CHAPTER VI.

By the end of another six months Littleton's work was practically completed. Only the finishing touches to the interior decoration remained to be done. The members of Rev. Mr. Glynn's congregation, including Mrs. Hallett Taylor, were thoroughly satisfied with the appearance of the new church. It was attractive in its lines, yet it was simple and, consequently, in keeping with the resources of the treasury. There was no large bill for extras to be audited, as possibly would have been the case had a hard-headed designer like Mr. Pierce been employed. The committee felt itself entitled to the congratulations of the community. Nor was the community on the whole disposed to grumble, for home talent had been employed by the architect; under rigorous supervision, to be sure, so that poor material and slap-dash workmanship were out of the question. Still, payments had been prompt, and Benham was able to admire competent virtue. The church was a monument of suggestion in various ways, artistic and ethical, and it shone neatly with Babcock varnish.

One morning Selma set forth by agreement with Littleton, in order to inspect some fresco work. Muriel Grace was ailing slightly, but as she would be home by mid-day, she bade the hired girl be watchful of baby, and kept her appointment. The child had grown dear to her, for Muriel was a charming little dot, and Selma had already begun to enjoy the maternal delight of human doll dressing, an extravagance in which she was lavishly encouraged by her husband. Babcock was glad of any excuse to spend money on his daughter, who seemed to him, from day to day, a greater marvel of precocity—such a child as became Selma's beauty and cleverness and his own practical common-sense.

Selma was in a pensive frame of mind this morning. Two days before she had read a paper at the Institute on "Motherhood," which had been enthusiastically received. Mrs. Earle had printed a flattering item concerning it in the Benham Sentinel. It was agreeable to her to be going to meet Littleton, for he was the most interesting masculine figure in her life. She was sure of Lewis. He was her husband and she knew herself to be the apple of his eye; but she knew exactly what he was going to say before he said it, and much of what he said grated on her. She was almost equally sure of Littleton; that is of his admiration. His companionship was a constant pleasure to her. As a married woman, and as a Christian and American woman, she desired no more than this. But on the other hand, she would fain have this admiring companionship continue; and yet it could not. Littleton had told her the day before that he was going back to New York and that it was doubtful if he would return. She would miss him. She would have the Institute and Mrs. Earle still, but her life would be less full.

Littleton was waiting for her at the church entrance. She followed him down the nave to the chancel where she listened dreamily to his presentation of the merits of the new decoration. He seemed inclined to talk, and from this presently branched off to describe with enthusiasm the plates of a French book on interior architecture, which he had recently bought as a long-resisted but triumphant piece of extravagance. Mechanically, they turned from the chancel and slowly made the round of the aisles. A short silence succeeded his professional ardor. His current of thought, in its reversion to home matters, had reminded him afresh of what was perpetually this morning uppermost in his consciousness—his coming departure.

"Now," he said, abruptly, "is the most favorable opportunity I shall have, Mrs. Babcock, to tell you how much I am your debtor. I shan't despair of our meeting again, for the world is small, and good friends are sure to meet sooner or later. But the past is secure to me at any rate. If this church is in some measure what I have dreamed and wished it to be, if my work with all its faults is a satisfaction to myself, I wish you to know how much you have contributed to make it what it is."

The words were as a melody in Selma's ears, and she listened greedily. Littleton paused, as one seriously moved will pause before giving the details of an important announcement. She, thinking he had finished, interjected with a touch of modesty, "I'm so glad. But my suggestions and criticisms have not been what I meant them to be. It was all new to me, you know."

"Oh, yes. It hasn't been so much what you have said in words which has helped me, though that has been always intelligent and uplifting. I did not look for technical knowledge. You do not possess that, of course. There are women in New York who would be able to confuse you with their familiarity with these things. And yet it is by way of contrast with those very women—fine women, too, in their way—that you have been my good angel. There is no harm in saying that. I should be an ingrate, surely, if I would not let you know that your sane, simple outlook upon life, your independent vision, has kept my brain clear and my soul free. I am a better artist and a better man for the experience. Good-by, and may all happiness attend you. If once in a while you should find time to write to a struggling architect named Littleton, he will be charmed to do your bidding—to send you books and to place his professional knowledge at your service. Good-by."

He held out his hand with frank effusion. He was obviously happy at having given utterance to his sense of obligation. Selma was tingling from head to foot and a womanly blush was on her cheek, though the serious seraph spoke in her words and eyes. She felt moved to a wave of unreserved speech.

"What you have said is very interesting to me. I wish to tell you how much I, too, have enjoyed our friendship. The first time we met I felt sure we should be sympathetic, and we have been, haven't we? One of the fine things about friendships between men and women in this country is that they can really get to know each other without—er—harm to either. Isn't it? It's such a pleasure to know people really, and I feel as if I had known you, as if we had known each other really. I've never known any man exactly in that way, and I have always wanted to. Except, of course, my husband. And he's extremely different—that is, his tastes are not like yours. It's a happiness to me to feel that I have been of assistance to you in your work, and you have been equally helpful to me in mine. As you say, I have never had the opportunity to learn the technical parts of art, and your books have instructed me as to that. I have never been in New York, but I understand what you meant about your friends, those other women. I suppose society people must be constantly diverted from serious work—from the intellectual and spiritual life. Oh yes, we ought to write. Our friendship mustn't languish. We must let each other know what we are thinking and doing. Good-by."

As Selma walked along the street her heart was in her mouth. She felt pity for herself. To just the right person she would have confessed the discovery that she had made a mistake and tied herself for life to the wrong man. It was not so much that she fancied Littleton which distressed her, for, indeed, she was but mildly conscious of infatuation. What disturbed her was the contrast between him and Babcock, which definite separation now forced upon her attention. An indefinable impression that Littleton might think less of her if she were to state this soul truth had restrained her at the last moment from disclosing the secret. Not for an instant did she entertain the idea of being false to Lewis. Her confession would have been but a dissertation on the inexorable irony of fate, calling only for sympathy, and in no way derogating from her dignity and self-respect as a wife. Still, she had restrained herself, and stopped just short of the confidence. He was gone, and she would probably not see him again for years. That was endurable. Indeed, a recognition of the contrary would not have seemed to her consistent with wifely virtue. What brought the tears to her eyes was the vision of continued wedlock, until death intervened, with a husband who could not understand. Could she bear this? Must she endure it? There was but one answer: She must. At the thought she bit her lip with the intensity and sternness of a martyr. She would be faithful to her marriage vows, but she would not let Lewis's low aims interfere with the free development of her own life.

It was after noon when she reached home. She was met at the door by the hired girl with the worried ejaculation that baby was choking. The doctor was hastily summoned. He at once pronounced that Muriel Grace had membranous croup, and was desperately ill. Remedies of various sorts were tried, and a consulting physician called, but when Babcock returned from his office her condition was evidently hopeless. The child died in the early night. Selma was relieved to hear the doctor tell her husband that it was a malignant case from the first, and that nothing could have averted the result. In response to questions from Lewis, however, she was obliged to admit that she had not been at home when the acute symptoms appeared. This afforded Babcock an outlet for his suffering. He spoke to her roughly for the first time in his life, bitterly suggesting neglect on her part.

"You knew she wasn't all right this morning, yet you had to go fiddle-faddling with that architect instead of staying at home where you belonged. And now she's dead. My little girl, my little girl!" And the big man burst out sobbing.

Selma grew deadly pale. No one had ever spoken to her like that before in her life. To the horror of her grief was added the consciousness that she was being unjustly dealt with. Lewis had heard the doctor's statement, and yet he dared address her in such terms. As if the loss of the child did not fall equally on her.

"If it were to be done over again, I should do just the same," she answered, with righteous quietness. "To all appearances she had nothing but a little cold. You have no right to lay the blame on me, her mother." At the last word she looked ready to cry, too.

Babcock regarded her like a miserable tame bull. "I didn't mean to," he blubbered. "She's taken away from me, and I'm so wretched that I don't know what I'm saying. I'm sorry, Selma."

He held out his arms to her. She was ready to go to them, for the angel of death had entered her home and pierced her heart, where it should be most tender. She loved her baby. Yet, when she had time to think, she was not sure that she wished to have another. When the bitterness of his grief had passed away, that was the hope which Lewis ventured to express, at first in a whisper, and later with reiterated boldness. Selma acquiesced externally, but she had her own opinions. Certain things which were not included in "Mother Lore," had been confided by Mrs. Margaret Rodney Earle by word of mouth in the fulness of their mutual soul-scourings, and had remained pigeon-holed for future reference in Selma's inner consciousness. Another baby just at this time meant interference with everything elevating. There was time enough. In a year or two, when she had established herself more securely in the social sphere of Benham, she would present her husband with a second child. It was best for them both to wait, for her success was his success; but it would be useless to try to make that clear to him in his present mood.

So she put away her baby things, dropping tears over the little socks and other reminders of her sorrow, and took up her life again, keeping her own counsel. The sympathy offered her was an interesting experience. Mrs. Earle came to her at once, and took her to her bosom; Mrs. Taylor sent her flowers with a kind note, which set Selma thinking whether she ought not to buy mourning note-paper; and within a week she received a visit of condolence from Mr. Glynn, rather a ghastly visit. Ghastly, because Lewis sat through it all with red eyes, very much as though he were listening to a touching exhortation in church. To be sure, he gripped the pastor's hand like a vice, at the end, and thanked him for coming, but his silent, afflicted presence had interfered with the free interchange of thought which would have been possible had she been alone with the clergyman. The subject of death, and the whole train of reflections incident to it, were uppermost in her mind, and she would have been glad to probe the mysteries of the subject by controversial argument, instead of listening to hearty, sonorous platitudes. She listened rather contemptuously, for she recognized that Mr. Glynn was saying the stereotyped thing in the stereotyped way, without realizing that it was nothing but sacerdotal pap, little adapted to an intelligent soul. What was suited to Lewis was not fit for her. And yet her baby's death had served to dissipate somewhat the immediate discontent which she felt with her husband. His strong grief had touched her in spite of herself, and, though she blamed him still for his inconsiderate accusation, she was fond of him as she might have been fond of some loving Newfoundland, which, splendid in awkward bulk, caressed her and licked her hand. It was pleasant enough to be in his arms, for the touch of man—even the wrong man—was, at times, a comfort.

She took up again with determined interest her relations to the Institute, joining additional classes and pursuing a variety of topics of study, in regard to some of which she consulted Littleton. She missed his presence less than she had expected, especially after they had begun to correspond and were able to keep in touch by letter. His letters were delightful. They served her in her lecture courses, for they so clearly and concisely expressed her views that she was able to use long extracts from them word for word. And every now and then they contained a respectful allusion which showed that he still retained a personal interest in her. So the weeks slipped away and she was reasonably happy. She was absorbed and there was nothing new to mar the tenor of her life, though she was vaguely conscious that the loss of their little girl had widened the breach between her and her husband—widened it for the reason that now, for the first time, he perceived how lonely he was. The baby had furnished him with constant delight and preoccupation. He had looked forward all day to seeing it at night, and questions relating to it had supplied a never-ceasing small change of conversation between him and her. He had let her go her way with a smile on his face. Selma did not choose to dwell on the situation, but it was obvious that Lewis continued to look glum, and that there were apt to be long silences between them at meals. Now and again he would show some impatience at the continuous recurrence of the Institute classes as a bar to some project of domesticity or recreation, as though she had not been an active member of the Institute before baby was born.

One of the plans in which Mrs. Earle was most interested was a Congress of Women's Clubs, and in the early summer of the same year—some four months subsequent to the death of Muriel Grace—a small beginning toward this end was arranged to take place in Chicago. There were to be six delegates from each club, and Selma was unanimously selected as one of the delegation from the Benham Women's Institute. The opinion was generally expressed that a change would do her good, and there was no question that she was admirably fitted to represent the club. Selma, who had not travelled a hundred miles beyond Benham in her life, was elated at the prospect of the expedition; so much so that she proudly recounted to Lewis the same evening the news of her appointment. It never occurred to her that he would wish to accompany her, and when he presently informed her that he had been wishing to go to Chicago on business for some time, and that the date proposed would suit him admirably, she was dumfounded. Half of the interest of the expedition would consist in travelling as an independent delegation. A husband would be in the way and spoil the savor of the occasion. It would never do, and so Selma proceeded to explain. She wished to go alone.

"A pack of six women travel by themselves?" blurted Lewis. "Suppose there were an accident?" he added, after searching his brain for a less feeble argument.

"We should either be killed or we shouldn't be," said Selma firmly. "We are perfectly well able to take care of ourselves. Women travel alone everywhere every-day—that is, intelligent American women."

Lewis looked a little sad. "I thought, perhaps, it would seem nice for you to go with me, Selma. We haven't been off since we were married, and I can get away now just as well as not."

"So it would have been if I weren't one of the delegation. I should think you would see, Lewis, that your coming is out of the question."

So it proved. Selma set forth for Chicago on the appointed day, made many new acquaintances among the delegates, and was pleased to be introduced and referred to publicly as Mrs. Selma Babcock—a form of address to which she was unaccustomed at Benham. On the night before her departure, being in pleasant spirits, she told Lewis that her absence would do him good, and that he would appreciate her all the more on her return.

She was to be gone a week. The first twenty-four hours passed gloomily for Babcock. Then he began to take notice. He noticed that the county fair was fixed for the following days. He had hoped to carry Selma there, but, as she was not to be had, it seemed to him sensible to get what enjoyment from it he could alone. Then it happened that a former companion of his bachelor days and his bachelor habits, a commercial traveller, whom he had not seen since his marriage, appeared on the scene.

"The very man for me!" he ejaculated, jubilantly.

The obscurity of this remark was presently made clear to his friend, who had hoped perhaps to enjoy a snug evening at Babcock's domestic hearth, but who was not averse to playing a different part—that of cheering up a father who had lost his baby, and whose wife had left him in the lurch. He assured Babcock that a regular old time outing—a shaking up—would do him good, and Babcock was ready to agree with him, intending thereby a free-handed two days at the fair. As has been intimated, his manner of life before marriage had not been irreproachable, but he had been glad of an opportunity to put an end to the mildly riotous and coarse bouts which disfigured his otherwise commonplace existence. He had no intention now of misbehaving himself, but he felt the need of being enlivened. His companion was a man who delighted in what he called a lark, and whose only method of insuring a lark was by starting in with whiskey and keeping it up. That had been also Babcock's former conception of a good time, and though he had dimly in mind that he was now a husband and church-member, he strove to conduct himself in such a manner as to maintain his self-respect without becoming a spoil sport.

During the first day at the fair Babcock managed to preserve this nice distinction. On the second, he lost account of his conduct, and by the late afternoon was sauntering with his friend among the booths in the company of two suspicions looking women. With these same women the pair of revellers drove off in top buggies just before dusk, and vanished in the direction of the open country.



CHAPTER VII.

Babcock returned to his home twenty-four hours later like a whipped cur. He was disgusted with himself. It seemed to him incredible that he should have fallen so low. He had sinned against his wife and his own self-respect without excuse; for it was no excuse that he had let himself be led to drink too much. His heart ached and his cheek burned at the recollection of his two days of debauchery. What was to be done? If only he were able to cut this ugly sore in his soul out with a knife and have done with it forever! But that was impossible. It stared him in the face, a haunting reality. In his distress he asked himself whether he would not go to Mr. Glynn and make a clean breast of it; but his practical instincts answered him that he would none the less have made a beast of himself. He held his head between his hands, and stared dejectedly at his desk. Some relief came to him at last only from the reflection that it was a single fault, and that it need never—it should never be repeated. Selma need not know, and he would henceforth avoid all such temptations. Terrible as it was, it was a slip, not a deliberate fault, and his love for his wife was not in question.

Thus reasoning, he managed by the third day after his return to reach a less despondent frame of mind. While busy writing in his office a lady was announced, and looking up he encountered the meretricious smile of the courtesan with whom he had forgotten himself. She had taken a fancy to her victim, and having learned that he was well to do, she had come in order to establish, if possible, on a more permanent basis, her relations with him. She was a young woman, who had been drifting from place to place, and whose professional inclination for a protector was heightened by the liking which she had conceived for him. Babcock recalled in her smile merely his shame, and regarded her reappearance as effrontery. He was blind to her prettiness and her sentimental mood. He asked her roughly what she wanted, and rising from his chair, he bade her be gone before she had time to answer. Nine out of ten women of her class would have taken their dismissal lightly. Some might have answered back in tones loud enough to enlighten the clerks, and thus have accomplished a pretty revenge in the course of retreat. This particular Lesbian was in no humor to be harshly treated. She was a little desperate and Babcock had pleased her. It piqued her to be treated in such a fashion; accordingly, she held her ground and sat down. She tried upon him, alternately, irony and pathos. He was angry but confused under the first, he became savage and merciless under the second, throwing back in her teeth the suggestion of her fondness, and stigmatizing her coarsely. Then she became angry in her turn—angry as a woman whose proffered love is spurned. The method for revenge was obvious, and she told him plainly what she intended. His wife should know at once how her husband passed his time during her absence. She had posted herself, and she saw that her shaft hurt. Babcock winced, but mad and incredulous, he threatened her with arrest and drove her from the room. She went out smiling, but with an ominous look in her eyes, the remembrance of which made him ask himself now and again if she could be vicious enough, or fool enough, to keep her promise. He dismissed the idea as improbable; still the bare chance worried him. Selma was to arrive early the next morning, and he had reconciled himself to the conclusion that she need never know, and that he would henceforth be a faithful husband. Had he not given an earnest of his good faith in his reception of his visitor? Surely, no such untoward and unnatural accident would dash the cup of returning happiness from his lips. A more clever man would have gone straight to police headquarters, instead of trusting to chance.

A night's rest reassured him as to the idleness of the threat, so that he was able to welcome Selma at the railroad station with a comparatively light heart. She was in high spirits over the success of her expedition, and yet graciously ready to admit that she was glad to return home—meaning thereby, to her own bed and bathing facilities; but the general term seemed to poor Lewis a declaration of wifely devotion. He went to his business with the mien of a man who had passed through an ordeal and is beginning life again; but when he returned at night, as soon as he beheld Selma, he suspected what had happened.

She was awaiting him in the parlor. Though he saw at a glance that she looked grave, he went forward to kiss her, but she rose and, stepping behind the table, put out her hand forbiddingly.

"What is the matter?" he faltered.

"That woman has been here," was her slow, scornful response.

"Selma, I—" A confusing sense of hopelessness as to what to say choked Babcock's attempt to articulate. There was a brief silence, while he looked at her imploringly and miserably.

"Is it true what she says? Have you been false to your marriage vows? Have you committed adultery?"

"My God! Selma, you don't understand."

"It is an easy question to answer, yes or no?"

"I forgot myself, Selma. I was drunk and crazy. I ask your pardon."

She shook her head coldly. "I shall have nothing more to do with you. I cannot live with you any longer."

"Not live with me?"

"Would you live with me if it were I who had forgotten myself?"

"I think I would, Selma. You don't understand. I was a brute. I have been wretched ever since. But it was a slip—an accident. I drank too much, and it happened. I love you, Selma, with all my heart. I have never been false to you in my affection."

"It is a strange time to talk of affection. I went away for a week, and in my absence you insulted me by debauchery with a creature like that. Love? You have no conception of the meaning of the word. Oh no, I shall never live with you again."

Babcock clinched his palms in his distress and walked up and down. She stood pale and determined looking into space. Presently he turned to her and asked with quiet but intense solicitude, "You don't mean that you're going to leave me for one fault, we being husband and wife and the little girl in her grave? I said you don't understand and you don't. A man's a man, and there are times when he's been drinking when he's liable to yield to temptation, and that though he's so fond of his wife that life without her would be misery. This sounds strange to a woman, and it's a poor excuse. But it ought to count, Selma, when it comes to a question of our separating. There would be happy years before us yet if you give me another chance."

"Not happy years for me," she replied concisely. "The American woman does not choose to live with the sort of man you describe. She demands from her husband what he demands from her, faithfulness to the marriage tie. We could never be happy again. Our ideal of life is different. I have made excuses for you in other things, but my soul revolts at this."

Babcock looked at her for a moment in silence, then he said, a little sternly, "You shouldn't have gone away and left me. I'm not blaming you, but you shouldn't have gone." He walked to the window but he saw nothing. His heart was racked. He had been eager to humiliate himself before her to prove his deep contrition, but he had come to the end of his resources, and yet she was adamant. Her charge that she had been making excuses for him hitherto reminded him that they had not been really sympathetic for some time past. With his back turned to her he heard her answer:

"It was understood before I agreed to marry you that I was to be free to follow my tastes and interests. It is a paltry excuse that, because I left you alone for a week in pursuit of them, I am accessory to your sin."

Babcock faced her sadly. "The sin's all mine," he said. "I can't deny that. But, Selma, I guess I've been pretty lonely ever since the baby died."

"Lonely?" she echoed. "Then my leaving you will not matter so much. Here," she said, slipping off her wedding-ring, "this belongs to you." She remembered Mrs. Earle's proceeding, and though she had not yet decided what course to pursue in order to maintain her liberty, she regarded this as the significant and definite act. She held out the ring, but Babcock shook his head.

"The law doesn't work as quick as that, nor the church either. You can get a divorce if you're set on it, Selma. But we're husband and wife yet."

"Only the husk of our marriage is left. The spirit is dead," she said sententiously. "I am going away. I cannot pass another night in this house. If you will not take this ring, I shall leave it here."

Babcock turned to hide the tears which blinded his eyes. Selma regarded him a moment gravely, then she laid her wedding-ring on the table and went from the room.

She put her immediate belongings into a bag and left the house. She had decided to go to Mrs. Earle's lodgings where she would be certain to find shelter and sympathy. Were she to go to her aunt's she would be exposed to importunity on her husband's behalf from Mrs. Farley, who was partial to Lewis. Her mind was entirely made up that there could be no question of reconciliation. Her duty was plain; and she would be doing herself an injustice were she to continue to live with one so weak and regardless of the honor which she had a right to demand of the man to whom she had given her society and her body. His gross conduct had entitled her to her liberty, and to neglect to seize it would be to condemn herself to continuous unhappiness, for this overt act of his was merely a definite proof of the lack of sympathy between them, of which she had for some time been well aware at heart. As she walked along the street she was conscious that it was a relief to her to be sloughing off the garment of an uncongenial relationship and to be starting life afresh. There was nothing in her immediate surroundings from which she was not glad to escape. Their house was full of blemishes from the stand-point of her later knowledge, and she yearned to dissociate herself, once and for all, from the trammels of her pitiful mistake. She barely entertained the thought that she was without means. She would have to support herself, of course, but it never occurred to her to doubt her ability to do so, and the necessity added a zest to her decision. It would be plain sailing, for Mrs. Earle had more than once invited her to send copy to the Benham Sentinel, and there was no form of occupation which would be more to her liking than newspaper work. It was almost with the mien of a prisoner escaped from jail that she walked in upon her friend and said:

"I have left my husband. He has been unfaithful to me."

In Mrs. Earle, conventional feminine instincts were apt, before she had time to think, to get the upper hand of her set theories. "You, poor, poor child," she cried extending her arms.

Selma had not intended to weep. Still the opportunity was convenient, and her nerves were on edge. She found herself sobbing with her head on Mrs. Earle's, bosom, and telling her sad story.

"He was never good enough for you. I have always said so," Mrs. Earle murmured stroking her hair.

"I ought to have known from the first that it was impossible for us to be happy. Why did I ever marry him? He said he loved me, and I let myself be badgered into it," Selma answered through her tears. "Well, it's all over now," she added, sitting up and drying her eyes. "He has given me back my liberty. I am a free woman."

"Yes, dear, if you are perfectly sure of yourself, there is only one course to pursue. Only you should consider the matter solemnly. Perhaps in a few days, after he has apologized and shown proper contrition, you might feel willing to give him another chance."

Selma was unprepared for Mrs. Earle's sentimentality. "Surely," she exclaimed with tragic earnestness, "you wouldn't have me live with him after what occurred? Contrition? He said everything he could think of to get me to stay, but I made my decision then and there."

Mrs. Earle put her own handkerchief to her eyes. "Women have forgiven such things; but I respect you all the more for not being weak. I know how you feel. It is hard to do, but if I had it to do over again, I would act just the same—just the same. It's a serious responsibility to encourage any one to desert a home, but under the circumstances I would not live with him another minute, my child—not another minute." Thereupon Mrs. Earle protruded her bosom to celebrate the triumph of justice in her own mental processes over conventional and maudlin scruples. "You will apply for a divorce, I suppose?"

"I have not considered that. All I care for is never to see him again."

"Oh yes, you must get a divorce. It is much better, you know. In my case I couldn't, for he did nothing public. A divorce settles matters, and puts you back where you were before. You might wish some day to marry again."

"I have had enough of marriage."

"It isn't any harm to be a free woman—free in the eye of the law as well as of conscience. I know an excellent lawyer—a Mr. Lyons, a sympathetic and able man. Besides your husband is bound to support you. You must get alimony."

"I wouldn't touch a dollar of his money," Selma answered with scorn. "I intend to support myself. I shall write—work."

"Of course you will, dear; and it will be a boon and a blessing to me to have you in our ranks—one of the new army of self-supporting, self-respecting women. I suppose you are right. I have never had a sixpence. But your husband deserves to be punished. Perhaps it is punishment enough to lose you."

"He will get over that. It is enough for me," she exclaimed, ardently, after a dreamy pause, "that I am separated from him forever—that I am free—free—free."

A night's sleep served to intensify Selma's determination, and she awoke clearly of the opinion that a divorce was desirable. Why remain fettered by a bare legal tie to one who was a husband only in name? Accordingly, in company with Mrs. Earle, she visited the office of James O. Lyons, and took the initiatory steps to dissolve the marriage.

Mr. Lyons was a large, full-bodied man of thirty-five, with a fat, cleanly-shaven, cherubic countenance, an aspect of candor, and keen, solemn eyes. His manner was impressive and slightly pontificial; his voice resonant and engaging. He knew when to joke and when to be grave as an owl. He wore in every-day life a shiny, black frock-coat, a standing collar, which yawned at the throat, and a narrow, black tie. His general effect was that of a cross between a parson and a shrewd Yankee—a happy suggestion of righteous, plain, serious-mindedness, protected against the wiles of human society—and able to protect others—by a canny intelligence. For a young man he had already a considerable clientage. A certain class of people, notably the hard-headed, God-fearing, felt themselves safe in his hands. His magnetic yet grave manner of conducting business pleased Benham, attracting also both the distressed and the bilious portions of the community, and the farmers from the surrounding country. As Mrs. Earle informed Selma, he was in sympathy with all progressive and stimulating ideas, and he already figured in the newspapers politically, and before the courts as a friend of the masses, and a fluent advocate of social reforms. His method of handling Selma's case was smooth. To begin with, he was sympathetic within proper limits, giving her tacitly to understand that, though as a man and brother, he deplored the necessity of extreme measures, he recognized that she had made up her mind, and that compromise was out of the question. To put it concisely, his manner was grieved, but practical. He told her that he would represent to Babcock the futility of contesting a cause, which, on the evidence, must be hopeless, and that, in all probability, the matter could be disposed of easily and without publicity. He seemed to Selma a very sensible and capable man, and it was agreeable to her to feel that he appreciated that, though divorce in the abstract was deplorable, her experience justified and called for the protection of the law.

In the meantime Babcock was very unhappy, and was casting about for a method to induce his wife to return. He wrote to her a pitiful letter, setting forth once more the sorry facts in the best light which he could bring to bear on them, and implored her forgiveness. He applied to her aunt, Mrs. Farley, and got her to supplement his plea with her good-natured intervention. "There are lots of men like that," she confided to Selma, "and he's a kind, devoted creature." When this failed, he sought Rev. Mr. Glynn as a last resort, and, after he had listened to a stern and fervid rating from the clergyman on the lust of the flesh, he found his pastor on his side. Mr. Glynn was opposed to divorce on general ecclesiastical principles; moreover, he had been educated under the law of England, by which a woman cannot obtain a divorce from her husband for the cause of adultery unless it be coupled with cruelty—a clever distinction between the sexes, which was doubtless intended as a cloak for occasional lapses on the part of man. It was plain to him, as a Christian and as a hearty soul, that there had been an untoward accident—a bestial fault, a soul-debasing carnal sin, but still an accident, and hence to be forgiven by God and woman. It was his duty to interfere; and so, having disciplined the husband, he essayed the more delicate matter of propitiating the wife. And he essayed it without a thought of failure.

"I'm afraid she's determined to leave me, and that there's not much hope," said Babcock, despondently, as he gripped the clergyman's hand in token of his gratitude.

"Nonsense, my man," asserted Mr. Glynn briskly. "All she needs is an exhortation from me, and she will take you back."

Selma was opposed to divorce in theory. That is, she had accepted on trust the traditional prejudice against it as she had accepted Shakespeare and Boston. But theory stood for nothing in her regard before the crying needs of her own experience. She had not the least intention of living with her husband again. No one could oblige her to do that. In addition, the law offered her a formal escape from his control and name. Why not avail herself of it? She recollected, besides, that her husband's church recognized infidelity as a lawful ground of release from the so-called sacrament of marriage. This had come into her mind as an additional sanction to her own decision. But it had not contributed to that decision. Consequently, when she was confronted in Mrs. Earle's lodgings by the errand of Mr. Glynn, she felt that his coming was superfluous. Still, she was glad of the opportunity to measure ideas with him in a thorough interview free from interruption.

Mr. Glynn's confidence was based on his intention to appeal to the ever womanly quality of pity. He expected to encounter some resistance, for indisputably here was a woman whose sensibilities had been justly and severely shocked—a woman of finer tissue than her husband, as he had noted in other American couples. She was entitled to her day in court—to a stubborn, righteous respite of indignation. But he expected to carry the day in the end, amid a rush of tears, with which his own might be mingled. He trusted to what he regarded as the innate reluctance of the wife to abandon the man she loved, and to the leaven of feminine Christian charity.

As a conscientious hater of sin, he did not attempt to minimize Babcock's act or the insult put upon her. That done, he was free to intercede fervently for him and to extol the virtue and the advisability of forgiveness. This plea, however cogent, was narrow, and once stated admitted merely of duplication in the same form. It was indeed no argument, merely an appeal, and, in proportion as it failed to move the listener, became feeble. Selma listened to him with a tense face, her hands clasped before her in the guise of an interested and self-scrutinizing spirit. But she betrayed no sign of yielding, or symptom of doubt. She shook her head once or twice as he proceeded, and, when he paused, asked why she should return to a man who had broken faith with her; asked it in such a genuine tone of conviction that Dr. Glynn realized the weakness of his own case, and became slightly nettled at the same time.

"True," he said, rather sternly, "your husband has committed a hideous, carnal sin, but he is genuinely repentant. Do you wish to ruin his life forever?"

"His life?" said Selma. "It would ruin my life to return to him. I have other plans—plans which will bring me happiness. I could never be happy with him."

The clergyman was baffled. Other plans! The words offended him, and yet he could not dispute her right to do as she chose. Still he saw fit to murmur: "He that findeth his life shall lose it, and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it."

Selma flushed. To be accused of acting contrary to Christian precepts was painful and surprising to her. "Mr. Glynn," she said, "I see you don't understand. My husband and I ought never to have married. It has all been a dreadful mistake. We have not the same tastes and interests. I am sorry for him, but I can never consent to return to him. To do so would condemn us both to a life of unhappiness. We were not intended for husband and wife, and it is best—yes, more Christian—for us to separate. We American women do not feel justified in letting a mistake ruin our lives when there is a chance to escape."

Mr. Glynn regarded her in silence for a moment. He was accustomed to convince, and he had not succeeded, which to a clergyman is more annoying than to most men. Still what she said made his plea seem doubtful wisdom.

"Then you do not love your husband?" he said.

"No," said Selma quietly, "I do not love him. It is best to be frank with one's self—with you, in such a matter, isn't it? So you see that what you ask is out of the question."

Mr. Glynn rose. Clearly his mission had failed, and there was nothing more to be said. Being a just man, he hesitated to pass an unkind judgment on this bright-faced, pensive woman. She was within her moral rights, and he must be careful to keep within his. But he went away bewildered and discomfited. Selma would have liked to dismiss the subject and keep him longer. She would have been glad to branch off on to other ethical topics and discuss them. She was satisfied with the result of the interview, for she had vindicated her position and spiked Lewis's last gun.

So, indeed, it proved. Mr. Glynn sent for Babcock and told him the naked truth, that his wife's love for him was dead and reconciliation impossible. He properly refrained from expressing the doubt lurking in his own mind as to whether Selma had ever loved her husband. Thus convinced of the hopelessness of his predicament, Babcock agreed to Mr. Lyons's suggestion not to contest the legal proceedings. The lawyer had been diligent, and the necessary evidence—the testimony of the woman—was secure. She was ready to carry her revenge to the end, hoping, perhaps, that the victim of it would return to her when he had lost his wife. Accordingly, a few weeks later, Selma was granted a divorce nisi and the right to resume her maiden name. She had decided, however, to retain the badge of marriage as a decorous social prefix, and to call herself Mrs. Selma White.



CHAPTER VIII.

The consciousness that she was dependent for the means of support solely on her own exertions was a genuine pleasure to Selma, and she applied herself with confidence and enthusiasm to the problem of earning her livelihood. She had remained steadfast to her decision to accept nothing from her husband except the legal costs of the proceedings, though Mr. Lyons explained to her that alimony was a natural and moral increment of divorce. Still, after her refusal, he informed her as a man and a friend that he respected and admired the independence of her action, which was an agreeable tribute. She had fixed definitely on newspaper work as the most inviting and congenial form of occupation. She believed herself to be well fitted for it. It would afford her an immediate income, and it would give her the opportunity which she craved for giving public expression to her ideas and fixing attention on herself. There was room for more than one Mrs. Earle in Benham, for Benham was growing and wide-awake and on the alert for originality of any kind—especially in the way of reportorial and journalistic cleverness. Selma had no intention of becoming a second Mrs. Earle. That is, she promised herself to follow, but not to follow blindly; to imitate judiciously, but to improve on a gradually diverging line of progress. This was mere generalization as yet. It was an agreeable seething brain consciousness for future development. For the moment, however, she counted on Mrs. Earle to obtain for her a start by personal influence at the office of the Benham Sentinel. This was provided forthwith in the form of an invitation to prepare a weekly column under the caption of "What Women Wear;" a summary of passing usages in clothes. The woman reporter in charge of it had just died. Selma's first impulse was to decline the work as unworthy of her abilities, yet she was in immediate need of employment to avoid running in debt and she was assured by Mrs. Earle that she would be very foolish to reject such an offer. Reflection caused her to think more highly of the work itself. It would afford her a chance to explain to the women of Benham, and indirectly to the country at large, that taste in dress was not necessarily inconsistent with virtue and serious intentions—a truth of which she herself had become possessed since her marriage and which it seemed to her might be utilized delightfully in her department. She would endeavor to treat dress from the standpoint of ethical responsibility to society, and to show that both extravagance and dowdy homeliness were to be avoided. Clothes in themselves had grown to be a satisfaction to her, and any association of vanity would be eliminated by the introduction of a serious artistic purpose into a weekly commentary concerning them. Accordingly she accepted the position and entered upon its duties with grave zeal.

For each of these contributions Selma was to receive eight dollars—four hundred a year, which she hoped to expand to a thousand by creative literary production—preferably essays and poetry. She hired a room in the same neighborhood as Mrs. Earle, in the boarding-house district appurtenant to Central Avenue—that is to say, on the ragged edge of Benham's social artery, and set up her new household gods. The interest of preparing the first paper absorbed her to the exclusion of everything else. She visited all the dress-making and dry-goods establishments in town, examined, at a hint from Mrs. Earle, the fashion departments of the New York papers, and then, pen in hand, gave herself up to her subject. The result seemed to her a happy blending of timely philosophy and suggestions as to toilette, and she took it in person to the editor. He saw fit to read it on the spot. His brow wrinkled at first and he looked dubious. He re-read it and said with some gusto, "It's a novelty, but I guess they'll like it. Our women readers have been used to fashion notes which are crisp and to the point, and the big houses expect to have attention called to the goods they wish to sell. If you'll run over this again and set your cold facts in little paragraphs by themselves every now and then, I shouldn't wonder if the rest were a sort of lecture course which will catch them. It's a good idea. Next time you could work in a pathetic story—some references to a dead baby—verses—anecdotes—a little variety. You perceive the idea?"

"Oh, yes," said Selma, appropriately sober at the allusion yet ecstatic. "That's just what I should like to do. It would give me more scope. I wish my articles to be of real use—to help people to live better, and to dress better."

"That's right, that's right; and if they make the paper sell, we'll know that folks like them," responded the editor with Delphic urbanity.

The first article was a success. That is, Selma's method was not interfered with, and she had the satisfaction of reading in the Sentinel during the week an item calling gratified attention to the change in its "What Women Wear" column, and indicating that it would contain new features from week to week. It gave her a pleasant thrill to see her name, "Selma White," signed at the end of the printed column, and she set to work eagerly to carry out the editor's suggestions. At the same time she tried her hand at a short story—the story of an American girl who went to Paris to study art, refused to alter her mode of life to suit foreign ideas of female propriety, displayed exceptional talent as an artist, and finally married a fine-spirited young American, to the utter discomfiture of a French member of the nobility, who had begun by insulting her and ended with making her an offer of marriage. This she sent to the Eagle, the other Benham newspaper, for its Sunday edition.

It took her a month to compose this story, and after a week she received it back with a memorandum to the effect that it was one-half too long, but intimating that in a revised form it would be acceptable. This was a little depressing, especially as it arrived at a time when the novelty of her occupation had worn off and she was realizing the limitations of her present life. She had begun to miss the advantages of a free purse and the importance of a domestic establishment. She possessed her liberty, and was fulfilling her mission as a social force, but her life had been deprived of some of its savor, and, though she was thankful to be rid of Babcock, she felt the lack of an element of personal devotion to herself, an element which was not to be supplied by mere admiration on the part of Mrs. Earle and the other members of the Institute. It did not suit her not to be able to gratify her growing taste in clothes and in other lines of expenditure, and there were moments when she experienced the need of being petted and made much of by a man. She was conscious of loneliness, and in this mood she pitied herself as a victim of untoward circumstances, one who had wasted the freshness of her young life, and missed the happiness which the American wife is apt to find waiting for her. Under the spell of this nostalgia she wrote a poem entitled "The Bitter Sweets of Solitude," and disposed of it for five dollars to the Sentinel. The price shocked her, for the verses seemed flesh of her flesh. Still, five dollars was better than nothing, and she discerned from the manner of the newspaper editor that he cared little whether she left them or not. It was on that evening that she received a letter from Littleton, stating that he was on the eve of leaving New York for Benham. He was coming to consult concerning certain further interior decorations which the committee had decided to add to the church.

Selma's nerves vibrated blissfully as she read the news. For some reason, which she had never seen fit definitely to define, she had chosen not to acquaint Littleton with the fact of her divorce. Their letters had been infrequent during the last six months, for this visit had been impending, having been put off from time to time because the committee had been dilatory and he otherwise engaged. Perhaps her secret motive had been to surprise him, to let him find himself confronted with an accomplished fact, which would obviate argument and reveal her established in her new career, a happy, independent citizen, without ties. At any rate she smiled now at the address on the envelope—Mrs. Lewis Babcock. Obviously he was still in the dark as to the truth, and it would be her privilege to enlighten him. She began to wonder what would be the upshot of his coming, and tears came to her eyes, tears of self-congratulation that the narrow tenor of her daily life was to be irradiated by a sympathetic spirit.

When Littleton duly appeared at the committee meeting on the following day, Selma saw at a glance that he was unaware of what had happened. He looked slightly puzzled when one of the members addressed her as Mrs. White, but evidently he regarded this as a slip of the tongue. Selma looked, as she felt, contented and vivacious. She had dressed herself simply, but with effective trigness. To those who knew her experience, her appearance indicated courage and becoming self-respect. Public opinion, even as embodied in the church committee, while deploring the necessity, was not disposed to question the propriety of her action. That is, all except Mrs. Taylor. In her, Selma thought she had detected signs of coldness, a sort of suspicious reservation of judgment, which contrasted itself unpleasantly with the sympathetic attitude of the others, who were fain to refer to her, in not altogether muffled whispers, as a plucky, independent, little woman. Hence, she was glad that Mrs. Taylor happened to be detained at home by illness on this afternoon, and that, accordingly, she was free to enjoy unreservedly the dramatic nature of the situation. Her heart beat a little faster as the chairman, turning to her to ask a question, addressed her unmistakably as Mrs. White. She could not refrain from casting half-amused, half-pathetic sheep's eyes at Littleton. He started visibly, regarded her for, a moment in obvious amazement, then flushed to the roots of his hair. She felt the blood rising to her own cheeks, and a sensation of mild triumph. The meeting was over and the members were merely lingering to tie up the loose threads of the matter arranged for. In a few moments Selma found herself with the architect sufficiently apart from the others for him to ask:

"Two persons have addressed you this afternoon as Mrs. White. I do not understand."

She cast down her eyes, as a woman will when a question of modesty is involved, then she raised them and said: "You did not know, then, that I had left my husband?"

"Left him?"

"Yes. I have obtained a divorce. He was unfaithful to me."

"I see"—said Littleton with a sort of gasp—"I see. I did not know. You never wrote to me."

"I did not feel like writing to any body. There was nothing to be done but that."

Littleton regarded her with a perturbed, restless air.

"Then you live no longer at 25 Onslow Avenue?"

"Oh, no. I left there more than six months ago. I live in lodgings. I am supporting myself by literary work. I am Mrs. Selma White now, and my divorce has been absolute more than a month."

She spoke gravely and quietly, with less than her usual assurance, for she felt the spell of his keen, eager scrutiny and was not averse to yield at the moment to the propensity of her sex. She wondered what he was thinking about. Did he blame her? Did he sympathize with her?

"Where are you going when you leave here?" he asked.

"Home—to my new home. Will you walk along with me?"

"That is what I should like. I am astonished by what you have told me, and am anxious to hear more about it, if to speak of it would not wound you. Divorced! How you must have suffered! And I did not have the chance to offer you my help—my sympathy."

"Yes, I have suffered. But that is all over now. I am a free woman. I am beginning my life over again."

It was a beautiful afternoon, and by mutual consent, which neither put into words, they diverged from the exact route to Selma's lodging house and turned their steps to the open country beyond the city limits—the picturesque dell which has since become the site of Benham's public park. There they seated themselves where they would not be interrupted. Selma told him on the way the few vital facts in her painful story, to which he listened in a tense silence, broken chiefly by an occasional ejaculation expressive of his contempt for the man who had brought such unhappiness upon her. She let him understand, too, that her married life, from the first, had been far less happy than he had imagined—wretched makeshift for the true relation of husband and wife. She spoke of her future buoyantly, yet with a touch of sadness, as though to indicate that she was aware that the triumphs of intelligence and individuality could not entirely be a substitute for a happy home.

"And what do you expect to do?" he inquired in a bewildered fashion, as though her delineation of her hopes had been lost on him.

"Do? Support myself by my own exertions, as I have told you. By writing I expect. I am doing very well already. Do you question my ability to continue?"

"Oh, no; not that. Only—"

"Only what? Surely you are not one of the men who grudge women the chance to prove what is in them—who would treat us like china dolls and circumscribe us by conventions? I know you are not, because I have heard you inveigh against that very sort of narrow mindedness. Only what?"

"I can't make up my mind to it. And I suppose the reason is that it means so much to me—that you mean so much to me. What is the use of my dodging the truth, Selma—seeking to conceal it because such a short time has elapsed since you ceased to be a wife? Forgive me if I hurt you, if it seem indelicate to speak of love at the very moment when you are happy in your liberty. I can't help it; it's my nature to speak openly. And there's no bar now. The fact that you are free makes clear to me what I have not dared to countenance before, that you are the one woman in the world for me—the woman I have dreamed of—and longed to meet—the woman whose influence has blessed me already, and without whom I shall lack the greatest happiness which life can give. Selma, I love you—I adore you."

Selma listened with greedy ears, which she could scarcely believe. It seemed to her that she was in dream-land, so unexpected, yet entrancing, was his avowal. She had been vaguely aware that he admired her more than he had allowed himself to disclose, and conscious, too, that his presence was agreeable to her; but in an instant now she recognized that this was love—the love she had sought, the love she had yearned to inspire and to feel. Compared with it, Babcock's clumsy ecstasy and her own sufferance of it had been a sham and a delusion. Of so much she was conscious in a twinkling, and yet what she deemed proper self-respect restrained her from casting herself into his arms. It was, indeed, soon, and she had been happy in her liberty. At least, she had supposed herself so; and she owed it to her own plans and hopes not to act hastily, though she knew what she intended to do. She had been lonely, yes starving, for lack of true companionship, and here was the soul which would be a true mate to hers.

They were sitting on a grassy bank. He was bending toward her with clasped hands, a picture of fervor. She could see him out of the corner of her glance, though she looked into space with her gaze of seraphic worry. Yet her lips were ready to lend themselves to a smile of blissful satisfaction and her eyes to fill with the melting mood of the thought that at last happiness had come to her.

The silence was very brief, but Littleton, as would have seemed fitting to her, feared lest she were shocked.

"I distress you," he said. "Forgive me. Listen—will you listen?" Selma was glad to listen. The words of love, such love as this, were delicious, and she felt she owed it to herself not to be won too easily. "I am listening," she answered softly with the voice of one face to face with an array of doubts.

"Before I met you, Selma, woman but was a name to me. My life brought me little into contact with them, except my dear sister, and I had no temptation to regret that I could not support a wife. Yet I dreamed of woman and of love and of a joy which might some day come to me if I could meet one who fulfilled my ideal of what a true woman should be. So I dreamed until I met you. The first time I saw you, Selma, I knew in my heart that you were a woman whom I could love. Perhaps I should have recognized more clearly as time went on that you were more to me even then than I had a right to allow; yet I call heaven to witness that I did not, by word or sign, do a wrong to him who has done such a cruel wrong to you."

"Never by word or sign," echoed Selma solemnly. The bare suggestion that Babcock had cause to complain of either of them seemed to her preposterous. Yet she was saying to herself that it was easy to perceive that he had loved her from the first.

"And since I love you with all my soul must I—should I in justice to myself—to my own hopes of happiness, refrain from speaking merely because you have so recently been divorced? I must speak—I am speaking. It is too soon, I dare say, for you to be willing to think of marriage again—but I offer you the love and protection of a husband. My means are small, but I am able now to support a wife in decent comfort. Selma, give me some hope. Tell me, that in time you may be willing to trust yourself to my love. You wish to work—to distinguish yourself. Would I be a hindrance to that? Indeed, you must know that I would do every thing in my power to promote your desire to be of service to the world."

The time for her smile and her tears had come. He had argued his case and her own, and it was clear to her mind that delay would be futile. Since happiness was at hand, why not grasp it? As for her work, he need not interfere with that. And, after all, now that she had tried it, was she so sure that newspaper work—hack work, such as she was pursuing, was what she wished? As a wife, re-established in the security of a home, she could pick and choose her method of expression. Perhaps, indeed, it would not be writing, except occasionally. Was not New York a wide, fruitful field, for a reforming social influence? She saw herself in her mind's eye a leader of movements and of progress. And that with a man she loved—yes, adored even as he adored her.

So she turned to Littleton with her smile and in tears—the image of bewitching but pathetic self-justification and surrender. Her mind was made up; hence why procrastinate and coyly postpone the desirable, and the inevitable? That was what she had the shrewdness to formulate in the ecstasy of her transport; and so eloquent was the mute revelation of her love that Littleton, diffident reverencer of the modesty of woman as he was, without a word from her clasped her to his breast, a victor in a breath. As, regardless of the possible invasion of interlopers, he took her in his embrace, she felt with satisfaction once more the grasp of masculine arms. She let her head fall on his shoulder in delighted contentment. While he murmured in succession inarticulate terms of endearment, she revelled in the thrill of her nerves and approved her own sagacious and commendable behavior.

"Dearest," she whispered, "you are right. We are right. Since we love each other, why should we not say so? I love you—I love you. The ugly hateful past shall not keep us apart longer. You say you loved me from the first; so did I love you, though I did not know it then. We were meant for each other—God meant us—did he not? It is right, and we shall be so happy, Wilbur."

"Yes, Selma." Words seemed to him an inadequate means for expressing his emotions. He pressed his lips upon hers with the adoring respect of a worshipper touching his god, yet with the energy of a man. She sighed and compared him in her thought with Babcock. How gentle this new lover! How refined and sensitive and appreciative! How intelligent and gentlemanly!

"If I had my wish, darling," he said, "we should be married to-night and I would carry you away from here forever."

She remembered that Babcock had uttered the same wish on the occasion when he had offered himself. To grant it then had been out of the question. To do so now would be convenient—a prompt and satisfactory blotting out of her past and present life—a happy method of solving many minor problems of ways and means connected with waiting to be married. Besides it would be romantic, and a delicious, fitting crowning of her present blissful mood.

He mistook her silence for womanly scruples, and he recounted with a little laugh the predicament in which he should find himself on his own account were they to be so precipitate. "What would my sister think if she were to get a telegram—'Married to-night. Expect us to-morrow?' She would think I had lost my senses. So I have, darling; and you are the cause. She knows about you. I have talked to her about you."

"But she thinks I am Mrs. Babcock."

"Oh yes. Ha! ha! It would never do to state to whom I was married, unless I sent a telegram as long as my arm. Dear Pauline! She will be radiant. It is all arranged that she is to stay where she is in the old quarters, and I am to take you to a new house. We've decided on that, time and again, when we've chanced to talk of what might happen—of 'the fair, the chaste and unexpressive she'—my she. Dearest, I wondered if I should ever find her. Pauline has always said that she would never run the risk of spoiling everything by living with us."

"It would be very nice—and very simple," responded Selma, slowly. "You wouldn't think any the worse of me, Wilbur, if I were to marry you to-night?"

"The worse of you? It is what I would like of all things. Whom does it concern but us? Why should we wait in order to make a public spectacle of ourselves?"

"I shouldn't wish that. I should insist on being married very quietly. Under all the circumstances there is really no reason—it seems to me it would be easier if we were to be married as soon as possible. It would avoid explanations and talk, wouldn't it? That is, if you are perfectly sure."

"Sure? That I love you? Oh Selma!"

She shut her eyes under the thrill which his kiss gave her. "Then we will be married whenever you wish," she said.

It was already late in the afternoon, so that the prospects of obtaining a license did not seem favorable. Still it happened that Littleton knew a clergyman of his own faith—Unitarian—in Benham, a college classmate, whom he suggested as soon as he understood that Selma preferred not to be married by Mr. Glynn. They found him at home, and by diligent personal effort on his part the necessary legal forms were complied with and they were made husband and wife three hours before the departure of the evening train for New York. After the ceremony they stepped buoyantly, arm in arm in the dusk, along the street to send the telegram to Miss Littleton, and to snatch a hasty meal before Selma went to her lodgings to pack. There were others in the restaurant, so having discovered that they were not hungry, they bought sandwiches and bananas, and resumed their travels. The suddenness and surprise of it all made Selma feel as if on wings. It seemed to her to be of the essence of new and exquisite romance to be walking at the side of her fond, clever lover in the democratic simplicity of two paper bags of provender and an open, yet almost headlong marriage. She felt that at last she was yoked to a spirit who comprehended her and who would stimulate instead of repress the fire of originality within her. She had found love and she was happy. Meanwhile she had decided to leave Benham without a word to anyone, even Mrs. Earle. She would write and explain what had happened.



BOOK II.

THE STRUGGLE

CHAPTER I.

Littleton had not expected that Selma would accede to his request to be married at once, but he was delighted at her decision. He had uttered his wish in sincerity, for there was really no reason for waiting, and by an immediate marriage they would escape the tedium of an engagement during which they could hope to see each other but rarely. He was able to support a wife provided they were to live simply and economically. He felt sure that Selma understood his circumstances and was no less ready than he to forego luxuries in order that they might be all in all to each other spiritually as husband and wife. Besides he had hopes that his clientage would continue to grow so that he would be able to provide all reasonable comforts for his new home. Consequently he drove up from the station in New York with a light heart, fondly pointing out to his wife this and that building and other objects of interest. He mistook her pensive silence for diffidence at the idea of descending suddenly on another woman's home—a matter which in this instance gave him no concern, for he had unlimited confidence in Pauline's executive ability and her tendency not to get ruffled. She had been his good angel, domestically speaking, and, indeed, in every way, since they had first begun to keep house together, and it had rather amused him to let fall such a bombshell as the contents of his telegram upon the regularity of her daily life.

"Don't be nervous, darling," he said gayly. "You will find Pauline bubbling over with joy at our coming, and everything arranged as though we were expected to live there all our lives."

Selma looked at him blankly and then remembered. She was not feeling nervous, and Pauline was not in her thoughts. She had been lost in her own reflections—lost in the happy consciousness of the contrast between her new and her old husband, and in the increasing satisfaction that she was actually in New York. How bright and busy the streets looked! The throng of eager passers and jostling vehicles against the background of brilliant shop-windows bewildered and stimulated her. She was saying to herself that here was the place where she was suited to live, and mutely acknowledging its superiority to Benham as a centre of life. This was a rash, swift conclusion, but Selma prided herself on her capacity to arrive at wise judgments by rapid mental processes. So absorbed was she in the glittering, stirring panorama that Wilbur's efforts at enlightenment were practically wasted. She was in no humor for details; she was glorying in the exalted impression which the whole vivid scene produced upon her.

His remark caused her to realize that they must be near their destination. She had no misgivings on the score of her own reception, but she was interested and curious to see Pauline, this wonderful sister of whom Wilbur was so fond and so proud. Then her husband cried, "Here we are!" and in another moment she found herself in the hearty embrace of a large, comely woman who met her at the door. This of course must be Pauline. Selma was just a little shocked by the fervor of the greeting; for though she delighted in rapid intimacies, unexpected liberties with her person were contrary to her conceptions of propriety. Still it was delightful to be welcomed so heartily. She returned the embrace warmly but with dignity, and allowed herself to be convoyed into the house arm in arm with her new relation who seemed, indeed, to be bubbling over with joy. It was not until they were in the same room that Selma could get a good look at her.

Pauline Littleton was fine looking rather than pretty. She was tall and substantial, with an agreeable face, an intelligent brow, a firm yet sweet mouth, and steady, honest eyes which now sparkled with pleasure. Her physique was very different from her brother's. Selma noticed that she was taller than herself and only a little shorter than Wilbur. She had Wilbur's smile too, suggesting a disposition to take things humorously; but her expression lacked the poetic cast which made him so attractive and congenial to herself and excused the existence of the lighter vein. Selma did not admire women who were inclined to be stout. She associated spareness of person with high thinking, and an abundance of flesh as an indication of material or commonplace aims. She reflected that Pauline was presumably business-like and a good house-keeper, and, very likely, an industrious teacher in her classes, but she set her down in her mind as deficient in the finer sensibilities of the spirit belonging to herself and Wilbur. It was instinctive with Selma to form a prompt estimate of every one she met, and it was a relief to her to come to the agreeable conclusion that there was nothing in her sister-in-law's appearance to make her discontented with herself. This warmed her heart at once toward Pauline. To be sure Pauline manifested the same sort of social grace which distinguished Mrs. Hallett Taylor, but Selma, though she still regarded this with suspicion, for the reason that she had not yet become mistress of it, was secretly content to know that she had married into a family which possessed it. Altogether she was agreeably impressed by her scrutiny of her new sister, who, in her opinion, would not be an irritating rival either in looks or character, and yet who was a pleasing and sufficiently serious-minded person—in short just the sort of sister-in-law which she yearned to have.

Pauline, on her part, was duly fascinated by the delicate and inspiring beauty of her brother's wife. She understood at once why Wilbur had chosen her in preference to any one of his own circle. Selma obviously symbolized by her grave, tense, thin face the serious ideals of living and womanhood, which had been dear to his meditation as a youth and a part of his heritage from his New England ancestors. It made her joyous to feel that he had found a wife who would be a constant source of inspiration to him, for she knew that Wilbur would not be happy with any one who fell short of his ideal as to what a woman should be. She knew her brother well, and she understood how deeply in earnest he was to make the most of his life, and what an exalted vision he entertained as to the possibilities for mutual sympathy and help between husband and wife.

Partly as a consequence of their limited means, partly owing to absorption in their respective studies and interests, the Littletons, though of gentle stock, lived simple lives according to New York standards. They were aware of the growth of luxury resulting from the accumulation of big fortunes since the war. As an architect, Wilbur saw larger and more elaborate public and private buildings being erected on every side. As a house-keeper and a woman with social interests, Pauline knew that the power of money was revolutionizing the public taste in the matter of household expenditure; that in the details of domestic life there was more color and more circumstance, and that people who were well-to-do, and many who were not, were requiring as daily comforts all sorts of things to which they had been unaccustomed. But though they both thus knew vaguely that the temper of society had changed, and that sober citizens and their wives, who, twenty years before, would have prated solemnly against a host of gay, enlivening or pretty customs as incompatible with American virtue, were now adopting these as rapidly as money could procure them—the brother and sister had remained comparatively unaffected by the consequences of the transformation scene. Certainly their home had. It was old-fashioned in its garniture and its gentility. It spoke of a day, not so many years before, when high thinking had led to blinking where domestic decoration was concerned, and people had bought ugly wooden and worsted things to live with because only the things of the spirit seemed of real importance. Still time, with its marvellous touch, has often the gift of making furniture and upholstery, which were hideous when bought, look interesting and cosey when they have become old-fashioned. In this way Pauline Wilbur's parlor was a delightful relic of a day gone by. There was scarcely a pretty thing in it, as Wilbur himself well knew, yet, as a whole, it had an atmosphere—an atmosphere of simple unaffected refinement. Their domestic belongings had come to them from their parents, and they had never had the means to replenish them. When, in due time, they had realized their artistic worthlessness, they had held to them through affection, humorously conscious of the incongruity that two such modern individuals as themselves should be living in a domestic museum. Then, presto! friends had begun to congratulate them on the uniqueness of their establishment, and to express affection for it. It had become a favorite resort for many modern spirits—artists, literary men, musicians, self-supporting women—and Pauline's oyster suppers, cooked in her grandmother's blazer, were still a stimulus to high thinking.

So matters stood when Selma entered it as a bride. Her coming signified the breaking up of the household and the establishment. Pauline had thought that out in her clear brain over night since receiving Wilbur's telegram. Wilbur must move into a modern house, and she into a modern flat. She would keep the very old things, such as the blazer and some andirons and a pair of candlesticks, for they were ancient enough to be really artistic, but the furniture of the immediate past, her father and mother's generation, should be sold at auction. Wilbur and she must, if only for Selma's sake, become modern in material matters as well as in their mental interests.

Pauline proceeded to unfold this at the dinner-table that evening. She had heard in the meanwhile from her brother, the story of Selma's divorce and the explanation of his sudden marriage; and in consequence, she felt the more solicitous that her sister-in-law's new venture should begin propitiously. It was agreed that Wilbur should make inquiries at once about houses further uptown, and that his present lease from year to year should not be renewed. She said to Selma:

"You have saved us from becoming an old-fashioned bachelor and maid. Our friends began to leave this neighborhood five years ago, and there is no one left. We are surrounded by boarding-houses and shops. We were comfortable, and we were too busy to care. But it would never do for a young married couple to begin house-keeping here. You must have a brand new house uptown, Selma. You must insist on that. Don't be alarmed, Wilbur. I know it will have to be small, but I noticed the other day several blocks of new houses going up on the side streets west of the Park, which looked attractive and cheap."

"I will look at them," said Wilbur. "Since you seem determined not to live with us, and we are obliged to move, we will follow the procession. But Selma and I could be happy anywhere." He turned from his sister to her as he spoke with a proud, happy look.

Selma said nothing to mar his confidence. She had no intention of living either with Pauline or in their present house, and she felt that her sister-in-law had shown good sense in recognizing that neither was possible. She necessarily had vague ideas as to New York houses and locations, but she had seen enough in her drive from the station to understand that it was a wonderful and decorative place. Although her experience of Benham had taught her that some old things—such as Mrs. Hallett Taylor's gleanings from Europe—were desirable, she associated new things with progress—especially American progress. Consequently the Littleton household possessions had puzzled her, for though she thought them ugly, she was resolved not to commit herself too hastily. But now that Pauline had sounded a note of warning, the situation was clear. They had suffered themselves to fall behind the times, and she was to be her husband's good angel by helping him to catch up with them. And it was evident that Pauline would be her ally. Selma for the first time asked herself whether it might be that Wilbur was a little visionary.

Meanwhile he was saying: "Pauline is right, Selma. I had already asked myself if it would not be fairer to you to move uptown where we should be in the van and in touch with what is going on. Pauline is gently hinting to you that you must not humor me as she has done, and let me eat bread and milk out of a bowl in this old curiosity shop, instead of following in the wake of fashion. She has spoiled me and now she deserts me at the critical moment of my life. Selma, you shall have the most charming modern house in New York within my means. It must be love in a cottage, but the cottage shall have the latest improvements—hot and cold water, tiles, hygienic plumbing and dados."

"Bravo!" said Pauline. "He says I have spoiled him, Selma. Perhaps I have. It will be your turn now. You will fail to convert him as I have failed, and the world will be the better for it. There are too few men who think noble thoughts and practice them, who are true to themselves and the light which is in them through thick and thin. But you see, he admits himself that he needs to mix with the world a little more. Otherwise he is perfect. You know that perhaps, already, Selma. But I wish to tell it to you before him. Take care of him, dear, won't you?"

"It was because I felt that his thoughts were nobler than most men's that I wished to marry him," Selma replied, seraphically. "But I can see that it is sensible to live where your friends live. I shall try not to spoil him, Pauline." She was already conscious of a mission which appealed to her. She had been content until now in the ardor of her love to regard Wilbur as flawless—as in some respects superior to herself; but it was a gratification to her to detect this failing, and to perceive her opportunity for usefulness. Surely it was important for her husband to be progressive and not merely a dreamer.

Littleton looked from one to the other fondly. "Not many men are blessed with the love of two such women," he said. "I put myself in your hands. I bow my neck to the yoke."

In New York in the early seventies the fashionable quarter lay between Eighth and Fortieth Streets, bounded on either side by Fourth and Sixth Avenues. Central Park was completed, but the region west of it was, from the social stand-point, still a wilderness, and Fifth Avenue in the neighborhood of Twenty-third Street was the centre of elegant social life. Selma took her first view of this brilliant street on the following day on her way to hunt for houses in the outlying district. The roar and bustle of the city, which thrilled yet dazed her, seemed here softened by the rows of tall, imposing residences in brown stone. Along the sunny sidewalks passed with jaunty tread an ever-hurrying procession of stylishly clad men and women; and along the roadbed sped an array of private carriages conducted by coachmen in livery. It was a brilliant day, and New Yorkers were making the most of it.

Selma had never seen such a sight before. Benham faded into insignificance in comparison. She was excited, and she gazed eagerly at the spectacle. Yet her look, though absorbed, was stern. This sort of thing was unlike anything American within her personal experience. This avenue of grand houses and this procession of fine individuals and fine vehicles made her think of that small section of Benham into which she had never been invited, and the thought affected her disagreeably.

"Who are the people who live in these houses?" she asked, presently.

Littleton had already told her that it was the most fashionable street in the city.

"Oh, the rich and prosperous."

"Those who gamble in stocks, I suppose." Selma wished to be assured that this was so.

"Some of them," said Littleton, with a laugh. "They belong to people who have made money in various ways or have inherited it—our well-to-do class, among them the first families in New York, and many of them our best citizens."

"Are they friends of yours?"

Littleton laughed again. "A few—not many. Society here is divided into sets, and they are not in my set. I prefer mine, and fortunately, for I can't afford to belong to theirs."

"Oh!"

The frigidity and dryness of the exclamation Littleton ascribed to Selma's intuitive enmity to the vanities of life.

"You mustn't pass judgment on them too hastily," he said. "New York is a wonderful place, and it's likely to shock you before you learn to appreciate what is interesting and fine here. I will tell you a secret, Selma. Every one likes to make money. Even clergymen feel it their duty to accept a call from the congregation which offers the best salary, and probing men of science do not hesitate to reap the harvest from a wonderful invention. Yet it is the fashion with most of the people in this country who possess little to prate about the wickedness of money-getters and to think evil of the rich. That proceeds chiefly from envy, and it is sheer cant. The people of the United States are engaged in an eager struggle to advance themselves—to gain individual distinction, comfort, success, and in New York to a greater extent than in any other place can the capable man or woman sell his or her wares to the best advantage—be they what they may, stocks, merchandise, law, medicine, pictures. The world pays well for the things it wants—and the world is pretty just in the long run. If it doesn't like my designs, that will be because they're not worth buying. The great thing—the difficult thing to guard against in the whirl of this great city, where we are all striving to get ahead—is not to sell one's self for money, not to sacrifice the thing worth doing for mere pecuniary advantage. It's the great temptation to some to do so, for only money can buy fine houses, and carriages and jewels—yes, and in a certain sense, social preferment. The problem is presented in a different form to every man. Some can grow rich honestly, and some have to remain poor in order to be true to themselves. We may have to remain poor, Selma mia." He spoke gayly, as though that prospect did not disturb him in the least.

"And we shall be just as good as the people who own these houses." She said it gravely, as if it were a declaration of principles, and at the same moment her gaze was caught and disturbed by a pair of blithe, fashionably dressed young women gliding by her with the quiet, unconscious grace of good-breeding. She was inwardly aware, though she would never acknowledge it by word or sign, that such people troubled her. More even than Mrs. Taylor had troubled her. They were different from her and they tantalized her.

At the same moment her husband was saying in reply, "Just as good, but not necessarily any better. No—other things being equal—not so good. We mustn't deceive ourselves with that piece of cant. Some of them are frivolous enough, and dishonest enough, heaven knows, but so there are frivolous and dishonest people in every class. But there are many more who endeavor to be good citizens—are good citizens, our best citizens. The possession of money gives them the opportunity to become arbiters of morals and taste, and to seek culture under the best advantages. After all, an accumulation of money represents brains and energy in some one. Look at this swell," he continued, indicating an attractive looking young man who was passing. "His grandfather was one of the ablest men in the city—an intelligent, self-respecting, shrewd, industrious, public-spirited citizen who made a large fortune. The son has had advantages which I have never had, and I happen to know that he is a fine fellow and a very able one. If it came to comparisons, I should be obliged to admit that he's a more ornamental member of society than Jones, Brown, or Robinson, and certainly no less useful. Do I shock you—you sweet, unswerving little democrat of the democrats?"

It always pleased Selma to be called endearing names, and it suited her in her present frame of mind to be dubbed a democrat, for it did not suit her to be painfully realizing that she was unable, at one brilliant swoop, to take her place as a leader in social influence. Somehow she had expected to do this, despite her first difficulties at Benham, for she had thought of New York as a place where, as the wife of Littleton, the architect, she would at once be a figure of importance. She shook her head and said, "It's hard to believe that these people are really in earnest; that they are serious in purpose and spirit." Meanwhile she was being haunted by the irritating reflection that her clothes and her bearing were inferior to those of the women she was passing. Secretly she was making a resolve to imitate them, though she believed that she despised them. She put her hand through her husband's arm and added, almost fiercely, as she pressed closer to him, "We needn't trouble our heads about them, Wilbur. We can get along without being rich and fashionable, you and I. In spite of what you say, I don't consider this sort of thing American."

"Get along? Darling, I was merely trying to be just to them; to let you see that they are not so black as they're painted. We will forget them forever. We have nothing in common with them. Get along? I feel that my life will be a paradise living with you and trying to make some impression on the life of this big, striving city. But as to its not being American to live like these people—well you know they are Americans and that New York is the Mecca of the hard-fisted sons of toil from all over the country who have made money. But you're right, Selma. Those who go in for show and extravagance are not the best Americans—the Americans whom you and I believe in. Sometimes I get discouraged when I stop to think, and now I shall have you to keep me steadfast to our faith."

"Yes, Wilbur. And how far from here are we to live?"

"Oh, a mile or more. On some side street where the land is cheap and the rent low. What do we care for that, Selma mia?"



CHAPTER II.

Shortly before Selma Littleton took up her abode in New York, Miss Florence, or, as she was familiarly known, Miss Flossy Price, was an inhabitant of a New Jersey city. Her father was a second cousin of Morton Price, whose family at that time was socially conspicuous in fashionable New York society. Not aggressively conspicuous, as ultra fashionable people are to-day, by dint of frequent newspaper advertisement, but in consequence of elegant, conservative respectability, fortified by and cushioned on a huge income. In the early seventies to know the Morton Prices was a social passport, and by no means every one socially ambitious knew them. Morton Price's great-grandfather had been a peddler, his grandfather a tea merchant, his father a tea merchant and bank organizer, and he himself did nothing mercantile, but was a director in diverse institutions, representing trusts or philantrophy, and was regarded by many, including himself, as the embodiment of ornamental and admirable citizenship. He could talk by the hour on the degeneracy of state and city politics and the evil deeds of Congress, and was, generally speaking, a conservative, fastidious, well-dressed, well-fed man, who had a winning way with women and a happy faculty of looking wise and saying nothing rash in the presence of men. Some of the younger generation were apt, with the lack of reverence belonging to youth, to speak of him covertly as "a stuffed club," but no echo of this epithet had ever reached the ear of his cousin, David Price, in New Jersey. For him, as for most of the world within a radius of two hundred miles, he was above criticism and a monument of social power.

David Price, Miss Flossy's father, was the president of a small and unprogressive but eminently solid bank. Respectable routine was his motto, and he lived up to it, and, as a consequence, no more sound institution of the kind existed in his neighborhood. He and his directors were slow to adopt innovations of any kind; they put stumbling blocks in the path of business convenience whenever they could; in short, David Price in his humble way was a righteous, narrow, hide-bound retarder of progress and worshipper of established local custom. Therefore it was a constant source of surprise and worry to him that he should have a progressive daughter. There were four other children, patterns of quiet, plodding conservatism, but—such is the irony of fate—the youngest, prettiest, and his favorite, was an independent, opinionated young woman, who seemed to turn a deaf ear to paternal and maternal advice of safest New Jersey type. In her father's words, she had no reverence for any thing or any body, which was approximately true, for she did not hesitate to speak disrespectfully even of the head of the house in New York.

"Poppa," she said one day, "Cousin Morton doesn't care for any of us a little bit. I know what you're going to say," she added; "that he sends you two turkeys every Thanksgiving. The last were terribly tough. I'm sure he thinks that we never see turkeys here in New Jersey, and that he considers us poor relations and that we live in a hole. If one of us should call on him, I know it would distress him awfully. He's right in thinking that this is a hole. Nothing ever happens here, and when I marry I intend to live in New York."

This was when she was seventeen. Her father was greatly shocked, especially as he suspected in his secret soul that the tirade was true in substance. He had been the recipient of Thanksgiving turkeys for nearly twenty years on the plea that they had been grown on the donor's farm in Westchester county, and he had seen fit to invite his fellow-directors annually to dine off one of them as a modest notice that he was on friendly terms with his aristocratic New York cousin. But in all these twenty years turkeys had been the only medium of intercourse between them. David Price, on the few occasions when he had visited New York, had not found it convenient to call. Once he had walked by on the other side of Fifth avenue and looked at the house, but shyness and the thought that he had no evening clothes in his valise had restrained him from ringing the doorbell.

"You do your cousin Morton great injustice—great injustice, Florence," he answered. "He never forgets to send the turkeys, and as to the rest of your speech, I have only to say that it is very disrespectful and very foolish. The next time I go to New York I will take you to call on your cousins."

"And what would I say to them? No thank you, poppa." The young woman shook her head decisively, and then she added, "I'm not going to call on them, until I'm fit to. There!"

The ambiguity of this remark gave Mr. Price the opportunity to say that, in view of her immediate shortcomings, it was a wise conclusion, but he knew what she really meant and was distressed. His feeling toward his cousin, though mildly envious, did not extend to self-depreciation, nor had it served to undermine his faith in the innate dignity and worth of New Jersey family life. He could not only with a straight face, but with a kindling eye inveigh against the perils of New York fashionable life, and express gratification that no son or daughter of his had wandered so far from the fold. It distressed him to think that Florence should be casting sheep's eyes at the flesh-pots of Gotham, and so failing to appreciate the blessings and safety of a quiet American home.

Miss Flossy continued to entertain and to express opinions of her own, and as a result became socially interesting. At eighteen, by her beauty, her engaging frankness and lack of self-consciousness, she spread havoc among the young men of her native city, several of whom offered her marriage. But marriage was far from her thoughts. Life seemed too interesting and she wished to see the world. She was erect and alert looking, with a compact figure of medium height, large brown eyes and rich red hair, and a laughing mouth; also an innocent demeanor, which served to give her, by moonlight, the effect of an angel. She succeeded in visiting Bar Harbor, where she promptly became a bright particular star among the galaxy of young women who at that period were establishing the reputation of the summer girl. She continued to be a summer girl for four seasons without injury to her own peace of mind. At the end of the fourth summer she appeared on close scrutiny to be a little worn, and her innocent air seemed a trifle deliberate. She returned to her home in New Jersey in not quite her usual spirits. In fact she became pensive. She had seen the world, and lo! she found it stuffed with sawdust. She was ready to settle down, but the only man with whom she would have been willing to settle had never asked her. He was the brother of one of the girls who had been forbidden by her mother to stay out in canoes with young men after nine at night. The rumor had reached Flossy that this same mother had referred to her in "the fish pond" at Rodick's as "that dreadful girl." It would have pleased her after that to have wrung an offer of marriage from the son and heir, who knew her cousins, the Morton Prices, and to whom she would have been willing to engage herself temporarily at all events. He was very devoted; they stayed out in his canoe until past midnight; he wrote verses to her and told her his innermost thoughts; but he stopped there. He went away without committing himself, and she was left to chew the cud of reflection. It was bitter, not because she was in love with him, for she was not. In her heart she knew he bored her a little. But she was piqued. Evidently he had been afraid to marry "that dreadful girl." She was piqued and she was sad. She recognized that it was another case of not being fit. When would she be fit? What was she to do in order to become fit—fit like the girl who was not allowed to stay on the water after nine o'clock? She had ceased to think of the young man, but the image of his sister haunted her. How stylish she was, yet how simple and quiet! "I wonder," thought Flossy to herself, "if I could ever become like her." The reflection threw her into a brown study in which she remained for weeks, and during which she refused the hand of a staid and respectable townsman, who, in her father's words, was ready to take her with all her follies. David Price was disappointed. He loved this independent daughter, and he had hopes that her demure and reticent deportment signified that the effervescence of youth had evaporated. But it was only an effort on Flossy's part to imitate the young man's sister.