"Thar's few strangers git to Twinkling Island; but so long as you're here, you're welcome to our plain victuals. The money's neither here nor thar. Git supper, daughter. Seems you're mighty particular to git that canoe high an' dry to-night."

The girl wheeled abruptly and strode indoors, flashing at the stranger a covert, half-defiant glance.

"Gals are queer cattle," mused old Crane, drawing off his fisherman's boots. " 'Pears to give 'em a kind o' satisfaction to set a man to work. Her mother was just the same, before her."

The guest said nothing; but the realization that the girl who had grudged his taking her basket had afterward suffered him to carry her canoe quite an unnecessary distance, seemed to yield him no unpleasant thoughts.

They sat down to supper in a low'ceiled room of smoked rafters. The stranger ate hungrily and with few words, yet always his gaze followed the girl's slim figure as she moved to and fro, waiting on the board. As the food disappeared, the talk sprang up. The girl brought in a huge pitcher of cider and left the men by the fireplace, while she passed back and forth, clearing away the dishes. Crane set out a decanter of whisky, which spirit he mixed sparingly with his cider, as did also his guest—none too sparingly.

Now was the Man's heart loosened, and he told of all he had seen and done and lived; of his spendthrift youth, passed aboard tramp freighters between Lisbon and Rio, Leith and Natal, Tokyo, Melbourne and the Golden Gate—wherever the sea ran green; of ginseng-growing in China, shellac gathering in India, cattle-grazing in Wyoming. He spoke of Alaskan totem-poles, of Indian sign language, of Aztec monoliths buried in the forest. He sang "Lather an' Shavin's," "La Golondrina," "The Cowboy's Lament," and, clicking his fingers castanet-wise, hummed little Spanish airs whose words he would by no means translate.

Crane marveled that this man should be still on the hitherward side of thirty; and as the stranger sat there, his very clothes, poor rags of civilization, seemed to bulk with heroic lines, his face to reflect man's primal freedom, while his every word rang with the sheer joy of the things he had seen and known.

At a break in the talk, the girl, who, though she had constantly busied herself about the room, had missed not a word, nodded significantly to her father, then walked from the house and out into the night. He glanced after her for a moment, then turned with a queer smile.

"We're all 'baout the same, I reckon," he said, "so far as furren countries is consarned. That's to say, a man allaways conceits thar's a heap o' promise waitin' for him, somewhar over yonder. Naow, you've seen sights enough for a hundred men. Contrariwise, thar's my gal—never been further'n the Caounty Fair. But that don't stop her; no sirree, human nature can't be stopped. Every night, fair or storm, she walks daown an' sits on the rocks, lookin' seaward, before she turns in. She's done it ever since she was SO high. Why, thar's nothin' to see but the Atlantic an' a piece o' foreland to the northwest! But her fancy is, the sea's a-bringin' her somethin'—that's what she used to say as a kid—somethin', she don't rightly know what. I say it's just furren countries—pieces she's got outer story books, an' yarns she's heard the fishermen tell—that's what's she's hankerin' for, Mr. McFarlane. So ye see, as I say, we're all 'baout the same, that way."

"When I first seen her," began the Man tentatively, "I could ha' sworn that—See here, now! Ain't thar still the leavin's of a redskin outfit up this way?"

"Why, yes," returned the other, with some compunction. "I don't talk much 'baout it—not that it's a thing to he ashamed of; but I wouldn't give the gal a handle to think herself different from any one else hereabout. The truth is, her mother's mother was pretty near to a full-blooded Ojibway—not the kind you've seen plaitin' baskets for summer boarders, but a clean, straight-backed red woman, an' she claimed descent from one o' their big chiefs. I'm English stock myself, but the wild breed mixes slow: it's in her blood, Mr. McFarlane, and sometimes it worrits me. Thar's days she won't speak nor eat, but just goes off to the woods an' makes little trinkets out o' pine needles an' bark, and then I know the fit's on her. And proud! Thar's not a man hereabout she'd lift an eye at, and one feller that wouldn't take "no" got his head split open with an oar. Sometimes I've thought that ef she was married to a strong man—strong AND kind, d'ye see?—'twould be the best thing for her."

At this the stranger, who had missed no word, leaned quickly forward, the firelight striking his firm face. With the poise of conscious power he said quite simply:

"I'm the man!"

They eyed each other a moment, Crane measuring the Man who had come, the Man inviting measurement.

"You mean—?" asked the father. He paused as if welcoming interruption, but it was not in this man's slow, sure nature to interrupt. "Tell us what you do mean!"

"I mean," repeated the other slowly, "that I'M THE MAN! I love that little gal, I want to marry her. O' course you objeck: that's natural, that's right. I like your objectin', an' I'm going to fight it to a show-down. First you'll say, 'You're verruckt—crazy.' See hyar now! I've lived life, I have, and I've seen a drove o' women, hither an' yon, but not one of 'em could hold me, no more'n an ordinary slipknot could hold stuff on a packsaddle. I'm no lightweight, an' I need the diamond hitch. But to-day, when I seen Little Peachey in the scrub over yonder, why, it was different, and I knowed it right quick. Ever broke a horse, have you? Well, before you've got your lassoo coiled, the critter's eyes'll tell you just what sort o' tea-party you're goin' to have. Thar was a man once—a hoss wrangler—an' the easier a hoss broke, the more he'd mouch around an' hang his head, real melancholy and sad-eyed. The only minutes o' slap-bang-up joy that came his way was when he corralled a bucker whose natural ability to roll on him an' kick his brains out left no percentage o' chance in the player's favor. Maybe that's what I seen in Little Peachey to-day. Just now you said the wild breed mixes slow. It does: for it sticks out, waitin' for its own kind. And by that same token, blood talks to blood—aye, even without no Indian sign-language. Maybe all these years Little Peachey, settin' out on them rocks, has been a-watchin' for more than foreign countries."

"Aye, mebbe that's all right." Crane paced the floor, and his voice rose savagely: "Don't know but what your palaver mightn't win plenty o' foolish gals. But who are ye? What's your trade? Whar's your folks? Thar's lots o' rogues afoot. Do you allow I'd let the first stranger in Ragged Woods talk marriage to my daughter? What have you said? What's between you? Out with it, or I'll have you in Rockledge Jail by to-morrow morning!"

The Man who had come nodded response with imperturbable gravity.

"I like your talk," he said. "It comes straight off the hip, an' it calls for a straight answer. What have I spoke to her? Nothin'! What's between us? Nothin' but the makin's! Next, touchin' myself: Since sixteen I've been kickin' up the dust o' the earth till my home is anywhar immediately convenient. Once I had a brother in New Orleans, another in the Northwest, and another who drank himself accidentally into the British army an' died in the Sudan. We were wanderers, the lot of us. I'm Scotch-Irish, and my old mother used to claim we harked back to the kings o' some outfit I've forgotten. But blood-facts is no more proof than specimens from an unprospected claim. Friends? I make 'em everywhar: any one on the top o' the earth who's got the makin's of a man kin call me friend. Yet right here an' now I wouldn't touch the twelve apostles for an assay on my character. 'Cause why? 'Cause I hold that, just like a man lays in his own little square o' earth, so a man stands alone on his own little piece o' reputation. Good or bad, friends or no friends, it's his'n; and the Almighty files a pretty good chart of it right on his face. I want you to size me up accordingly."

Again the father gazed deeply at the Man who had come, and again the Man gave him the full of his eyes. Crane's glance shifted suspiciously from the other's face to the decanter and back again; the Man immediately responded by lifting his glass.

"Fill that up three times raw," he said, "and I'll swaller it in three breaths, just to show you what a drink IS. No, sir, it's hot your picayune drop o' spirits that's talkin'—it's me. Acabado! Finished!" And, tossing the contents of his glass into the fire, he replaced it upside down on the table.

"Yes," said Crane wonderingly, "you're sober—and you're honest. You certainly are honest!" He paused as if to steel himself. "But what o' that? Why should you come between me and my child in one night, after these twenty years we've spent—we've spent—" Simultaneously his words failed and his shoulders drooped. "See here, now: Stay along and work for me awhile. I'll give you half shares in the boat. But just wait, wait awhile. Some day you'll speak to her about it, and then—then mebbe I'll see it different."

But the Man rose restively.

"It comes hard on you," he mused, "aye, mighty hard; but it ain't all my doin', Mr. Crane, nor yet Little Peachey's. It's something bigger'n the lot of us: it's nature. You might as well put your back up against a landslide. As to stayin' on here, 'tain't in me: I must hit the trail to-morrow morning. But to-night thar's somethin' in here"—-and he struck his breast—"that won't keep: it's got to be said. I've spoken my little piece, an' you say you size me for a man. Bien! Bein' a man, I take no favors. No sir, I ain't no empty-handed brave. Little Peachey bein' the squaw for me, an' I havin' told you so, an' smoked your tobacco an' drunk your whisky, I hereby deliver."

He drew out a roll of bills and tossed them upon the table, observing whimsically:

"Two hundred an' thirty-odd dollars, honestly come by, an' all the estate, real or otherwise, whereof I stand possessed. Money talks. Take it; it's yours. An' now I'm goin' to find Little Peachey."

He strode out into the night and toward the forelands, his ears guided by the monotonous crash and moan of the long Atlantic swell.

Standing on the cliff was a wind-fluttered figure that turned at the sound of his step, with eyes defiantly alert.

"You knew I'd come," he said simply, drawing close to her. "Peachey, little Peachey, what's them waves a-sayin' to the rocks? It's: 'ME! YOU! ME! YOU!' Ain't they always been a-sayin' it? Kin you stop 'em, little Peachey? And that's the words I'm a-standin' here now fer to say to you."

"I ain't a-goin' to listen," she cried sharply, drawing back. "I don't want none o' your words. You just leave me alone, now, Mister—Mister——"

"Why, names don't count between us, chiquita," said he, with his great-hearted smile. "I'm just a man, I am, an' you're just a woman; and rightly I don't know no name for the thing that's been a-callin' between us ever since I seen you in the woods. But I kin see it in your face, Peachey, an' you kin see it in mine; it's a-lookin' at me through them eyes o' yourn——"

"Don't you look at me!" she cried, flinging an arm across her face. "I hate you, you—Man. Don't you come near me, naow! I hate you, I could kill you!"

But he only smiled down upon her kindly, understandingly.

"That's what the father said—aye, or somethin' mighty like it; but I told him, I wrastled with him till he savvied. And—makin' no secrets between us, Peachey—I paid him two hundred dollars down, to call it quits. Why, what's a few dollars? They don't cut no figure between you and me, 'cause I love you, little Peachey, an' I know right down in your heart you love me, too."

His voice quivered deeply as he drew near and laid his hands on her shoulders.

Instantly she raised her face, and their glances met in one quick flare. He felt her shiver in his grasp like some panic-stricken animal, then she turned and fled from him.

He followed, calling after her to stop; yet the lust of the chase swelled within him, and he knew he but loved this woman the more that she was not lying tamed within his arm. Breasting the house, he saw that she had swerved toward the island's long, leeward neck, from whence there was thrown a narrow pile-bridge connecting it with the mainland. His feet rang on the planks as she gained the opposite shore; and his heart laughed with joy, for he divined the instinct that had called her, not to her father's side, but to the mysterious heart of the woods.

Now he felt beneath him the soft pad of pine needles, little twigs switched his face, and warm, odorous airs breathed their welcome. Through the dimness he saw her gain the crest of a ridge, running lightly with long strides, and, as he reached the spot, from the hollow beneath there rang her voice flung back in mocking laughter. By the trail's wide curve and the shelving land he perceived that they were skirting the edge of inland waters; more than this he knew nothing save that, through vista after vista, mile by mile, her flying feet beckoned him onward, and that her heart was singing to his the last wild defiance of the almost-won.

At a sharp turn he came suddenly upon a cleared space shoring along the water's edge, lit by a blazing camp-fire. Within the circle of the glow she stood, a spent, panting figure, half supported by two men. A hunting-dog dashed forward, menacing the oncomer with stiffened back and bared teeth. The man strode into the group and said with quiet courtesy:

"Good evening, gentlemen. I am glad you rounded her up, for both consarned. Peachey, my hat's off to you an' all your tribe: you'd have run till you dropped. I see, gentlemen, that you're sizin' me up, which is natural an' gratifyin'. But things is square an' satisfactory between me and her, I do assure you."

The younger of the two—a tall, keen-faced man of city-bred appearance—turned to the girl and said with irritation:

"I don't understand. What does he mean? Are you his wife?"

She was leaning against a tree, her face averted. "No!" she panted vehemently. "No, no!"

"Tell yer it's Crane's gal," insisted the second man. "They live over yonder on the island. I pointed it aout a-comin' through the woods, the day you landed up here, Mr. Hemsley."

"Have you any claim on this girl?" demanded Hemsley, wheeling upon the stranger.

"Touchin' claims," returned the other, with sure emphasis, "I am not for filin' mine with the first party immediately convenient. The claim is filed O. K. elsewhere, and at present, as you're prospectin' on the hither side o' my line, I'll put one straight question to you: Did, or did not, Little Peachey ask you for protection?"

"Why, no," retorted Hemsley, a trifle confused, "she didn't—not in so many words." He turned to the girl. "Who is this man? Tell me everything; you needn't be afraid, Miss Crane."

"I'm not afraid!" she flashed sullenly. "He was a-layin' in Ragged Woods this afternoon, an' he carried my berry basket home an' stayed to supper. And afterward he caught hold o' me, he did, an' tried to kiss me; an' I ran away 'cause—'cause I hate him. I hate him!"

Her shrill cry ended in a passionate gesture. Wheeling, she marched down the slope to the water's edge, where she stood looking out into the night. All at once the man threw his face up to the sky and burst into a great roar of laughter.

"Right you are, Little Peachey!" he called. "Thar ain't no more to be said than that—just you an' me in the Ragged Woods at sundown. An' now—Blessed if we ain't downright stampeded! It's a reg'lar round-up, Peachey!" And he laughed again uncontrollably.

"Well," said Hemsley at length, "I don't like the looks of things, and I'm going to make it my business to take Miss Crane home to her father. I advise you not to make any trouble until you've proved who you are. Rockledge County Jail is only six miles away."

The other sobered to a statue, then turned, regarding Hemsley with mild fixity.

"Gentlemen," he said, "gentlemen both. I ain't askin' for your help, and, as far as I can see, neither is Peachey. I mean it. Gentlemen, a mule is a most onsafe critter. Even when you go to his funeral, you'll do well to sit at the head of the coffin."

Then all three turned quickly, for there had arisen from below the sound of a grating keel.

"That settles it," said Hemsley with dry satisfaction. "Miss Crane has gone home in the canoe. So much the better: I'm not looking for trouble." And he turned away.

But the Man gave one great laugh, then he was off like a shot, down the slope and into the water. At shoulder-depth he overtook the canoe and clung to its stern.

"Go up forward, Little Peachey," he cried, "an' sit mighty still till I swing in, else we'll be swimmin' in another minute. There!"

And drawing himself up over the stern, he seized the paddle, while the canoe leaped forward beneath his powerful strokes. From somewhere along the shore came the sound of voices, but the camp-fire blazed deserted. Gradually its light diminished to a twinkling spark in the blackness. For a while no word was spoken, the man bending to his task, the girl crouching with averted face in the extreme bow. Then a little new moon peered over the distant pine tops, the heavens spread their starry veil, and the hour of Susanna Crane's wooing had come.

"Me! You!" intoned the Man, to the sweep of his paddle. "Me! You! That's what the waves were sayin', that's what you kep' a-callin' to me through the woods, that's what the stars are writin' on the sky—Me! You! Big Chief, oh, you heap Big Chief, somewhar up yonder, ain't you l'arned me some things this day? Peachey, me and another man, down in the marble quarries, got fightin' in liquor, an' he drew a gun on me, an' I killed him with it. Then I got away quick and careless-like; but the Big Chief he leads me up here an' sets me in the woods, an' sends you along the trail. An' while I'm lyin' thar asleep, He tells me in a dream, 'You proud man! You unbroke bucker! Maybe you kin kill a man, but I've got my own good way o' tamin' you and bringin' you home.' Blood for blood I thought He meant, but I wakes up and—Que gracia!—thar you stands. And your face it says to me, 'Come on, you wicked, red-handed man. God's a-callin'.' And I says to myself real sudden, like I was at a camp meetin', 'Praise God!' Then, when we ran into the camp, just now, who was thar but Hemsley, the county sheriff, whose deputies have been after me for a week! Maybe the Big Chief's savin' me to l'arn me something more. So again I says, 'Praise God!'

"Will you travel with me, camarada?" he went on. "The whole big world's waitin' for us. I kin read an' write, an' my arms are strong. We'll ride the plains an' climb the hills an' swim in the rivers, and when you're tired I'll carry you on my shoulder. Then we'll take in the big, flat cities, Little Peachey, an' walk around 'em at night, lookin' on friendly. Yes, we'll drop in at all of 'em, stringin' out across the country like sideshows on the old Chicago Midway. And one o' these days, when we're gittin' real old, we'll pull up stakes an' start off to locate our last campin' ground. Thar ain't no maps nor surveys to it; it's just somewhar over yonder, and we'll know it on sight, Little Peachey. Maybe it's some picayune island chucked into the middle o' the ocean, with one high rock whar we can sit and watch the sun a-risin' an' the sun a-settin', an' the seagulls flyin'. And we'll talk over old times, Little Peachey, an' we'll just sit an' watch an' wait thar together till—till thar ain't nothin' left at all, only the rocks an' the sky an' the gulls a-screamin' at the sea.

"Peachey, a man read me some pieces out o' a book once, and I wrote 'em down an' learned 'em.

" 'For springtime is here,' it says, 'thou soul unloosened—the restlessness after I know not what. Oh, if we could but fly like a bird! Oh, to escape, to sail forth as on a ship!' Camarada, give me your hand. I will give you myself, more precious than money. Will you give me yourself? Will you travel with me? Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?"

The chant of his voice died away upon the night, and there was no sound but the soft ripple of the water under keel. In the bow sat the girl, motionless as a crouched Indian, her face fixed upon the nearing shore.

As the water shoaled, the Man stroked powerfully, landing the canoe sternforemost; then he stepped forth, drew it along the bank, and said:

"Camarada, give me your hand!"

But already the girl had risen, steadying herself with the bow paddle. With a sinuous movement she eluded his arms, and fled; then voices woke amid the pines, and the Man strode forward, to find his way blocked by two men holding the sobbing girl between them.

"I've seen enough of this," said Hemsley, facing him, "to know what you are. Miss Crane, can you find your way home alone? Jim, you and I will walk this man over to Rockledge."

"Peachey!" called the Man, retreating instantly. "Come on over here; thar's goin' to be trouble. Git behind me, Little Peachey!"

In the landing place there was driven a heavy stake. He drew this forth, then advanced, saying earnestly:

"Gentlemen both, you size me up wrong. Now, I ain't lookin' for trouble, but don't you bank too strong on takin' me anywhar with you to-night."

Hemsley's right hand drew backward, then came the level glitter of a long revolver barrel. "Drop that!" he began.

But suddenly something flashed before his face, and the keen edge of a boat-paddle bit numbingly into his extended hand; then the girl darted forward to where the revolver lay glistening among the pine needles.

"Well struck, Little Peachey," cried the Man; and he stepped protectingly in front of her, with upraised stake. But she stood from behind him and leveled the revolver full at Hemsley.

"I don't want your help," she said. The words came torn from her in sobbing whispers. "Git! Don't you come back no more. Don't you send no one lookin' for this man. I kin take care o' myself, I guess."

And the look in her eyes warned them to go. Now the Man and the Woman were alone in the black hush of the pine woods.

"I saved you," she said at length; "now go away from here. Yes, go!" And as her face lifted defiantly to his, her voice slid upward like the lonely, untamed wail of some wild creature. "Go back from whar you come! Don't you never let me see your face again, nor hear you speak; don't you never touch me no more, you Man! 'Cause I'm scairt o' you, I am; 'cause you're big an' strong, an' you'd forgit a gal like me. 'Cause I hate you, an' I hate myself!"

For an instant the man gazed at her, perplexed, irresolute; then he took her right hand and guided it until the revolver muzzle touched his forehead.

"Peachey," he whispered tenderly, "you hate me—but could you kill me; Little Peachey?" And he smiled his great, full-hearted smile.

Then her hand fell, her head sunk upon his breast, and a strong shuddering filled all her young body.

"Oh, Man, Man!" she breathed, as his arms closed about her.

***************************************************************** Vol. XXIII No.1 JULY 1910 {pages 74-83}

By Alice MacGowan and Grace MacGowan Cooke

Authors of "Return, A Story of the Sea Islands," etc.

"Is Ellen worse to-day?" The opening and closing of the front door brought in a swirl of red and yellow leaves from the porch outside. There came, too, a breath of sharp, sweet October air to tired little Mrs. Kendrick where she paused, foot on stair, the tray steadied in her hand, looking back at her husband.

"No. It's just that I got Mary Louise Jackson to come over and play with her. I can't ask Aunt Dicey to wait on a negro child like Ma'Lou is, and she's got to eat with Ellen; so I'm——"

"So you're waiting on her yourself," supplied Kendrick, hanging up a shabby overcoat on the hall rack.

"I'd do more than that to keep her here," his wife returned almost fiercely. "I tell you nobody knows till they've tried it what it is to have a child like Ellen, always lonesome and pining for company, and quarreling with every girl that comes about her. Sometimes I think it would be better if we moved away from Watauga. Everybody pities her—they all notice that she's backward in her studies—how can she help it, poor dear, with that hip joint the way it is?"

Kendrick came closer; he laid a kind arm along the frail, bent shoulders of his wife, and her senses were aware of the fresh outdoor air as he put his cool cheek to hers. "Don't you grieve, Fanny," he said. "Ma'Lou's a good companion for Ellen. The kid's better trained and better educated than half the white girls of her age in Watauga. If things go well, in a year or two we'll send Nellie to Baltimore and see what the big man there can do for her. You shall have a daughter that can dance like you used to, honey," and he patted her shoulder gently.

She turned with a little, gasping sigh to put up her tired face for his kiss. "You're good, Scott," she murmured, then went more cheerfully upstairs and to Ellen's room, glancing as she entered at the two girls, who were playing happily with paper dolls.

"Here's your feast," she called to them in the gay tone we use with sick children. "Come, Ellen. I'll go down and give your father his dinner, and you two can play any kind of party you want to with this."

The little girl with skin like white cotton cloth rolled her big, gray eves toward the tray and asked listlessly, "What you got for dinner, ma?" The brown-skinned one, tidily dressed from her carefully combed head with its crisp, black mass that was scarcely hair, held in place by spick-and-span hair ribbons, to the toes of her stout, handsome shoes, got up quickly and came forward to arrange the meal.

"They's molasses pie, Nell," Ma'Lou said joyously. "Oh, I'm going to bring it over there and fix it by the side of the lounge. We'll play you' a sick lady, and I'm you' trained nurse. Just wait till I fix my handkerchief into a cap like they wear."

Mrs. Kendrick turned away and left the children at their play. Mary Louise Jackson had been kept at home from school that she might come over and spend the day with Ellen. For when Ellen Kendrick was ill, her cry always was, "Oh, send for the doctor—and Mary Louise."

The old Kendrick place sat back in its grassy yard and concealed behind voluminous chinaberry trees such shabbiness as time had brought it; but on the corner, the home of Ezra Jackson perched proudly above its stone wall and added a considerable touch of elegance to the street.

It was in the early eighties, and the Queen Anne style of architecture was just coming into great popularity in the South. Jackson, who could well afford it, had let an architect have full sway in producing for him a dwelling in the new mode. Ezra Jackson, a full-blooded negro born a slave, had been a teamster on his master's Georgia plantation, and after the war that master, who still maintained friendly relations with his ex-slaves, gave him a start in life with a mule and a dray. From this the honest, industrious, and enterprising man had built up a transfer business which was the best of its sort in town. There were many teams and drivers now, and Ezra could walk in the garb of other men of means about him; yet he still wrote his name in the manner of the kings of old—he produced it as a sort of landscape effect without any idea of what the separate characters meant. He was a good citizen, a dignified man; and, except for his black skin, he would have been an acceptable neighbor to the Kendricks, and a desirable resident in their quarter of town. The young wife whom he had married rather late in life, and to whose taste the Queen Anne house catered, had a good grammar-school education, gained from those first devoted teachers that the Freedman's Bureau sent to the Southern negroes in the years immediately following the war. At first she had kept his books and made out his bills; and she always insisted on the best of schooling for their children.

Of these latter, only Mary Louise concerns this history, since she chanced to be very near the age of Ellen Kendrick and had become a necessity in the life of that peevish little invalid. The negro girl had smooth features, and her mother saw to it that she was always spotlessly dressed and that her manners were perfect. The children of her race take to good manners very readily, being usually amiable and eager for approbation. Mrs. Jackson undoubtedly took pride in the connection with her aristocratic white neighbors, and Mrs. Kendrick was forced to be glad of the chance to have the Jackson child come over and play with Ellen. A nurse she could have hired, but a child near the afflicted girl's age, a sound-natured, sweet-tempered, well-bred little girl, was not to be had for money—love was the only coin current that could pay for that.

And the two girls loved each other—of course they did. Did not Ellen need Ma'Lou and is not service the basis of all love? The flame on the altar of their affection burned always clear and strong, unshaken by the peevish gusts that extinguished many a less sturdy light of friendship for the Kendrick girl. So that existence to Ellen—the pleasant part of it, anyhow—meant a great deal of Ma'Lou, and there was scarcely an object in her room, a game or a pursuit of her days, that was not associated with the brown girl. The pair grew up in a companionship closer than that of some born sisters.

The mere fact of this intimacy was not regarded by the Kendricks with any disfavor whatever. Scott and Fanny both had played with negro children, both had been reared by negro mammies. Neither realized that conditions were changed, that the negroes with whom they had associated were no longer an enslaved people, hopeless of any equality, nor that, with the coming of freedom, and still more with the growing ferment among the blacks, such association was different from the intimacy of slavery days.

And Ezra Jackson's wife watched jealously that the preponderance of gifts and favors should be always on her child's side. If any present were given Mary Louise in the Kendrick house, her mother always retorted instantly, as one might say, with something better or handsomer. Mrs. Kendrick was a slow woman, and such a point would naturally have been obscure to her; yet she finally came to be aware of the fact, and at last it vexed her a little. She turned the question in her mind and sought for some substantial favor or patronage which she might offer to the Jacksons, to quiet once for all her offended sense of fitness.

It fell out that about this time she was passing their home on her way to her own, loaded down with bundles from the market because her cook, Aunt Dicey, was old and feeble and there had been nobody else to go this morning, when she raised her eyes and saw the Jackson back yard full of snowy wash on the line. Mrs. Jackson stood in the kitchen door, and, at the juxtaposition of the dark skin and the well-washed clothes, an idea promptly occurred to the lawyer's wife.

"Good morning," she called in a friendly tone. "I wanted to ask you something; I guess I'll come through the gate and go out your front way, if you don't mind."

Ezra Jackson's wife ran down the steps and put out a hand to help the tired woman with her packages. Mrs. Kendrick rested them on the railing of the back porch.

"Your clothes look lovely," she said meditatively. "You get them out so early. Aunt Dicey's too old to do the washing and cooking both any longer. I've been thinking for some time that I would really have to get me a washerwoman."

"It is hard to have the person who cooks wash also," said Mrs. Jackson, choosing her words carefully, and speaking in that serious tone which the new generation of colored people are apt to use toward their white neighbors. It is always as though they were on guard, or perhaps on parade is the better word, determined not to be guilty of lapses which would be excusable in those whom they address, but which are not permitted to the inferior race.

Fanny Kendrick looked at the handsome, well-kept house and its dignified, serious-faced mistress, and a feeling of irritation rose within her.

"I thought maybe you—I want a washerwoman—and seeing your clothes looked so nice made me think that maybe you——"

She came to an uncertain halt, and glanced again half impatiently at the other woman. After all, Ezra Jackson's wife was just a negro, and there was no use in feeling embarrassed or in supposing you didn't know how to deal with negroes. Good gracious! what was the world coming to if you couldn't offer work to folks without blushing? But she did not complete her sentence. The Jackson woman waited for a while that she might do so, and finally said, still in that slow, correct utterance which was in itself an offense:

"You thought I might tell you of some one? Mrs. Payson does mine. As you say she does it very nicely, and is quick about it. Her prices are high. I pay her half a dollar, and she gets done, as you see, a good deal before noon. But the work is satisfactory, and I think it pays better. I don't know whether she has a free day—but—shall I send her to you when she comes next week?"

Mrs. Kendrick blushed burning red, and took up her bundles with a jerk.

"No, thank you," she said shortly. "I couldn't any more afford that than I could fly. I didn't know Sally Payson had got to charging like that—fifty cents for less than half a day's work! I declare, prices are enough to ruin a body these days."

She went on to her own home smarting. She had called the washer woman "Sally Payson," to be sure, in correction of Eliza Jackson's "Mrs. Payson," which was a minor victory, yet it was not enough to wipe away a feeling of stinging exasperation and a curious sense of defeat. And when she told her husband about it afterward, he received her recital with a sort of humorous impatience.

"Good Lord, Fan," he broke in finally, "don't you know that every woman with a black skin isn't hungry to do your washing? It's not a question of complexion; it's money that talks. Ezra Jackson could buy me out two or three times over. I'm trying to act all his legal business. He's bringing a big suit against the railroad. If he gives it to me I shall be able to send Ellen to Baltimore this year instead of next."

"Well," said Mrs. Kendrick, submissively but acidly, "if you want me to go and apologize, I suppose I can. The South is getting to be a queer place when white gentlemen have to be under obligation to negro teamsters. I certainly don't want to interfere with your business in any way, Scott," she concluded plaintively. "We're hard up all the time; I feel it deeply that poor Ellen is such an expense to you."

Scott Kendrick's ready arm went round the weary little woman. "An apology would be worse than the offense, Fanny," he admonished gently. "It's just this. the Jacksons are in an absolutely new position, and have to be treated in a new way. You wouldn't go and ask Mrs. Ford or Mrs. Brashear to do your washing; and the Lord knows that neither Jim Brashear nor Bate Ford makes half what Ezra Jackson does. The world is changing, honey, and we have to change with it."

II

As they grew older, the association of the two girls, in spite of the affection between them—perhaps because of it—began to present almost daily problems and embarrassments. Ellen's health was worse, her nerves were shattered, and she clung with more and more insistence to this one healthy companion, who responded with a tireless devotion. Coming in from her wholesome outdoor life and her triumphs at school—where she always stood high—Ma'Lou brought to the sick room a very wind of comfort and cheer, which Mrs. Kendrick had not the heart to deny her pining young invalid. Once, when she spoke apprehensively of the matter to her husband, Scott Kendrick answered with astonishment:

"Why, Fanny, it's only a question of health—a little bodily improvement. We'd break it off to-morrow if Ellen was well. You'll see; there would never be any more of it if I could send her away for that operation."

But the white people had not, as they supposed, this anxiety all to themselves. The timid, conservative, colored mother regarded the friendship with growing anxiety. And before Scott Kendrick got together the money to send Ellen to Baltimore, Ezra Jackson's wife had coaxed her husband into letting Mary Louise go North to school. The Watauga public schools, with a term or two of Fiske, at Nashville, afterward, had been good enough for the other children. But the mother craved wider opportunities for this, her youngest; money was freer with them now; and Mary Louise went to a preparatory school, then to Oberlin.

Ellen Kendrick returned from the hands of the surgeons in Baltimore much improved in health. She was sent back twice afterward for treatment. Finally she walked as well as other girls, and hastily made up her arrears of education, as best she might, at a private school in Watauga. She would always be frail; the invalid habit had gotten into both mind and body; she would continue dependent, demanding; and somewhat irritable; yet there was a fragile prettiness about her, and her very childishness had its own charm.

Mary Louise Jackson passed one of two vacations at home; but, as time went on, there were opportunities for her to have trips of an educational nature, and one summer was spent at a Chautauqua taking a special course, so that after the first break in their association the two girls saw almost nothing of each other till they were women grown. There had been some letters; yet what the white girl had always demanded and received from her friend could not come through the mails, and the neglected correspondence finally died a natural death.

There was one person in Watauga, however, to whom Mary Louise wrote, and from whom she received letters regularly—Ulysses Grant Payson, the washerwoman's son, with whom she had gone to school. Grant Payson was a sober, ambitious, industrious fellow, who seemed to feel from childhood the weight of responsibility for his people. A widow's only boy, he had worked hard and studied hard. With a very fair mental endowment, he was able to get what the Watauga public schools could give him, secure a few years training at Nashville, then read law.

And, when, after her graduation, Mary Louise returned to her father's home, a very well-educated young lady indeed, wearing glasses and looking older than her years, she found Grant established in a good practice, and with some other prospects that were, for a colored man, flattering. Both families knew that Grant wanted Ma'Lou. Whether the girl would marry him and settle down in Watauga had been a matter of anxiety, often talked over between the two mothers. For they also knew of and discussed Ma'Lou's opportunity to take a position as private secretary to one of the instructors in her college. They understood that it was a situation which would pay fairly well, and give her associates who gained an added glory in the minds of these humble folk by their distance. In short, it would be a foothold in the white people's world; and Grant Payson's mother trembled for her son, while the mother of Mary Jackson feared to lose, once for all, her daughter. The two Southern-bred black women could see in such things as the girl reported only the wiping out of all race barrier, the sudden achievement of equality. Had Mary Louise been asked, no doubt she could have told them of a social ban at the North quite as definite as that in Watauga, if different; but her father's daughter kept a silence that was not without dignity over what she found irremediable, in the North as in the South.

To warm-hearted Mary Louise, Watauga meant, of course, father and mother; but directly after them—perhaps before them, in the calendar of youth—it meant Ellen Kendrick and Grant Payson. And the colored elders, looking on, felt that as these twin idols of the girl turned out, so rose or fell the chances of keeping her with them in Watauga.

Grant instituted at once a courtship as ardent and eager as it was open and avowed. His people, florid and colorful in temperament, are natural wooers, free of the language of affection and adroit in its use. Grant was very much in love with the girl, and she meant even more to him than that, since in aspiring to her his ambition stepped hand in hand with his affections.

Mary Louise received his advances with curious reservations, as though there were positions and premises she defended against him.

It was when the girl's visit was three weeks old that the fine-looking, broad-shouldered, young colored man in his well-fitting business suit—a goodly figure in the eyes of the mother watching from her own room across the hall—left the parlor where he and Mary Louise had been sitting all evening, with so doleful a countenance that the older woman had a quickly suppressed impulse to go to him and speak. She did open the subject to the girl next morning, approaching it obliquely. In her own day a very progressive person, she felt that her daughter had far outstripped her, and she offered advice but timidly to this tall, perfectly dressed young woman who seemed so competent in all the affairs of life, and who knew so much more than she did upon many subjects. But after a little profitless skirmishing she came out with:

"Looks like you must have said something hard to Grant last night—he never came in to say good-by to me. Ain't you going to have him, Ma'Lou? Don't you care anything about him?"

"I care a great deal about Grant," Mary Louise told her, in a voice of pain. "I could love him dearly—if I'd let myself. But, mother, I just can't settle down to live here in Watauga. There's nobody and nothing here for me."

The woman looked at her child, and her mind misgave her sorely that she had done wrong to send the girl away among an alien people, where she would learn to despise her own.

"You're still grievin' about Ellen Kendrick," she said finally. "If I were you I wouldn't let that go the way it has. Don't—" she hesitated, with eyes full of helpless solicitude upon her daughter's face—"honey, don't wait for any sign from Ellen, because you won't get it. You just take those postal cards that you got for her on your Canadian trip, and some morning you step over to the side door and ask for her, if you want to see her. I know she thinks a great deal of you. She's stopped me on the street more than once and asked all about you and what you were doing. I don't see why you shouldn't go to the side door and go in and have a nice little visit with her."

Mary Louise considered this suggestion at some length. She had the wider outlook which some travel gives, and, in Oberlin, she had been where the race question was relatively negligible. Her mother's way of putting it jarred on her; yet the hungry craving she felt at this time for a touch of companionship with a girl of her own age, her longing for the beloved Ellen of her childhood, overbore all shrinking. That afternoon she brought the cards down in her hand, and, full of an unwelcome timidity, made her way to the side door of the Kendrick house and rapped. Mrs. Kendrick answered and received her with a certain thin cordiality that suggested reservations. The fact was that Ellen was having a little party that evening, and the colored girl would perhaps be in the way. Among the guests bidden were two young men, upon either one of whom Mrs. Kendrick looked with a hopeful maternal eye, and nothing could be less desirable than for her daughter to seem to "even herself with negroes" in the eyes of these possible suitors.

"Shall I stop and see Ellen a minute, or may I just leave these with you, Mrs. Kendrick?" asked the tall, brown-skinned young woman finally.

"Oh, come in—come right in here to the dining room and sit down," said the mistress of the house, remembering with a twinge how much she owed to this girl. "Ellen will be crazy about these. She's got a postal card album, and she hasn't anything in it from Canada. Ellen! Come downstairs, honey; Ma'Lou Jackson has brought you something pretty."

But even as she called up the stairway, and heard the quick response from above, it crossed Mrs. Kendrick's mind that her daughter would not be willing to put these postal cards in her album, for she would be ashamed to tell from whom they came.

She was annoyed when Ellen came flying down the stairs, her thin, blond hair all about her shoulders, and caught both the newcomer's hands—the mother feared for a moment that she would kiss her old playmate.

"And then if somebody saw it through the window, and went and told young Emery Ford or Mr. Hyatt, I don't know what on earth I should do," reflected the careworn matron.

"Mamma, do come and look at these lovely postals," Ellen cried effusively a little later, as her mother, plainly ill at ease, passed through the room. "I'm going to pull out those that Cousin Rob sent me from Texas, and put these in right after the California ones. See here, mamma; isn't this one beautiful? Ma'Lou was there a week. She's put a little cross over the hotel where they stayed."

Mrs. Kendrick looked at the strong, well-developed figure of her guest, and a certain dull anger arose in her mind. Why did health and money both go to this inferior creature, when they were lacking in higher quarters? Perhaps this prompted her query; "That hotel? It's a big one, isn't it? Did they—could you——?"

She broke off, and Mary Louise supplied, innocently enough: "Oh, they didn't let us travel during school term. This was a vacation trip."

She had been long away from the South; in the protective conditions of Oberlin she had been measurably free from the wounding of race prejudice; and now she failed to realize that Mrs. Kendrick's curiosity was as to whether she had been permitted to go to a hotel with white people.

Old Dicey's place in the kitchen had long been supplied by a negress of the newer generation—"the worst gossip and tattler in town," if you might take her mistress's word for it. Mrs. Kendrick now made her way thither, ostensibly to superintend the preparation of the evening's refreshments, but in reality to try to fix up an explanation of why Ezra Jackson's daughter sat visiting in the dining room with the young lady of the house. "Because if Penny goes out and tells her friends, every darky in town'll be retailing the story to the folks that hire them, and it'll soon be all over the place."

She came back into the dining room to find Ellen glowing with enthusiasm. Yes, her mind was still that of a sick child; she had dropped back into her old-time attitude toward Mary Louise.

"Mamma, Ma'Lou says that they used to give lunches at the college, and fix the floral centerpiece so it would all come apart, and each guest could draw a bunch of it with a ribbon. Oh, I don't understand very well, but she can tell you—it's just beautiful, and we could make it out of the chrysanthemums in the side yard, she says."

Mrs. Kendrick looked uneasy. But there was no window in the dining room which commanded the street except the side light of the bay, and at it Ellen herself sat. Nobody passing would be apt to see Mary Louise over in the room.

"I reckon we can't go into those things," she objected, a little irritably. "I suppose Ma'Lou has seen a heap of fine doings up North that we couldn't possibly attempt."

"But she's promised to make me a lot of cute little candies—like potatoes, and put them in paper baskets—to go at each plate," put in Ellen, jealously.

The brown-faced girl nodded and laughed, with a quick flash of white teeth. It was plain she was taking the attitude of an older person talking to a child about a juvenile party to which there could be no question of invitation, and Mrs. Kendrick's fears rather subsided. She was safe, if only Ellen would show some sense and judgment.

"Well, I must go on home, now, if I'm to make those candies and have them ready by this evening," said Ezra Jackson's daughter, getting to her feet. "They take a good while to harden properly."

Ellen went with her to the side door, clinging to her arm and insisting on some last remark. Mrs. Kendrick, in an agony of apprehension, hovered in the background.

"Oh, well," said the daughter of the house finally, "I won't bother you any more about it now, Ma'Lou. It's hard for you to explain just how to fix it, but you can show me when you come over this evening. I'll have the chrysanthemums ready. You come a little early—won't you, please?"

Mary Louise, in the doorway, glanced from mother to daughter in some confusion. Would this do? Her own mother had cautioned her to be certain to go to the side door.

"I—I don't know," she hesitated doubtfully. "I'll bring the candies over, if you like, and I might be able to show you a little about the table then." And again she looked from the face of the girl who had been her childhood's most intimate friend and associate to that of the woman who had accepted so much at her childish hands.

"Why, I supposed you'd be here when I was giving the party, Ma'Lou," argued Ellen petulantly. "I don't see why not! Isn't it all right, mother?" she appealed sharply. "Shouldn't Ma'Lou come over this evening?"

For one desperate moment Mrs. Kendrick sought to shape a policy; Ellen's words sounded frightfully like an invitation to the party. Would Mary Louise accept them so? Her worried, resentful glance traveled over the tall, dignified figure, the correct, quiet costume. Oh, it had no business to be as hard as this! But she must make the girl understand; she could not run the risk of injury to Ellen's belated social opportunities.

"Why—you see—we—" she began, in an agony of embarrassment, "we can't—we can't—" Her voice failed her. She looked fleetingly at Mary Louise, who returned the gaze with a look hurt, accusing, difficult to meet. She drew her breath sharply, and began again with more resolution. "We'll have an extra maid in to help with the serving. If you don't mind staying in the dining room with her—" She ceased and waited hopefully, to see if the girl understood. There was an uncertain silence. She must finish. "Ma'Lou, if you'd stay in the dining room with Tillie, and wouldn't mind wearing a—cap—and apron like she does, why you could come over and look on."

Ellen Kendrick had seen somebody coming down the street. It was Emory Ford, and she flushed and dimpled and smiled as she bowed to him, forgetting everything else, including the departing Mary Louise, who, after one mute look at Mrs. Kendrick's flushed, disturbed face, turned and walked with hanging head toward the house on the corner.

Arrived at home, she went methodically to work upon the promised candies and the little baskets that were to contain them. Ezra Jackson's wife, noting the face of set misery, forbore long to question her as she brought out the novel materials and pursued her work.

The afternoon wore on. Mrs. Jackson was at work at her sewing-machine in the front hall; but she could not keep out of the kitchen, she made continual futile errands through it, giving anxious, sidelong glances at the child over whom her heart yearned.

Finally, when she could bear it no more, "Did—did something hurt your feelings over there, Ma'Lou?" she asked huskily.

She spoke behind her daughter's shoulder. The girl set the last finished basket in its place in the row before she turned to answer. Then she showed a face so much more cheerful and composed than the elder woman had dared hope for that the relief was almost revulsion.

"Sit down, mother," said Mary Lou, pushing a chair with her foot. "Sit there while I fill the baskets, and I'll tell you about it."

The mother sat and watched the deft brown fingers, and marveled at the girl's collected manner, her quiet, even voice. For Ezra Jackson's wife was shaken by alternate gusts of anger and hurt pride, of shame and fear, as, with a judicial fairness extraordinary in one of her years and sex, the girl went over the details of that unhappy visit. The old teamster had given his child a heritage of rare good sense. Early in the recital the woman broke in bitterly with:

"And yet you're making candies for her party? Such as that is all they want of you. I wouldn't do it. And I'd never step foot in their house again!"

"Why, mother, I'd certainly make these. I promised them," said Mary Louise mildly. She put the last tiny candy potato in place, pushed back the basket, wiped her hands, and turned fully to her mother. "But you're exactly right about not entering Judge Kendrick's house again," she said, with increasing emphasis. "I can't go in at the front door as a friend—that's true; I can't. I certainly sha'n't go in at the back door as a servant—and—I've thought it all out now—I see it plain—our people make a great mistake when they hang around the side doors of white folks. There's no way but——"

"Don't say it, honey!" gasped the mother "Wait a minute." This was the end, and she could not quite face it. She was to lose her youngest and dearest. Mary Lou was going back North to live among the white people. Her head went down on the table the convulsed face hidden in her arms. Then broke forth the cry of the blood:

"Oh, Lord! I reckon I'm just another fool nigger woman that's raised a child too good for her own color. I wish I was dead—I wish I was dead!"

"Mother—mother!" The girl flung herself on her knees beside the chair, and caught at the other's dress. "Don't take on that way. You don't understand. I'm—look around here—I'm glad of what happened over there to-day. It's shown me the truth about a good many things. We're all black people together. It's the only way for us now. I'm not going back to be Professor Sheridan's secretary—a black woman among white people. I'm going to marry Grant—he's everything to me; these people are nothing—and settle right down here in Watauga with him—and be happy and useful. Mother, you didn't make any mistake in the way you brought me up. I'll be a credit and a comfort to you yet."

***************************************************************** Vol. XXIII No. 1 JULY 1910

THE TRIAL BALANCE {pages 83-94}

By MAXIMILIAN FOSTER

Author of "Corrie Who?" etc.

Like so many others of her class, Stella Willoughby was a satisfied, confident woman, placidly aware of the station her husband's money assured to her. For Willoughby was accounted wealthy even in this lake town, where riches were so much in evidence; and if the wife betrayed a cool superiority because of his money, it was only natural, perhaps, since she and most of her associates knew no other means of gauging success, or worth, or the individual's place in life. Looking over her shoulder now, she glanced nonchalantly across the club dining-room.

"You mean those people—the Severances, Mrs. Kinsman?" There was a bland indifference in her tone that made the guest beside Mrs. Willoughby look at her curiously, for she knew that Severance had once been a suitor for Mrs. Willoughby's hand. "I believe we did know them before they dropped out. He lost everything, didn't he?—went to smash, as I vaguely remember."

Still with the same air of unconcern, she dipped the tips of her fingers in the finger-bowl, and prepared to rise. "Queer they should come back here, isn't it?" she commented idly; and then, as if the subject had passed from her mind with the observation, Mrs. Willoughby pushed back her chair in signal to her guests, and led the way from the room. In the hall, while the maid was putting on her wraps, she turned and looked back, still idly as before. Her eyes, traveling about, rested a moment on the man sitting at the distant table, and then, when he half rose from his place as if to bow, they journeyed on again, coolly unconcerned. A moment later, smiling gayly, she walked down the steps to her carriage, and, with her guests, was driven away to the theatre.

Yet, somehow, in spite of this sureness of speech and manner, the sight of her old-time suitor had wakened in Mrs. Willoughby the subtle discontent that occasionally affected her—the discontent of women who have only themselves to think about. One might have said that at these times she was subconsciously wearied of her form of life; that, in so many words, though ignorant of the fact, though, consciously, her vacuous life immensely satisfied her, she was BORED. But to-day, bluntly speaking, it was about her husband that her vague dissatisfaction centered; and when she had glanced coolly at her former suitor, it was for the purpose of comparison.

Willoughby was a fair type of the money-getter. Furthermore, what he had built had been raised by his own hands unaided; he was a self-made man, whose one boast was that he owed nothing to any one, not even so little as a debt of gratitude. One realized the fact, too, in the way he carried on his affairs; for in his business he was alert and determined, implacably pursuing his money-making as if it were a warfare, and considerate of none but those joined with him in the moment's harvesting venture. Perhaps his reasons were sufficient—who knows? Perhaps Willoughby was as well aware as they that the friends of to-day might reasonably become the enemies of to-morrow.

But at home the money gathered so ruthlessly elsewhere was thrown about with a lavish hand. Nothing that wealth could provide was denied Mrs. Willoughby or her boy; and though she had been poor when she married, money, in the mere crudity of having it to spend, had long since lost its novelty. To-day, beyond the pride of having it, and beyond the luxury and ostentation it could buy, money possessed for her a far greater significance in its power to make one powerful. In that she had already tasted the illogical enjoyment of one that can obtain power in no other way. And it was because of this place that his money had bought her that Mrs. Willoughby began to look on her husband with a critical eye.

For she was an ambitious woman, though one with definite limitations. Among different surroundings and in an atmosphere less sordidly striving and commonplace, she was fitted to have become, with some encouragement, an admirable and utterly inconspicuous wife and mother. But here, in this narrow, money-getting environment, many things prevented; among them, primarily, the way in which she had been brought up. For her father, too, had been driven by this lust for riches; and though he had failed, to the last he had been goaded on by his one eager, grasping hope. He had drummed into her head the single lesson that without money one is nothing.

In itself it suggested to the few a plausible reason why she had married Willoughby. There had been nothing openly unhappy in their life together. Still, as others saw, Willoughby was much older than his wife, radically without her social instincts, and, furthermore, when she had accepted him, it had been pretty generally understood that Severance had won her heart.

And now, as she sat back in her carriage, remembrance came rapping like an unwelcome, unadmitted visitant. She tried to put it away by chattering smartly; the theatre-wagon rolled along to the clicking of hoofs on the asphalt; but through it all the troublous knocking persistently recurred. For this was one of the few times when she had lingered upon a thought of that first romance of hers; and now, coupled with her hardening criticism of Willoughby, it brought forth insistent questions.

Whether she had really loved her husband when she married him, or whether she had not instead been dazzled by his peculiar abilities remained in doubt.

Severance had come first; he had a little money to begin, and he was doing well with it and seemed on the road to do better. Therefore, her friends were secure in the belief that she would marry him, when Willoughby had made his appearance.

He went at this love-making of his as he went at all his affairs—implacably bold and ruthlessly sweeping aside whoever or whatever came into his way. The fact that he and Severance were considered friends seemed to have counted little; and when, a few months later, it was learned that she had dropped one to take the other, it was also learned that Severance had played at ducks and drakes with his money. Briefly, he had become bankrupt in a mining deal. He and others, Willoughby among them, had gone into a Wyoming copper prospect—the Teton Sisters Company—and while Willoughby apparently got off without damage, Severance had dropped everything. How, was never clearly understood. Severance and his sister had parted with their home to satisfy his creditors, and then moved away.

In the twelve years of the Willoughbys' married life, the tide of money had kept steadfastly on the flood. Nothing his hands touched seemed to fail him. He had his fingers in every kind of venture—mines and mills, foundries and furnaces, steam roads, trolley lines and public utilities; and to each and every one of these promotions, the name of Willoughby affixed the hall-mark of success. Now his dollars jingled in every state of the Union—and they jingled in his own home, too, almost as the only evidences that the home was his. For Willoughby, pursuing money everywhere, seemed to have lost interest in all else but his money-grubbing, just as Willoughby's wife, excepting for the same money-grubbing, seemed to have lost all interest in him.

And now she had looked at Severance; her eyes had rested on him long enough to make comparisons—Severance much improved, cool, suave, presentable, and deferential; her husband big and masterful, a brooding, preoccupied man, and a kind of Orson to be kept denned in his money caves. She sighed to herself regretfully.

Some minutes after Mrs. Willoughby had found her seat in the theatre box she was aware of another party coming down the aisle. "Hello!" exclaimed the man beside her, "here come Hudson Mills and his wife with Case Severance. I didn't know he was in town."

Mrs. Willoughby laid a gloved finger to her lips and affected to yawn, though she stole a glance out of the corner of her eye. Her guest was now nodding over her shoulder at the arrivals in the seats below.

"Severance has made a ten-strike, I hear," he volunteered, in an expressive, if inelegant, idiom of the money game; "there's a story going the rounds that Mills and Severance have been gunning together and that some one else got burned. Anyway, I hear they've lined their pockets. Severance is rich again."

This mixed metaphor affected Mrs. Willoughby with a curious interest. "Oh, is he!" she exclaimed, and, glancing down, she looked unexpectedly into Severance's watching eyes.

But she seemed not in the least disconcerted. Severance was just turning away, mindful of the previous snub, when, with a reassuring smile, she bowed, and then smiled again. For why not? Severance's position had been reestablished in her world.

It was late that night when Mrs. Willoughby returned home. There was a light in her husband's library, and before going to her room she stopped and tapped at the door. Willoughby, with a pile of papers stacked before him, sat with his chin in his hand, staring absently at the wall. As the door opened, he turned for a moment, and then, seeing who it was, thrust his hands into his pockets and slouched down in his chair. "Well?" he murmured, absently.

Mrs. Willoughby, slipping out of her wrap, dropped into a convenient seat.

"Are you still at it? It's nearly one o'clock, Harmon." Yawning slightly, she wriggled her feet out of her carriage slippers and kicked them under her chair. Willoughby looked up, silently watching her, and a momentary small shadow crept into his face. Yet the shadow, small as it was, could not have been because of any flaw in his wife's appearance. Mrs. Willoughby was still young and fair to look upon, clear-eyed and almost girlish, her rounded, regular features set off picturesquely by her hat and its flowing purple plumes, even though both hat and plumes were extravagant in size. Willoughby must have known another reason to frown.

"Where've you been?" he demanded, heavily, his voice bare of any interest. He was a large, florid man, heavily built, square-jawed, and with the deep, scrutinous eyes of one aware of his own power and accustomed to enforce it. But now his eyes seemed listless, as if weary of the strain that had kept them so long on the alert.

"I? At the club," she answered, briefly. Though her own home was large and amply appointed, few were ever asked there to anything more formal than a luncheon or an afternoon at bridge. Home hospitality and the housekeeping it involved had long since become a bore to her; like many others in her set, she had learned to square her obligations through the convenience of her husband's club. The hospitality there entailed no other bother than paying the bills. "Just dinner at the club, and the theatre afterward."

She stripped off her long gloves and dropped them to the floor beside her carriage slippers. Again her husband studied her, almost covertly, one might have thought.

"Any one there?" Willoughby began absently to pick at the edges of the papers on his desk.

She shook her head. "No one you'd care about, I think. There were only three tables besides mine. Mrs. Chardon and her daughter with some of her young friends, and then—" Mrs. Willoughby closely inspected one of her rubies. "The Severances are back in town, Harmon. He and his sister were there with Hudson Mills and his wife."

"Severance—with MILLS!" cried her husband, lifting his head alertly. It was not often that Mrs. Willoughby's talk with him evoked such instant attention. "See here, Stella, are you sure it was Severance?"

"Sure? Sure whether it was Severance? Why, of course I am!" she answered petulantly. She and her husband had never discussed the man, and it seemed a late day now to begin. "What in the world is—?" she began, and then desisted. Willoughby, slouched down in his chair again, had dropped his chin on his breast and was nervously gnawing his lip.

His wife leaned over and gathered up slippers and gloves. "I think I'll go to bed," she murmured carelessly, and wandered toward the door. Willoughby made no response, and she turned and slowly came back. A calendar hanging from the gas bracket had fallen a little aslant, and she reached up and critically straightened it. "Harmon, I hear Case Severance is rich again. I wonder how he managed it."

"Hey? Who?" Willoughby jerked up his head as if startled from a dream—and not a very pretty dream, either, if one might judge from his countenance. "Oh, you mean HIM," he uttered thickly. "How do I know. I suppose he's been up to some of his games again." An almost savage dislike and contempt evidenced themselves in his tone, and pushing back his chair, he picked up his papers and arose. "You'd better go to bed Stella," he suggested brusquely, averting his eyes from her quick scrutiny; "I've got a lot of work here."

She laid a hand on his arm. "What's wrong with you?" she asked intently. There was alertness in the question, rather than responsive softness. Willoughby drew a hand across his mouth. "Nothing's wrong Stella. I've had a hard day. Aren't you going?"

"Yes—in just a moment." She had moved toward the door again, and now was standing with her hand on the knob. "It's Willard's birthday next Wednesday." Willard was their boy. "He'll be eleven, an he wants an electric runabout. The Doane boys have one, and he's just crazy about it We'd better let him have it."

Willoughby frowned, and irritably ruffled the papers in his hand. "A runabout. No; he sha'n't have it. He's too young, and besides——"

"Oh, nonsense, Harmon!"

Willoughby fluttered his papers more irritably than before.

"Well, he can't have it; that's all I have to say." Ordinarily, he gave to her and the boy what they wished, never questioning the cost or character of what they bought "Eleven, and wants an automobile!" he commented, sullenly. "When I was his age I was working day and night to support my——"

"Yes, I know, Harmon," interrupted Mrs. Willoughby, affecting to stifle a yawn "but Willard, fortunately, doesn't have to think of that."

Mrs. Willoughby gave her gloves a disdainful, careless twirl, and went on her way to her room. To her astonishment, a few moments later, she heard the front door slam. Willoughby had gone out.

He was away for nearly a week; and when he returned, his eyes were heavy and blood-shot, his face was pallid and wearily drawn.

"Well, so you are back. What have you been doing?" Mrs. Willoughby asked, perfunctorily. Though it was late in the morning she was still in bed, sitting up in a dressing sack, and turning the pages of a weekly publication that dealt in news of local high life. Its chief item, to-day, was the announcement of a dance she was to give shortly—at the club, as usual—and she had just finished for the second time the commentator's glib and unctuous phrasing.

He answered evasively, "Oh, just away on business." As he walked to the window and looked out, she carelessly turned the pages. "Stella, what did you do for the boy's birthday?" he asked, slowly pacing back to the foot of the bed.

She turned another page. "The boy? Oh, I gave him some money, and sent him down-town with the coachman. I was too busy." Smiling lightly, she went on glancing through the paper. "I suspect he stuffed himself on candy."

But there was no answering smile on Willoughby's face. "On candy? How much did you give him?"

Without looking up, she answered as lightly as before. "Oh, I can't remember now. Let me think." Then she vaguely named an amount, and Willoughby pressed his lips together.

"Stella," he said slowly, after a moment's darkening of his eyes, "do you know that amounts to a week's salary of more than one of my clerks? Don't you think it was a great deal to give a boy?"

She looked up now, astonished—a little vexed, too; for this was the second time he had questioned her use of money. "Well, what of it? It seems of little consequence." She buried her face in the paper again after this shot, and Willoughby stared at her.

"No," he murmured, reflectively, an alarming bitterness in his voice; "nothing seems of any consequence."

As she glanced casually over the top of her paper, she saw him draw a hand across his face; but, still vexed, she took no warning from the sign. "Well, there's no need of making a fuss, is there?" she asked, rebukingly. Thus showing how distasteful the subject had become, and, having had her say, she instantly changed the topic. "You're coming home Thursday night, aren't you?"

Willoughby watched her absorbedly. "I don't know. Why?"

"Oh, I just wanted to find out. It's the night of my dance, you know."

"A dance? Your dance?" He drew in his breath, and his hands, gripping the bed's footboard, closed a little tighter. "I'd forgotten that. Yes, your dance, and I——"

He broke off wearily, his lips framing a mere wraith of a smile, and in its gravity she still saw no warning of deep waters stirring troublously. "A dance—you're giving a dance!" he repeated, and there came into his eyes a subtle hint of mockery that, coupled with the words, gave them almost the significance of a jeer.

"Oh, for heaven's sake, Harmon!" Mrs. Willoughby threw down her paper irritably, aware only of the unspoken protest in his manner, and disdaining to analyze it. "See here—are you going to make a fuss about that, too? Or are you still growling about the boy? I should think a man with your money would be above——"

It seemed unnecessary to round out the sentence; in itself the fragment, sharply uttered, peevish and fretful, conveyed more than enough. "You wouldn't let him have what he wanted; so what's the use of making it any worse? He swallowed his disappointment; but if you're getting ready to complain about me now, I'll——"

"Yes, I've thought there was good stuff in the boy," he interrupted, the slow words cutting short her vehement protest. "Where is he now?" he added abruptly. " I think I'd like to see him."

Mrs. Willoughby flounced down among the pillows. "I don't know—at school, I suppose. Aren't you going to your office to-day?"

Willoughby shook his head. He turned to the door, moving heavily; and there, at last, in his sunken head, his shoulders wearily bent, she caught some hint of the man's hidden emotion. Astonishment at first ousted all else from her thought, and she gaped at him in wonder. Then came a small, chilling touch of fear.

"HARMON!" At the swift call he looked back at her. "Harmon! Has anything happened?"

His answer was an evasion, and she knew it. "I'm staying home to see some men. That's all."

But the moment's fear was too stressful to be so easily set at rest. "Wait—do you hear?" She slipped from the bed, and, with her eyes still fastened on him she groped about till she found her down slippers. Willoughby had slowly opened the door, but his wife angrily reached over his shoulder and pushed it shut. "You SHALL tell me!" she insisted, fiercely determined. "I want to know what's happened."

Willoughby shook off her hand, and renewed his effort at the door. "I've nothing to tell you," he rumbled sullenly; and then—"What do you want to know for?"

She caught her breath, certain now of the fear that shook her like an ague. He was in trouble, and trouble, to her, meant but the one thing—a money trouble. It was the first time in her years of placid, self-possessed vanity that any terror like this had come to jar her. To lose it now—this bought and paid-for complacency, this counterpart of happiness, struck her to the heart with a keener, more convincingly human emotion than she had known for many a day in her negligent, shallow existence.

"You want to know?" he answered, and smiled at her in grim, accusing mockery. "All right, then; I'll tell you. You'd better be ready for it, too." In his brutality there was a guarded note of self-pity, as if to see her suffer would somehow rejoice him in his own trouble. "Well, I'm smashed up—that's all. I'm ruined!"

Mrs. Willoughby, shrinking away, laid a hand on her lips and stared with distended eyes. "RUINED?" she gasped, unable to believe him—incredulously, as if at some barbaric jest. "Ruined?" She had turned quite white. "Oh," she cried, wetting her lips, "does it mean there is nothing left? How did it happen? Oh, it can't be true!"

"How did it happen?" Willoughby had thrust both hands into his pockets, and his head was turned sideways, as if the better to study the depths of her emotion. "Oh, the usual way—flying too many kites, I suppose. Poor?" he growled savagely. "Yes; we're poor as Job's turkey! They've cleaned me out of everything—their——Teton Sisters, too!"

In her mind's bewilderment of distress she caught at the name; it was the property in which Severance had lost his money; and she recalled ugly rumors that, before, had not affected her. Now that his money was gone, they attached to themselves a newer significance, accusing and indefensible. "The Teton Sisters! What do you mean?" For was the shame of losing his wealth to be coupled with the shameful admission that he had taken a hand in gouging her former suitor? It was singular she hadn't thought of it before; now it struck home with redoubled poignancy.

"Mean, hey? I mean they've got it away from me—Mills and that fellow Severance. It was the prettiest thing I owned, too," he groaned, careless of what he was saying, and blurting out the acknowledgment. "But that ain't the worst—no, not by a long chalk! Do you know what they're going to do?" he demanded, hoarsely, and with an almost weeping resentment, yet as if glad to find some one to whom to pour it out. "They're going to sue for the money, too!"

"What money?" she persisted, hollowly, determined now to know all. It might be dreadful to lose one's money—it was dreadful; but to have this man drag her down into his own shame, too—ah!

Willoughby threw up both hands in a gesture of ungovernable petulance. "Oh, what's the use of talking about it?" he growled, and then instantly his voice dropped. "Stella, I'm sorry for your sake. We'll have to begin all over again, dear."

"But you shall talk of it!" she directed, with a cruel and cutting significance in her voice. "You can't hide it from me now."

His mouth opened dumbfoundedly. Then he thrust out his jaw with a reawakened truculency, now aimed at her.

"Well, then—it was the money I took from that fellow—from your old friend, Severance. He was——"

"You took it from him!" she cried. "You mean you STOLE it!"

Willoughby's mouth twitched, as if she had struck him a blow. "So that's the way you look at it now, is it?" he said, his voice quietly effective. "All right, then! I came in here hoping to get a word of sympathy from you—perhaps a little kindness. But I knew it was only a hope." He drew a deep breath. "Now don't work yourself up over him, I warn you, my dear. I won't tell you why I ruined him, years ago, but I'll tell you how. You've called me a thief, so I'll give you some more facts before you jump at conclusions."

"I don't want excuses—it's explanations!"

It was another taunt that struck home, but Willoughby again mastered himself grimly. "Any one of us would have done it," he answered, ignoring the remark. "Severance made it easy. I did to him only what he tried to do to others. When he saw how good the mine was, he wanted me to help him rook them out of their stock, so that we could get it. Simple enough, of course, but they'd been square with me. No, I refused—but I did accommodate him to the extent of doing him out of his own block. He'd mortgaged everything to buy shares, and when he was where I wanted him, all tied up with loans and not able to borrow another cent, I told the mine people what Severance was trying to do. So they put in a ruinous report, and every one from whom he'd borrowed a cent just called his loans and foreclosed on him right and left. He went down and out—and that's all there was to it. Nobody else got hurt, and we divided his stock among us. Can't you see how it was, Stella?" he asked quietly, and stood awaiting her verdict.

"Yes! I see how it was!" she flashed. "It was robbery—you can't excuse yourself."

If she had wished to sting him again, the attempt seemed to become fruitful. "Excuses! I make none, do you hear?" he retorted, incensed. " I ruined him to get him out of your way—yes!—oh, you needn't say it!—out of mine, too. Look here!" he cried, passionately; "don't you think I didn't know you? All you looked for or lived for was—" But he broke off there, and surveyed her with an affronted dullness, as if it were only wasted effort. "Oh, well, what's the use?" he muttered, and with morose and glowering eyes slouched through the doorway.

Mrs. Willoughby lay among the pillows, her arms flung out and her face half hidden by her disordered hair. TO BE POOR! Her mind seized on that as the one incalculable shame that had befallen her—on that, rather than on her view of his dishonesty. Curiously enough, it was not only the loss of the money itself and the imminent surrender of her ease and luxury and ostentation that dismayed her. She was anguished, as well, by the stigma of being poor. She was able to see only the mean side of it; the pity of her friends already rang in her ears like scorn, mocking her because the one thing that had made her was now stripped away. Hers was not the nature to see the other side of it—the helpful nobility of self-denial, the heroism of unselfishness, the courage that stoically faces the narrow and sordid effort whose rewards are only in the future. No, indeed!—there was only a savage resentment in her mind, the inexplicable sense that somehow she had been tricked and cheated, and that he alone was to blame.

Though she accused him of dishonesty in the Severance affair, the charge was only secondary. Given another time, she might carelessly have acquitted him, taking his own say-so as enough; but Willoughby now had chosen a poor hour for his acknowledgment, when he linked it to the tidings of his ruin. All that day she kept to her bed, her mind absorbed with the catastrophe that had swept out from under her the unsolid prop of her arrogant money pride. For, again, without money what was left?

She showed herself the day following, wan and silent. Willoughby was away; the news of his failure was public property, and she writhed when she read of it in the daily prints. But in the following days she suffered other pangs that were a healthy counter-irritant—she learned to pick and number her FRIENDS, and to know, among so large a list of acquaintances, how very few they were. Though she was prepared for this, well aware what befalls the one with broken playthings, nevertheless she was filled with bitter exasperation against those who were no more careless than she had been herself. So she left orders with the servants that none was to be admitted.

Her husband was not so easily evaded. He returned, three days later, and, walking straight to her, laid a hand on her shoulder. "Stella, I'm mighty sorry; but if you'll help me, I can get on my feet again."

"Oh, don't bother me!" she retorted, flinging off his hand. Willoughby flushed, seemed about to make a bitter retort, and apparently changed his mind. "Stella, I'm in a good deal of trouble. A kind word or two would help." But the wife maintained a sullen dumbness, her eyes turned away from him; and Willoughby retired, shaking his head.

At the week end he tried again, hopefully. "Stella, it's not so bad as we first thought. I think we'll save enough to live on—maybe enough to keep our home. But you'll have to lend a hand."

She looked up from her packing. "What do you say?" she demanded, with a rekindled interest, and at the sight of it his eyes lightened.

"Why, if you're willing to go slowly, and put up with a few things, we might be able to do it."

"Humh!" Mrs. Willoughby bent over her trunk again. "I suppose that means you'd make me a kind of drudge. Thank you; I prefer the other way."

"The other way?" he inquired, looking at her closely. "What do you mean by that?"

She affected to show her carelessness by smoothing the clothes in the trunk tray. "Oh, I'm going to take the boy and go away somewhere for a while."

It was not unexpected. Willoughby came a step nearer, his brow wrinkled ominously. "You shall not!" he said, with a slow distinctness, every syllable rapped out decisively. Then his anger, righteous enough in its way, got the better of him. "Listen to me, Stella!' he gritted, clenching his hands beside him. "I can see clear through you. You haven't the nerve to face this down, so you're going to sling me overboard. That's it, isn't it? Well, you sha'n't. I've handled you like a fool, these years, and now I'm going to take charge. You'll stay here—not because of yourself or me—but for the boy!" he cried; and Mrs. Willoughby arose, quiet, but white.

"No," she answered, clearly; "we've played this farce too long, Harmon. I don't think I'm suited to you, and I'm sure you're not suited to me. We married under false ideas of each other."

Willoughby turned white, too, but, restraining himself, he peered at her from under his heavy brows. "No, we didn't!" he retorted, solemnly. "YOU did, but I didn't! You married me thinking my money would buy you what you wanted. I question whether you thought of ME at all. But I married you, Stella, knowing exactly what you were, and, since I've paid for it, I intend you shall stick to your bargain."

"Oh, yes," she answered, smiling a little in scorn, "it would be like you to call it a bargain. But you can't prevent my leaving." "No—perhaps not; but I can give you a good, strong argument why you shouldn't. Don't think I'm the only one that knows you—why, good Lord, Stella, I've no monopoly on the knowledge! Do you know what they'll say of you, all these fair weather friends that've dropped you like a smashed toy? I DO—they'll say you've wrung me dry, and that now I'm ruined you've chucked me just as they thought you would. If you care to know, I've heard whispers of it already; so I'm going to save my boy, if I can."

Mrs. Willoughby stood with a hand at her throat, gasping; the shot had struck home. "How dare you?" she whispered. "How dare you, after what I know of you? You say that, after cheating me into marrying you?"

Willoughby tossed his head. "Do you still refer to Severance?" he inquired, caustically; and then his face darkened. "I'll tell you why I cheated you into marrying me. It was because I loved you, I think," he said, and there came a wistfulness into his voice that almost startled her. But she put it away scornfully.

"You mean you stole his money to get me!" she retorted, unequivocally.

"I did—you're quite right!" he answered quickly. "And do you know what became of the money?" he demanded, pausing long enough to wet his lips, but giving her no time to reply "Well, it bought the clothes you wore—your hats—your gloves—your jewels. It's paid for your extravagances—or a part of them. It bought you the carriage you wanted; your string of pearls too. My soul!" he cried in a kind of fierce wonderment, "it bought nearly all there is of you, I think! It bought you, besides—that money did—his, with a lot more added to it!"

Mrs. Willoughby stared at him confounded—the situation had become reversed. She found herself impugned and called to defend when she had thought only to attack. It was a bitter reflection that he had, all along, hidden his contempt, while she had been idly picking flaws in him.

"Oh, yes!" he cried, going on; "all you looked for or lived for was money. I'd heard your father drum it into your head, and I'd seen the way you took it in!" He threw up his hand with a gesture of intolerable regret, this man who had been only a money-grubbing automaton. "I was ashamed, at first, but as you'd seemed to take a fancy to me, I deluded myself into thinking you cared. I knew Severance, too. He was clever and shrewd, but crooked as a fish-hook. At the time he was making love to you, there was another. But, never mind, I won't talk of that. I saw you, and it didn't take long to turn my head." He smiled wistfully, as before. "I'd never seen a woman like you, you know. I'd been too busy trying to keep alive. But there was this Severance, and—oh, well, what's the use?" he muttered again thickly. "You got your money, and I got the woman I loved. Yes, I got her—my soul!" he protested; "and it's a pretty trial balance, isn't it, to cast up on a day like this?"

Silenced, she stood and watched him, waiting for the next storm of his passion. But Willoughby's rage seemed to have burned itself out. He drifted across the room and reached his hand for the bell-pull. "Put away that trunk," he ordered quietly, facing her; "I'm going to run things now. If you're determined to leave me, you'll have to put it off a while. I'm going to save the boy. When I'm on my feet again, I'll give you what money you want; but there shall be no open scandal." Still silent, she was watching him, when the maid came in answer to the bell. "Help Mrs. Willoughby with these," he said curtly, denoting the half-packed trunk; "we're not going away." And in the presence of the servant she dared make no rejoinder. Later in the day he looked in again; Mrs. Willoughby and the maid were rearranging the room, and the trunk had been whisked away. He smiled grimly, and withdrew.

There could be but two results from a conflict like this: she would either scorn him the more or she would come to respect him. For days the outcome wavered in the balance. They met at the table only—she sitting preoccupied, he talking quietly with the boy. At the week end he brought her a roll of bills. "For the house money," he said briefly; and when she would not reach out a hand for it, he dropped it in her lap, and went away. But that night she entered into the talk at the table, a little quiet, still repressed, and showing her hurt. Willoughby, quietly deferential, kept to his part of the conversation exactly as if nothing ugly had occurred between them. His bantering with his son was genial and affectionate, and once she thought he tried to include her in this camaraderie. The few last shreds of her vanity, however, still waved distressing signals of the hurt, and she evaded it. But she felt strangely alone, notwithstanding; with an almost unconquerable self-pity she reflected on the fair-weather friends that had deserted her. A little sense of comfort trickled into her heart, though, when she thought of her boy. HE, at all events, had not been affected by the rumble of drums that had beaten her out of the worldly camp where once she had commanded. That night Willoughby looked in at her, while she sat musing over a book, and when she would not look up at him he went away again. A more complete sense of her loneliness came over her as the hours passed in the big, silent house. So she laid down her book, and went up-stairs to her boy's room.

"Who's there?" he cried, awakening from a doze.

"Just I, Willard. I came up to see whether you were all right."

"Oh, yes, I am!" he answered, a little perplexed; it had not been often that she had found time from her busy affairs for a visit like this. The boy took her hand in his and snuggled down in the pillows. "It's nice to have you, mumsy," he mumbled, comfortably.

Willoughby, coming home the next evening, heard her talking to the cook. "You mustn't be so wasteful, Annie. Unless you can do better, I shall have to get some one else." Her voice was peevish, but to Willoughby it sounded full of inexplicable melody. Nor when she carried her complaint to him later, at the dinner-table, was he less affected with a secret joy. "Harmon—we'd better take a smaller house. I can't do it any longer on what we have."

"You needn't," he answered lightly; "I can let you have more. Things are working out better than I expected. Just let me know what you're short at the end of the week. I can manage it."

That night, too, he came and sat in the room where she was reading. He said nothing, and picked up another book. But she knew what he wished, and resolutely steeled herself. The next night he was there again. "Good night, dear," he said cheerfully, daring the added word when she arose to go.

"Good night," she answered.

But on the evening following they talked together, each evading the shoals of past regret, and threading only the safe channels of the commonplace. "Good night, Stella dear," he said, unaffectedly, as she picked up her things; and she answered: "Good night, Harmon."

He came close to her, and looked down into her face. "Stella," he said, quietly; "Stella, it would make me very happy if you—if I might—why, kiss you good night."

Mrs. Willoughby gathered up the remainder of her things, and then slowly shook her head.

"No, we won't talk of that—yet!" she answered, and went away up the stairs. Willoughby bit his lip, looking silently after her.

"Why, mumsy!" exclaimed the boy, his hand touching his mother's cheek as she leaned over him. "What's wrong?"

She shook her head vehemently in the dark. "Nothing at all, dear. You must go to sleep now."

The next day, Willoughby, on his return from down-town, found her busily superintending the two servants while they cleaned up his room. It was an unexpected attention on her part. He withdrew quietly. A little while later, leaning over the balusters, she saw Willard whispering to him earnestly. "Did she, my boy?" she heard the man cry under his breath. "Why, now, mumsy must just have been a little tired. I don't think it was anything else." Willoughby's smile seemed enough at the moment to reassure almost any one.

At dinner his lightness, good-nature, geniality became infectious. Even Mrs. Willoughby suffered herself to smile at his whimsical jollity with the boy. Later there was the little comedy of the good night; and then they parted again. But Willoughby did not go out as usual.

It was very late that night when Mrs. Willoughby awoke with the conviction that some one was in her room. Her first impulse was to cry out in alarm; then, in terror she lay quiet, peering from beneath her half-closed lids. Across the lighter background of the curtained window a figure moved, big and familiar in its bulk. She knew then, and there seemed a greater reason than ever why she should remain quiet.

Nor was she wrong in her surmise. A moment later Willoughby leaned over, and she felt his lips lightly brush her cheek. A little sigh followed, and then he was gone, tiptoeing cautiously. Mrs. Willoughby sat up in bed, her face in her hands, and reflected in the stillness that presages the storm. But loneliness no longer pained her; the solitude had become suddenly peopled with vivid, poignant regrets, shouting loudly their indictment and their appeal.

Then, with the curious informality of a woman's emotion—whether of grief or of joy, whether of pleasure or of pain—she rocked down her head to her knees, while through her fingers poured the scalding tears. Mrs. Willoughby had become sincere at last.

***************************************************************** Vol. XXIII No.1 JULY 1910

The Painter of "Diana of the Tides" {pages 95-103}

By WALTER PRICHARD EATON

Author of "The American Stage of To-day," etc.

Given nearly three hundred square feet of blank wall space, and it takes something of an artist to fill it up with interesting paint. Probably you would not pick a miniature painter for the task. Yet, curiously, John Elliott, creator of "Diana of the Tides," the great mural painting which adorns the large gallery to the right of the entrance of the new National Museum at Washington, also paints on ivory. He works, likewise, in silver point, that delicate and difficult medium; he draws pastel illustrations for children's fairy tales; he works in portraiture with red chalk or oils. And, when the need comes, he has shown that he can turn stevedore, carpenter, and architect, to slave with the relief party at Messina, finally to help design and build, in four months, an entire village for the stricken sufferers, including a hotel, a hospital, three schoolhouses, and a church. The too frequent scorn of the "practical man of affairs" for the artist and dreamer, the world's sneaking tolerance for the temperament which creates in forms of ideal beauty rather than in bridges or factories or banks, finds in the life and work of such a man as John Elliott such complete, if unconscious, refutation, that his story should have its place in the history of the day.