THE RICH MRS. BURGOYNE

KATHLEEN NORRIS

TO KATHLEEN MARY THOMPSON

 Lover of books, who never fails to find Some good in every book, your namesake sends This book to you, knowing you always kind To small things, timid and in need of friends. 

 O friend! I know not which way I must look For comfort, being, as I am, opprest, To think that now our life is only drest For show; mean handy-work of craftsman, cook, Or groom!--We must run glittering like a brook In the open sunshine, or we are unblest; The wealthiest man among us is the best: No grandeur now in nature or in book Delights us. Rapine, avarice, expense, This is idolatry; and these we adore: Plain living and high thinking are no more: The homely beauty of the good old cause Is gone; our peace, our fearful innocence. And pure religion breathing household laws. --WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 

CHAPTER I

"Annie, what are you doing? Polishing the ramekins? Oh, that's right. Did the extra ramekins come from Mrs. Brown? Didn't! Then as soon asthe children come back I'll send for them; I wish you'd remind me. DidMrs. Binney come? and Lizzie? Oh, that's good. Where are they? Down inthe cellar! Oh, did the extra ice come? Will you find out, Annie? Thosecan wait. If it didn't, the mousse is ruined, that's all! No, wait, Annie, I'll go out and see Celia myself. "

Little Mrs. George Carew, flushed and excited, crossed the pantry asshe spoke, and pushed open the swinging door that connected it with thekitchen. She was a pretty woman, even now when her hair, alreadydressed, was hidden under snugly pinned veils and her trim littlefigure lost under a flying kimono. Mrs. Carew was expecting thetwenty-eight members of the Santa Paloma Bridge Club on this particularevening, and now, at three o'clock on a beautiful April afternoon, shewas almost frantic with fatigue and nervousness. The house had beencleaned thoroughly the day before, rugs shaken, mirrors polished, floors oiled; the grand piano had been closed, and pushed against thewall; the reading-table had been cleared, and wheeled out under theturn of the stairway; the pretty drawing-room and square big entrancehall had been emptied to make room for the seven little card-tablesthat were already set up, and for the twenty-eight straight-back chairsthat Mrs. Carew had collected from the dining-room, the bedrooms, thehalls, and even the nursery, for the occasion. All this had been donethe day before, and Mrs. Carew, awakening early in the morning touneasy anticipations of a full day, had yet felt that the main work ofpreparation was out of the way. 

But now, in mid-afternoon, nothing seemed done. There were flowersstill to arrange; there was the mild punch that Santa Paloma affectedat card parties to be finished; there was candy to be put about on thetables, in little silver dishes; and new packs of cards, and pencilsand score-cards to be scattered about. And in the kitchen--But Mrs. Carew's heart failed at the thought. True, her own two maids were beinghelped out to-day by Mrs. Binney from the village, a tower of strengthin an emergency, and by Lizzie Binney, a worthy daughter of her mother;but there had been so many stupid delays. And plates, and glasses, andpunch-cups, and silver, and napkins for twenty-eight meant such a lotof counting and sorting and polishing! And somehow George and thechildren must have dinner, and the Binneys and Celia and Annie musteat, too. 

"Well, " thought Mrs. Carew, with a desperate glance at the kitchenclock, "it will all be over pretty soon, thank goodness!"

A pleasant stir of preparation pervaded the kitchen. Mrs. Binney, enormous, good-natured, capable, was opening crabs at one end of thetable, her sleeves rolled up, and her gingham dress, in the last stageof age and thinness, protected by a new stiff white apron; Celia, Mrs. Carew's cook, was sitting opposite her, dismembering two cold roastedfowls; Lizzie Binney, as trim and pretty as her mother was shapelessand plain, was filling silver bonbon-dishes with salted nuts. 

"How is everything going, Celia?" said Mrs. Carew, sampling a nut. 

"Fine, " said Celia placidly. "He didn't bring but two bunches ofsullery, so I don't know will I have enough for the salad. They sentthe cherries. And Mrs. Binney wants you should taste the punch. "

"It's sweet now, " said Mrs. Binney, as Mrs. Carew picked up the bigmixing-spoon, "but there's the ice to go in. "

"Delicious! not one bit too sweet, " Mrs. Carew pronounced. "You knowthat's to be passed around in the little glasses, Lizzie, while we'replaying; and a cherry and a piece of pineapple in every glass. DidAnnie find the doilies for the big trays? Yes. I got the bowl down;Annie's going to wash it. Oh, the cakes came, didn't they? That's good. And the cream for coffee; that ought to go right on ice. I'll telephonefor more celery. "

"There's some of these napkins so mussed, laying in the drawer, " saidLizzie, "I thought I'd put a couple of irons on and press them out. "

"If you have time, I wish you would, " Mrs. Carew said, touching thefrosted top of an angel-cake with a tentative finger. "I may have toplay to-night, Celia, " she went on, to her own cook, "but you girls canmanage everything, can't you? Dinner really doesn't matter--scrambledeggs and baked potatoes, something like that, and you'll have to serveit on the side porch. "

"Oh, yes'm, we'll manage!" Celia assured her confidently. "We'll clearup here pretty soon, and then there's nothing but the sandwiches to do. "

Mrs. Carew went on her way comforted. Celia was not a fancy cook, shereflected, passing through the darkened dining-room, where the longtable had been already set with a shining cloth, and where silver andglass gleamed in the darkness, but Celia was reliable. And for a womanwith three children, a large house, and but one other maid, Celia was atreasure. 

She telephoned the grocer, her eyes roving critically over the hall asshe did so. The buttercups, in a great bowl on the table, were alreadydropping their varnished yellow leaves; Annie must brush those up thevery last thing. 

"So far, so good!" said Mrs. Carew, straightening the rug at the doorwith a small heel and dropping wearily into a porch rocker. "There mustbe one thousand things I ought to be doing, " she said, resting her headand shutting her eyes. 

It was a warm, delicious afternoon. The little California town layasleep under a haze of golden sunshine. The Carews' pretty house, withits lawn and garden, was almost the last on River Street, and stood onthe slope of a hill that commanded all Santa Paloma Valley. Below it, the wide tree-shaded street descended between other unfenced lawns andother handsome homes. 

This was the aristocratic part of the town. The Willard Whites' immensecolonial mansion was here; and the Whites, rich, handsome, childless, clever, and nearing the forties, were quite the most prominent peopleof Santa Paloma. The Wayne Adamses, charming, extravagant young people, lived near; and the Parker Lloyds, who were suspected of hiding ratherserious money troubles under their reckless hospitality and unfailinggaiety, were just across the street. On River Street, too, liveddignified, aristocratic old Mrs. Apostleman and nervous, timid AnnePratt and her brother Walter, whose gloomy, stately old mansion was oneof the finest in town. Up at the end of the street were the Carews, andthe shabby comfortable home of Dr. And Mrs. Brown, and the neglectedwhite cottage where Barry Valentine and his little son Billy and astudious young Japanese servant led a rather shiftless existence. Andalthough there were other pretty streets in town, and other pleasantwell-to-do women who were members of church and club, River Street wasunquestionably THE street, and its residents unquestionably THE peopleof Santa Paloma. 

Beyond these homes lay the business part of the town, the railwaystation, and post-office, the library, and the women's clubhouse, withits red geraniums, red-tiled roof, and plaster arches. 

And beyond again were blocks of business buildings, handsome andmodern, with metal-sheathed elevators, and tiled vestibules, and heavy, plate-glass windows on the street. There was a drug store quite modernenough to be facing upon Forty-second Street and Broadway, instead ofthe tree-shaded peace of Santa Paloma's main street. At its cool andglittering fountain indeed, a hundred drinks could be mixed of whichBroadway never even heard. And on Broadway, three thousand miles away, the women who shopped were buying the same boxed powders, the samebottled toilet waters, the same patented soaps and brushes and candiesthat were to be found here. And in the immense grocery store nearbythere were beautifully spacious departments worthy of any great city, devoted to rare fruits, and coffees and teas, and every pickle thatever came in a glass bottle, and every little spiced fish that evercame in a gay tin. A white-clad young man "demonstrated" a cake-mixer, a blue-clad young woman "demonstrated" jelly-powders. 

Nearby were the one or two big dry-goods stores, with lovely gowns intheir windows, and milliners' shops, with French hats in their smartParis boxes--there was even a very tiny, very elegant little shop wherepastes and powders and shampooing were the attraction; a shop that hada French name "et Cie" over the door. 

In short, there were modern women, and rich women, in Santa Paloma, asthese things unmistakably indicated. Where sixty years ago there hadbeen but a lonely outpost on a Spanish sheep-ranch, and where thirtyyears after that there was only a "general store" at a crossroads, nowevery luxury in the world might be had for the asking. 

All this part of the town lay northeast of the sleepy little LobosRiver, which cut Santa Paloma in two. It was a pretty river, a boilingyellow torrent in winter, but low enough in the summer-time for thechildren to wade across the shallows, and shaded all along its courseby overhanging maples, and willows, and oaktrees, and an undergrowth ofwild currant and hazel bushes and blackberry vines. Across the riverwas Old Paloma, where dust from the cannery chimneys and soot from therailway sheds powdered an ugly shabby settlement of shanties and cheaplodging-houses. Old Paloma was peppered thick with saloons, andflavored by them, and by the odor of frying grease, and by an ashywaste known as the "dump. " Over all other odors lay the sweet, cloyingsmell of crushed grapes from the winery and the pungent odor from thetannery of White & Company. The men, and boys, and girls of thesettlement all worked in one or another of these places, and the womengossiped in their untidy doorways. Above the Carew house and DoctorBrown's, opposite, River Street came perforce to an end, for it wascrossed at this point by an old-fashioned wooden fence of slender, rounded pickets. In the middle of the fence was a wide carriage gate, with a smaller gate for foot passengers at each side, and beyond it theshabby, neglected garden and the tangle of pepper, and eucalyptus, andweeping willow trees that half hid the old Holly mansion. Once this hadbeen the great house of the village, but now it was empty and forlorn. Captain Holly had been dead for five or six years, and the last of thesons and daughters had gone away into the world. The house, furnishedjust as they had left it, was for sale, but the years went by, and nobuyer appeared; and meantime the garden flowers ran wild, the lawnswere dry and brown, and the fence was smothered in coarse rose vinesand rampant wild blackberry vines. Dry grass and yarrow and hollowmilkweed grew high in the gateways, and when the village children wentthrough them to prowl, as children love to prowl, about the neglectedhouse and orchard, they left long, dusty wakes in the crushed weeds. Further up than the children usually ventured, there was an old bridgeacross the Lobos, Captain Holly's private road to the mill town; but itwas boarded across now, and hundreds of chipmunks nested in it, andwhisked about it undisturbed. The great stables and barns stood empty;the fountains were long gone dry. Only the orchard continued to bearheavily. 

The Holly estate ran up into the hill behind it, one of the woodedfoothills that encircled all Santa Paloma, as they encircle so manyCalifornia towns. Already turning brown, and crowned with dense, lowgroves of oak, and bay, and madrona trees, they shut off the worldoutside; although sometimes on a still day the solemn booming of theocean could be heard beyond them, and a hundred times a year thePacific fogs came creeping over them long before dawn, and Santa Palomaawakened in an enveloping cloud of soft mist. Here and there the slopesof these hills were checkered with the sharp oblongs and angles ofyoung vineyards, and hidden by the thickening green of peach and appleorchards. A few low, brown dairy ranch-houses were perched high on theridges; the red-brown moving stream of the cattle home-coming inmid-afternoon could be seen from the village on a clear day. And overhill and valley, on this wonderful afternoon in late spring, the mostgenerous sunlight in the world lay warm and golden, and across them theshadows of high clouds--for there had been rain in the night--traveledslowly. 

"I declare, " said little Mrs. Carew lazily, "I could go to sleep!"

CHAPTER II

A moment later when a tall man came up the path and dropped on the topporch step with an air of being entirely at home, Mrs. Carew was stilldreaming, half-awake and half-asleep. 

"Hello, Jeanette!" said the newcomer. "What's new with thee, coz?"

"Don't smoke there, Barry, and get things mussy!" said Mrs. Carew inreturn, smiling to soften the command, and to show Barry Valentine thathe was welcome. 

Barry was usually welcome everywhere, although not at all approved inmany cases, and criticised even by the people who liked him best. Hewas a sort of fourth cousin of Mrs. Carew, who sometimes felt herselfcalled to the difficult task of defending him because of the distantkinship. He was very handsome, lean, and dark, with a sleepy smile andwith eyes that all children loved; and he was clever, or, at least, everyone believed him to be so; and he had charm--a charm of sheersweetness, for he never seemed to be particularly anxious to please. Barry was very gallant, in an impersonal sort of way: he took a keen, elder-brotherly sort of interest in every pretty girl in the village, and liked to discuss their own love affairs with them, with aseriousness quite paternal. He never singled any girl out forparticular attention, or escorted one unless asked, but he wasflatteringly attentive to all the middle-aged people of hisacquaintance and his big helpful hand was always ready for stumblingold women on the church steps, or tearful waifs in the street--healways had time to listen to other people's troubles. Barry--everyoneadmitted--had his points. But after all--

After all, he was lazy, and shiftless, and unambitious: he was contentto be assistant editor of the Mail; content to be bullied and belittledby old Rogers; content to go on his own idle, sunny way, playing withhis small, chubby son, foraging the woods with a dozen small boys athis heels, working patiently over a broken gopher-trap or a rustyshotgun, for some small admirer. Worst of all, Barry had beenintemperate, years ago, and there were people who believed that hisoccasional visits to San Francisco, now, were merely excuses for revelswith his old newspaper friends there. 

And yet, he had been such a brilliant, such a fiery and ambitious boy!All Santa Paloma had taken pride in the fact that Barry Valentine, onlytwenty, had been offered the editorship of the one newspaper of Plumas, a little town some twelve miles away, and had prophesied a triumphantprogress for him, to the newspapers of San Francisco, of Chicago, ofNew York! But Barry had not been long in Plumas when he suddenlymarried Miss Hetty Scott of that town, and in the twelve years that hadpassed since then the golden dreams for his future had vanished one byone, until to-day found him with no one to believe in him--not evenhimself. 

Hetty Scott was but seventeen when Barry met her, and already thewinner in two village contests for beauty and popularity. After theirmarriage she and Barry went to San Francisco, and shrewd, little, beautiful Hetty found herself more admired than ever, and began to talkof the stage. After that, Santa Paloma heard only occasional rumors:Barry had a position on a New York paper, and Hetty was studying in adramatic school; there was a baby; there were financial troubles, andBarry was drinking again; then Hetty was dead, and Barry, fearing thesevere eastern winters for the delicate baby, was coming back to SantaPaloma. So back they came, and there had been no indication since, thatthe restless, ambitious Barry of years ago was not dead forever. 

"No smoking?" said Barry now, good-naturedly. "That's so; you've gotsome sort of 'High Jinks' on for to-night, haven't you? I brought upthose hinges for your mixing table, Jen, " he went on, "but any timewill do. I suppose the kitchen is right on the fault, as it were. "

"The kitchen DOES look earthquakey, " admitted Mrs. Carew with a laugh, "but the girls would be glad to have the extra table; so go rightahead. I'll take you out in a second. I have been on the GO, " she addedwearily, "since seven this morning: my feet are like balls of fire. Youdon't know what the details are. Why, just tying up the prizes takes agood HOUR!"

"Anything go wrong?" asked the man sympathetically. 

"Oh, no; nothing particular. But you know how a house has to LOOK! Eventhe bathrooms, and our room, and the spare room--the children do getthings so mussed. It all sounds so simple; but it takes such a time. "

"Well, Annie--doesn't she do these things?"

"Oh, ordinarily she does! But she was sweeping all morning, we movedthings about so last night, and there was china, and glasses to getdown, and the porches--"

"But, Jeanette, " said Barry Valentine patiently, "don't you keep thishouse clean enough ordinarily without these orgies of cleaning theminute anybody comes in? I never knew such a house for women to openwindows, and tie up curtains, and put towels over their hair, and runaround with buckets of cold suds. Why this extra fuss?"

"Well, it's not all cleaning, " said Mrs. Carew, a little annoyed. "It'slargely supper; and I'm not giving anything LIKE the suppers Mrs. Whiteand Mrs. Adams give. "

"Why don't they eat at home?" said Mr. Valentine hospitably. "What dothey come for anyway? To see the house or each other's clothes, or toeat? Women are funny at a card party, " he went on, always ready toexpand an argument comfortably. "It takes them an hour to settle downand see how everyone else looks, and whether there happens to be astreak of dust under the piano; and then when the game is just wellstarted, a maid is nudging you in the elbow to take a plate of hotchicken, and another, on the other side, is holding out sandwiches, andall the women are running to look at the prizes. Now when men playcards--

"Oh, Barry, don't get started!" his cousin impatiently implored. "I'mtoo tired to listen. Come out and fix the table. "

"Wish I could really help you, " said Barry, as they crossed the hall;and as a further attempt to soothe her ruffled feelings, he addedamiably, "The place looks fine. The buttercups came up, didn't they?"

"Beautifully! You were a dear to get them, " said Mrs. Carew, quitemollified. 

Welcomed openly by all four maids, Barry was soon contentedly busy withscrews and molding-board, in a corner of the sunny kitchen. He and Mrs. Binney immediately entered upon a spirited discussion of equalsuffrage, to the intense amusement of the others, who kept him suppliedwith sandwiches, cake and various other dainties. The little piece ofwork was presently finished to the entire satisfaction of everyone, andBarry had pocketed his tools, and was ready to go, when Mrs. Carewreturned to the kitchen wide-eyed with news. 

"Barry, " said she, closing the door behind her, "George is here!"

"Well, George has a right here, " said Barry, as the lady cast acautious glance over her shoulder. 

"But listen, " his cousin said excitedly; "he thinks he has sold theHolly house!"

"Gee whiz!" said Barry simply. 

"To a Mrs. Burgoyne, " rushed on Mrs. Carew. "She's out there withGeorge on the porch now; a widow, with two children, and she looks sosweet. She knows the Hollys. Oh, Barry, if she only takes it; such adandy commission for George! He's terribly excited himself. I can tellby the calm, bored way she's talking about it. "

"Who is she? Where'd she come from?" demanded Barry. 

"From New York. Her father died last year, in Washington, I think shesaid, and she wants to live quietly somewhere with the children. Barry, will you be an angel?"

"Eventually, I hope to, " said Mr. Valentine, grinning, but she did nothear him. 

"Could you, WOULD you, take her over the place this afternoon, Barry?She seems sure she wants it, and George feels he must get back to theoffice to see Tilden. You know he's going to sign for a whole floor ofthe Pratt Building to-day. George can't keep Tilden waiting, and itwon't be a bit hard for you, Barry. George says to promise heranything. She just wants to see about bathrooms, and so on. Will you, Barry?"

"Sure I will, " said the obliging Barry. And when Mrs. Carew asked himif he would like to go upstairs and brush up a little, he accepted thedelicate reflection upon the state of his hair and hands, and said"sure" again. 

CHAPTER III

Mrs. Burgoyne was a sweet-faced, fresh-looking woman about thirty-twoor-three years old, with a quick smile, like a child's, and blue eyes, set far apart, with a little lift at the corners, that, under levelheavy brows, gave a suggestion of something almost Oriental to herface. She was dressed simply in black, and a transparent black veil, falling from her wide hat and flung back, framed her face mostbecomingly in square crisp folds. 

She and Barry presently walked up River Street in the mellow afternoonsunlight, and through the old wooden gates of the Holly grounds. Onevery side were great high-flung sprays of overgrown roses, dusty andchoked with weeds, ragged pepper tassels dragged in the grass, andwhere the path lay under the eucalyptus trees it was slippery with thedry, crescent-shaped leaves. Bees hummed over rank poppies and tangledhoneysuckle; once or twice a hummingbird came through the garden onsome swift, whizzing journey, and there were other birds in the trees, little shy brown birds, silent but busy in the late afternoon. Close tothe house an old garden faucet dripped and dripped, and a noisy, changing group of the brown birds were bathing and flashing about it. The old Hall stood on a rise of ground, clear of the trees, and bathedin sunshine. It was an ugly house, following as it did the fashion ofthe late seventies; but it was not undignified, with its big doorflanked by bay-windows and its narrow porch bounded by a fat woodenbalustrade and heavy columns. The porch and steps were weather-stainedand faded, and littered now with fallen leaves and twigs. 

Barry opened the front door with some difficulty, and they stepped intothe musty emptiness of the big main hall. There was a stairway at theback of the house with a colored glass window on the landing, andthrough it the sunlight streamed, showing the old velvet carpet in thehall below, and the carved heavy walnut chairs and tables, and the oldengravings in their frames of oak and walnut mosaic. The visitorspeeped into the old library, odorous of unopened books, and with greatcurtains of green rep shutting out the light, and into the music roombehind it, cold even on this warm day, with a muffled grand piano drawnfree of the walls, and near it two piano-stools, upholstered inblue-fringed rep, to match the curtains and chairs. They went acrossthe hall to the long, dim drawing room, where there was another velvetcarpet, dulled to a red pink by time, and muffled pompous sofas andchairs, and great mirrors, and "sets" of candlesticks and vases on themantels and what-nots. The windows were shuttered here, the airlifeless. Barry, in George Carew's interest, felt bound to say that"they would clear all this up, you know; a lot of this stuff could bestored. "

"Oh, why store it? It's perfectly good, " the lady answered absently. 

Presently they went out to the more cheerful dining-room, which ranstraight across the house, and was low-ceiled, with pleasantsquare-paned windows on two sides. 

"This was the old house, " explained Barry; "they added on the frontpart. You could do a lot with this room. "

"Do you still smell spice, and apples, and cider here?" said Mrs. Burgoyne, turning from an investigation of the china-closet, with aradiant face. A moment later she caught her breath suddenly, and walkedacross the room to stand, resting her hands on a chair back, before alarge portrait that hung above the fireplace. She stood so, gazing atthe picture--the portrait of a woman--for a full minute, and when sheturned again to Barry, her eyes were bright with tears. 

"That's Mrs. Holly, " said she. "Emily said that picture was here. " Andturning back to the canvas, she added under her breath, "You darling!"

"Did you know her?" Barry asked, surprised. 

"Did I know her!" Mrs. Burgoyne echoed softly, without turning. "Yes, Iknew her, " she added, almost musingly. And then suddenly she said, "Come, let's look upstairs, " and led the way by the twisted sunny backstairway, which had a window on every landing and Crimson Rambler rosespressing against every window. They looked into several bedrooms, alldusty, close, sunshiny. In the largest of these, a big front cornerroom, carpeted in dark red, with a black marble fireplace and animmense walnut bed, Mrs. Burgoyne, looking through a window that shehad opened upon the lovely panorama of river and woods, said suddenly:

"This must be my room, it was hers. She was the best friend, in oneway, that I ever had--Mrs. Holly. How happy I was here!"

"Here?" Barry echoed. 

At his tone she turned, and looked keenly at him, a little smileplaying about her lips. Then her face suddenly brightened. 

"Barry, of course!" she exclaimed. "I KNEW I knew you, but the 'Mr. Valentine' confused me. " And facing him radiantly, she demanded, "Whoam I?"

Barry shook his head slowly, his puzzled, smiling eyes on hers. For amoment they faced each other; then his look cleared as hers had done, and their hands met as he said boyishly:

"Well, I will be hanged! Jappy Frothingham!"

"Jappy Frothingham!" she echoed joyously. "But I haven't heard thatname for twenty years. And you're the boy whose father was a doctor, and who helped us build our Indian camp, and who had the frog, and felloff the roof, and killed the rattlesnake. "

"And you're the girl from Washington who could speak French, and whoput that stuff on my freckles and wouldn't let 'em drown the kittens. "

"Oh, yes, yes!" she said, and, their hands still joined, they laughedlike happy children together. 

Presently, more gravely, she told him a little of herself, of the earlymarriage, and the diplomat husband whose career was so cruelly cutshort by years of hopeless invalidism. Then had come her father'sillness, and years of travel with him, and now she and the little girlswere alone. And in return Barry sketched his own life, told her alittle of Hetty, and his unhappy days in New York, and of the boy, andfinally of the Mail. Her absorbed attention followed him from point topoint. 

"And you say that this Rogers owns the newspaper?" she askedthoughtfully, when the Mail was under discussion. 

"Rogers owns it; that's the trouble. Nothing goes into it without theold man's consent. " Barry tested the spring of a roller shade, with ascowl. "Barnes, the assistant editor he had before me, threw up his jobbecause he wouldn't stand having his stuff cut all to pieces andchanged to suit Rogers' policies, " he went on, as Mrs. Burgoyne's eyesdemanded more detail. "And that's what I'll do some day. In the sixyears since the old man bought it, the circulation has fallen off abouthalf; we don't get any 'ads'; we're not paying expenses. It's a crimetoo, for it's a good paper. Even Rogers is sick of it now; he'd sellfor a song. I'd borrow the money and buy it if it weren't for thepresses; I'd have to have new presses. Everything here is in prettygood shape, " he finished, with an air of changing the subject. 

"And what would new presses cost?" Sidney Burgoyne persisted, pausingon the big main stairway, as they were leaving the house a few minuteslater. 

"Oh, I don't know. " Barry opened the front door again, and they steppedout to the porch. "Altogether, " he said vaguely, snapping dead twigsfrom the heavy unpruned growth of the rose vines, "altogether, Iwouldn't go into it without ten thousand. Five for the new presses, say, and four to Rogers for the business and good-will, and somethingto run on--although, " Barry interrupted himself with a vehemence thatsurprised her, "although I'll bet that the old Mail would be paying herown rent and salaries within two months. The Dispatch doesn't amount tomuch, and the Star is a regular back number!" He stood staring gloomilydown at the roofs of the village; Mrs. Burgoyne, a little tired, hadseated herself on the top step. 

"I wish, in all seriousness, you'd tell me about it, " she said. "I amreally interested. If I buy this place, it will mean that we come hereto stay for years perhaps, and I have some money I want to invest here. I had thought of real estate, but it needn't necessarily be that. Itsounds to me as if you really ought to make an effort to buy the paper, Barry, Have you thought of getting anyone to go into it with you?"

The man laughed, perhaps a little embarrassed. 

"Never here, really. I went to Walter Pratt about it once, " headmitted, "but he said he was all tied up. Some of the fellows down inSan Francisco might have come in--but Lord! I don't want to settlehere; I hate this place. "

"But why do you hate it?" Her honest eyes met his in surprise andreproof. "I can't understand it, perhaps because I've thought of SantaPaloma as a sort of Mecca for so many years myself. My visit here wasthe sweetest and simplest experience I ever had in my life. You see Ihad a wretchedly artificial childhood; I used to read of country homesand big families and good times in books, but I was an only child, andeven then my life was spoiled by senseless formalities and conventions. I've remembered all these years the simple gowns Mrs. Holly used towear here, and the way she played with us, and the village women comingin for tea and sewing; it was all so sane and so sweet!"

"Our coming here was the merest chance. My father and I were on our wayhome from Japan, you know, and he suddenly remembered that the Hollyswere near San Francisco, and we came up here for a night. That, " saidMrs. Burgoyne in a lower tone, as if half to herself, "that was twentyyears ago; I was only twelve, but I've never forgotten it. Fred andOliver and Emily and I had our supper on the side porch; and afterwardthey played in the garden, but I was shy--I had never played--and Mrs. Holly kept me beside her on the porch, and talked to me now and then, and finally she asked me if I would like to spend the summer with her. Like to!--I wonder my heart didn't burst with joy! Father said no; butafter we children had gone to bed, they discussed it again. How Emilyand I PRAYED! And after a while Fred tiptoed down to the landing, andcame up jubilant. 'I heard mother say that what clothes Sidney neededcould be bought right here, ' he said. Emily began to laugh, and I tocry--!" She turned her back on Barry, and he, catching a glimpse of herwet eyes, took up the conversation himself. 

"I don't remember her very well, " he said; "a boy wouldn't. She diedsoon after that summer, and the boys went off to school. "

"Yes, I know, " the lady said thoughtfully. "I had the news in Rome--ahot, bright, glaring day. It was nearly a month after her death, then. And even then, I said to myself that I'd come back here, some day. Butit's not been possible until now; and now, " her voice was bright andsteady again, "here I am. And I don't like to hear an old friendabusing Santa Paloma. "

"It's a nice enough place, " Barry admitted, "but the people are--well, you wait until you meet the women! Perhaps they're not much worse thanwomen everywhere else, but sometimes it doesn't seem as if the womenhere had good sense. I don't mean the nice quiet ones who live out onthe ranches and are bringing up a houseful of children, but this RiverStreet crowd. "

"Why, what's the matter with them?" asked Mrs. Burgoyne with vivacity. 

"Oh, I mean this business of playing bridge four afternoons a week, andrunning to the club, and tearing around in motor-cars all day Sunday, and entertaining the way they think people do it in New York, andgetting their dresses in San Francisco instead of up here, " Barryexplained disgustedly. "Some of them would be nice enough if theyweren't trying to go each other one better all the time; when one getsa thing the others have all got to have it, or have something nicer. Take the Browns, now, your neighbors there--"

"In the shingled house, with the babies swinging on the gate as we cameby?"

"Yes, that's it. They've got four little boys. Doctor Brown is a king;everybody worships him, and she's a sweet little woman; but of courseshe's got to strain and struggle like the rest of them. There's a Mrs. Willard White in this town--that big gray-shingled place down there istheir garage--and she runs the whole place. She's always letting theothers know that hobbles are out, and everything's got to hang from theshoulder--"

"Very good!" laughed Mrs. Burgoyne, "you've got that very nearly right. "

"Willard White's a nice fellow, " Barry went on, "except that he's alittle cracked about his Packard. They give motoring parties, and ofcourse they stop at hotels way up the country for lunch, and the womenhave got to have veils and special hats and coats, and so on. WayneAdams told me it stood him in about thirty dollars every time he wentout with the Whites. Wayne's got his own car now; his wife kept at himday and night to get it. But he can't run it, so it's in the garagehalf the time. "

"That's the worst of motoring, " said the lady with a thoughtful nod, "the people who sell them think they've answered you when they say, 'But you don't run it economically. If you understood it, it wouldn'tcost you half so much!' And the alternative is, 'Get a man atseventy-five dollars a month and save repairing and replacing bills. 'Nice for business, Barry, but very much overdone for pleasure, I think. I myself hate those days spent with five people you hardly know, " shewent on, "rushing over beautiful roads that you hardly see, eating toomuch in strange hotels, and paying too much for it. I sha'n't have acar. But tell me more about the people. Who are the Adamses? Didn't yousay Adams?"

"Wayne Adams; nice people, with two nice boys, " he supplied; "but she'slike the rest. Wayne lies awake nights worrying about bills, and shegives silver photograph-frames for bridge prizes. That white stuccohouse where they're putting in an Italian garden, is the Parker Lloyds. Mrs. Lloyd's a clever woman, and pretty too; but she doesn't seem tohave any sense. They've got a little girl, and she'll tell you thatMabel never wore a stitch that wasn't hand-made in her life. Lloyd hada nervous breakdown a few months ago--we all knew it was nothing butmoney worry--but yesterday his wife said to me in all good faith thathe was too unselfish, he was wearing himself out. She was trying topersuade him to put Mabel in school and go abroad for a good rest. "

Mrs. Burgoyne laughed. 

"That's like Jeanette Carew showing me her birthday present, " Barrywent on with a grin. "It seems that George gave her a complete set ofbureau ivory--two or three dozen pieces in all, I guess. When I askedher she admitted that she had silver, but she said she wanted ivory, everybody has ivory now. Present!" he repeated with scorn, "why, shejust told George what she wanted, and went down and charged it to him!She's worried to death about bills now, but she started right intalking motor-cars; and they'll have one yet. I'd give a good deal, " hefinished disgustedly, "to know what they get out of it. "

"I don't believe they're as bad as all that, " said the lady. "Thereused to be some lovely people here, and there was a whist club too, andit was very nice. They played for a silver fork and spoon everyfortnight, and I remember that Mrs. Holly had nearly a dozen of theforks. There was a darling Mrs. Apostleman, and Mrs. Pratt with two shypretty daughters--"

"Mrs. Apostleman's still here, " he told her. "She's a fine old lady. When a woman gets to be sixty, it doesn't seem to matter if she wastestime. Mrs. Pratt is dead, and Lizzie is married and lives in SanFrancisco, but Anne's still here. She and her brother live in thatvault of a gray house; you can see the chimneys. Anne's another, " histone was cynical again, "a shy, nervous woman, always getting newdresses, and always on club reception committees, with white gloves anda ribbon in her hair, frightened to death for fear she's not doing thecorrect thing. They've just had a frieze of English tapestries put inthe drawing-room and hall, --English TAPESTRIES!"

"Perhaps you don't appreciate tapestries, " said Mrs. Burgoyne, with hertwinkling smile. "You know there is a popular theory that such thingskeep money in circulation. "

"You know there's hardly any form of foolishness or vice of which youcan't say that, " he reminded her soberly; and Mrs. Burgoyne, serious inturn, answered quickly:

"Yes, you're quite right. It's too bad; we American women seem somehowto have let go of everything real, in the last few generations. Butthings are coming around again. " She rose from the steps, still facingthe village. "Tell me, who is my nearest neighbor there, in the whitecottage?" she demanded. 

"I am, " Barry said unexpectedly. "So if you need--yeast is it, thatwomen always borrow?"

"Yeast, " she assented laughing. "I will remember. And now tell me abouttrains and things. Listen!" Her voice and look changed suddenly:softened, brightened. "Is that children?" she asked, eagerly. 

And a moment later four children, tired, happy and laden with orchardspoils, came around the corner of the house. Barry presented them asthe Carews--George and Jeanette, a bashful fourteen and aself-possessed twelve, and Dick, who was seven--and his own small dustyson, Billy Valentine, who put a fat confiding hand in the strangelady's as they all went down to the gate together. 

"You are my Joanna's age, Jeanette, " said Mrs. Burgoyne, easily. "Ihope you will be friends. "

"Who will I be friends with?" said little Billy, raising blue expectanteyes. "And who will George?"

"Why, I hope you will be friends with me, " she answered laughing; "andI will be so relieved if George will come up sometimes and help me withbonfires and about what ought to be done in the stable. You see, Idon't know much about those things. " At this moment George, hoarselymuttering that he wasn't much good, he guessed, but he had some goodtools, fell deeply a victim to her charms. 

Mrs. Carew came out of her own gate as they came up, and there was timefor a little talk, and promises, and goodbyes. Then Barry took Mrs. Burgoyne to the station, and lifted his hat to the bright face at thewindow as the train pulled out in the dusk. He went slowly to hisoffice from the train and attacked the litter of papers and clippingson his desk absent-mindedly. Once he said half aloud, his big scissorsarrested, his forehead furrowed by an unaccustomed frown, "We were onlykids then; and they all thought I was the one who was going to dosomething big. "

CHAPTER IV

Barry appeared at Mrs. Carew's house a little after midnight to findthe card-players enjoying a successful supper, and the one topic ofconversation the possible sale of Holly Hall. Barry, suspected ofhaving news of it, was warmly welcomed by the tired, bright-eyed womenand the men in their somewhat rumpled evening clothes, and suppliedwith salad and coffee. 

"Is she really coming, Barry?" demanded Mrs. Lloyd eagerly. "And howsoon? We have been saying what WONDERS could be done for the Hall witha little money. "

"The price didn't seem to worry her, " said George Carew. 

"Oh, she's coming, " Barry assured them; "you can consider it settled. "

"Good!" said old Mrs. Apostleman in her deep, emphatic voice. "She'llhave to make the house over, of course; but the stable ought to make avery decent garage. Mark my words, me dears, ye'll see some verystartling changes up there, before the summer's out. "

"The house could be made colonial, " submitted Mrs. Adams, "or mission, for that matter. "

"No, you couldn't make it mission, " Mrs. Willard White decided, andseveral voices murmured, "No, you couldn't do that. " "But colonial--itwould be charming, " the authority went on. "Personally, I'd tear thewhole thing down and rebuild, " said Mrs. White further; "but withhardwood floors throughout, tapestry papers, or the new grasspapers--like Amy's library, Will--white paint on all the woodwork, white and cream outside, some really good furniture, and the gardenmade over--you wouldn't know the place. "

"But that would take months, " said Mrs. Carew ruefully. 

"And cost like sixty, " added Dr. Brown, at which there was a laugh. 

"Well, she won't wait any six months, or six weeks either, " Barrypredicted. "And don't you worry about the expense, Doctor. Do you knowwho she IS?"

They all looked at him. "Who?" said ten voices together. 

"Why, her father was Frothingham--Paul Frothingham, the inventor. Herhusband was Colonel John Burgoyne;--you all know the name. He was quitea big man, too--a diplomat. Their wedding was one of those bigWashington affairs. A few years later Burgoyne had an accident, and hewas an invalid for about six years after that--until his death, infact. She traveled with him everywhere. "

"Sidney Frothingham!" said Mrs. Carew. "I remember Emily Holly used tohave letters from her. She was presented at the English court when shewas quite young, I remember, and she used to visit at the White House, too. So THAT'S who she is!"

"I remember the child's visit here perfectly, " Mrs. Apostleman said, "tall, lanky girl with very charming manners. Her husband was at St. Petersburg for a while; then in London--was it? You ought to know, Clara, me dear--I'm not sure--Even after his accident they went on somesort of diplomatic mission to Madrid, or Stockholm, or somewhere, remember it perfectly. "

"Colonel Burgoyne must have had money, " said Mrs. White, tentatively. 

"Some, I think, " Barry answered; "but it was her father who was rich, of course--"

"Certainly!" approved Mrs. Apostleman, fanning herself majestically. "Rich as Croesus; multi-millionaire. "

"Heavens alive!" said Mrs. Lloyd unaffectedly. 

"Yes, " Willard White eyed the tip of a cigar thoughtfully, "yes, Iremember he worked his own patents; had his own factories. PaulFrothingham must have left something in the neighborhood of--well, twoor three millions--"

"Two or three!" echoed Mrs. Apostleman in regal scorn. "Make it eight!"

"Eight!" said Mrs. Brown faintly. 

"Well, that would be about my estimate, " Barry agreed. 

"He was a big man, Frothingham, " Dr. Brown said reflectively. "Well, well, ladies, here's a chance for Santa Paloma to put her best footforward. "

"What WON'T she do to the Hall!" Mrs. Adams remarked; Mrs. Carew sighed. 

"It--it rather staggers one to think of trying to entertain a womanworth eight millions, doesn't it?" said she. 

CHAPTER V

From the moment of her arrival in Santa Paloma, when she stood on thestation platform with a brisk spring wind blowing her veil about herface, and a small and chattering girl on each side of her, Mrs. Burgoyne seemed inclined to meet the friendly overtures of her newneighbors more than half-way. She remembered the baggage-agent's namefrom her visit two weeks before--"thank Mr. Roberts for his trouble, Ellen"--and met the aged driver of the one available carriage with aready "Good afternoon, Mr. Rivers!" Within a week she had her pew inchurch, her box at the post-office, her membership in the library, anda definite rumor was afloat to the effect that she had invested severalthousand dollars in the Mail, and that Barry Valentine had bought thepaper from old Rogers outright; and had ordered new rotary presses, andwas at last to have a free hand as managing editor. The pretty youngmistress of Holly Hall, with her two children dancing beside her, andher ready pleased flush and greeting for new friends, became a familiarfigure in Santa Paloma's streets. She was even seen once or twiceacross the river, in the mill colony, having, for some mysteriousreason, immediately opened the bridge that led from her own grounds tothat unsavory region. 

She was not formal, not unapproachable, as it had been feared she mightbe. On the contrary, she was curiously democratic. And, for a womanstraight from the shops of Paris and New York, her clothes seemed tothe women of Santa Paloma to be surprising, too. She and her daughterswore plain ginghams for every day, with plain wide hats and trim sergecoats for foggy mornings. And on Sundays it was certainly extraordinaryto meet the Burgoynes, bound for church, wearing the simplest of dimityor cross-barred muslin wash dresses, with black stockings and shoes, and hats as plain--far plainer!--as those of the smallest children. Except for the amazing emeralds that blazed beside her wedding ring, and the diamonds she sometimes wore, Mrs. Burgoyne might have been atrained nurse in uniform. 

"It is a pose, " said Mrs. Willard White, at the club, to a few intimatefriends. "She's probably imitating some English countess. Englishwomenaffect simplicity in the country. But wait until we see her eveningfrocks. "

It was felt that any formal calling upon Mrs. Burgoyne must wait untilthe supposedly inevitable session with carpenters, painters, paper-hangers, carpet-layers, upholsterers, decorators, furnituredealers, and gardeners was over at the Hall. But although the old househad been painted and the plumbing overhauled before the new owner'sarrival, and although all day long and every day two or threePortuguese day-laborers chopped and pruned and shouted in the garden, aweek and then two weeks slipped by, and no further evidences ofrenovation were to be seen. 

So presently callers began to go up to the Hall; first Mrs. Apostlemanand Mrs. White, as was fitting, and then a score of other women. Mrs. Apostleman had been the social leader in Santa Paloma when Mrs. Whitewas little Clara Peck, a pretty girl in the High School, whose richwidowed mother dressed her exquisitely, and who was studying French, and could play the violin. But Mrs. Apostleman was an old woman now, and had been playing the game a long time, and she was glad to put thesceptre into younger hands. And she could have put it into none morecompetent than those of Mrs. Willard White. 

Mrs. White was a handsome, clever woman, of perhaps six-orseven-and-thirty. She had been married now for seventeen years, and forall that time, and even before her marriage, she had been the mostenvied, the most admired, and the most copied woman in the village. Hermother, an insipid, spoiled, ambitious little woman, whose fondest hopewas realized when her dashing daughter made a financially brilliantmatch, had lost no time in warning the bride that the agonies ofmotherhood, and the long ensuing slavery, were avoidable, and Clara hadentirely agreed with her mother's ideas, and used to laughingly assurethe few old friends who touched upon this delicate topic, that sheherself "was baby enough for Will!" Robbed in this way of her naturalestate, and robbed by the size of her husband's income from theexhilarating interest of making financial ends meet, Mrs. White, forseventeen years, had led what she honestly considered an enviable andcarefree existence. She bought beautiful clothes for herself, andbeautiful things for her house, she gave her husband and her mothervery handsome gifts. She was a perfect hostess, although it must beadmitted that she never extended the hospitalities of her handsome hometo anyone who did not amuse her, who was not "worth while". She ruledher servants well, made a fine president for the local Women's Club, ran her own motor-car very skillfully, and played an exceptionally goodgame of bridge. She was an authority upon table-linens, fancyneedlework, fashions in dress, new salads, new methods in serving thetable. 

Willard White, as perfect a type in his own way as she was in hers, wasvery proud of her, when he thought of her at all, which was really muchless often than their acquaintances supposed. He liked his house to benicely managed, spent his money freely upon it, wanted his friendshandsomely entertained, and his wine-cellar stocked with everyconceivable variety of liquid refreshment. If Clara wanted moreservants, let her have them, if she wanted corkscrews by the gross, why, buy those, too. Only let a man feel that there was a maid aroundto bring him a glass when he came in from golfing or motoring, and acorkscrew with the glass!

As a matter of fact, his club and his office, and above all, hismotor-cars, absorbed him. His natural paternal instinct had beendiverted toward these latter, and, quite without his knowing it, hiscars were his nursery. Willard White had owned the first electric carever seen in Santa Paloma. Later, there had been half-a-dozen machines, and he loved them all, and spoke of them as separate entities. He spokeof the runs they had made, of the strains they had triumphantlysustained, and he and his chauffeur held low-toned conferences over anysmall breakage, with the same seriousness that he might have used hadWillard Junior--supposing there to have been such a littleperson--developed croup, and made the presence of a physiciannecessary. He liked to glance across his lawn at night to thecommodious garage, visible in the moonlight, and think of histreasures, locked up, guarded, perfect in every detail, and safe. 

He and Mrs. White always spoke of Santa Paloma as a "jay" town, andcompared it, to its unutterable disadvantage, to other and largercities, but still, business reasons would always keep them there forthe greater part of the year, and they were both glad to hear that afabulously wealthy widow, and a woman prominent in every other respectas well, had come to live in Santa Paloma. Mrs. White determined toplay her game very carefully with Mrs. Burgoyne; there should be noindecent hurry, there should be no sudden overtures at friendship. "But, poor thing! She will certainly find our house an oasis in thedesert!" Mrs. White comfortably decided, putting on the very handsomestof her afternoon gowns to go and call formally at the Hall. 

Mrs. Burgoyne and the little girls were always most cordial tovisitors. They spent these first days deep in gardening, great heaps offragrant dying weeds about them, and raw vistas through the prunedtrees already beginning to show the gracious slopes of the land, andthe sleepy Lobos down beneath the willows. The Carew children and thelittle Browns were often there, fascinated by the outdoor work, aschildren always are, and little Billy Valentine squirmed daily throughhis own particular gap in the hedge, and took his share of the fun witha deep and silent happiness. Billy gave Mrs. Burgoyne many a heartache, with his shock of bright, unbrushed hair, his neglected grimed littlehands, his boyish little face that was washed daily according to hisown small lights, with surrounding areas of neck and ears whollyoverlooked, and his deep eyes, sad when he was sad, and somehowinfinitely more pathetic when he was happy. Sometimes she stealthilysupplied Billy with new garters, or fastened the buttons on his blueoveralls, or even gave him a spoonful of "meddy" out of a big bottle, at the mere sight of which Ellen shuddered sympathetically; a dosewhich was always followed by two marshmallows, out of a tin box, by wayof consolation. But further than this she dared not go, except in thematter of mugs of milk, gingerbread, saucer-pies, and motherly kissesfor any bump or bruise. 

The village women, coming up to the Hall, in the pleasant summerafternoons, were puzzled to find the old place almost unchanged. Whyany woman in her senses wanted to live among those early-Victorianhorrors, the women of Santa Paloma could not imagine. But Mrs. Burgoynenever apologized for the old walnut chairs and tables, and the oldvelvet carpets, and the hopelessly old-fashioned white lace curtainsand gilt-framed mirrors. Even Captain Holly's big clock--"an impossiblyhideous thing, " Mrs. White called the frantic bronze horses and theclinging tiger, on their onyx hillside--was serenely ticking, and thepink china vases were filled with flowers. And there was an air of suchhomely comfort, after all, about the big rooms, such a fragrance offlowers, and flood of sunny fresh air, that the whole effect was nothalf as bad as it might be imagined; indeed, when Mammy Curry, themagnificent old negress who was supreme in the kitchen and respected inthe nursery as well, came in with her stiff white apron and silvertea-tray, she seemed to fit into the picture, and add a completingtouch to the whole. 

Very simply, very unpretentiously, the new mistress of Holly Hallentered upon her new life. She was a woman of very quiet tastes, devoted to her little girls, her music, her garden and her books. Withthe negress, she had one other servant, a quiet little New Englandgirl, with terrified, childish eyes, and a passionate devotion to hermistress and all that concerned her mistress. Fanny had in charge asplendid, tawny-headed little boy of three, who played happily byhimself, about the kitchen door, and chased chickens and kittens withshrieks of delight. Mrs. Burgoyne spoke of him as "Fanny's littlebrother, " and if the two had a history of any sort, it was one at whichshe never hinted. She met an embarrassing question with a readinesswhich rather amused Mrs. Brown, on a day when the two younger ladieswere having tea with Mrs. Apostleman, and the conversation turned tothe subject of maids. 

"--but if your little girl Fanny has had her lesson, you'll have notrouble keepin' her, " said Mrs. Apostleman. 

"Oh, I hope I shall keep Fanny, " said Mrs. Burgoyne, "she comes of suchnice people, and she's such a sweet, good girl. "

"Why, Lord save us!" said the old lady, repentantly, "and I was almostready to believe the child was hers!"

"If Peter was hers, she couldn't be fonder of him!" Mrs. Burgoyne saidmildly, and Mrs. Brown choked on her tea, and had to wipe her eyes. 

In the matter of Fanny, and in a dozen other small matters, theindependence of the great lady was not slow in showing itself in Mrs. Burgoyne. Santa Paloma might be annoyed at her, and puzzled by her, butit had perforce to accept her as she stood, or ignore her, and she wasobviously not a person to ignore. She declined all invitations fordaytime festivities; she was "always busy in the daytime, " she said. Nocards, no luncheons, no tea-parties could lure her away from the Hall, although, if she and the small girls walked in for mail or were down inthe village for any other reason, they were very apt to stop somewherefor a chat on their way home. But the children were allowed to gonowhere alone, and not the smartest of children's parties could boastof the presence of Joanna and Ellen Burgoyne. 

Santa Paloma children were much given to parties, or rather theirparents were; and every separate party was a separate great event. Thelittle girls wore exquisite hand-made garments, silken hose and whiteshoes. Professional entertainers, in fashionably darkened rooms, keptthe little people amused, and professional caterers supplied the supperthey ate, or perhaps the affair took the shape of a box-party for amatinee, and a supper at the town's one really pretty tea-roomfollowed. These affairs were duly chronicled in the daily and weeklypapers, and perhaps more than one matron would have liked thedistinction of having Mrs. Burgoyne's little daughters listed among herown child's guests. Joanna and Ellen were pretty children, in awell-groomed, bright-eyed sort of way, and would have been popular evenwithout the added distinction of their ready French and German andItalian, their charming manners, their naive references to othercountries and peoples, and their beautiful and distinguished mother. 

But in answer to all invitations, there came only polite, stiltedlittle letters of regret, in the children's round script. "Mother wouldd'rather we shouldn't go to a sin-gul party until we are young ladies!"Ellen would say cheerfully, if cross-examined on the subject, leavingit to the more tactful Joanna to add, "But Mother thanks you JUST asmuch. " They were always close to their mother when it was possible, andshe only banished them from her side when the conversation grewundeniably too old in tone for Joanna and Ellen, and then liked to keepthem in sight, have them come in with the tea-tray, or wave to heroccasionally from the river bank. 

"We've been wondering what you would do with this magnificentdrawing-room, " said Mrs. White, on her first visit. "The house ought totake a colonial treatment wonderfully--there's a remarkable man in SanFrancisco who simply made our house over for us last year!"

"It must have been a fearful upheaval, " said Mrs. Burgoyne, sympathetically. 

"Oh, we went away! Mr. White and I went east, and when we came back itwas all done. "

"Well, fortunately, " said the mistress of Holly Hall cheerfully, as shesugared Mrs. Apostleman's cup of tea, "fortunately all these things ofMrs. Holly's were in splendid condition, except for a little cleaningand polishing. They used to make things so much more solid, don't youthink so? Why, there are years of wear left in these carpets, and thechairs and tables are like rocks! Captain Holly apparently got the verybest of everything when he furnished this place, and I reap thebenefit. It's so nice to feel that one needn't buy a chair or a bed forten years or more, if one doesn't want to!"

"Dear, sweet people, the Hollys, " said Mrs. White, pleasantly, utterlyat a loss. Did people of the nicer class speak of furniture as if itwere made merely to be useful? "But what a distinct period these thingsbelong to, don't they?" she asked, feeling her way. "So--so solid!"

"Yes, in a way it was an ugly period, " said Mrs. Burgoyne, placidly. "But very comfortable, fortunately. Fancy if he had selected LouisQuinze chairs, for example!"

Mrs. White gave her a puzzled look, and smiled. 

"Come now, Mrs. Burgoyne, " said she, good-naturedly, "Confess that youare going to give us all a surprise some day, and change all this. Onesees, " said Mrs. White, elegantly, "such lovely effects in New York. "

"In those upper Fifth Avenue shops--ah, but don't you see lovelythings!" the other woman assented warmly. "Of course, one could bealways changing, " she went on. "But I like associations withthings--and changing takes so much time! Some day we may think all thisquite pretty, " she finished, with a contented glance at the comfortableugliness of the drawing-room. 

"Oh, do you suppose we shall REALLY!" Mrs. White gave a littleincredulous laugh. She was going pretty far, and she knew it, but as amatter of fact, she was entirely unable to believe that there was awoman in the world who could afford to have what was fashionable andexpensive in household furnishings or apparel, and who deliberatelypreferred not to have it. That her own pretty things were no soonerestablished than they began to lose their charm for her, never occurredto Mrs. White: she was a woman of conventional type, perfectlysatisfied to spend her whole life in acquiring things essentiallyinvaluable, and to use a naturally shrewd and quick intelligence incopying fashions of all sorts, small and large, as fast as advancedmerchants and magazines presented them to her. She was one of the greatarmy of women who help to send the sale of an immoral book well up intothe hundreds of thousands; she liked to spend long afternoons with abox of chocolates and a book unfit for the touch of any woman; a bookthat she would review for the benefit of her friends later, with ashocked wonder that "they dare print such things!" She liked to tell aman's story, and the other women could not but laugh at her, for shewas undeniably good company, and nobody ever questioned the taste ofanything she ever said or did. She was a famous gossip, for like allwomen, she found the private affairs of other people full offascination, and, having no legitimate occupation, she was always atliberty to discuss them. 

Yet Mrs. White was not at all an unusual woman, and, like herassociates, she tacitly assumed herself to be the very flower ofAmerican womanhood. She quoted her distinguished relatives on alloccasions, the White family, in all its ramifications, supplied thecorrect precedent for all the world; there was no social emergency towhich some cousin or aunt of Mrs. White's had not been more than equal. Having no children of her own, she still could silence and shame many agood mother with references to Cousin Ethel Langstroth's "kiddies", orto Aunt Grace Thurston's wonderful governess. 

Personally, Mrs. White vaguely felt that there was something innatelyindecent about children anyway, the smaller they were the lessmentionable she found them. The little emergencies, of nose-bleeds andtorn garments and spilled porridge, that were constantly arising in theneighborhood of children, made her genuinely sick and faint. And shehad so humorous and so assured an air of saying "Disgusting!" or"Disgraceful!" when the family of some other woman began to presentitself with reasonable promptness, that other women found themselveslaughing and saying "Disgusting!" too. 

Mrs. Burgoyne, like Mrs. White, was a born leader. Whether she made anyparticular effort to influence her neighbors or not, they could not butfeel the difference in her attitude toward all the various tangiblethings that make a woman's life. She was essentially maternal, wantedto mother all the little living and growing things in the world, wantedto be with children, and talk of them and study them. And she wassimple and honest in her tastes, and entirely without affectation inher manner, and she was too great a lady to be either laughed at orignored. So Santa Paloma began to ask itself why she did this or that, and finding her ways all made for economy and comfort and simplicity, almost unconsciously copied them. 

CHAPTER VI

When Mrs. Apostleman invited several of her friends to a formal dinnergiven especially for Mrs. Burgoyne everyone realized that the newcomerwas accepted, and the event was one of several in which the women ofSanta Paloma tried with more than ordinary eagerness to outshine eachother. Mrs. Apostleman herself never entered into competition with theyounger matrons, nor did they expect it of her. She gave heavy, rich, old-fashioned dinners in her own way, in which her servants wereperfectly trained. It was a standing joke among her friends that theyalways ate too much at Mrs. Apostleman's house, there were always sevenor eight substantial courses, and she liked to have the plates comeback for more lobster salad or roast turkey. In this, as in all things, she was a law unto herself. 

But for the other women, Mrs. White set the pace, and difficult to keepthey often found it. But they never questioned it. They admired thericher woman's perfect house-furnishing, and struggled blindly toaccumulate the same number and variety of napkins and fingerbowls, ramekins and glasses and candlesticks and special forks and specialknives. The first of the month with its bills, became a horror to them, and they were continually promising their husbands, in all good faith, that expenses should positively be cut down. 

But what use were good resolves; when one might find, the very nextday, that there were no more cherries for the grapefruit, that one hadnot a pair of presentable white gloves for the club, or that themotor-picnic that the children were planning was to cost them fivedollars apiece? To serve grapefruit without cherries, to wear coloredgloves, or no gloves at all to the club, and to substitute someinexpensive pleasure for the ride was a course that never occurred toMrs. Carew, that never occurred to any of her friends. Mrs. Carew mighthave a very vague idea of her daughter's spiritual needs, she might bean entire stranger to the delicately adjusted and exquisitelysusceptible entity that was the real Jeanette, but she would have gonehungry rather than have Jeanette unable to wear white shoes to SundaySchool, rather than tie Jeanette's braids with ribbons that were notstiff and new. She was so entirely absorbed in pursuit of the "correctthing, " so anxious to read what was "being read, " to own what was"right", that she never stopped to seriously consider her own or herdaughter's place in the universe. She was glad, of course when thechildren "liked their teacher, " just as she had been glad years beforewhen they "liked their nurse. " The reasons for such likings ordislikings she never investigated; she had taken care of the childrenherself during the nurse's regular days "off", but she always regardedthese occasions as so much lost time. Mrs. Carew kept her children, asshe kept her house, well-groomed, and she gave about as much thought tothe spiritual needs of the one as the other. She had been brought up tobelieve that the best things in life are to be had for money, and thatearthly happiness or unhappiness falls in exact ratio with thepossession or non-possession of money. She met the growing demands ofher family as well as she could, and practised all sorts of harassingprivate economies so that, in the eyes of the world, the family mightseem to be spending a great deal more money than was actually the case. Mrs. Carew's was not an analytical mind, but sometimes she foundherself genuinely puzzled by the financial state of affairs. 

"I don't know where the money GOES to!" she said, in a confidentialmoment, to Mrs. Lloyd. They had met in the market, where Mrs. Carew wasconsulting a long list of necessary groceries. 

"Oh, don't speak of it!" said Mrs. Lloyd, feelingly. "That's so, yourdinner is tomorrow night, isn't it?" she added with interest. "Are yougoing to have Lizzie?"

"Oh, dear me, yes! For eight, you know. Shan't you have her?" For Mrs. Lloyd's turn to entertain Mrs. Burgoyne followed Mrs. Carew's by only afew days. 

"Lizzie and her mother, too, " said the other woman. "I don't knowwhat's the matter with maids in these days, " she went on, "they simplycan't do things, as my mother's maids used to, for example. Now thefour of them will be working all day over Thursday's dinner, and, dearme! it's a simple enough dinner. "

"Well, you have to serve so much with a dinner, nowadays, " Mrs. Carewsaid, in a mildly martyred tone. "Crackers and everything else withoysters--I'm going to have cucumber sandwiches with the soup--"

"Delicious!" said Mrs. Lloyd. 

"'Cucumbers, olives, salted nuts, currant jelly'", Mrs. Carew wasreading her list, "'ginger chutney, saltines, bar-le-duc, creamcheese', those are for the salad, you know, 'dinner rolls, sandwichbread, fancy cakes, Maraschino cherries, maple sugar, ' that's to go hoton the ice, I'm going to serve it in melons, and 'candy'--just pink andgreen wafers, I think. All that before it comes to the actual dinner atall, and it's all so fussy!"

"Don't say one word!" said Mrs. Lloyd, sympathetically. "But it soundsdee-licious!" she added consolingly, and little Mrs. Carew wentcontentedly home to a hot and furious session in her kitchen; hours ofbaking, boiling and frying, chopping and whipping and frosting, creaming and seasoning, freezing and straining. 

"I don't mind the work, if only everything goes right!" Mrs. Carewwould say gallantly to herself, and it must be said to her credit thatusually everything did "go right" at her house, although even the maidsin the kitchen, heroically attacking pyramids of sticky plates, werenot so tired as she was, when the dinner was well over. 

But there was a certain stimulus in the mere thought of entertainingMrs. Burgoyne, and there was the exhilarating consciousness that one ofthese days she would entertain in turn; so the Santa Paloma housewivesexerted themselves to the utmost of their endurance, and one delightfuldinner party followed another. 

But a dispassionate onlooker from another planet might have found itcurious to notice, in contrast to this uniformity, that no two womendressed alike on these occasions, and no woman who could help it worethe same gown twice. Mrs. Brown and Mrs. Carew, to be sure, wore their"little old silks" more than once, but each was secretly consoled bythe thought that a really "smart" new gown awaited Mrs. White's dinner;which was naturally the climax of all the affairs. Only the wearers andtheir dress-makers knew what hours had been spent upon these costumes, what discouraged debates attended their making, what muscular agoniestheir fitting. Only they could have estimated, and they never didestimate--the time lost over pattern books, the nervous strain ofplacing this bit of spangled net or that square inch of lace, thehurried trips downtown for samples and linings, for fringes andembroideries and braids and ribbons. The gown that she wore to her owndinner, Mrs. White had had fitted in the Maison Dernier Mot, inParis;--it was an enchanting frock of embroidered white illusion, overpink illusion, over black illusion, under a short heavy tunic of silverspangles and threads. The yoke was of wonderful old lace, and there wasa girdle of heavy pink cords, and silver clasps, to match the aigrettethat was held by pink and silver cords in Mrs. White's beautifullyarranged hair. 

Mrs. Burgoyne's gowns, or rather gown, for she wore exactly the samecostume to every dinner, could hardly have been more startling thanSanta Paloma found it, had it gone to any unbecoming extreme. Yet itwas the simplest of black summer silks, soft and full in the skirt, short-sleeved, and with a touch of lace at the square-cut neck. Shearranged her hair in a becoming loose knot, and somehow managed to looknoticeably lovely and distinguished, in the gay assemblies. To brightenthe black gown she wore a rope of pearls, looped twice about her whitethroat, and hanging far below her waist; pearls, as Mrs. Adams remarkedin discouragement later, that "just made you feel what's the use! Shecould wear a kitchen apron with those pearls if she wanted to, everyonewould know she could afford cloth of gold and ermine!"

With this erratic and inexplicable simplicity of dress she combined thefinish of manner, the poise, the ready sympathies of a truly cultivatedand intelligent woman. She could talk, not only of her own personalexperiences, but of the political, and literary, and scientificmovements of the day. Certain proposed state legislation happened to beinteresting the men of Santa Paloma at this time, and she seemed tounderstand it, and spoke readily of it. 

"But, George, " said Mrs. Carew, walking home in the summer night, afterthe Adams dinner, "you have often said you hated women to talk aboutthings they didn't understand. "

"But she does understand, dearie. That's just the point. "

"Yes; but you differed with her, George!"

"Well, but that's different, Jen. She knew what she was talking about. "

"I suppose she has friends in Washington who keep her informed, " saidMrs. Carew, a little discontentedly, after a silence. And there wasanother pause before she said, "Where do men get their information, George?"

"Papers, dear. And talking, I suppose. They're interested, you know. "

"Yes, but--" little Mrs. Carew burst out resentfully, "I never can makehead or tail of the papers! They say 'Aldrich Resigns, ' or 'Heavy Blowto Interests, ' or 'Tammany Scores Triumph, ' and _I_ don't know whatit's about!"

George Carew's big laugh rang out in the night, and he put his armabout her, and said, "You're great, Jen!"

Shortly after Mrs. White's dinner a certain distinguished old artistfrom New York, and his son, came to stay a night or two at Holly Hall, on their way home from the Orient, and Mrs. Burgoyne took this occasionto invite a score of her new friends to two small dinners, planned forthe two nights of the great Karl von Praag's stay in Santa Paloma. 

"I don't see how she's going to handle two dinners for ten people each, with just that colored cook of hers and one waitress, " said Mrs. Willard White, late one evening, when Mr. White was finishing a bookand a cigar in their handsome bedroom, and she was at herdressing-table. 

"Caterers, " submitted Mr. White, turning a page. 

"I suppose so, " his wife agreed. After a thoughtful silence she added, "Sue Adams says that she supposes that when a woman has as much moneyas that she loses all interest in spending it! Personally, I don't seehow she can entertain a great big man like Von Praag in thatold-fashioned house. She never seems to think of it at all, she neverapologizes for it, and she talks as if nobody ever bought new thingsuntil the old were worn out!"

Her eyes went about her own big bedroom as she spoke. Nothingold-fashioned here! Even eighteen years ago, when the Whites weremarried, their home had been furnished in a manner to make the HollyHall of to-day look out of date. Mrs. White shuddered now at the merememory of what she as a bride had thought so beautiful: the pale greencarpet, the green satin curtains, the white-and-gold chairs and tablesand bed, the easels, the gilded frames! Seven or eight years later shehad changed all this for a heavy brass bedstead, and dark rugs on apolished floor, and bird's-eye maple chests and chairs, and allfeminine Santa Paloma talked of the Whites' new things. Six or sevenyears after that again, two mahogany beds replaced the brass one, andheavy mahogany bureaus with glass knobs had their day, with plain netcurtains and old-fashioned woven rugs. But all these were in theguest-rooms now, and in her own bedroom Mrs. White had a complete setof Circassian walnut, heavily carved, and ornamented with cunninglyinset panels of rattan. On the beds were covers of Oriental cottons, and the window-curtains showed the same elementary designs in pinks andblues. 

"She dresses very prettily, I thought, " observed Mr. White, apropos ofhis wife's last remark. 

"Dresses!" echoed his wife. "She dresses as your mother might!"

"Very pretty, very pretty!" said the man absently, over his book. 

There was a silence. Then:

"That just shows how much men notice, " Mrs. White confided to herivory-backed brush. "I believe they LIKE women to look like frumps!"

CHAPTER VII

These were busy days in the once quiet and sleepy office of the SantaPaloma Morning Mail. A wave of energy and vigor swept over the place, affecting everybody from the fat, spoiled office cat, who found himselfpushed out of chairs, and bounced off of folded coats with smallcourtesy, to the new editor-manager and the lady whose timelyinvestment had brought this pleasant change about. Old Kelly, theproof-reader, night clerk, Associated Press manager, and assistanteditor, shouted and swore with a vim unknown of late years; MissWatson, who "covered" social events, clubs, public dinners, "dramatic, "and "hotels, " cleaned out her desk, and took her fancy-work home, and"Fergy, " a freckled youth who delighted in calling himself a "cub, "although he did little more than run errands and carry copy to thepress-room, might even be seen batting madly at an unused typewriterwhen actual duties failed, so inspiring was the new atmosphere. 

Mrs. Burgoyne had a desk and a corner of her own, where her trim figuremight be seen daily for an hour or two, from ten o'clock until thesmall girls came in to pick her up on their way home from school forluncheon. Barry found her brimming with ideas. She instituted the"Women's Page, " the old familiar page of answered questions, andformulas for ginger-bread, and brief romances, and scraps of poetry, and she offered through its columns a weekly cash prize forcontributions on household topics. An exquisite doll appeared in thewindow of the Mail office, a doll with a flower-wreathed hat, and aruffled dress, and a little parasol to match the dress, and loiteringlittle girls, drawn from all over the village to study this dream ofbeauty, learned that they had only to enter a loaf of bread of theirown making in the Mail contest, to stand a chance of carrying thelittle lady home. Beside the doll stood a rifle, no toy, but a genuinetwenty-two Marlin, for the boy whose plans for a vegetable gardenseemed the best and most practical, Mrs. Burgoyne herself talked to thechildren when they came shyly in to investigate. "She seems to want toknow every child in the county, the darling!" said Miss Watson to Fergy. 

The Valentines, father and son, came into the Mail office one warm Junemorning, to find the editor of the "Women's Page" busy at her desk, with the sunlight lying in a bright bar across her uncovered hair, anda vista of waving green boughs showing through the open window behindher. 

"What are you two doing here at this hour?" said Sidney, laying downher pen and leaning back in her chair as if glad of a moment's rest. "Why, Billy!" she added in admiring tones, "let me see you! How very, VERY nice you look!"

For the little fellow was dressed in a new sailor suit that was a fullsize too large for him, his wild mop had been cut far too close, and alarge new hat and new shoes were much in evidence. 

"D'you think he looks all right?" said Barry with an anxiouswistfulness that went straight to her heart. "He looks better, doesn'the? I've been fixing him up. "

"And free sailor waists, and stockings, and nighties, " supplementedBilly, also anxious for her approval. 

"He looks lovely!" said Sidney, enthusiastically, even while she wasmentally raising the collar of his waist, and taking an inch or two offthe trousers. She lifted the child up to sit on his father's desk, andkissed the top of his little cropped head. 

"We may not express ourselves very fluently, " said Barry, who wasseated in his own revolving chair and busily opening and shutting thedrawers of his desk, "but we appreciate the interest beautiful ladiestake in our manners and morals, and the new tooth-brushes they buy us--"

"My dear!" protested Mrs. Burgoyne, between laughter and tears, "Ellenused his old one up, cleaning out their paint-boxes!" And she put herwarm hand on his shoulder, and said, "Don't be a goose, Barry!" asunselfconsciously as a sister might. "Where are you two boys going, Billy?" she asked, going back to her own desk. 

"'Cool, " Billy said. 

"He's going over to the kindergarten. I've got some work I ought tofinish here, " Barry supplemented. "I'll take you across the street, Infant, I'll be right back, Sidney. "

"But, Barry, why are you working now?" asked the lady a few minuteslater when he took his place at his desk. 

"Oh, don't you worry, " he answered, smiling; "I love it. The thought ofold Rogers' face when he opens his paper every morning does me good, I'm writing this appeal for the new reservoir now, and I've got to playup the Flower Festival. "

"I'm not interested in the Flower Festival, " said Mrs. Burgoynegood-naturedly, "and the minute it's over I'm going to start a crusadefor a girls' clubhouse in Old Paloma. Conditions over there for thegirls are something hideous. But I suppose we'll have to go on with theFestival for the present. It's a great occasion, I suppose?"

"Oh, tremendous! The Governor's coming, and thousands of visitorsalways pour into town. We'll have nearly a hundred carriages in theparade, simply covered with flowers, you know. It's lovely! You waituntil things get fairly started!"

"That'll be Fourth of July, " Sidney said thoughtfully, turning back toher exchanges, "I'll begin my clubhouse crusade on the fifth!" sheadded firmly. 

For a long time there was silence in the office, except for therustling of paper and the scratch of pens. From the sunny worldout-of-doors came a pleasant blending of many noises, passing wagons, the low talk of chickens, the slamming of gates, and now and then thenot unmusical note of a fish-horn. Footsteps and laughing voices wentby, and died into silence. The clock from Town Hall Square struckeleven slowly. 

"This is darned pleasant, " said Barry presently, over his work. 

"Isn't it?" said the editor of the "Women's Page, " and again there wassilence. 

After a while Barry said "Finished!" with a great breath, and, leaningback in his chair, wheeled about to find the lady quietly watching him. 

"Barry, are you working too hard?" said she, quite unembarrassed. 

"Am I? Lord, not I wish the days were twice as long. I"--Barry rumpledhis thick hair with a gesture that was familiar to Sidney now--"I guesswork agrees with me. By George, I hate to eat, and I hate to sleep; Iwant to be down here all the time, or else rustling up subscriptionsand 'ads. ', "

"And I thought you were lazy, " said Sidney, finding herself, for thefirst time in their friendship, curiously inclined to keep theconversation personal, this warm June morning. It was a thing extremelydifficult to do, with Barry. "You certainly gave me that impression, "she said. 

"Yes; but that was two months ago, " said Barry, off guard. A secondlater he changed the topic abruptly by asking, "Did your roses come?"

"All of them, " answered Sidney pleasantly. And vaguely conscious ofmischief in the air, but led on by some inexplicable whim, she pursued, "Do you mean that it makes such a difference to you, Rogers being gone?"

Barry trimmed the four sides of a clipping with four clips of hisshears. 

"Exactly, " said he briefly. He banged a drawer shut, closed a book andlaid it aside, and stuck the brush into his glue-pot. "Getting enoughof dinner parties?" he asked then, cheerfully. 

"Too much, " said Sidney, wondering why she felt like a reprimandedchild. "And that reminds me: I am giving two dinners for the VonPraags, you know. I can't manage everybody at once; I hate more thanten people at a dinner. And you are asked to the first. "

"I don't go much to dinners, " Barry said. 

"I know you don't; but I want you to come to this one, " said Sidney. "You'll love old Mr. Von Praag. And Richard, the son, is a dear! Ireally want you. "

"He's an artist, too, isn't he?" said Barry without enthusiasm. 

"Who, Richard?" she asked, something in his manner putting her a littleat a loss. "Yes; and he's very clever, and so nice! He's like a brotherto me. "

Barry did not answer, but after a moment he said, scowling a little, and not looking up:

"A fellow like that has pretty smooth sailing. Rich, the son of a bigman, traveling all he wants to, studio in New York, clubs--"

"Oh, Richard has his troubles, " Sidney said. "His wife is verydelicate, and they lost their little girl. .. Are you angry with meabout anything, Barry?" she broke off, puzzled and distressed, for thisunresponsive almost sullen manner was unlike anything she had ever seenin him. 

But a moment later he turned toward her with his familiar sunny smile. 

"Why didn't you say so before?" he said sheepishly. 

"Say--?" she echoed bewilderedly. Then, with a sudden rush ofenlightenment, "Why, Barry, you're not JEALOUS?"

A second later she would have given much to have the words unsaid. Theyfaced each other in silence, the color mounting steadily in Sidney'sface. 

"I didn't mean of ME, " she stammered uncomfortably; "I meant ofeverything. I thought--but it was a silly thing to say. It sounded--Ididn't think--"

"I don't know why you shouldn't have thought it, since I was foolenough to show it, " said Barry after a moment, coming over to her deskand facing her squarely. Sidney stood up, opposite him, her heartbeating wildly. "And I don't know why I shouldn't be jealous, " he wenton steadily, "at the idea that some old friend might come in here andtake you away from Santa Paloma. You asked me if it was old Rogers'going that made a difference to me--"

"I know, " interrupted Sidney, scarlet-cheeked. "PLEASE"--

"But you know better than that, " Barry went on, his voice rising alittle. "You know what you have done for me. If ever I try to speak ofit, you say, as you said about the kid just now, 'My dear boy, I liketo do it. ' But I'm going to say what I mean now, once and for all. Youloaned me money, and it was through your lending it that I got creditto borrow more; you gave me a chance to be my own master; you showedyou had faith in me; you reminded me of the ambition I had as a kid, before Hetty and all that trouble had crushed it out of me; you camedown here to the office and talked and planned, and took it for grantedthat I was going to pull myself together and stop idling, and kicking, and fooling away my time; and all through these six weeks of roughsailing, you've let me go up there to the Hall and tell youeverything--and then you wonder if I could ever be jealous!" His tone, which had risen almost to violence, fell suddenly. He went back to hisdesk and began to straighten the papers there, not seeing what he did. "I never can say anything more to you, Sidney, I've said too much now, "he said a little huskily; "but I'm glad to have you know how I feel. "

Sidney stood quite still, her breath coming and going quickly. She wasfundamentally too honest a woman to meet the situation with one of thehundred insincerities that suggested themselves to her. She knew shewas to blame, and she longed to undo the mischief, and put theirfriendship back where it had been only an hour ago. But the right wordsdid not suggest themselves, and she could only stand silently watchinghim. Barry had opened a book, and, holding it in both hands, wasapparently absorbed in its contents. 

Neither had spoken or moved, and Sidney was meditating a sudden, wordless departure, when Ellen Burgoyne burst noisily into the room. Ellen was a square, splendid child, always conversationally inclined, and never at a loss for a subject. 

"You look as if you wanted to cry, Mother, " said she. "Perhaps youdidn't hear the whistle; school's out. We've been waiting ever so long. Mother, I know you said you hoped Heaven would not send any more dogsour way for a long while, but Jo and Jeanette and I found one by theschool fence. Mother, you will say it has the most pathetic face youever saw when you see it. Its ear was bloody, and it licked Jo's handso GENTLY, and it's such a lit-tul dog! Jo has it wrapped up in hercoat. Mother, may we have it? Please, PLEASE--"

Barry wheeled about with his hearty laugh, and Mrs. Burgoyne, laughingtoo, stopped the eager little mouth with a kiss. 

"It sounds as if we must certainly have him, Baby!" said she. 

CHAPTER VIII

The new mistress of the Hall, in her vigorous young interest in allthings, included naturally a keen enjoyment of the village loveaffairs, she liked to hear the histories of the old families all about, she wanted to know the occupants of every shabby old surrey that drewup at the post-office while the mail was being "sorted. " But if theconversation turned to mere idle talk and speculation, she wasconspicuously silent. And upon an occasion when Mrs. Adams casuallyreferred to a favorite little piece of scandal, Mrs. Burgoyne gave theconversation a sudden twist that, as Mrs. White, who was present, saidlater, "made you afraid to call your soul your own. "

"Do you tell me that that pretty little Thorne girl is actually meetingthis young man, whoever he is, while her mother thinks she is taking amusic lesson?" demanded Mrs. Burgoyne, suddenly entering into theconversation. "There's nothing against him, I suppose? She COULD seehim at home. "

"Oh, no, he's a nice enough little fellow, " Mrs. White said, "but she'sa silly little thing, and I imagine her people are very severe withher; she never goes to dances or seems to have any fun. "

"I wonder if we couldn't go see the mother, and hint that there isbeginning to be a little talk about Katherine, " mused Mrs. Burgoyne. "Don't you think so, Mrs. Adams?"

"Oh, my goodness!" Mrs. Adams said nervously, "I don't KNOW anythingabout it! I wouldn't for the world--I never dreamed--one would hate tostart trouble--Mr. Adams is very fond of the Thornes--"

"But we ought to save her if we can, we married women who know howmischievous that sort of thing is, " Mrs. Burgoyne urged. 

"Why, probably they've not met but once or twice!" Mrs. White said, annoyed, but with a comfortable air of closing the subject, and no morewas said at the time. But both she and Mrs. Adams were a little uneasytwo or three days later, when, returning from a motor trip, they sawMrs. Burgoyne standing at the Thornes' gate, in laughing conversationwith pretty little Katherine and her angular, tall mother. 

"And there is nothing in that story at all, " said Mrs. Burgoyne later, to Mrs. Carew. 

"I suppose you walked up and said, 'If you are Miss Thorne, you areclandestinely meeting Joe Turner down by the old mill every week!'"laughed Mrs. Carew. 

"I managed it very nicely, " Mrs. Burgoyne said, "I admired their yellowrose one day, as I passed the gate. Mrs. Thorne was standing there, andI asked if it wasn't a Banksia. Then the little girl came out of thehouse, and she happened to know who I am--"

"Astonishingly bright child!" said Mrs. Carew. 

"Well, and then we talked roses, and the father came home--a nice oldman. And I asked him if he'd lend me Miss Thorne now and then to playduets--and he agreed. So the child's been up to the Hall once or twice, and she's a nice little thing. She doesn't care tuppence for the Turnerboy, but he's musical, and she's quite music-mad, and now and then they'accidentally' meet. Her father won't let anyone see her at the house. She wants to study abroad, but they can't afford it, I imagine, so I'vewritten to see if I can interest a friend of mine in Berlin--But why doyou smile?" she broke off to ask innocently. 

"At the thought of your friend in Berlin!" said Mrs. Carew audaciously. For she was not at all awed by Mrs. Burgoyne now. 

Indeed, she and Mrs. Brown were growing genuinely fond of their newneighbor, and the occupants of the Hall supplied them with constantamusement and interest. Great lady and great heiress Sidney Burgoynemight be, but she lived a life far simpler than their own, and loved tohave them come in for a few minutes' talk even if she were cutting outcookies, with Joanna and Ellen leaning on the table, or feeding thechickens whose individual careers interested her so deeply. She walkedwith the little girls to school every morning, and met them near theschool at one o'clock. In the meantime she made a visit to the Mailoffice, and perhaps spent an hour or two there, or in the markets; butat least three times a week she wandered over to Old Paloma, and spentthe forenoon in the dingy streets across the river. What she did there, perhaps no one but Doctor Brown, who came to have a real affection andrespect for her, fully appreciated. Mrs. Burgoyne would tell him, whenthey met in some hour of life or death, that she was "making friends. "It was quite true. She was the type of woman who cannot pass a smallchild in the street. She must stop, and ask questions, decide disputesand give advice. And through the children she won the big brothers andsisters and fathers and mothers of Old Paloma. Even a deep-rootedprejudice against the women of her class and their method of dealingwith the less fortunate could not prevail against her disarming, friendly manner, her simple gown and hat, her eagerness to get the newbaby into her arms; all these told in her favor, and she became verypopular in the shabby little settlement across the bridge. She wouldsit at a sewing-machine and show old Mrs. Goodspeed how to turn acertain hem, she would prescribe barley-water and whey for the Barnesbaby, she would explain to Mrs. Ryan the French manner of cooking toughmeat, it is true; but, on the other hand, she let pale littlediscouraged Mrs. Weber, of the Bakery, show her how to make a Germanpotato pie, and when Mrs. Ryan's mother, old Mrs. Lynch, knitted her ashawl, with clean, thin old work-worn hands, the tears came into herbright eyes as she accepted the gift. So it was no more than aneighborly give-and-take after all. Mrs. Burgoyne would fall into stepbeside a factory girl, walking home at sunset. "How was it today, Nellie? Did you speak to the foreman about an opening for your sister?"the rich, interested voice would ask. Or perhaps some factory lad wouldfind her facing him in a lane. "Tell me, Joe, what's all this talk oftrouble between you and the Lacy boys at the rink?"

"I'm a widow, too, " she reminded poor little Mrs. Peevy, one day, "Iunderstand. " "Do let me send you the port wine I used to take afterEllen was born, " she begged one little sickly mother, and when sheloaned George Manning four hundred dollars to finish his new house, andget his wife and babies up from San Francisco, the transaction was madepalatable to George by her encouraging: "Everyone borrows money forbuilding, I assure you. I know my father did repeatedly. "

When more subtle means were required, she was still equal to theoccasion. It was while Viola Peet was in the hospital for a burnedwrist that Mrs. Burgoyne made a final and effective attempt to movepoor little Mrs. Peet out of the bedroom where she had laincomplaining, ever since the accident that had crippled her and killedher husband five years before. Mrs. Burgoyne put it as a "surprise forViola, " and Mrs. Peet, whose one surviving spark of interest in lifecentred in her three children, finally permitted carpenters to come andbuild a porch outside her dining-room, and was actually transferred, one warm June afternoon, to the wide, delicious hammock-bed that Mrs. Burgoyne had hung there. Her eyes, dulled with staring at a chocolatewall-paper, and a closet door, for five years, roved almost angrilyover the stretch of village street visible from the porch; theperspective of tree-smothered roofs and feathery elm and locust trees. 

"'Tisn't a bit more than I'd do for you if I was rich and you poor, "said Mrs. Peet, rebelliously. 

"Oh, I know that!" said Mrs. Burgoyne, busily punching pillows. 

"An', as you say, Viola deserves all I c'n do for her, " pursued theinvalid. "But remember, every cent of this you git back. "

"Every cent, just as soon as Lyman is old enough to take a job, " agreedMrs. Burgoyne. "There, how's that? That's the way Colonel Burgoyneliked to be fixed. "

"You're to make a note of just what it costs, " persisted Mrs. Peet, "this wrapper, and the pillers, and all. "

"Oh, let the wrapper be my present to you, Mrs. Peet!"

"No, MA'AM!" said Mrs. Peet, firmly. And she told the neighbors, later, in the delightfully exciting afternoon and evening that followed herinstallation on the porch, that she wasn't an object of charity, andshe and Mrs. Burgoyne both knew it. Mrs. Burgoyne would not stay to seeViola's face, when she came home from the hospital to find her motherwatching the summer stars prick through the warm darkness, but Violacame up to the Hall that same evening, and tried to thank Mrs. Burgoyne, and laughed and cried at once, and had to be consoled withcookies and milk until the smiles had the upper hand, and she could gohome, with occasional reminiscent sobs still shaking her bony littlechest. 

"What are you trying to do over there?" asked Dr. Brown, coming in withhis wife for a rubber of bridge, as Viola departed. "Whereever I go, Icome across your trail. Are we nursing a socialist in our bosom?"

"No-o-o, I don't think I'm that, " said Sidney laughing, and pushing theporch-chairs into comfortable relation. "Let's sit out here until Mr. Valentine comes. No, I'm not a socialist. But I can't help feeling thatthere's SOME solution for a wretched problem like that over there, " awave of the hand indicated Old Paloma, "and perhaps, dabbling aimlesslyabout in all sorts of places, one of us may hit upon it. "

"But I thought the modern theory was against dabbling, " said Mrs. Brown, a little timidly, for she held a theory that she was not"smart. " "I thought everything was being done by institutions, and bylaws--by legislation. "

"Nothing will ever be done by legislation, to my thinking at least, "Mrs. Burgoyne said. "A few years ago we legislated some thousands ofnew babies into magnificent institutions. Nurses mixed their bottles, doctors inspected them, nurses turned them and washed them and watchedthem. Do you know what percentage survived?"

"Doesn't work very well, " said the doctor, shaking a thoughtful headover his pipe. 

"Just one hundred per cent didn't survive!" said Mrs. Burgoyne. "Nowthey take a foundling or an otherwise unfortunate baby, and give it toa real live mother. She nurses it if she can, she keeps near to it andcuddles it, and loves it. And so it lives. In all the asylums, it's thesame way. Groups are getting smaller and smaller, a dozen girls with amatron in a cottage, and hundreds of girls 'farmed out' with good, responsible women, instead of enormous refectories and dormitories andschoolrooms. And the ideal solution will be when every individual womanin the world extends her mothering to include every young thing shecomes in contact with; one doll for her own child and another doll forthe ashman's little girl, one dimity for her own debutante, and anotherjust as dainty for the seventeen-year-old who brings home the laundryevery week. "

"Yes, but that's puttering here and there, " asserted Mrs. Brown, "wouldn't laws for a working wage do all that, and more, too?"

"In the first place, a working wage doesn't solve it, " Mrs. Burgoyneanswered vigorously, "because in fully half the mismanaged and dirtyhomes, the working people HAVE a working wage, have an amount of moneythat would amaze you! Who buys the willow plumes, and the phonographs, and the enlarged pictures, and the hair combs and the white shoes thatare sold by the million every year? The poor people, girls in shops, and women whose babies are always dirty, and always broken out withskin trouble, and whose homes are hot and dirty and miserable andmismanaged. "

"Well, make some laws to educate 'em then, if it's education they allneed, " suggested the doctor, who had been auditing every clause of thelast remark with a thoughtful nod. 

"No, wages aren't the question, " Mrs. Burgoyne reiterated. "Why, I knewa little Swedish woman once, who raised three children on three hundreddollars a year. "

"She COULDN'T!" ejaculated Mrs. Brown. 

"Oh, but she did! She paid one dollar a week for rent, too. One son isa civil engineer, now, and the daughter is a nurse. The youngest isstudying medicine. "

"But what did they EAT, do you suppose?"

"Oh, I don't know. Potatoes, I suppose, and oatmeal and baked cabbage, and soup. I know she got a quart of buttermilk every day, for threecents. They were beautiful children. They went to free schools, andlectures, and galleries, and park concerts, and free dispensaries, whenthey needed them. Laws could do no more for her, she knew her business. "

"Well, education WOULD solve it then, " concluded Mrs. Brown. 

"I don't know. " Mrs. Burgoyne answered, reflectively, "Book educationwon't certainly. But example might, I believe example would. "

"You mean for people of a better class to go and live among them?"suggested the doctor. 

"No, but I mean for people of a better class to show them that whatthey are striving for isn't vital, after all. I mean for us to so orderour lives that they will begin to value cleanliness, and simplicity, and the comforts they can afford. You know, Mary Brown, " said Mrs. Burgoyne, turning suddenly to the doctor's wife, with her gay, characteristic vehemence, "it's all our fault, all the misery andsuffering and sin of it, everywhere!"

"Our fault! You and me!" cried Mrs. Brown, aghast. 

"No, all the fault of women, I mean!" Mrs. Burgoyne laughed too as Mrs. Brown settled back in her chair with a relieved sigh. "We women, " shewent on vigorously, "have mismanaged every separate work that was everput into our hands! We ought to be ashamed to live. We cumber--"

"Here!" said the doctor, smiling in lazy comfort over his pipe, "that'sheresy! I refuse to listen to it. My wife is a woman, my mother, unlessI am misinformed, was another--"

"Don't mind him!" said Mrs. Brown, "but go on! What have we all done?We manage our houses, and dress our children, and feed our husbands, itseems to me. "

"Well, there's the big business of motherhood, " began Mrs. Burgoyne, "the holiest and highest thing God ever let a mortal do. We evade itand ignore it to such an extent that the nation--and othernations--grows actually alarmed, and men begin to frame laws to coax usback to the bearing of children. Then, if we have them, we turn theentire responsibility over to other people. A raw little foreigner ofsome sort answers the first questions our boys and girls ask, untilthey are old enough to be put under some nice, inexperienced young girljust out of normal school, who has fifty or sixty of them to manage, and of whose ideas upon the big questions of life we know absolutelynothing. We say lightheartedly that 'girls always go through a tryingage, ' and that we suppose boys 'have to come in contact with things, 'and we let it go at that! We 'suppose there has always been vice, andalways will be, ' but we never stop to think that we ourselves aresetting the poor girls of the other world such an example in theclothes we wear, and the pleasures we take, that they will sell eventhemselves for pretty gowns and theatre suppers. We regret sweat-shops, even while we patronize the stores that support them, and we bemoanchild-labor, although I suppose the simplest thing in the world wouldbe to find out where the cotton goes that is worked by babies, andrefuse to buy those brands of cotton, and make our merchants tell uswhere they DO get their supply! We have managed our household problemso badly that we simply can't get help--"

"You CANNOT do your own work, with children, " said Mrs. Brown firmly. 

"Of course you can't. But why is it that our nice young American girlswon't come into our homes? Why do we have to depend upon the mostignorant and untrained of our foreign people? Our girls pour into thefactories, although our husbands don't have any trouble in gettingtheir brothers for office positions. There is always a line of boyswaiting for a possible job at five dollars a week. "

"Because they can sleep at home, " submitted the doctor. 

"You know that, other things being equal, young people would muchrather not sleep at home, " said Mrs. Burgoyne, "it's the migrating age. They love the novelty of being away at night. "

"Well, when a boy comes into my office, " the doctor reasoned slowly, "he knows that he has certain unimportant things to do, but he sees metaking all the real responsibility, he knows that I work harder than hedoes. "

"Exactly, " said Mrs. Burgoyne. "Men do their own work, with help. Wedon't do ours. Not only that, but every improvement that comes to ourscomes from men. They invent our conveniences, they design our stovesand arrange our sinks. Not because they know anything about it, butbecause we're not interested. "

"One would think you had done your own work for twenty years!" saidMrs. Brown. 

"I never did it, " Mrs. Burgoyne answered smiling, "but I sometimes wishI could. I sometimes envy those busy women who have small houses, newbabies, money cares--it must be glorious to rise to fresh emergenciesevery hour of your life. A person like myself is handicapped. I can'tdemonstrate that I believe what I say. Everyone thinks me merely alittle affected about it. If I were such a woman, I'd glory in clippingmy life of everything but the things I needed, and living like one ofmy own children, as simply as a lot of peasants!"

"And no one would ever be any the wiser, " said Mrs. Brown. 

"I don't know. Quiet little isolated lives have a funny way of gettingout into the light. There was that little peasant girl at Domremy, forinstance; there was that gentle saint who preached poverty to thebirds; there was Eugenie Guerin, and the Cure of Ars, and the fewobscure little English weavers--and there was the President who split--"

"I thought we'd come to him!" chuckled the doctor. 

"Well, " Mrs. Burgoyne smiled, a little confused at having betrayedhero-worship. "Well, and there was one more, the greatest of all, whodidn't found any asylums, or lead any crusade--" She paused. 

"Surely, " said the doctor, quietly. "Surely. I suppose that curing thelame here, and the blind there, and giving the people their fill ofwine one day, and of bread and fishes the next, might be called'dabbling' in these days. But the love that went with those things iswarming the world yet!"

"Well, but what can we DO?" demanded Mrs. Brown after a short silence. 

"That's for us to find out, " said Mrs. Burgoyne, cheerfully. 

"A correct diagnosis is half a cure, " ended the doctor, hopefully. 

CHAPTER IX

Barry was the last guest to reach Holly Hall on the evening of Mrs. Burgoyne's first dinner-party, and came in to find the great painterwho was her guest the centre of a laughing and talking group in thelong drawing-room. Mrs. Apostleman, with an open book of reproductionsfrom Whistler on her broad, brocade lap, had the armchair next to theguest of honor, and Barry's quick look for his hostess discovered heron a low hassock at the painter's knee, looking very young and fresh, in her white frock, with a LaMarque rose at her belt and another in herdark hair. She greeted him very gravely, almost timidly, and in the newself-consciousness that had suddenly come to them both it was withdifficulty that even the commonplace words of greeting wereaccomplished, and it was with evident relief that she turned from himto ask her guests to come into the dining-room. 

Warm daylight was still pouring into the drawing-room at seven o'clock, and in the pleasant dining-room, too, there was no other light. Thewindows here were wide open, and garden scents drifted in from therecently watered flower-beds. The long table, simply set, wasornamented only by low bowls of the lovely San Rafael roses. 

Guided and stimulated by the hostess, the conversation ran in a gay, unbroken stream, for the painter liked to talk, and Santa Palomaenjoyed him. But under it all the women guests were aware of an almostresentful amazement at the simplicity of the dinner. When, after nineo'clock, the ladies went into the drawing-room and settled about asnapping wood fire, Mrs. Lloyd could not resist whispering to Mrs. Apostleman, "For a COMPANY dinner!" Mrs. Adams was entirely absorbed indeciding just what position she would take when Mrs. White alluded tothe affair the next day; but Mrs. White had come primed for specialbusiness this evening, and she took immediate advantage of the absenceof the men to speak to Mrs. Burgoyne. 

"As president of our little club, " said she, when they were all seated, "I am authorized to ask you if I may put your name up for membership, Mrs. Burgoyne. We are all members here, and in this quiet place ourmeetings are a real pleasure, and I hope an education as well. "

"Oh, really--!" Mrs. Burgoyne began, but the other went on serenely:

"I brought one of our yearly programs, we have just got them out, andI'm going to leave it with you. I think Mr. White left it here on thetable. Yes; here it is. You see, " she opened a dainty little book andflattened it with a white, jeweled hand, "our work is all laid out, upto the president's breakfast in March. I go out then, and a week laterwe inaugurate the new president. Let me just run over this for you, forI KNOW it will interest you. Now here, Tuesdays. Tuesday is our regularmeeting day. We have a program, music, and books suggested for theweek, reports, business, and one good paper--the topics vary; here's'Old Thanksgiving Customs, ' in November, then a debate, 'What isFriendship, ' then 'Christmas Spirit, ' and then our regular ChristmasTree and Jinks. Once a month, on Tuesday, we have some really finespeaker from the city, and we often have fine singers, and so on. Thenwe have a monthly reception for our visitors, and a supper; usually wejust have tea and bread-and-butter after the meetings. Then, firstMonday, Directors' Meeting; that doesn't matter. Every other Wednesdaythe Literary Section meets, they are doing wonderful work; Miss Fosterhas that; she makes it very interesting. 'What English Literature Owesto Meredith, ' 'Rossetti, the Man, '--you see I'm just skimming, to giveyou some idea. Then the Dramatic Section, every other Thursday; theygive a play once a year; that's great fun! 'Ibsen--Did he UnderstandWomen?' 'Please Explain--Mr. Shaw?'--Mrs. Moore makes that veryamusing. Then alternate Thursdays the Civic and Political Section--"

"Ah! What does that do?" said Mrs. Burgoyne. 

"Why, " said Mrs. White hesitating, "I haven't been--however, I thinkthey took up the sanitation of the schools; Miss Jewett, fromSacramento, read a splendid paper about it. There's a committee to lookinto that, and then last year that section planted a hundred trees. Andthen there's parliamentary drill. "

"Which we all need, " said Mrs. Adams, and there was laughter. 

"Then there's the Art Department once a month, " resumed Mrs. White, "Founders' Day, Old-Timers' Day, and, in February, we think JudgeLindsey may address us--"

"Oh, are you doing any juvenile-court work?" said the hostess. 

"We wanted his suggestions about it, " Mrs. White said. "We feel that ifwe COULD get some of the ladies interested--! Then here's the Frenchclass once a week; German, Spanish, and the bridge club on Fridays. "

"Gracious! You use your clubhouse, " said Mrs. Burgoyne. 

"Nearly every day. So come on Tuesday, " said the president winningly, "and be our guest. A Miss Carroll is to sing, and Professor Noyesmith, of Berkeley, will read a paper on: 'The City Beautiful. ' Keep thatyear-book; I butchered it, running through it so fast. "

"Well, just now, " Mrs. Burgoyne began a little hesitatingly, "I'mrather busy. I am at the Mail office while the girls are in school, youknow, and we have laid out an enormous lot of gardening for afternoons. They never tire of gardening if I'm with them, but, of course, nochildren will do that sort of thing alone; and it's doing them both somuch good that I don't want to stop it. Then they study German andItalian with me, and on Saturday have a cooking lesson. You see, mytime is pretty full. "

"But a good governess would take every bit of that off your hands, medear, " said Mrs. Apostleman. 

"Oh, but I love to do it!" protested Mrs. Burgoyne with her wide-eyed, childish look. "You can't really buy for them what you can do yourself, do you think so? And now the other children are beginning to come in, and it's such fun! But that isn't all. I have editorial work to do, besides the Mail, you know. I manage the 'Answers to Mothers' column ina little eastern magazine. I daresay you've never seen it; it is quiteunpretentious, but it has a large circulation. And these mothers writeme, some of them factory-workers, or mothers of child-workers even, orlonely women on some isolated ranch; you've no idea how interesting itis! Of course they don't know who I am, but we become good friends, just the same. I have the best reference books about babies andsickness, and I give them the best advice I can. Sometimes it's a boy'stext-book that is wanted, or a second-hand crib, or some dear oldmother to get into a home, and they are so self-respecting about it, and so afraid they aren't paying fair--I love that work! But, ofcourse, it takes time. Then I've been hunting up a music-teacher forthe girls. I can't teach them that--"

"I meant to speak to you of that, " Mrs. White said. "There's a MonsieurPosti, Emil Posti, he studied with Leschetizky, you know, who comes upfrom San Francisco every other week, and we all take from him. Inbetween times--"

"Oh, but I've engaged a nice little Miss Davids from Old Paloma, " saidMrs. Burgoyne. 

"From Old Paloma!" echoed three women together. And Mrs. Apostlemanadded heavily, "Never heard of her!"

"I got a good little Swedish sewing-woman over there, " the hostessexplained, "and she told me of this girl. She's a sweet girl; nomother, and a little sister to bring up. She was quite pleased. "

"But, good heavens! What does she know? What's her method?" demandedMrs. White in puzzled disapproval. 

"She has a pretty touch, " Mrs. Burgoyne said mildly, "and she'sbristling with ambition and ideas. She's not a genius, perhaps; but, then, neither is either of the girls. I just want them to play fortheir own pleasure, read accompaniments; something of that sort. Don'tyou know how popular the girl who can play college songs always is at ahouse-party?"

"Well, really--" Mrs. White began, almost annoyed; but she broke hersentence off abruptly, and Mrs. Apostleman filled the pause. 

"Whatever made ye go over there for a dress-maker?" she demanded. "Wenever think of going there. There's a very good woman here, in the BankBuilding--"

"Madame Sorrel, " supplemented Mrs. Adams. 

"She's fearfully independent, " Mrs. Lloyd contributed; "but she's good. She made your pink, didn't she, Sue? Wayne said she did. "

Mrs. Adams turned pink herself; the others laughed suddenly. 

"Oh, you naughty girl!" Mrs. White said. "Did you tell Wayne you gotthat frock in Santa Paloma?"

"What Wayne doesn't know won't hurt him, " said his wife. "Sh! Here theycome!" And the conversation terminated abruptly, with much laughter. 

Mrs. Burgoyne's dinner-party dispersed shortly after ten o'clock, somuch earlier than was the custom in Santa Paloma that none of theordered motor-cars were in waiting. The guests walked home together, absorbed in an animated conversation; for the gentlemen, who weredelighted to be getting home early, delighted with a dinner that, asWayne Adams remarked, "really stood for something to eat, not justthings passed to you, or put down in dabs before you, " and delightedwith the pleasant informality of sitting down in daylight, wereenthusiastic in their praise of Mrs. Burgoyne. The ladies differed withthem. 

"She knows how to do things, " said Parker Lloyd. "Old Von Praag himselfsaid that she was a famous dinner-giver. "

"I don't know what you'd say, Wayne, " said Mrs. Adams patiently, "if_I_ asked people to sit down to the dinner we had to-night! Of coursewe haven't eight millions, but I would be ashamed to serve a cocktail, a soup--I frankly admit it was delicious--steaks, plain lettuce salad, and fruit. I don't count coffee and cheese. No wines, no entrees; Ithink it was decidedly QUEER. "

"I wish some of you others would try it, " said Willard Whiteunexpectedly. "I never get dinners like that, except at the club, downin town. The cocktail was a rare sherry, the steaks were broiled to aturn, and the salad dressing was a wonder. She had her cheese just ripeenough, and samovar coffee to wind up with--what more do you want? Iserve wine myself, but champagne keeps you thirsty all night, and otherwines put me to sleep. I don't miss wine! I call it a bang-up dinner, don't you, Parker?"

Parker Lloyd, with his wife on his arm, felt discretion his part. 

"Well, " he said innocently selecting the one argument most distastefulto the ladies, "it was a man's dinner, Will. It was just what a manlikes, served the way he likes it. But if the girls like flummery andfuss, I don't see why they shouldn't have it. "

"Really!" said Mrs. White with a laugh that showed a trace of somethingnot hilarious, "really, you are all too absurd! We are a long way fromthe authorities here, but I think we will find out pretty soon thatsimple dinners have become the fad in Washington, or Paris, and thatyour marvelous Mrs. Burgoyne is simply following the fashion like allthe rest of us. "

CHAPTER X

Barry had murmured something about "rush of work at the office" when hecame in a few minutes late for Mrs. Burgoyne's dinner, but as theevening wore on, he seemed in no hurry to depart. Sidney was delightedto see him really in his element with the Von Praags, father and son, the awakened expression that was so becoming to him on his face, andhis curiously complex arguments stirring the old man over and overagain to laughter. She had been vexed at herself for feeling a littleshyness when he first came in; the unfamiliar evening dress and thegravity of his handsome face had made him seem almost a stranger, butthis wore off, and after the other guests had gone these four still satlaughing and talking like the best of old friends together. 

When the Von Praags had gone upstairs, she walked with him to theporch, and they stood at the top of the steps for a moment, the richscent of the climbing LaMarque and Banksia roses heavy about them, andthe dark starry arch of the sky above. Sidney, a little tired, butpleased with her dinner and her guests, and ready for a breath of thesweet summer night before going upstairs, was confused by having herheart suddenly begin to thump again. She looked at Barry, his figurelost in the shadow, only his face dimly visible in the starlight, andsome feeling, new, young, terrifying, and yet infinitely delicious, rushed over her. She might have been a girl of seventeen instead of asober woman fifteen years older, with wifehood, and motherhood, andwidowhood all behind her. 

"A wonderful night!" said Barry, looking down at the dark mass oftree-tops that almost hid the town, and at the rising circle of shadowsthat was the hills. 

"And a good place to be, Santa Paloma, " Sidney added, contentedly. "It's my captured dream, my own home and garden!" With her head restingagainst one of the pillars of the porch, her eyes dreamily moving fromthe hills to the sky and over the quiet woods, she went onthoughtfully: "You know I never had a home, Barry; and when I visitedhere, I began to realize what I was missing. How I longed for SantaPaloma, the creek, and the woods, and my little sunny room after I wentaway! But even when I was eighteen, and we took a house in Washington, what could I do? I 'came out, ' you know. I loved gowns and partiesthen, as I hope the girls will some day; but I knew all the while itwasn't living. " She paused, but Barry did not speak. "And, then, beforeI was twenty, I was married, " Sidney went on presently, "and we startedoff for St. Petersburg. And after that, for years and years, I posedfor dressmakers; I went the round of jewelers, and milliners, andmanicures; I wrote notes and paid calls. I let one strange woman comein every day and wash my hands for me, and another wash my hair, and athird dress me! I let men--who were in the business simply to makemoney, and who knew how to do it!--tell me that my furs must be recut, or changed, and my jewels reset, and my wardrobe restocked and myfurniture carried away and replaced. And in the cities we lived in it'shorrifying to see how women slave, and toil, and worry to keep up. Halfthe women I knew were sick over debts and the necessity for more debts. I felt like saying, with Carlyle, 'Your chaos-ships must excuse me';I'm going back to Santa Paloma, to wear my things as long as they arewhole and comfortable, and do what I want to do with my spare time!"

"You missed your playtime, " Barry said; "now you make the most of it. "

"Oh, no!" she answered, giving him a glimpse of serious eyes in thehalf-dark, "playtime doesn't come back. But, at least, I know what Iwant to do, and it will be more fun than any play. One of the wisestmen I ever knew set me thinking of these things. He's a sculptor, agreat sculptor, and he lives in an olive garden in Italy, and eats whathis peasants eat, and befriends them, and stands for their babies inbaptism, and sits with them when they're dying. My father and I visitedhim about two years ago, and one day when he and I were taking a tramp, I suddenly burst out that I envied him. I wanted to live in an olivegarden, too, and wear faded blue clothes, and eat grapes, and trampabout the hills. He said very simply that he had worked for twentyyears to do it. 'You see, I'm a rich man, ' he said, 'and it seems thatone must be rich in this world before one dare be poor from choice. Icouldn't do this if people didn't know that I could have an apartmentin Paris, and servants, and motor-cars, and all the rest of it. Itwould hurt my daughters and distress my friends. There are hundreds andthousands of unhappy people in the world who can't afford to be poor, and if ever you get a chance, you try it. You'll never be rich again. 'So I wrote him about a month ago that I had found MY olive garden, "finished Sidney contentedly, "and was enjoying it. "

"Captain Burgoyne was older than you, Sid?" Barry questioned. "Wouldn'the have loved this sort of life?"

"Twenty years older, yes; but he wouldn't have lived here for one DAY!"she answered vivaciously. "He was a diplomat, a courtier to hisfinger-tips. He was born to the atmosphere of hothouse flowers, andsalons, and delightful little drawing-room plots and gossip. He lovedpolitics, and power, and women in full dress, and men with orders. Ofcourse I was very new to it all, but he liked to spoil me, draw me out. If it hadn't been for his accident, I never would have grown up at all, I dare say. As it was, I was more like his mother. We went toWashington for the season, New York for the opera, England for autumnvisits, Paris for the spring: I loved to make him happy, Barry, and hewasn't happy except when we were going, going, going. He wasexceptionally popular; he had exceptional friends, and he couldn't goanywhere without me. My babies were with his mother--"

She paused, turning a white rose between her fingers. "And afterwards, "she said presently, "there was Father. And Father never would spend twonights in the same place if he could help it. "

"I wasn't drawn back here as you were, " said Barry thoughtfully, "Iliked New York; I could have made good there if I'd had a chance. Itmade me sick to give it up, then; but lately I've been feelingdifferently. A newspaper's a pretty influential thing, wherever it is. I've been thinking about that clubhouse plan of yours; I wish to theLord that we could do something for those poor kids over there. You'reright. Those girls have rotten homes. The whole family gathers in theparlor right after dinner. Pa takes his shoes off, and props his socksup before the stove; Ma begins to hear a kid his spelling; and otherkids start the graphophone, and Aggie is expected to ask her young manto walk right in. So after that she meets him in the street, and thegirls begin to talk about Aggie. "

"Oh, Barry, I'm so glad you're interested!" Standing a step above him, Sidney's ardent face was very close to his own. "Of course we can doit, " she said. 

"We!" he echoed almost bitterly. "YOU'LL do it; you're the one--" Hebroke off with a short, embarrassed laugh. "I was going to cut thatsort of thing out, " he said gruffly, "but all roads lead to Rome, itseems. I can't talk to you five minutes without--and I've got to go. Isaid I'd look in at the office. "

"You seem to be afraid to be friendly lately, Barry, " said Mrs. Burgoyne in a hurt voice, flinging away the rose she had been holding, "but don't you think our friendship means something to me, too? I don'tlike you to talk as if I did all the giving and you all the taking. Idon't know how the girls and I would get along without your advice andhelp here at the Hall. I think, " her voice broke into a troubled laugh, "I think you forget that the quality of friendship is not strained. "

"Sidney, " he said with sudden resolution, turning to face her bravely, "I can't be just friends with you. You're so much the finest, so muchthe best--" He left the sentence unfinished, and began again: "You havea hundred men friends; you can't realize what you mean to me. You--butyou know what you are, and I'm the editor of a mortgaged country paper, a man who has made a mess of things, who can't take care of his kid, orhimself, on his job without help--"

"Barry--" she began breathlessly, but he interrupted her. 

"Listen to me, " he said huskily, taking both her warm hands in his, "Iwant to tell you something. Say that I WAS weak enough to forget allthat, your money and my poverty, your life and my life, everything thatputs you as far above me as the moon and stars; say that I could dothat--although I hope it's not true--even then--even then I'm not free, Sidney. There is Hetty, you know; there is Billy's mother--"

There was a silence. Sidney slowly freed her hands, laid one upon herheart as unconsciously as a hurt child, and the other upon hisshoulder. Her troubled eyes searched his face. 

"Barry, " she said with a little effort, "have I been mistaken inthinking Billy's mother was dead?"

"Everyone thinks so, " he answered with a quick rush of words thatshowed how great the relief of speech was. "Even up in Hetty's hometown, Plumas, they think so. I wrote home that Hetty had left me, andthey drew their own conclusions. It was natural enough; she was neverstrong. She was always restless and unhappy, wanted to go on the stage. She did go on the stage, you know; her mother advised it, and she--justleft me. We were in New York, then; Bill was a little shaver; I washaving a hard time with a new job. It was an awful time! After a fewmonths I brought Bill back here--he wasn't very well--and then I foundthat everyone thought Hetty was dead. Then her mother wrote me, andsaid that Hetty had taken a stage-name, and begged me to let people goon thinking she was dead, and, more for the kid's sake than Hetty's, Ilet things stand. But Hetty's in California now; she and her motherlive in San Francisco; she is still studying singing, I believe. Shegets the rent from two flats I have there. But she never writes. Andthat, " he finished grimly, "is the last chapter of my history. "

Sidney still stood close to him, earnest, fragrant, lovely, in herwhite gown. And even above the troubled tumult of his thoughts Barryhad time to think how honest, how unaffected she was, to stand so, making no attempt to disguise the confusion in her own mind. For a longtime there was no sound but the vague stir of the night about them, thefaint breath of some wandering breeze, the rustling flight of somesmall animal in the dark, the far-hushed, village sounds. 

"Thank you, Barry, " Sidney said at length. "I'm sorry. I am glad youtold me. Good-night. "

"Good-night, " he said almost inaudibly. He ran down the steps andplunged into the dark avenue without a backward look. Sidney turnedslowly, and slowly entered the dimly lighted hall, and shut the door. 

CHAPTER XI

"Come down here--we're down by the river!" called Mrs. Burgoyne, fromthe shade of the river bank, where she and Mrs. Lloyd were busy withtheir sewing. "The American History section is entertaining the club. "

"You look studious!" laughed Mrs. Brown, coming across the grass, toput the Brown baby upon his own sturdy legs from her tired arms, andsink into a deep lawn chair. The June afternoon was warm, but it wasdelightfully cool by the water. "Is that the club?" she asked, wavingtoward the group of children who were wading and splashing in theshallows of the loitering river. 

"That's the American History Club, " responded Mrs. Burgoyne, as sheflung her sewing aside and snatched the baby. "Paul, " said she, kissinghis warm, moist neck, "do you truly love me a little bit?"

"Boy ge' down, " said Paul, struggling violently. 

"Yes, you shall, darling. But listen, do you want to hear thetick-tock? Oh, Paul, sit still just one minute!"

"Awn ge' DOWN, " said Paul, distinctly, every fibre of his small beingheaded, as it were, for the pebbly shingle where it was daily hisdelight to dig. 

"But say 'deck' first, sweetheart, say 'Deck, I love you, '" besoughtthe mistress of the Hall. 

"Deck!" shouted Paul obediently, eyes on the river. 

"And a sweet kiss!" further stipulated Mrs. Burgoyne, and grabbed itfrom his small, red, unresponsive mouth before she let him toddle away. "Yes, " she resumed, going on with the tucking of a small skirt, "Joannaand Jeanette and the Adams boy have to write an essay this week aboutthe Battle of Bunker Hill, so I read them Holmes' poem, and they actedit all out. You never saw anything so delicious. Mrs. Lloyd came upjust in time to see Mabel limping about as the old Corporal! The cherrytree was the steeple, of course, and both your sons, you'll be ashamedto hear, were redcoats. Next week they expect to do Paul Revere, and Idaresay we'll have the entire war, before we're through. You are bothcordially invited. "

"I'll come, " said the doctor's wife, smiling. "I love this garden. Andto take care of the boys and have a good time myself is more than Iever thought I'd do in this life!"

"I live on this bank, " said Mrs. Burgoyne, leaning back luxuriously inher big chair, to stare idly up through the apple-tree to the blue sky. "I'm going to teach the children all their history and poetry andmyths, out here. It makes it so real to them, to act it. Jo and Ellenand I read Barbara Frietchie out here a few weeks ago, and they'vewanted it every day or two, since. "

"We won't leave anything for the schools to do, " said little Mrs. Brown. 

"All the better, " Mrs. Burgoyne said, cheerfully. 

"Well, excuse me!" Mrs. Lloyd, holding the linen cuff she wasembroidering at arm's length, and studying it between half-closed lids. "I am only too glad to turn Mabel over to somebody else part of thetime. You don't know what she is when she begins to ask questions!"

"I don't know anything more tiring than being with children day in andday out, " said Mrs. Brown, "it gets frightfully on your nerves!"

"Oh, I'd like about twelve!" said Mrs. Burgoyne. 

"Oh, Mrs. Burgoyne! You WOULDN'T!"

"Yes, I would, granted a moderately secure income, and a rather roomycountry home. Although, " added Mrs. Burgoyne, temperately, "I dohonestly think twelve children is too big a family. However, one may begreedy in wishes!"

"Would you want a child of yours to go without proper advantages, " saidMrs. Lloyd, a little severely, "would you want more than one or two, ifyou honestly felt you couldn't give them all that other children have?Would you be perfectly willing to have your children feel at adisadvantage with all the children of your friends? I wouldn't, " sheanswered herself positively, "I want to do the best by Mabel, I wanther to have everything, as she grows up, that a girl ought to have. That's why all this nonsense about the size of the American familymakes me so tired! What's the use of bringing a lot of children intothe world that are going to suffer all sorts of privations when theyget here?"

"Privations wouldn't hurt them, " said Mrs. Burgoyne, sturdily, "if itwas only a question of patched boots and made-over clothes and plainfood. They could even have everything in the world that's worth while. "

"How do you mean?" said Mrs. Lloyd, promptly defensive. 

"I'd gather them about me, " mused Sidney Burgoyne, dreamily, her eyeson the sky, a whimsical smile playing about her mouth, "I'd gather allseven together--"

"Oh, you've come down to seven?" chuckled Mrs. Brown. 

"Well, seven's a good Biblical number, " Mrs. Burgoyne said serenely, "--and I'd say 'Children, all music is yours, all art is yours, allliterature is yours, all history and all philosophy is waiting to proveto you that in starting poor, healthy, and born of intelligent anddevoted parents, you have a long head-start in the race of life. Alllife is ahead of you, friendships, work, play, tramps through the greencountry in the spring, fires in winter, nights under the summer stars. Choose what you like, and work for it, your father and I can keep youwarm and fed through your childhoods, and after that, nothing can stopyou if you are willing to work and wait. "

"And then suppose your son asks you why he can't go camping with theother boys in summer school, and your daughter wants to join thecotillion?" asked Mrs. Lloyd. 

"Why, it wouldn't hurt them to hear me say no, " said Mrs. Burgoyne, insurprise. "I never can understand why parents, who practise everyimaginable self-denial themselves, are always afraid the firstrenunciation will kill their child. Sooner or later they are going tolearn what life is. I know a little girl whose parents aremulti-millionaires, and who is going to be told some day soon that hertwo older sisters aren't living abroad, as she thinks, but shut up forlife, within a few miles of her. What worse blow could life give to thepoorest girl?"

"Horrors!" murmured Mrs. Brown. 

"And those are common cases, " Mrs. Burgoyne said eagerly, "I knew of somany! Pretty little girls at European watering-places whose mothers arespending thousands, and hundreds of thousands of dollars to get out oftheir blood what no earthly power can do away with. Sons of richfathers whose valets themselves wouldn't change places with them! Andthen the fine, clean, industrious middle-classes--or upper classes, really, for the blood in their veins is the finest in the world--areafraid to bring children into the world because of dancing cotillionsand motor-cars!"

"Well, of course I have only four, " said Mrs. Brown, "but I've beenmarried only seven years--"

Mrs. Burgoyne laughed, came to a full stop, and reddened a little asshe went back busily to her sewing. 

"Why do you let me run on at such a rate; you know my hobbies now!" shereproached them. "I am not quite sane on the subject of what ought tobe done--and isn't--in that good old institution called woman's sphere. "

"That sounds vaguely familiar, " said Mrs. Lloyd. 

"Woman's sphere? Yes, we hate the sound of it, " said Mrs. Burgoyne, "just as a man who has left his family hates to talk of home ties, andjust as a deserter hates the conversation to come around to the army. But it's true. Our business is children, and kitchens, and husbands, and meals, and we detest it all--"

"I like my husband a little, " said Mrs. Brown, in a meek little voice. 

They all laughed. Then said Mrs. Lloyd, gazing sentimentally toward theriver bank, where her small daughter's twisted curls were tossing madlyin a game of "tag":

"I shall henceforth regard Mabel as a possible Joan of Arc. "

"One of those boys MAY be a Lincoln, or a Thomas Edison, or a MarkTwain, " Sidney Burgoyne added, half-laughing, "and then we'll feel justa little ashamed for having turned him complacently over to a nurse ora boarding school. Of course, it leaves us free to go to the club andhear a paper on the childhood of Napoleon, carefully compiled yearsafter his death. Why, men take heavy chances in their work, they followup the slightest opening, but we women throw away opportunities to begreat, every day of our lives! Scientists and theorists are spendingyears of their lives pondering over every separate phase of thedevelopment of children, but we, who have the actual material in ourhands, turn it over to nursemaids!"

"Yes, but lots of children disappoint their parents bitterly, " saidMrs. Brown, "and lots of good mothers have bad children!"

"I never knew a good mother to have a bad child--" began Mrs. Burgoyne. 

"Well, I have. Thousands, " Mrs. Lloyd said promptly. 

"Oh, no! Not a BAD child, " her hostess said, quickly. "A disappointingchild perhaps, or a strong-willed child, you mean. But no goodmother--and that doesn't mean merely a good woman, or a church-goingwoman!--could possibly have a really bad child. 'By their fruits, ' youknow. And then of course we haven't a perfect system of nurserytraining yet; we expect angels. We judge by little, inessential things, we're exacting about unimportant trifles. We don't want our sons tomarry little fluffy-headed dolls, although the dolls may make them verygood wives. We don't want them to make a success of real estate, if thetradition of the house is for the bar or the practice of medicine. Andwe lose heart at the first suspicion of bad company, or of drinking;although the best men in the world had those temptations to fight! But, anyway, I would rather try at that and fail, than do anything else inthe world. My failures at least might save some other woman's children. And it's just that much more done for the world than guarding thevaluable life of a Pomeranian, or going to New York for new furs!" Theyall laughed, for Mrs. Willard White's latest announcement of her planshad awakened some comment among them. 

"Mother, am I interrupting you?" said a patient voice at this point. Ellen Burgoyne, rosy, dishevelled, panting, stood some ten feet away, waiting patiently a chance to enter the conversation. 

"No, my darling. " Her mother held out a welcoming hand. "Oh, I see, "she added, glancing at her watch. "It's half-past four. Yes, you can goup for the gingerbread now. You mustn't carry the milk, you know, Ellen. "

"Mother, " said Ellen, flashing into radiance at the slightestencouragement, "have you told them about our Flower Festibul plans?"

"Oh, not yet!" Mrs. Burgoyne heaved a great sigh. "I'm afraid I'vecommitted myself to an entry for the parade, " she told the othersruefully. 

"Oh, don't tell me you're going to compete!" exclaimed Mrs. Brown. 

"Well, we're rather afraid we are!" Mrs. Burgoyne's voice, if fearful, was hopeful too, for Ellen's face was a study. "Why, is it such aterrible effort?"

"Oh, yes, it's an appalling amount of struggle and fuss, there's allsorts of red tape, and the flowers are so messy, " answered the doctor'swife warningly, "and this year will be worse than ever. The Women'sClub of Apple Creek is going to enter a carriage, and you know our clubis to have the White's motor; it will be perfectly exquisite! It's tobe all pink carnations, and Mr. White's nephew, a Berkeley boy, andsome of his friends, all in white flannels, are going to run it. Doctorsays there'll be a hundred entries this year. "

"Well, I'm afraid I'm in for it, " said Mrs. Burgoyne, with a sigh. "Ihaven't the least idea in the world what I'm going to do. It isn't asif we even had a surrey. But I really was involved before I had time tothink. You know I've been trying, with some of my spare time, " her eyestwinkled, "to get hold of these little factory and cannery girls overin Old Paloma. "

"You told me, " said Mrs. Brown, "but I don't see how that--"

"Well, you see, their ringleader has been particularly ungracious tome. A fine, superb, big creature she is, named Alice Carter. This Alicecame up to the children and me in the street the other day, and toldme, in the gruffest manner, that she was interested in a littlecrippled girl over there, and had promised to take her to see theFlower Festival. But it seems the child's mother was afraid to trusther to Alice in the crowd and heat. Quite simply she asked me if Icould manage it. I was tremendously touched, and we went to see thechild. She's a poor, brave little scrap--twelve years old, did she say, Baby?"

"Going on thirteen, " said Ellen rapidly; "and her father is dead, andher mother works, and she takes care of such a fat baby, and she isvery gen-tul with him, isn't she, Mother? And she cried when Mothergave her books, and she can't eat her lunch because her back aches, butshe gave the baby his lunch, and Mother asked her if she would let adoctor fix her back, and she said, 'Oh, no!'--didn't she, Mother? Shejust twisted and twisted her hands, and said, 'I can't. ' And Mothersaid, 'Mary, if you will be a brave girl about the doctor, I will makeyou a pink dress and a wreath of roses, and you shall ride with theothers in the Flower Festibul!' And she just said, 'Oo-oo!'--didn'tshe, Mother? And she said she thought God sent you, didn't she, Mother?"

"She did. " Mrs. Burgoyne smiled through wet lashes. Mrs. Brown wipedher own eyes against the baby's fluffy mop. "She's a most patheticlittle creature, this Mary Scott, " went on the other woman when Ellenhad dashed away, "and I'm afraid she's not the only one. There's myMiss Davids' little sister; if I took her in, Miss Davids would be freefor the day; and there's a little deaf-mute whose mother runs thebakery. And I told Mary we'd manage the baby, too, and that if she knewany other children who positively couldn't come any other way, she mustlet me know. Of course the school children are cared for, they willhave seats right near the grand stand, and sing, and so on. But I amreally terrified about it, you'll have to help me out. "

"I'll do anything, " Mrs. Brown promised. 

"I'll do anything I CAN, " said Mrs. Lloyd, modestly, "I loathe andabominate children unless they're decently dressed and smell ofsoap--but I'll run a machine, if some one'll see that they don't swarmover me. "

"I'll put a barbed wire fence around you!" promised Mrs. Burgoyne, gaily. 

Mrs. Carew, coming up, as she expressed it, "to gather up somechildren, " was decidedly optimistic about the plan. "Nobody ever useshydrangeas, because you can't make artificial ones to fill in with, "she said, "so you can get barrels of them. " Mrs. Burgoyne wasenthusiastic over hydrangeas, "But it's not the fancy touches thatscare me, " she confessed; "it's the awful practical side. "

"What does Barry think?" Mrs. Carew presently asked innocently. Mrs. Burgoyne's suddenly rosy face was not unobserved by any of the others. 

"I haven't seen him for several days, not since the night of mydinner, " she admitted; "I've been lazy, sending my work down to theoffice. But I will see him right away. "

"He's the one really to have ideas, " Mrs. Brown assured her. 

CHAPTER XII

So Barry was invited up to the Hall to dinner, and found himself soinstantly swept into the plan that he had no time to be self-conscious. Dinner was served on the side porch, and the sunlight filtered acrossthe white cloth, and turned the garden into a place of enchantment. When Billy and the small girls had seized two cookies and two peachesapiece, and retired to the lawn to enjoy them, he and Sidney sattalking on in the pleasant dusk. 

"You've asked eight, so far, " he said, as she was departing for theoffice an hour or so after dinner was finished, "but do you thinkthat's all?"

"Oh, it positively must be!" Sidney said virtuously, but there was awicked gleam in her eye that prepared him for her sudden descent uponthe office two days later, with the startling news that now she hadpositively STOPPED, but fourteen children had been asked!

Barry, rather to her surprise, remained calm. 

"Well, I've got an idea, " he said presently, "that will make that allright, fourteen children or twenty, it won't make any difference. Only, it may not appeal to you. "

"Oh, it will--and you are an angel!" said the lady fervently. 

"I've got a friend up the country here in a lumber-mill, " Barryexplained, "Joe Painter--he hauls logs down from the forest to theriver, with a team of eight oxen. Now, if he'd lend them, and you got ahay-wagon from Old Paloma, you wouldn't have any trouble at all. "

"Oh, but Barry, " she gasped, her face radiant, "would he lend them?"

"I think he would; he'd have to come too, you know, and drive them. I'll ride up and see, anyway. "

"Oxen, " mused Mrs. Burgoyne, "how perfectly glorious! The children willgo wild with joy. And, you see, my Indian boys--"

"Your WHAT?"

"I didn't mention them, " said Sidney serenely, "because they'll walkalongside, and won't count in the load. But, you see, some of thosenice little mill-boys who don't go to school heard the girls talkingabout it, and one of them asked me--so wistfully!--if there wasanything THEY could do. I immediately thought of Indian costumes. "

"But how the deuce will you get the costumes made?" said Barry, drawinga sheet of paper toward him, and beginning some calculations, with ananxious eye. 

"Why, it's just cheese-cloth for the girls. Mrs. Brown and I have ourmachines up in the barn, and Mrs. Carew and Mrs. Adams will come up andhelp, there's not much to THAT! Barry, if you will really get usthis--this ox-man--nothing else will worry me at all. "

"You'll have to put the beasts up in your barn. "

"Oh, surely! Ask him what they eat. Oh, Barry, we MUST have them! Thinkhow picturesque they'll be! I've been thinking my entry would be adisgrace to the parade, but I don't believe it will be so bad. Barry, when will we know about it?"

"You can count on it, I guess. Joe won't refuse, " Barry said, with hislazy smile. 

"Oh, you're an angel! I'm going shopping this instant. Barry, therewill be room now for my Ellen, and Billy, and Dicky Carew, won't there?It seems their hearts are bursting with the desire. Bunting, " murmuredSidney, beginning a list, "cheese-cloth, pink, blue, and cream, boltsof it; twine, beads, leather, feathers; some big white hats; ice-cream, extra milk--"

"Hold on! What for?"

"Why, they have to have something to eat afterward, " she reproachedhim. "We're going to have a picnic up at the Hall. Then those that canwill join their people for the fireworks, and the others will be takenhome to Old Paloma. The little Scott girl will stay with Ellen and Joovernight; Mammy Currey will look after them, and they'll watch thefireworks from my porch. I've written to ask Doctor Young--he's thebest in San Francisco--to come up from the city next day to see what hethinks can be done for Mary Scott. "

"You get a lot of fun out of your money, don't you, Sidney?" saidBarry, watching her amusedly, as she tucked the list into her purse andarose with a great air of business. 

"More than any one woman deserves, " she answered soberly. 

"Walter, " said Anne Pratt to her brother, one evening about this time, as she decorously filled his plate from the silver tureen, "have youheard that Mrs. Burgoyne has gathered up about twenty children in OldPaloma--cripples, and orphans, and I don't know what all!--and isgetting up a wagon for the Flower Festival? I was up at the Hallto-day, and they're working like beavers. "

"Carew said something about it, " said Walter Pratt. "Seems a good idea. Those poor little kids over there don't have much fun. "

"You never said so before, Walter, " his sister returned almostresentfully. 

"I don't know why I shouldn't have, " said Walter literally. "It's true. "

"If we did anything for any children, it ought to be Lizzie's, " saidMiss Pratt uncomfortably, after a pause. 

"I wish to the Lord we COULD do something for Lizzie's kids, " herbrother observed suddenly. "I suppose it would kill you to have 'em uphere?"

"Kill me!" Miss Anne echoed with painful eagerness, and with a suddentremble of her thin, long hand. "I don't know why it should; therenever were better behaved children born. I don't like Lizzie's husband, and never shall;" she rushed on, "but seeing those children up at theHall to-day made me think of Betty, and Hope, and Davy, cooped up downthere in town. They'd love the Flower Festival, and I could take themup to the Hall, and Nanny would be wild with joy to have Lizzie'schildren here; she'd bake cookies and gingerbread--" A flush had comeinto her faded, cool cheek. "Wouldn't they be in your way? You reallywouldn't mind--you won't change your mind about it, Walt?" she saidtimidly. 

"Change my mind! Why, I'll love to have them running round here, " heanswered warmly. "Write Lizzie to-night, and tell her I've got to godown Tuesday, and I'll bring 'em up. "

"I'll tell her that just the things they have will be quite goodenough, " said Miss Pratt. "The Burgoyne children just wearplay-ginghams--I'll get them anything else they need!"

"It won't interfere with your club work, Anne?"

"Not in the least!" She was sure of that, "And anyway, " she went ondecidedly, "I'm not going to the club so much this summer. Mary Brownand I went yesterday, and there was--well, I suppose it was a goodpaper on 'The Mind of the Child, ' by Miss Sarah Rich. But it seemed soflat. And Mary Brown said, coming away, 'I think Doctor and I willstill come to the monthly receptions, but I believe I won't listen toany more papers like that. They're all very well for people who have nochildren--'"

"Well, by Tuesday night you'll have three!" said Walter, with what wasfor him great gaiety of manner. 

"Walter, " his sister suggested nervously, "you'll be awfullyaffectionate with Lizzie, won't you? Be sure to tell her that we WANTthem; and tell her that they'll be playing up at the Hall all summer, as we used to. You know, I've been thinking, Walter, " went on the poorlady, with her nose suddenly growing red and her eyes watering, "thatI've not been a very good sister to Lizzie. She's the youngest, andMother--Mother wasn't here to advise her about her marriage, and--andnow I don't write her; and she wrote me that Betty had a cough, andDavy was so noisy indoors in wet weather--and I just go to the Club tohear papers upon 'Napoleon' and 'The Mind of the Child. '" And MissAnne, beginning to cry outright, leaned back in her chair, and coveredher face with her handkerchief. 

"Well, Anne--well, Anne, " her brother said huskily, "we'll make it upnow. Where are you going to put them?" he presently added, with aninspiration. 

Miss Pratt straightened up, blew her nose, wiped her eyes, and rang forthe maid. 

"Betty and Hope in the big front room--" she began happily. 

Another brief conversation, this time between George Carew and hiswife, was indicative of a certain change of view-point that wasaffecting the women of Santa Paloma in these days. Mr. Carew, cominghome one evening, found a very demure and charming figure seated on theporch. Mrs. Carew's gown was simplicity itself: a thin, dotted, darkblue silk, with a deep childish lace collar and cuffs. 

"You look terribly sweet, Jen, " said Mr. Carew; "you look out ofsight. " And when he came downstairs again, and they were at dinner, hereturned to the subject with, "Jen, I haven't seen you look so sweetfor a long time. What is that, a new dress? Is that for the receptionon the Fourth? Jen, didn't you have a dress like that when we werefirst married?"

"Sorrel made this, and it only cost sixty dollars, " said Mrs. Carew. 

"Well, get her to make you another, " her husband said approvingly. Atwhich Mrs. Carew laughed a little shakily, and came around the table, and put her arms about him and said:

"Oh, George, you dear old BAT! Miss Pomeroy made this, upstairs here, in three days, and the silk cost nine dollars. I DID have a dress likethis in my trousseau--my first silk--and I thought it was wonderful;and I think you're a darling to remember it; and I AM going to wearthis on the Fourth. It's nice enough, isn't it?"

"Nice enough! You'll be the prettiest woman there, " stated Mr. Carewpositively. 

CHAPTER XIII

The earliest daylight of July Fourth found Santa Paloma already astir. Dew was heavy on the ropes of flowers and greens, and the flags andbunting that made brilliant all the line of the day's march; and longscarfs of fog lingered on the hills, but for all that, and despite thedelicious fragrant chill of the morning air, nobody doubted that theday would be hot and cloudless, and the evening perfect for fireworks. Lawn-sprinklers began to whir busily in the sweet shaded gardens longbefore the sunlight reached them; windows and doors were flung open tothe air; women, sweeping garden-paths and sidewalks with gay energy, called greetings up and down the street to one another. Chairs weredragged out-of-doors; limp flags began to stir in the sunny air; otherflags squeakily mounted their poles. At every window bunting showed;the schoolhouse was half-hidden in red, white, and blue; the women'sclubhouse was festooned with evergreens and Japanese lanterns; and theMail office, the grand stand opposite, the shops, and the bank, allfluttered with gay colors. Children shouted and scampered everywhere;gathered in fascinated groups about the ice-cream and candy and popcornbooths that sprang up at every corner; met arriving cousins and auntsat the train; ran on last-minute errands. Occasionally a whole packageof exploding firecrackers smote the warm still air. 

By half-past ten every window on the line of march, every dooryard andporch, had its group of watchers. Wagons and motor-cars, from thesurrounding villages and ranches, blocked the side streets. It was verywarm, and fans and lemonade had a lively sale. 

From the two available windows of the Mail office, three persons, aseager as the most eager child, watched the gathering crowds, and waitedfor the Flower Parade. They were Mrs. Apostleman, stately in blacklace, and regally fanning, Sidney Burgoyne, looking her very prettiestin crisp white, with a scarlet scarf over her arm, and Barry Valentine, who looked unusually festive himself in white flannels. All three werein wild spirits. 

"Hark, here they come!" said Sidney at last, drawing her head in from along inspection of the street. She had been waving and callinggreetings in every direction for a pleasant half-hour. Now eleven hadboomed from the town-hall clock, and a general restlessness andwiltedness began to affect the waiting crowds. 

Barry immediately dangled almost his entire length across the windowsill, and screwed his person about for a look. 

"H'yar dey come, li'l miss, sho's yo' bawn!" he announced joyfully. "There's the band!"

Here they came, sure enough, under the flags and garlands, through thenoonday heat. Only vague brassy notes and the general craning of necksindicated their approach now; but in another five minutes the uniformedband was actually in view, and the National Guard after it, tremendously popular, and the Native Sons, with another band, and theveterans, thin, silver-headed old men in half a dozen carriages, andmore open carriages. One held the Governor and his wife, the formerbowing and smiling right and left, and saluted by the rising schoolchildren, when he seated himself in the judges' stand, with the shrill, thrilling notes of the national anthem. 

And then another band, and--at last!--the slow-moving, flower-coveredcarriages and motors, a long, wonderful, brilliant line of them. White-clad children in rose-smothered pony-carts, pretty girls in asetting of scarlet carnations, more pretty girls half-hidden in bobbingand nodding daisies--every one more charming than the last. There werewhite horses as dazzling as soap and powder could make them; horseswhose black flanks glistened as dark as coal, and there was a tandem ofcream-colored horses that tossed rosettes of pink Shirley poppies intheir ears. The Whites' motor-car, covered with pink carnations, andfilled with good-looking lads flying the colors of the Women's Club andthe nation's flag, won a special round of applause. Mrs. Burgoyne andBarry loyally clapped for the Pratt motor-car, from which JoannaBurgoyne and Lizzie Pratt's children were beaming upon the world. 

"But what are they halting for, and what are they clapping?" Sidneypresently demanded, when a break in the line and a sudden outburst ofcheering and applause interrupted the parade. Barry again hung at adangerous angle from the window. Presently he sat back, his face onebroad smile. 

"It's us, " he remarked simply. "Wait until you see us; we're the creamof the whole show!"

Too excited to speak, Sidney knelt breathless at the sill, her eyesfixed upon the spot where the cause of the excitement must appear. Shewas perhaps the only one of all the watchers who did not applaud, asthe eight powerful oxen came slowly down the sunshiny street, guided bythe tall, lean driver who walked beside them, and dragging the greatwagon and its freight of rapturous children. 

Only an old hay-wagon, after all; only a team of shabby oxen, such as athousand lumber-camps in California might supply; only a score or moreof the ill-nourished, untrained children of the very poor; but what anenchantment of love and hope and summer-time had been flung over themall! The body of the wagon was entirely hidden by exquisite hydrangeas;the wheels were moving disks of the pale pink and blue blossoms; theoxen, their horns gilded, their polished hoofs twinkling as they moved, wore yokes that seemed solidly made of the flowers, and great ropes ofblossoms hid the swinging chains. Over each animal a brilliant coverhad been flung; and at the head of each a young Indian boy, magnificentin wampum and fringed leather, feathers and beads, walked sedately. Thechildren were grouped, pyramid-fashion, on the wagon, in a nest ofhydrangea blooms, the pink, and cream, and blue of their gowns blendingwith the flowers all about them, the sunlight shining full in theirhappy eyes. Over their shoulders were garlands of poppies, roses, sweet-peas, daisies, carnations, lilies, or other blossoms; their handswere full of flowers. But it was the radiance of their faces that shonebrightest, after all. It was the little consumptive's ecstatic smile, as she sat resting against an invisible support; it was the joy in MaryScott's thin eager face, framed now in her loosened dark hair, and withthe shadow, like her crutch, laid aside for a while, that somehowbrought tears to the eyes that watched. Santa Paloma cheered andapplauded these forgotten children of hers; and the children laughedand waved their hands in return. 

Youth and happiness and summer-time incarnate, the vision went on itsway, down the bright street; and other carriages followed it, and werepraised as those that had gone before had been. But no entry in anyflower parade that Santa Paloma had ever known, was as much discussedas this one. Indeed, it began a new era; but that was later on. WhenMrs. Burgoyne's plain white frock appeared among the elaborate gownsworn at the club luncheon that afternoon, she was quite overwhelmed bycongratulations. She went away very early, to superintend thechildren's luncheon at the Hall, and then Mrs. White had a chance totell the distinguished guests who she was, and that she could wellafford to play Lady Bountiful to the Santa Paloma children. 

"One wouldn't imagine it, she seems absolutely simple and unspoiled, "said Mrs. Governor. 

"She is!" said Mrs. Lloyd unexpectedly. 

"I told her how scared most of us had been at the mere idea of hercoming here, Parker, " Mrs. Lloyd told her husband later, "and howfriendly she is, and that she always wears little wash dresses, andthat the other girls are beginning to wear checked aprons and things, because her girls do! Of course, I said it sort of laughingly, youknow, but I don't think Clara White liked it ONE BIT, and I don't care!Clara is rather mad at me, anyway, " she went on, musingly, "becauseyesterday she telephoned that she was going to send that Armenianpeddler over here, with some Madeira lunch cloths. They WERE beauties, and only twenty-three dollars; you'd pay fifty for them at RaphaelWeil's--they're smuggled, I suppose! But I simply said, 'Clara, I can'tafford it!' and let it go at that. She laughed--quite cattily, Parker!--and said, 'Oh, that's rather funny!' But I don't care whetherClara White thinks I'm copying Mrs. Burgoyne or not! I might as wellcopy her as somebody else!"

Mrs. Burgoyne and Barry Valentine went down-town on the evening of thegreat day, to see the fireworks and the crowds, and to hear theannouncements of prize-winners. Santa Paloma was in holiday mood, andthe two entered into the spirit of the hour like irresponsiblechildren. It was a warm, wonderful summer night; the sky was close andthickly spangled with stars. Main Street bobbed with Japanese lanterns, rang with happy voices and laughter. The jostling, pushing currents ofmen in summer suits, and joyous girls in thin gowns, were allgood-natured. Sidney found friends on all sides, and laughed and calledher greetings as gaily as anyone. 

Barry had a rare opportunity to watch her unobserved, as she went herhappy way; the earnest happy brightness in her eyes, when some shabbylittle woman from Old Paloma laid a timid hand on her arm, her adoringinterest in the fat babies that slumbered heavily on paternalshoulders, her ready use of names, "Isn't this fun, Agnes?"--"Youhaven't lost Harry, have you, Mrs. O'Brien?"--"Don't you and yourfriend want to come and have some ice-cream with us, Josie?"

"But we mustn't waste too much time here, Barry, " she would say now andthen; for at eight o'clock a "grand concert program and distribution ofprizes" was scheduled to take place at the town hall, and Sidney wasanxious not to miss an instant of it. "Don't worry, I'll get youthere!" Barry would answer reassuringly, amused at her eagerness. 

And true to his word, he stopped her at the wide doorway of the concerthall, fully five minutes before the hour, and they found themselvesjoining the slow stream of men and women and children that was pouringup the wide, dingy stairway. Everyone was trying, in all good humor, topress ahead of everyone else, inspired with the sudden agonizingconviction that in the next two minutes every desirable seat wouldcertainly be gone. Even Sidney, familiar as she was with every grandopera house in the world, felt the infection, and asked rathernervously if any of the seats were reserved. 

"Don't worry; we'll get seats, " said the imperturbable Barry, andseveral children in their neighborhood laughed out in sudden exquisiterelief. 

Seats indeed there were, although the front rows were filling fast, andall the aisle-chairs were taken by squirming, restless small children. Mrs. Burgoyne sat down, and studied the hall with delighted eyes. Itwas ordinarily only a shabby, enormous, high-ceiled room, filled withrows of chairs, and with an elevated stage at the far end. But, likeall Santa Paloma, it was in holiday trim to-night. All thewindows--wide open to the summer darkness--were framed in bunting anddrooping flowers, and on the stage were potted palms and crossed flags. Great masses of bamboo and California ferns were tied with red, whiteand blue streamers between the windows, and, beside these decorations, which were new for the occasion, were purple and yellow banners, leftfrom the night of the Native Sons' Grand Ball and Reception, a monthago, and, arched above the stage the single word "Welcome" in letterstwo feet high, which dated back to the Ladies of Saint Rose's ParishAnnual Fair and Entertainment, in May. If the combined effect of thesewas not wholly artistic, at least it was very gay, and the murmur ofvoices and laughter all over the hall was gay, too, and gay almost tointoxication it was to hear the musicians tentatively and subduedlytrying their instruments up by the piano, with their sleek heads closetogether. 

Presently every chair in the house had its occupant, and the youngerelement began a spasmodic sort of clapping, as a delicate hint to theagitated managers, who were behind the scenes, running blindly aboutwith worn scraps of scribbled paper in their hands, desperatelyattempting to call the roll of their performers. When Joe, the janitor, came out onto the stage, he was royally applauded, although he did nomore than move a tin stand on which there were numbered cards, from oneside of the stage to the other, and change the number in view from "18"to "1. "

Fathers and mothers, perspiring, clean and good-natured, smiled uponyouthful impatience and impertinence to-night, as they sat fanning anddiscussing the newcomers, or leaned forward or backward for hilariousscraps of conversation with their neighbors. Lovers, as alwaysoblivious of time, sat entirely indifferent to the rise or fall of thecurtain, the girls with demurely dropped lashes, the men deep in lowmonotones, their faces close to the lovely faces so near, their armsflung, in all absent-mindedness, across the backs of the ladies'chairs. And any motherly heart might have been stirred with an achingsort of tenderness, as Sidney Burgoyne's was, at the sight of so muchawkward, budding manliness, so many shining pompadours, and carefullypolished shoes and outrageous cravats--so many silky, filleted littleheads, and innocent young bosoms half-hidden by all sorts of daintylittle conspiracies of lace and lawn. Youth, enchanting, self-absorbed, important, had coolly taken possession of the hall, as it does ofeverything, for its own happy plans, and something of the gossamerbeauty of it seemed to be clouding older and wiser eyes to-night. Sidney found her eyes resting upon Barry's big, shapely hand, as heleaned forward, deep in conversation with Dr. Brown, in the chairahead, and she was conscious that she wanted to sit back and shut hereyes, and draw a deep breath of sheer irrational happiness because thisWAS Barry next to her, and that he liked to be there. 

Presently the hall thrilled to see two modest-looking and obviouslyembarrassed men come out to seat themselves in the half-circle ofchairs that lined the stage, and a moment later applause broke out forthe Mayor and his wife, and the members of the Flower Parade Committeeof Arrangements, and for the nondescript persons who invariably fill insuch a group, and for the kindly, smiling Governor, and the ladies ofhis party, and for the Willard Whites, who, with the easiest manners inthe world, were in actual conversation with the great people as theycame upon the stage. 

At the sight of them, Mrs. Carew, still vigorously clapping, leanedover to say to Mrs. Burgoyne:

"Look at Clara White! And we were wondering why they didn't come in!Wouldn't she make you TIRED!"

"You might kiss her hand, when you go up to get your prize, Mrs. Burgoyne, " suggested Barry, and a general giggle went the rounds. 

"If I get a prize, " said Sidney, in alarm, "you've got to go up, Icouldn't!"

"We'll see--" Barry began, his voice drowned by the opening crash ofthe band. 

There followed what the three papers of Santa Paloma were unanimous thenext day in describing as the most brilliant and enjoyable concert evergiven in Santa Paloma. It was received with immense enthusiasm, entirely unaffected by the fact that everyone present had heard MissEmelie Jeanne Foster sing "Twickenham Ferry" before, with "Dawn" as anencore, and was familiar also with the selections of the StringedInstrument Club, and had listened to young Doctor Perry's impassionedtenor many times. As for George O'Connor, with his irresistiblelaughing song, and the song about the train that went to Morro to-day, he was more popular every time he appeared, and was greeted now by madapplause, and shouts of "There's George!" and "Hello, George!"

And the Home Boys' Quartette from Emville was quite new, and varioussolo singers and a "lady elocutionist" from San Francisco were heardfor the first time. The latter, who was on the program merely for a"Recitation--Selected, " was so successful with "Pauline Pavlovna, " and"Seein' Things at Night" that it was nearly ten o'clock before theGovernor was introduced. 

However, he was at last duly presented to the applauding hundreds, andcame forward to the footlights to address them, and made everyone laughand feel friendly by saying immediately that he knew they hadn't comeout that evening to hear an old man make a long speech. 

He said he didn't believe in speechmaking much, he believed in DOINGthings; there were always a lot of people to stand around and makespeeches, like himself--and there was more laughter. 

He said that he knew the business of the evening was the giving out ofthese prizes here--he didn't know what was in these boxes--he indicatedthe daintily wrapped and tied packages that stood on the little tablein the middle of the stage--but he thought every lady in the hall wouldknow before she went home, and perhaps some one of them would tellhim--and there was more laughter. He said he hoped that there wassomething mighty nice in the largest box, because he understood that itwas to go to a fairy-godmother; he didn't know whether the good peoplein the hall believed in fairies or not, but he knew that some of thechildren in Old Paloma did, and he had seen and heard enough that dayto make him believe in 'em too! He'd heard of a fairy years ago whomade a coach-and-four out of a pumpkin, but he didn't think that wasany harder than to make a coach-and-six out of a hay-wagon, and puttwenty Cinderellas into it instead of one. He said it gave him greatpride and pleasure to announce that the first prize for to-day'sbeautiful contest had been unanimously awarded to--

Sidney Burgoyne, watching him with fascinated eyes, her breath comingfast and unevenly, her color brightening and fading, heard only somuch, and then, with a desperate impulse to get away, half rose to herfeet. 

But she was too late. Long before the Governor reached her name, asudden outburst of laughter and clapping shook the hall, there was afriendly stir and murmur about her; a hundred voices came to her ears, "It's Mrs. Burgoyne, of course!--She's got it! She's got the firstprize!--Go on up, Mrs. Burgoyne! You've got it!--Isn't thatGREAT, --she's got it! Go up and get it!"

"You've got first prize, I guess. You'll have to go up for it, " Barryurged her. 

"He didn't say so!" Sidney protested nervously. But she let herself behalf-pushed into the aisle, and somehow reached the three little stepsthat led up to the platform, and found herself facing His Excellency, in an uproar of applause. 

The Governor said a few smiling words as he put a large box into herhands; Sidney knew this because she saw his lips move, but the househad gone quite mad by this time, and not a word was audible. Everyonein the hall knew that a tall loving-cup was in the box, for it had beenon exhibition in the window of Postag's jewelry store for three weeks. It was of silver, and lined with gold, both metals shining with anunearthly and flawless radiance; and there was "Awarded--as a FirstPrize--in the Twelfth Floral Parade--of Santa Paloma, California" cutbeautifully into one side, and a scroll all ready, on the other side, to be engraved with the lucky winner's name. 

She had been joking for two or three weeks about the possibility ofthis very occurrence, had been half-expecting it all day, but nowsuddenly all the joke seemed gone out of it, and she was only curiouslystirred and shaken. She looked confusedly down at the sea of facesbelow her, smiles were everywhere, the eyes that were upon her werefull of all affection and pride--She had done so little after all, shesaid to herself, with sudden humility, almost with shame. And it was sopoignantly sweet to realize that they loved her, that she was one ofthemselves, they were glad she had won, she who had been a stranger toall of them only a few months ago!

Her eyes full of sudden tears, her lip shaking, she could only bow andbow again, and then, just as her smile threatened to become entirelyeclipsed, she managed a husky "Thank you all so much!" and descendedthe steps rapidly, to slip into her chair between Barry and GeorgeCarew. 

"You know, you oughtn't to make a long tedious speech like that on anoccasion like this, Sid, " Barry said, when she had somewhat recoveredher equilibrium, and the silver loving cup was unwrapped, and was beingpassed admiringly from hand to hand. 

"Don't!" she said warningly, "or you'll have me weeping on yourshoulder!"

Instead of which she was her gayest self, and accepted endlesscongratulations with joyous composure, as the audience streamed outinto the reviving festivity of Main Street. The tide was turning in onedirection now, for there were to be "fireworks and a stupendous bandconcert" immediately following the concert, in a vacant lot not faraway. 

And presently they all found themselves seated on the fragrant grass, under the stars. George Carew, at Sidney's feet, solemnly wrappedsections of molasses popcorn in oiled paper, and passed them to theladies. Barry's coat made a comfortable seat for Mrs. Burgoyne andlittle Mrs. Brown; Barry himself was just behind, and Mrs. Carew andher big son beside them. All about, in the darkness, were other groups:mothers and fathers and alert, chattering children. Alice Carter, thebig mill-girl, radiant now, and with a hoarse, inarticulate, adoringyoung plumber in tow, went by them, and stooped to whisper something toMrs. Burgoyne. "I wish you WOULD come, Alice!" the lady answeredeagerly, as they went on. 

Then the rockets began to hiss up toward the stars, each falling showerof light greeted with a long rapturous "Ah-h-h!" Catherine-wheelssputtered nearer the ground; red lights made eerie great spots ofillumination here and there, against which dark little figures moved. 

"I don't know that I ever had a happier day in my life!" said SidneyBurgoyne. 

CHAPTER XIV

More happy days followed; for Santa Paloma, after the Fourth of July, felt only friendliness for the new owner of the Hall, and Mrs. Burgoyne's informal teas on the river bank began to prove a powerfulattraction, even rivaling the club in feminine favor. Sometimes thehostess enlisted all their sympathies for a newly arrived Old Palomababy, and they tore lengths of flannel, and busily stitched at tinygarments, under the shade of the willow and pepper trees. Sometimes shehad in her care one or more older babies whose busy mother was taking aday's rest, or whose father was perhaps ill, needing all the wife'scare. Always there was something to read and discuss; an editorial insome eastern magazine that made them all indignant or enthusiastic, ora short story worth reading aloud. And almost always the children werewithin call, digging great holes in the pebbly shallows of the river, only to fill them up again, toiling over bridges and dams, climbing outto the perilous length of the branches that hung above the water. Little Mary Scott, released from the fear of an "op'ration, " and facingall unconsciously a far longer journey than the dreaded one to a SanFrancisco hospital, had her own cushioned chair near the bank, whereshe could hear and see, and laugh at everything that went on, and revelin consolation and bandages when the inevitable accidents made themnecessary. Mary had no cares now, no responsibility more serious thanto be sure her feet didn't get cold, and to tell Mrs. Burgoyne theminute her head ached; there was to be nothing but rest and comfort andlaughter for her in life now. "I don't know why we should pity her, "little Mrs. Brown said thoughtfully, one day, as they watched her withthe other children; "we can't ever hope to feel that any of ourchildren are as safe as she is. "

Mrs. Burgoyne's method of entertaining the children was simple. Shealways made them work as hard as possible. One day they begged her tolet them build a "truly dam" that would really stop the Lobos in itsplacid course. She consulted gravely with George Carew: should theyattempt it? George, after serious consideration, thought they should. 

As a result, twenty children panted and toiled through a warm Saturdayafternoon, George and the Adams boys shouting directions as theyhandled planks and stones; everybody wet, happy, and excited. Not theleast glorious moment was when the dam was broken at five o'clock, justbefore refreshments were served. 

"We'll do that better next Saturday, " said George. But a week laterthey wanted to clean the barn and organize a club. Mrs. Burgoyne wassure they couldn't. All that space, she said, and those bins, and thelittle rooms, and all? Very well, then, they could try. Later theylonged for a picnic supper in the woods, with an open fire, andpotatoes, and singing. Their hostess was dubious: entreated them toconsider the WORK involved, dragging stones for the fire, and carryingpotatoes and bacon and jam and all the rest of it 'way up there'. Thiswas at two o'clock, and at six she was formally asked to come up andinspect the cleared camping ground, and the fireplace with itsbroilers, and the mammoth stack of fuel prepared. 

"I knew you'd do it!" said the lady delightedly. "Now we'll really havea fine supper!" And a memorable supper they had, and Indian stories, and singing, and they went home well after dusk, to end the dayperfectly. 

"They like this sort of thing much better than white dresses, and aprofessional entertainer, and dancing, and too much ice-cream, " saidMrs. Burgoyne to Mrs. Adams. 

"Of course they do, " said Mrs. Adams, who had her own reasons forturning rather red and speaking somewhat faintly. "And it's much lesswork, and much less expense, " she added. 

"Now it is, when they can be out-of-doors, " said Mrs. Burgoyne; "but inwinter they do make awful work indoors. However, there is tramping fordry weather, and I mean to have a stove set up in the old billiard-roomdown-stairs and turn them all loose in there when it's wet. Theatricals, and pasting things, and singing, and now and thencandy-making, is all fun. And one knows that they're safe, and pilingup happy memories of their home. "

"You make a sort of profession of motherhood, " said Mrs. White dryly. 

"It IS my profession, " said the hostess, with her happy laugh. 

But her happiness had a sudden check in mid-August; Sidney foundherself no more immune from heartache than any other woman, no morephilosophical over a hurt. It was, she told herself, only a trifle, after all. She was absurd to let it cloud the bright day for her andkeep her restless and wakeful at night. It was nothing. Only--

Only it was the first time that Barry had failed her. He was gone. Gonewithout a word of explanation to anyone, leaving his work at the Mailunfinished, leaving even Billy, his usual confidant, quite in the dark. Sidney had noticed for days a certain moodiness and unresponsivenessabout him; had tried rather timidly to win him from it; had got upuneasily half a dozen times in the night just past to look across thegarden to his house, and wonder why Barry's light burned on and on. 

She had meant to send for him in the morning, but Billy, artlesslyappearing when the waffles came on at breakfast, remarked that Dad wasgone to San Francisco. 

"To the city, Billy?" Sidney asked. "Didn't he say why?"

"He didn't even say goodbye, " Billy replied cheerfully. "He just left anote for Hayashi. It said he didn't know how long he would be gone. "

Sidney tried with small success to deceive herself into thinking thatit was the mere mysteriousness of this that cut her. She presently wentdown to see Mrs. Carew, and was fretted because that lady would forsome time discuss nothing but the successful treatment of insects onthe rose-bushes. 

"Barry seems to have disappeared, " said Sidney finally, in a casualtone. 

Mrs. Carew straightened up, forgot hellebore and tobacco juice for themoment. 

"Did I tell you what Silva told me?" she asked. 

"Silva?" echoed Sidney, at a loss. 

"The milkman. He told me that when he came up at five o'clock thismorning, Barry came out of the gate, and that he looked AWFULLY. Hesaid he was pale, and that his eyes looked badly, and that he hardlyseemed to know what he was doing. And oh, my dear, I'm afraid that he'sdrinking again! I'm sure of it. It's two years now since he has donethis. I think it's too bad. But you know he used to go down to townevery little while for a regular TIME with those newspaper men. Hedoesn't like Santa Paloma, you know. He gets very bored here. He'll beback in a day or two, thoroughly ashamed of himself. "

Sidney did not answer, because she could not. Resentment and loyalty, shame and heartache, kept her lips dumb. She walked to and fro in thegarden, alone in the sweet early darkness, for an hour. Then she wentindoors, and tried to amuse herself at the piano. Suddenly her facetwisted, she laid her arm along the rack, and her face on her arm; butit was only for a moment; then she straightened up resolutely, piledthe music, closed the piano, and went upstairs. 

"But perhaps I'm not old enough yet for an olive garden, " she told thestars from her window an hour later. 

CHAPTER XV

Another day went by, and still there was no news from Barry. The earlyautumn weather was exquisite, and Sidney, with the additional work forthe Mail that the editor's absence left for her, found herself verybusy. But life seemed suddenly to taste flat and uninteresting to her. The sunlight was glaring, the afternoons dusty and windy, and under allthe day's duties and pleasures--the meeting of neighbors, thechildren's confidences, her busy coming and going up and down thevillage streets--ran a sick undercurrent of disappointment andheartache. She went to the post-office twice, in that first long day, for the arriving mail, and Miss Potter, pleased at these glimpses ofthe lady from the Hall, chatted blithely as she pushed Italian letters, London letters, letters from Washington and New York, through thelittle wicket. 

But there was not a line from Barry. On the second day Sidney began tothink of sending him a note; it might be chanced to the Bohemian Club--

But no, she wouldn't do that. If he did not care enough to write her, she certainly wouldn't write him. 

She began to realize how different Santa Paloma was without his bigfigure, his laughter, his joyous comment upon people and things. Shehad taken his comradeship for granted, taken it as just one moreelement of the old childish days regained, never thought of its rudeinterruption or ending. 

Now she felt ashamed and sore, she had been playing with fire, she toldherself severely; she had perhaps hurt him; she had certainly givenherself needless heartache. No romantic girl of seventeen ever suffereda more unreasoning pang than did Sidney when she came upon Barry'sshabby, tobacco-scented office coat, hanging behind his desk, or foundin her own desk one of the careless notes he so frequently used toleave there at night for her to find in the morning. 

However, in the curious way that things utterly unrelated sometimesplay upon each other in this life, these days of bewilderment andchagrin bore certain good fruit. Sidney had for some weeks beenplanning an attack upon the sympathies of the Santa Paloma Women'sClub, but had shrunk from beginning it, because life was running verysmoothly and happily, and she was growing too genuinely fond of her newneighbors to risk jeopardizing their affection for her by a move shesuspected would be unpopular. 

But now she was unhappy, and, with the curious stoicism that is born ofunhappiness, she plunged straight into the matter. On the third dayafter Barry's disappearance she appeared at the regular meeting of theclub as Mrs. Carew's guest. 

"I hope this means that you are coming to your senses, ye bad girl!"said Mrs. Apostleman, drawing her to the next chair with a fatimperative hand. 

"Perhaps it does, " Sidney answered, with a rather nervous smile. Shesat attentive and appreciative, through the reading of a paper entitled"Some Glimpses of the Real Burns, " and seemed immensely to enjoy thefour songs--Burns's poems set to music--and the clever recitation ofseveral selections from Burns that followed. 

Then the chairman announced that Mrs. Burgoyne, "whom I'm sure we allknow, although she isn't one of us yet (laughter), has asked permissionto address the club at the conclusion of the regular program. " Therewas a little applause, and Sidney, very rosy, walked rapidly forward, to stand just below the platform. She was nervous, obviously, and spokehurriedly and in a rather unnatural voice. 

"Your chairman and president, " she began, with a little inclinationtoward each, "have given me permission to speak to you today for fiveminutes, because I want to ask the Santa Paloma Women's Club a favor--agreat favor, in fact. I won't say how much I hope the club will decideto grant it, but just tell you what it is. It has to do with thefactory girls across the river. I've become interested in some of them;partly I suppose because some friends of mine are working for just suchgirls, only under infinitely harder circumstances, in some of theeastern cities, I feel, we all feel, I know, that the atmosphere of OldPaloma is a dangerous one for girls. Every year certain ones among them'go wrong, ' as the expression is; and when a girl once does that, sheis apt to go very wrong indeed before she stops. She doesn't care whatshe does, in fact, and her own people only make it harder, practicallydrive her away. Or even if she marries decently, and tries to live downall the past it comes up between her and her neighbors, between her andher children, perhaps, and embitters her whole life. And so finally shegoes to join that terrible army of women that we others try to pretendwe never see or hear of at all. These girls work hard all day, andtheir homes aren't the right sort of homes, with hot dirty rooms, --fullof quarreling and crowding; and so they slip out at night and meettheir friends in the dancehalls, and the moving-picture shows. Andwe--we can't blame them. " Her voice had grown less diffident, and rangwith sudden longing and appeal. "They want only what we all wanted afew years ago, " she said. "They want good times, lights and music, andpretty gowns, something to look forward to in the long, hotafternoons--dances, theatricals, harmless meetings of all sorts. If wecould give them safe clean fun--not patronizingly, and not tooobviously instructive--they'd be willing to wait for it; they'd talkabout it instead of more dangerous things; they'd give up dangerousthings for it. They are very nice girls, some of them, and theirfriends are very nice fellows, for the most part, and they are--theyare so very young. 

"However, about the club--I am wondering if it could be borrowed for atemporary meeting-place for them, if we form a sort of club among them. I say temporary, because I hope we will build them a clubhouse of theirown some day. But meantime there is only the Grand Opera House, whichall the traveling theatrical companies rent; Hansen's Hall, which isover a saloon, so that won't do; and the Concert Hall, which coststwenty-five dollars a night. We would, of course, see that the club wascleaned after every meeting, and pay for the lights. I--I think that'sabout all, " finished Sidney, feeling that she had put her case ratherineloquently, and coming to a full stop. She sat down, her eyesnowhere, her cheeks very red. 

There was the silence of utter surprise in the room. After a pause, Mrs. White raised a gloved hand. Permission from the chair was givenMrs. White to speak. 

"Your idea would be to give the Old Paloma girls a dance here, Mrs. Burgoyne?"

"Regular dances, yes, " said Sidney, standing up. "To let them use theclubhouse, say, two nights a week. Reading, and singing, and sewing onenight, perhaps, and a dance another. Or we could get goodmoving-picture films, or have a concert or play, and ask the mothersand fathers now and then; charades and Morris dances, something likethat. "

"Dancing and moving-pictures--oh, dear, dear!" said Mrs. White, with awhimsical smile and a shake of her head, and there was laughter. 

"All those things take costuming, and that takes money, " said thechairman, after a silence, rather hesitatingly. 

"Money isn't the problem, " Mrs. Burgoyne rejoined eagerly; "you'll findthat they spend a good deal now, even for the wretched pleasures theyhave. "

There was another silence. Then Mrs. White again gained permission tospeak, and rose to do so. 

"I think perhaps Mrs. Burgoyne, being a newcomer here, doesn't quiteunderstand our feeling toward our little club, " she said verypleasantly. "We built it, " she went on, with a slight touch of emotion, "as a little refuge from everything jarring and unpleasant; we meant itto stand for something a little BETTER and FINER than the things ofeveryday life can possibly be. Perhaps we felt that there are alreadytoo many dances and too many moving-picture shows in the world; perhapswe felt that if we COULD forget those things for a little while--Idon't mean, " said Mrs. White smilingly reasonable, "that the reform ofwayward girls isn't a splendid and ennobling thing; I believe heartilyin the work institutions and schools are doing along those lines, but--" and with a pretty little gesture of helplessness she flung outher hands--"but we can't have a Hull House in every little town, youknow, and I'm afraid we shouldn't find very many Jane Addamses if wedid! Good girls don't need this sort of thing, and bad girls--well, unfortunately, the world has always had bad girls and always will have!We would merely turn our lovely clubhouse over to a lot of littleromping hoydens. "

"But--" began Mrs. Burgoyne eagerly. 

"Just ONE moment, " said the President, sweetly, and Mrs. Burgoyne satdown with blazing cheeks. "I only want to say that I think this isoutside the purpose for which the club was formed, " added Mrs. White. "If the club would care to vote on this, it seems to me that would bethe wisest way of settling the matter; but perhaps we could hear from afew more members first?"

There was a little rustle of applause at this, and Sidney felt herheart give a sick plunge, and raged within herself because her own acthad placed her at so great a disadvantage. In another moment, however, general attention was directed to a tall, plainly dressed, gentlewoman, who rose and said rather shyly:

"Since you suggested our discussing this a little, Mrs. President, Iwould like to say that I like this idea very much myself. I've oftenfelt that we weren't doing very much good, just uplifting ourselves, asit were, and I hope Mrs. Burgoyne will let me help her in any way Ican, whether the club votes for or against this plan. I--I have fourgirls and boys of my own at home, as you know, and I find that evenwith plenty of music, and all the library books and company they want, it's hard enough to keep those children happy at night. And, ladies, there must be plenty of mothers over there in Old Paloma who worryabout it as we do, and yet have no way of helping themselves. It seemsto me we couldn't put our clubhouse to better use, or our time either, for that matter. I would vote decidedly 'yes' to such a plan. I'veoften felt that we--well, that we rather wasted some of our time here, "she ended mildly. 

"Thank you, Mrs. Moore, " said Mrs. White politely. 

"I hope it is part of your idea to let our own children have a part inthe entertainments you propose, " briskly added another woman, aclergyman's wife, rising immediately. "I think Doctor Babcock wouldthoroughly approve of the plan, and I am sure I do. Every littlewhile, " she went on smilingly, "my husband asks me what GOOD the clubis doing, and I never can answer--"

"Men's clubs do so much good!" said some loud, cheerful voice at theback of the hall, and there was laughter. 

"A great many of them do good and have side issues, like this one, thatare all for good, " the clergyman's wife responded quickly, "andpersonally I would thank God to be able to save even ten--to save evenone--of those Old Paloma girls from a life of shame and suffering. Iwish we had begun before. Mrs. Burgoyne may propose to build them theirown clubhouse entirely herself; but if not, I hope we can all help inthat too, when the time comes. "

"Thank you, Mrs. Babcock, " said the President coldly. "What do youthink, Miss Pratt?"

"Oh, Mrs. Carew, and Mrs. Brown, and I all feel as Mrs. Burgoyne does, "admitted Anne Pratt innocently, a little fluttered. 

It was Mrs. White's turn to color. 

"I didn't know that the matter had been discussed, " she said stiffly. 

"Only generally; not in reference to the club, " Mrs. Burgoyne suppliedquickly. 

"I myself will propose an affirmative vote, " said Mrs. Apostleman'srich old voice. Mrs. Apostleman was entirely indifferent toparliamentary law, and was never in order. "How d'ye do it? The ayesrise, is that it?"

She pulled herself magnificently erect by the chair-back in front ofher, and with clapping and laughter the entire club rose to its feet. 

"This is entirely out of order, " said Mrs. White, very rosy. Everyonesat down suddenly, and the chairman gave two emphatic raps of her gavel. 

The President then asked permission to speak, and moved, with greatdignity, that the matter be laid before the board of directors at thenext meeting, and, if approved, submitted in due order to the vote ofthe club. 

The motion was briskly seconded, and a few minutes later Sidney foundherself freed from the babel of voices and walking home with nervousrapidity. "Well, that's over!" she said once or twice aloud. "ThankHeaven, it's over!"

"Is your head better, Mother?" said Joanna, who had been hanging on theHall gate waiting for her mother, and who put an affectionate arm abouther as they walked up the path. "You LOOK better. "

"Jo, " said Mrs. Burgoyne seriously, "there's one sure cure for theblues in this world. I recommend it to you, for it's safer thancocaine, and just as sure. Go and do something you don't want to--forsomebody else. "

CHAPTER XVI

It was no pleasant prospect of a reunion at the club, or an eveningwith his old friends, that had taken Barry Valentine so suddenly to SanFrancisco, but a letter from his wife--or, rather, from his wife'smother, for Hetty herself never wrote--which had stirred a vaguedistrust and discomfort in his mind. Mrs. Scott, his mother-in-law, wasa worldly, shrewd little person, but good-hearted, and as easily movedor stirred as a child. This was one of her characteristic letters, disconnected, ill-spelled, and scrawled upon scented lavender paper. She wrote that she and Hetty were sick of San Francisco, and theywanted Barry's permission to sell the Mission Street flats thatafforded them a living, and go away once and for all. Het, her motherwrote, had had a fine offer for the houses; Barry's signature only wasneeded to close the deal. 

All this might be true; it sounded reasonable enough; but, somehow, Barry fancied that it was not true, or at least that it was only partlyso. What did Hetty want the money for, he wondered. Why should hermother reiterate so many times that if Barry for any possible reasondisapproved, he was not to give the matter another thought; they mostespecially wanted only his simple yes or no. Why this consideration?Hetty had always been persistent enough about the things she wantedbefore. "I know you would consent if you could see how our hearts areset on this, " wrote Mrs. Scott, "but if you say 'no, ' that ends it. "

"Sure, I'll sell, " Barry said, putting the letter in his pocket. But itcame persistently between him and his work. What mischief was Hetty in, he wondered. Had some get-rich-quick shark got hold of her; it wasextremely likely. He could not shake the thought of her from his mind, her voice, her pretty, sullen little face, rose again and haunted him. What a child she had been, and what a boy he was, and how mistaken thewhole bitter experience!

Walking home late at night, the memory of old days rode him like ahateful nightmare. He saw the little untidy flat they had had in NewYork; the white winter outside, and a deeper chill within; little Billycoughing and restless; Hetty practising her scales, and he, Barry, trying to write at one end of the dining-room table. He remembered howdisappointment and restless ambition had blotted out her fresh, babyishbeauty; how thin and sharp her voice had grown as the months went on. 

Barry tried to read, but the book became mere printed words. He wentsoftly into Billy's room, and sat down by the tumbled bed and the smallwarm sleeper. Billy, even asleep, snuggled his hand appreciatively intohis father's, and brought its little fellow to lie there too, andpushed his head up against Barry's arm. 

And there the father sat motionless, while the clock outside in thehall struck two, and three, and four. This was Hetty's baby, and wherewas Hetty? Alone with her little fretful mother, moving fromboarding-house to boarding-house. Pretty no longer, buoyed up by thehope of an operatic career no longer, pinched--as they must bepinched--in money matters. 

The thought came to him suddenly that he must see her; and though hefought it as unwelcome and distasteful, it grew rapidly into aconviction. He must see her again, must have a long talk with her, mustascertain that nothing he could do for the woman who had been his wifewas left undone. He was no longer the exacting, unsuccessful boy shehad left so unceremoniously; he was a man now, standing on his ownfeet, and with a recognized position in the community. The littlefretful baby was a well-brushed young person who attended kindergartenand Sunday School. A new era of respectability and prosperity had setin. Hetty, his newly awakened sense of justice and his newly arousedambition told him, must somehow share it. Not that there could ever bea complete reconciliation between them, but there could be good-will, there could be a readjustment and a friendlier understanding. 

The thought of Sidney came suddenly upon his idle musings with a shockthat made his heart sick. Gracious, beautiful, and fresh, although shewas older than Hetty, how far she was removed from this sordid story ofhis, this darker side of his life! Perhaps months from now, histroubled thoughts ran on, he would tell her of his visit to Hetty. Forhe had determined to visit her. 

Just at dawn he left the house and went out of his own gate. His facewas pale, his eyes deeply ringed and his head ached furiously, but itwas with a sort of content that he took his seat in the early train forSan Francisco. He sank into a reverie, head propped on hand, thatlasted until his journey was almost over; but once in the city, his olddread of seeing his wife came over him again, and it was only after aleisurely luncheon at the club that Barry took a Turk Street car to thedingy region where Hetty lived. 

The row of dirty bay-windowed houses on either side of the street, andthe dust and papers blowing about in the hot afternoon wind, somehowreminded him forcibly of old days and ways. With a sinking heart hewent up one of the flights of wooden steps and asked at the door forMrs. Valentine. A Japanese boy in his shirt-sleeves ushered him into afront room. This was evidently the "parlor"; hot sunlight streamedthrough the bay windows; there was an upright piano against the closedfolding doors, and a graphophone on a dusty cherry table; wind whinedat the window-casing; one or two big flies buzzed against the glass. 

After a while Mrs. Smiley, the widow who conducted this littleboarding-house, who was a cousin of Hetty and whom Barry had knownyears ago, came in. She was a tall, angular blonde, cheerlesslyresigned to a cheerless existence. With her came a keen-faced, freckledboy of fourteen or fifteen, with his finger still marking a place inthe book he had been reading aloud. 

Hetty and her mother were out, it appeared. Mrs. Smiley didn't thinkthey would be back to dinner; in fact, she reiterated nervously, shewas sure they wouldn't. She was extremely and maddeninglynon-committal. No, she didn't know why they wanted to sell the MissionStreet flats. She had warned them it was a silly thing to bother Barryabout it. No, she didn't know when he could see them tomorrow; sheguessed, almost any time. 

Barry went away full of uneasy suspicions, and more than ever convincedthat something was wrong. He went back again the next morning, butnobody but the Japanese boy appeared to be at home. But a visit in thelate afternoon was more successful, for he found Mrs. Smiley and thetall son again. 

"Hetty IS here, isn't she?" he burst out suddenly, in the middle of ameaningless conversation. Mrs. Smiley turned pale and tried to laugh. 

"Where else would she be?" she demanded, and she went back to herinterrupted dissertation upon the unpleasantness of several specifiedboarders then under her roof. 

"It is funny, " Barry mused. "What did she say when she went out?"

"Why--" Mrs. Smiley began uncomfortably, "But, my gracious, I wish youwould ask Aunt Ide, Barry!" she interrupted herself uncomfortably. "She'll tell you. She's the one to ask. " Aunt Ide was Mrs. Scott. 

"Tell me WHAT?" he persisted. "You tell me, Lulu; that's a dear. "

"Auntie 'll tell you, " she repeated, adding suddenly, to the boy, "Russy, wasn't Aunt Ide in her room when you went up? You run up andsee. "

"Nome, " said Russell positively; but nevertheless he went. 

"Nice kid, Lulu, " said Barry in his idle way, "but he looks thin. "

"He's the finest little feller God ever sent a woman, " the motheranswered with sudden passionate pride. Color leaped to her sallowcheeks. "But this house is no place for him to be cooped up reading allday, " she went on in a worried tone, after a moment, "and I can't lethim run with the boys around here; it's a regular gang. I don't knowwhat I AM going to do with him. 'Tisn't as if he had a father. "

"He wouldn't like to come up to me, and get broken on the Mail?" Barryqueried in his interested way. "He'd get lots of fresh air, and hecould sleep at my house. I'll keep an eye on him, if you say so. "

"Go on the newspaper! I think he'd go crazy with joy, " his mother said. Tears came into her faded eyes. "Barry, you're real good-hearted tooffer it, " she said gratefully. "Of all things in the world, that's theone Russ wants to do. But won't he be in your way?"

"He'll fit right in, " Barry said. "Pack him up and send him along. Ifhe doesn't like it, I guess his mother'll let him come home. "

"Like it!" she echoed. Then in a lower tone she added, "You don't knowwhat a load you're taking off my mind, Barry. " She paused, coloredagain, and, to his surprise, continued rapidly, with a quick glance atthe door, "Barry, I never did a thing like this before in my life, andI can't do it now. You know how much I owe Aunt Ide: she took me in, and did for me just as she did for Het, when I was a baby; she made mywedding dress, and she came right to me when Gus died, but I can't letyou go back to Santa Paloma not knowing. "

"Not knowing what?" Barry said, close upon the mystery at last. 

"You know what Aunt Ide is, " Mrs. Smiley said pleadingly. "There's nota mite of harm in her, but she just--You know she'd been signingHetty's checks for a long time, Barry--"

"Go on, " Barry said, as she paused distressedly. 

"And she just went on--" Mrs. Smiley continued simply. 

"Went on WHAT?" Barry demanded. 

"After Het--went. Barry, " the woman interrupted herself, "I oughtn't bethe one to tell you, but don't you see--Don't you see Het's--"

"Dead, " Barry heard his own voice say heavily. The cheap little roomseemed to be closing in about him, he gripped the back of the chair bywhich he was standing. Mrs. Smiley began to cry quietly. They stood sofor a long time. 

After a while he sat down, and she told him about it, with thatfaithfulness to inessential detail that marks her class. Barry listenedlike a man in a dream. Mrs. Smiley begged him to stay to dinner to see"Aunt Ide, " but he refused, and in the gritty dusk he found himselfwalking down the street, alone in silence at last. He took a car to theocean beach, and far into the night sat on the rocks watching the darkplay of the rolling Pacific, and listening to the steady rush and fallof the water. 

The next day he saw his wife's mother, and at the sight of herfrightened, fat little face, and the sound of the high voice he knew sowell, the last shred of his anger and disgust vanished, and he couldonly pity her. He remembered how welcome she had made him to the littlecottage in Plumas, those long years ago; how she had laughed at hisyouthful appreciation of her Sunday fried chicken and cherry pie, andthe honest tears she had shed when he went, with the dimpled Hettybeside him, to tell her her daughter was won. She was Billy'sgrandmother, after all, and she had at least seen that Hetty wasprotected all through her misguided little career from the breath ofscandal, and that Hetty's last days were made comfortable and serene. He assured her gruffly that it was "all right, " and she presentlybrightened, and told him through tears that he was a "king, " when itwas finally arranged that she should go on drawing the rents of theMission Street property for the rest of her life. She and Mrs. Smileypersuaded him to dine with them, and he thought it quite characteristicof "Aunt Ide" to make a little occasion of it, and take them to acertain favored little French restaurant for the meal. But Mrs. Smileywas tremulous with gratitude and relief, Russell's face was radiant, his adoring eyes all for Barry, and Barry, always willing to accept asituation gracefully, really enjoyed his dinner. 

He stayed in San Francisco another day and went to Hetty's grave, highup in the Piedmont Hills, and took a long lonely tramp above thecollege town afterward. Early the next morning he started for home, fresh from a bath and a good breakfast, and feeling now, for the firsttime, that he was free, and that it was good to be free--free to workand to plan his life, and free, his innermost consciousness exulted torealize, to go to her some day, the Lady of his Heart's Desire, andtake her, with all the fragrance and beauty that were part of her, intohis arms. And oh, the happy years ahead; he seemed to feel thesweetness of spring winds blowing across them, and the glow of winterfires making them bright! What of her fabulous wealth, after all, if hecould support her as she chose to live, a simple country gentle-woman, in a little country town?

Barry stared out at the morning fields and hills, where fog andsunshine were holding their daily battle, and his heart sang within him. 

Fog held the field at Santa Paloma when he reached it, the stationbuilding dripped somberly. Main Street was but a line of vague shapesin the mist. No grown person was in sight, but Barry was not ten feetfrom the train before a screaming horde of small boys was upon him, with shouted news in which he recognized the one word, over and over:"Fire!"

It took him a few minutes to get the sense of what they said. He staredat them dully. But when he first repeated it to himself aloud, itseemed already old news; he felt as if he had known it for a very longtime: "The MAIL office caught fire yesterday, and the whole thing isburned to the ground. "

"Caught fire yesterday, and the whole thing is burned to the ground:yes, of course, " Barry said. He was not conscious of starting for thescene, he was simply there. A fringe of idle watchers, obscured in thefog, stood about the sunken ruins of what had been the MAIL building. Barry joined them. 

He did not answer when a dozen sympathetic murmurs addressed him, because he was not conscious of hearing a single voice. He stoodsilently, looking down at the twisted great knots of metal that hadbeen the new presses, the great wave of soaked and half-burnednewspapers that had been the last issue of the MAIL. The fire had beentwenty-four hours ago, but the ruins were still smoking. Lengths ofcharred woodwork, giving forth a sickening odor, dripped water still;here and there brave little spurts of flame still sucked noisily. Atwisted typewriter stood erect in steaming ashes; a lunch-basket, witha red, fringed napkin in it, had somehow escaped with only a wetting. Barry noticed that the walls of the German bakery next door were badlysinged, that one show-window was cracked across, and that the frostedwedding-cake inside stood in a pool of dirty water. 

He was presently aware that someone was telling him that nobody was toblame. Details were volunteered, and he listened quietly, like adispassionate onlooker. "Hits you pretty hard, Barry, " sympatheticvoices said. 

"Ruins me, " he answered briefly. 

And it dawned upon him sickly and certainly that it was true. He wasruined now. All his hopes had been rooted here, in what was now thismass of wet ashes steaming up into the fog. Here had been his chancefor a livelihood, and a name; his chance to stand before the communityfor what was good, and strong, and helpful. He had been proud becausehis editorials were beginning to be quoted here and there; he had beenkeenly ambitious for Sidney's plans, her hopes for Old Paloma. How vainit all was now, and how preposterous it seemed that only an hour ago hehad let his thoughts of the future include her--always so far abovehim, and now so infinitely removed!

She would be sympathetic, he knew; she would be all kindness andgenerosity. And perhaps, six months ago, he would have accepted moregenerosity from her; but Barry had found himself now, and he knew thatshe had done for him all he would let her do. 

He smiled suddenly and grimly as he remembered another bridge, justburned behind him. If he had not promised Hetty's mother that herincome should go on uninterruptedly, he might have pulled something outof this wreckage, after all. For a moment he speculated: he COULD sellthe Mission Street property now; he might even revive the MAIL, after awhile--

But no, what was promised was promised, after all, and poor little Mrs. Scott must be left to what peace and pleasure the certainty of anincome gave her. And he must begin again, somehow, somewhere, burdenedwith a debt, burdened with a heartache, burdened with--His heart turnedwith sudden warmth to the thought of Billy; Billy at least, staunchlittle partner of so many dark days, and bright, should not be counteda burden. 

Even as he thought of his son, a small warm hand slid into his with areassuring pressure, and lie looked down to see the little figurebeside him. Moment after moment went by, timid shafts of gold sunshinewere beginning to conquer the mist now, and still father and son stoodsilent, hand in hand. 

CHAPTER XVII

The mischief was done; no use to stand there by the smoking ruins ofwhat had been his one real hope for himself and his life. After a whileBarry roused himself. There seemed to be nothing to do at the moment, no more to be said. He and Billy walked up River Street to their owngate, but when they reached it, Barry, obeying an irresistible impulse, merely left his coat and suit-case there, and went on through the Hallgateway, and up to the house. 

The sun was coming out bravely now, and already he felt its warmth inthe garden. Everywhere the fog was rising, was fading against the greenof the trees. He followed a delicious odor of wood smoke and the soundof voices, to the barnyard, and here found the lady of the house, withher inevitable accompaniment of interested children. Sidney wasmanaging an immense brush fire with a long pole; her gingham skirtpinned back trimly over a striped petticoat, her cheeks flushed, herhair riotous under a gipsy hat. 

At Barry's first word she dropped her pole, her whole face grewradiant, and she came toward him holding out both her hands. 

"Barry!" she said eagerly, her eyes trying to read his face, "how gladI am you've come! We didn't know how to reach you. You've heard, ofcourse--! You've seen--?"

"The poor old MAIL? Yes, I'm just from there, " he said soberly. "Can wetalk?"

"As long as you like, " she answered briskly. And after some directionsto the children, she led him to the little garden seat below the sideporch, and they sat down. "Barry, you look tired, " she said then. "Doyou know, I don't know where you've been all these days, or what youwent for? Was it to San Francisco?"

"San Francisco, yes, " he assented, "I didn't dream I'd be there solong. " He rubbed his forehead with a weary hand. "I'll tell you allabout it presently, " he said. "I had a letter from my wife's motherthat worried me, and I started off at half-cock, I got worrying--but ofcourse I should have written you--"

"Don't bother about that now, if it distresses you, " she said quicklyand sympathetically. "Any time will do for that. I--I knew it wassomething serious, " she went on, relief in her voice, "or you wouldn'thave simply disappeared that way! I--I said so. Barry, are you hungry?"

He tried to laugh at the maternal attitude that was never long absentin her, but the tears came into his eyes instead. After all the strainand sleeplessness and despondency, it was too poignantly sweet to findher so simply cheering and trustful, in her gipsy dress, with thebrightening sunlight and the sweet old garden about her. Barry couldhave dropped on his knees to bury his face in her skirts, and feel themotherly hands on his hair, but instead he admitted honestly to hungerand fatigue. 

Sidney vanished at once, and presently came back followed by her blackcook, both carrying a breakfast that Barry was to enjoy at once underthe rose vines. Sidney poured his coffee, and sat contentedly nibblingtoast while he fell upon the cold chicken and blackberries. 

"Now, " said her heartening voice, "we'll talk! What is to be done firstabout the MAIL?"

"No insurance, you know, " he began at once. "We never did carry any inthe old days and I suppose that's why I didn't. So that makes it a deadloss. Worse than that--for I wasn't clear yet, you know. The safe theycarried out; so the books are all right, I suppose, although they saywe had better not open it for a few days. Then I can settle everythingup as far as possible. And after that--well, I've been thinking thatperhaps Barker, of the San Francisco TELEGRAM might give me a start ofsome sort--" He rumpled his hair with a desperate gesture. "The thing'scome on me like such a thunderbolt that I really haven't thought itout!" he ended apologetically. 

"The thing's come on you like such a thunderbolt, " she echoedcheerfully, "that you aren't taking it like yourself at all! Thequestion, is if we work like Trojans from now on, can we get an issueof the MAIL out tomorrow?"

"Get an issue out tomorrow!" he repeated, staring at her. 

"Certainly. I would have done what I could about it, " said Sidneybriskly, "but not knowing where you were, or when you were coming back, my hands were absolutely tied. Now, Barry, LISTEN!" she broke off, notreassured by his expression, "and don't jump at the conclusion thatit's impossible. What would it mean?"

"To get an issue of the MAIL out tomorrow? Why, great Scott, Sid, youdon't seem to realize that there's not a stick left standing!"

"I do realize. I was there until the fire was out, " she said calmly. And for a few minutes they talked of the fire. Then she said abruptly:"Would Ferguson let you use the old STAR PRESS for a few weeks, do youthink?"

"I don't see why he should, " Barry said perversely. 

"I don't see why he shouldn't. I'll tell you something you don't know. Night before last, Barry, while I was down in the office, old Fergusonhimself came in, and poked about, and asked various questions. Finallyhe asked me what I thought the chances were of your wanting to buy outthe Star. What do you think at THAT?"

"He's sick of it, is he?" Barry said, with kindling eyes. "Well, we'veseen that coming, haven't we? I will be darned!" He shook his headregretfully. "That would have been a big thing for the MAIL" he said, "but it's all up now!"

"Not necessarily, " the lady undauntedly rejoined. "I've been thinking, Barry, " she went on, "if you reordered the presses, they'd give youplenty of time to pay for them, wouldn't they? Might even takesomething off the price, under the circumstances?"

"I suppose they might. " He made an impatient gesture. "But that's justone--"

"One item, I know. But it's the main item. Then you could rent theoffice and loft over the old station, couldn't you? And move the oldStar press in there this afternoon. "

"This afternoon, " said Barry calmly. 

"Well, we don't gain anything by waiting. You can write a manly andaffecting editorial, "--her always irrepressible laughter broke out, "full of allusions to the phoenix, you know! And my regular Saturdaycolumn is all done, and Miss Porter can send in something, and there'sany amount of stuff about the Folsom lawsuit. And Young, Mason andCompany ought to take at least a page to advertise their premium dayto-morrow. I'll come down as soon as you've moved--"

Barry reached for his hat. 

"The thing can't be done, " he announced firmly, "but, by George, Sid, you would give a field mouse courage! And what a grandstand play, if weCOULD put it through! There's not a second to be lost, though. But lookhere, " and with sudden gravity he took both her hands, "it'll take somemore money, you know. "

"I have some more money, " she answered serenely. 

"Well, I'll GET some!" he declared emphatically. "It won't be so much, either, once we get started. And so old Ferguson wanted to sell, didhe?"

"He did. And we'll buy the STAR yet. " They were on the path now. "Telephone me when you can, " she said, "and don't lose a minute now!Good luck!"

And Barry's great stride had taken him half-way down River Street, hishands in his pockets, his mind awhirl with plans, before it occurred tohim that he had not told her the news of Hetty, after all. 

CHAPTER XVIII

On that same afternoon, several of the most influential members of theSanta Paloma Woman's Club met informally at Mrs. Carew's house. Some ofthe directors were there, Miss Pratt, Mrs. Lloyd and Mrs. Adams, and ofcourse Mrs. White, who had indeed been instrumental in arranging themeeting. They had met to discuss Mrs. Burgoyne's plan of using theclubhouse as a meeting place for the Old Paloma factory girls. Allthese ladies were quite aware that their verdict, however unofficial, would influence the rest of the club, and that what this group of adozen or fifteen decided upon to-day would practically settle thematter. 

Mrs. Willard White, hitherto serenely supreme in this little world, wascuriously upset about the whole thing, openly opposed to Mrs. Burgoyne's suggestion, and surprised that her mere wish in the matterwas not sufficient to carry a negative vote. Her contention was thatthe clubhouse had been built for very different purposes than thoseMrs. Burgoyne proposed, and that charity to the Old Paloma girls had nopart in the club's original reasons for being. She meant, in the courseof the argument, to hint that while so many of the actual necessitiesof decent living were lacking in the factory settlement homes, meredancing and moving-pictures did not appeal to her as reasonable orright; and although uneasily aware that she supported the unpopularargument, still she was confident of an eventual triumph. 

But despite the usual laughter, and the pleasantries and compliments, there was an air of deadly earnestness about the gathered club-womentoday that bespoke a deeper interest than was common in the matter upfor discussion. The President's color rose and deepened steadily, asthe afternoon wore on, and one voice after another declared for the newplan, and her arguments became a little less impersonal and a littlemore sharp. This was especially noticeable when, as was inevitable, thename of Mrs. Burgoyne was introduced. 

"I personally feel, " said Mrs. White finally, "that perhaps we SantaPaloma women are just a little bit undignified when we allow a perfectstranger to come in among us, and influence our lives so materially, JUST because she happens to be a multi-millionaire. Are we so swayed bymere money? I hope not. I hope we all live our lives as suits US best, not to please--or shall I say flatter, and perhaps win favor with?--arich woman. We--some of us, that is!"--her smile was alllenience--"have suddenly decided we can dress more simply, havesuddenly decided to put our girls into gingham rompers, and instead ofgiving them little dancing parties, let them play about like boys! Wewonder why we need spend our money on imported hats and nice dinnersand hand-embroidered underwear, and Oriental rugs, although we thoughtthese things very well worth having a few months ago--and why? Justbecause we are easily led, I'm afraid, and not quite conscious enoughof our own dignity!"

There had been a decided heightening of color among the listening womenduring this little speech, and, as the President finished, more thanone pair of eyes rested upon her with a slightly resentful steadiness. There was a short silence, in which several women were gathering theirthoughts for speech, but Mrs. Brown, always popular in Santa Paloma, from the days of her short braids and short dresses, and quite theyoungest among them to-day, was the first to speak. 

"I daresay that is quite true, Mrs. White, " said Mrs. Brown, withdignity, "except that I don't think Mrs. Burgoyne's money influencesme, or any of us! I admit that she herself, quite apart from her greatfortune, has influenced me tremendously in lots of ways, but I don'tthink she ever tried to do it, or realizes that she has. And as far ascopying goes, don't we women always copy somebody, anyway? Aren't wealways imitating the San Francisco women, and don't they copy New York, and doesn't New York copy London or Paris? We read what feathers arein, and how skirts are cut, and how coffee and salads are served, andwe all do it, or try to. And when Mrs. Burgoyne came to the Hall, andnever took one particle of interest in that sort of thing, I justthought it over and wondered why I should attempt to impress a womanwho could buy this whole town and not miss the money?"

Laughter interrupted her, and some sympathetic clapping, but shepresently went on seriously:

"I took all the boys' white socks one day, and dyed them dark brown. And I dyed all their white suits dark blue. I've gotten myself somegalatea dresses that nothing tears or spoils, and that come home freshand sweet from the wash every week. And, as a result, I actually havesome time to spare, for the first time since I was married. We aregoing to try some educational experiments on the children this winter, and, if that leaves any leisure, I am heart and soul for this new plan. Doctor Brown feels as I do. Of course, he's a doctor, " said the loyallittle wife, "and he KNOWS! And he says that all those Old Paloma girlswant is a little mothering, and that when there are mothers enough togo round, there won't be any charity or legislation needed in thisworld. "

"I think you've said it all, for all of us, Mary!" Mrs. Carew said, when some affectionate applause had subsided. "I think things wereprobably different, a few generations ago, " she went on, "but nowadayswhen fashions are so arbitrary, and change so fast, really andhonestly, some of us, whose incomes are limited, will have to stopsomewhere. Why, the very children expect box-parties, and motor-trips, and caterers' suppers, in these days. And one wouldn't mind, if it lefttime for home life, and reading, and family intercourse, but itdoesn't. We don't know what our children are studying, what they'rethinking about, or what life means to them at all, because we are toobusy answering the telephone, and planning clothes, and writing formalnotes, and going to places we feel we ought to be seen in. I'm havingmore fun than I had in years, helping our children plan some abridgedplays from Shakespeare, with the Burgoyne girls, for this winter, andI'm perfectly astonished, even though I'm their mother, at theirenjoyment of it, and at my own. Mr. Carew himself, who NEVER takes muchinterest in that sort of thing, asked me why they couldn't give themfor the Old Paloma Girls' Club, if they get a club room. I didn't knowhe even knew anything about our club plans. I said, 'George, are youwilling to have Jeannette get interested in that crowd?' and he said, 'Finest thing in the world for her!' and I don't know, " finished Mrs. Carew, thoughtfully, "but what he's right. "

"I'm all for it, " said breezy Mrs. Lloyd, "I don't imagine I'd be anygood at actually talking to them, but I would go to the dances, andintroduce people, and trot partners up to the wallflowers--"

There was more laughter, and then Mrs. Adams said briskly:

"Well, let's take an informal vote!"

"I don't think that's necessary, Sue, " said Mrs. White, generously, "Ithink I am the only one of us who believes in preserving the traditionof the dear old club, and I must bow to the majority, of course. Perhaps it will be a little hard to see strangers there; our prettyfloors ruined, and our pretty walls spotted, but--" an eloquent shrug, and a gesture of her pretty hands finished the sentence with the words, "isn't that the law?"

And upon whole-hearted applause for Mrs. White, Mrs. Carew tactfullyintroduced the subject of tea. 

They were all chatting amicably enough in the dining-room a few minuteslater when George Carew and Barry Valentine came in. Barry, who seemedexcited, exhilarated and tired, had come to borrow a typewriter fromthe Carews. He responded to sympathetic inquiries, that he had beenworking like a madman since noon, and that there would be an issue ofthe Mail ready for them in the morning. He said, "everyone had beensimply corking about everything, " and it began to look like smoothsailing now. In the few minutes that he waited for young George Carewto find the typewriter and bring it down to him, a fresh interruptionoccurred in the entrance of old Mrs. Apostleman. 

Mrs. Apostleman, between being out of breath from hurrying up the hillin the late afternoon heat, and fearful that the gathering would breakup before she could say what she wanted to say, and entirely unable tocontrol her gasping and puffing, was a sight at once funny andpitiable. As she sank into a comfortable chair she held up one fat handto command attention, and with the other laid forcible hold upon BarryValentine. Three or four of the younger women hurried to her with fansand tea, and in a moment or two she really could manage disconnectedwords. 

"Thanks, me dear. No, no cake. Just a mouthful of tea to--there, that'sbetter! I was afraid ye'd all be gone--that'll do, thank ye, Susie!Well, " she set down her tea-cup, "well! I've a little piece of news foryou all--don't go, Barry, you'll be interested in this, and I couldn'twait to come up and tell ye!" She began to fumble in her bag, andpresently produced therefrom her eye-glasses and a letter. The lattershe opened with a great crackling of paper. 

"This is from me brother, Alexander Wetherall, " said she, with animpressive glance over her glasses. "As ye know, he's a family lawyerin New York, he has the histories of half the old families in thecountry pigeon-holed away in those old offices of his. He doesn't writeme very often; his wife does now and then--stupid woman, but nice. However, I wrote him in May, and told him Mrs. Burgoyne had bought theHall, and just asked him what he knew about her and her people. Here--"marking a certain line with a pudgy, imperative finger, she handed apage of the letter to Barry, "read from there on, " she commanded, "thisis what he says. "

Barry took the paper, but hesitated. 

"It's all right!" said the old lady, impatiently, "nobody could sayanything that wasn't good about Sidney Burgoyne. "

Thus reassured, Barry turned obediently to the indicated place. 

"'You ask me about your new neighbor, '" he read, "'I suppose of courseyou know that she is Paul Frothingham's only child by his secondmarriage. Her mother died while she was a baby, and Frothingham tookher all over the world with him, wherever he went. She married veryyoung, Colonel John Burgoyne, of the Maryland family, older than she, but a very fine fellow. As a girl and as his wife she had anextraordinary opportunity for social success, she was a great favoritein the diplomatic circle at Washington, and well known in the bestLondon set, and in the European capitals. She seems to be quite aremarkable young woman, but you are all wrong about her money; she isvery far from rich. She--'"

Barry stopped short. Mrs. Apostleman cackled delightedly; no one elsestirred. 

"'She got very little of Frothingham's money, '" Barry presently readon, '"it came to him from his first wife, who was a widow with twodaughters when he married her. The money naturally reverted to hergirls, Mrs. Fred Senior and Mrs. Spencer Mack, both of this city. '"

"Ha! D'ye get that?" said Mrs. Apostleman. "Go on!"

"'Frothingham left his own daughter something considerably less than ahundred thousand dollars, '" Barry presently resumed, "'not more thanseventy or eighty thousand, certainly. It is still invested in theestate. It must pay her three or four thousand a year. And besides thatshe has only Burgoyne's insurance, twenty or twenty-five thousand, forthose years of illness pretty well used up his own money. I believe thestepsisters were very anxious to make her a more generous arrangement, but she seems to have declined it. Alice says they are quite devoted--'"

"Alice don't count!" said the old lady "that's his wife. That'senough. " She stopped the reader and refolded the letter, hermischievous eyes dancing. "Well, what d'ye think of that?" she demanded. 

Barry's bewildered, "Well, I will be darned!" set loose a babel oftongues. Mrs. Apostleman had not counted in vain upon a sensation;everyone talked at once. Mrs. White's high, merry laugh dominated allthe other voices. 

"So there is a very much better reason for thissimple-dinner-blue-gingham existence than we supposed, " said thePresident of the Santa Paloma Women's Club amusedly when the first rushof comment died away. "I think that is quite delicious! While all of uswere feeling how superior she was not to get a motor, and not torebuild the Hall, she was simply living within her income, and makingthe best of it!"

"I don't know that it makes her any less superior, " Mrs. Carew saidthoughtfully. "It--it certainly makes her seem--NICER. I neversuspected her of--well, of preaching, exactly, but I have sometimesthought that she really couldn't enter into our point of view, with allthat money! I think I'm going to like her more than ever!" she finishedlaughingly. 

"Why, it's the greatest relief in the world!" exclaimed Mrs. Adams. "I've been rather holding back about going up there, and imitating her, because I honestly didn't want to be influenced by eight millions, andI was afraid. I WAS. Not a week ago Wayne asked me if I thought she'dlike him to donate a sewing machine to her Girls' Club for them to runup their little costumes with--he has the agency, you know--and I said, 'Oh, don't, Wayne, she can buy them a sewing machine apiece if shewants to, and never know it!' But I'm going to make him write her, TO-NIGHT, " said Mrs. Adams, firmly, "and I declare I feel as if aweight had dropped off my shoulders. It MEANS so much more now, if weoffer her the club. It means that we aren't merely giving a LadyBountiful her way, but that we're all working together like neighbors, and trying to do some good in the world. "

"And I don't think there's any question that she would live exactlythis way, " Miss Pratt contributed shyly, "and play with the children, and dress as she does, even if she had fifty millions! She's simplyfound out what pays in this life, and what doesn't pay, and I think agood many of us were living too hard and fast ever to stop and thinkwhether it was really worth while or not. She's the happiest woman Iever knew; it makes one happy just to be with her, and no money can buythat. "

"But it's curious she never has taken the trouble to undeceive us, "said Mrs. White beginning to fit on an immaculate pair of white gloves, finger by finger. 

"Why--you'll see!--She never dreamed we thought she was anything butone of ourselves. " Mrs. Brown predicted. "Why should she? When did sheever speak of money, or take the least interest in money? She neverspeaks of it. She says 'I can't afford the time, or I can't afford theeffort, ' that's what counts with her. Doesn't it, Barry?"

"Barry, do you really suppose--" Mrs. Carew was beginning, as sheturned to the doorway where he had been standing. 

But Barry had gone. 

CHAPTER XIX

Barry went straight up to the Hall, but Sidney was not there. Joannaand Ellen, busily murmuring over "Flower Ladies" on the wide terracesteps, told him that Mother was to be late to supper, and, withobviously forced hospitality and one eye upon their little families ofinverted roses and hollyhocks, asked him to wait. Barry thanked them, but couldn't wait. 

He went like a man in a dream down River Street, past gardens thatglowed with fragrant beauty, and under the great trees and the warm, sunset sky. And what a good world it seemed to be alive in, and what afriendly village in which to find work and love and content. A dozenreturning householders, stopping at their gates, wanted the news of hisventure, a dozen freshly-clad, interested women, watering lawns in theshade, called out to wish him good fortune. And always, before hiseyes, the thought of the vanished millions danced like a star. She wasnot infinitely removed, she was not set apart by great fortune, she wasonly the sweetest and best of women, to be wooed and won like anyother. He ran upstairs and flung open the door of the little bare newoffice of the MAIL, like an impetuous boy. There was no one there. Buta wide white hat with a yellow rose pinned on it hung above the new oakdesk in the corner, and his heart rose at the sight. His own desk hadan improvised drop light hung over it; he lowered the typewriter fromhis cramped arm upon a mass of clippings and notes. Beyond this roomwas the great bare loft, where two or three oily men were still toilingin the fading light over the establishing of the old STAR press. Sasheshad been taken from one of the big windows to admit the entrance of theheavier parts; thick pulley ropes dangled at the sill. Great unopenedbundles of gray paper filled the center of the floor, a slim amusedyouth was putting the finishing touches to a telephone on the wall, andSidney, bare-headed, very business-like and keenly interested, waswatching everybody and making suggestions. She greeted Barry with acheerful wave of the hand. 

"There you are!" she said, relievedly. "Come and see what you think ofthis. Do you know this office is going to be much nicer than the oldone? How goes everything with you?"

"Like lightning!" he answered. "At this rate, there's nothing to it atall. Have the press boys showed up yet?"

"They are over at the hotel, getting their dinners, " she explained. "And we have borrowed lamps from the hotel to use here this evening. Did you hear that Martin, of the Press, you know, has offered to sendover the A. P. News as fast as it comes in? Isn't that very decent ofhim? Here's Miss Porter's stuff. "

She sat down, and began to assort papers on her desk, quite absorbed inwhat she was doing. Barry, at his own desk, opened and shut a drawer ortwo noisily, but he was really watching her, with a thumping heart. Watching the bare brown head, the lowered lashes, the mouth that movedoccasionally in time with her busy thoughts--

Suddenly she looked up, and their eyes met. 

Without the faintest consciousness of what he did, Barry crossed thefloor between them, and as, on an equally unconscious impulse, shestood up, paling and breathless, he laid his hand over hers on thelittered desk, and they stood so, staring at each other, the deskbetween them. 

"Sidney, " he said incoherently, "who--where--where did your father'smoney go--who got it?"

She looked at him in utter bewilderment. 

"Where did WHAT--father's money? Who got it? Are you crazy, Barry?" shestammered. 

"Ah, Sidney, tell me! Did it come to you?"

"Why--why--" She seemed suddenly to understand that there was somereason for the question, and answered quite readily: "It belonged to myfather's first wife, Barry, most of it. And it went to her daughters, my step-sisters, they are older than I and both married--"

"Then you're NOT worth eight million dollars?"

"I--? Why, you know I'm not!" Her eyes were at their widest. "Who eversaid I was? _I_ never said so!"

"But everyone in town thinks so!" Barry's great sigh of relief camefrom his very soul. 

Sidney, pale before, grew very red. She freed her hands, and sat down. 

"Well, they are very silly, then!" she said, almost crossly. And as thethought expanded, she added, "But I don't see how anyone COULD! Theymust have thought my letting them help me out with the Flower Show andbegging for the Old Paloma girls was a nice piece of affectation! If Ihad eight million dollars, or one million, don't you suppose I'd beDOING something, instead of puttering away with just the beginning ofthings!" The annoyed color deepened. "I hope you're mistaken, Barry, "said she. "Why didn't you set them right?"

"I! Why, I thought so too!"

"Oh, Barry! What a hypocrite you must have thought me!" She buried herrosy face in her hand for a moment. Presently she rushed on, halfindignantly, "--With all my talk about the sinfulness of Americanwomen, who persistently attempt a scheme of living that is far beyondtheir incomes! And talking of the needs of the poor all over the world, with all that money lying idle!"

"I thought of it chiefly as an absolute and immovable barrier betweenus, " Barry said honestly, "and that was as far as my thinking went. "

Her eyes met his with that curious courage she had when a difficultmoment had to be faced. 

"There is a more serious barrier than that between us, " she remindedhim gravely. 

"Hetty!" he said stupidly. "But I TOLD you--"

But he stopped short, realizing that he had not yet told her, andrather at a loss. 

"You didn't tell me anything, " she said, eyeing him steadily. 

"Why, " Barry's tone was much lower, "I meant to tell you first of all, but--you know what a day I have had! It seems impossible that I onlyleft San Francisco this morning. "

He brought his chair from his own desk, and sat opposite her, and, while the summer twilight outside deepened into dusk, unmindful oftime, he went over the pitiful little story. Sidney listened, herserious eyes never leaving his face, her fine hands locked idly beforeher. The telephone boy and the movers had gone now, and there wassilence all about. 

"You have suffered enough, Barry; thank God it is all over!" she said, at the end, "and we know, " she went on, with one of her rarerevelations of the spiritual deeps that lay so close to the surface ofher life, "we know that she is safe and satisfied at last, in Hiscare. " For a moment her absent eyes seemed to fathom far spaces. Barryabruptly broke the silence. 

"For one year, Sidney, " he said, in a purposeful, steady voice that wasnew to her, and that brought her eyes, almost startled, to his face, "for one year I'm going to show you what I can do. In that time theMail will be where it was before the fire, if all goes well. And then--"

"Then--" she said, a little unsteadily, rising and gathering hat andgloves together, "then you shall come to me and tell me anything youlike! But--but not now! All this is so new and so strange--"

"Ah, but Sidney!" he pleaded, taking her hands again, "mayn't I speakof it just this one day, and then never again? Let me think for thiswhole year that PERHAPS you will marry a country editor, and that weshall spend the rest of our lives together, writing and planning, andtramping through the woods, and picnicking with the kiddies on theriver, and giving Christmas parties for every little rag-tag andbob-tail in Old Paloma!"

"But you don't want to settle down in this stupid village, " she laughedtremulously, tears on her lashes, "at the ugly old Hall, and amongthese superficial empty-headed women?"

"Just here, " he said, smiling at his own words, "in the sweetest placein the world, among the best neighbors! I never want to go anywhereelse. Our friends are here, our work is here--"

"And we are here!" she finished it for him, laughing. Barry, with agreat rising breath, put his arms about the white figure, and crushedher to him, and Sidney laid her hand on his shoulder, and raised herface honestly for his first kiss. 

"And now let me go home to my neglected girls, " she said, after aninterval. "You have a busy night ahead of you, and your press boys willbe here any minute. "

But first she took a sheet of yellow copy paper, and wrote on it, "Oneyear of silence. August thirtieth to August thirtieth. " "Is thisinclusive?" she asked, looking up. 

"Exclusive, " said Barry, firmly. 

"Exclusive, " she echoed obediently. And when she had added the word, she folded the sheet and gave it to Barry. "There is a little reminderfor you, " said she. 

Barry went down to the street door with her, to watch her starthomeward in the sweet summer darkness. 

"Oh, one more thing I meant to say, " she said, as they stood on theplatform of what had been the old station, "I don't know why I haven'tsaid it already, or why you haven't. "

"And that is, Madam--?" he asked attentively. 

"It's just this, " she swayed a little nearer to him--her laughing voicewas no more than a whisper. "I love you, Barry!"

"Haven't I said that?" he asked a little hoarsely. 

"Not yet. "

"Then I say it, " he answered steadily, "I love you, my darling!"

"Oh, not here, Barry--in the street!" was Mrs. Burgoyne's next remark. 

But there was no moon, and no witnesses but the blank walls andshuttered windows of neighboring storehouses. And the silent year hadnot, after all, fairly begun.