the bride-elect, "I really don't think we_could_. Wouldn't it look awfully strange? I don't think I ever heard ofits being done. "

"Neither did I, " he agreed. "And yet I want you to do it. Look at itfrom my point of view. I persuade John Mead to stop wandering around theworld and to take an apartment with me here in New York. Then I meetyou. The inevitable happens and in less than a year John is to be leftdesolate. You know how eccentric he is, and how hard it will be for himto get on with any other companion--"

"I know, " said Patty, "that he never will find any one--but you--to putup with his eccentricities. "

"And then, as if abandoning him were not bad enough, I go and maim thepoor beggar: blind him temporarily--permanently, if he is not taken careof--and disfigure him beyond all description. Honestly, Patty, you neversaw anything like him. "

"I know, " said she, "I know. A pair of black eyes. "

"Black!" he cried, "why, they're all the colors of the rainbow and twomore beside, as the story-book says. All the way from his hair to hismustache he is one lurid sunset. I don't want to minimize this thing. Ithas only one redeeming feature: he will be a complete disguise. Noamount of rice or ribbon could counteract his sinister companionship. Nobridal suspicions could live in the light of it. Doesn't that thoughthelp?". 

The conversation wandered into personalities and back again, as aconversation may three days before a wedding, but Patty was not entirelywon over to Hawley's view of his responsibility for having withunprecedented dexterity and precision planted a smashing "right" on thebridge of his friend's nose in the course of an amicable "bout. "

"And the oculist chap says, " Winthrop urged, "that he simply must not beallowed to use his eyes. I'm the only one who takes any interest in himor has any control over him, and to abandon him now would be an awfulresponsibility. Can't you see that, dear? If we stay at home to takecare of him he will understand why we're doing it, and he'd vanish. Dolet me put him into a motor mask and attach him to the procession. "

"Well, of course, Win, " Patty answered, "of course we must have him ifyou feel so strongly about it. It's a pity, " she ended mischievously, "that he dislikes me so much. "

"That's because you dislike him. But just wait till you know oneanother. "

"I will, " she answered with a spirit which promised well for the future. "I'll wait. "

And Winthrop was so touched and gratified by her complaisance that hehad no alternative, save to duplicate it, when the following eveningbrought him this communication:

"Kate Perry and I were playing golf this morning. And, oh! Win, it seemsjust too dreadful! I banged her between the eyes with my driver. I can'tthink how I ever did it. She's not fit to be seen. Awful! worse than Mr. Mead can possibly be. She can't stay here and she can't go home toWashington. 

"So, now, if you will consent, we shall be four instead of three. Let metake poor Kate. She can wear a thick veil and sit in behind with Mr. Mead, in his goggles, and leave the front seats for us. They'll becompany for one another. "

Winthrop questioned this final sentence. A supercilious, spoiledbeauty--a beauty now doubly spoiled and presumedly bad tempered--washardly an ideal companion for the misanthropic Mead. 

 * * * * *

The wedding took place in the morning and the beginning of the honeymoonwas prosaic enough. Winthrop and Patty sat in the front seat of thethrobbing touring car, while hysterical bridesmaids and vengefulgroomsmen showered the requisite quantities of rice, confetti and oldslippers upon them. 

It was at the New York side of the ferry that a shrouded female joinedthem, and it was at the Hoboken side of the river that a be-goggledyoung man was added unto her. The bride rushed through the formula ofintroduction: a readjustment of dress-suit cases and miniature trunkswas effected, and the disguise which the bridegroom had predicted wascomplete. The most romantic onlooker would not have suspected them ofconcealing a honeymoon about them. 

It was nearly six o'clock when at last they reached their destination, the little town of Rapidan, in New Jersey, and stopped before theEmpress Hotel. Hawley had visited Rapidan once before, as a member ofhis college glee club, and he had recalled it instantly when Mead'sdisfigurement made sequestration imperative. 

The motor sobbed itself to a standstill: several children and dogsgathered to inspect it, and then finding more interest and novelty inMead's mask turned their attention to him. 

The Empress had evidently been dethroned for some years, and thehospitality she afforded her guests was of an impoverished sort. Hawley, approaching the desk to make enquiries, was met by a clerk incrediblyarrayed, and the intelligence that the whole house was theirs to choose, except for two small rooms on the third floor occupied by two gentlemenwho "traveled" respectively in sarsaparilla and molasses. 

Hawley returned to his friends and repeated this information. 

"How perfectly sweet of them, " cried the irresponsible bride. "Oh! Win, we must stay here and see them. Isn't it the dearest sleepy hollow of aplace?"

Attended by the impressed and impressive clerk, they made an inspectionof the house. Mr. And Mrs. Hawley settled upon a suite just over themain entrance. Mead was established across the hall. But Kate found awonderful panorama which could only be seen from the rooms on the thirdfloor, and there, down a dreary length of oil-clothed hall, she bestowedherself and her belongings. 

"For I must, " she explained to Patty, "I simply _must_ get out of thisveil and breathe, and I shouldn't dare to do it within reach of thathorribly supercilious friend of Winthrop's. I'm going to plead headacheor something, and have my dinner sent up here. "

Mead, meanwhile, was unfolding similar plans to Hawley. "I should havejoined you, " said he, "if your wife's friend had been a little lessself-sufficient and unsympathetic. Of course, I don't require anysympathy; but I don't want ridicule either. So, while she is of theparty I'll have my meals in my room. I can't act the 'Man in the IronMask' forever. You just leave the ladies together after dinner and comeup here for a pipe with me. "

And when Mr. And Mrs. Hawley next encountered one another and reportedthe wishes of their friends, he suggested and she rapturously agreed, that they should dine in their horse-hair-covered sitting-room. 

"I have a reason, dear, " she told him, "for not wishing to go to thedining-room for our first meal together. I'll explain later. "

"Your wishing it is enough, " he answered before the conversation sank tobanalities. 

And when these several intentions were made clear to the conscientiousclerk, he sent for the police force of the town--it consisted of a mild, little old man in a uniform and helmet which might have belonged to somemountainous member of the Broadway Squad in its prime--and implored himto spend the evening in the hall. 

"They're beginning to act up funny already, " the clerk imparted. "Thiseatin' all over the house don't seem just right to me. What do theythink the dining-room's for anyway? Sam was up with the bag belonging tothe single fellow, and he says he's got the worst looking pair of blackeyes he ever saw. Here, Sam, you come and tell Jimmie what he lookslike. "

Sam, a middle-aged combination of porter, bellboy, furnace-man, officeassistant and emergency barkeeper was but newly launched upon hisdescription of Mead's face, when the chambermaid, who was also thewaitress and housekeeper, broke in upon them with the intelligence thatnever in all her born days _or_ nights had she seen anything like theface of the young lady on the third floor. 

"What's the matter with her, " said the clerk suspiciously, with a lookwhich warned Jimmie to be at once a Bingham and a Sherlock Holmes. 

"Why, Horace, " she answered tragically, "that girl has two of the mostawful black eyes. The whites of them is red and then comes purple andgreen and yellow. I guess they was meant to be blue. "

This chromatic scale was too much for Jimmie. He reeled where he sat andthen, the postman opportunely arriving, sent word to Mrs. Jimmie thatduty would keep him from her all the night. 

"Tell her, " he huskily charged his messenger, "that there is suspiciouscircumstances going on in this house. "

"You bet there is, " the clerk agreed. "It looks like a case of attemptedmurder to me. "

"Divorce, more likely, " was Jimmie's professional opinion, but he hadscant time to enlarge upon it before the waitress, outraged to the pointof tears, broke out of her domain. She brought with her an atmosphere oflong-dead beefsteak, chops and onions, and she shrilled for an answer toher question. 

"What's the matter with 'em anyway? Ain't the dining-room good enoughfor 'em to eat in? It done all right for Judge Campbell's funeral thisafternoon, and I found a real sweet wreath on that there whatnot in thecorner. The candles wasn't all burnt up neither, an' I set out four of'em on the four corners. It looks elegant, an' them tube-roses smellsgrand. An' when I told that young lady what's got the use of her eyeshow glad I was they happened in when we was so well fixed fordecorations, she looked awful funny. Most like she was cross-eyed. "

"They all seem to have eye-trouble, " Jimmie commented. "Do you supposethey're running away from one of these here blind asylums. "

"Lunatic asylum, most likely, " the cheerful clerk contributed. 

When the other two guests ceased from traveling in molasses andsarsaparilla and returned to their quiet hostelry, all these surmiseshad hardened into certainties, and were imparted to them with a new mazeof suspicion, more dense, more deadly, and more strictly in accordancewith the principles laid down in "Dandy Dick, the Boy Detective. "

Madeline, the waitress, reported further particulars as she ministeredto the creature-comforts of the traveling gentlemen dining alone amongthe funeral-baked meats. So interested and excited did these gentlemenbecome that they determined to interview, or at least to see, theirmysterious fellow guests. 

When their elaborate supper had reached its apotheosis of stewed prunesand blue-boiled rice, Hawley and Mead had gone out for a meditative andtobacco-shrouded stroll. They passed through the hall and inspirationawoke in Jimmie. 

"By gum, " said he, "I know them now. I suspicioned them from the firstby what Horace told me. But now I've got them sure. You mind that time Iwas down to New York and was showed over Police Headquarters, byprofessional etiquette?"

"Sure, " they all agreed. It was indeed a reminiscence, the details ofwhich had been playing havoc with Rapidan's nerves for the past fifteenyears. They felt that they could not bear it now. 

"Well, " continued Jimmie, gathering his auditors close about him by thehusky whisper he now adopted, "I see them two fellers then. Mebbe 'twasin the Rogue's Gallery and mebbe it was in the cells. I ain't worked itdown that fine yet, but I'll think and pray on it and let you know whenI get light. "

When the staff and the commercial guests of the Empress Hotel werewaiting to see illumination burst through the blue-shrouded protector, the bridal party was veering momentarily further from the normal. Forthe deserted bride, alone in the desolate best sitting-room, laid herhead upon her arms and laughed and laughed. She had made one cautiousdescent to the ground floor in search of diversion, and meeting Jimmie, she found it. After a conversation strictly categorical upon his sideand widely misleading upon hers, she had gone up stairs again and haltedin the upper hall just long enough to hear Jimmie's triumphant:

"Well, we know _her_ name anyway. "

"What is it?" hissed Horace, while the porter relieved himself of a quidof tobacco so that nothing should interfere with his hearing andattention. 

"Huh!" ejaculated Jimmie, "you bin a hotel clerk two years and soldseegars all that time (when you could) and you don't know RubyMandeville when she stands before you. "

A box of the "Flor de" that gifted songstress, was soon produced andpried open, and the effulgent charms of its godmother compared with theless effulgent, but no less charming figure which had just trailed away. 

"It's her, sure as you're born, " cried the gentleman who traveled inmolasses, absent-mindedly abstracting three cigars and conveying themsurreptitiously to his coat pocket. 

"She's fallen off some in flesh, " commented Horace, as with carefulpresence of mind he drew out his daybook and entered a charge for thosethree cigars. 

"But she don't fool me, " said Jimmie, "she can put flesh on or she cantake it off--"

"My, how you talk!" shrilled the chambermaid-bellboy, "you'd think youwas talkin' about clothes. "

"It ain't no different to them, " Jimmie maintained. "That's one of thethings us detekitives has got to watch out for. "

"What do you s'pose she's doing here?" asked the porter. 

"Gettin' married again most likely. That's about all she does nowadays. "

Patty was still chuckling and choking over these remarks, when the doorof the sitting-room opened cautiously and Kate Perry, swathed in hermotor veil, looked in. 

"Are we alone?" she demanded with proper melodramatic accent. 

"We are, " the bride answered, "Winthrop and Mr. Mead have gone out for asmoke. "

"Then I want you to tell me if I'm fading at all. I've been looking atit upstairs, in a little two-by-three mirror, and taken that way, byinches, it looks awful. Tell me what you think?" She removed the veiland presented her damaged face for her friend's inspection. There wasnot much improvement to report, but the always optimistic Patty did whatshe could with it. 

[Illustration: SHE SWOOPED UNDER THE LARGE CENTER TABLE, DRAGGING PATTYWITH HER. ]

"The left cheek, " she pronounced, "is really better, less swollen, less--Oh! Kate, here they come. "

Miss Perry began to readjust her charitable gray chiffon veil. It wasone of those which are built around a circular aperture, and as thesteps in the hall came ever closer she, in one last frantic effortsucceeded in framing the most lurid of her eyes in this opening. Castingone last look into the mirror, she swooped under the large center-table, dragging Patty with her, and disposing their various frills and ribbonsunder the long-hanging tablecover. 

"If they don't find either of us, " she whispered, "they'll go away tolook for us. "

She had no time to say more, and Patty had no time to say anythingbefore the door opened and presented to their limited range of vision, two utterly strange pairs of shoes and the hems of alien trousers. 

"I hope you will excuse me, Miss, " began the molasses gentleman, so fullof his entrance speech that he said the first part of it before henoticed that the room was empty. And then turned to rend his fellowadventurer, who was laughing at him. 

"Didn't Horace tell us, " he stormed, "that she was here, and wasn't yougoing to say how you had saw her in the original 'Black Crook?'"

"I seen her all right, " said his more grammatical friend, with heavyemphasis. 

"Do you see her now?" demanded the irate molasses traveler. 

"I do not, but I'll set here 'til she comes. "

They both sat. Not indeed until the arrival of Ruby Mandeville, butuntil Hawley and Mead made their appearance, and made it, too, veryplain that they had not expected and did not enjoy the society of thetravelers. 

"Where are the ladies?" asked Hawley. 

"Search us, " responded the travelers. 

"They must have gone to their rooms, " said the bridegroom. "If thesegentlemen don't object to our waiting here, " he went on with a fine andwasted sarcasm. 

"Set right down, " said the genial sarsaparilla man, and to furtherpromote good feeling he tendered his remaining "Ruby Mandeville" cigar. 

"Your friend, " said he affably, "does he always wear them goggles?"

"Always, " answered Hawley. "Eats in them, sleeps in them. "

"Born in them, " supplemented Mead savagely. 

They sat and waited for yet a few moments, and though Mead did not addgeniality to the conversation, he certainly contributed interest to it. For his views on honeymoon etiquette being strong within him, and anaudience made to his hand, he went on to amplify some of the theorieswith which he had been trying to undermine Winthrop's loyalty. 

"I am persuaded that most of the disappointments of married life are dueto the impossible standards set up at the beginning. Look at it thisway. You know the fuss most wives make about the hours a husband keeps. Well! suppose Mr. Hawley comes out in the car with me to-night. I knowsome fellows who have a summer studio near here. We'll run over and makea night of it. "

"Say, " the molasses gentleman broke in, "be you married, mister?"

"No!" said Mead. 

"Sounds like it, " said the molasses gentleman. "Marriage will sort ofstraighten you out on these here subjects. "

"Oh, leave 'em be, " admonished the sarsaparilla man. "If I had 'a met upwith him thirty years ago, mebbee I wouldn't be in the traveling linenow. He's got a fine idee. "

Hawley, meanwhile, was wrestling with his manners and the "RubyMandeville, " until the lady, as was her custom, triumphed. 

He hurriedly and incompletely extinguished the cigar, and attracted bythe same opportunity for concealment which had appealed to Kate andPatty, he lifted a corner of the heavy-fringed tablecover and sent Rubyto join the other ladies. 

Now, a lighted cigar applied suddenly to the ear of an excited andhalf-hysterical conspirator, will generally produce results. In thiscase it produced a scream, the bride, and after an interval, theshrouded confidential friend. 

"See where amazement on your mother sits, " the ghost remarks in Hamlet, but amazement never sat so hard on the wicked Gertrude of Denmark as itdid upon the four men who saw the tablecloth give up its ghosts. 

At first there was silence. One of those throbbing, abominable silenceswhose every second makes a situation worse and explanation moreimpossible. 

The "Black Crook" speech of welcome and appreciation died in the heartof the molasses traveler. It did not somehow seem the safest answer toHawley's threatening--

"I think you gentlemen had better explain how you happen to be in myprivate sitting-room. Perhaps we had better step out into the hall. "

They did, and the echoes of their conversation brought Jimmie, thattrusty sleuth, upon the scene. With him he brought Horace as witness. Also, he carried his dark lantern. He directed its glare fitfully at thetwo strangers until Mead, catching a beam in his eye, turned and droveJimmie and his cohorts from the scene. They retreated in exceedinglybad order to the bar, and then Jimmie announced in sepulchral whispersthat he had further identification to impart. He required much liquidrefreshment to nerve him to speech, and his audience required to besimilarly strengthened to hear. 

"I've got 'em, " he began, "I know 'em now. Horace, this is the biggestthing you'll ever be anywhere near. " And, as his hearers drew closeabout him, he whispered "counterfeiters. The hull kit and bilin' of 'em. "

 * * * * *

Meanwhile, Kate and Patty wrestled afresh with the automobile veil, andhad succeeded in getting it tied in a limp string around thebridesmaid's neck, leaving all her head and face uncovered. And when thegroom and the groomsman returned she, with a muffled gurgle, dived backinto the seclusion of the tablecover. 

"We've got rid of those bounders, " Hawley announced, and--

"Hello!" cried Mead, "Miss Perry gone already?"

"She was very tired, " said Patty veraciously, but evasively. 

"Awfully jolly girl, isn't she Mead?" said Hawley, with theexpansiveness of the newly-wed. "Handsome, too?"

"Perhaps she is, but so long as she dresses like a veiled prophet it ishard to tell. "

"If you two can get on without me, " said Patty, disregarding a muffledprotest from under the table, "I'll go up and fetch, " she made thesecomforting words very clear, "my green motor veil. "

Instantly, when he closed the door after her, Mead turned to Hawley. 

"There's something wrong with this confounded mask, " said he. "Thisstrap-thing that goes round my head must be too tight. I've been madwith it the last half hour. How do I look?" he asked genially as he tookit off, and proceeded to tamper with the buckles and elastic. "HowlingJupiter!" he cried a moment later, "I've busted it. "

As the two friends stood and stared at one another aghast, they heardthe click of Patty's returning heels, and Mead, abandoning dignity, courage--everything except the broken mask--dived into Miss Perry'smaiden bower. 

Mrs. Hawley watched this procedure with wide and fascinated eyes. Noripple shook the walls of the bower. No sound proceeded from it as themoments flew. Then Patty fell away into helpless laughter and wept tearsof shocked and sudden mirth into the now useless motor veil. 

"Patty!" remonstrated her husband, but she laughed helplessly on. "Atleast come out into the hall and laugh there, " he urged, "the poor chapwill hear you. " And when he had followed her and listened to her shakenwhisper, he broke into such a shout as forced the indignant andoutraged Kate into a shudder of protest and disgust. 

Instantly Mead threw an arm past the table's single central support andgrasped a handful of silk chiffon and two fingers. 

He, being of an acquisitive turn, retained the fingers. She being of adictatorial turn, rebuked him. 

"Finding is keeping, " he shamelessly remarked. "Even in infancy I wastaught that. "

Now, a certain pomp of scene and circumstance is necessary to the sortof dignified snubbing with which Miss Perry was accustomed to treatpossible admirers. Also, a serene consciousness of superlative goodlooks. But Kate Perry disfigured, cramped into a ridiculous hidingplace, and suffering untold miseries of headache and throbbing eyes, wasa very different creature. 

And Mead, flippant, hard, and misanthropic in the state of nature, softened wonderfully as he sat in the gloom of the tablecover, insilent possession of those two slim fingers. 

His words grew gentle, his manner kind, and her answers were calculatedto petrify her long-suffering family if they could have overheard them. 

"Mr. Mead, " she said at last, "will you be so very kind as to stay herequietly under the table while I scramble out and go up to my room?"

No tongue of angel could have made a more welcome suggestion. Meaduttered feeble and polite proffers of escort, and silently called downblessings upon the head he had never seen. He had just allowed himselfto be dissuaded from knight errantry, when the door opened and Jimmieflashed his dark lantern about the brightly lighted room. He then beckonedmysteriously to the still vigilant Horace, who lurked in the hall. 

"Have you found them?" whispered that youth. 

"Not a trace of them, " answered Jimmie triumphantly. "They ain't goneout. They ain't in their rooms, and I'm studyin' how I can round 'em up. They're the most suspicious characters I ever see, Horace, and thisnight's work may cost us our lives. "

This disposition of his existence did not seem to cheer Horace. 

"Counterfeiters, " Jimmie went on, "is the desperatest kind of criminalsthere is. Still we got to git 'em. I'll look round this room just so asnothing won't escape us, and then we'll go up to the next floor. It'sgood we got two of them located in the bridal suite. "

Jimmie, with his prying dark lantern and his prodding nightstick, soonreached the space under the table, and the counterfeiters secreted there. 

"I got 'em, " he cried delightedly. "Hi, you. Come out of there and showyourselves. "

They came. There was nothing else to do. 

"Moses's holy aunt, " cried Jimmie, falling back upon Horace, whopromptly fell back upon the sofa. 

"Here, you, " said Mead. "You get out of this, both of you. Don't youknow this is a private sitting-room?"

"No settin'-room, " said Jimmie, recovering somewhat, "is private to themas sets under tables blackening one another's eyes. "

"You ridiculous idiot, " snorted Mead. "Do you dare to think that I hurtthis lady?"

"Lady? Ain't she your wife?"

"She is _not_, " snapped Kate. 

"Then why did you hit her?" demanded Jimmie. "If she ain't your wifewhat did you want to hit her for? An' anyway, she'd ought to be. That'sall I got to say. "

 * * * * *

The same idea occurred to Mr. And Mrs. Hawley, crouched guiltily againsttheir door to hear their victims pass, for their amazed ears caughtthese words--the first were Kate's:

"You must let me give you some of my lotion. "

And then came Mead's:

"I shall be _most_ grateful. It must be hot stuff. You know you'rehardly disfigured at all. "

"The saints forgive him, " Patty gurgled. 

Later on in the darkness, Jimmie's idea visited Mead and was receivedwith some cordiality. And at some time later still, it must have beenpresented to Miss Perry, for the misanthropic Mead--no longermisanthropic--now boasts a massive and handsome wife whom he calls hisLittle Kitty. But the idea was originally Jimmie's. 

THE CHRISTMAS GUEST

On the day before Christmas eve John Sedyard closed his desk, dismissedhis two clerks and his stenographer two hours earlier than usual, andset out in quest of adventure and a present for his sister Edith. JohnSedyard had a habit of succeeding in all he set forth to do but thecomplete and surprising success which attended him in this quest was anotch above even his high average. 

Earlier in the month, his stenographer had secured the annual pledges ofhis affection for all the relatives, friends and dependants to whom hewas in the habit of giving presents: all except his mother, hisunmarried sister, Edith, who still lived at home, and his fiancée, MaryVan Plank. The gifts for these three, he had decided, must be of hisown choice and purchase. He had provided for his mother and for Maryearlier in the week. Neither excitement nor adventure had attended uponthe purchase of their gifts. Something for the house or the table wasalways the trick for elderly ladies who presided over largeestablishments and gave their whole souls to the managing of them. Hebought for his mother a set of colonial silver candlesticks. For Mary, he bought a comb of gold--all gold, like her own lovely hair. The darktortoise shell of the one she wore always seemed an incongruous note inher fair crown. But Edith was as yet unpresented, and it was on heraccount that Mr. Sedyard deserted his office and delighted hissubordinates at three o'clock in the afternoon. 

Edith was much more difficult than the other two had been. She wasstrong-minded, much given to churchwork and committees. Neither thehome, as represented by the candlesticks, nor self-adornment astypified by the golden comb could be expected to appeal to hercommunistic, altruistic nature. And Sedyard, having experienced twoinspirations, could think of nothing but combs and candlesticks. So hethrew himself into the current, which swept along Broadway, trustingthat some accident would suggest a suitable offering. Meanwhile, herevelled in the crowd, good-humored, holiday-making, holly-decked, whichcarried him uptown, past Wanamaker's and Grace Church, swirled himacross old "dead man's curve, " and down the Fourteenth Street side ofUnion Square. Here the shops were smaller, not so overwhelming, and herehe was stopped by seeing a red auction flag. Looking in over the headsof the assembled crowd, he saw that the auctioneer was holding up afeather-crowned hat and addressing his audience after the manner of hiskind:

"Buy a hat for your wife. A waste-paper basket by night and a hat byday. Genuine ostrich feathers growing on it. Becoming to all styles offeminine beauty. What am I bid on this sure tickler of the femininepalate? Three dollars? Why, ladies and gents, the dooty on it alone wastwelve. It's a Paris hat, ladies. Your sister, your mother, your maidenaunt--"

Sedyard hearkened, but absently, to the fellow's words, but his problemwas solved. He would buy Edith something to look pretty in. She was apretty girl and in danger of forgetting it. And she had been decent, John reflected, awfully decent about Mary. He knew that the _ententecordiale_ which existed between Mary and his mother was largely due toEdith, and he knew, too, that Edith, an authority on modern-housing andmodel-living, surely but silently disapproved of Mary's living alone ina three-roomed studio and devoting her days to painting, when there wasso much rescue work to be done in the world. 

"I get my uplift, " Mary would explain when Edith urged these things uponher, "from the elevator. Living on the eighth floor, dear, I cannot buthelp seeing the world from a very different angle. "

Yes, John reflected as he chuckled in retrospect over suchconversations, Edith had certainly been awfully decent. 

During these meditations several articles of feminine apparel had comeand gone under the hammer. The crowd had decreased somewhat and hisposition now commanded a clear view of the auctioneer's platform, and herealized that the fierce light of the arc lamps beat down upon ascharming a costume as he had seen for many a day. All of corn-flowerblue it was, a chiffon gown, a big chiffon muff and a plumed hat. Oh! ifhe had been allowed to do such shopping for Mary! how quickly he wouldhave entered into the lists of bidders! Mary's eyes were just thatheavenly shade of blue, but Mary's pride was as great as her poverty, and the time when he could shower his now useless wealth upon her wasnot yet. And then his loyal memory told him that Edith was blue-eyedlike all the Sedyards and he knew that his sister's Christmas giftsstood before him. He failed, however, to discern in the bland presenceof the lay figure, upon which they were disposed to such advantage, thecompanion of one of the most varied adventures in his long career. 

The chiffon finery was rather too much for the Fourteenth Streetaudience. The bidding languished. The auctioneer's pleadings fell upondeaf ears. In vain his assistant, a deft-fingered man with a beard, twirled the waxen-faced figure to show the "semi-princesse back" and the"near-Empire front. " Corn-blue chiffon and panne velvet are not muchworn in Fourteenth Street. The auctioneer grew desperate. "Twenty-fivedollars, " he repeated with such scorn that the timid woman who had madethe bid wished herself at home and in bed. "_Twenty-five_ dollars!"

"Throw in the girl, why don't you?" suggested a facetious youth, chieflyremarkable for a nose, a necktie and a diamond ring. "She's a peach allright, all right. She's got a smile that won't come off. "

"All right, I'll throw her in, " cried the desperate auctioneer. "What amI bid for this here afternoon costume complete with lady. "

"Twenty-seven fifty, " said a woman whom three years of banting wouldstill have left too fat to get into it. 

"Twenty-eight, " whispered the first bidder. 

"Thirty, " said John Sedyard. 

There was some other desultory bidding but in a few moments Sedyardfound himself minus fifty-four dollars and plus a chiffon gown andmuff, a hat all drooping plumes and a graceful female form, golden-haired, bewitching, with a smile sweetly blended of surprise, incipient idiocy and allure. 

"She's a queen all right, all right, " the sophisticated youth cheeredhim. "Git onto them lovely wax-like hands. Say, you know honest, on thelevel, she's worth the whole price of admission. "

John, still chaperoned by this sagacious and helpful youth, made his wayto the clerk's desk and proceeded to give his name and address andrequest that his purchases should be delivered in the morning. 

"Deliver nothin', " said the clerk pleasantly. "Do you suppose we'd 'alet you have the goods at that price if we could 'a stored 'emovernight? Our lease is up, " he continued consulting his Ingersollwatch, "in just fifteen minutes. In a quarter of an hour we hand overthe keys and what's left of the fixtures to the landlord. He's let thestore for to-morrow to a Christmas-tree ornaments merchant. "

"Then I suppose I'll have to get an expressman. Where is the nearest, doyou know?"

"Expressman!" exclaimed the sharp youth. "Well, I guess the nearestwould be about Three Hundred and Fifty-second Street and _then_ he'dhave a load and a jag. No, sir, it's the faithful cab for yours. There'sa row of cabs just on the edge of the square. I could go over and getyou a hansom. "

"Thank you, " said John, "I wish you would. " But a glance at hislanguishing companion made him add, "I guess you had better make it afour-wheeler. Hansom-riding would be pretty cold for a lady without acoat. "

"All right, " said the sharp youth. "You bring her out on the sidewalkand I'll get the hurry-up wagon. Say!" he halted to suggest, "you knowwhat you'll look like, don't you?--riding around with that smile. Whenthe lights flush you, you'll look just like a bridal party fromHoboken. "

Leaving this word of comfort behind him, he proceeded to imperil hislife among trolley cars and traffic, while John engaged the lady andurged her to motion. 

He discovered that, supported at the waistline, she could be wheeledvery nicely. He forced the muff over her upraised right hand, so that itsomewhat concealed her face, and through an aisle respectfully clearedby the onlookers he led her to the open air. There he propped heragainst the show-window and turned in search of the cab and his newfriend. In doing so he came face to face with an old one. 

"Why, hello John!" said Frederick Trevor, a man who had an office in hisbuilding and an interest in his sister. "Who would have thought ofmeeting you here?"

"Or you, " retorted John. "But since you are here, you can help me in alittle difficulty. "

"Not now, old chap, " said Frederick, "I'm in a bit of a hurry. See youabout it to-morrow. Well, so long. Don't let me keep you from yourfriend. "

"Friend!" stormed John and then following the directions of Trevor'seyes, he descried a blue-clad, golden-haired young lady lolling againstthe window, trying with a giant chiffon muff to smother a fit ofhilarious laughter. One arched and smiling eye showed above the muff andthe whole figure was instinct with Bacchanalian mirth. "Why that's, " hebegan to explain, but young Trevor had vanished into the crowd. 

Presently the cab with the smart youth inside drew up to the curb andSedyard, with a new self-consciousness, put his arm around the bluefigure and trundled her across the sidewalk. The cabman threw his rugacross his horse's quarters and lumbered down to assist at theembarkation of so fair a passenger. The smart youth held the doorencouragingly open and John proceeded, with much more strength than hehad expected to use, to heave the passenger aboard. 

Even these preliminaries had attracted the nucleus of a crowd and thesmart youth grew restive. 

"Aw, say Maudie, " he urged when the lady stuck rigid catty-cornerwiseacross the cab with her blue feathers pressed against the roof in onecorner, and her bird-cage skirt arrangement protruding beyond thedoor-sill. "Aw, say Maudie, set down, why don't you, and take yourTrilbys in. This gent is going to take you carriage riding. "

"What's the matter with her anyway, " demanded the cabman. "Don't sheknow how to set in a carriage?"

"No, she doesn't, she's only a wax figure, " said John, "but I boughther and now I'm determined to take her home. She'd better go up on thebox with you. "

"What! her?" demanded the outraged Jehu. "Say, what do you take me foranyway? Do you suppose I ain't got no friends just 'cause I drive a cab?Why! I wouldn't drive up Broadway with them goo-goo eyes settin' besideme, not for nothing you could offer, I wouldn't. "

By this time the crowd had reached very respectable proportions althoughthere was nothing to see except the end of a blue gown hanging out ofthe cab's open door. The sharp youth, the cabman and John took turns intrying to adjust the lady to her environment. The rigidity and fragilityof her arms and head made this very difficult, and presently thererolled upon the scene a policeman, large, Irish and chivalrous. It tookPatrolman McDonogh but a second, but one glance at the tableaux and onewhisper from the crowd to understand that a kidnapping atrocity was inprogress. 

With wrath in his eye, he shouldered aside Sedyard and the cabman, grabbed the smart youth, whose turn at persuasion was then on, and threwhim into the face of the crowd. 

"Oh! but you're the villyans, " he admonished them, and then addressedthe captive maid in reassuring tones. 

"You're all right, Miss, now. You're no longer defenceless in thiswicked city. The arrum of the law is around you, " he cried, encirclingher waist with that substantial member. "You're safe at last, come hereto me out of that. "

"Oh! noble, noble man, " cried an emotional woman in the crowd. "If allofficers were like you!"

Heartened by these words the noble, noble man exerted the arm of thelaw and plucked the maiden out of the cab amid great excitement andapplause. But above the general murmur the shrill voice of the sharpyouth rent the air:

"Fathead, " he cried, "you've broke her neck. Can't you see how herhead's goin' round and round?"

[Illustration: THE CHANGELESS SMILE AND THE DROOPING PLUMES MADE THREECOMPLETE REVOLUTIONS AND NESTLED CONFIDINGLY UPON THE SHOULDER OF THELAW. Page 129. ]

At this the emotional woman dropped to the sidewalk. "Lady fainted here, officer, " cried a gentleman. But the noble, noble officer had no timefor faints, and the lady was obliged to revive with only the assistanceof the cold stones and curiosity. 

For the shrill voice had spoken truth. Something had given away inMaudie's mysterious anatomy; the fair head, the changeless smile and thedrooping plumes made three complete revolutions and nestled confidinglyupon the shoulder of the Law. 

"Here, none o' that, " yelled Patrolman McDonogh quite reversing hisearlier diagnosis of the situation. "None of your flim-flams, if youplease. You go quiet and paceable with this gentleman. A little ride inthe air is what you need. "

"That's right, officer, " Sedyard interrupted. "That's how to talk toher. I can't do a thing with her. "

"Brute!" cried the emotional woman now happily restored. "It's officerslike him that disgraces the force. "

Patrolman McDonogh turned to identify this blasphemer and Maudie's head, deprived of its support, made another revolution and then dropped coylyto her left shoulder. She looked so unspeakable in that attitude thatthe cabman felt called upon to offer a little professional advice:

"She needs a checkrein, " he declared, "an' she needs it bad, " a remarkwhich so incensed Patrolman McDonogh that Sedyard decided to explain:

"Just disperse those people, will you, " said he, "I want to talk to you. "

The sharp youth relieved the officer of law of his fair burden andposed her in a natural attitude of waiting beside the cab. McDonoghcleared the sidewalk and hearkened to Sedyard's tale. 

"So you see, " said John in conclusion, "what I'm up against. I reallydidn't want the dummy when I bought it and you can bet I'm tired of itnow. What I wanted was the clothes, and I guess the thing for me to dois just to take them in the cab and leave the figure here. "

"What!" thundered McDonogh. "You're going to leave a dummy without herclothes here on my beat? Not if I see ye first, ye ain't, and if ye tryit on I'll run ye in. "

"Say! I'll tell you what you want, " piped up the still buoyant, smartyouth. "You need one of them open taxicabs. 

"He needs a hearse, " corrected the disgruntled cabman. "Somethin' shecan lay down in comfortable an' take in the sights through the windows. "

"Now, he needs a taxi. He can leave her stand in the back all right, but I guess, " he warned John, "you'll have to sit in with her and holdher head on. "

And thus it was that Maudie left the scene. She left, too, the smartyouth, the cabman and the noble, noble officer. And as the taxi bumpedover the trolley tracks she, despite all Sedyard's efforts, turned herhead and smiled out at them straight over her near-princesse back. 

"Gee!" said the smart youth, "ain't she the friendliest bunch ofcalico. "

"This case, " said the noble Patrolman McDonogh with unpunctualinspiration, "had ought to be looked into by rights. "

"Chauffeur, " said John Sedyard to the shadowy form before him, "justpick out the darkest streets, will you?"

"Yes, sir, " answered the chauffeur looking up into the bland smile andthe outstretched hand above him. "I'll make it if I can but if we getstopped, don't blame me. "

A year later, or so it seemed to John Sedyard, the taxicab, panting withindignation at the insults and interferences to which it had beensubjected, turned into Sedyard's eminently respectable block and drew upbefore his eminently handsome house. 

He paid and propitiated the chauffeur, took his lovely burden in hisarms and staggered up the steps with the half regretful feeling of onewho steps out of the country of adventure back to prosaic things. Hefound his latchkey, opened his door and drew Maudie into the hall. Andon the landing half-way up the stairs stood his sister Edith, evidentlythe bearer of some pleasant tidings. 

Maudie's smile flashed up at her from John's shoulder. Edith stared, stiffened, and retraced her steps. John wheeled the figure into thereception-room and thus addressed it:

"Listen to me, you dumbhead. You may think this adventure is over. Well, so did I, but I tell you now it's only just beginning. If you arenot mighty careful you will be wrecking a home. So keep your mouthshut, " he charged her, "and do nothing till you hear from me!"

Maudie smiled archly, coyly, confidentially, and he went upstairs. 

In the sitting-room, he found gathered together his mother, his sisterand Dick Van Plank, Mary's young brother and a student at Columbia. Johnwas supported through Edith's first remark and the look with which sheaccompanied it by the memory of her goodness to Mary and by theanticipation of the fun which Maudie might be made to provide. 

"I wish to say, John, " she began, before any one else had time to speak, "that I've said _nothing_ to mother or Dick, and I think it would bebetter if you didn't. I can attend to the case if you leave it to me. "

"Like you, " said John shortly. "Who told you she is a 'case. ' Mother, "he went on addressing that gentle knitter by the fire, "I want you tocome downstairs. "

"She shall do nothing of the kind!" cried Edith, and as Mrs. Sedyardlooked interrogatively from one to another of her children, her daughterswept on. "John must be crazy, I saw him come in with a--a person--whonever ought to be in a house like this. "

"I'd like to know why not?" stormed John. "You don't know a thing abouther. _I_ don't know much for that matter, but when I came across herdown on Union Square, just turned out of a shop where she had beenworking, mother, I made up my mind that I would bring her right straighthome, and that Edith would be decent to her. You can see that Edith doesnot intend to be. "

"But my dear boy, " faltered Mrs. Sedyard, "was not that a very recklessthing to do? I know of an institution where you could send her. "

"Oh! yes, yes, " said John. "And I suppose I might have handed her overto a policeman, " he added, thinking of his attempt in this direction, "but I didn't. The sight of her so gentle and uncomplaining in thatawful situation at this time of general rejoicing was too much for me. "

He felt this to be so fine a flight and its effect upon Dick was soremarkable, that he went on in a voice, as his mother always remembered, "that positively trembled at times. "

"How was I, a man strong and well-dowered, to pass heartlessly by likethe Good Samaritan--"

"There's something wrong with that, " Dick interposed. 

But John was not to be deflected. "What, mother, would you have thoughtof your son if he left that beautiful figure--for she is beautiful--"

"You don't say, " said Dick. 

"To be buffeted by the waves of 'dead man's curve?'"

"Oh, how awful!" murmured the old lady. "How _perfectly_ dreadful. "

It was at this point that Dick Van Plank unostentatiously left the room. 

"But I didn't do it, mother, " cried John, thumping his chest and anxiousto make his full effect before the return of an enlightened and possiblyenlightening Dick. "No, I thought of this big house, with only us threein it, and I said 'I'll bring her home. ' Edith will love her. Edith willgive her friendship, advice, guidance. She will even give her somethingto wear instead of the unsuitable things she has on. And what do Ifind?" He paused and looked around dramatically and warningly as Dick, with a beautified grin, returned. "Does Edith open her heart to her?No. Does Edith open her arms to her? No. All that Edith opens to her isthe door which leads--who can tell where, whither?"

"I can tell, " said Dick, "it leads right straight to my little diggings. If Edith throws her out, I'll take her in. "

"Oh, noble, noble man, " ejaculated John remembering the emotional woman, "but ah! that must not be. I took her hand in mine--by the way, did Itell you, she has beautiful little hands, not at all what I should haveexpected. "

"You did not, " said Dick. "And now that'll be about all from you. You'rejust about through. "

"My opinion is, " said Edith darkly, "that you are both either crazy orworse. "

"Go down and see her for yourself, " urged Dick, "so quiet, soreserved--hush! hark! she's coming up. Now be nice to her whatever youfeel! I'll be taking her away in a minute or two. "

But it was Mary Van Plank who came in. Mary, all blooming and glowingfrom the cold. 

"Who's that in the reception-room?" she asked when the greetings wereover and she was warming her slender hands before the fire. "She's theprettiest dear. She was standing at the window and she smiled so sweetlyat me as I came up the steps. "

John looked at Dick. 

"Yes, " admitted that unabashed delinquent, "I left her at the windowwhen I came up. "

"Alas! poor child, " sighed John, looking out into the night. "She'll bethere soon. "

"What is she going out for at this time?" Mary demanded. "I quitethought that she, too, had come to dinner. Who is she, Mrs. Sedyard?"

Upon her mother's helpless silence, Edith broke in with the story asshe felt she knew it. Union Square, the discharged shopgirl, John'squixotic conduct. And John watched Mary with a lover's eye. He had notintended that she should be involved. A moment of her displeasure, evenupon mistaken grounds, was no part of his idea of a joke. 

But there was no displeasure in Mary's lovely face. 

"Why, of course, he brought her home, " she echoed Edith's indignantperoration. "What else could he do?"

"Well, for one thing he could have taken her to the Margaret LouiseHome, that branch of the Y. W. C. A. , on Sixteenth Street, only a fewblocks from where he found her. "

"Oh! Edith, " Mary remonstrated. "The Maggie Lou! And you know they wouldnot admit her. Who would take a friendless girl to any sort of aninstitution at this season? John couldn't have done it! I think he's anold dear to bring her right straight home. Let's go down and talk toher. She must be wondering why we all leave her so long alone. "

"No, you don't, " said Dick. "Edith didn't tell you the whole story. Thegirl, " and he drew himself up to a dignity based on John's, "is under_my_ protection. "

"Your protection!" repeated his amazed sister. 

"Precisely. _My_ protection. Edith declines to receive this helplesschild. Therefore, I have offered her the shelter of my roof. "

"His roof, " explained Mary to Mrs. Sedyard, "is the floor of the hallbedroom above his. It measures about nine by six. So the thing to do, since of course, Dick is only talking nonsense, is to let me take thegirl around to the studio until John and I can plan an uninstitutionalfuture for her. "

"You may do just as you please, " said Edith coldly. "I have given myopinion as to what should be done with her. It has been considered, bypersons more experienced than you, the opinion of an expert. Girls ofher history and standards are not desirable inmates for well-orderedhomes. I shall have nothing to do with her. "

"How about it, Mary?" asked her brother. "Are you willing to risk her inthe high-art atmosphere of the studio?"

"I'm glad to, " Mary answered. "It's not often that one gets a chance ofbeing a little useful, and doesn't the Christmas Carol say, 'Good willto men. ' I'm going down to see her now. "

"You're a darling, " cried John. "True blue right through. Now, we'll allgo down and arrange the transfer. But, first, I want to give Edith onemore chance. Do you finally and unreservedly--"

"I do, " said Edith promptly. 

"And you, Mary, are you sure of yourself? Suppose that, when you seeher, you change your mind?"

"I've given my word, ", she answered. "I promise to take her. "

"That's all I want, " said John. 

 * * * * *

"How could you, John? How could you?" sobbed Edith. "How could you tellus--?"

"I told you nothing but the absolute truth. I meant her to be yourChristmas present, but you have resigned her 'with all her works and allher pomps' to Mary. "

"Ah! but if I refuse to take her from Edith?" Mary suggested. 

"Then I get her, " answered Dick blithely, "and she'd be safer with me. Iknow what you two girls are thinking of. You are going to borrow herclothes and make a Cinderella of her. They are what you care about. ButI love her for herself, her useless hands, her golden hair, her lovelysmile--well, no, I guess we'll cut out the smile, " he corrected whenMaudie, agitated by the appraising hands of the two girls, swung herhead completely round and beamed impartially upon the whole assembly. "It don't look just sincere to me. "

But there was no insincerity about Maudie. She was just assweet-tempered as she looked. Uncomplainingly, she allowed herself to bedespoiled of her finery and wrapped in a sheet while Mary wriggledecstatically in the heavenly blue dress, pinned the plumed hat on herown bright head and threw the muff into a corner of the darkeneddrawing-room when she found that it interfered with the free expressionof her gratitude to John. 

And some months later when the trousseau was in progress, the oncedespised Christmas guest, now a member in good-standing of Mary'shousehold, did tireless service, smilingly, in the sewing-room. 

"WHO IS SYLVIA?"

"Lemon, I think, " said Miss Knowles, in defiance of the knowledge, bornof many afternoons, that he preferred cream. She took a keen andmischievous pleasure in annoying this hot-tempered young man, and shegenerally succeeded. But to-day he was not to be diverted from thepurpose which, at the very moment of his entrance, she had divined. 

"Nothing, thank you, " he answered. "I'll not have any tea. I came inonly for a moment to tell you that I'm going to be married. "

"Again?" she asked calmly, as though he had predicted a slight fall ofsnow. But her calm did not communicate itself to him. 

"Again?" he repeated hotly. "What do you mean by 'again?'"

"Now, Jimmie, " she remonstrated, as she settled herself morecomfortably among her pillows and centered all her apparent attentionupon a fragile cup and a small but troublesome sandwich, "don't besavage. I only mean that you always tell me so when you find anopportunity. That you even manufacture opportunities--some of them outof most unlikely material. A chance meeting in a cross-town car; anespecially _forte_ place in an opera; the moment when a bishop is sayinggrace or a host telling his favorite story. And yet you expect me to besurprised to hear it now! Here in my own deserted drawing-room with thefire lighted and the lamps turned low. You forget that one is allowed toremember. "

"You allow yourself to forget when you choose and to remember when youwish: You are--"

"And to whom are you going to be married? To the same girl? Do youknow, I think she is not worthy of you?"

"She is not, " he acquiesced, and she, for a passing moment, seemeddisconcerted. "Yet she is, " he continued, cheered by this slighttriumph, "the most persistent, industrious and deserving of all theyoung persons who, attracted by my great position and vast wealth, arepressing themselves or being pressed by designing relatives upon mynotice. "

His hostess laughed softly. 

"Make allowances for them, " she pleaded. "You know very few men canrival your advantages. The sixth son of a retired yet respectable stockbroker, and an income of four thousand a year derived from a small butincreasing--shall we say increasing--?"

"Diminishing; incredible as it may seem, diminishing. "

"From a small but diminishing law practice. And with these you mustmention your greatest charm. "

"Which is?"

"Your humility, your modesty, your lack of self-assertiveness. Do youthink she recognizes that? It is so difficult to fully appreciate yourhumility. "

Jimmie grinned. "She's up to it, " said he. "She knows all about it. She's as clever, as keen, as clear-sighted. "

"Is she, perhaps, pleasing to the eye?" asked Miss Knowles idly. "Cleverwomen are often so--well, so--"

Jimmie gazed at her across the little tea-table. He filled his eyes withher. And, since his heart was in his eyes, he filled that, too. After amoment he made solemn answer:

"She is the most beautiful woman God ever made. "

"Ah, now, " said Miss Knowles, returning her cup to its fellows andturning her face, and her mind, more entirely to him, "now we growinteresting. Describe her to me. "

"Again?" Jimmie plagiarized. 

"Yes, again. Tell me, what is she like?"

"She is like, " he began so deliberately that his hostess, leaningforward, hung upon his words, "she is exactly like--nothing. " Thehostess sat back. "There was never anything in the least like her. Tobegin with, she is fair and young and slim. She is tall enough, andsmall enough and her eyes are gray and black and blue. "

"She sounds disreputable, your paragon. "

"And her eyes, " he insisted, "are gray in the sunlight, blue in thelamplight, and black by the light of the moon. "

"And in the firelight?"

He rose to kick the logs into a greater brightness; and when he hadstudied her glowing face until it glowed even more brightly, heanswered:

"In the firelight they are--wonderful. She has--did I tell you?--thewhitest and smallest of teeth. "

"They're so much worn this year, " she laughed, and wondered the whilewhat evil instinct tempted her to play this dangerous game; why shecould not refrain from peering into the deeper places of his nature tosee if her image were still there and still supreme? Why should she, almost involuntarily, work to create and foster an emotion upon whichshe set no store, which indeed, only amused her in its mildermanifestations and frightened her when it grew intense? He showedsymptoms of unwelcome seriousness now, but she would have none of it. 

"Go on, " she urged. "Unless you give her a few more features she will belike little Red Riding Hood's grandmother. "

"And she has, " he proceeded obediently, "eyebrows and eyelashes--"

"One might have guessed them. "

"--beyond the common, long and dark and soft. The rest of her face isthe only possible setting for her eyes. It is perfection. "

"And is she gentle, womanly, tender? Is she, I so often wonder, goodenough to you?"

"She treats me hundreds of times better than I deserve. "

"Doesn't she rather swindle you? Doesn't she let you squander yourtime?"--she glanced at the clock--"your substance?"--she bent to lay hercheek against the violets at her breast--"your affection upon her--?"

"And how could she be kinder? And when I marry her--"

"And _if_, " Miss Knowles amended. 

"There's no question about it, " he retorted. "She knows that I shallmarry her. " Miss Knowles looked unconvinced. "She knows that she willmarry me. " Miss Knowles looked rebellious. "She knows that I shall nevermarry anyone else. " Miss Knowles took that apparently for granted. 

"Dear boy!" said she. 

"That I have waited seven years for her. "

"Poor boy!" said she. 

"That I shall wait seven more for her. "

"Silly boy!" said she. 

"And so I stopped this afternoon to tell her that I'm coming home tomarry her in two or three months. "

"Coming home?" she questioned with not much interest. "Where are yougoing?"

"To Japan on a little business trip. One of the big houses wants to getsome papers and testimony and that sort of thing out of a man who isliving in a backwoods village there for his health--and his liberty. None of their own men can afford time to go. And I got the chance, avery good one for me--but I tire you. "

"No; oh, no, " said Miss Knowles politely. "You are very interesting. "

"Then you shouldn't fidget and yawn. You lay yourself open tomisinterpretation. To continue: a very great chance for me. The firm isa big firm, the case is a big case, and it will be a great thing for meto be heard of in connection with it. "

"Some nasty scandal, of course. "

"Not exactly. It is the Drewitt case. I wonder if you heard anythingabout it. "

"For three months after the thing happened, " she assured him with aflattering accession of interest, "I heard nothing about anything else. Poor, dear father knew him, to his cost, you know. I heard that therewas to be a new investigation and another attempt at a settlement. Andnow you're going to interview the man! And you're going to Japan! Oh, the colossal luck of some people! You will write to me--won't you?--assoon as you see him, and tell me all about him. How he looks, what hesays, how he justifies himself. O Jimmie, dear Jimmie, you will surelywrite to me?"

"Naturally, " said Jimmie, and his thin, young face looked happier thanit had at any other time since the beginning of this conversation;happier than it had in many preceding conversations with this veryunsatisfying but charming interlocutor. "I always do. Sometimes whenyour mood has been particularly, well, unreceptive, I have thought ofgoing away so that I might write to you. Perhaps I could write moreconvincingly than I can talk. " A cheering condition of things for alawyer, he reflected. 

"But this is a different and much more particular thing, " she insistedwith a cruelty of which her interest made her unconscious. "I have asort of a right to know on account of poor, dear father. I shall make alist of questions and you will answer them fully, won't you? Then Ishall be the only woman in New York to know the true inwardness of theDrewitt affair. When do you start?"

"To-morrow morning. I shall be away for perhaps three months, and then, "doggedly, "then I'm coming home to be married. I came in to tell you. "

"And if I don't quite believe you?"

"I shall postpone the ceremony. Shall we say indefinitely, some time inthe summer?"

"Not even then. Never, I think. That troublesome girl is beginning--shefeels that she ought to tell you--"

"That there is another 'another'?"

"Yes, I fear so. "

"Who will be in town for the next three months?"

"Again, I fear so. "

"Then that's all right, " said the optimistic Jimmie. "There never was aman--save one, oh, lady mine--who could, for three months, avoid boringyou. When he holds forth upon every subject under the sun and stars youwill think longingly of me and of the endless variety of my one topic, 'I'm going to marry you. '"

"But if he should make it his?"

"I defy him to do it. There is no guise in which he could clothe theidea which would not remind you instantly of me. If he should bepoetical: well, so was I when we were twenty-one. If he should give yougifts of great price: well, so did I in those Halcyon days when I had anallowance from my Governor and toiled not. If his is an outdoor wooing, you will inevitably remember that I taught you to ride, to skate, todrive, and to play golf. If he should attack you musically, you will besurprised at the number of operas we've heard together and of duetswe've sung together. And so, in the words of my friend, fellow-sufferer, and name-sake, Mr. Yellowplush, 'You'll still remember Jeames. '"

"That's nonsense!" cried Miss Knowles. "I've tried to be fond of you--I_am_ fond of you and accustomed to you. The fatal point is that I amaccustomed to you. You say you never bore me. Well, you don't. And thatother men do. Well, you're right. But people don't marry people simplybecause they don't bore each other. "

"Your meaning is clearer than your words and much more correct. Thisreally essential consideration is, alas, frequently not considered. "

"People should marry, " said Miss Knowles with a sort of consecratedearnestness--the most deadly of all the practiced phases of hercoquetry--"for love. Now, I'm not in love with you. If I were, the veryidea of your going away would make me miserable. And do I seemmiserable? Am I lovelorn? Look at me carefully and tell the truth. "

Jimmie obeyed, and the contemplation of his hostess seemed to depress him. 

"No, " he agreed gloomily, "you seem to bear up. No one, looking at yourface, could guess that your heart was in--was in--" Jimmie halted, vainly searching for the poetical word. Miss Knowles supplied it. 

"In torn and bleeding fragments, " she supplemented. "No, Jimmie, I'msorry. You've laid siege to it in every known way, and yet there's not afeather out of it. "

"There are two ways, " Jimmie pondered audibly, "in which I have notwooed you. One is _à la_ cave dweller. I might knock you on the headwith a knobby club and drag you to my lair. But since my lair is someblocks away, and since those blocks are studded with the interestedpublic and the uninterested police, the cave dweller's method will notserve. There remains one other. I stand before you, so; I take yourhand, so; I may even have to kiss it, so. And I say: 'Dear one, I wantyou. Every hour of my life I want you. I want you to take care of, towork for, to be proud of. I want you to let me teach you what lifemeans. I want you for my dearest friend, for my everlasting sweetheart, for my wife. ' And when I've said it, I kiss your hand, so; gently, onceagain, and wait for your answer. "

"Dear boy, " said she with an unsteady little laugh, for--as always--sheshrank from his earnestness after she had deliberately roused it, "Iwish you wouldn't talk like that. You make me feel so shallow-pated andso small. I don't want to talk about life and knowledge and love. And Idon't want any husband at all. What makes you so tragic this afternoon?You're spoiling our last hour together. Come, be reasonable. Tell mewhat you think of Drewitt. Why do you suppose he did it? Did his wifeand daughter know?"

"You're quite sure about the other thing?"

"Unalterably sure. And, Jimmie, dear old Jimmie, there are two things Iwant you to do for me. The first is, to abandon forever and forever this'one topic' of which, you are so proud. Will you?"

"I will not, " said Jimmie. 

"And the second is: to fall in love with a girl on the boat. There isalways a girl on a boat. Will you?"

"I will, " said Jimmie promptly. "It would be just what you deserve. "

 * * * * *

Miss Knowles bore the absence of her most persistent and accustomedsuitor with a fortitude not predicted by that self-confident young man. She danced and drove, lunched and dined, rode and flirted withundiminished zest, bringing, each day, new energy and determination tothe task of enjoying herself. 

The enjoyment of her neighbors seemed less important. She preferred thather part in the cotillion should be observed by a frieze of unculledwall-flowers. A drive was always pleasanter if it were preceded by askirmish with her mother in which Miss Knowles should come offvictorious with the victoria, while Mrs. Knowles accepted the _coup degrâce_ and the coupé. A flirtation--if her languid, seeming innocentmonopoly of a man's time and thoughts could be called by so gross aname--was more satisfying if it implied the breaking of vows and heartsand the mad jealousy of some less gifted sister; if it had, like aRussian folk song, a sob and a wail running through it. 

Jimmie had never approved of these amusements and had never hesitated toexpress his opinion of them in terms which were intelligible even to hervanity. From the days when they had played together in the park she haddreaded his honesty and feared his judgments. "You're such a poacher, Sylvia, " he told her once, "such an inveterate, diabolical Fly-by-Night, Will-o'-the-Wisp poacher. I sometimes think you'd condescend to take ashot at me if you didn't know that I'm fair game. But you like to killtwo birds with one stone; smash two hearts with one smile. "

During the weeks immediately following the departure of her mentor shedevoted herself whole-heartedly to her favorite form of sport. Besidesher unscrupulousness she was armed with her grandfather's name, theriches of her dead father, her own beauty, and a mind capable of muchbetter things. And, since Jimmie's presence would have seriouslyinterfered with the pleasures of the chase, she was rather glad thanotherwise that he was not there to see--and comment. 

Her mother bore his absence with a like stoicism. That astute matron hadlong and silently deprecated the regularity with which her Louis Quinzehad groaned beneath one hundred and eighty pounds of ineligibility, thefrequency with which a tall troup horse of spectacular gait andsnortings could be descried beside her daughter's English hunter in thepark, the strange chain of coincidence by which at theater, house party, dinner, or even church, Jimmie smiling and unabashed, would find hisway to her daughter's side and monopolize her daughter's attention. 

In the excitement of the first stages of one of her expeditions intoanother's territory, Jimmie's first letter arrived. It was mailed atHonolulu, and consisted obediently of the cryptic statement: "There isno girl on the boat. She is a widow, but lots of fun. " And it changedthe character of the invasion from a harmless survey of the land to adetermined attack upon its fortresses. And so Gilbert Stevenson, millionaire dock owner, veteran of many seasons and more campaigns, found himself engaged to Miss Sylvia Knowles just when, after a long andcareful courtship, he had decided to bestow his hand and name upon thedaughter of the retired senior partner of his firm: "that dear littlegirl of old Marvin's, " as he described the lady of his choice, "his onlychild and a good child, too. " He bore his surprise and honors with acourteous pomposity. Miss Knowles bore the situation with restraint anddecorum. But that "dear little girl of old Marvin's" could not bringherself to bear it at all and wept away her modest claims to prettinessand spirit in one desolate month. 

Like many a humbler poacher, Sylvia Knowles found an embarrassment indisposing of her victims after she had bagged them, and Mr. GilbertStevenson was peculiarly difficult in this regard. She did not want tokeep him. In fact, the engagement upon which she was enduringcongratulations had been as surprising to her as to her fiancé. And themethodical manifestations of his regard contrasted wearyingly with theerratic events in another friendship in which nothing was to be countedupon except the unaccountable. So that when vanquished suitors withdrewdiscomfited and returned to renew an earlier allegiance or to swear anew one; when "that good child of old Marvin's" had withdrawn herpitiful little face and her disappointment into the remote fastness ofsettlement work; when her mother resigned all claims upon the victoriaand loudly affirmed her preference for the brougham, then things ingeneral--and Mr. Stevenson in particular--began to bore Miss Knowles, and she began to look forward, with an emotion which would havesurprised her betrothed, to foreign mails and letters. She consideratelyspared Mr. Stevenson this disquieting intelligence, having found him inmatters of honor and rectitude as archaic and as fastidious as Jimmiehimself. "Has a nasty suspicious mind, " she reflected, "and a nastyjealous disposition. I wonder if he will expect me to give up all myfriends when I marry him. "

Yet even Mr. Stevenson could have found no cause for jealousy in thematter of the letters. He might have objected to their being written atall, but beyond that they were innocuous. For all the personality theycontained they might have been transcripts of Jimmie's reports to hisfirm. He clung doggedly to his prescribed topics, and he could not havedevised a surer method of arousing the curiosity and the interest ofthis spoiled young person. She spent hours, which should have beendevoted to the contemplation of approaching bliss, in reading betweenthe prosaic lines, in searching for sentiment in a catalogue of railwaystations, for tenderness in description of eccentric _tables d'hôte_. Finding no trace of his old gallantry in all the closely written pages, she attributed its absence to obedience and accepted it as the highertribute to her power. She was forced to judge her lover's longing by thequantity rather than by the ardor of his words, and to detect theyearning of a true lover's heart through such effectual disguise as:

"Drewitt is a fine old chap; as placid and as bright as this countryand a great deal more so than anyone you'll see in the windows of theUnion League Club. He received me so cordially that I felt awkward aboutintroducing the object of my visit, but when I had admired everything insight from the mountains in the distance to the rug I was sitting on, Ifinally faced the situation and did it. 

"'Dear me, ' said he, 'are those directors still troubling themselvesabout their transaction with me?' I admitted apologetically that theywere; that their books refused to close over the gap left by thevanishing of $50, 000, and that he was earnestly requested to return toNew York and to lend his acknowledged business acumen, etc. , etc. Henever turned a hair. Said they--and I--were very kind. Nothing couldgive him greater pleasure. But the ladies preferred Japan. Therefore he, etc. , etc. , etc. But he would be delighted to explain the matter fullyto me; to supply me with all the figures and information I desired. (Andthat, of course, is as much as I am expected to bring back. ) But hewould have to postpone his return until--and you should have seen thewhimsical, quizzical old eye of his--until the nations would agree uponnew extradition treaties. Then, of course, etc. , etc. , etc. Meanwhile, as there was no immediate urgency about the matter, as he hoped that Iwould stay with them for as long a time as I cared to arrange, he wouldsuggest that we should join Mrs. Drewitt in the garden. She wouldwelcome news of our American friends. 'I need not ask you, ' he added aswe went out through the wall-like people in a dream or a fairy tale, tobe discreet and casual in your conversation with the ladies. My daughteris away this week visiting an old friend of hers who is married to amissionary in a neighboring village. She knows the reason for our beinghere. My wife does not. It need not be discussed with either of them. 'I should think not!

"And there in the garden was Mrs. Drewitt, a fat little old lady in aflaming kimono and spectacles. She wears her hair as your Aunt Matildadoes, stuck to her forehead in scrolls. 'Water curls, ' I think, is thetechnical term. She was holding the head of a dejected marigold while anative propped it up with a stick. It seemed she remembered my mother, and we spent a delightful tea-time in a garden which was a part of thesame dream as the phantom wall. Then the old gentleman led me off bymyself and wanted to hear all about Broadway. Whether Oscar was still atthe Waldorf. Whether Fields and Weber made 'a good thing of it' apart. Then the old lady led me off by myself and wanted to know who was nowthe pastor of the Brick Church, and what was Maude Adam's latest play, and whether skirts were worn long or short in the street. 

"'You see this dress, ' she said, 'is not really made for a woman of myage. In fact, in this country all the bright and pretty colors are wornby the waitresses. Geishas they call them. But Mr. Drewitt always likedbright colors, and red is very becoming to me. ' She was such a wistful, pathetic, and incongruous little figure that I said something abouthoping that she would soon be in New York again. 'But, ' she said, 'Mr. Drewitt cannot leave his work here. Didn't you know that he is stationedhere to report the changes of the weather to Washington? It is veryimportant, and we can't go home until he is recalled. And, besides, '"she went on with a half sob in her voice and a look in her eyes thatmade her seem as young as her own daughter, 'and, besides, I would muchrather be here. In New York my husband was too busy. He had so manycalls upon his time, so many people to meet, and so many places to go, that sometimes I hardly felt as though he belonged to me. But now fordays and weeks at a time we are together. And he has no businessworries. And his salary, ' she brightened up to tell me, 'is almost asgood here as it used to be in the Trust Company for _much_ harder work. 'She's a sweet old thing--must have been quite a beauty once--and I wishyou could see old Drewitt's manner with her--so courteous andaffectionate--and hers with him--so adoring and confiding. It'swonderful!

"It will take some time to get all the information I want from the oldman. He has the papers and he is quite willing to explain everything, but we spend the larger part of every day in entertaining the old ladyand keeping her happy and unsuspicious. "

A series of such letters covering several placid weeks reduced MissKnowles to a condition of moodiness and abstraction which all theresources at her command failed to dissipate. In vain were thepractical blandishments of Mr. Stevenson; in vain her mother's shoppingtriumphs; in vain were dinners given in her honor and receptions atwhich she reigned supreme. None of her other experiments had resulted inan engagement--an immunity which she now humbly attributed to thewatchful Jimmie--and she was dismayed at the determined andmatter-of-fact way in which she was called upon to fulfil her promise. "If only Jimmie were at home!" she realized, "he would save me. " Thiswas when the happy day was yet a great way off. "If only Jimmie wouldcome home, " she wailed as the weeks grew to months, and even the comfortof his letters failed her. For two months there had been no news of him, and Fate--and Mr. Stevenson--were very near when, at last, she heardfrom him again. He sent a telegram nearly as brief as his first letter. 

"I am coming home, " it announced, "I am coming home, and I'm going tobe married. "

And the simple little words, waited for so long, remembered so clearly, and coming, at last, so late, did what all Jimmie's more eloquentpleadings had failed to do. 

Sylvia Knowles, a creature made of vanities, realized that she lovedbetter than all her other vanities her place in this one man's regard. No contemplation of Mr. Stevenson's estate on the Hudson, his shootinglodge on a Scottish moor, his English abbey, and his Italian villa couldnerve her for the first meeting with Jimmie, could fortify her againsthis first laughing repetition:

"_You_ married to Gilbert Stevenson, " or his later scornful, "You_married_ to Gilbert Stevenson. "

So she dismissed Mr. Stevenson with as little feeling as she had annexedhim, and sought comfort in the knowledge that her mother was furious, her own fortune ample, and that marrying for love was a graceful, becoming pose and an unusual thing to do. 

Her rejected suitor bore his disappointment as correctly as he had bornehis joy. He stormed the special center of philanthropy in which oldMarvin's little girl had buried herself, and she was most incorrectlybut refreshingly glad to see him. She destroyed forever his poise andhis pride in it when she sat upon his unaccustomed knee, rested hertired head upon his immaculate shirt front, and wept for very happiness. 

 * * * * *

"And I remember, " said Miss Knowles, "that you always take cream. "

"Nothing, thank you, " Jimmie corrected. "Just plain unadulterated tea. Ilearned to like it in Japan. But don't bother about it. I haven't longto stay. I came in to tell you--"

"That you're going to be married. "

"How did you guess?"

"You didn't leave me to guess. Your telegram. "

"Ah, yes!" quoth Jimmie. "I sent a lot of them before I sailed. But inmy letters--"

"You mentioned absolutely nothing but that stupid old Drewitt affair. Never a word of the places you saw, the people you met, or even thepeople you missed. Nothing of the customs, the girls, the clothes. Nothing but that shuffling old Drewitt and his stuffy old wife. Nothingabout yourself. "

"Orders are orders, " quoth Jimmie, "and those were yours to me. Iremember exactly how it came about. We had been talking personalities. Ihave an idea that I made rather a fool of myself, and that you told meso. Then you, wisely conjecturing that I might write as foolishly as Ihad talked, made out a list of subjects for my letters. My name, I notedwith some care, was not upon that list. "

"Jimmie, " said Miss Knowles, "I was cruel and heartless that day. I'vethought about it often. "

"You've thought!" cried the genial Jimmie. "How had you time to think?Where were all those 'anothers'?"

"There were none, " lied Miss Knowles soulfully with a disdainfulbackward glance toward Mr. Stevenson. "For a time I thought there wasone. But whenever I thought of that last talk of ours--you remember it, don't you?"

"Of course. I told you I was going to be married as soon as I came home. Well, and so I am. "

"So you are. But I used to think that if you hesitated to tell me; ifyou felt that I might still be hard about it and unsympathetic; if youdecided to confide no more in me--"

"But you would be sure to know. Even if I had not telegraphed I nevercould have kept it a secret from you. "

"Not easily. I should have been, as you observe, sure to know. Do youremember how I always refused to believe you? It was not until you werein that horrid Japan, where all the women are supposed to bebeautiful--"

"Yes, " Jimmie acquiesced. "It was when I was in Japan. "

"It was then that it began to seem possible that you would be marriedwhen you came home. It was then that I began to realize that I didn'tdeserve to be told of your plans. For I had been a fool, Jimmie. You hadbeen a fool, too, but not in the way you think. And so, if you will sitwhere I sat that horrid day, we will begin that conversation all overagain and end it differently. The first speech was yours. Do youremember it?"

"But I'm going to be married, " said Jimmie. 

"Good boy. He knows his lesson. And now I say, 'To the most beautifulwoman in the world?'"

"To the most beautiful woman God ever made. The dearest, the mostclever, the most simple. "

"Simple, " repeated Miss Knowles with some natural surprise. "Did you saysimple?"

"Simple and jolly and unaffected. As true and as bright as the stars. And I'm going to marry her--"

"Now this, " Miss Knowles interjected, "is where the difference comes. You are to sit quite still and listen to me because a thing likethis--however long and carefully one had thought it out--is difficult inthe saying. So, I stand here before you where I can look at you; forfour months are long; and where you may, when I have quite finished, kiss my hand again; for again four months are long. And I begin thus:Jimmie, you are going to be married--"

"I told you first, " cried Jimmie. 

"But I knew it first, " she countered, "to a woman who has learned tolove you during the past three months, but who could not do it moreutterly, more perfectly, if she had practiced through all the years thatyou and I have been friends. "

"So she says, " Jimmie interrupted with sudden heat. "So she says. Godbless her!"

"And, ah, _how_ she is fond of you. 'Fond' is a darling of a word. Itkeeps just enough of its old 'foolish' meaning to be human. Proud ofyou, glad of you, fond of you--I think that this is, perhaps, the timefor you to kiss my hand. "

"You're a darling, " he said as he obeyed. "But what I can'tunderstand--"

"It's not your turn. You may talk after I finish if I leave anything foryou to say. See, I go on: You are going to marry--"

"The most beautiful woman in the world. "

"That reminds me. What is she like? I've not heard her described for ages. "

"Because there was no one in New York who could do justice to her. "

"You are the knightliest of knights. Go on. Describe her. "

"Well, she is neither very tall nor very small. But the grace of her, the young, surpassing grace of her, makes you know as soon as your eyeshave rested on her that her height, whatever it chances to be, is theperfect height for a woman. And then there is the noble heart of her. What other daughter would have buried herself, as she has done, in alittle mountain village--"

Miss Knowles looked quickly about the luxurious room, then out upon thebusy avenue, then back at him, suspecting raillery. But he was staringstraight through her; straight into the land of visions. His eyes neverwavered when she moved slowly out of their range and sat, huddled andwhite-faced, in the corner of a big chair. 

"And all, " Jimmie went on, "so bravely, so cheerily, that it makesone's throat ache to see. And one's heart hot to see. Then there is thebeauty of her. Her hair is dark, her eyes are dark, but her skin is thefairest in the world. "

Miss Knowles pushed back a loose lace cuff and studied the arm it hadhidden. _La reine est morte_, she whispered, _morte, morte, morte_. 

"But what puzzles me, ", said the genial Jimmie, "is your knowing aboutit all. I never wrote you a word of it, and as for Sylvia--by the way, did you know that her name, like yours, is Sylvia?"

"Yes, " said Miss Knowles, "I had even guessed that her name would beSylvia. "

"You're a wonderful woman, " Jimmie protested. "The most wonderful womanin the world. "

"Except?"

"Except, of course, Sylvia Drewitt. "

"Ah, yes, " said Miss Knowles. "Yes, of course. "

THE SPIRIT OF CECELIA ANNE

"And all the rest and residue of my estate, " read the lawyer, hisvoice growing more impressive as he reached this most impressive clause, "I give and bequeath to my beloved granddaughter and godchild CeceliaAnne Hawtry for her own use and benefit forever. "

The black-clothed relations whose faces had been turned toward the frontof the long drawing-room now swung round toward the back where afair-haired little girl, her hands spread guardian-wise round the newblack hat on her knees, lay asleep in her father's arms. For old Mrs. Hawtry's "beloved granddaughter Cecelia Anne" was not yet too big tofind solace in sleep when she was tired and uninterested, being indeedbut nine years old and exceedingly small of stature and babyish ofhabit. So she slept on and missed hearing all the provisions which weremeant to protect her in the enjoyment of her estate but which wereequally calculated to drive her guardian distracted. 

"I leave nothing to my beloved son, James Hawtry, " the documentcontinued, "because I consider that he has quite enough already. And Ileave nothing to his son, James Hawtry, Junior, the twin-brother ofCecelia Anne Hawtry, because, though he and I have met but seldom, Ihave formed the opinion that he is capable of winning his way in theworld without any aid from me. "

James Hawtry, Junior, sitting beside the heiress, failed to derive muchsatisfaction from this clause. If things were being given away, he wasnot quite certain as to what "rest and residue" might mean, but ifthings of any kind were being doled out he would fain have enjoyed themwith the rest. 

Presently the lawyer read the final codicil and gathered his paperstogether, then addressed the blank and disappointed assemblage with: "Asyou have seen that all the minor bequests are articles of a householdnature--portraits, tableware and the like, 'portable property' as myimmortal colleague, Mr. Wemmick, would have said--I should suggest thepresent to be an admirable time for their removal by the fortunatelegatees who may not again be in this neighbourhood. And now I have butto congratulate the young lady who has succeeded to this property, areally handsome property I may say, though the amount is not stated noreven yet fully ascertained. If Miss Cecelia Anne Hawtry is present, Ishould like to pay my respects to her and to wish her all happiness inher new inheritance. I have never had the pleasure of meeting theprincipal legatee. May I ask her to come forward and accept mycongratulations. "

"Take her, Jimmie, " commanded Mr. Hawtry, setting Cecelia down upon herthin little black legs, while he tried to smooth her into presentableshape in anticipation of the anxious cross-examination he was sure toundergo when he returned with the children to his New York home and wife. 

"She looked as fit as paint, " he afterward assured that anxiousquestioner. "I stood the bow out on her hair and pushed her dress downjust as I've seen you do hundreds of times. Jimmie helped, too, and Ideclare to you, you'd have been as proud of those two kids as I was whenthat boy led his little sister through the hostile camp. Funny, he feltthe hostility instantly, though of course, he didn't understand it. Butshe--well, you know what a confiding little thing she is, and havingbeen asleep made her eyes look even more babyish than they alwaysdo--walked beside him, smiling her soft little smile and looking aboutthree inches high in her little black dress. "

"If I had been there, " interrupted Mrs. Hawtry warmly, "I should havemurdered your sister Elizabeth before I allowed her to put that babyinto mourning. The black bow I packed for her hair would have been quiteenough. "

"Well, she had it on. I saw it bobbing up the room while tenth andfifteenth cousins seven or eight times removed, stared at it and at her. But the person most surprised was old Debrett when Jimmie introduced them. "

"'This is her, ' remarked your son with more truth than polish, and I'm, well, antecedently condemned, if that dry-as-dust old lawyer didn'tstoop and kiss her as he wished her joy. "

"Ah, I'm glad he's as nice as that, " said Mrs. Hawtry, "since he is tobe your co-trustee. However, " she added a little wistfully, "I don'tlike the idea of anybody dictating to us about the baby. It makes herseem somehow not quite so much our very own. And we could have takencare of her quite well without your mother's money and advice. "

"Why, my dear, " laughed her husband, "that's a novel attitude to adopttoward a legacy. The baby is ours as much as she ever was. The advice isas good as any I ever read. And the money will leave us all the more todevote to Jimmie. There's the making of a good business man in Jimmie. "

 * * * * *

It was part of what Mrs. Hawtry for a long time considered theinterference of Cecelia Anne's grandmother that the child should have amonthly allowance, small while she was small and growing with hergrowth. She was to be allowed to spend it without supervision and tokeep an account of it. At the end of each year the trustees were toexamine these accounts and to judge from them the trend of their ward'sinclinations. They would be then in a position to curb or foster herleanings as their judgment should dictate. 

Now, Cecelia Anne, restored to her friends from a wonderland sort ofdream, called going--West--with--papa--on--the--train--and--living--with--Aunt--Elizabeth, was too full of narration and too excited by theenvious regard of untraveled playmates to trouble overmuch about thatscene in the long drawing-room which she had never clearly understood. The first monthly payment of her allowance failed to connect itself inher mind with the journey. Her predominant emotion on the subject oflegacies was one of ardent gratitude to Jimmie. He had given her aquarter out of the change they had received at the toyshop where theyhad purchased the most beautiful sloop-yacht they had ever seen ordreamed of. A quarter for her very own; Jimmie's generosity andcondescension extended even further than this. He also allowed her, theday being warm, to carry the yacht for a considerable part of theirhomeward journey, and, when the treasure was exhibited upon the topmostof their own front steps, he allowed her twice to pull the sails up anddown. When he went to Central Park to sail the _Jennie H_, that being asnear the feminine form of Jimmie Hawtry as their learning carried them, James, Junior, frequently allowed his sister to accompany him and hisenvious fellows. Then it was her proud privilege to watch the _JennieH's_ wavering course and to rush around the margin of the lake ready to"stand by" to receive her beloved bowsprit wherever she should dock. Then all proudly would she set the rudder straight again and turn the_Jennie H_ back to the landing-stage where Jimmie, surrounded by hiscohorts, all calm and cool in his magnificence, awaited this firstevidence of "the trend of Cecelia Anne's inclinations. "

Not quite a year elapsed before Mr. Hawtry's genial co-trustee visitedhis little ward. The reading of the will had taken place in November, and on the last week of the following June, Mr. Debrett, chancing to bein New York, decided to cultivate the acquaintance of Cecelia Anne. Mrs. Hawtry and the twins were by this time settled in their country home inWestchester, and Debrett, driving up from the station in the eveningwith Mr. Hawtry, found it difficult to accept the freckled, barelegged, blue-jumpered form which he saw in the garden, polishing the spokes of abicycle, as the ward who had lived all these months in his memory: afragile little figure in funeral black. Never had he seen so altered achild, he assured Mrs. Hawtry with many congratulations. She seemedtaller, heavier, more self-assured. But the smile with which she put agreasy little hand into his extended hand was misty and babyish still. 

Presently, while the two men rested with long chairs and long glassesand Mrs. Hawtry ministered to them, Jimmie appeared on the scene andafter exchanging proper greetings turned to inspect Cecelia Anne and herwork. "I think you've got it bright enough, " he said with kindlycondescension. "You can go and get dressed for dinner now. And to-morrowmorning if I'm not using the wheel maybe I'll let you use it awhile. "

"Oh, fank you!" said Cecelia Anne who had never quite outgrown herbabyhood's lisp, "and can I have the saddle lowered so's I can reach thepedals?"

"Oh, I s'pose so, " said Jimmie grudgingly. "Sometimes you act just likea girl. You give 'em something and they always want, more. Now you runon and open the stable door. I'm goin' to try if I can ride right intothe harness-room without getting off. Don't catch your foot in the doorand don't get too near Dolly's hind legs. "

When the children had vanished around the corner of the house, Mrs. Hawtry turned to Mr. Debrett. 

"There's the explanation of Cecelia Anne's ruggedness, " said she. "Sheand Jimmie are inseparable. He has taught her all kinds of boys'accomplishments. And she's as happy as a bird if she's only allowed totrot around after him. It doesn't seem to make her in the least ungentleor hoydenish and I feel that she's safer with him than with the gossipylittle girls down at the hotel. "

"Not a doubt of it, " Debrett heartily endorsed. "She couldn't have abetter adviser. Her grandmother, a very clever lady by the way, had ahigh opinion of your son's practical mind. A useful antidote, I shouldsay, to his sister's extreme gentleness. "

He found further confirmation of old Mrs. Hawtry's acumen when Mr. Hawtry proposed that they should look over Cecelia Anne's disbursementaccount, kept by herself, as the will had specified. 

Cecelia Anne was delighted with the idea. Jimmie had wandered out to seeabout the sports that were going to be held on the Fourth of July, andso the burden of explanation fell upon the little heiress. She drew heraccount book from its drawer in her father's desk, settled herselfcomfortably in the hollow of his arm and proceeded to disclose the"trend of her inclinations" as is evidenced by her shopping list:

"One sloop yat _Jennie H_ swoped for hockey skates when it got cold. 

One air riffle. 

Three Tickets. 

One riding skirt. 

Two Tickets. 

Six white rats two died. 

Four Tickets. 

Leather Stocking Tales. Three Books. 

Three Tickets. 

Four Boxing Gloves. 

Eight Tickets. 

One bull tarrier dog and collar he fought Len Fogerty's dog bit him allup and father sent him away. "

"I remember him, " said Mr. Hawtry, "a well-bred beast but a holy terror, go on dear. "

"One Byccle. 

Three Tickets. 

Stanley's Darkest Africa two books but not very new. 

One printing press. 

Two Tickets. 

Treasure Island. One Book. "

"And that's all the big things, " finished Cecelia Anne in evidentrelief. "Jimmie wrote down the prices, wouldn't you like to see them?"

And she crossed to Mr. Debrett and laid the open book on his knee. 

Mr. Debrett, as Cecelia Anne teetered up and down on her heels and toesbefore him, read the list again, counted up the total expenditure andadmitted that his ward had got remarkably good value for her money. 

"But what are all these 'tickets, ' my dear?" he asked her. 

"Eden Musee, " answered Cecelia Anne. And the very thought of it drew herto her mother's knee. "Jimmie and the boys used to take me thereSaturday afternoons in the winter to try to get my nerve up. They say, "she admitted dolefully, "that I haven't got much. So they used to takeme to the Chamber of Horrors so's I'd get accustomed to life. That'swhat Jimmie thought I needed. They used to like it, and I expect I'dhave liked it, too, if I could have kept my eyes open, but I nevercould. I couldn't even _get_ them open when the boys stood me rightclose to that gentleman having death throes on the ground after he'dbeen hung on a tree. You can hear him breathing!"

"I know him well, " said Mr. Debrett. "He is rather awful I must admit. And now we'll talk about the books. Don't you care at all about 'LittleMen' and 'Little Women' or the 'Elsie Books?'"

"Jimmie says, " Cecelia Anne made reply, "that 'Darkest Africa' is betterfor me. It tells me just where to hit an elephant to give him the deaththroes. He says the 'Elsie Books' wouldn't be any help to us even with abuffalo. We're going to buy 'The Wild Huntress, or Love in theWilderness' next month. Jimmie thinks that's sure to get my nerveup--being about a girl, you see--"

"And 'Treasure Island' now;" said her guardian, "did you enjoy that? Itcame rather late in my life, but I remember thinking it a great book. "

"It's great for nerve. Jimmie often reads me parts of it after I go tobed at night. There's a poem in it--he taught me that by heart--and ifI think to say it the last thing before I go to sleep he says I'll getso's _nothing_ can scare me. "

"Recite it for Mr. Debrett, " urged Mrs. Hawtry. And Cecelia Anneobediently began, with a jerk of a curtsey and a shake of her delicateembroideries and blue sash. 

 "Fifteen men on the dead man's chest Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum! Drink and the devil had done for the rest Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!"

Mr. Debrett's astonishment at this lullaby held him silent for someseconds. 

"You see, sir, " Cecelia Anne explained, "if you _can_ go to sleepthinking about that it shows your nerve. I can't. Not yet. But it nevermakes me cry any more and Jimmie says that's something. "

"I should say it was!" he congratulated her. "It's wonderful. And now inthe matter of dolls, " he went on referring to the list, "no rag babies, eh?"

"Oh, but she has beautiful dolls, Mr. Debrett, " interposed her mother. "She'll show them to you to-morrow morning, won't you honey-child? Butshe did not buy them. They were given to her at Christmas and othertimes. But really, since we came out here for the summer they've beenrather neglected. Their mother has been so busy. "

"And Jimmie made me a house for them!" Cecelia Anne broke in. "Andfurniture! And a front yard stuck right on to the piazza! But I don'tknow, mother, whether I'd have time to show them to Mr. Debrett in themorning. I'm pretty busy now. It's getting so near the race. And I paceJimmie _every_ morning. "

"Ah! that reminds me, " said her father, "Jimmie told me to send you tobed at eight o'clock--one of the rules of 'training', you know--so saygood night to us all and put your little book back in the drawer. You've kept it very nicely. I am sure Mr. Debrett agrees with me. "

When the elders were alone, Mrs. Hawtry crossed over into the light andaddressed her guest. 

"I can't have you thinking badly of Jimmie, " she began, "or of us, forallowing him to practically spend the baby's income. Every one of thethings on that list mark a stage in Cecelia Anne's progress away frompriggishness and toward health. I don't know just how much she realizesher own power of veto in these purchases but I am sure she would neverexercise it against Jimmie. She's absolutely wrapped up in him and he'swonderfully good and patient with her. Of course, you know, they'retwins although no one ever guesses it. They've shared everything fromthe very first. "

"In this combination, " laughed Debrett, "the boy is 'father to thegirl' and the girl is 'mother to the boy. '"

"Precisely so, " Mr. Hawtry replied, "and the mother part comes outstrong in this race and training affair. An old chap down at thehotel--one of those old white-whiskered 'Foxey Grandpas' that no summerresort should be without--has arranged a great race for his friends, thechildren, on Fourth of July morning. The prize is to be the privilege ofsetting off the fireworks in the evening. "

"They'll run themselves to death, " commented Debrett, who knew his youngAmerica, "and is Jimmie to be one of the contestants?"

"He is, " replied Hawtry, "it's a 'free for all' event and even CeceliaAnne _may_ start if Jimmie allows it. She's not thinking much about thatthough. You see, Jimmie has gone into training and she's his trainer. Iwent out with them last Saturday morning to see how they manage. Theymarched me down to an untenanted little farm, back from the road. Jimmiecarried the 'riffle' referred to in Cecelia Anne's text and a handful ofblank cartridges. Cecelia Anne carried Jimmie's sweater, a bath towel, alarge sponge, a small tin bucket and a long green bottle. I carriednothing. I was observing, not interfering. "

"Oh, that dear baby!" broke in Mrs. Hawtry, "such a heavy load!"

"She's thriving under it, my dear. " Well, presently we arrived at ourdestination, and I saw that those kids had worn a little path, not verydeep of course, all round what used to be rather a spacious 'door yard. 'The winning-post was the pump. By its side Cecelia Anne disposed herburden like a theatrical 'dresser' getting things ready for hisprincipal. She hung her tin pail on the pump's snout and pumped it fullof water, laid it beside the bath towel, threw the sponge into it, gave a final testing jerk to her tight little braids and divestedherself of her jumpers and the dress she wore under them. Then sheresumed the jumpers, took the rifle and crossed the 'track. ' Jimmie, meanwhile, had stripped to trousers and the upper part of hisbathing-suit, had donned his running shoes, set his feet in holes kickedin the ground for that purpose and bent forward, his back professionallyhunched and in his hands the essential pieces of cork. Cecelia Annegabbled the words of starting, shut her eyes tightly, fired the rifleinto the air, threw it on the ground and set off after the swiftlymoving Jimmie. Early in his first lap she was up to him. As they passedthe pump, she was ahead. In the succeeding laps she kept a comfortabledistance in the lead, until the end of the third when she sprinted for'home, ' grabbed the towel and, as Jimmie came bounding up, wrapped himin it, rubbed him down, fanned him with it, moistened his brow withvinegar from the long bottle, tied the sweater around his neck by itsred sleeves and held the dripping sponge to his lips. Then she foundtime for me. 

[Illustration: CELIA ANNE SHUT HER EYES TIGHTLY AND FIRED THE RIFLE INTOTHE AIR. ]

"Oh, father, " she cried, "did you _ever_ see _any_body who could run asfast as Jimmie? Don't you just know he'll win that race?"

"There's but one chance against it, " said I. "And really, Mr. Debrett, that boy can run. He's a little bit heavy maybe, but he holds himselfwell together and keeps up a pretty good pace. I timed him and measuredup the distance roughly afterward. It was pretty good going for a littlechap. Cecelia Anne is so much smaller that we often forget what a littlefellow he is after all. But that baby--whew--I wish you'd seen her fly. It wasn't running. She just blew over the ground and arrived at the pumpas cool as a cucumber although Jimmie was puffing like an automobile ofthe vintage of 1890. "

"You see, " said Jimmie to me as he lay magnificently on the grasswaiting to grow cool while Cecelia still fanned him with the towel, "yousee it don't hurt her to pace me round the track. "

"Apparently not, " said I, and although he's my own boy and I know himpretty well, I couldn't for the life of me decide whether he, as well asCecelia Anne, had really failed to grasp the fact that she beats him toa standstill every morning. I suppose we'll know on the Fourth. If sheruns, then he does not know. But if he refuses to let her run; it willbe because he does know. "

"I'm not so sure of that, " said Mrs. Hawtry. 

 * * * * *

Cecelia Anne _was_ allowed to run. First, in a girl's race among thegiggling, amateurish, self-conscious girls whom she outdistanced by alap or two and, later, in the race for all winners, where she had tocompete with Charlie Anderson, the beau of the hotel, Len Fogarty, themilkman's son, and her own incomparable Jimmie. 

The master of ceremonies gave the signal and the event of the day wason. First to collapse was Charlie Anderson. Jimmie was then in the leadwith Len Fogarty a close second, and Cecelia Anne beside him. So theywent for a lap. Then Jimmie, missing perhaps the blue little figure ofhis pacemaker, wavered a little, only a little, but enough to allow LenFogarty to forge past him. Len Fogarty! The blatant, hated Len Fogarty, always shouting defiance from his father's milk-wagon! Then forwardsprang Cecelia Anne. Not for all the riches of the earth would she havebeaten Jimmie, but not for all the glory of heaven would she allow anyone else to beat him. And so by an easy spectacular ten seconds, sheoutran Len Fogarty. 

Then wild was the enthusiasm of the audience and black was the brow ofLen Fogarty. A chorus of: "Let a girl lick you, " "Call yourself arunner, " "Come up to the house an' race me baby brother, " has not asoothing effect when added to the disappointment of being forever shutoff from the business end of rockets and Roman candles. These thingsCecelia Anne knew and so accepted, sadly and resignedly, the glare withwhich Len turned away from her little attempts at explanations. 

But she was not prepared, nothing in her short life could ever haveprepared her, to find the same expression on Jimmie's face when shebroke through a shower of congratulations and followed him up the road;to expect praise and to meet _such_ a rebuff would have been sufficientto make even stiffer laurels than Cecelia Anne's trail in the dust. 

"Why Jimmie, " she whimpered contrary to his most stringent rule. "WhyJimmie what's the matter?"

"You're a sneak, " said Jimmie darkly and vouchsafed no more. There wasindeed no more to say. It was the last word of opprobrium. 

They pattered on in silence for a short but dusty distance, Cecelia Annestruggling with the temptation to lie down and die; Jimmie upborne byfurious temper. 

"Who taught you how to run?" he at last broke out. "Wasn't it me? Didn'tI give you lessons every morning in the old lot? And then didn't you goand beat me when Len Fogarty, Charlie Anderson, Billy Van Derwater, andall the other fellows were there?"

Cecelia Anne returned his angry gaze with her blue and loyal eyes. 

"I didn't beat you 't all, " she answered. "I didn't beat anybody but LenFogarty. "

Her mentor studied her for a while and then a grin overspread his oncemore placid features. 

"I guess it'll be all right, " he condescended. "Maybe you didn't mean itthe way it looked. But say, Cecelia Anne, if you're afraid offire-crackers what are you going to do about the rockets and the Romancandles? You know sparks fly out of them like rain. And if the smell ofold cartridge shells makes you sick, I don't know just how you'll getalong to-night. "

The victor stopped short under the weight of this overwhelming spoil. 

"I forgot all about it, " she whispered. "Oh, Jimmie, I guess I ought tohave let Len Fogarty win that race. He could set off rockets and Romancandles and Catherine wheels. I guess it'll kill me when the sparks andthe smoke come out. Maybe I'd better go and see Mr. Anstell and ask tobe excused. "

"Aw, I wouldn't do that, " Jimmie advised her, "you don't want everyoneto know about your nerve. You just tell him your dress is too light andthat you want me to attend to the fireworks for you. "

In the transports of gratitude to which this knightly offer reduced her, Cecelia Anne fared on by Jimmie's side until they reached the house andtheir enquiring parents. Mrs. Hawtry was on the steps as they came upand she gathered Cecelia Anne into her arms. For a moment no one spoke. Then Jimmie made his declaration. 

"Cecelia Anne beat Len Fogarty all to nothing. You ought to have beenthere to see her. "

"Was there any one else in the race?" queried Mr. Hawtry in what his sonconsidered most questionable taste. 

"Oh, yes, " he was constrained to answer. "Charlie Anderson was in it. She beat him, too. And I _started_ with them but I thought it would dothose boys more good to be licked by a little girl than to have me 'tendto them myself. " And Jimmie proceeded leisurely into the house. 

"But I don't have to set off the fireworks, " Cecelia Anne explainedhappily. "Jimmie says I don't have to if I don't want to. He's going todo it for me. "

"Kind brother, " ejaculated Mr. Hawtry. And across the bright gold braidsof her little Atalanta, Mrs. Hawtry looked at her husband. 

"_Did_ he know?" she questioned, "or did he not? You thought we could besure if he let her start. "

"Well, " was Mr. Hawtry's cryptic utterance, "he knows now. "

THEODORA, GIFT OF GOD

"And then, " cried Mary breathlessly, "what did they do then?"

"And then, " her father obediently continued, "the two doughty knightssmote lustily with their swords. And each smote the other on the helmetand clove him to the middle. It was a fair battle and sightly. "

But Mary's interest was unabated. "And then, " she urged, "what did theydo then?"

"Not much, I think. Even a knight of the Table Round stops fighting fora while when that happens to him. "

"Didn't they do anything 'tall?" the audience insisted. "You aren'tleaving it out, are you? Didn't they bleed nor nothing?"

"Oh, yes, they bled. "

"Then tell me that part. "

"Well, they bled. They never stinteth bleeding for three days and threenights until they were pale as the very earth for bleeding. And theymade a great dole. "

"And then, when they couldn't bleed any more nor make any more dole, what did they do?"

"They died. "

"And then--"

"That's the end of the story, " said the narrator definitely. 

"Then tell me another, " she pleaded, "and don't let them die so soon. "

"There wouldn't be time for another long one, " he pointed out as heencouraged his horse into an ambling trot. "We are nearly there now. "

"After supper will you tell me one?"

"Yes, " he promised. 

"One about Lancelot and Elaine?"

"Yes, " he repeated. "Anything you choose. "

"I choose Lancelot, " she declared. 

"A great many ladies did, " commented her father as the horse sedatelystopped before the office of the Arcady _Herald-Journal_, of which hewas day and night editor, sporting editor, proprietor, society editor, chief of the advertising department, and occasionally type-setter andprinter and printer's devil. 

Mary held the horse, which stood in need of no such restraint, whilethis composite of newspaper secured his mail, and then they jogged offthrough the spring sunshine, side by side, in the ramshackle old buggyon a leisurely canvass of outlying districts in search of news oradvertisements, or suggestions for the forthcoming issue. 

In the wide-set, round, opened eyes of his small daughter, HerbertBuckley was the most wonderful person in the world. No stories were soenthralling as his. No songs so tuneful, no invention so fertile, notemper so sweet, no companionship so precious. And her nine happy yearsof life had shown her no better way of spending summer days or winterevenings than in journeying, led by his hand and guided by his voice, through the pleasant ways of Camelot and the shining times of chivalry. 

Upon a morning later in this ninth summer of her life Mary was perchedhigh up in an apple tree enjoying the day, the green apples, andherself. The day was a glorious one in mid July, the apples were of awondrous greenness and hardness, and Mary, for the first time in manyweeks, was free to enjoy her own society. A month ago a grandmother anda maiden aunt had descended out of the land which had until then givenforth only letters, birthday presents, and Christmas cards. And they hadproved to be not at all the idyllic creatures which these manifestationshad seemed to prophesy, but a pair of very interfering old ladies with amanner of over-ruling Mary's gentle mother, brow-beating her genialfather and cloistering herself. 

This morning had contributed another female assuming airs of instantintimacy. She had gone up to the last remaining spare chamber, donned acostume all of crackling white linen, and had introduced herself, entirely uninvited, into the dim privacy of Mary's mother's room, whenceMary had been sternly banished. 

"Another aunt!" was the outcast's instant inference, as in a moment ofaccountable preoccupation on the part of the elders she had escaped toher own happy and familiar country--the world of out-of-doors--wherefemale relatives seldom intruded, and where the lovely things of lifewere waiting. 

When she had consumed all the green apples her constitution wouldaccept, and they seemed pitifully few to her more robust mind, shedescended from the source of her refreshment and set out upon acomprehensive tour of her domain. She liked living upon the road toCamelot. It made life interesting to be within measurable distance ofthe knights and ladies who lived and played and loved in themany-towered city of which one could gain so clear a view from thetopmost branches of the hickory tree in the upper pasture. She liked tocrouch in the elder bushes where a lane, winding and green-arched, crossed a corner of the cornfield, and to wait, through the long, stillsummer mornings for Lancelot or Galahad or Tristram or some other of herfriends to come pricking his way through the sunshine. She could hearthe clinking of his golden armor, the whinnying of his steed, the softbrushing of the branches as they parted before his helmet or his spear;the rustling of the daisies against his great white charger's feet. Andthen there was the river "where the aspens dusk and quiver, " and wherebarges laden with sweet ladies passed and left ripples of foam on thewater and ripples of light laughter in the air as, brilliant and fairbedight, they went winding down to Camelot. 

This morning she revisited all these hallowed spots. She thrilled on thevery verge of the river and quivered amid the waving corn. She scaledthe sentinel hickory and turned her eyes upon the Southern city. It wasnearly a week since she had been allowed to wander so far afield, andCamelot seemed more than ever wonderful as it lay in the shimmeringdistance gleaming and glistening beyond the hills. Trails of smoke wavedabove all the towers, showing where Sir Beaumanis still served hiskitchen apprenticeship for his knighthood and his place at the TableRound. Thousands of windows flashed back the light. 

"I could get there, " pondered Mary, "if God would send me that goat andwagon. I guess there's quite a demand for goats and wagons. I coulddress my goat all up in skirts like the ladies dressed their palfreys, an' I'd wear my hair loose on my shoulders--it's real goldy when it'sloose--an' my best hat. I guess Queen Guinevere would be real glad tosee me. Oh, dear, " she fretted as these visions came thronging back toher, "I wish Heaven would hurry up. "

Between the pasture and the distant city she could distinguish the roofsof another of the havens of her dear desire--the house where the oldladies lived. Four old ladies there were, in the sweet autumn of theirlives, and Mary's admiration of them was as passionate as were all herpsychic states. She never could be quite sure as to which of the fourshe most adored. There was the gentle Miss Ann, who taught her to reciteverses of piercing and wilting sensibility; the brisk Miss Jane, whoexplained and demonstrated the construction of many an old-time cake orpastry; the silent Miss Agnes, who silently accepted assistance in hernever-ending process of skeletonizing leaves and arranging them in primdesigns upon cardboard, and the garrulous Miss Sabina, who, with acrochet needle, a hair-pin, a spool with four pins driven into it, knitting needles and other shining implements, could fashion, and teachMary to fashion, weavings and spinnings which might shame the mostaccomplished spider. Aided by her and by the re-enforced spool abovementioned, Mary had already achieved five dirty inches of red woollenreins for the expected goat. But the house was distant just threefields, a barb-wire fence, a low stone wall, and a cross bull, and Maryknew that her unaccustomed leisure could not be expected to endure longenough for so perilous a pilgrimage. 

Her dissatisfied gaze wandered back to her quiet home surrounded by itsneatly laid out meadows, cornfield, orchard, barns, and garden. And ashadow fell upon her wistful little face. 

"That old aunt, " she grumbled, "she makes me awful tired. She's alwayspokin' round an' callin' me. "

Such, indeed, seemed the present habit and intent of the prim lady whowas approaching, alternately clanging a dinner-bell and calling in atone of resolute sweetness:

"Mary, O Mary, dear. "

Mary parted the branches of her tree and watched, but made no sound. 

"Mary, " repeated the oncoming relative, "Mary, I want to tell yousomething, " and added as she spied her niece's abandoned sunbonnet onthe grass, "I know you're here and I shall wait until you come to me. "

"I _ain't_ coming, " announced the Dryad, and thereby disclosed herposition, both actual and mental. "I suppose it's something I've doneand I don't want to hear it, so there!" Then, her temper having beenworn thin by much admonishing, she anticipated: "I _ain't_ sorry I'vebeen bad. I _ain't_ ashamed to behave so when my mamma is sick in bed. And I don't care if you _do_ tell my papa when he comes home to-night. "

The intruding relative, discerning her, stopped and smiled. And thesmile was as a banderilla to her niece's goaded spirit. 

"Jiminy!" gasped that young person, "she's got a smile just like ateacher. "

"Mary, dear, " the intruder gushed, "God has sent you something. "

The hickory flashed forth black and white and red. Mary stood upon theground. 

"Where are they?" she demanded. 

"They?" repeated the lady. "There is only one. "

"Why, I prayed for two. Which did he send?"

"Which do you think?" parried the lady. "Which do you hope it is?"

Even Mary's scorn was unprepared for this weak-mindedness. "The goat, ofcourse, " she responded curtly. "Is it the goat?"

"Goat!" gasped the scandalized aunt. "Goat! Why, God has sent you a babysister, dear. "

"A sister! a baby!" gasped Mary in her turn. "I don't _need_ no sister. I prayed for a goat just as plain as plain. 'Dear God, ' I says, 'pleasebless everybody, and make me a good girl, an' send me a goat an' wagon. 'And they went an' changed it to a baby sister! Why, I never s'posed theymade mistakes like that. "

Crestfallen and puzzled she allowed herself to be led back to thedarkened house where her grandmother met her with the heavenlysubstitute wrapped in flannel. And as she held it against the square andunresponsive bosom of her apron she realized how the "Bible gentleman"must have felt when he asked for bread and was given a stone. 

During the weeks that followed, the weight of the stone grew heavierand heavier while the hunger for bread grew daily more acute. Not eventhe departure of interfering relatives could bring freedom, for thebaby's stumpy arms bound Mary to the house as inexorably as bolts andbars could have done. She passed weary hours in a hushed room watchingthe baby, when outside the sun was shining, the birds calling, theapples waxing greener and larger, and the shining knights and ladieswinding down to Camelot. She sat upon the porch, still beside the baby, while the river rippled, the wheatfields wimpled, and the cows cametrailing down from the pasture, down from the upland pasture where thesentinel hickory stood and watched until the sun went down, and, one byone, the lights came out in distant Camelot. She listened for the lightlaughter of the ladies, the jingling of the golden armor, the swishingof the branches and of the waves. Listened all in vain, for Theodora, that gift of God, had powerful lungs and a passion for exercising themso that minor sounds were overwhelmed and only yells remained. 

But the deprivation against which she most passionately rebelled wasthat of her father's society. Before the advent of Theodora she had beenhis constant companion. They were perfectly happy together, for the poetwho at nineteen had burned to challenge the princes of the past and tomold the destinies of the future was, at twenty-nine, very nearlycontent to busy himself about the occurrences of the present and to edita weekly paper in the town which had known and honored his father, andwas proud of, if puzzled by, their well-informed debonair son. Evenhimself he sometimes puzzled. He knew that this was not to be his life'swork, this chronicling of the very smallest beer, this gossip andfriendliness and good cheer. But it served to fill his leisure and hismodest exchequer until such time as he could finish his great tragedyand take his destined place among the writers of his time. Meanwhile, hetold himself, with somewhat rueful humor, there was always an editorready to think well of his minor poems and an audience ready to marvelat them, "which is more, my dear, " he pointed out to his admiring wife, "than Burns could have said for himself--or Coleridge. "

And when his confidence and his hopes flickered, as the strongest ofhopes and confidence sometimes will, when his tragedy seemed far fromcompletion, his paper paltry, and his life narrow, he could always lookinto his daughter's eyes and there find faith in himself and strengthand sunny patience. 

Formerly these fountains of perpetual youth had been beside him all thelong days through. From village to village, from store to farm, theyhad jogged, side by side, in a lazy old buggy; he smoking long, silentpipes, perhaps, or entertaining his companion with tales and poems ofthe days of chivalry when men were brave and women fair and all theworld was young. And, Mary, inthralled, enrapt, adoring her father, andseeing every picture conjured up by his sonorous rhythm or quaintphrase, was much more familiar with the deeds and gossip of KingArthur's court than with events of her own day and country. 

So that while Mary, tied to the baby, yearned for the wide spaces of herfreedom, Mr. Buckley, lonely in a dusty buggy, jogging over the familiarroads, thought longingly of a little figure in an irresponsiblesunbonnet, and found it difficult to bear patiently with matronlyneighbors, who congratulated him upon this arrangement, and assured himthat his little play-fellow would now quickly outgrow her old-fashionedways and become as other children, "which she would never have, Mr. Buckley, as long as you let her tag around with you and filled her headwith impossible nonsense. "

It was not a desire for any such alteration which made him acquiesce inthe separation. It was a very grave concern for his wife's health, and avery sharp realization that, until he could devise some means ofincreasing his income, he could not afford to engage a more experiencednurse for the new arrival. He had no ideas of the suffering entailedupon his elder daughter. He was deceived, as was every one else, by thegentle uncomplainingness with which she waited upon Theodora, for whoseexistence she regarded herself as entirely to blame. Had she not, without consulting her parents, applied to high heaven for an increasein live stock, and was not the answer to this application, howeverinexact, manifestly her responsibility. 

"They're awful good to me, " she pondered. "They ain't scolded me amite, an' I just know how they must feel about it. Mamma ain't had herhealth ever since that baby come, an' papa looks worried most to death. If they'd 'a' sent that goat an' wagon I could 'a' took mamma riding. Ain't prayers terrible when they go wrong!" And in gratitude for theirforbearance she, erstwhile the companion, or at least the audience, offealty knight and ladies, bowed her small head to the swathed andshapeless feet of heaven's error and became waiting woman to a flannelbundle. 

Only her dreams remained to her. She could still look forward to theglorious time of "when I'm big. " She could still unbind her dun-coloredhair and shake it in the sun. She could still quiver with anticipationas she surveyed her brilliant future. A beautiful prince was coming towoo her. He would ride to the door and kneel upon the front porch whileall his shining retinue filled the front yard and overflowed into theroad. Then she would appear and, since these things were to happen inthe days of her maturity, perhaps when she was twelve years old, shewould be radiantly beautiful, and her hair would be all goldy gold andcurly, and it would trail upon the ground a yard or two behind her asshe walked. And the prince would be transfixed. And when he was allthrough being that--Mary often wondered what it was--he would arise andsing "Nicolette, the Bright of Brow, " or some other disguisedpersonality, while all his shining retinue would unsling hautboys andlyres and--and--mouth organs and play ravishing music. 

And when she rode away to be the prince's bride and to rule his fairlands, her father and her mother should ride with her, all in thesunshine of the days "when I'm big"--the wonderful days "when I'm big. "

Meanwhile, being but little, she served the flannel bundle even as SirBeaumanis had served a yet lowlier apprenticeship. But she still stormedhigh heaven to rectify its mistake. 

"And please, dear God, if you are all out of goats and wagons, sendrabbits. But anyway come and take away this baby. My mamma ain't wellenough to take care of it an' I can't spare the time. We don't needbabies, but we do need that goat and wagon. "

And the powers above, with a mismanagement which struck their petitionerdumb, sent a wagon--only a wagon--and it was a gocart for the baby, andMary was to be the goat. 

With this millstone tied about her neck she was allowed to look upon thescenes of her early freedom, and no inquisitor could have devised a moreanguishing torture than that to which Mary's suffering and unsuspectingmother daily consigned her suffering and uncomplaining daughter. 

"Walk slowly up and down the paths, dear, and don't leave your sisterfor a moment. Isn't it nice that you have somebody to play with now?"

"Yes, ma'am, " said Mary. "But she ain't what I'd call playful. "

"You used to be so much alone, " Mrs. Buckley continued. Mary breathedsharply, and her mother kissed her sympathetically. "But now you alwayshave your sister with you. Isn't it fine, dearie?"

"Yes, ma'am, " repeated the victim, and bent her little energies to thetreadmill task of wheeling the gocart to the orchard gate, where allwonders began, and then, with an effort as exhausting to the will as tothe body, turning her back upon the lane, the river, and the sentineltree, to trundle her Juggernaut between serried rows of cabbages andcarrots. 

Then slowly she began to hate, with a deep, abiding hatred, the flannelbundle. She loathed the very smell of flannel before Theodora was sixshort weeks old, and the sight of the diminutive laundry, which hungupon the line between the cherry trees, almost drove her to arson. 

The shy, quick-darting creature--half child and half humming bird--wasforced to drag that monstrous perambulator on all her expeditions. Aftera month's confinement to the garden, where knights and ladies neverpenetrate, she managed to bump her responsibility out into the orchard. But the glory was all in the treetops, and Mary soon grew restless underher mother's explicit directions. "Up and down the walks" meantimprisonment, despair. Theodora should have tried to make her role ofAlbatross as acceptable as it might be made to the long-sufferingmariner about whose neck she hung, but she showed a callousness and aheartless selfishness which nothing could excuse. Mary would sometimesplead with all gentleness and courtesy for a few short moments' freedom. 

"Theodora, " she would begin, "Theodora, listen to me a minute, " and thegift of God would make aimless pugilistic passes at her interlocutor. 

"O Theodora, I'm awful tired of stayin' down here on the ground. Wouldn't you just as lieves play you was a mad bull an' I was a lady ina red dress?"

Theodora, after some space spent in apparent contemplation, would wave acheerful acquiescence. 

"An' then I'll be scared of you, an' I'll run away an' climb as high asanything in the hickory tree up there on the hill. Let's play it rightnow, Theodora. There's something I want to see up there. "

Taking her sister's bland smile for ratification and agreement, Marywould set about her personification, shed her apron lest its damagedappearance convict her in older eyes, and speed toward her goal. Butthe mad bull's shrieks of protest and repudiation would startle everybit of chivalry for miles and miles around. 

Several experiences of this nature taught Mary, that, in dealing withinfants of changeable and rudimentary mind, honesty was an impossiblepolicy and candor a very boomerang, which returned and smote one withsavage force. So she stooped to guile and detested the flannel all themore deeply because of the state to which it was debasing an uprightconscience and a high sense of honor. 

At first her lapses from the right were all negative. She neglected thegift of God. She would abandon it, always in a safe and shady spot andalways with its covers smoothly tucked in, its wabbly parasol adjustedat the proper angle, and always with a large piece of wood tied to theperambulator's handle by a labyrinth of elastic strings. These Mary haddrawn from abandoned garters, sling shots, and other mysterious sources, and they allowed the wood to jerk unsteadily up and down, and to soothethe unsuspecting Theodora with a spasmodic rhythm very like theministrations of her preoccupied nurse. 

Meanwhile the nurse would be far afield upon her own concerns, andTheodora was never one of them. The river, the lane, the tall hickoryknew her again and again. Camelot shone out across the miles of hill andtree and valley. But the river was silent and the lane empty, andCamelot seemed very far as autumn cleared the air. Perhaps this wasbecause knights and ladies manifest themselves only to the pure ofheart. Perhaps because Mary was always either consciously orsubconsciously listening for the recalling shrieks of the abandoned anddisprized gift of God. 

"Stop it, I tell you, " she admonished her purple-faced and convulsivecharge one afternoon when all the world was gold. "Stop it, or mammawill be coming after us, and making us stay on the back porch. " ButTheodora, in the boastfulness of her new lungs, yelled uninterruptedlyon. Then did Mary try cajolery. She removed her sister from theperambulator and staggered back in a sitting posture with suddenness andforce. The jar gave Theodora pause, and Mary crammed the silence full ofpromise. "If you'll stop yellin' now I'll see that my prince husbandlets you be a goose-girl on the hills behind our palace. Its awful nicebeing a goose-girl, " she hastened to add lest the prospect fail tocharm. "If I didn't have to marry that prince an' be a queen I guess I'dbeen a goose-girl myself. Yes, sir, it's lovely work on the hills behinda palace with all the knights ridin' by an' sayin', 'Fair maid, did'stsee a boar pass by this way?' You don't have to be afraid--you'd neverhave to see one. In all the books the goose-girls didn't never see noboars, and the knights gave 'em a piece of gold an' smiled on 'em, andthe sunshine shined on 'em, an' they had a lovely time. "

Having stumbled into the road to peace of conscience, Mary trod itbravely and joyously. Theodora's future rank increased with the decreaseof her present comfort, but her posts, though lofty and remunerative, were never such as would bring her into intimate contact with the personof the queen. 

She was betrothed to the son of a noble, and very distant, house afteran afternoon when the perambulator, ill-trained to cross-country work, balked at the first stone wall on the way to the old ladies' house. Itwas then dragged backward for a judicious distance and faced at theobstacle at a mad gallop. Umbrella down, handle up, wheels madlywhirring, it was forced to the jump. 

Again it refused, reared high into the air, stood for an instant uponits hind wheels and then fell supinely on its side, shedding itsblankets, its pillows, and Theodora upon the cold, hard stones. 

After that her rise was rapid, and the distance separating her from hersister's elaborate court more perilous and more beset with seas andboars and mountains and robbers. She was allowed to wed her high-bornbetrothed when she had been forgotten for three hours while Mary learneda heart-rending poem commencing, "Oh, hath she then failed in her troth, the beautiful maid I adore?" until even Miss Susan could only weep inintense enjoyment and could suggest; no improvement in the recitation. 

On another occasion Mary was obliged to borrow the perambulator for theconveyance of leaves and branches with which to build a bower withal;and Theodora, having been established in unfortunate proximity to anant hill, was thoroughly explored by its inhabitants ere herministering sister realized that her cries and agitation were anythingmore than her usual attitude of protest against whatever chanced to begoing on. By the time the bower was finished and the perambulator readyfor its customary occupant that young person was in a position to claimheavy damages. 

"Don't you care, " said Mary cheerfully, as she relieved Theodora fromthe excessive animation. "I can make it up to you when I'm big. Myprince husband--I guess he'd better be a king by that time--will go overto your country an' kill your husband's father an' his grandfather an'all the kings an' princes until there's nobody only your husband to beking. Then you'll be a queen you see, an' live in a palace. So now hushup. " And one future majesty was rocked upside down by another until theroyal face of the younger queen was purple and her voice was still. 

Mary found it more difficult to quiet her new and painful agnosticism, and in her efforts to reconcile dogma with manifestation she evolved aseries of theological and economical questions which surprised herfather and made her mother's head reel. She further manifested acourteous attention when the minister came to call, and she engaged himin spiritual converse until he writhed again. For a space herinvestigations led her no whither, and then, without warning, the man ofpeace solved her dilemma and shed light upon her path. 

A neighbor ripe in years and good works had died. The funeral was overand the man of God had stopped to rest in the pleasant shade of Mrs. Buckley's trees and in the pleasant sound of Mrs. Buckley's voice. Mary, the gocart, and Theodora completed the group, and the minister spoke. 

"A good man, " he repeated, "Ah, Mrs. Buckley, he will be sadly missed!But the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be--"

"When?" demanded Mary breathlessly. "When does he take away?"

"In His own good time. "

"When's that?"

"'Tis not for sinful man to say. He sends His message to the man in thepride of his youth or to the babe in its cradle. He reaches forth Hishand and takes away. "

"But when--" Mary was beginning when her mother, familiar with theSocratic nature of her daughter's conversation and its exhaustive effectupon the interlocutor, interposed a remark which guided the current oftalk out of heavenly channels and back to the material plain. 

But Mary had learned all that she cared to know. It was not necessarythat she should suffer the exactions of the baby or subject her familyto them. The Lord had given and would take away! The minister had saidso, and the minister knew all about the Lord. And if the powers abovewere not ready to send for the baby, it would be easy enough to depositit in the Lord's own house, which showed its white spire beyond thefirst turn in the road which led to Camelot. There the Lord would findit and take it away. This would be, she reflected, the quiet, dignified, lady-like thing to do. And the morrow, she decided, would be anadmirable day on which to do it. 

Therefore, on the morrow she carefully decked Theodora in small finery, hung garlands of red and yellow maple leaves upon the perambulator, twined chains of winter-green berries about its handle, tied a bunch ofgorgeous golden rod to its parasol, and trundled it by devious andobscure ways to the sacred precincts of God's house. 

"They look real well, " she commented. "If I was sure about that goat Imight keep the cart, but it really ain't the right kind for a goat. Iguess I'd better take 'em back just like they are an' when the Lord seeshow I got 'em all fancied up, he'll know I ain't a careless child, an'maybe I'd get that goat after all. "

So the disprized little gifts of God were bumped up the church steps, wheeled up the aisle, and bestowed in a prominent spot before thechancel rail. Some one was playing soft music at the unseen organ, butMary accepted soft music as a phenomenon natural to churches, and failedto connect it with human agency. Sedately she set out Theodora's bowsand ruffles to the best advantage. Carefully she rearranged the floraldecorations of the perambulator, and set her elastic understudy inerratic motion. Complacently she surveyed the whole and walked out intothe sunshine--free. And presently the minister, the intricacies of a newhymn reconciled to the disabilities of a lack of ear and a lack oftraining, came out into the body of the church, where the gifts of God, bland in smiles and enwreathed in verdure, were waiting to be takenaway. 

"Mrs. Buckley's baby, " was his first thought. "I wonder where that queerlittle Mary is, " was his second. And his third, it came when he wastired of waiting for some solution of his second, was an embarrassedrealization that he would be obliged to take his unexpected guest hometo its mother. And the quiet town of Arcady rocked upon its foundationsas he did it. 

"In the church, " marveled Mrs. Buckley. "How careless of Mary!" sheapologized, and "How good of you!" she smiled. "No, I'm not in the leastworried. She always had a way of trotting off to her own diversions whenshe was not with her father. And lately she has been astonishinglypatient about spending her time with baby. I have felt quite guilty, about it. But after to-day she will be free, as Mr. Buckley has found anurse to relieve her. He was beginning to grow desperate about Mary andme--said we neither of us had a moment to waste on him--and yet couldnot find a nurse whom we felt we could afford. And yesterday a youngwoman walked into his office to put an advertisement in his paper forjust such a position as we had to offer. She is a German, wants to learnEnglish, and she will be here this afternoon. "

"Perhaps your little girl resented her coming, " he suggested vaguely. "Perhaps that was the reason. "

"Mary resentful!" laughed Mrs. Buckley. 

"She doesn't, bless her gentle little heart, know the meaning of theword. Besides which we haven't told her about the girl, as we are ratherlooking forward to that first interview, and wondering how Mary willacquit herself in a conversational Waterloo. She can't, you know, makelife miserable and information bitter to a German who speaks noEnglish. 'Ja' or 'nein' alternately and interchangeably may baffle evenher skill in questioning. "

Mary, meanwhile, was hurrying along the way to Camelot. She had notplanned the expedition in advance. Rather, it was the inevitablereaction toward license which marks the success of any revolution. Shehad cast off the bonds of the baby carriage, her time and her life wereher own, and the road stretched white and straight toward Camelot. 

It was afternoon and the sun was near its setting when at last shereached the towered city and found it in all ways delightful but in somesurprising. She was prepared for the moat and for the drawbridge acrossit, but not for the exceeding dirtiness of its water and the dinginessof its barges. She had expected it to be wider and perhaps cleaner, andthe castles struck her as being ill-adapted to resist siege and theshocks of war since nearly all their walls were windows. And throughthese windows she caught glimpses of the strangest interiors which everpalaces boasted. Miles and acres of bare wooden tables stood under theshade of straight iron trees. From the trees black ribbons depended. Inthe treetops there were wheels and shining iron bars, and all about thetables there were other iron bars and bolts and bands of greasy leather. 

"I don't see a round table anywhere, " she reflected. "What do you s'posethey do with all those little square ones?" She sought the answer tothis question through many a dirty pane and many a high-walled street. But the palaces and the streets were empty and the explorer discoveredwith a quick-sinking heart and confidence that she was alone and hungryand very far from home. She was treading close upon the verge of tearswhen her path debouched upon the central square of Camelot. Andstraightway she forgot her doubts and puzzlements, her hunger and herincreasing weariness, for she had found "The Court. " Across a fair greenplaisance, all seemly beset with flower and shrub, the wide doors of achurch stood open. Tall palaces were all about, and in every window, onevery step, on the green benches which dotted the plaisance, on everypossible elevation or post of observation, the good folk of Camelotstood or hung or even fought, to watch the procession of beauty andchivalry as it came foaming down the steps, broke into eddies, anddisappeared among the thronging carriages. Mary found it quite easy toidentify the illustrious personages in the procession when once she hadrealized that they would, of course, not be in armor on a summer'safternoon, and at what even, to her inexperienced eyes, was manifestly awedding. 

First to emerge was a group of the younger knights, frock-coated, silk-hatted, pale gray of waistcoat and gloves, white and effulgent of_boutonnière_. Excitement, almost riot, resulted among themuch-caparisoned horses, the much-favored coachmen, and themuch-beribboned equipages of state. But the noise increased to clamorand eagerness to violence when an ethereal figure in floating tulle andclinging lace was led out into the afternoon light by a more resplendentedition of black-coated, gray-trousered knighthood. 

The next wave was all of pink chiffon and nodding plumes. The firstwave, after trickling about the carriages and the coachmen, receded upthe steps again to be lost and mingled in the third, and then both sweptdown to the carriages again and were absorbed. Then the steady tide ofdeparting royalty set in. Then horses plunged, elderly knights fussed, court ladies commented upon the heat, the bride, the presents, or theirneighbors. Then the bride's father mopped his brow and the bridegroom'smother wept a little. Then there was much shaking or waving of hands orof handkerchiefs. Then the bridal carriage began to move, the bridebegan to smile, and rice and flowers and confetti and good wishes andslippers filled the air. Then other carriages followed, then the goodfolk of Camelot followed, an aged man closed the wide church doors, andthe square was left to the sparrows, pink sunshine, confetti, rice, andMary. 

The little pilgrim's sunbonnet was hanging down her back, her hair wasloose upon her shoulders, "an' real goldy" where it caught the sun, andher eyes were wide and deep with happiness and faith. She crossed thewide plaisance and stood upon the steps, she gathered up three whiteroses and a shred of lace, she sat down to rest upon the topmost step, she laid her cheek against the inhospitable doors, and, in the languageof the stories she loved so well, "so fell she on sleep" with the tiredflowers in her tired hands. 

And there Herbert Buckley found her. He had traveled far afield on thatautumn afternoon; but it is not every day that the daughter of the ownerof one-half the mills in a manufacturing town is married to the owner ofthe other half, and when such things do occur to the accompaniment ofillustrious visitors, a half-holiday in all the mills, perfect weather, and unlimited hospitality, it behooves the progressive journalist andreporter for miles around to sing "haste to the wedding, " and to drawlargely upon his adjectives and his fountain pen. The editorial staff ofthe Arcady _Herald-Journal_ turned homeward, and was evolving phrases inwhich to describe that gala day when his eye caught the color of afamiliar little sunbonnet, the outline of a familiar little figure. Butsuch a drooping little sunbonnet! Such a relaxed little figure! Such aweary little face! And such a wildly impossible place in which to find alittle daughter. Then he remembered having seen Miss Ann and Miss Agnesamong the spectators and his wonder changed to indignation. 

It was nearly dark when Mary opened her eyes again and found herselfsheltered in her father's arm and rocked by the old familiar motion ofthe buggy. 

"And then, " she prompted sleepily as her old habit was, "what did theydo then?"

"They were married, " his quiet voice replied. 

"And then?"

"Oh, then they went away together and lived happily ever after. "

For some space there was silence and a star came out. Mary watched itdrowsily and then drowsily began:

"When I was to Camelot--"

"Where?" demanded her father. 

"When I was to Camelot, " she repeated, cuddling close to him as if toshow that there were dearer places than that gorgeous city, "I saw aknight and a lady getting married. And lots of other knights werethere--they didn't wear their fighting clothes--and lots of otherladies, pink ones. An' Arthur wore a stovepipe hat an' Guinevere wore awhite dress, an' she had white feathers in her crown. An' Lancelot, hewas there, all getting married. Daddy, dear, " she broke off to question, "were you ever to Camelot?"

"Oh, yes, I was there, " he answered, "but it was a great many yearsago. "

"Did you find roses?" she asked, exhibiting her wilted treasures. 

"I found your mother there, my dear. "

"And then, what did you do then?"

"Well, then we were married and lived happily ever after. "

"And then--?"

"There was you, and we lived happier ever after. "

And Mary fell on sleep again in the shelter of her father's arm while thestars came out and the glow of joyant Camelot lit all the southern sky. 

GREAT OAKS FROM LITTLE ACORNS

Among the influences which, in America, promote harmony between alienraces, the public school plays a most important part. The children, theteachers, the parents--whether of emigrant or native origin--therelatives and friends in distant countries, are all brought more or lessunder its amalgamating influences. In the schoolroom the child findsfriends and playmates belonging to races widely different from his own;there Greek meets not only Greek, but Turk, American, Irish, German, French, English, Italian and Hungarian, and representatives of everyother nation under the sun. The lion lying down with the lamb wasnothing to it, because the lamb, though its feelings are not enlargedupon, must have been distinctly uncomfortable. But in the schoolroomJew and Gentile work and play together; and black and white learn loveand knowledge side by side. 

And long after more formal instruction has faded with the passing of theyears a man of, perhaps, German origin will think kindly of the wholeirresponsible Irish race when he remembers little Bridget O'Connor, whosat across the aisle in the old Cherry Street school, her quick temperand her swift remorse. 

Of course, all these nationalities are rarely encountered in onedistrict, but a teacher often finds herself responsible for fiftychildren representing five or six of them. In the lower grades eight orten may be so lately arrived as to speak no English. The teacherpresiding over this polyglot community is often, herself, of foreignbirth, yet they get on very well together, are very fond of one another, and very happy. The little foreigners, assisted by their morewell-informed comrades, learn the language of the land, I regret to saythat it is often tinctured with the language of the Bowery, in from sixto twelve weeks, six weeks for the Jews, and twelve for the slower amongthe Germans' children. And again, it will be difficult to stir OttoSchmidt, at any stage of his career, into antagonism against the Jewishrace, when he remembers the patience and loving kindness with whichMaxie Fishandler labored with him and guided his first steps through thewilderness of the English tongue. 

These indirect but constant influences are undeniably the strongest, butat school the child is taught in history of the heroism and the strengthof men and nations other than his own; he learns, with some degree ofconsternation, that Christopher Columbus was a "Dago, " George Washingtonan officer in the English Army, and Christ, our Lord, a Jew. Geography, as it is now taught with copious illustrations and descriptions, showsundreamed-of beauties in countries hitherto despised. And gradually, asthe pupils move on from class to class, they learn true democracy andman's brotherhood to man. 

But the work of the American public school does not stop with thechildren who come directly under its control. The board of educationreaches, as no other organization does, the great mass of thepopulation. All the other boards and departments established for thehelp and guidance of these people only succeed in badgering andfrightening them. They are met, even at Ellis Island, by the board ofhealth and they are subjected to all kinds of disagreeable andhumiliating experiences culminating sometimes in quarantine andsometimes in deportation. Even after they have passed the barrier of theemigration office, the monster still pursues them. It disinfects theirhouses, it confiscates the rotten fish and vegetables which theyhopefully display on their push-carts, it objects to their wrenching offand selling the plumbing appliances in their apartments, it interfereswith them in twenty ways a day and hedges them round about with ahundred laws which they can only learn, as Parnell advised a follower tolearn the rules of the House of Commons, by breaking them. 

Then comes the department of street cleaning, with its extraordinaryideas of the use of a thoroughfare. The new-comer is taught that thestreet is not the place for dead cats and cabbage stalks, and othertrifles for which he has no further use. Neither may it be used, exceptwith restrictions, as a bedroom or a nursery. The emigrant, puzzled butobliging, picks his progeny out of the gutter and lays it on thefire-escape. He then makes acquaintance of the fire department, andlistens to its heated arguments. So perhaps he, still willing to please, reclaims the dead cat and the cabbage stalk, and proceeds to crematethem in the privacy of the back yard. Again the fire department, thistime in snorting and horrible form, descends upon him. And all thesemanifestations of freedom are attended by the blue-coated police whointerdict the few relaxations unprovided for by the other powers. Thesehuman monsters confiscate stilettos and razors; discouragepocket-picking, brick-throwing, the gathering of crowds and the generalenjoyment of life. Their name is legion. Their appetite for figs, dates, oranges and bananas and graft is insatiable; they are omnipresent; theyare argus-eyed; and their speech is always, "Keep movin' there. Keepmovin'. " And all these baneful influences may be summoned and set inaction by another, but worse than all of them, known as the GerrySociety. This tyrant denies the parent's right in his own child, forbidshim to allow a minor to work in sweatshop, store, or even on the stage, and enforces these commands, even to the extreme of removing the childaltogether and putting it in an institution. 

In sharp contrast to all these ogres, the board of education shinesbenignant and bland. Here is power making itself manifest in the form ofyoung ladies, kindly of eye and speech, who take a sweet and friendlyinterest in the children and all that concerns them. Woman meets womanand no policeman interferes. The little ones are cared for, instructed, kept out of mischief for five hours a day, taught the language andcustoms of the country in which they are to make their living or theirfortunes; and generally, though the board of education does not insistupon it, they are cherished and watched over. Doctors attend them, nurses wait upon them, dentists torture them, oculists test them. 

Friendships frequently spring up between parent and teacher, and itoften lies in the power of the latter to be of service by giving eitheradvice or more substantial aid. At Mothers' meetings the cultivation oftolerance still goes on. There, women of widely different class andnationality, meet on the common ground of their children's welfare. Thenthere are roof gardens, recreation piers and parks, barges andexcursions, all designed to help the poorer part of the city'spopulation--without regard to creed or nationality--to bear and to helptheir children to bear the killing heat of summer. So Jew and Gentile, black and white, commingle; and gradually old hostilities are forgottenor corrected. The board of education provides night schools for adultsand free lectures upon every conceivable interesting topic, includingthe history and geography and natural history of distant lands. Travelers always draw large audiences to their lectures. 

The children soon learn to read well enough to translate the Americanpapers and there are always newspapers in the different vernaculars, sothat the emigrant soon becomes interested not only in the news of hisown country, but in the multitudinous topics which go to make upAmerican life. He soon grasps at least the outlines of politics, national and international, and before he can speak English he willaddress an audience of his fellow countrymen on "Our Glorious AmericanInstitutions. "

It is not only the emigrant parent who profits by the work of the publicschool. The American parent also finds himself, or generally herself, brought into friendly contact with the foreign teachers and the foreignfriends of her children. The New York public school system culminates inthe Normal College, which trains women as teachers, and the College ofthe City of New York, which offers courses to young men in theprofession of law, engineering, teaching, and, besides, a course inbusiness training. The commencement at these institutions bringsstrangely contrasted parents together in a common interest and a commonpride. The students seem much like one another, but the parents are sowidely dissimilar as to make the similarity of their offspring anamazing fact for contemplation. Mothers with shawls over their heads andwork-distorted hands sit beside mothers in Parisian costumes, and thesilk-clad woman is generally clever enough to appreciate and to admirethe spirit which strengthened her weary neighbor through all the yearsof self-denial, labor, poverty and often hunger, which were necessary topay for the leisure and the education of son or daughter. The feeling ofinferiority, of uselessness, which this realization entails mayhumiliate the idle woman but it is bound to do her good. It willcertainly deprive her conversation of sweeping criticisms on lives andconditions unknown to her. It will also utterly do away with many of herprejudices against the foreigner and it will make the "Let them eatcake" attitude impossible. 

And so the child, the parent, the teacher and the home-staying relativeare brought to feel their kinship with all the world through the agencyof the public school, but the teacher learns the lesson most fully, mostconsciously. The value to the cause of peace and good-will in thecommunity of an army of thousands of educated men and women holdingviews such as these cannot easily be over-estimated. The teachers, too, are often aliens and nearly always of a race different from theirpupils, yet you will rarely meet a teacher who is not delighted with hercharges. 

"Do come, " they always say, "and see my little Italians, or Irish, orGerman, or picaninnies; they are the sweetest little things, " or, ifthey be teachers of a higher grade, "They are the cleverest and the mostcharming children. " They are all clever in their different ways, andthey are all charming to those who know them, and the work of the publicschool is to make this charm and cleverness appreciated, so that racemisunderstandings in the adult populations may grow fewer and fewer. 

The only dissatisfied teacher I ever encountered was a girl of oldKnickerbocker blood, who was considered by her relatives to be toofragile and refined to teach any children except the darlings of theupper West side, where some of the rich are democratic enough topatronize the public school. From what we heard of her experiences, "patronize" is quite the proper word to use in this connection. A groupof us, classmates, had been comparing notes and asked her from whatcountry her charges came. "Oh, they are just kids, " she answereddejectedly, "ordinary every-day kids, with Dutch cut hair, Russianblouses, belts at the knee line, sandals, and nurses to convey them toand from school. You never saw anything so tiresome. "

It grew finally so tiresome that she applied for a transfer, and tookthe Knickerbocker spirit down to the Jewish quarter, where it gladdenedthe young Jacobs, Rachaels, Isadors and Rebeccas entrusted to her care. Her place among the nursery pets was taken by a dark-eyed Russian girl, who found the uptown babies, the despised "just kids, " as entertaining, as lovable, and as instructive as the Knickerbocker girl found the Jews. Well, and so they are all of them, lovable, entertaining andinstructive, and the man or woman who goes among them with an open heartand eye will find much material for thought and humility, and onefunction of the public school is to promote this understanding andappreciation. It has done wonders in the past, and every year finds itbetter equipped for its work of amalgamation. The making of an Americancitizen is its stated function, but its graduates will be citizens notonly of America. In sympathy, at least, they will be citizens of theworld. 

FINIS