Well-a-day! Evan says that I take things to heart that belong to the head alone, while father says that, to his mind, feeling is much more of a need to-day than logic; so what can I do but still stumble along according to feeling.

A shout from beneath the window, then a soft snowball on it, the signal that the fort is finished,—yes, and the old Christmas tree stuck up top as a standard. Richard has built a queer-looking snow man with red knobs all over his chest and stomach, while Ian has achieved several most curious looking things with carrot horns,—whatever are they? Father has just driven in, and is laughing heartily, and Evan is waving to me.

* * * * *

Calm reigns again. The fort has surrendered, the final charge having been led by Corney Delaney. We've had hot milk all around, father has retired to the study to decipher a complicated letter from Aunt Lot, Evan has taken the boys into the den for a drawing lesson, and the mystery of the snow man is solved.

We do not intend to have the boys learn any regular lessons before another fall, but for the last two years I have managed that they should sit still and be occupied with something every morning, so that they may learn how to keep quiet without its being a strain,—shelling peas, cutting papers for jelly pots, stringing popcorn for the hospital Christmas tree, seeding raisins with a dozen for pay at the end—this latter is an heroic feat when it is accomplished without drawing the pay on the instalment plan—and many other little tasks, varied according to season.

Ian has a quick eye and comprehension, and he is extremely colour sensitive, but healthily ignorant of book learning, while Richard, how we do not know, has learned to read in a fashion of his own, not seeming yet to separate letters or words, but "swallowing the sense in lumps," as Martha puts it.

Yesterday, before our return, the weather being threatening, and the boys, keyed for mischief, clamouring and uneasy, very much as birds and animals are before a storm, father invited them to spend the afternoon with him in the study, and Martha Corkle, who mounts guard during my brief holidays, saw that their paws were scrubbed, and then relaxed her vigilance, joining Evan in the sewing room.

After many three-cornered discussions as to what liberty was to be allowed the boys in study and den, we decided that when they learned to respect books in the handling they should be free to browse as they pleased; the curiosities, rarities, and special professional literature, being behind glass doors, could easily be protected by lock and key. Father's theory is that if you want children to love books, no barriers must be interposed from the beginning, and that being so much with us the boys will only understand what is suited to their age, and therefore the harmful will pass them by. I was never shut from the library shelves, or mysteries made about the plain-spoken literature of other days, in spite of Aunt Lot's fuming. I did not understand it, so it did not tempt, and as I look back, I realize that the book of life was spread before me wisely and gradually, father turning page after page, then passing the task to Evan, so that I never had a shock or disillusionment.

I wonder if mother had lived if I should think differently, and be more apprehensive about the boys, womanwise? I think not; for I am a sun-loving Pagan all through, really born far back in an overlooked corner of Eden, and I prefer the forceful father influence that teaches one to overcome rather than the mother cult which is to bear, for so much is cumbrously borne in self-glorified martyrdom by women of their own volition.

I know that I am very primitive in my instincts and emotions; so are the boys, and that keeps us close, or so close, together.

Of course illustrated books are now the chief attraction to them in the library, and yesterday, when father went there with the boys, he supplied Ian, as usual, with "The Uncivilized Races of Man," which always opens of itself at the Mumbo Jumbo picture, and as a great treat for Richard, took down the three quarto volumes of Audubon's "Quadrupeds," and ranged them on a low stand with a stool in front of it. Then, being tired after a hard morning's work, he drew his big leather chair near the, fire, put on an extra log, and proceeded to—meditate. You will doubtless notice that when father or husband close their eyes, sitting in comfortable chairs by the fire, they are always meditating, and never sleeping, little nosey protestations to the contrary.

Father's meditations must have been long and deep, for when he was startled from them by the breaking in two of the hickory log, a gory spectacle met his eyes.

Richard was sitting on the hearth rug, which he had carefully covered with newspapers; these, as well as his hands and face, were stained a deep crimson, while with a stout silver fruit-knife he was hacking pieces from a great pulpy red mass before him.

Checking an exclamation of horror father started forward, to meet Richard's cheerful, frank gaze and the request, as he dug away persistently, to "Please wait one minute more, dranpa. I've got the heart all done, that big floppy piece is lungs, an' I've most made the liver. Not the good kind that goes wif curly bacon, but a nasty one like what we wear inside."

Then spying a medical chart with coloured pictures that was propped up against the wood box, father found the clew, and comprehended that Richard was giving himself a practical lesson in anatomy by trying to carve these organs from a huge mangel wurzel beet that he had rolled in from the root cellar. Did father scold him for mess-making, or laugh at his attempt that had little shape except in his own baby brain?

No, neither; he carefully closed the door against Martha's possible entrance, seriously and respectfully put the precious objects on a plate, to which he gave a place of honour on the mantel shelf, and after removing as far as possible all traces of beet from face and hands in his sacred office lavatory, he took Richard with him into the depths of the great chair and told the happy child his favourite rigmarole, all about the "three gentlemen of high degree," who do our housework for us. How the lungs, who are Siamese twins, called to the heart to pump them up some blood to air, because they were almost out of work, and how the big lazy liver lay on one side and groaned because he had drunk too much coffee for breakfast, and had a headache,—until Richard really felt that he had achieved something. So the first thing this morning he set about making a snow man, that he might put the beet vitals in their proper places, nearly convulsing father by their location. Though, as he told me, they were accurate, compared to the ideas of many trained nurses with whom he had come in contact.

But where was Ian during the beet carving? Father quite forgot him until, Richard falling asleep in his arms, he arose to tuck him up on the sofa. A sound of the slow turning of large pages guided him to the corner by the bay window where some bookcases, standing back to back, made a sort of alcove. There was Ian, flat upon his stomach, while before him the "Wandering Jew" legend, with the Dore pictures, lay open at the final scene—The Last Judgment—where the Jew, his journey over, looks up at the angels coming to greet him, while little devils pull vainly at his tattered boots. It was not the Jew or the angels, however, that held Ian's attention, and whose outlines he was tracing with his forefinger, but the devils, one big fellow with cows' horns and wings drooping like those of a moulting crow, and a bevy of imps with young horns and curly tails who were pulling a half-buried body toward the fiery pit by its hair.

Father explained the pictures in brief, and closed the book as quickly as possible, thinking the boy might be frightened in his dreams by the demons. But no, Ian was fascinated, not frightened. He would have liked the pygmies to come and play with him, and he turned to father with a sigh, saying, "They're bully pullers, dranpop. I guess if they and me pulled against Corney Delaney we could get him over the line all right," one of the boys' favourite pastimes being to play tug-of-war with the goat, the rope being fastened to its horns, but Corney was always conqueror.

Neither did Ian forget the imps quickly, as some children do their impressions, but strove to model them this morning, making round snow bodies, carrot horns, corncob legs, and funny celery tails; the result being positively startling and "overmuch like witch brats," as Effie declared, with bulging eyes.

They unfortunately did not perish with the fort, for Richard doesn't like them; but are now huddled in a group under the old Christmas tree, where Lark is barking at them.

* * * * *

I started to record our visit to Lavinia Dorman, but my "human documents," printed on vellum, came between, and I would not miss a word they have to say for the "Mechlinia Albertus Magnus," which father says is the rarest book in the world, though Evan disputes his preference, and Martin Cortright would doubtless prefer the first edition of Denton's "New York."

In past times, when we have visited Miss Lavinia, we have been fairly meek and decorous guests, following the programme that she planned with such infinite attention to detail that free will was impossible, and we often felt like paper dolls.

We had read her lament on the death of sociability and back yards with many a smile, and a sigh also, for to one born in the pool, every ripple that stirs it must be of importance, and it is impossible for outsiders to urge her to step out of the eddies altogether and begin anew, for New Yorkitis seems to be not only a rarely curable disease to those who have it, but an hereditary one as well.

As usual, Evan came to the rescue, as we sat in the den the night before our departure. "Let us turn tables on Miss Lavinia this time and take her to see our New York," he said, "since we are all quite tired of hers. Do you remember the time when we went to town to buy the trappings for the boys' first tree and were detained until Christmas morning by the delay of a cable I had to wait for? After dinner Christmas Eve we coaxed Miss Lavinia out with us and bought half a bushel of jolly little toys from street fakirs to take home, and then boarded an elevated train and rode about the city until after midnight, in and out the downtown streets and along the outskirts, to see all the poor people's Christmas trees in the second stories of tenements, cheap flats, and over little shops. How she enjoyed it, and said that she never dreamed that tenement people could be so happy; and she finally waxed so enthusiastic that she gave a silver half dollar each to four little newsboys crouching over the steam on a grating in Twenty-third Street, and when they cheered her and a policeman came along, we told the dear old soul that he evidently thought her a suspicious character, a counterfeiter at the very least. And she always spoke afterward with bated breath on the dangers of the streets late at night, and her narrow escape from arrest. We came to New York unsated and without responsibilities to push us, and looked from the outside in.

"No, Barbara, you did better than you knew that day six years ago, when we sat in the Somerset garden, and you persuaded me to become a commuter and let you plant a garden, promising never to talk about servants, and you've kept your word. I was dubious then, but now—if you only knew the tragedies I've seen among men of my means and aims these last few years, the struggle to be in the swim, or rather the backwater of it. The disappointment, the debt and despair, the pink teas and blue dinners given in cramped flats, the good fellows afraid to say no to wives whose hearts are set on being thought 'in it,' and the wives, haggard and hollow-eyed because the husbands wish to keep the pace by joining clubs that are supposedly the hall-marks of the millionnaire. New York is the best place for doing everything in but three—to be born in, to live in, and to die in."

"So you wish us to play bachelor girl and man for a few days, and herd Miss Lavinia about, which I suppose is the pith of these heroics of yours," I said, rather astonished, for Evan seldom preaches. "I never knew that you were such an anti-whirlpooler before, and I've at times felt selfish about keeping you at the old home, though not since the boys came, it's so healthy for them, bless them. Now I feel quite relieved," and I arranged a little crisp curl that will break loose in spite of persistent wetting, for men always seem to discourage curly hair, father keeping his shorn like a prize-fighter. This curl softens the rigour of Evan's horseshoe scowl, and when I fix it gives him a chance to put his arm around my waist, which is the only satisfactory way of discussing plans for a pleasure trip.

We arrived in town duly a little before dinner time. It is one of Evan's comfortable travelling habits, this always arriving at a new place at the end of day, so as to get the bearings and be adjusted when we awake next morning. To arrive in the morning, when paying a visit especially, is reversing the natural order of things; you are absent-minded until lunch, sleepy all the afternoon, dyspeptic at dinner, when, like as not, some one you have wholly forgotten or hoped to is asked to meet you. If the theatre follows, you recuperate, but if it is cards (of which I must have a prenatal hatred, it is so intense) with the apology, "I thought you might be tired and prefer a cosey game of whist to going out," you trump your partner's tricks, lead the short suits and mix clubs and spades with equal oblivion, and, finally, going to bed, leave a bad impression behind that causes your hostess to say, strictly to herself, if she is charitable, "How Barbara has deteriorated; she used to be a good talker, but then, poor dear, living in the country is so narrowing."

Of course if you merely go away to spend the day it is different; you generally keep on the move and go home to recover from it. And how men usually hate staying in other people's houses, no matter how wide they keep their doors open or how hospitably inclined they may be themselves. They seem to be self-conscious, and are constrained to alter their ordinary habits, which makes them miserable and feel as if they had given up their free will and identity. There are only two places that I ever dream of taking Evan, and Lavinia Dorman's is one of them.

When we had made ourselves smart for dinner and joined Miss Lavinia by the fire in her tiny library, we read by her hair that she was evidently intending to stay at home that evening, for her head has its nodes like the moon. She has naturally pretty, soft wavy hair, with now and then a silver streak running through it. I have often seen Lucy when she brushes it out at night. But because there is a dash of white in the front as if a powder puff had rested there a moment by accident, it is screwed into a little knob and covered with skilfully made yet perfectly apparent frontlets to represent the different styles of hair-dressing affected by women of abundant locks.

No. 1, worn at breakfast, is the most reasonable. It is quite plain, slightly waved, and has a few stray hairs carelessly curved where it joins the forehead. No. 2 is for rainy weather; the curls are fuzzy and evidently baked in; it requires a durable veil to keep it in countenance. Evan calls it the "rasher of bacon front." No. 3 is for calling and all entertainments where the bonnet stays on; it has a baby bang edge a trifle curled and a substantial cushion atop to hold the hat pins; while No. 4, the one she wore on our arrival, is an elaborate evening toupie with a pompadour rolling over on itself and drooping slightly over one eye while it melts into a butterfly bow and handful of puffs on the crown that in turn end in a single curl behind.

We had a dainty little dinner, grape fruit, clear soup, smelts, wild duck, salad, fruit, and coffee, and it was daintily served, for Miss Lavinia always keeps a good cook and remembers our dislike of the various forms of hash known as entrees.

The coffee was placed on a low mahogany stand by the library fire, and Miss Lavinia herself handed Evan a quaint little silver lamp by which to light his cigar, for she has all the cosmopolitan instincts of a woman who not only knows the world but had heard her father discuss tobacco, and really enjoyed the soothing fragrance of a good cigar.

As soon as we were settled and poor singed Josephus had tiptoed in by the fire, evidently trying to make up for his shabby coat by the profundity of his purr, Evan set forth his scheme to our hostess. We were to lodge and breakfast with her, but after that she was to play our way, and be at our disposal morning, afternoon, and evening, at luncheon, dinner, and supper, and the game was to be the old-fashioned one of "follow the leader!"

At first Miss Lavinia hesitated regretfully, it seemed so inhospitable,—she had thought to take us to several parlour concerts. Mrs. Vanderdonk, she that was a De Leyster, was going to throw open her picture gallery for charity, which would give us an opportunity to see her new house. In fact the undertow of the Whirlpool was still pulling at her ankles, even though she had freed her head, and it seemed impossible to her that there could be any New York other than the one she knew.

Finally her almost girlish vitality asserted itself, and bargaining that we should allow her one evening to have Sylvia Latham to dinner, she surrendered.

"Then we will begin at once by going to the theatre," said Evan, jumping up and looking at the clock, which pointed at a few minutes of eight.

"Have you tickets? Isn't this a little sudden?" asked Miss Lavinia with a little gasp, evidently remembering that her hair was arranged for the house only.

"No, I have no tickets, but Barbara and I always go in this way, and if we cannot get in at one place we try another, for usually some good seats are returned from the outside ticket offices a few minutes before the play begins. The downtown theatres open the earliest, so we can start near by and work our way upward, if necessary."

To my surprise in five minutes Miss Lavinia was ready, and we sallied forth, Evan sandwiched between us. As the old Dorman house is in the northeastern corner of what was far away Greenwich Village,—at the time-the Bouerie was a blooming orchard, and is meshed in by a curious jumble of thoroughfares, that must have originally either followed the tracks of wandering cattle or worthy citizens who had lost their bearings, for Waverley Place comes to an untimely end in West Eleventh Street, and Fourth Street collides with Horatio and is headed off by Thirteenth Street before it has a chance even to catch a glimpse of the river,—a few steps brought us into Fourteenth Street, where naming gas-jets announced that the play of "Jim Bludso" might be seen.

"Dear me!" ejaculated Miss Lavinia, "do people still go to this theatre? The last time I came here it was in the seventies to see Mrs. Rousby as Rosalind."

When we took our seats the play, founded, as the bill informed us, upon one of the Pike County Ballads, had begun, and Miss Lavinia soon became absorbed.

It is a great deal to be surrounded by an audience all thoroughly in the mood to be swayed by the emotion of the piece, plain people, perhaps, but solidly honest. Directly in front sat a young couple; the girl, in a fresh white silk waist, wore so fat and new a wedding ring upon her ungloved hand, which the man held in a tight grip, that I surmised that this trip into stageland was perhaps their humble wedding journey, from which they would return to "rooms" made ready by jubilant relatives, eat a wonderful supper, and begin life.

The next couple were not so entirely en rapport. The girl, who wore a gorgeous garnet engagement ring, also very new, merely rested her hand on her lover's coat sleeve where she could see the light play upon the stones.

When, after the first act, in answer to hearty rounds of applause, varied with whistles and shouts from the gallery, the characters stepped forward, not in the unnatural string usual in more genteel play-houses, where victor and vanquished join hands and bow, but one by one, each being greeted by cheers, hisses, or groans, according to the part, and when the villain appeared I found myself groaning with the rest, and though Evan laughed, I know he understood.

After it was over, as we went out into the night, Evan headed toward Sixth Avenue instead of homeward.

"May I ask where we are going now?" said Miss Lavinia, meekly. She had really enjoyed the play, and I know I heard her sniff once or twice at the proper time, though of course I pretended not to.

"Going?" echoed Evan. "Only around the corner to get three fries in a box, with the usual pickle and cracker trimmings, there being no restaurant close by that you would care for; then we will carry them home and have a little supper in the pantry, if your Lucy has not locked up the forks and taken the key to bed. If she has, we can use wooden toothpicks."

At first Miss Lavinia seemed to feel guilty at the idea of disturbing Lucy's immaculate pantry at such an hour; but liberty is highly infectious. She had spent the evening out without previous intent; the next step was to feel that her soul was her own on her return. She unlocked the forks, Evan unpacked the upstairs ice-chest for the dog's head bass that wise women always have when they expect visiting Englishmen, even though they are transplanted and acclimated ones, and she ate the oysters, still steaming from their original package, with great satisfaction. After we had finished Miss Lavinia bravely declared her independence of Lucy. The happy don't-care feeling produced by broiled oysters and bass on a cold night is a perfect revelation to people used to after-theatre suppers composed of complications, sticky sweets, and champagne.

When we had finished I thought for a moment that she showed a desire to conceal the invasion by washing the dishes, but she put it aside, and we all went upstairs together.

A little shopping being in order, Evan took himself off in the morning, leaving Miss Lavinia and me to prowl, after we had promised to meet him at a downtown restaurant at one.

Little boys are delightful things to shop for,—there is no matching this and that, no getting a yard too much or too little, everything is substantial and straight away, and all you have to do when the bundles are sent home by express is to strengthen the sewing on of buttons and reinforce the seats and knees of everyday pantikins from the inside.

We strolled about slowly, and at half past one were quite ready to sit still and not only eat our lunch but watch business mankind eat his. If any one wishes to feel the clutch and motive power of the Whirlpool let him go to the Mazarin any time between twelve-thirty and two o'clock. The streets themselves are surging with men, all hurrying first in one direction, then another, until it seems as if there either must be a fire somewhere, or else a riot afoot. The doors of the restaurant open and shut incessantly, corks pop, knives and forks rattle, everything is being served from a sandwich and a glass of beer to an elaborate repast with a wine to every course, while through and above it all the stress of business is felt. Of course the great financiers usually have luncheon served in their offices, to save them from the crowd; besides, it might give common humanity a chance to scrutinize their countenances, and perchance read what they thought upon some question of moment, for it sometimes seems as if the eye of the New York journalist has X-ray power. On the other hand, the humbler grade, with less of either time or money to spare, go to the "quick lunch" counters and "dime-in-the-slot" sandwich concerns; yet Evan says that the gathering at the Mazarin is fairly representative.

Miss Lavinia was bewildered. Her downtown visits to her broker's office were always made in a cab, with Lucy to stay in it as a preventative of the driver's taking a sly glass or a thief snatching her lap-robe—she never uses public carriage rugs. She clung to the obsolete idea that Wall Street was no place for women, and saw, as in a dream, the daintily dressed stenographers, bookkeepers, and confidential clerks mingling with the trousered ranks in the street, not to mention the damsels in tidy shirtwaists, with carefully undulated hair and pointed, polished finger nails, who were lunching at near-by tables, sometimes seemingly with their employers as well as with other male or female friends.

"I wonder how much of all this is bad for uptown home life?" Miss Lavinia queried, gazing around the room; but as she did not address either of us in particular, we did not answer, as we did not know,—who does?

A spare half-hour before closing time we gave to the Stock Exchange, and it was quite enough, for some one was short on something, and pandemonium reigned. As we stood on the corner of Rector Street and Broadway, hesitating whether to take surface or elevated cars, faint strains of organ music from Trinity attracted us.

"Service or choir practice; let us go in a few moments," said Evan, to whom the organ is a voice that never fails to draw. We took seats far back, and lost ourselves among the shadows. A special service was in progress, the music half Gregorian, and the congregation was too scattered to mar the feeling that we had slipped suddenly out of the material world. The shadows of the sparrows outside flitted upward on the stained glass windows, until it seemed as if the great chords had broken free and taking form were trying to escape.

Now and then the door would open softly and unaccustomed figures slip in and linger in the open space behind the pews. Aliens, newly landed and wandering about in the vicinity of their water-front lodging-houses, music and a church appealed to their loneliness. Some stood, heads bowed, and some knelt in prayer and crossed themselves on leaving; one woman, lugging a great bundle tied in a blue cloth, a baby on her arm and another clinging to her skirts, put down her load, bedded the baby upon it, and began to tell her beads.

The service ended, and the people scattered, but the organist played on, and the boy choir regathered, but less formally.

"What is it?" we asked of the verger, who was preparing to close the doors.

"There will be a funeral of one of the oldest members of the congregation to-morrow, and they are about to go through the music of the office."

Suddenly a rich bass voice, strong in conviction, trumpeted forth—"I am the resurrection and the life!" And only a stone's throw away jingled the money market of the western world. The temple and the table of the money changers keep step as of old. Ah, wonderful New York!

* * * * *

The afternoon was clear staccato and mild withal, and the sun, almost at setting, lingered above orange and dim cloud banks at the end of the vista Broadway made.

"Are you tired? Can you walk half a dozen blocks?" asked Evan of Miss Lavinia, as we came out.

"No, quite the reverse; I think that I am electrified," she replied briskly.

"Then we will go to Battery Park," he said, turning south.

"Battery Park, where all the immigrants and roughs congregate! What an idea! We shall catch smallpox or have our pockets picked!"

"Have you ever been there?" persisted Evan.

"Yes, once, I think, when steamship passengers lathed at the barge office, and of course I've seen it often in going to Staten Island to visit Cousin Lucretia."

Evan's only reply was to keep on walking. We did not cross the "bowling green," but swung to the right toward Pier I, and took the path between old Castle Garden and the sea wall at the point where one of the fire patrol boats was resting, steam up and hose nozzles pointed, lance couchant wise.

Ah, what a picture! No wonder Miss Lavinia adjusted her glasses quickly (she is blindly nearsighted), caught her breath, and clung to Evan's arm as the fresh sea breeze coming up from the Narrows wheeled her about. Before us Staten Island divided the water left and right, while between it and the Long Island shore, just leaving quarantine and dwarfing the smaller craft, an ocean liner, glistening with ice, was coming on in majestic haste. All about little tugs puffed and snorted, and freighters passed crosswise, parting the floating ice and churning it with their paddles, scarcely disturbing the gulls, that flew so close above the water that their wings touched, or floated at leisure.

The sun that had been gilding everything from masthead to floating spar gathered in its forces, and for one moment seemed to rest upon Liberty's torch, throwing the statue into clear relief, and then dropped rapidly behind the river's night-cloud bank, and presently lights began to glimmer far and near, the night breath rose from the water, and the wave-cradled gulls slept.

"Do you like our New York?" asked Evan, turning to go.

"Don't speak," whispered Miss Lavinia, hanging back.

But we were no sooner on the elevated train than she found use for her tongue, for whose feet should I stumble over on entering, quite big feet too, or rather shoes, for the size of the man, but Martin Cortright's, and of course he was duly presented to Miss Lavinia.



V

FEBRUARY VIOLETS

That night Miss Lavinia was forced to ask "for time for 'forty winks'" before she could even think of dinner, and Evan and I sat them out in the deep, hospitable chairs by the library fire. We were not tired, simply held in check; country vitality shut off from certain ways for six months is not quickly exhausted, but, on the other hand, when it is spent, it takes several months to recuperate.

The first night that I leave home for these little excursions I have a sense of virtue and simmering self-congratulation. I feel that I am doing a sensible thing in making a break from what the theorists call "the narrowing evenness of domestic existence." Of course it is a good thing for me to leave father and the boys, and see and hear something new to take back report of to them; it is better for them to be taught appreciation of me by absence; change is beneficial to every one, etc., etc., and all that jargon.

The second night I am still true to the theory, but am convinced that to the highly imaginative, a city day and its doings may appear like the Biblical idea of eternity—reversed—"a thousand years." The third night I am painfully sure of this, and if I remain away over a fourth, which is very rare, I cast the whole theory out to the winds of scepticism, and am so restless and disagreeable that Evan usually suggests that I take a morning train home and do not wait for him, which is exactly the responsibility that I wish him to assume, thus saving me from absolute surrender.

We always have a good time on our outings, and yet after each the pleasure of return grows keener, so that occasionally Evan remonstrates and says: "Sometimes I cannot understand your attitude; you appear to enjoy every moment keenly, and yet when you go home you act as if you had mercifully escaped from a prison that necessitated going through a sort of thanksgiving ceremony. It seems very irrational."

But when I ask him if it would be more rational to be sorry to come home, he does not answer,—at least not in words.

"Where do we dine to-night?" I asked Evan, as he was giving unmistakable signs of "meditation," and I heard by the footsteps overhead that Miss Lavinia was stirring.

"At the Art and Nature Club. You can dress as much or as little as you please, and we can get a table in a cosey corner, and afterward sit about upstairs for an hour, for there will be music to-night. I have asked Martin Cortright to join us. It has its interesting side, this—a transplanted Englishman married to a country girl introducing old bred-in-the-bone New Yorkers to New Manhattan."

When I go to town my costuming consists merely in change of waists, as street and public conveyances alike are a perpetual menace to one's best petticoats, so in a few moments we were on our way uptown.

We did not tell Miss Lavinia where we were going until we were almost there, and she was quite upset, as dining at the two or three hotels and other places affected by the Whirlpoolers implies a careful and special toilet to run the gantlet of society reporters, for every one is somebody in one sense, though in another "nobody is really any one."

She was reassured, however, the moment that she drew her high-backed oak chair up to the table that Evan had reserved in a little alcove near the fireplace. Before the oysters arrived, and Martin Cortright appeared to fill the fourth seat, she had completely relaxed, and was beaming at the brass jugs and pottery beakers ranged along a shelf above the dark wainscot, and at the general company, while the warmth from the fire logs gave her really a very pretty colour, and she began to question Martin as to who all these people, indicating the rapidly filling-up tables, were. But Martin gazed serenely about and confessed he did not know.

The people came singly, or in twos and threes, men and women together or alone, a fact at which Miss Lavinia greatly marvelled. Greetings were exchanged, and there was much visiting from table to table, as if the footing was that of a private house.

"Nice-looking people," said Miss Lavinia, meditatively scrutinizing the room through her lorgnette without a trace of snobbery in her voice or attitude, yet I was aware that she was mentally drawing herself apart. "Some of them quite unusual, but there is not a face here that I ever saw in society. Are they members of the Club? Where do they come from? Where do they live?"

Evan's lips shut together a moment before he answered, and I saw a certain steely gleam in his eye that I always regarded as a danger signal.

"Perhaps they might ask the same questions about you," he answered; "though they are not likely to, their world is so much broader. They are men and women chiefly having an inspiration, an art or craft, or some vital reason for living besides the mere fact that it has become a habit. They are none of them rich enough to be disagreeable or feel that they own the right to trample on their fellows. They all live either in or near New York, as best suits their means, vocations, and temperaments. Men and women together, they represent, as well as a gathering can, the hopeful spirit of our New York of New Manhattan that does not grovel to mere money power."

Miss Lavinia seemed a little abashed, but Martin Cortright, who had been a silent observer until now, said: "It surprises me to see fraternity of this sort in the midst of so many institutions of specialized exclusiveness and the decadence of clubs, that used to be veritable brotherhoods, by unwise expansion. I like the general atmosphere, it seems cheerful and, if one may blend the terms, conservatively Bohemian."

"Come upstairs before the music begins, so that we can get comfortably settled in the background, that I may tell you who some of these 'unknown-to-Whirlpool-society' people are. You may be surprised," said Evan to Miss Lavinia, who had by this time finished her coffee.

The rooms were cheerful with artistic simplicity. The piano had been moved from the lounging room into the picture gallery opposite to where a fine stained glass window was exhibited, backed by electric lights.

We stowed ourselves away in a deep seat, shaped something like an old-fashioned school form, backed and cushioned with leather, to watch the audience gather. Every phase of dress was present, from the ball gown to the rainy weather skirt, and enough of each grade to keep one another in countenance. About half the men wore evening suits, but those who did not were completely at their ease.

There was no regular ushering to seats, but every one was placed easily and naturally. Evan, who had Miss Lavinia in charge, was alert, and rather, it seemed to me, on the defensive; but though Martin asked questions, he was comfortably soothing, and seemed to take in much at a glance.

That short man with the fine head, white hair and beard, aquiline nose, and intense eyes is not only a poet, but the first American critic of pure literature. He lives out of town, but comes to the city daily for a certain stimulus. The petite woman with the pretty colour who has crossed the room to speak to him is the best known writer of New England romance. That shy-looking fellow standing against the curtain at your right, with the brown mustache and broad forehead, is the New England sculptor whose forcible creations are known everywhere, yet he is almost shrinkingly modest, and he never, it seems, even in thought, has broken the injunction of "Let another praise thee, not thine own lips."

Half a dozen promising painters are standing in the doorway talking to a young woman who, beginning with newspaper work, has stepped suddenly into a niche of fiction. The tall, loose-jointed man at the left of the group, the editor of a conservative monthly, has for his vis-a-vis the artist who has had so much to do with the redemption of American architecture and decoration from the mongrel period of the middle century. Another night you may not see a single one of these faces, but another set, yet equally interesting.

Meanwhile Martin Cortright had discovered a man, a financier and also a book collector of prominence, who was reputed to have a complete set of some early records that he had long wished to consult; he had never found a suitable time for meeting him, as the man, owing to having been oftentime the prey of both unscrupulous dealers and parasitic friends, was esteemed difficult.

Infected by the freedom of his surroundings, Martin plucked up courage and spoke to him, the result being an interchange of cards, book talk, and an invitation to visit the library.

Then the music began, and lasted not above an hour, with breathing and chatting intervals, followed by claret cup and lemonade. A pleasant evening's recreation, with no opportunity of accumulating the material for either mental or physical headache.

The night air was very soft, but of that delusive quality that in February portends snow, and not the return of bluebirds, as the uninitiated might expect. Miss Lavinia was fascinated by the lights and motion of Herald Square, and at her suggestion, it being but a little past ten, we strolled homeward down Broadway instead of taking a car. Her delight at the crowd of promenaders, the picturesque florists' shops, and the general buzz of night life was almost pathetic. Her after-dark experience having been to get to and from specified places as quickly as possible with Lucy for escort, solicitous when in a street car lest they should pass their destination, and trembling even more when in a cab lest the driver should have committed the variable and expansive crime of "taking something." She bought a "ten o'clock edition" of the Telegram, some of "Match Mary's" wares, that perennially middle-aged woman who haunts the theatre region, and suggested that we have ice-cream soda at a particularly glittering drug store, but this desire was switched into hot bouillon by Evan, who retains the Englishman's dislike of chilling his internals.

New York is really a fine city by night, that is, in parts at least, and yet it is very strange how comparatively few of the rank and file of its inhabitants walk abroad to see the spectacle.

By lamplight the scars and wounds of subways appear less vivid, and the perpetual skeleton of the skyscraper merges in its background. The occasional good bit of architecture steps out boldly from the surrounding shadows of daylight discouragement. City life does not seem to be such an exhausting struggle, and even the "misery wagons," as I always call ambulances to myself, look less dreary with the blinking light fore and aft, for you cannot go far in New York without feeling the pitying thrill of their gongs.

After the brightness of Broadway the side streets seemed cavernous. As we turned westward and crossed Sixth Avenue a dark figure, outlined full length against the blazing window of a corner liquor saloon, lined with mirrors, in some way fixed my attention. It was a woman's figure, slight, and a little crouching. The hat was gay and set on puffy hair, the jacket brave with lace, but the skirt was frayed where it lapped the pavement, and the boot that was pushed from beneath it, as if to steady a swaying frame, was thin and broken. I do not know why I looked back after I had passed, but as I did so, I saw the girl, for she was little more, pull a scrap of chamois from a little bag she carried and quickly rub rouge upon her hollow cheeks, using the saloon mirror for a toilet glass. But when I saw the face itself I stopped short, giving Evan's arm such a tug that he also turned.

The woman was Jennie, the Oakland baker's only daughter, who had no lack of country beaus, but was flattered by the attentions of one of the Jenks-Smith's butlers, whose irreproachable manners of the count-in-disguise variety made the native youths appear indeed uncouth. She grew discontented, thought it beneath her social position to help her mother in the shop, and went to town to work in a store, it was said until her wedding, which was to be that autumn. Father worried over her and tried to advise, but to no purpose. This was more than two years ago. The butler left the Jenks-Smith's, and we heard that he was a married man, with a family who had come to look him up.

Jennie's mother said she had a fine place in a store, and showed us, from time to time, presents the girl had sent her, so thus to find the truth was a shock indeed. Not but what all women who are grown must bear upon them the weight of the general knowledge of evil, but it is none the less awful to come face to face on a street corner with one who was the pretty village girl, whom you last saw standing behind the neat counter with a pitcher of honeysuckles at her elbow as she filled a bag with sugar cookies for your clamouring babies.

* * * * *

I suppose that I must have exclaimed aloud, for Jennie started back and saw us, then dropped her bag and began to grope about for it as if she was in a dream.

"Can't we do something?" I whispered to Evan, but he only gravely shook his head.

"Give her this for the boys' sake," I begged, fumbling in his change pocket and finding a bill there. "Tell her it's home money from the Doctor's daughter—and—to go home—or—buy—a—pair of shoes."

At first I thought she was not going to take it; but having found her bag she straightened herself a moment, and without looking at Evan gave me a glance, half defiant, half beseeching, grasped the money almost fiercely, and scuttled away in the darkness, and I found that I was crying. But Evan understood,—he always does,—and I hope that if the boys read this little book fifteen or twenty years hence, that they will also.



As we reached the door the first snowflakes fell. Poor Jennie!

* * * * *

The third day of our stay began in country quiet. In fact we did not wake up until eight; everything was snowbound, and even the occasional horse cars that pass the front of the house had ceased their primitive tinkling. The milkman did not come, neither did the long crispy French rolls, a New York breakfast institution for which the commuters confessedly have no substitute, and it was after nine before breakfast was served.

Evan, who had disappeared, returned at the right moment with his newspaper and two bulky tissue paper bundles all powdered with snow, one of which he gave to Miss Lavinia, the other to me. I knew their contents the moment I set eyes on them, and yet it was none the less a heart-warming surprise.

Down in a near-by market is a little florist's shop, so small that one might pass twenty times without noticing it; the man, a local authority, who has kept it for years, makes a specialty of the great long-stemmed single violets, whose fleeting fragrance no words may express. They call them Californias now, but they are evidently the opulent kin of those sturdy, dark-eyed Russian violets of my mother's garden, and as they mean more than any other flower to me, Evan always brings them to me when I come to town. This morning he trudged out in the snow, hardly thinking this man would have any, but by mere chance the grower, suspecting snow, brought in his crop the night before, and in spite of the storm I had the first morning breath of these flowers of a day.

Miss Lavinia sniffed and sighed, and then buried her aristocratic, but rather chilly, nose in the mass. "I feel like a young girl with her first bouquet," she said presently.

"Ah, how good it is to be given something with a meaning. Most people think that to be able to buy what they wish, within reason, is perfect happiness, but it isn't. Barbara, you and this man of yours quite unsettle me and shake my pet theories. You show sides of things in my own birthplace that I never dreamed of looking up, and you convince me, when I am on the wane, that married friendship is the only thing worth living for. It's too bad of you, but fortunately for me the notion passes off after you have gone away," and Miss Lavinia, after loving her violets a bit longer, put them in a chubby jug of richly chased old silver. After breakfast we tried to coax her to bundle up and come with us to Washington Square to see the crystal trees in all their beauty; but that was too unorthodox a feat. To plough through snow in rubber boots in the very heart of the city was entirely too radical a move. She knew people about the square, and I suppose did not wish to be seen by them, so she was obliged to content herself with sight of the snow draperies and ice jewels that decked the trees and shrubs of the doomed back yard.

Even though the storm called a halt in our plans for Miss Lavinia, Evan and I had a little errand of our own, our annual pilgrimage to see the auction room where we first met that February afternoon. The room is not there now, to be sure, but we go to see it all the same, and have our little thrill and buy something near the place to take home to the boys, and we shall continue to come each year unless public improvement causes the thoroughfare itself to be hung up in the sky, which is quite possible.

Then Evan went down town, and I returned to lunch with Miss Lavinia, for, if possible, we were to call on Sylvia Latham and ask her to dinner on the morrow, the last day of our stay. Miss Lavinia proposed to invite Sylvia to spend the night also, that we might become acquainted upon a basis less formal than a mere dinner.

Shortly after three o'clock we started in a coupe with two stout horses driven by a man above suspicion of having "taken anything," at least at the start. It is a curious fact that eight or ten inches of damp snow can so nearly paralyze the transportation facilities of a city like New York, but such is the case. The elevated rails become slippery, the wheels will not grip, and the entire wheel traffic of the streets betakes itself to the tracks of the surface lines, where trolley, truck, and private carriage all move along solemnly in a strange procession, like a funeral I once saw outside of Paris, where the hearse was followed by two finely draped carriages, then by the business wagon of the deceased, filled with employees, the draperies on this arranged so as not to disturb the sign,—he kept a patisserie,—while a donkey cart, belonging to the market garden that supplied the deceased with vegetables, brought up the rear.

In the middle and lower parts of New York the streets and their life dominate the houses; on the east side of the park the houses dominate the streets, and the flunkies, whose duty it is either to let you in or preferably to keep you out of these houses, control the entire situation. I may in the course of time come to respect or even like some of these mariners of the Whirlpool, but as a class their servants are wholly and unendurably objectionable, and the sum of all that is most aggravating.

The house faced the park. A carpet was spread down the steps, but we could not conjecture if it was an ordinary custom in bad weather, or if some function was afoot. Evidently the latter, as I had barely touched the bell when the door flew open. Two liveried attendants were within, one turned the door knob and the other presented his tray for the cards, while in the distance a third, wearing the dress of a butler or majordomo, stood by closed portieres.

We had asked for Mrs. and Miss Latham, and evidently the combination caused confusion. No. 1 remained by the front door, No. 2, after a moment's hesitation, motioned us to seats near the fireplace in the great reception hall, a room by itself, wainscoted with carved oak, that also formed the banisters and the railing of a sort of balcony above, while the walls were hung with rich-hued tapestries, whose colours were revealed by quaint shield-shaped electroliers of gilded glass. Man No. 3 disappeared within the portieres bearing our cards. In a moment he reappeared, drew them apart, and stood aside as his mistress swept out, the same cold blond woman I had seen in the market, but now most exquisitely clad in a pale gray gown of crepe embroidered with silver fern fronds and held at the neck by a deep collar of splendid pearls, pearl rings alone upon her hands, in her hair a spray of silver mistletoe with pearls for berries. She made an exquisite picture as she advanced swiftly to meet us, a half smile on her lips and one pink-tipped hand extended. I love to look at beautiful women, yet the sight of her gave me a sort of Undine shiver.

"Dear Miss Dorman, so glad to see you, and Mrs. Evan of Oaklands also. I have seen, but never met you, I believe," she said, giving us her hand in turn. "I must ask you to the library, (Perkins, Miss Sylvia," she said in an aside to No. 2, who immediately vanished upstairs,) "and then excuse myself regretfully, for this is my afternoon for 'bridge,' as Monty Bell and a friend or two of his are good enough to promise to come and give us hints. Monty is so useful, you know, and so good-natured. I think you knew his mother, didn't you, Miss Lavinia? No, Sylvia is not to play; she is not up enough for 'bridge.' I wish you could persuade her to take lessons and an interest in the game, for when Lent begins she will be horribly bored, for there will be a game somewhere every day, and sometimes two and three, and she will be quite out of it, which is very ill-advised for a girl in her first winter, and especially when she starts as late as Sylvia. I'm afraid that I shall have to take her south to wake her up, and that is not in my schedule this season, I've so much to oversee at my Oaklands cottage.

"It is a very cold afternoon for you to have come so far, dear Miss Lavinia; a cup of tea or something? No? Ah, here comes Sylvia, and I know you will forgive me for going," and Mrs. Latham glided away with a glance toward the stairs. She evidently was in a desperate hurry to return to her guests, and yet she spoke slowly, with that delightful southern deliberation that suits women with pretty mouths so well, and still as I felt her eyes upon me I knew that to move her in any way against her own will would be impossible, and that she could never love anything but herself, and never would.

I did not look at Miss Lavinia in the brief moment before Sylvia entered, for we were both too well bred to criticise a woman in her own house, even with our eyes, which had they met would have been inevitable.

At first Sylvia only saw Miss Lavinia, and gathered her into her arms spontaneously, as if she were the elder, as she was by far the bigger of the two. Then seeing me, the cards not having been sent up, she hesitated a moment, colouring shyly, as a girl of sixteen might, and then straightway greeted me without embarrassment. As we laid aside our wraps and seated ourselves in a sort of cosey corner nook deep with pillows, and fur rugs nestling about the feet, I drew my first comfortable breath since entering, and as Miss Lavinia naturally took the lead in the conversation, giving her invitation for the next night, I had ample time to study Sylvia. She was fine looking rather than handsome, a warm brunette with copper glints threading her brown hair, thick curved lashes, big brown eyes, a good straight nose, and a decidedly humorous, but not small mouth, with lips that curled back from even teeth, while her whole face was punctuated and made winningly feminine by a deep dimple in the chin and a couple of vagrant ones that played about her mouth corners when she spoke, as she always did, looking directly at one.

Her hands were long and well shaped, not small, but competent looking, a great contrast to her mother's, as well as to Miss Lavinia's, that could slip easily into a five-and-a-half glove. She wore a graceful afternoon gown of pale blue with lace butterflies on the blouse and skirt, held in at waist and neck by enamelled butterfly buckles. She moved gracefully, and had a strong individuality, a warmth of nature that contrasted keenly with the statuesque perfection of her mother, and I fell to wondering what her father was like, and if she resembled him.

"Not yet, not until late spring," I heard her say in answer to Miss Lavinia's question as to whether her father had returned from his Japan tour.

"He is detained by railway business in San Francisco, and cannot go farther north to settle it until winter breaks. I've written him to ask leave to join him and perhaps stop awhile at Los Angeles and go up to see my brother on his Wyoming ranch in May. I do so hope he will let me. I've tried to coax mamma to go too, she has had such a wearing life this winter in trying to make it pleasant for me and introduce me to her friends. I wish I could tell her exactly how much I should prefer to be more alone with her. I do not want her to think me ungrateful, but to go out with her to father and pay dear old Carthy a visit would be simply splendid."

Then turning to me she said, I thought with a little quiver in her voice, "They tell me you live with your father, Mrs. Evan—even though you are married, and I have not seen mine for more than two years, only think of it!"

Whereat my heart went out to her, and I prayed mentally that her father might have a broad warm shoulder to pillow her head and a ready ear to hear her confidences, for the perfectly rounded neck and shell ear of the mother playing cards in the next room would never give harbour or heed, I knew.

Sylvia was as pleased as a child at the idea of coming down to spend the night, stipulating that if it was still cold she should be allowed to make taffy and put it on the shed to harden, saying, with a pout: "At school and college there was always somewhere that I could mess with sticky things and cook, but here it is impossible, though mamma says I shall have an outdoor tea-room at the Oaklands all to myself, and give chafing-dish parties, for they are quite the thing. 'The thing' is my boogy man, I'm afraid. If what you wish to do, no matter how silly, agrees with it, it's all right, but if it doesn't, all the wisdom of Solomon won't prevail against those two words."

Man No. 2 at this juncture came in and presented a florist's box and envelope in a tray, saying, sotto voce, as he did so, "Shall I hopen it and arrange them, miss, or will you wear them?" for, as the result of lavish entertaining and many hothouses as well as friends, flowers showered upon the Latham house at all hours, and both library and hall were almost too fragrant. Sylvia glanced at the note, saying, "I will wear them," to the man, handed the card to Miss Lavinia, her face flushing with pleasure, while No. 2 extracted a modest bunch of California violets from the paper, handed them to his young mistress, and retired with the box on his tray.

The name on the card was Horace Bradford, the pencilled address University Club, on the reverse were the words, "May I give myself the pleasure of calling to-morrow night? These February violets are in remembrance of a May ducking. Am in town for two days only on college business."

"The day that he rowed us on the Avon and reached too far up the bank to pick you wild violets and the boat shot ahead and he fell into the water," laughed Miss Lavinia, as pleased as Sylvia at the recollection.

"But I am going to you to-morrow evening," said Sylvia, ruefully at thought of missing a friend, but quite heart-free, as Miss Lavinia saw.

"Let me take the card, and I will ask him to dinner also," said the dear, comfortable, prim soul, who was still bubbling over with love of youth, "and Barbara shall ask her adopted uncle Cortright to keep the number even."

Time, it seems, had flown rapidly. She had barely slipped the card in her case when the door opened and No. 3 approached solemnly and whispered, "Mrs. Latham requests, Miss, as how you will come and pour tea, likewise bringing the ladies, if still here!" How those words still here smote the silence.

We immediately huddled on our wraps, anxious to be gone and spare Sylvia possible embarrassment, in spite of her protestations. As No. 2 led the way to the door a gentleman crossed the hall from the card-room and greeted Sylvia with easy familiarity. He was about forty, a rather colourless blonde, with clean shaven face of the type so commonly seen now that it might belong equally either to footman or master. His eyes had a slantwise expression, but his dress was immaculate.

Strolling carelessly by the girl's side I heard him say, "I came to see if you needed coaxing; some of the ladies are green over their losses, so have a care for your eyes." Then he laughed at the wide-eyed look of wonder she gave him as he begged a violet for his coat.

But Sylvia drew herself up, full an inch above him, and replied, decidedly, but with perfect good nature, "No, those violets are a message from Shakespeare,—one does not give such away."

"That is Monty Bell," said Miss Lavinia, tragically, as soon as the door closed.

"Is there anything the matter with him except that his colouring is like a summer squash?" I asked.

"He's been divorced by his wife, and it was her mother that was my friend, not his, as Mrs. Latham hinted. I know the story; it makes me shiver to see him near Sylvia." Then Miss Lavinia drew into a shell, in which she remained until we reached home.

Meanwhile, as we drove in silence, I remembered that Richard's rubber boots leaked, and I wondered if Martha Corkle would discover it, or if he was paddling about getting his feet wet and bringing on a sore throat. But when I got home Evan said he had sent the boots to the bicycle tire mender's the morning I came away. It was the third night of my stay, and he would not have known what to make of it if I had not raised some sort of a ghost.

* * * * *

The sidewalks being clear, we dined at the Laurent, giving Miss Lavinia a resurrection of French cooking, manners, women, ogling, ventilation, wine, and music. Then we took her, on the way home, to see some horrible wax figures, listen to a good Hungarian band, and nearly put her eyes out with a cinematograph show of the Coronation and Indian Durbar. Finishing up by brewing French chocolate in the pantry and stirring it with stick bread, and our guest, in her own house, went to bed fairly giggling in Gallic gayety, declaring that she felt as if she had spent the evening on the Paris boulevards, that she liked our New York, and felt ten years younger.



VI

ENTER A MAN

If I weather my fourth day in town I am apt to grow a trifle waspish, even though I may not be goaded to the stinging point. This is especially the case if, as on this recent visit, I am obliged to do any shopping for myself. Personally, I prefer the rapid transit shopping of ordering by mail, it avoids so many complications. Having made up your mind what you need, or perhaps, to speak more truthfully, what you want, for one can hardly be quite content with mere necessities until one grows either so old or shapeless that everything is equally unbecoming, samples are forthcoming, from which an intelligent selection can be made without the demoralizing effect of glib salespeople upon one's judgment.

I know my own shortcomings by heart, and I should never have deliberately walked into temptation yesterday morning if Lavinia Dorman had not said that she wished my advice. Last year I went with the intention of buying substantial blue serge for an outing gown, and was led astray by some gayly flowered muslins. I have a weakness for gay colours, especially red. These when made up Evan pronounced "extremely pretty—in the abstract"—which is his way of saying that a thing is either unsuitable or very unbecoming. When I went to father, hoping for consolation, he was even less charitable, remarking that he thought now long lines were more suitable and graceful for me than bunches and bowknots. True, the boys admired the most thickly flowered gown immensely for a few minutes, Richard bringing me a posy to match for my hair, while Ian walked about me in silence which he broke suddenly with the trenchant remark—"Barbara, I think your dwess would be prettier if it was weeded some!"

All of which is of course perfectly true. I have not been growing thinner all these six years, but this morning, in stooping over one of the cold frames to see how the plants within had weathered the storm, it came quite as a shock to me to feel that, like Martin Cortright, I am getting stout and in the way of myself when I bend, like an impediment in a door hinge.

However, as Miss Lavinia desired guidance in buying some real country clothes, I felt it my duty to give it. She is already making elaborate preparations for her visit to me. It seems strange, that simplicity is apparently one of the most laborious things in the world to those unaccustomed to it, yet so it is.

She is about to make her initial venture in shirtwaists, and she approaches them with as much caution as if she were experimenting with tights and trunks. The poor little seamstress who is officiating has, to my certain knowledge, tried one waist on five times, because, as Miss Lavinia does not "feel it," she thinks it cannot fit properly.

Never mind, she will get over all that, of course. The plan that she has formed of spending five or six months in the real country must appear somewhat in the light of a revolution to her, and the preparation of a special uniform and munitions for the campaign a necessary precaution. Her present plan is to come to me for May, then, if the life suits her, she will either take a small house that one of our farmer neighbours often rents for the summer months, or else, together with her maid, Lucy, board at one of the hill farms.

I have told her plainly (for what is friendship worth if one may not be frank) that if after trial we agree with each other, I hope she will stay with us all the season; but as for her maid, I myself will supply her place, if need be, and Effie do her mending, for I could not have Lucy come.

Perhaps it may be very narrow and provincial, but to harbour other people's servants seems to me like inviting contagion and subjecting one's kitchen to all the evils of boarding house atmosphere.

I used to think last summer, when I saw the arrival of various men and maids belonging to guests of the Bluff Colony, that I should feel much more at ease in the presence of royalty, and that I could probably entertain Queen Alexandra at dinner with less shock to her nerves and traditions than one of these ladies' maids or gentlemen's gentlemen.

Martha Corkle expresses her opinion freely upon this subject, and I must confess to being a willing listener, for she does not gossip, she portrays, and often with a masterly touch. The woes of her countrywoman, the Ponsonby's housekeeper, often stir her to the quick. The Ponsonby household is perhaps one of the most "difficult" on the Bluffs, because its members are of widely divergent ages. The three Ponsonby girls range from six to twenty-two, with a college freshman son second from the beginning, while Josephine, sister of the head of the family, though quite Miss Lavinia's age, is the gayest of the gay, and almost outdoes her good-naturedly giddy sister-in-law.

"It's just hawful, Mrs. Evan," Martha said one day, when, judging by the contents of the station 'bus and baggage wagon, almost the entire Ponsonby house staff must have left at a swoop; "my eyes fairly bleeds for poor Mrs. Maggs" (the housekeeper), "that they do. 'Twas bad enough in the old country, where we knew our places, even though some was ambitioned to get out of them; but here it's like blind man's buff, and enough to turn a body giddy. Mrs. Maggs hasn't a sittin' room of her own where she and the butler and the nurse can have their tea in peace or entertain guests, but she sets two tables in the servants' hall, and a pretty time she has of it.

"The kitchen maid and the laundress's assistant wait on the first table; but one day when, the maid of one of Miss Ponsonby's friends comin' down over late, she was served with instead o' by them, she gave Mrs. Maggs the 'orriblest settin' down, as not knowin' her business in puttin' a lady's lady with servants' servants, the same which Mrs. Maggs does know perfectly (accidents bein' unpreventable), bein' child of Lord Peacock's steward and his head nurse, and swallowin' it all in with her mother's milk, so to speak, not borrowin' it second hand as some of the great folks on the Bluffs themselves do from their servants, not feelin' sure of the kerrect thing, yet desirin' so to do. Mrs. Maggs, poor body, she has more mess with that servants' hall first table than with all the big dinners the master gives.

"'Mrs. Corkle,' says she, bein' used to that name, besides Corkle bein' kin to her husband, 'what I sets before my own household, as it were, they leaves or they eats, it's one to me; but company's got to be handled different, be it upstairs or down, for the name of the 'ouse, but when Mr. Jollie, the French valet that comes here frequent with the master's partner, wants dripped coffee and the fat scraped clean from his chop shank, else the flavour's spoiled for him, and Bruce the mistress' brother's man wants boiled coffee, and thick fat left on his breakfast ham, what stands between my poor 'ead and a h'assleyum? that's what I wants to know. Three cooks I've had this very season, it really bein' the duty of the first kitchen maid to cook for the servants' hall; but if a cook is suited to a kitchen maid, as is most important, she'll stand by her. No, Martha Corkle, wages is 'igh, no doubt,—fortunes to what they were when we were gells,—but not 'igh for the worry; and bein' in service ain't what it were.'"

Then I knew that Martha, even as her bosom heaves over her friend's grievances, was also sighing with content at thought of Timothy Saunders and her own lot; and I recalled the Lady of the Bluffs' passing remark, and felt that I am only beginning to realize the deliciousness of "comfortable poverty."

* * * * *

Miss Lavinia and I spent some time browsing among the shops, finally bringing up at an old conservative dry goods concern in Broadway, the most satisfactory place to shop in New York, because there is never a crowd, and the salesmen, many of them grown gray in the service, take an Old World interest in their wares and in you.

While I was trying to convince Miss Lavinia as to the need of the serviceable, she was equally determined to decoy me toward the frivolous; and I yielded, I may say fell, to the extent of buying a white crepey sort of pattern gown that had an open work white lilac pattern embroidered on it. It certainly was very lovely, and it is nice to have a really good gown in reserve, even if a plainer one that will stand hugging, sticky fingers, and dogs' damp noses is more truly enjoyable.

N.B.—I must get over apologizing to myself when I buy respectable clothes. It savours too much of Aunt Lot's old habit of saying, every time she bought a best gown, and I remonstrated with her for the colour (it was always black in those days; since she's married the Reverend Jabez she's taken to greens), "When I consider that a black dress would be suitable to be buried in, it seems less like a vain luxury."

We were admiring the dainty muslins, but only in the "abstract," when I looked up, conscious that some one was coming directly toward us, and saw Sylvia Latham crossing the shop from the door, her rapid, swinging gait bringing her to us before short-sighted Miss Lavinia had a chance to raise her lorgnette.

Sylvia was genuinely glad to see us, and she expressed it both by look and speech, without the slightest symptom of gush, yet with the confiding manner of one who craves companionship. I had, in fact, noticed the same thing during our call the afternoon before.

"Well, and what are we buying to-day?" asked Miss Lavinia, clearing her voice by a little caressing sound halfway between a purr and a cluck, and patting the hand that lingered affectionately on hers.

"I really—don't—know," answered Sylvia, smiling at her own hesitation. "Mamma says that if I do not get my clothes together before people begin to come back from the South, I shall be nowhere, so she took me with her to Mme. Couteaux's this morning. Mamma goes there because she says it saves so much trouble. Madame keeps a list of every article her customers have, and supplies everything, even down to under linen and hosiery, so she has made for mamma a plan of exactly what she would need for next season, and after having received her permission, will at once begin to carry it out. Of course the clothes will be very beautiful and harmonious, and mamma has so much on her hands, now that father is away,—the new cottage at Oaklands is being furnished, and me to initiate in the way I'm supposed to go,—that it certainly simplifies matters for her.

"Me? Ah, I do not like the system at all, or Madame Couteaux either, and the feeling is mutual, I assure you. Without waiting to be asked, even, she looked me over from head to foot and said that my lines are very bad, that I curve in and out at the wrong places, that I must begin at once by wearing higher heels to throw me forward!

"At first I was indignant, and then the ludicrous climbed uppermost, and I laughed, whereat Madame looked positively shocked, and even mamma seemed aghast and murmured something apologetic about my having been at boarding-school in the country, and at college, where I had ridden horseback without proper instruction, which had injured my figure. Only imagine, Aunt Lavinia, those glorious gallops among the Rockcliffe Hills hurting one's body in any way! But then, I suppose body and figure are wholly different things; at any rate, Madame Couteaux gave a shrug, as if shedding all responsibility for my future from her fat shoulders, and so, while mamma is there, I am taking a run out in the cold world of raw material and observing for myself.

"Of course I shall make mistakes, but I have had everything done for me to such an extent, during the last four months, that I really must make a point of picking and choosing for once. I've had a mad desire since the last storm to stir up the pools in the gutters with my best shoes, as the happy little children do with their rubber boots. How I shall enjoy it when we go to Oaklands, and there is really something to do instead of merely being amused.

"By the way, Mrs. Evan, won't you and Miss Lavinia join us at luncheon? We are to have it somewhere downtown, to-day,—the Waldorf, I believe,—as mamma expects to spend most of the afternoon at the decorators, to see the designs for the Oaklands hangings and furniture, and," glancing at the big clock, between the lifts, as Miss Lavinia made her last purchase, "it's high time for me to go and pick her up."

Having a feeling that possibly mamma might not be so cordial, in addition to being due at home for more shirtwaist fittings, Miss Lavinia declined, and reminding Sylvia that dinner would be at the old-fashioned hour of half-past six, we drifted out the door together, Sylvia going toward Fifth Avenue, while we turned the corner and sauntered down Broadway, pausing at every attractive window.

Miss Lavinia's short-sightedness caused her to bump into a man, who was intently gazing, from the height of six feet, at jewelled bugs, displayed in the window of a dealer in Oriental wares.

The man, thinking himself to blame, raised his hat in apology, glancing casually down as he did so, whereupon the hat remained off, and he and Miss Lavinia grasped hands with sudden enthusiasm, followed by a medley of questions and answers, so that before she remembered me, and turned to introduce the stranger, I knew that it was Horace Bradford himself. A strange, but positive, fact about New York is that one may at one time be in it but a few hours and run across half the people of one's acquaintance, gathered from all parts of the country, and at another, wander about for weeks without seeing a familiar face.

I liked Bradford from the moment I shook hands with him. There is so much in the mere touching of hands. His neither crushed as if to compel, nor flopped equivocally, but said, as it enclosed yours in its bigness, "I am here, command me."

Broadway, during shopping hours, is not an ideal place for the interchange of either ideas, or more, even, than the merest courtesies; but after thanking Miss Lavinia for the dinner invitation, to which he had just sent the answer, and inquiring for Sylvia Latham, as he walked beside us for a block or two, it was very evident that he had something on his mind that he wished to say, and did not know how to compass the matter.

As he talked to Miss Lavinia in jerky monosyllables,—the only speech that the noise made possible,—I had a chance to look at him. He did not possess a single feature of classic proportions, and yet he was a handsome man, owing to the illumination of his face. Brown, introspective eyes, with a merry way of shutting; heavy, dark hair and brows, and a few thoughtful lines here and there; mustache pulled down at the corners, as if by the unconscious weight of a nervously strong hand; and a firm jaw, but not squared to the point that suggests the dominance of the physical. He wore a dark gray Inverness coat, evidently one of the fruits of his English tour, and a well-proportioned soft felt hat, set on firmly, the crown creased in the precise way necessary to justify the city use of the article by a man of thirty. He seemed to be in excellent, almost boyish spirits, and so natural and wholesome withal, that I am sure I should not feel at all embarrassed at finding myself alone with him on a desert island. This is one of my pet similes of approval.

Finally he blurted out: "Miss Lavinia, I do so wish your advice upon a strictly woman's matter; one, however, that is of great importance to me. I shall have to take the night express back, and this is the only time I have left. Would you—could we go in somewhere, do you think, and have something while I explain?"

Miss Lavinia looked dubious as to whether his invitation might mean drinks, man fashion, or luncheon. But as at that moment we reached the chief New York residence of well-born ice cream soda, for which I always hanker, in spite of snow and slush, much to Evan's disgust, I relieved the situation by plunging in, saying that I was even more thirsty in winter than in summer. Whereat Miss Lavinia shivered, but cheerfully resigned herself to hot chocolate. "The matter in point is," continued Bradford, feeling boyishly of one of the blocks of ice that decorated the counter to find if it was real, and speaking directly to Miss Lavinia, "I've had a great happiness come into my life this last week; something that I did not expect to happen for years. My chief has retired, and I have been promoted. I will not take your time to go selfishly into details now. I can tell you to-night, if you care to hear. I cannot go home until the Easter holidays, and so I want to send something to my mother by way of celebration. Would you select it for me?" and the big fellow swept the shop with an indefinite sort of gaze, as if buying candy for the universe would but feebly express his feelings.

"Certainly I will," replied Miss Lavinia, warming at once;—"but what kind of something?"

"I think,"—hesitating a trifle,—"a very good gown, and an ornament of some kind."

"Would she not prefer choosing the gown herself? People's tastes differ so much about clothing," ventured Miss Lavinia, willing, even anxious, to help the man, yet shrinking from the possibility of feminine criticism.

"No, I think not; that is, it doesn't work well. Beforetimes I've often written her to buy some little finery to wear for my sake, but my gift has generally been turned into flannels for poor children or to restock the chickenyard of some unfortunate neighbour whose fowls have all died of gapes. While if I send her the articles themselves, she will prize and wear them, even if the gown was a horse blanket and the ornament a Plymouth Rock rooster to wear on her head. You know how mothers are about buying things for themselves, don't you, Mrs. Evan?" he said, turning to me, that I need not consider myself excluded from the conversation.

"I have no mother, but I have two little sons," I answered.

"Ah, then you will know as soon as they grow old enough to wish to buy things for you," and somehow the soda water flew up my nose, and I had to grope for my handkerchief.

Miss Lavinia evidently did not like to ask Mrs. Bradford's age, so she evaded it by asking, "Does your mother wear colours or black, Mr. Bradford?"

"She has worn black ever since my father died; for the last ten years, in fact. I wish I could persuade her to adopt something that looks more cheerful, for she is the very essence of cheerfulness herself. Do you think this would be a good time to give a sort of hint by choosing a coloured gown,—a handsome blue silk, for instance?" "I know precisely how you feel," said Miss Lavinia, laying her hand upon his sleeve sympathetically, "men never like mourning; but still I advise you not to try the experiment or force the change. A brocaded black silk gown, with a pretty lace fichu to soften it about the shoulders, and a simple pin to hold it together at the neck,—how would that suit you?" As she spoke she waved her dainty hands about so expressively in a way of her own that I could seem to see the folds of the material drape themselves.

"That is it! You have exactly the idea that I could not formulate. How clever women are!" he exclaimed, and for a minute I really thought he was going to hug Miss Lavinia.

"One other favour. Will you buy these things for me? I always feel so out of place and cowardly in the women's shops where such things are sold. Will $100 be enough, think you?" he added a trifle anxiously, I thought, as he drew a small envelope from a compartment of his letter book, where it had evidently been stowed away for this special purpose.

"Yes, I can manage nicely with it," replied Miss Lavinia, cheerfully; "and now you must leave us at once, so that we can do this shopping, and not be too late for luncheon. Remember, dinner to-night at 6:30." "One thing more," he said, as we turned to leave, "I shall not now have time to present my respects to Miss Latham's mother as I intended; do you think that she will hold me very rude? I remember that Miss Sylvia once said her mother was very particular in matters of etiquette,—about her going out unchaperoned and all that,—and should not wish her to feel slighted." Miss Lavinia assured him very dryly that he need not worry upon that score, that no notice would be taken of the omission. Not saying, however, that in all probability he was entirely unconsidered, ranked as a tutor and little better than a governess by the elder woman, even if Sylvia had spoken of him as her instructor.

So, after holding open the heavy doors for us, he strode off down town, the bright smile still lingering about his eyes, while we retraced our steps to the shop we had visited early that morning, and then down again to a jeweller's. The result was a dress pattern of soft black silk, brocaded with a small leafy design, a graceful lace-edged, muslin fichu, and an onyx bar pin upon which three butterflies were outlined by tiny pearls.

"Isn't he a dear fellow?" asked Miss Lavinia, apparently of a big gray truck horse that blocked the way as we waited at the last crossing before reaching home. And I replied, "He certainly is," with rash but unshakable feminine conviction.



VII

SYLVIA LATHAM

Sylvia came that afternoon well before dark, a trim footman following from the brougham with her suitcase and an enormous box of forced early spring flowers, hyacinths, narcissi, tulips, English primroses, lilies-of-the-valley, white lilacs, and some yellow wands of Forsythia, "with Mrs. Latham's compliments to Miss Dorman."

"What luxury!" exclaimed Miss Lavinia, turning out the flowers upon the table in the tea room where she kept her window garden, "and how pale and spindling my poor posies look in comparison. Are these from the Bluffs?"

"Oh no, from Newport," replied Sylvia. "There is to be no glass at the Bluffs, only an outdoor garden, mamma says, that will not be too much trouble to keep up. Mrs. Jenks-Smith was dining at the house last night, and told me what a lovely garden you have, Mrs. Evan, and I thought perhaps, if we do not go to California to meet father, but go to Oaklands early in April, you might be good enough to come up and talk my garden over with me. The landscape architect has, I believe, made a plan for the beds and walks about the house, but I am to have an acre or two of ground on the opposite side of the highway quite to myself.

"Oh, please don't squeeze those tulips into the tight high vases, Aunt Lavinia," she said, going behind that lady and giving her a hug with one arm, while she rescued the tulips with the other hand; for Miss Lavinia, feeling hurried and embarrassed by the quantity of flowers, was jumbling them at random into very unsuitable receptacles.

"May I arrange the dinner table," Sylvia begged, "like a Dutch garden, with a path all around, beds in the corners, and those dear little silver jugs and the candlesticks for a bower in the middle?

"A month ago," she continued, as she surveyed the table at a glance and began to work with charming enthusiasm, "mamma was giving a very particular dinner. She had told the gardener to send on all the flowers that could possibly be cut, so that there were four great hampers full; but owing to some mistake Darley, the florist, who always comes to decorate the rooms, did not appear. We telephoned, and the men flew about, but he could not be found, and mamma was fairly pale with anxiety, as Mrs. Center, who gives the swell dinner dances, was to dine with her for the first time, and it was important to make an impression, so that I might be invited to one or possibly more of these affairs, and so receive a sort of social hall mark, without which, it seems, no young New York woman is complete. I didn't know the whole of the reason then, to be sure, or very possibly I should not have worked so hard. Still, poor mamma is so in earnest about all these little intricacies, and thinks them so important to my happiness and fate, or something else she has in view, that I am trying not to undeceive her until the winter is over."

Sylvia spoke with careless gayety, which was to my mind somehow belied by the expression of her eyes.

"I asked Perkins to get out the Dutch silver, toys and all, that mamma has been collecting ever since I can remember, and bring down a long narrow mirror in a plain silver frame that backs my mantel shelf. Then I begged mother to go for her beauty sleep and let me wrestle with the flowers, also to be sure to wear her new Van Dyck gown to dinner.

"This was not according to her plan, but she went perforce. I knew that she felt extremely dubious, and, trembling at my rashness, I set at work to make a Dutch flower garden, with the mirror for a canal down the centre. Perkins and his understudies, Potts and Parker, stood watching me with grim faces, exchanging glances that seemed to question my sanity when I told Parker to go out to the corner where I had seen workmen that afternoon dump a load of little white pebbles, such as are used in repairing the paving, and bring me in a large basketful. But when the garden was finished, with the addition of the little Delft windmills I brought home, and the family of Dutch peasant dolls that we bought at the Antwerp fair, Perkins was absolutely moved to express his approval."

"What effect did the garden have upon the dance invitations?" asked Miss Lavinia, highly amused, and also more eager to hear of the doings of society than she would care to confess.

"Excellent! Mrs. Center asked mother who her decorator was, and said she should certainly employ him; which, it seems, was a compliment so rare that it was equivalent to the falling of the whole social sky at my feet, Mr. Bell said, who let the secret out. I was invited to the last two of the series,—for they come to a conspicuous stop and turn into theatre parties when Lent begins,—and I really enjoyed myself, the only drawback being that so few of the really tall and steady men care for dancing. Most of my partners were very short, and loitered so, that I felt top-heavy, and it reminded me of play-days, when I used to practise waltzing with the library fire tongs. I dislike long elaborate dinners, though mamma delights in them, and says one may observe so much that is useful, but I do like to dance with a partner who moves, and not simply progresses in languid ripples, for dancing is one of the few indoor things that one is allowed to do for oneself.

"Now, Aunt Lavinia, you see the garden is all growing and blowing, and there are only enough tulips left for the Rookwood jars in the library," Sylvia said, stepping back to look at the table, "and a few for us to wear. Lilies-of-the-valley for you, pink tulips for you, Mrs. Evan,—they will soon close, and look like pointed rosebuds,—yellow daffies to match my gown, and you must choose for the two men I do not know. I'll take a tuft of these primroses for Mr. Bradford, and play they grew wild. We always joked him about these flowers at college until 'The Primrose' came to be his nickname among ourselves. Why?

"One day when he was lecturing to us on Wordsworth, and reading examples of different styles and metres, he finished a rather sentimental phrase with

"'A primrose by a river's brim A yellow primrose was to him And it was nothing more.'

"Suddenly, the disparity between the bigness of the reader and the slimness of the verse overcame me, and catching his eye, I laughed aloud. Of course, the entire class followed in a chorus, which he, catching the point, joined heartily. It sounds silly now, but it seemed very funny at the time; and it is such little points that make events at school, and even at college."

"Mr. Bradford told me some news this morning," said Miss Lavinia, walking admiringly about the table as she spoke. "He is Professor Bradford, of the University, not merely the women's college now, or rather will be at the beginning of the next term."

"That is pleasant news. I wonder how old Professor Jameson happened to step out, and why none of the Rockcliffe girls have written me about it."

"He did not tell me any details; said that they would keep until to-night. We met him in the street this morning, immediately after we left you," and Miss Lavinia gave a brief account of our shopping.

"That sounds quite like him. All his air castles seemed to be built about his mother and the old farm at Pine Ridge. He has often told me how easy it would be to get back the house to the colonial style, with wide fireplaces, that it was originally, and he always had longings to be in a position to coax his mother to come to Northbridge for the winter, and keep a little apartment for him. Perhaps he will be able to do both now."

Sylvia spoke with keen but quite impersonal interest, and looking at her I began to wonder if here might not, after all, be the comrade type of woman in whose existence I never before believed,—feminine, sympathetic, buoyant, yet capable of absolutely rational and unemotional friendship with a man within ten years of her own age. But after all it is common enough to find the first half of such a friendship, it is the unit that is difficult; and I had then had no opportunity of seeing the two together.

We went upstairs together, and lingered by the fire in Miss Lavinia's sitting room before going to make ready for dinner. The thaw of the morning was again locked by ice, and it was quite a nippy night for the season. I, revelled mentally in the fact that my dinner waist was crimson in colour, and abbreviated only in the way of elbow sleeves, and the pretty low corn-coloured crepe bodice that I saw Lucy unpacking from Sylvia's suit case quite made me shiver.

The only light in Miss Lavinia's den, other than the fire, was a low lamp, with a soft-hued amber shade, so that the room seemed to draw close about one like protecting arms, country fashion, instead of seeking to turn one out, which is the feeling that so many of the stately apartments in the great city houses give me.

When I am indoors I want space to move and breathe in, of course, but I like to feel intrenched; and only when I open the door and step outside, do I wish to give myself up to space, for Nature is the only one who really knows how to handle vastness without overdoing it.

As we sat there in silence I watched the play of firelight on Sylvia's face, and the same thought seemed to cross it as she closed her eyes and nestled back in Miss Lavinia's funny little fat sewing chair, that was like a squab done in upholstery. Then, as the clock struck six, she started, rubbed her eyes, and crossed the hall to her room half in a dream.

"She is as like her Grandmother Latham when I first saw her, as a girl of twenty-one can be like a woman of fifty," said Miss Lavinia, from the lounge close at my elbow. "Not in colouring or feature, but in poise and gesture. The Lathams were of Massachusetts stock, and have, I imagine, a good deal of the Plymouth Rock mixture in their back-bones. Her father has the reputation, in fact, of being all rock, if not quite of the Plymouth variety. Well, I think she will need it, poor child; that is, if any of the rumours that are beginning to float in the air settle to the ground."

"Meaning what?" I asked, half unconsciously, and paying little heed, for I then realized that the daily letter from father had not arrived; and Lucy at that moment came in, lit the lamps, and began to rattle the hair-brushes in Miss Lavinia's bedroom, which I took as a signal for me to leave.

The door-bell rang. It was Evan; but before I met him halfway on the stairs, he called up: "I telephoned home an hour ago, and they are all well. The storm held over last night there. Father says it was the most showy snow they have had for years, and he was delayed in getting his letter to the post."

"Is that all?" I asked, as I got down far enough to rest my hands on his shoulders.

"Yes; the wires buzzed badly and did not encourage gossip. Ah!" (this with an effort to appear as if it was an afterthought), "I told him I thought that you would not wait for me tomorrow, but probably go home on the 9:30. Not that I really committed you to it if you have other plans!"

* * * * *

Martin Cortright appeared some five minutes before Horace Bradford. As it chanced, when the latter came in the door Sylvia was on the stairs, so that her greeting and hearty handshake were given looking down at him, and she waited in the hall, in a perfectly unembarrassed way, as a matter of course, while he freed himself from his heavy coat. His glance at the tall girl, who came down from the darkness above, in her shimmering gown, with golden daffies in her hair and on her breast, like a beam of wholesome sunshine, was full of honest, personal admiration. If it had been otherwise I should have been disappointed in the man's completeness. Then, looking at them from out of the library shadows, I wondered what he would have thought if his entry had been at the Latham home instead of at Miss Lavinia's, how he would have passed the ordeal of Perkins, Potts, and Parker, and if his spontaneity would have been marred by the formality.

Perhaps he would have been oblivious. Some men have the happy gift of not being annoyed by things that are thorns in the flesh to otherwise quite independent women. Father, however, is always amused by flunkies, and treats them as an expected part of the show; even as the jovial Autocrat did when, at a grand London house, "it took full six men in red satin knee-breeches" to admit him and his companion.

Bradford did not wear an evening suit; neither did he deem apology necessary. If he thought of the matter at all, which I doubt, he evidently considered that he was among friends, who would make whatever excuses were necessary from the circumstances of his hurried trip.

Then we went in to the dining-room, Miss Lavinia leading with Martin Cortright, as the most recent acquaintance, and therefore formal guest, the rest of us following in a group. Miss Lavinia, of course, took the head of the table, Evan opposite, and the two men, Cortright on her right and Bradford on her left, making Sylvia and me vis-a-vis.

The men appropriated their buttonhole flowers naturally. Martin smiled at my choice for him, which was a small, but chubby, red and yellow, uncompromising Dutch tulip, far too stout to be able to follow its family habit of night closing, except to contract itself slightly. Evan caressed his lilies-of-the-valley lightly with his finger-tips as he fastened them in place, but Bradford broke into a boyish laugh, and then blushed to the eyes, when he saw the tiny bunch of primroses, saying: "You have a long memory, Miss Sylvia, yet mine is longer. May I have a sprig of that, too?" and he reached over a big-boned hand to where the greenhouse-bred wands of yellow Forsythia were laid in a formal pattern bordering the paths. "That is the first flower that I remember. A great bush of it used to grow in a protected spot almost against the kitchen window at home; and when I see a bit of it in a strange place, for a minute I collapse into the little chap in outrageous gathered trousers, who used to reach out the window for the top twigs, that blossomed earliest, so as to be the first to carry 'yellow bells' to school for a teacher that I used to think was Venus and Minerva rolled in one. I saw her in Boston the other day, and the Venus hallucination is shattered, but the yellow bells look just the same, proving—"

"That every prospect pleases And man (or woman) alone is vile,"

interpolated Evan.

Grape fruit, with a dash of sherry, or the more wholesome sloe-gin, is Miss Lavinia's compromise with the before-dinner cocktail of society, that is really very awakening to both brain and digestion; and before the quaint silver soup tureen had disappeared, even Martin Cortright had not only come wholly out of his shell, but might have been said to have fairly perched on top of it, before starting on a reminiscent career with his hostess, beginning at one of the monthly meetings of the Historical Society; for though Martin's past belonged more to the "Second Avenue" faction of the old east side, and Miss Lavinia to the west, among the environs of what had once been Greenwich and Chelsea villages, they had trodden the same paths, though not at the same time. While Sylvia and the "Professor," as she at once began to call him, picked up the web of the college loom that takes in threads of silk, wool, and cotton, and mixing or separating them at random, turns out garments of complete fashion and pattern, or misfits full of false starts or dropped stitches that not only hamper the wearers, but sometimes their families, for life. All that Evan and I had to do was to maintain a sympathetic silence, kept by occasional ejaculations and murmurs from growing so profound as to cause a draught at our corner of the table. "Yes, we used to go there regularly," I heard Miss Lavinia say; "when we were girls Eleanor (Barbara's mother) and I attended the same school—Miss Black's,—Eleanor being a boarding and I a day pupil and a clergyman's daughter also, which, in those days, was considered a sort of patent of respectability. Miss Black used to allow her to spend the shorter holidays with me and go to those historical lectures as a matter of course. We never publicly mentioned the fact that Eleanor also liked to come to my house to get thoroughly warmed and take a bath, as one of Miss Black's principles of education was that feminine propriety and cold rooms were synonymous, and the long room with a glass roof, sacred to bathing, was known as the 'refrigerator'; but those atrocities that were committed in the name of education have fortunately been stopped by education itself. I don't think that either of us paid much attention to the lectures; the main thing was to get out and go somewhere; yet I don't think any other later good times were as breathlessly fascinating.