I leaned over the bank and cried that I was there, but she never stopped—it was terrible. Finally I made a slip-noose and actually managed to fling it over his head—Roger had taught me to do that at school, twenty years ago—and that stopped her, hitting against her cheek, and she opened her eyes.

"Put it under his arms, can you?" I cried, and after several efforts, for she was nearly frozen stiff, the brave, clever creature did, and I got it around a tree on the edge. Then I stopped, panting, for I realised that I could do no more. The run had taken all the strength out of me—I couldn't have dragged a cat—and she was little more than a foot below me!

I can't write about it. My arms ache now, just as my infernal shoulders ached with that paralysing, numb ache then.

"Listen!" I cried, for she had begun to scream again, "listen, Margarita, or I will beat you! Is he unconscious?"

She nodded.

"Can you hold on five minutes, with his weight gone?"

She blinked in a sort of stupid assent.

"Could you for ten? Are you braced solid?"

Again she blinked, and with an inspiration I plunged my shaking hand into my great-coat pocket and pulled out a brandy-flask. Miss Jencks had taken it from the sideboard.

I tied it into my handkerchief, opened, and swung it down to her, and she got her lips around it and coughed it down. It acted instantly and she could move a little, and while I encouraged her, and after several heartrending failures, which nearly spilled all the brandy, she got it into his mouth between his teeth, as his big body swung in the noose. It ran over his chin and down his neck, but a little got in, and his eyelids quivered. Soon he coughed, and I dared not wait another second.

"I am going for Caliban," I said very distinctly, "we will pull you out in a few minutes. Let him alone and hang on, do you hear? Don't scream any more—you are safe. Pour all the brandy into him—tell him he is tied fast. Don't try to move—you may slip, and tear your skirt. Hold on!"

Then I turned my back on them and ran, or rather stumbled off. I leaned over and kissed her forehead, first.

I remember muttering, "I never asked before—if You or Anybody is there, save them! Take me and save them!" and then I stumbled on and on....

It was not too long. Caliban was coming with his big wood-sled and more rope and blankets, and as I caught sight of him the most extraordinary thought flew into my mind, which worked with a dreadful clearness, for I saw them stiffen and sink and slip away every second. Rosy bayed just then, and as my heart sank, for I thought they were gone, it suddenly occurred to me what Rosy's name must have been!

"It's Rosencrantz!" I muttered, "and the one Margarita insists was called 'Gildy' was Guildenstern, and they were Hamlet's friends—poor Prynne!" Perhaps that wasn't idiotic—I laughed as I stumbled along!

Well, they were there, and Roger was enough himself to strike out with his feet a little and avoid hindering us, if he couldn't help much. I made another noose for her, and she hung in it while Caliban dragged him up—the fellow had the strength of an ox and showed wonderful dexterity—and later crawled down the rocks and cut her skirt through with his big clasp-knife. She was the hardest to move, for her foot was caught—all that saved her. I thought we should break her ankle before we could get her.

We laid them on the sledge, wrapped in blankets, poured in more brandy, and Caliban attached Rosy to it by his collar—an old trick of his, it seems—and they dragged us all home, for my worthless legs gave out completely.

Miss Jencks and Agnes rubbed them and mustard-bathed them and I wrote telegrams for Caliban to take in the launch—wrote them as well as I could in the clutches of a violent chill, with my teeth like castanets and my hands palsied—and even as I wrote, it came to me that Margarita had repeated monotonously, all the way home, in a hoarse, painful voice (but, mercifully, a low one) "get a rope, get a rope, get a rope."

It was the voice I had heard, that turned me back!

She was all right, but very weak and sore and with a little fever—not much. She was perfectly conscious of everything within an hour, and told us about it: how she had slipped and Roger had hit his head and strained himself in going after her. She thinks she held him under the arms ten minutes, screaming all the time! She sent Rosy back, finally, though at first he refused to go.

Roger was delirious for five days and very dangerously ill for three weeks—it was double pneumonia. Miss Jencks had seen it before and it was her prompt measures before we could get the doctor or Harriet that saved him, they think. It was a bad age for pneumonia; Harriet said she would rather have pulled Margarita through it. She brought a deaconess from the little dispensary with her and one or the other was watching him like a cat every second, for three weeks. It was a nurse's case, the doctor said, though he stopped the first week.

When Margarita came to herself after an hour or so, she asked for me, and as I knelt by her bed and she turned her great eyes on me I caught my breath, for I was looking at a new woman. I can't describe it better than by saying that she had a soul! There had always been something missing, you see, though I would never have admitted it, if she hadn't got it then. But it was there.

It was very pathetic, those first days when Roger was delirious: she was nearly so herself. And yet it was not wholly grief—there was a definite reason for it, which we all felt, somehow, but she would not give it.

"Will he not know me for a minute, a little minute, Harriet?" she would beg, so piteously, and Harriet would soothe her and try to give her hope. The fifth day he was very low and the doctor told us to make up our minds for anything: he hadn't slept all night. I took Harriet by the shoulders and asked her if she could not possibly make him conscious—before. I don't know why I asked her and not the doctor, but I did. She promised me she would try (I think she had nearly given up hope, herself) and at three the next morning she called me and said that I might have a chance—that he might know us for a moment. Margarita was by the bed: her face was enough to break your heart.

"Only a minute, Harriet—only a little minute!" she pleaded like a baby. I don't know what insane vow I didn't offer ... He opened his eyes and they fell on her. She put her hand on his forehead and said very plainly.

"Listen, Roger, you must listen. It is I—Margarita, Cherie, you know. Do you hear?"

His eyes looked a little conscious, and Harriet held his pulse and slipped something into his mouth. In a moment we all knew that he knew us.

"Now say one thing, Mrs. Bradley—quickly!" Harriet whispered.

Margarita bent like a flash and whispered in his ear very swiftly: her whole body was tense. You should have seen his eyes—he was old Roger again! I could see his hand press hers and she kissed him just as the flash went by, and he took to muttering again.

Harriet pushed her away and put her hand on his forehead, then nodded at the deaconess.

"Call the doctor!" she said sharply, and I thought it was all over....

But it was the turn, and after that by hair's breadths and hair's breadths they pulled him over.

"Now he knows, Jerry," Margarita said to me, and went to bed herself.

It was a good week after that, when the doctor had gone and we were all breathing naturally again, that Harriet asked me abruptly if I had noticed Mrs. Bradley's voice. I said yes, that it was still decidedly husky. She looked at me so sadly, so strangely, that my nerves fairly jumped—we had all been on edge for a month—and I commanded her rather sharply to say what she meant and be done with it.

"Is her voice injured?"

"I am afraid so, yes," she said gently.

"But surely time and rest and proper treatment," I began, but she shook her head.

"The doctor examined her throat before he left," she said. "Of course he had no laryngoscope with him, but he didn't need one, really. The vocal cords are all stretched—he said the specialists might help her and take away a great deal of the hoarseness, but that in his opinion she can never stand the strain of public singing again: he thinks excitement alone would paralyse the cords."

"Who's to tell her?" I said quietly.

You see, we'd all been stretched so taut that we couldn't use any more energy in exclamations or regrets.

"I thought you might," she said, but I shook my head.

"Miss Jencks—" I began, but it appeared that Miss Jencks felt unequal to it. So Harriet told her, of course, on the principle that when one has a heavy load he may as well carry a little more, I suppose.

And after all it wasn't so bad; for Margarita came down to me a little later, and told me she had known it all the time!

"But, of course, dear child," I said hopefully, "Doctor —— is not a throat specialist, you know, and we can but try some of those famous fellows, a little later. Perhaps in a year or two——"

"You are very good to me, Jerry," she said, "but it is no use. I know. I shall never sing again. I am sorry, because——"

"Sorry?" I cried, "why, of course you are sorry! What do you mean?"

"Because," she continued placidly, "it will not be so much to give Roger."

"Give Roger?" I echoed stupidly, "how 'give Roger'?"

"I was not going to sing any more, anyway," she said.

For a moment I was dazed and then the simplicity of it all flashed over me.

"Why, Margarita!" I cried—and that is all the comment I ever made.

"That was what I wanted to tell him when he did not know me," she explained. "I—I was going to tell him the night—the night it happened."

"And does he know it now?"

"Of course. That is why he got well," she said promptly.

And do you know, I'm not sure she was wrong? That life was killing him—I mean it ran across his instincts and feeling and beliefs, every way.

There was no doubt she meant it. She never referred to the subject again.

He wanted her to see somebody else about her throat, but she absolutely refused to leave the Island till he was out of bed—Sarah came on with the baby two weeks later—and they sat by him all day nearly, the two of them, and he hardly let go her hand. He had changed a great deal in one way—his hair was quite silvered. But it was very becoming.

I didn't leave till I saw him in a dressing-gown in a long chair by the fire. Harriet went back to her hospital, and when Roger was up to it they went South for a bit before he began to work again.

The day before I left he did an odd thing—one of the two or three impractical, sentimental things I ever knew him to do in his life. He asked me to bring him his history of Napoleon—it had been packed into their luggage by mistake—and deliberately laid it on the heart of the fire! I cried out and leaned forward to snatch it—to think of the labour it represented!—but he put his hand on my arm.

"Don't, Jerry—I hate every page of it!" he said.

Well, I have been wondering these twenty years if perhaps they'll talk about it—the whole thing—some day. At the time, we all acted as if it were the most natural thing in the world for Margarita to settle down as a haus frau—perhaps when Nora got done with her studies of life (for I read Sue's Ibsen, you see) that is what she did, after all!

At any rate, I frankly hope so. For if all the wisdom and experience and training that the wonderful sex is to gain by its exodus from the home does not get back into it ultimately, I can't (in my masculine stupidity) quite see how it's going to get back into the race at all! And then what good has it done? I hope Mr. Ibsen knows!



CHAPTER XXXI

FATE EMPTIES HER CREEL

[FROM SUE PAYNTER]

PARIS, Feb. 10th., 189—

JERRY DEAR:

What must you think of me for delaying so long to write, after the few curt words I found for you that night? I hope you know that something must have kept me and have forgiven me already. Poor little Susy was taken very sick the night you sailed, with violent pains and a high fever. Fortunately there is a good American doctor here—a Doctor Collier—and we pulled her through, though it seemed a doubtful thing at one time. The doctor decided that she had appendicitis (I never heard of it before) and operated immediately on her, which undoubtedly saved her life. It seems that Mother Nature is not quite so clever as we have always thought her and has left a very dangerous little cul-de-sac somewhere, that ought not to be there, so modern science takes it out. Isn't that strange? The doctor has just come over to operate for this in Germany somewhere; he was an assistant of Dr. McGee, whom you sent to the South, and can't say enough of the magnificent work he is doing there. He was much interested to find I knew all about it and that Uncle Morris stocked the dispensary. Isn't the world small?

I hope you're not feeling too badly about Margarita—don't. Of course I understand what the stage has lost, and you will confess that I was as anxious for her career as anybody, even when I was sorriest for Roger. I wanted her to have her rights as an artist. But if she doesn't want them—ah, that's a different pair of sleeves altogether. She has sent me her latest photograph, and the eyes are all I need. Of course, I have no such brilliant future to sacrifice, but if I had, I am sure I should throw a dozen of them over the windmill for two eyes like hers to-day!

I don't know why I am prosing along at this rate and avoiding the main object of this letter. I must plunge right into it, I suppose, and get it over.

Don't think I don't appreciate all your kind, your generous, offer meant, Jerry. I thought of it so often and so long before I gave you that brusque answer. And it tempted me for a moment—indeed it did. I think, as you say, that we could travel very comfortably together and we have many of the same tastes—I know no one so sympathetic as you. As for "nursing a rheumatic, middle-aged wanderer through assorted winter-climates," that is absurd, and you know it, though I should be glad enough to do it, if it were true, as far as that goes. I know all you would do for the children, and how kind you would be to them. Not that I like that part, though, to be quite frank. I could never love another woman's children (especially if I loved their father) and I can't understand the women that do. So I always imagine a man in the same position. And I can't help feeling, Jerry, that if you really loved me—loved me in the whole crazy sense of that dreadful world, I mean—that you wouldn't speak so sweetly about the children: how could you? How can any man—I couldn't, if I were one!

But this is very unfair, because you never said you did love me in that way—don't imagine that I thought so for a moment. Jerry dear, my best friend now, for I must not count on Roger any more, do you think I am blind? Do you think I have been blind for three years? And will you think me a romantic, conceited fool when I say that unless I—even I, a widow and a jilt, who hurt a good man terribly and got well punished for it!—can have the kind of love that you can never give me, because you gave it to someone else three years ago, I don't want to accept your generous kindness? You see, I know how you can love, Jerry, just as I see now that I never knew how Roger could until those same three years ago. Of course he didn't either—would he ever have known the difference, I wonder, if we had married?

And there is another reason, too. You might just as well know it, for my conceit is not pride really, and it may be you know it already. Whatever love Frederick failed to kill in me—and the very idea of passionate love almost nauseates me, even yet—is not in my power to give you, Jerry dear. It might, some day, later, wake again, but it would not be your touch that could wake it.

Now, since this is so of both of us, don't you see, dear, that things are better as they are? I promise you that if I ever need help, I will come to you first of all, since what you really want is to help me and make me comfortable and give me the pleasure of wide travel, you generous fellow! And if ever you really need me, Jerry—but you won't, I am sure. No one else is quite what you are to me, or can be, now, and we must always be what we have always been—the best of friends. Tell me that you know I am right, and then let us never discuss it again.

Yours always,

SUE.

UNIVERSITY CLUB, May 20th, 189—

DEAR JERRY:

Have just got back from a little Western trip (my brother and I exchanged pulpits for a month) and learned of Roger's illness and the accident. What a terrible thing, and how fortunate they were! I always liked that big dog, the fine, faithful fellow. Mrs. Bradley's leaving the stage was no great surprise to me: she came to New York to ask my advice about it just before the accident. We had a long talk, and though she by no means agreed at the time to everything I said on the subject, she did not seem opposed, herself, to much of it, in fact, she seemed very anxious to do the fair thing, it seemed to me. She appreciated perfectly that the more she did in one way the less she could do in another—how wonderful it is to think that she has never been to school in her life! It almost seems as if so much schooling were unnecessary, doesn't it, when association with educated people can do so much in three years. Or perhaps it is only women that could absorb so quickly.

I hope the doctors are wrong about her voice. They all say it will be a little husky always (though less and less so with time) and that singing, except in the quietest, smallest way, will be impossible. It does not seem to matter very much to her. She is looking very well indeed (you know, of course, that she is expecting another child in the autumn—Roger told me). He is quite magnificent with his thick, silvery hair, I think. Mr. Carter, who dined with me here at the club a night or two ago (he gave my boys a fine talk on German customs and military games) tells me that he hopes (Roger, I mean) to be able to do a great deal of his work on the Island—certainly all the summer and autumn. He seems to be turning into a sort of consulting lawyer, like a surgeon. Besides that great text-book business I suppose you know about. He says there are two or three years' work on that alone.

I hope that you agree with me that Mrs. Bradley is much better off in her husband's home, fulfilling the natural duties of her sex. You seemed to think in your last that Mrs. Paynter would not, to my great surprise. What in the world is the matter with the women, nowadays? Where shall we be if the finest specimens of them have no leisure to perpetuate the race? Are only the stupid and unoriginal, unattractive ones to have this responsibility? I wish I dared get up a sermon on these lines; I may try yet!

You know Mrs. Paynter well, Jerry—do you think there is any chance for me there? I have been for ten years proving that a minister need not be married, and I've done it, too, but it was only because I never met the woman I wanted. I have, now, but she won't have me. Does that mean it's final? I don't know much about women, but I can't believe one like her would refuse just to be asked again. Tell me what you think. She seems very decided, though she sympathises thoroughly with my work.

Yours faithfully,

TYLER FESSENDEN ELDER.

[FROM MY ROUGH DIARY]

May 30, 189—

Have just written Tip Elder how sorry I am about Sue, but that he'd better give it up. She'll never marry. How curiously we three are twisted into the Bradley weaving!

M. so happy and beautiful—the past seems a dream. Voice lovely still, but not quite under her control always, and a tiny roughness in it that humanises, somehow—it was too clear before, though that sounds absurd.

Everybody wondering how everybody else will take her retirement. Strangely enough, no one regrets much, personally, but all sure the others will! Are we all more clear-sighted than we suppose—or more sentimental? Surgeon from Vienna has pronounced condition final. Either she is a wonderful actress or else we have overestimated her vocation; she seems absolutely contented. And yet, think of her triumphs! And of course, her greatest successes were all to come. Madame M—— is furious, but told Sue she had never trusted Roger—he was always too silent! "He has absorbed a great artist like so much blotting-paper!" she said. But he has got something into her eyes that Madame never saw there: we all agree on that. How did Alif put it—"Tis Allah sets the price, brother—we have but to pay." Well, she's paid. And old Roger, for that matter, and Sue, and Tip—and I. Who keeps the shop, I wonder?



CHAPTER XXXII

THE SUNSET END

To-day I went to Mary's wedding, and it has made me very thoughtful. She was very lovely—a great, blooming blonde, the image of Roger. They were a fine pair, as he held her on his arm: he looking younger than his sixty years, she older than her twenty, for all the children are wonderfully mature and well-developed.

She was nearly as tall as young Paynter, whose slenderness, however, is like steel. I well remember when Dr. McGee took him to North Carolina and made him over—a weak, irritable little precocity of twelve or so. He never ate or slept in a house for three years, and I think that the birds and trees of that period got into his opera and made it what it is, the musical event of a decade. He works best in Paris, and they will live there, after a honeymoon on the Island.

I don't think Mary was ever the favourite child, though each of the six thinks it is, Margarita is so wonderful with them! She cannot hide from me, who watch every light in her eye, that young Roger, the second child and oldest boy, means a shade more to her than the others, just as Roger, when he sits alone with Sue, the second daughter, talks to her more confidentially than to any of the others, and watches her yellow head most steadily when they are all swimming, off the Island wharf. They are both fine, big girls, just as Roger and my namesake are fine, big, steady fellows and little Lockwood is a fine, big, handsome child.

But my foolish old heart lost itself long ago to a pair of slate-blue eyes set in an olive face under dark, strong waves of hair, and when into that large, blonde brood there came a perfect baby Margarita, a slender, dark thing who flashed the summer twilight sky at one from under her long dark lashes, I claimed her for mine and mine she is—my Peggy. She is alone among the others, my precious black swan: her quaint, dreamy thoughts are not their practical, sunny clear-headedness, her self-peopled, solitary wanderings are not their merry comradeships, her lovely, statuesque movements are not their athletic tumbles. She stood to-day at her mother's knee in just the attitude S——n painted them for me, her eyes clouded with awe just as the bloom upon her mother's sweeping gown of velvet clouded its elusive blue, the soft plume upon her bride-maiden's hat leaned against the rich lace on her mother's breast. How beautiful they were! As I stared at them and their eyes lighted at the same moment with just the same dear smile, so that they were more than ever wonderfully alike, I heard a woman whisper behind me that the gentleman the beautiful Mrs. Bradley and her picturesque little daughter were smiling at was the child's godfather, an old friend—all his money left to her and his namesake, her brother. Before the whisper had ended Margarita the woman had turned her eyes toward her husband—they could not leave him long that day—but Margarita the child kept hers on me, and under them the years rolled back and I seemed to see a grave young girl sitting on the sand in a faded jersey, looking down into my heart and telling me that I loved her!

How many times since have I not seen her on that beach, cradling her rosy babies in her strong, smooth arms, murmuring with her graceful daughters, judging mildly between some claim of her tall, eager sons! How many summer evenings have I sat with Peggy in my arms and watched her pace that silvering beach with her husband, hand in hand like young lovers! I think they forget utterly that Time slips by, he passes them so gently.



It is a favourite claim of ours who are bidden to that home that it is an enchanted isle, and that he only brushes it with his wings, gliding over, and turns the scythe away and holds the hour-glass steady. Even the children feel it: it is a half-jesting, half-serious plaint with them that the goats, the donkeys, and the ponies to which they successively transfer their affections can never secure immortal youth by a yearly sojourn in that happy kingdom. I offered once to rebuild our old bridge—to make it a drawbridge, even, and thus keep our treasure safe, but after a long council it was rejected.

"It wouldn't be a really island, then, you see, Jerry dear," said my Peggy (always deputed to bear an ultimatum to me) "and we like it better an island—don't you?"

Of course it must be an island! It was marked out for an island when first the waters were gathered up and the dry land appeared. I think all the happy places are islands—I should like to make one of Italy. I am convinced that when the Garden of Eden is definitely settled (and Major Upgrove is trying to persuade me to come with him to find it—he has a theory) it will be found to be a secret isle in some great estuary or arm of that ageless Eastern river suspected by the major. Surely that mysterious Apple (of whose powers Margarita was once so sceptical) never grew on any vulgar, easily-to-be-come-at mainland! No, it lurks to-day in its own island Paradise, and the angel with the flaming sword cut the land apart from all common ground so that the furrows smoked beneath it as the floods raced in. If we find it—the major and I—shall we bring some apples back to Peggy? In truth, I am none too sure. Why my darling's sex has been so eager for that Apple is not yet entirely evident—though I am not too stupidly obstinate to admit that it may be evident, one day. But the fact remains that Eve certainly regretted it, and Adam, one would suppose, must have, for he has been settling dressmaker's accounts ever since!

As to the position held by this father of mankind among the Bradley children, by the way, volumes might be written. To suppose that Barbara Jencks, their bond slave in all else, has remitted an atom of her zeal in bringing them into the state of religious conviction enjoyed by the Governour-General's family, would indicate the densest ignorance of her character. And success has not been entirely lacking, for my namesake delights in the battles of the Kings and Sue's sweet life is a very Sermon on the Mount. But Lockwood still sacrifices to Pan among the beehives and propitiates the Thunder God with favourite kittens, and Roger the Second long ago informed his would-be mentor, to her horror, that if a fellow tried to be like his father and told the truth and worked hard, he thought that fellow could take his chances with God! Dear, obstinate lad, with your cleft chin and your blue eyes, it is not your grandmother, who leaves her Emerson and her Psalms unread together, when she can fill her keen, proud eyes with you, that will deny your simple creed!

But my little Peggy has outgrown Pan, and scorns to appease her baby brother's deities.

"I asked Roger," she said to me one late afternoon, when we sat in her mother's rocky seat and watched the red sun sink, "why the sun was here—just so that we could see things? And he said yes. And the moon the same way, for night. But that little blind girl I see in the Park, in New York, she can't see things, Jerry dear. She never can. What is that for?"

"I can't tell, sweetheart."

"You don't know, Jerry dear?"

"No, Peggy, I don't know."

"But someone knows?"

"That I can't tell, either."

She turned her serious, deep eyes on me.

"But, Jerry dear, nothing can be that someone—Someone—don't know, can it? That wouldn't be right. There must be Some one?"

"I hope so, sweetheart."

She stared quietly at the rosy ball that sank, below us and far away, at the rim of the sea—Margarita's sea.

"I know there is, Jerry," she said simply. "Look at that, the way I do, and you'll know, too."

And just then, I thought I did ...

Sue was at the wedding, of course, grey, and a little worn, now, but dressed a merveille and delightful in her pride at her genius-boy. His sister, a wonderful, modern young woman, has learned her "trade," indeed, though one that her mother never dreamed of, and will decorate, furnish and supply with everything from ancestral portraits to patent mouse-traps any structure from a hotel to a steam-yacht that you may place in her capable, college-bred hands. A remarkable achievement is young Susan—the achievement of the fin de siecle generation. At the wedding-breakfast she described to me her last "job"; the putting in commission of a dilapidated fifteenth-century chateau for its new oil-king owner—he was born in a bog-cabin in Ireland and never tasted anything but potatoes and stir-about till he was fourteen. But Susan has raked Europe for a service fit for him to eat his cabbage from and Asia for rugs fit for his no longer bare feet, and has deposited his good American cheque in her bank. She is improving the occasion of her American visit by an extended hunt for old silver and brasses and china for a great country house on the Hudson—its many-millioned mistress will pay well for her "imported" treasures!

Truly is Susan a lesson to us, and wide would be her great-grandmother's eyes could she see Susan disposing of her girlish samplers and draping her camel's-hair shawl behind a Hawthorne jar. And I am bound to admit that Susan is not marrying, though her mother was struggling with two delicate children at her age. No, Susan has no need to "marry to get away from home." As fast as this accomplished young woman establishes herself in a charming house, some envious person buys it of her, and she moves serenely to a new one, a contented, self-respecting Arab with a bank account.

Ah, well, perhaps it will be, as her mother triumphantly declares, all the more honour to the man who gets her, after all! We oldsters must not be stubborn, nowadays.

My mother, like old Mrs. Upgrove, is living still; well and happy, both of them, thank God, and as proud of their sons as if either had ever done anything to deserve it. Neither of them has much to say of Margarita, I have noticed, though both fondle her children, a little absently, perhaps, and feign to wonder what it is we see in Peggy that blinds us to the excellencies of the others—stouter children and more respectful, my dear!

And Death, that spares them both, and old Madam Bradley, too (eighty-eight now and half paralysed for nearly twenty years!), what had we done that he should take away one whom we and the world—her world—could so ill spare? Does Someone, indeed, know why, my sweetheart Peggy? I try to think so, but it is hard to see.

Nine years ago Harriet put Peggy into her mother's arms and praised the little thing and kissed them both, and then told Roger that she must leave them, for she felt ill and would not risk the responsibility of further nursing. She would send a good nurse straight from New York, she said, and Roger himself took her there, leaving the doctor with Margarita, as soon as he dared. He brought back the other nurse, wired me to look after Harriet, and left her comfortable in the little apartment of a good friend of hers, with a promise of a speedy return. He never saw her alive again.

Dr. McGee, even then a famous physician and devotedly attached to her, worked day and night over her, but it was useless; the over-strained, busy heart had given way and she lived only three days, growing feebler with every hour.

I was sitting beside her in the afternoon, trying to be cheerful, trying to cheer her with those futile subterfuges we are forced to, trying to get it all clear in my own troubled mind, when she smiled whimsically at me and begged me to spare myself such pain.

"A nurse is the last person to need such talk, dear Mr. Jerrolds," she whispered to me, and as the good deaconess who had been her first helper in her chosen work burst into tears and stumbled from the room, she put out her hand and I took it silently.

"What you have been—what you have been, Harriet!" I muttered unsteadily, and then her eyes met mine.

"What have I been?" her lips barely formed the words, "do you know?"

There in her soft brown eyes I saw at last—at once. God knows I never guessed before. They met mine so calmly, so honestly, so fearlessly—alas, they could be fearless now!

"And I have been such a fool—such a brute!"

"Hush! you never knew," she whispered, "you could not help it, my dear. It was so from the very first—when you saw my diary."

"But I might—I might have——"

Again she smiled whimsically.

"O no," she said quietly, "there was no chance for me, of course. I never dreamed of it, my dear. But—but I wanted you to know it. There has never been anybody but you."

I tried to speak, but could not, and again, but the words dried on my lips. Then I saw that she was sleeping—from exhaustion, probably, and sat by her in silence till the deaconess came back, red-eyed, and sent me away. I bent over her and kissed her cheek, before I left, and I am sure that her lips moved and that the hand I had held while she slept pressed mine faintly. But she did not open her eyes, and in the morning the message came that she had drifted easily away, in that same sleep before dawn.

Gone—and I never knew, never faintly surmised, never considered!

Gone—and there had never been anybody but me!

Ah, Peggy, there had need be Someone that knows, to make good the pity of it, the cruelty of it, the senseless waste of it!

But we three, whom she gave so generously to each other, whom, in turn, she tended back to life, into whose lives she has grown as a tree grows, can we call her love wasted?

Nor is it among us alone that her memory flourishes. No woman in all those mountain parishes she loved so well faces her dark hour of travail without blessing her name and the name of her messengers, whom, in the endowment called in memorial of her, Margarita sends to them, to tend them and the children they bear, as Harriet helped her and hers. She lies among them, a stone's throw from the corner-stone she laid nearly twenty years ago, now, and many visitors have never seen the tablet that lies along her grave—so thick the flowers are always lying there.

"Mother says you are not to look so sad, Jerry dear, because it isn't me that Freddy's marrying!" says Peggy softly, behind me, and I come back to the present, with a jerk.

"Not Freddy, perhaps," I answer with pretended severity, "but some other young sprig no better than Freddy, and then poor old Jerry may go hang!"

She slips her firm little hand—Margarita's hand—into mine shyly.

"Now, Jerry, how silly you are!" she says, looking carefully to see if I am teasing her or by any chance in earnest.

"How can I marry a young sprig, when I am going to marry you?"

"Since when?" I inquire sardonically.

"Why, Jerry!"

Her big eyes open wide, she plants herself before me and stares accusingly.

"You know very well—you can't have forgotten? You and I and little Jerry and Miss Jencks are going round the world when I am sixteen! To Japan, and see the wistaria and the cherry blossoms and the five hundred little stone Buddha-gods that get all wet with spray and the red bridge nobody may walk on!"

"Anywhere else?"

"Yes, to Vevay and see where Mr. Boffin used to live and old Joseph that told you when you were all grown big and went back,

"C'est moi, Monsieur, qui suis Joseph: j' ai nettoye les premieres bottes de Monsieur!"

How well I remember those first formidable boots, and my manly feelings when I clumped them down in the hall before my door for Joseph to clean! Jerry and Peggy and I are going over every foot of the old grounds—the school, where the little fellows still sport their comfortable, round capes; the way, well trodden still, I'll wager, to the old patisserie with its tempting windows of indigestible joys; the natatorium where we dived like frogs; the English church where we learned the Collects and eyed the young ladies' school gravely till it blushed individually and collectively; the famous field where I fought the grocer's boy who cried "a bas les Anglais!" three days running. (He beat me, incidentally.)

I find that all the old memories come back very sweetly: I had a happy childhood, on the whole, one that never lacked love and sympathy. Believe me, ye parents, who think that these days will soon be forgotten, they make a difference, these idle memories, and life is inexpressibly richer if those early days are rich in pleasant little adventures and cheery little experiences, cheerily shared! I have more to remember than Roger, whose early boyhood was, though far wealthier than mine, strangely poorer from the lack of just this mellow glow over and through it.

And Margarita's? We shall never know what filled those silent, childish hours of hers, alone with the dogs and the gulls. Her quaint lonely games, her towers of sand and shell, her musings by the tide, her dreams on the sun-warmed rocks—I fancy I see them all in watching Peggy. She cannot tell herself.

"I began to live," she says, "when I met Roger."

"You have lived a great deal, since, have you not, Margarita?" I say, a little wistfully, perhaps, she is so splendid and so complete, and one seems so broken and colourless and middle-aged beside her.

"A great deal. Yes, I suppose so," she answers, and her eye rests quickly but surely on Roger, on each of the yellow heads, then on the dark one, and then, at last, on me.

"You have given up a great deal for those handsome heads, Margarita," I go on, under the spur of some curious impulse, "did you never regret it? You had the world at your feet, Madame used to say, and you gave it up ..."

She looks at me with the only eyes in the world that can make me forget Peggy's, and gives me both her hands (one with a flashing, cloudy star sapphire burning on it) in that free, lovely gesture so characteristic of her.

"Don't, Jerry!" she says in her sweet, husky voice, and Roger hearing it, turns slightly from his guests and gives her a swift, strong look. The gay wedding crowd melts away, the clatter of the wine-glasses is the wash of pebbles on the beach, her hand in mine seems wet with flying spray, as she speaks in that rich, vibrating voice, for me alone:

"I had the world at my feet—yes, Jerry dear, and I nearly lost it, did I not? I did not know, you see. And I have it now, Jerry, I have it now!" (O, Susan of the bank account, who need not marry to get away from home, will that look come to your eyes and glow there till your face is too bright for an elderly bachelor to bear? Indeed, I hope it may!)

"There is only one world for a woman, Jerry," says Margarita softly, "and no one can be happy, like me, till she lives in it—the hearts that love her. His and theirs—and yours, dear Jerry, O always yours!"

His and Theirs and Mine!

Amen to that, my dear, and surely if there is Someone that knows, He knows that what you say is true!

* * * * *



HARMEN POLS

BY

MAARTEN MAARTENS

Cloth. 12mo. $1.35 net. Postage 12 cents.

"Far and away the most satisfactory story we have had from this Dutch writer. In fact, we have not read any story by any one in some time that makes a stronger impression.... A tale of real merit and strong interest."—New York Globe and Commercial Advertiser.

"The book is a great picture of life, done in the very spirit that shaped the whole Dutch school of art."—Washington Evening Star.

"Mr. Maartens' description of events is fascinating and interesting, and goes to make up one of the best novels of recent issue."—Detroit News.

"A powerful story. One of the finest bits of fiction of recent issue."—Buffalo Courier.

"The reality of the book fairly grips the reader. The power of the story is no less marked than its fidelity to fact, and it is a triumph of artistic characterization."—The Dial.



THE COMPLETE WORKS

OF

WILLIAM J. LOCKE

"LIFE IS A GLORIOUS THING."—W. J. Locke

"If you wish to be lifted out of the petty cares of to-day, read one of Locke's novels. You may select any from the following titles and be certain of meeting some new and delightful friends. His characters are worth knowing."—Baltimore Sun.

The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne At the Gate of Samaria A Study in Shadows Simon the Jester Where Love Is Derelicts The Demagogue and Lady Phayre The Beloved Vagabond The White Dove The Usurper Septimus Idols The Glory of Clementina

12mo. Cloth. $1.50 each

Thirteen volumes bound in green cloth. Uniform edition in box.

$19.00 per set. Half Morocco $50.00 net. Express prepaid.

Simon the Jester (Profusely illustrated by James Montgomery Flagg)

"It has all the charm and surprise of his famous 'Simple Septimus.' It is a novel full of wit and action and life. The characters are all out-of-the-ordinary and splendidly depicted; and the end is an artistic triumph—a fitting climax for a story that's full of charm and surprise."—American Magazine.

The Beloved Vagabond

"'The Beloved Vagabond' is a gently-written, fascinating tale. Make his acquaintance some dreary, rain-soaked evening and find the vagabond nerve-thrilling in your own heart."—Chicago Record-Herald.

Septimus (Illustrated by James Montgomery Flagg)

"Septimus is the joy of the year."—American Magazine.

The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne

"One of those rare and much-to-be-desired stories which keep one divided between an interested impatience to get on and an irresistible temptation to linger for full enjoyment by the way."—Life.

Where Love Is

"One of those unusual novels of which the end is as good as the beginning."—New York Globe.



WILLIAM J. LOCKE

The Usurper

"Contains the hall-mark of genius itself. The plot is masterly in conception, the descriptions are all vivid flashes from a brilliant pen. It is impossible to read and not marvel at the skilled workmanship and the constant dramatic intensity of the incident, situations and climax."—The Boston Herald.

Derelicts

"Mr. Locke tells his story in a very true, a very moving, and a very noble book. If any one can read the last chapter with dry eyes we shall be surprised. 'Derelicts' is an impressive, an important book. Yvonne is a creation that any artist might be proud of."—The Daily Chronicle.

Idols

"One of the very few distinguished novels of this present book season."—The Daily Mail.

"A brilliantly written and eminently readable book."—The London Daily Telegraph.

A Study in Shadows

"Mr. Locke has achieved a distinct success in this novel. He has struck many emotional chords, and struck them all with a firm, sure hand. In the relations between Katherine and Raine he had a delicate problem to handle, and he has handled it delicately."—The Daily Chronicle.

The White Dove

"It is an interesting story. The characters are strongly conceived and vividly presented, and the dramatic moments are powerfully realized."—The Morning Post.

The Demagogue and Lady Phayre

"Think of Locke's clever books. Then think of a book as different from any of these as one can well imagine—that will be Mr. Locke's new book."—New York World.

At the Gate of Samaria

"William J. Locke's novels are nothing if not unusual. They are marked by a quaint originality. The habitual novel reader inevitably is grateful for a refreshing sense of escaping the commonplace path of conclusion."—Chicago Record-Herald.



DOLF WYLLARDE

12mo. $1.50 each

"Dolf Wyllarde sees life with clear eyes and puts down what she sees with a fearless pen.... More than a little of the flavor of Kipling in the good old days of Plain Tales from the Hills."—New York Globe.

Mafoota

A Romance of Jamaica

"The plot has a resemblance to that of Wilkie Collins' 'The New Magdalen,' but the heroine is a Puritan of the strictest type; the subject matter is like 'The Helpmate.'"—Springfield Republican.

As Ye Have Sown

"A brilliant story dealing with the world of fashion."

Captain Amyas

"Masterly."—San Francisco Examiner.

"Startlingly plain-spoken."—Louisville Courier-Journal.

The Rat Trap

"The literary sensation of the year."—Philadelphia Item.

The Story of Eden

"Bold and outspoken, a startling book."—Chicago Record-Herald.

"A real feeling of brilliant sunshine and exhilarating air."—Spectator.

Rose-White Youth

[***] The love-story of a young girl.

The Pathway of the Pioneer

[***] The story of seven girls who have banded themselves together for mutual help and cheer under the name of "Nous Autres." They represent, collectively, the professions open to women of no deliberate training, though well-educated. They are introduced to the reader at one of their weekly gatherings and then the author proceeds to depict the home and business life of each one individually.

Tropical Tales

[***] A collection of short stories dealing with "all sorts and conditions" of men and women in all classes of life; some of the tales sounding the note of joy and happiness; others portraying the pathetic, and even the shady side of life; all written in the interesting manner characteristic of the author.

The Riding Master. Cloth. 12mo. $1.50



An American Love-Story

MARGARITA'S SOUL

BY

JOSEPHINE DASKAM BACON [INGRAHAM LOVELL]

Profusely Illustrated. Sixteen full-page half-tone illustrations. Numerous line cuts, reproduced from drawings by J. Scott Williams. Also Whistler Butterfly Decorations.

Cloth. 12mo. $1.50

"Filled with imaginative touches, resourceful, intelligent and amusing. An ingenious plot that keeps the interest suspended until the end, and has a quick and shrewd sense of humor."—Boston Transcript.

"A reviewer would hesitate to say how long it is since a writer gave us so beautiful, so naive, so strangely brought up and introduced, a heroine. It is to be hoped that the author is already at work on another novel."—Toronto Globe.

"May cause the reader to miss an important engagement or neglect his business. A love story of sweetness and purity touched with the mythical light of Romance and aglow with poetry and tenderness. One of the most enchanting creatures in modern fiction."—San Francisco Bulletin.

"It is extremely entertaining from start to finish, and there are most delightful chapters of description and romantic scenes which hold one positively charmed by their beauty and unusualness."—Boston Herald.

"Sentimental, with the wholesome, pleasing sentimentality of the old bachelor who has not turned crusty.... A Thackerayan touch."—New York Tribune.

"Captures the imagination at the outset by the boldness of the situation.... We should be hard put to it to name a better American novel of the month."—The Outlook.



ANATOLE FRANCE

"Anatole France is a writer whose personality is very strongly reflected in his works.... To reproduce his evanescent grace and charm is not to be lightly achieved, but the translators have done their work with care, distinction, and a very happy sense of the value of words."—Daily Graphic.

"We must now all read all of Anatole France. The offer is too good to be shirked. He is just Anatole France, the greatest living writer of French."—Daily Chronicle.

Complete Limited Edition in English

Under the general editorship of Frederic Chapman. 8vo., special light-weight paper, wide margins, Caslon type, bound in red and gold, gilt top, end papers from designs by Beardsley, initials by Ospovat. $2.00 per volume (except Joan of Arc), postpaid.

Balthasar The Well of St. Clare The Red Lily Mother of Pearl The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard The Garden of Epicurus Thais The Merrie Tales of Jacques Tournebroche Joan of Arc. Two volumes. $8 net per set. Postage extra. The Comedian's Tragedy The Amethyst Ring M. Bergeret in Paris Life and Letters (4 vols.) Pierre Noziere The White Stone Penguin Island The Opinions of Jerome Coignard Jocasta and the Famished Cat The Aspirations of Jean Servien The Elm Tree on the Mall My Friend's Book The Wicker-Work Woman At the Sign of the Queen Pedauque Profitable Tales



GILBERT K. CHESTERTON

"Always entertaining."—New York Evening Sun. "Always original."—Chicago Tribune.

Heretics 12mo. $1.50 net. Postage 12 cents

"His thinking is as sane as his language is brilliant."—Chicago Record-Herald.

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All Things Considered Cloth. 12mo. $1.50 net. Postage 12 cents

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George Bernard Shaw. A Biography Cloth. 12mo. $1.50 net. Postage 12 cents

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"A brilliant piece of satire, gemmed with ingenious paradox. Every page is pregnant with vitality."—Boston Herald.

The Ball and the Cross Cloth. 12mo. $1.50

"The most strikingly original novel of the present season. It is studded with intellectual brilliants. Its satire is keener than that of Bernard Shaw. Behind all this foolery there shines the light of Truth. A brilliant piece of satire—a gem that sparkles from any point of view the reader may choose to regard it."—San Francisco Bulletin.



EDEN PHILLPOTTS

The Thief of Virtue Cloth. 12mo. $1.50

"If living characters, perfect plot construction, imaginative breadth of canvas and absolute truth to life are the primary qualities of great realistic fiction, Mr. Phillpotts is one of the greatest novelists of the day.... He goes on turning out one brilliant novel after another, steadily accomplishing for Devon what Mr. Hardy did for Wessex. This is another of Mr. Phillpotts' Dartmoor novels, and one that will rank with his best.... Something of kinship with 'King Lear' and 'Pere Goriot.'"—Chicago Record Herald.

"The Balzac of Dartmore. It is easy and true to say that Mr. Phillpotts in all his work has done no single piece of portraiture better than this presentation of Philip Ouldsbroom.... A triumph of the novelist's understanding and keen drawing.... A Dartmoor background described in terms of an artist's deeply felt appreciation.—New York World.

"No other English writer has painted such fascinating and colorful word-pictures of Dartmoor's heaths and hills, woods and vales, and billowy plains of pallid yellow and dim green. Few others have attempted such vivid character-portrayal as marks this latest work from beginning to end."—The North American.

"A strong book, flashing here and there with beautiful gems of poetry.... Providing endless food for thought.... An intellectual treat."—London Evening Standard.

The Haven Cloth. 12mo. $1.50

"The foremost English novelist with the one exception of Thomas Hardy.... His descriptions of the sea and his characterization of the fisher folks are picturesque, true to life, full of humorous philosophy."—JEANNETTE L. GILDER in The Chicago Tribune.

"It is no dry bones of a chronicle, but touched by genius to life and vividness."—Louisville, Kentucky, Post.

"A close, thoughtful study of universal human nature."—The Outlook.

"One of the best of this author's many works."—The Bookman.



MAUD DIVER

A TRILOGY OF ANGLO-INDIAN

ARMY LIFE

New York Times: "Above the multitude of novels (erotic and neurotic) hers shine like stars. She has produced a comprehensive and full drama of life, rich in humanity; noble, satisfying—it is not too much to say great."

(New Editions) CANDLES IN THE WIND CAPTAIN DESMOND, V. C. THE GREAT AMULET Cloth, 12mo. $1.50 each.

The Argonaut (San Francisco): "We doubt if any other writer gives us so composite and convincing a picture of that curious mixture of soldier and civilian that makes up Indian society. She shows us the life of the country from many standpoints, giving us the idea of a storehouse of experience so well stocked that incidents can be selected with a fastidious and dainty care."

London Morning Post: "Vigor of characterization accompanied by an admirable terseness and simplicity of expression."

Literary World: "Undoubtedly some of the finest novels that Indian life has produced."

London Telegraph: "Some sincere pictures of Indian life which are as real and convincing as any which have entered into the pages of fiction."

The Chicago Tribune: "The characterization is excellent and her presentation of frontier life and of social conditions produces a strong impression of truth."

Boston Evening Transcript: "Knows absolutely the life that she depicts. Her characters are excellently portrayed."

Chicago Record Herald: "Well told; the humanization good and the Indian atmosphere, always dramatic, is effectively depicted. Holds the attention without a break."

Toronto Mail: "Real imagination, force, and power. Rudyard Kipling and imitators have shown us the sordid side of this social life. It remains for Mrs. Diver to depict tender-hearted men and brave, true women. Her work is illuminated by flashes of spiritual insight that one longs to hold in memory."



CHARLES MARRIOTT

The Intruding Angel Cloth. 12mo. $1.50.

The story of a mistaken marriage, and the final solution of the problem for the happiness of all parties concerned.

When a Woman Woos Cloth. 12mo. $1.50.

"Unique. The book is on the whole a study of the relations of men and women in the particular institution of marriage. It is an attempt to define what a real marriage is, and it shows very decidedly what it is not. Full of the material of life."—New York Times Book Review.

A Spanish Holiday Illustrated. Cloth. 8vo. $2.50 net. Postage 20 cents.

"The spirit of Spain has been caught to a very great degree by the author of this book, and held fast between its covers."—Book News.

* * * * *

NETTA SYRETT

Olivia L. Carew Cloth. 12mo. $1.50

An interesting character study of a passionless, self-absorbed woman humanized by the influence of a man's love and loyal devotion.

Anne Page A Love-story of To-day Cloth. 12mo. $1.50

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Six Fairy Plays for Children Sq. 12mo. $1.00 net. Postage 8 cents.



A. NEIL LYONS

ROBERT BLATCHFORD

Cloth. 12mo. 75 cents net. Postage 10 cts.

The Sketch of a Personality. An Estimate of Some Achievement.

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A Country Spread. A Novel.

Sixpenny Pieces Cloth. 12mo. $1.50.

The Story of a Sixpenny Doctor

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"Unique in style and matter and intense in human interest."—Louisville Courier Journal.

"Notable, pathetic, humorous and tragic. In realistic force and convincing truth of characterization it is a striking achievement. Slum life has never been better portrayed."—Brooklyn Eagle.

Arthur's Hotel Cloth. 12mo. $1.50.

"Sketches of low life in London. The book will delight visitors to the slums."—New York Sun.



M. P. WILLCOCKS

The Way Up Cloth. 12mo. $1.50

THE ROMANCE OF AN IRONMASTER TOUCHING THREE VITAL QUESTIONS

(a) Capital and Labor. (b) The Claims of the Individual Against Those of the State. (c) The Right of a Woman to Her Own Individuality.

"M. P. Willcocks is an English writer of unusual force and that dry, incisive humor dearly beloved of the intellectual reader. In 'The Way Up' this writer crystallizes a tense and telling problem. The book is earnest enough for the most serious of readers, yet never dull or dreary. The humanization is admirable."—Chicago Record-Herald.

"Miss Willcocks shows the wit of Barrie in close alliance with the bold realism of Thomas Hardy and the philosophic touches of George Meredith."—Literary World, London.

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The Wingless Victory Cloth. 12mo. $1.50

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"A splendid book."—Tribune.

A Man of Genius Cloth. 12mo. $1.50

"Far above the general level of contemporary fiction. A work of unusual power."—Professor William Lyon Phelps.

Widdicombe Cloth. 12mo. $1.50

A Romance of the Devonshire Moors



MAUDE ANNESLEY

The Wine of Life Cloth, 12mo, $1.50

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The Door of Darkness Cloth, 12mo, $1.50

"A story of great interest."—Newark Evening News.

"Thoroughly absorbing.... A subtle psychological situation."—Providence Journal.

Wind Along the Waste Cloth, 12mo, $1.50

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Shadow-Shapes Cloth, 12mo, $1.30 net. Postage 12 cents

"The theme of the story is that of hypnotic suggestion.... The absorbing drama grows in interest with every page, the sense of impending tragedy is always with us. It is well and cleverly done."—Pall Mall Gazette.



MY ENEMY—THE MOTOR

BY

JULIAN STREET

Illustrated. Cloth. 16mo. 50 cents net. Postage 6 cents.

"Will supply all normal readers, motor enthusiasts or otherwise, with cause for chuckling during a good half-hour."—Chicago Record-Herald.

"Mr. Street's style is lively and vivacious."—Boston Transcript.

"In the manner of Jerome K. Jerome and may be heartily commended."—New York Globe.

"The humor of Julian Street first became known by the publication of the clever little story 'My Enemy—the Motor.'"—The Boston Herald.

"More acceptable than the ordinary run of novels because it is more amusing, less pretentious and not so long. About as long as the ordinary novel might be if only novelists would omit superfluities. Just the right length."—N. Y. Evening Sun.



THE NEED OF CHANGE

BY

JULIAN STREET

Illustrated. Cloth. 16mo. 50 cents net. Postage 6 cents.

"A sketch too good to miss. Deliciously humorous."—Baltimore Sun.

"Delightful. Jovial and joyous as a fat man's hearty laugh."—Chicago Record-Herald.

"A brilliant story, sympathetically illustrated."—New York American.

"Fortify yourself when you start the story. If you don't, you may disturb the passengers by laughing right out loud."—San Francisco Bulletin.

"Many laughs between the covers. The story is told with spirit and a constant sense of humor."—New York Saturday Review of Books.

"Now and again you have the extreme luck to run across a book that is really FUNNY. Not the machine-made, madly-advertised type. 'The Need of Change' is the kind that usually you pick up by accident, start to run through casually, find yourself startled into a chuckle by some unexpected humorous line, and end by reading every word with zest and hustling around to loan it to your friends.... Keeps the reader in one continuous howl; the fun never becomes forced. A gem!"—Philadelphia Item.



THE HICKORY LIMB

BY

PARKER H. FILLMORE

Illustrated. Cloth. 16mo. 50 cents net. Postage 6 cents.

"'The Hickory Limb' is a remarkable story, which I have enjoyed, appreciated, and admired. It displays a knowledge of human nature, tenderness and humor."—Charles Battell Loomis.

"A true and amusing picture of child life."—Louisville Courier-Journal.

"The little heroine and all the children are capital."—New York Sun.

"A charming companion to popular 'Alice in Wonderland.'"—Chicago Record-Herald.

"One of the most relishable pieces of humor evolved in some time."—Albany Argus.

"We do not recall having seen any more striking evidence of the arrival of an age of social experimentation than little Margery's rebellion."—Chicago Evening Post.

"A dainty idyll, full of charm. Should prove a classic."—Cincinnati Enquirer.

"Powerful in its subtle analysis of childhood philosophy."—Rochester Union and Advertiser.

"A most delightful story.... Let Mr. Fillmore go on writing other stories like 'The Hickory Limb.'"—Toronto News.

"An hour of amusement, a series of laughs from the heart out, and a pleasant vista backward to the days of childhood will come to the reader of 'The Hickory Limb.'"—Cincinnati Tribune.

* * * * *

THE END