55=*
 
 presented to the 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 by 
 
 SAN DIEGO 
 
 FRIENDS OF THE LIIiRARY 
 
 Mr. JOHN C. ROSE 
 
 donor
 
 BY ANNA FULLER. 
 
 pratt portraits. 
 
 Sketched in a New England Suburb. Seventh edi 
 tion, i6mo, paper, 50 cts. ; cloth . $1.00 
 
 " The scant material of which many of them are composed, 
 and the satisfactory manner of their treatment, cause wonder 
 at the same time that they arouse admiration, for it must be 
 admitted that only a thorough artist can accomplish this end 
 with a genre picture." Cleveland Leader. 
 
 " The lines the author cuts in her vignette are sharp and 
 clear, but she has, too, not alone the knack of color, but, what 
 is rarer, the gift of humor." N. J'. Times. 
 
 a literary Courtsbip. 
 
 Under the Auspices of Pike's Peak. Eighth 
 edition. I2mo, illustrated . . $1.00 
 
 " If you know of any one in the blues, or contemplating 
 a journey, or in any of the nine hundred and ninety -nine 
 conditions when pleasant reading is likely to prove acceptable, 
 advise him to get this little story, or, better still, make him a 
 present of it." Chicago Interior. 
 
 " A delightful little love story. Like her other book it is 
 brigjht and breezy ; its humor is crisp and the general idea is 
 decidedly original. It is just the book to slip into the pocket 
 for a journey, when one does not care for a novel or serious 
 reading." Boston Times. 
 
 peak and prairie. 
 
 From the Leaves of a Colorado Sketch-Book. 
 l6mo, cloth fi.oo
 
 H %itecar Courtship 
 
 UNDER THE AUSPICES OF 
 PIKE'S PEAK 
 
 *T is but the fancy of an idle hour, 
 Shut in betwixt the pages of a book. 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 NEW YORK LONDON 
 
 27 WEST TWENTY-THIRD ST. 24 BEDFORD ST., STRAND 
 
 Jht IJnichtrboekrr |lss 
 1894
 
 . COPYRIGHT, 1893 
 
 BY 
 ANNA FULLER 
 
 eiectrotyped. Printed and Bound by 
 
 tEbe ftnicberbocfeer f>rcse, Hew jr>orfc 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S Sons
 
 TO 
 
 K. D. H
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. THE Pow-wow i 
 
 II. THE NOM-DE-PLUME 6 
 
 in. THE OTHER LILIAN ... . 14 
 
 IV. POEMS, BY JOVE ! 31 
 
 V. HINTS AND GUESSES 40 
 
 VI. THE PILGRIMAGE 52 
 
 VII. THE PRAIRIE 58 
 
 VIII. WITHIN THE PORTIERES 64 
 
 IX. THE GATEWAY 79 
 
 X. CONFIDENCES 91 
 
 XI. A DILEMMA 100 
 
 XII. HER CANON 114 
 
 XIII. AN AUTO-DA-FB 126 
 
 XIV. AT CROSS PURPOSES 134 
 
 XV. EPISODES 143 
 
 XVI. A BIRD IN A CAGE 157 
 
 XVII. ON HORSEBACK 1 174 
 
 XVUI.-A TOAST .,,.,,,, 177
 
 A LITERARY COURTSHIP. 
 
 I. 
 
 THE POW-WOW. 
 
 JOHN BRUNT was a lucky fellow is 
 ^ still for the matter of that. Every 
 body knows his books ; that capital vol 
 ume of Travels at the South Pole, the 
 two series of essays on The Modern 
 Wherewithal, and his Reign of Louis 
 XI, which all the historical bigwigs 
 have sanctioned. From the outset, Brunt 
 was blessed with that happiest of combi 
 nations, a moderate income and a taste for
 
 2 B Xtterarg Courtship 
 
 literature. Now literature, as has been 
 often observed, is a first-rate thing, if you 
 have an income to back it up with, but 
 for a poor devil out at elbows pecuniarily, 
 like some of us, writing books is about 
 as practical an occupation as keeping a 
 yacht. 
 
 John was a great fellow for a discussion, 
 and was never satisfied till he had proved 
 his point. It is my opinion that if he had 
 hazarded the statement that a fairly good 
 pedestrian could walk from Maine to Ore 
 gon in so and so many weeks, he would 
 have been ready to perform the feat for 
 the sake of the argument. Luckily, that 
 particular question never came up, for we 
 should have missed John badly at the 
 Pow-wow. Pretty good name for a de 
 bating club, by the way. Harry Flint 
 christened it. Flint is a capital fellow, 
 only he insists upon making puns, and 
 his are so much better than anything 
 anybody else can do in that line, that we 
 find them rather a bore. 
 
 One night, at the Pow-wow, Hanley
 
 Gbe 
 
 had read a paper on Civil- Service Reform, 
 and a very able paper it was too. But the 
 discussion which was in order was inclined 
 to flag, owing to our all being of pretty 
 much the same opinion. BHis tried to 
 recall some heresy of Daniel Webster's 
 on the subject, which he thought might 
 stir us up a little, but there was n't any 
 real " go " to the talk, and we drifted off 
 onto side issues. Ballot reform, which is 
 Manning's hobby, led to English meth 
 ods of election, old and new, and then 
 somebody struck Felix Holt, which natu 
 rally brought the talk round to George 
 Eliot. One of the fellows remarked that 
 it was odd that so many women had 
 chosen a man's name for a nom-de- 
 plume, but Percy Kent said it was natu 
 ral enough, since a book got a better 
 hearing if it was supposed to be written 
 by a man. 
 
 ' ' Nonsense ! ' ' exclaimed Brunt. ' ' A 
 book 's a book, and stands for itself! If 
 it 's a woman that 's written a good book, 
 all the better for the book 1 ' '
 
 Xfterarg Courtsbfp 
 
 " If that is so, " Kent answered, " it is 
 mighty queer that so many of the best 
 heads among the women should have 
 chosen to take a man's name. " 
 
 "A man's name is a more effectual 
 concealment, " Brunt maintained. 
 
 "Then why don't men sometimes do 
 the same thing for the sake of conceal 
 ment? Why did n't Dickens call him 
 self Ruth instead of Boz ? Why did n't 
 Samuel Clemens pass himself off as Mary 
 Twain ? Why were not the ' ' Sonnets of 
 Proteus ' ' called the sonnets of lo or 
 Persephone or some other classic girl, 
 just as changeable, I warrant you, as 
 Proteus ever was ? ' ' 
 
 ' ' Because the author was not as mud 
 dled in his mythology as you are, Kent ! ' ' 
 
 " Poh ! My mythology is miles ahead 
 of your logic, Brunt. There 's a reason 
 in things, and Currer Bell, and George 
 Sand, and George Eliot knew what they 
 were about you may depend upon it ! " 
 
 Singularly enough, we found this a 
 much more fruitful theme than civil-ser-
 
 vice reform, and there were lots of good 
 things said before we got through with it. 
 I don't repeat them, for two reasons. In 
 the first place, I have noticed that what 
 we fellows say at the Pow-wow never 
 sounds as clever by half when you try to 
 repeat it. In the second place, it all hap 
 pened some time ago and I have forgotten 
 the best points. But I remember that 
 everybody had something to say on the 
 subject. Brunt got much wrought up, 
 because he could not lay his hand on any 
 proof of his assertion, that it was rather 
 an advantage to a book than otherwise, 
 to have been written by a woman. If it 
 had not been for a look in Brunt's eye 
 that I knew better than anyone else 
 for Brunt and I are old college chums, 
 and I know him like a book, though he 
 would n't thank me for saying so if it 
 had n't been for that look in his eye I 
 might have forgotten all about that par 
 ticular Pow-wow.
 
 n. 
 
 THE NOM-DE-PUJME. 
 
 T OHN was working like a tiger for the 
 ^ next six months or more, and we all 
 wondered what he was at. But he hates 
 to be pumped, and is always mighty close 
 about his writing. We have an idea that 
 he begins things and does not finish them. 
 He is fastidious, and he does not turn out 
 as much work as you would expect from 
 the ease with which he seems to write. 
 
 One evening the following January I 
 happened in on John, and found him sit-
 
 ting in front of a fine old fire, smoking his 
 pet pipe and clutching a very fat manu 
 script. Uncommonly cosey quarters he 
 used to have. I never could see why a 
 fellow like Brunt should want to get 
 married and give up all the comforts of 
 life. Things can never be the same again. 
 It 's sure to spoil half the fun, especially 
 for your bachelor friends. In my mind, 
 at least, women are always associated 
 with swallow-tail coats and sweet wine, 
 and expensive ash-trays on queer little 
 legs, that break if you look at them. 
 
 Women are well enough, of course, in 
 their place within their limitations, as 
 the wiseacres say. At balls, for instance, 
 or at dinner parties, they are very good 
 company. At a ball, especially, one 
 would always wish to see them. It 'snot 
 much fun dancing with another fellow, 
 even when he ties a handkerchief round 
 his arm and dances "lady." But in a 
 man's own house they always seem a little 
 in the way. 
 
 To return to John and his den. It did
 
 fciterarg Courtsbfp 
 
 look pleasant there when I stepped in on 
 that cold evening and found that great 
 fire burning and the air fragrant with pipe 
 smoke, and John, all by himself, hanging 
 on to his manuscript as though he were 
 afraid it might get away. 
 
 " Hullo, Jack," said I. 
 
 " Hullo, Dick," said he, with a pleased 
 sort of grin. " You 're just the fellow I 
 was wanting to see." 
 
 Now if there is .anything that makes a 
 man feel good it is that kind of a welcome. 
 So different from the way a woman sticks 
 out her hand, and says, " Very happy to 
 see you, Mr. Dickson." Not that that is 
 such a bad thing to hear either, only you 
 know they will say it just the same 
 whether they mean it or not. 
 
 Well, I saw that I had come in the nick 
 of time. I knew by the way John clutched 
 his manuscript that it was finished, and 
 by the way he said ' ' Hullo ' ' that he 
 meant to tell me all about it. So I sat 
 down and lighted my pipe and waited for 
 him to begin.
 
 "Well, Dick, I 've finished my novel. " 
 
 My real name, by the way, is Francis 
 Dickson, though many people suppose it 
 to be Richard from the fellows calling me 
 Dick. Rather an annoying mistake, for 
 I was named after my uncle the General, 
 and not being distinguished myself, I am 
 unwilling to lose any reflected glory. 
 However, I was not so egotistical as to be 
 thinking of that when John told me about 
 his novel. 
 
 " Glad to hear it, " said I, as though I 
 had been in the secret all along. ' ' What 
 is it about ? ' ' 
 
 " Oh, all kinds of things. " 
 
 " What is it called ?" 
 
 "Spoils." 
 
 ' ' Good title ! And with your name on 
 the title-page it will go off like hot cakes. ' ' 
 
 "Ah! But that is just the point. My 
 name is not to be on the title-page." 
 
 " Not on the title-page ? What is the 
 reason of that ? ' ' 
 
 " Well, in order to start fair without 
 any preconceived ideas on the part of the
 
 xo a Xiterarg Courtsbfp 
 
 public. I don't propose to sell my novel 
 on the strength of Louis XI. or The 
 South Pole. I want the public to be 
 unbiassed. Then besides, " he added, 
 after a pause, ' ' I am going to try an ex 
 periment. " 
 
 There was a look in his eye which sud 
 denly reminded me of that talk at the 
 Pow-wow. Was it possible that John had 
 written a novel for the purpose of clinch 
 ing an argument ? Nothing could have 
 been, after all, more in character. But I 
 curbed my curiosity and amusement, and 
 asked, innocently enough : " Have you 
 chosen your nom-de-plume ? ' ' 
 
 " Yes, just about. I am going to use 
 a woman's name." 
 
 " You don't say so ! And what is the 
 name? " 
 
 " Well, I have had several in mind. 1 
 should like to know what you think of 
 here he fixed me with his eye, as though 
 he had been taking aim, and said, with 
 a lingering emphasis "Lilian Leslie 
 Lamb"?
 
 I still kept my countenance, though 
 with difficulty. There sat John, great 
 strapping fellow, with his sunburnt face 
 and sandy moustache, his strong, pro 
 nounced features and keen eyes, the typi 
 cal camper-out and club man, and in his 
 great deep bass voice he was proposing to 
 call himself Lilian Leslie Lamb ! 
 
 He, meanwhile, did not seem to see the 
 humor of the thing. 
 
 "Lilian Leslie Lamb" he repeated, 
 weighing the words with evident satis 
 faction. " It is striking, it is alliterative, 
 and it is intensely feminine. Moreover, 
 the name might perfectly well be genuine. 
 I once knew a girl named Mary M 
 Morse. I always had a notion that the 
 middle initial stood for Morris. Mary 
 Morris Morse ! That is very much the 
 same kind of name, only I think mine is 
 prettier, don't you ? " 
 
 This self-complacency was the finishing 
 touch. I put my head back and roared, 
 and then, all of a sudden, Jack seemed to 
 see the joke, and he struck his knee and
 
 12 H ILiterarg Courtsbfp 
 
 roared too. I declare! We hadn't had 
 such a laugh since the day Old Hobbins 
 forgot his wig. 
 
 Well, when we had got pretty well 
 shaken up, we quieted down again, and 
 talked the matter over soberly. That is, 
 by spells. For every little while the ab 
 surdity of the thing would come over me 
 and off I would go again. Brunt was 
 good-natured about it, though he didn't 
 always join in. First of all, he swore me 
 to secrecy. He did not want any half 
 way work, he said. He was going to 
 give his experiment a fair trial. He 
 thought he had written a good novel ; and 
 that settled the question in my mind, for 
 John was always harder to please than his 
 readers. He said that if the book should 
 be a failure or even a half success, he 
 should be free to admit that it was owing 
 to the woman's name. He proposed send 
 ing it to the Sandersons. Bates & Bram- 
 ford knew his hand, which might betray 
 his identity, and then he thought novels 
 more in the Sandersons' line.
 
 Rom=De=lMume 13 
 
 ' ' What ! " I cried. ' ' You ' re not even 
 going to let your publishers into the 
 secret? Supposing they reject it. " 
 
 ' ' Poh ! Publishers are not such fools 
 as people think. The Sandersons know 
 a good thing when they see it, and that 
 novel is a good one, I can tell } T OU that to 
 begin with. " 
 
 He then gave me the outlines of the 
 plot, which was a strong one, and we sat 
 talking things over till nearly breakfast 
 time. Jove ! Those were good old times. 
 I often wish them back.
 
 III. 
 
 THE OTHER UUAN. 
 
 '"THE Sandersons were ready enough to 
 accept the novel, and it was not long 
 before the proof-sheets were arriving at 
 my office addressed to Miss Lilian I/eslie 
 L,amb, care of F. Dickson, Esq. 
 
 Everything went on swimmingly, and 
 Spoils was published in time for the spring 
 and summer trade. It made an enormous 
 hit, as every one knows. There was a 
 second edition out in no time, and the 
 third and fourth were nearly simul 
 taneous. It was republished in England,
 
 Gbe tber Hiltan 15 
 
 and a handsome ' ' consideration ' ' remit 
 ted to the author. 
 
 Brunt was pleased, of course. Who 
 could have helped being pleased ? He 
 was used to success, but not to this kind 
 of success. His Louis XI. and his essays 
 had given him an enviable reputation, 
 but the public does not buy histories and 
 essays by the bushel, and Brunt had never 
 made such a brilliant dash at fame before. 
 
 And, after all, I do believe that what 
 pleased John more than anything else was 
 the fact that he had proved himself in the 
 right. The woman's name had certainly 
 not hindered the success of the book. He 
 and I were both convinced that it had 
 actually helped the sale. All the critics 
 dwelt upon the remarkable power of the 
 work, its " virile strength," its " incisive 
 force," and they made haste to add that 
 these qualities were tempered by "true 
 feminine delicacy of feeling, ' ' and ' ' nicety 
 of perception." That was where John 
 chuckled. He made a collection of all 
 the reviews a thing he had never taken
 
 16 H Xiterarg Courtship 
 
 the trouble to do with his other books. 
 In that whole collection there were only 
 five notices which contained no allusion 
 to feminine perception and delicacy. But 
 he most of all prized those which declared 
 that the characters were drawn with an 
 " almost masculine power." 
 
 It was ' ' nuts ' ' to us, you may be sure. 
 Yet I used to wonder that he could keep 
 the secret. Glory is, after all, a thing a 
 man is not likely to get too much of. But 
 there was one thing that Brunt liked even 
 better than glory, and that was, to prove 
 his point. 
 
 "But you have proved your point 
 now," I urged, when the newspapers were 
 fairly crackling with praise. " Do let us 
 tell the fellows at the Pow-wow, at least." 
 
 "Not yet," he answered, with quiet 
 determination. 
 
 "Don't you mean ever to let them 
 know ? " I asked ; for I was perfectly 
 flabbergasted at his indifference. 
 
 " Oh, yes ! Some time or other." 
 
 " But, great Scott ! when ? "
 
 tber Xilian 17 
 
 "Well," lie answered, thoughtfully, 
 ' ' I shall wait for the twentieth edition, 
 and then see how I feel." 
 
 I ought to have said before, that one of 
 the most amusing features of the affair, in 
 its early stages, was the letters which 
 ' ' Miss I^amb ' ' received through her pub 
 lishers. The Sandersons had been re 
 quested not to reveal the address of the 
 new writer, by which means I was saved 
 a good deal of bother. That is, the San 
 dersons forwarded the letters to my office, 
 and no one else associated my name in 
 the remotest degree with the famous au 
 thoress. 
 
 At first, as I said, the letters were im 
 mensely entertaining. No matter how 
 commonplace or impertinent or high-flown 
 they might be, they always served to 
 heighten the humor of the situation. In 
 fact the best of them and there were 
 some among them which any author 
 might have been proud to receive the best 
 of them could hardly be so sensible or so 
 well-conceived as to escape some striking
 
 is B XiterarB Courtsbip 
 
 incongruity. At one time we got into such 
 a. chronic state of amusement that we 
 grinned when we did n't mean to, and the 
 fellows asked us " What 's the joke ? " 
 
 One pouring rainy day Brunt came into 
 my office, and instead of sitting down 
 comfortably he went and drummed on the 
 window pane, gazing down on the um 
 brellas below, as though they had been 
 a garden of jacqueminot roses. I knew 
 there was something to pay, so when I 
 got tired of waiting I sang out : " I^et 's 
 have it, Johnny." 
 
 I wanted to call him Lilian at first, but 
 he shut down on that. He had a notion 
 I might forget myself. The fact is, he 
 was afraid as a thief of being found out. 
 
 "Oh, it 's nothing at all," he said, 
 coming over and sitting down in the chair 
 I keep for my clients. I used to hate that 
 chair, for after I had had it several years 
 it looked as good as new. Even now it is 
 in better repair than it ought to be. There 
 are too many men practising law in New 
 York. 

 
 tber XiUan 19 
 
 Well, then Johnny pulled a letter out 
 of his pocket, one I had sent around to 
 him the evening before, and handing it to 
 me, said : ' ' Read that. ' ' 
 
 The hand was a lady's, and had the 
 unusual advantage of being both stylish 
 and legible. The letter was dated at 
 Colorado Springs, and ran as follows : 
 
 " MY DEAR Miss LAMB : 
 
 " A glance at my signature may serve as a par 
 tial excuse for the liberty I am taking in writing 
 to you. If it were not for the coincidence in our 
 names, I should know better than to trouble you 
 even with an expression of the very great pleas 
 ure which your novel has given me. For there 
 must be literally thousands who have enjoyed 
 that remarkable book, and it would be a poor 
 return to you were we to besiege you with 
 letters. 
 
 " Your name and mine, as you will observe, 
 are identical, and my aunt, Mrs. Ellerton, who 
 takes a special interest in genealogy, is con 
 vinced that you are a long-lost cousin. Aside 
 from the natural pride we should have in such a 
 connection, my aunt's hobby I warned her 
 that I should use the word is strong enough to 
 give the keenest zest to such an inquiry as she
 
 20 B Xfterarg Courtsbip 
 
 bids me make, even were the bearer of our family 
 name quite unknown to fame. 
 
 " To come to the point. My quite incalcul 
 ably great grandfather came to America in 1625 
 and was one of the founders of the New Haven 
 colony. His wife was Lilian Leslie, and the 
 name has continued in the family in each suc 
 ceeding generation. One of his descendants, 
 our own ancestor, was an officer in the colonial 
 army, and fell in an Indian skirmish ; poor boy ! 
 He was barely twenty-one. His widow seems to 
 have been too much engrossed with her one 
 child to have fashed herself about family con 
 nections, whereby she unwittingly incurred the 
 censure of posterity as represented in her very 
 great granddaughter, my aunt. For, through 
 her indifference to these vital matters, she 
 appears quite to have lost track of her husband's 
 only brother, William, whom my aunt persists 
 in considering the founder of a collateral branch. 
 This William, being at the time unmarried, re 
 moved to New York State, where he may, for 
 aught we know, have fallen a victim to the Iro- 
 quois ; though my aunt is unwilling to give him 
 up. She is convinced that if New York were 
 not such a large State, and if it did not harbor so 
 many Lambs, and if those hitherto examined 
 had not betrayed such astounding ignorance in 
 the matter of genealogy, she would certainly
 
 tber XfUan 21 
 
 have discovered valuable cousins before this. 
 As it is, her efforts have hitherto been fruitless, 
 and I leave you to imagine her joy when she 
 suddenly sees the possibility of success. A new 
 Lamb of any description is always exhilarating, 
 but a Lilian Leslie Lamb exceeds her fondest 
 hopes. 
 
 ' ' You will perhaps be interested to know what 
 manner of people we are. I am happy in being 
 able to assure you that we are extremely respect 
 able, crime and abject poverty being alike 
 unknown among us. The conventional black 
 sheep has appeared occasionally within our fold 
 and has been prayed over or disowned accord 
 ing to the temper of his immediate victims. As 
 a family we run to the ministry, though one 
 judge, a generation back, and a plucky young 
 colonel, who was killed in the war of the Rebel 
 lion, form a picturesque variation. A less pic 
 turesque variation occurred in the person of my 
 own father, who went into copper. As he spent 
 most of his time in the West, and died when I 
 was a child, I never saw much of him. Indeed 
 I have no near relatives besides my aunt, and I 
 am free to confess that I should value a new 
 cousin highly. I ought to add, in view of your 
 talents, that neither my aunt nor I boasts a 
 shadow of one. In fact, we are very common 
 place sort of people. After this admission will
 
 22 B Xftcrarg Courtsbip 
 
 you still investigate the ease as far as may be 
 perfectly convenient ? I am assuming that you 
 have not, up to this time, occupied yourself very 
 much with family trees. And indeed it seems 
 hardly possible that any one woman should 
 have the taste and capacity for both genealogy 
 and literature. My aunt, at least, has not. 
 
 " Are there, then, any traditions in your family 
 which point to an ancestor migrating from New 
 Haven to New York in the seventeenth century ? 
 Do you know how far back the Leslie in your 
 name dates ? Also, are Henrys and Williams 
 prevalent in your family ? My ancestor was a 
 Henry. Have you any instances of dark hair 
 with blue eyes ? That combination has been 
 frequent among us. And, oh ! one thing more ! 
 You don't happen to know of a stray malachite 
 ear-ring among your people ? My aunt treasures 
 a hideous one of pre-historic date, and fondly 
 hopes to discover its mate in the New York 
 branch. Though why William Lamb should 
 have carried off an odd ear-ring, and one of 
 such extraordinary ugliness, to boot, is not quite 
 clear to my mind. 
 
 " I believe I am writing rather at random, for 
 I cannot imagine your reading as far as this. 
 But being under bonds to my aunt to tell the 
 whole story, I could not, in conscience, make 
 the letter shorter. I will offer no apologies, but
 
 Gbe tber Xiltan 23 
 
 leave you to make due allowance for the effect 
 of a famous name upou an obscure person. So 
 many people have actually asked me whether I 
 wrote Spoils that my respect for the judgment of 
 my fellow-creatures has perceptibly fallen. 
 " I remain, dear Miss Lamb, 
 " Very sincerely, 
 
 "Your would-be cousin, 
 
 " LILIAN LESLIE LAMB." 
 
 "Well, Jack," I said when I had 
 finished the perusal of this interesting 
 communication, " what are you going 
 to do about it ? " 
 
 "That is just the question." 
 
 ' ' You might keep up the correspond 
 ence." 
 
 " Francis Dickson, you ought to be 
 ashamed of yourself," cried John, with so 
 much warmth, that I was convinced that 
 he had had the same idea himself, and 
 that that was why he seemed so out of 
 sorts. Brunt has always had the impulses 
 of a Bohemian, together with the charac 
 ter of a gentleman, and they sometimes 
 conflict. 
 
 I knew that nothing could entertain
 
 24 & XiterarB Courteblp 
 
 him more than a correspondence such as 
 he might perfectly well have carried on 
 with this young lady, and no one ever the 
 wiser, and it did seem such a pity to lose 
 the fun, that I stood up for my suggestion 
 with some spirit. It may be that, under 
 lying my evil counsels, there was a con 
 fidence in John's invulnerability which 
 caused the role of tempter to sit lightly 
 upon my conscience. At any rate, I said, 
 with that dignity with which, under 
 certain circumstances, even a worm will 
 turn : "I fail to see that I have said any 
 thing to be ashamed of, John Brunt, and 
 I '11 thank you to treat my suggestions a 
 little less cavalierly. ' ' 
 
 Then, thinking I had vindicated my 
 claims to respect, I went on, more pleas 
 antly : "Come, John, let us talk the 
 thing over sensibly. Here is this young 
 lady, evidently a clever, wide-awake per 
 son, stranded in that heathenish West 
 of ours, with probably not the shadow 
 of intellectual stimulus or congenial 
 companionship. ' '
 
 tTbc tbcr Xilian 25 
 
 As I talked, each statement that I 
 made was so convincing to myself that 
 I seemed to come rapidly into possession 
 of facts on the subject hitherto unknown 
 to me. 
 
 " I really don't suppose, John, that she 
 has a being to speak to but that old crank 
 of an aunt, with her family trees and mala 
 chite ear-rings. ' ' 
 
 "She has but one of the ear-rings, 
 Dicky." 
 
 ' ' Oh ! she has got the other one on the 
 brain, which amounts to the same thing, ' ' 
 said I, for I had no idea of being so easily 
 put down. 
 
 ' ' Go ahead ! ' ' said John. ' ' Go ahead ! 
 Only I can't help wondering where you 
 learned so much about the family." 
 
 " My dear boy," I answered, quite con 
 descendingly, ' ' I am blessed with average 
 intelligence that is all. Now, here is 
 this poor girl, without a single interest in 
 life, utterly cut off from the great world 
 which is teeming with ' ' 
 
 ' ' Hold on I " cried John. ' ' You seem
 
 H Xiterarg Courtsfeip 
 
 to forget that she has read Spoils. She 
 can't starve on that." 
 
 " Yes, and evidently it has been an 
 epoch in her life," I hastened to say. 
 " Then think how much more inspiring 
 would be a correspondence with the 
 author of this Great Work." I found 
 myself speaking in capital letters. But 
 John did not seem particularly impressed. 
 
 ' ' And so you would advise me to pass 
 myself off for a woman in a correspond 
 ence with a young lady ? ' ' 
 
 " And why not? She is not likely to 
 unbosom herself to a total stranger, man 
 or woman. She won't talk of her private 
 affairs in such letters. And, after all, when 
 it comes to the point, you are a gentle 
 man, a man of the world, and a great 
 author. You will be giving her gold 
 when she is looking for silver. There is 
 no robbery in that." 
 
 Anybody else would have been rather 
 struck by my metaphor. I was myself. 
 But, bless you, Brunt does n't care any 
 thing about metaphors. He can reel them
 
 <S>tber XiHan 27 
 
 off by the yard. Why, in his essay on 
 ' ' Small Change ' ' in the Wherewithal 
 Series, they 're as thick as spatters. The 
 very title is a metaphor, and he does not 
 make any more of them than a carpenter 
 does of shavings. 
 
 I talked on in this strain for some time, 
 till at last John burst out with a fine dis 
 play of impatience. 
 
 ' ' Don't talk bosh any more, Dick. I 'm 
 going to write my answer and be done 
 with it. Come, get out of that ! " With 
 which he coolly turned me out of my own 
 chair, and sat down at my desk, where he 
 immediately fell to scratching away for 
 dear life. 
 
 " I hope the other Lilian has better 
 manners than you," I remarked, but I 
 am afraid it was lost upon him. 
 
 Before he got through the rascal had 
 torn up three or four sheets of my best 
 Crane's Distaff note-paper, to which he 
 was helping himself, with admirable as 
 surance. Not that I minded the paper, 
 though writing paper does happen to be
 
 28 B XtterarE Courtsbip 
 
 my pet economy. I suppose everybody 
 nas one. John's, by the way, is matches. 
 But it was so unusual to see John make 
 a mess of a letter that it amused me. 
 
 At last he wheeled around and held out 
 the following specimen of epistolary art : 
 
 "Mv DEAR Miss LAMB : 
 
 " Your kind and cousinly letter is just at hand, 
 and it is with genuine regret that I find myself 
 obliged to disclaim a relationship which I should 
 be proud to own. I fear your aunt Mrs. Eller- 
 ton will think me the most unprincipled of 
 women when I confess that the name which 
 graces the title-page of my book is only a noin- 
 de-plume, selected on account of its smooth and 
 flowing qualities. It had not occurred to me 
 that a signature chosen and combined for purely 
 aesthetic reasons, might already exist, as a fam 
 ily name, and I can only offer my sincere apolo 
 gies to you for the liberty I have unwittingly 
 taken. Meanwhile I cannot wholly regret a 
 misunderstanding to which I owe the welcome 
 assurance that my book has pleased you. Un 
 known to me as you are, your letter convinces 
 me that you are one whose approval I should 
 value. 
 
 "Allow me to add, that, as it is my earnest 
 wish to preserve a complete incognito, my pub-
 
 tber !!LiIian 29 
 
 lishers themselves not being aware that my 
 name is assumed, I shall rely upon your be 
 traying only to your aunt, the fact that I am 
 sailing under false colors. 
 
 " Under which circumstances, it is with un 
 feigned contrition that I continue to sign my 
 self, 
 
 "Though most sincerely yours, 
 
 " LILIAN LESWE I/AMB." 
 
 " How 's that ? ' ' asked John, who had 
 been drumming the table during my 
 thoughtful perusal of the letter. 
 
 ' ' I should think that would settle the 
 matter," said I. 
 
 ' ' What do you mean ? ' ' 
 
 ' ' I don't think you will hear from them 
 again." 
 
 " It does n't sound rude, I hope." 
 
 " Rude ! Quite the contrary. In fact 
 I think it sounds a little chivalrous for a 
 woman. But they won't suspect any 
 thing. And anyhow you certainly have 
 not left the sign of an opening for another 
 letter." 
 
 1 ' How about the handwriting ? ' ' 
 
 "That smallish literary hand has n't
 
 30 a Xiteran? Couttsbip 
 
 any gender. Besides, I don't know 
 whether you meant to or not, but 
 you 've minced your writing out of all 
 nature." 
 
 " That 's so," said he. " But I did it 
 without thinking. ' ' 
 
 He seemed somewhat depressed, but 
 he sealed the letter with my crest, by 
 the way, and after he had put it into 
 the bag for the office boy to post, he 
 cheered up and I supposed he would for 
 get all about it.
 
 IV. 
 
 POEMS, BY JOVE ! 
 
 T HAVE often speculated as to why 
 * Brunt had so much feeling about that 
 letter. I never felt quite sure whether it 
 was the handwriting or only Fate. As 
 nearly everything in the world is Fate, 
 everything, at least, but out and out 
 pigheadedness T suppose that it was Fate 
 that did it. Still John was always a lit 
 tle conceited about his discrimination in 
 regard to handwriting, and Miss Lamb's 
 was about the best I have ever seen. It
 
 32 B Xiterarg Gourtsbip 
 
 had not only style and legibility, but un 
 usual individuality. I only wish I could 
 show it to you, but naturally I have not 
 the originals of her letters. 
 
 There ! Now, I have got ahead of my 
 story ! For I had meant to convey the 
 impression at this point, that that was the 
 end of the correspondence, as I am sure 
 it ought to have been. I was intending 
 to go on and give, with a few light 
 touches, a sketch of Brunt as a society 
 man ; for he was quite stunning when he 
 laid himself out, and I did not know but 
 that I could remember some of the hits 
 he made at the Van Deusenberg dinner 
 the very next evening. But now that 
 you know the correspondence went on, 
 you will, of course, be in a hurry to hear 
 about that, and you will not want to be 
 told what Brunt was saying to some other 
 girl whom you are not interested in. I 
 think myself that a story is always a bore 
 when it interrupts itself. Only I wish 
 you had been at the dinner, as I was, 
 to hear the discussion on Spoils. A
 
 poems, bg Jove ! 33 
 
 hostess would have been mortified to 
 have given a dinner that year, in the 
 course of which Spoils did not get 
 talked about. They were comparing the 
 book with something of Thackeray's, 
 and Brunt would not hear of its holding 
 a candle to Thackeray. In the heat of 
 discussion, he said such severe things 
 about the new novel that my neighbor 
 confided to me that it only showed how 
 jealous all the men were of Lilian L,eslie 
 lyamb ! 
 
 Three weeks elapsed before the next let 
 ter came, and it was much more of a sur 
 prise to Brunt and me than it can possibly 
 be to you, since you are prepared for it. 
 The letter was a thick one, and I could 
 hardly wait for John to put in an appear 
 ance at my office, which he had proposed 
 doing that morning as he was expecting 
 to hear from the Sandersons in regard to a 
 ninth edition. I knew Miss L,amb's writ 
 ing directly, of course. No one could 
 ever mistake it. Brunt was as surprised 
 as I had counted upon his being, and he
 
 34 S Xitcrarc Gourtsbtp 
 
 let the Sandersons' letter wait while he 
 opened the Colorado one. 
 
 " Poems, by Jove ! " he cried, and his 
 face fell. " Ten to one they 're trash." 
 
 As he spoke a half-sheet slipped to the 
 floor and I picked it up. It was a poem 
 to " The Solitary Sandpiper," beginning : 
 
 " Daintiest spirit of the wilderness, 
 Prettiest fancy ever taught to fly." 
 
 I thought the verses mighty good, and 
 I was pleased, afterward, when I found 
 that John liked them too. 
 
 " Are they her poems ? " I asked. 
 
 "She says not," he growled, "but 
 here, I will read you what she writes." 
 Which he proceeded to do, with occa 
 sional comments thrown in. 
 
 The letter began, " My dear Miss 
 I,amb," without any allusion to the name 
 being assumed, which I thought in very 
 good taste. 
 
 The letter went on as follows : 
 
 "How you will regret the courtesy with which 
 you responded to my first letter, when you find
 
 poems, bg 3ox>e! 35 
 
 that it has brought upon you another, and a far 
 more troublesome one. I can imagine your 
 consternation at sight of the enclosed poems, 
 and I am well aware that my conduct in sending 
 them to you is unjustifiable. When I say that 
 I am sacrificing your convenience on the altar 
 of a friendship of my own it will hardly seem 
 to mitigate the wrong. Nevertheless, I throw 
 myself upon your mercy. These poems are the 
 work of one of my friends. She has written 
 them from time to time in years past as a con 
 genial exercise of her faculties rather than 
 from any more ambitious motive. They seem 
 to me to be not without value. My judgment, 
 to be sure, does not count for much ; yet hith 
 erto I have known no one to whom I was will 
 ing to submit it in this matter. Bver since 
 your letter came I have been possessed with the 
 desire to have you see my friend's poems. I 
 speak of her thus impersonally, in considera 
 tion of her wish to conceal her identity, a 
 feeling with which you, my dear Miss Lamb, 
 must surely sympathize." 
 
 At this point the reader coughed 
 slightly, but resumed : 
 
 "My friend's reticence in this respect is due 
 to her extreme modesty " 
 
 ' ' Please observe that she does not, at
 
 36 a ILfteran? Courtebip 
 
 this point, pursue the comparison," John 
 remarked in parenthesis 
 
 " to her extreme modesty, which indeed is 
 so fixed that it partakes of the nature of ob 
 stinacy. Yet a taste of success would certainly 
 be a very deep gratification to one whose life 
 has made her more familiar with disappoint 
 ment and suffering than with brighter experi 
 ences. Will you, then, do me the favor which 
 I ask ? Will you read the poems I send you, 
 and then, if your opinion of them should be 
 favorable, will you give me a word of advice 
 as to the best disposition to be made of them? 
 The four poems enclosed are, I think, fairly 
 representative of the whole collection. I am 
 aware that we cannot expect their publication 
 to prove a lucrative venture. The most we 
 hope is, that they may pay their own way. 
 We shall not look for an immediate reply. 
 Should you be so good as to accede to my 
 request, let me beg you to do so at such time 
 as shall render the service least burdensome 
 to you. 
 
 " Yours very sincerely, 
 
 " LILIAN LESLIE LAMB." 
 
 " Do you take any stock in the friend, 
 Jack?" Tasked.
 
 poems, bg Jove! 37 
 
 " Not much," said he, with a sceptical 
 scowl. 
 
 " You know she said in the first letter 
 that she had n't any talents." 
 
 "She said she didn't boast any." 
 
 ' ' Great Scott ! Jack, what a memory 
 you have ! ' ' 
 
 He was reading the poems with very 
 respectful interest I thought, handing 
 them to me as he finished them. Besides 
 the " Sandpiper," there was a fanciful 
 little love song, a sonnet which I could n't 
 make much of, and the " Ballad of the 
 Prairie Schooner," which has since be 
 come so popular. I could see that Brunt 
 was a good deal impressed, and I didn't 
 wonder. He read them all through sev 
 eral times and then he read the letter 
 again. He always had a way of going 
 on j ust as though I had not been by, which 
 made everything very free and easy be 
 tween us. 
 
 "Well, what do you think of them ? " 
 I asked, when he had had time to take 
 them all in.
 
 38 B literary Courtsbtp 
 
 "I think them good," said he. "If 
 the rest average as high, I should think 
 they might stand on their own legs. ' ' 
 
 ' ' Shall you write and tell her so ? " 
 
 ' ' What I should like would be to see 
 the lot. But, confound it ! that would 
 involve a regular correspondence, and I 
 should feel like a sneak and a villain." 
 
 "You don't want to make a clean 
 breast of it?" 
 
 "No, I don't, " he answered curtly. 
 
 " You might refer her to your friend, 
 John Brunt. I 'm sure if she has read 
 your essay on ' ' Verse versus Verse, ' ' 
 she will have confidence in your judg 
 ment." 
 
 " Not such a bad idea, " said John. 
 
 "An uncommonly good idea, if you 
 would give a fellow his dues," said I. 
 
 " The handwriting is rather a hitch." 
 
 " Have n't you got a fellow copying for 
 you somewhere? Make him write the 
 Brunt letters." 
 
 " He can't sign for me." 
 
 ' ' You can sign for yourself. You write
 
 poems, bg Jove! 39 
 
 your name very differently from anything 
 else. There is something quite reckless 
 about your capital 'J,' and you wouldn't 
 give Browning or Bismarck such a genial 
 ' B ' as you put into Brunt." 
 
 On second thoughts, however, he con 
 cluded that he would rather risk detection 
 than do anything so roundabout as have 
 an amanuensis, and, after much consulta 
 tion, we agreed that if he continued to 
 write extra small in his character as 
 Miss L,amb, and if he were to exaggerate 
 his own hand when it came time to 
 assume the more familiar role of John 
 Brunt, there would be nothing to excite 
 suspicion. And events justified our con 
 fidence. 
 
 In his next letter, John, in the character 
 of Miss L,amb, asked to be addressed, 
 
 " Care of F. Dickson, Esq., " 
 which I thought indicated a greater im 
 patience to receive his correspondent's 
 future letters than literary people usually 
 feel when appealed to in such a matter.
 
 V. 
 
 HINTS AND GUESSES. 
 
 TT all came about very naturally the 
 correspondence with John, I mean. 
 The two Miss Lambs agreed to turn all 
 the manuscript over to Mr. Brunt, and in 
 due course of time a package arrived, the 
 size and weight of which would certainly 
 have appalled a stouter heart than mine. 
 Brunt, however, received it without 
 flinching, and set to work, reading the 
 contents, with very much the same dogged 
 vim he used to put into his semi-an 
 nual ' ' cram ' ' at college. Only I doubt 
 whether he ever found his Virgil or his 
 Homer as interesting reading as these 
 latest productions of the modern Muse.
 
 feints an& Guesses 41 
 
 His good opinion of the poems was, on 
 the whole, confirmed, though he was 
 rather taken aback by the character of 
 some of them. An occasional note of 
 bitterness was struck, which accorded ill 
 with the easy tone of the author's letters 
 the author's letters, I say, for, with 
 the best intentions, we could not fail to 
 penetrate the thin disguise which Miss 
 Lamb had chosen to throw about her 
 identity. Happily, the misanthropic ones 
 were of inferior merit, so that Brunt did 
 not think it best to include them in the 
 collection. But, as he said, their lack of 
 artistic merit simply went to prove that 
 they were a direct expression of a mood, 
 which, though not poetical, was all the 
 more likely to be real. If the public 
 knew what he had spared them, they 
 would be eternally grateful. As it is, I 
 think all will admit that those pieces 
 which he did select for publication, were 
 well worth while. Take, for instance, 
 the sonnet called "Knighted." Any 
 one who is in the way of reading poetry
 
 Xfterarg Courtsbfp 
 
 must be familiar with it. It is the only 
 sonnet I ever went in for, but I think it 
 regularly great. John says it 's not one 
 of the best of t~he collection. He talks 
 learnedly about the last two lines being a 
 couplet, and says it gives the poem the 
 flavor of an epigram. Flavor of fiddle 
 sticks ! I say it 's mighty good poetry, 
 and most any fellow would like to have 
 something similar written in honor of 
 him / 
 
 But I must not go into the poems too 
 much, for they are open to every one now. 
 It is needless to say that John found a 
 publisher for them. He usually does 
 what he sets out to do, and, besides, the 
 things only needed a friendly push in the 
 beginning. The point of interest, as far 
 as we are concerned, is the correspondence 
 brought about by them. 
 
 Once launched in a straightforward cor 
 respondence in his own name, Brunt came 
 out strong, and he conducted it with such 
 skill as to draw the young lady out on 
 more subjects than the main one. His
 
 feints an& (Buesses 43 
 
 own letters would, I am sure, have been 
 a mine of gold to any one, and Miss Lamb 
 clearly found them so. As he proceeded 
 to toss one nugget after another before 
 her, the reserve with which she had 
 entered upon the correspondence the 
 correspondence with John Brunt, you 
 understand gradually wore off, and she 
 began sending him letters which were 
 quite up to those she received. I say the 
 reserve wore off, by which I mean that 
 she began writing more fully upon this or 
 that topic of general interest which John 
 happened to broach in his letters. Yet 
 when her correspondent happened upon 
 any subject which she did not choose to 
 follow up she could be as evasive as the 
 Sphinx. Her letters to John were singu 
 larly impersonal. It was an interesting 
 study to note the difference between those 
 and the ones addressed to the fictitious 
 Miss I,amb, to whom she occasionally 
 wrote to report progress. The letters to 
 John were longer and more varied, yet 
 after reading a short note to " Miss
 
 44 B Xtterarg Courtsbip 
 
 Lamb " we were both aware of having got 
 a glimpse of the writer's personality, such 
 as volumes of her letters to John would 
 not have yielded. 
 
 What lent an added zest to our interest 
 in Miss Iamb's letters was the skilful 
 manoeuvres by which the writer sought to 
 conceal her identity with the author of 
 the poems or again, the cool and imper 
 sonal tone in which she wrote of them. 
 In reference to a set of L,ove Sonnets 
 which John thinks particularly good, the 
 "I/ove Sonnets of Constance, " she wrote: 
 
 ' ' My friend was averse to offering these 
 as well as some of the other pieces for 
 publication lest they should be thought to 
 be autobiographical. But I made haste to 
 remind her that, as she would never be 
 identified as the author, it could make no 
 possible difference what people might 
 think." 
 
 " If that is n't a pretty bit of defiance," 
 John said. " The worst of it is, it con 
 vinces me that the poems in question are 
 autobiographical. ' '
 
 t>tnts and nesses 45 
 
 " Why ' the worst of it,' Jack ? What 
 do you care about the state of mind of a 
 woman you never set eyes upon ? ' ' 
 
 "Oh, I don't care, of course, only 
 blighted beings are not in my line." - 
 
 But this particular ' ' blighted being ' ' 
 proved to be very much in his line. He 
 was just the man to feel the charm of a 
 good letter, and, furthermore, he could 
 never resist the fascination of an unproved 
 point. We assumed that she was the 
 author of the poems, but we were not in 
 possession of certainty on the subject. 
 Her age was also a much mooted question 
 until we were lucky enough to get posi 
 tive evidence on that point. The experi 
 enced tone of many of the poems had led 
 us to think that she must be an older 
 woman than we had at first supposed, but 
 a chance conversation with Jim Arnold, 
 the doctor, cleared that up for us. 
 
 It happened that Arnold dropped in at 
 my rooms one evening and found Spoils 
 lying on the table. I had been looking 
 it through, as I often do to this day.
 
 46 H Xfterarg Gourtsbip 
 
 The beauty of Spoils is that it is such 
 good reading ! Arnold's eye happened 
 to fall upon it, and he said he had often 
 wondered whether its author might not 
 be the Lilian Lamb he had known as a 
 child, years ago when he was visiting in 
 Connecticut. 
 
 ' ' I was staying with one of my class 
 mates," he said, " whose father's country 
 place adjoined that of Mr. Louis Kllerton, 
 a man who owned good horses. This 
 Lilian Lamb was a niece of the Kller- 
 tons, a small child in a long-sleeved 
 gingham apron, who was forever riding 
 horseback on the branches of an old ap 
 ple tree behind the house. One day her 
 aged steed gave way, and down she 
 tumbled with a broken arm. The village 
 doctor was non est cumatibus, and I was 
 called in to set the arm. I was a green 
 hand and had n't got my surgical nerves 
 in training. I thought the child would 
 scream, and I was scared blue. It was 
 a hateful fracture and it must have hurt 
 atrociously. But the little thing bore it
 
 t>tnts and Ouesses 47 
 
 like a soldier, and when I got through 
 she said, ' Thank you, Doctor,' with the 
 sweetest little quaver of a smile. You 
 don't often see a girl of seven or eight 
 with the pluck of a soldier and the man 
 ners of a lady. A thing like that shows 
 brains as well as nerves, and I would give 
 a good deal to know whether she wrote 
 Spoils." 
 
 I did not volunteer any information on 
 the subject. I was occupied with a sim 
 ple sum in addition, by means of which I 
 discovered that Miss I^amb could not then 
 be more than twenty-five years of age. 
 
 John was greatly taken with the tale 
 of the broken arm, which I made haste 
 to pass over to him. But the fact of the 
 young lady's youth did not shake his 
 conviction that she wrote the poems. 
 
 "A woman like that," he said, " might 
 have found time for plenty of experi 
 ences before she was twenty-five years 
 old. She would probably make no more 
 outcry over a broken heart than over 
 a broken arm, and I can imagine
 
 48 n Xfterarg Gourtsbtp 
 
 her being the best of company, when 
 she was in the very thick of it. But 
 if she happened to have a taste for 
 writing she might take a fancy to put on 
 paper what wild horses would not have 
 dragged from her lips ; and once having 
 written such poetry as hers, she would 
 have been more or less than human if she 
 could have kept it to herself." 
 
 " I can fancy just what kind of a girl 
 she is, ' ' John told me one day. ' ' She is 
 probably rather plain, but with a good 
 deal of brilliancy of expression and a 
 touch of cynicism in her face and in her 
 talk. A flattering manner, I should 
 say, but with the heart a little gone out 
 of it. Just a little. Everybody would n't 
 notice it. ' ' 
 
 " Only it could n't escape a student of 
 human nature like you, Jack." 
 
 " Nor a master of satire like you, 
 Francis. No, we should not be de 
 ceived." 
 
 And John pursued the correspondence 
 with unabated vigor.
 
 Ibfnts anfc nesses 49 
 
 It is really a great pity that I have n't 
 those letters, for, without having read 
 them, it would be difficult to conceive of 
 two sane men taking the step we perpe 
 trated later on. As it was, the letters 
 led up to it very naturally. 
 
 As the time for the appearance of 
 the poems approached, Brunt began to 
 urge upon Miss I/amb the necessity for 
 furnishing some sort of nom-de-plume to 
 distinguish the book from any other 
 collection labelled simply Verses. Here 
 is her answer : 
 
 MY DEAR MR. BRUNT : 
 
 You are perfectly right in requiring a 
 distinguishing name for either the book or the 
 author, and I have at last persuaded my friend 
 to choose one for herself. She proposes to be 
 called ' Leslie Smith.' The Leslie she adopts 
 out of compliment to me. The Smith for the 
 sake of obscurity. It seems to me rather a good 
 combination, and, as for my own share in it, I 
 am so puffed up by having my name for a sec 
 ond time associated with literature, that I am 
 almost ready to take it as an omen of distinc 
 tion. I shall not even be surprised to find my 
 self perpetrating a literary feat one of these
 
 50 B Xitcrars Courtsbip 
 
 days. When I do, I shall insist upon Miss 
 Lamb's rendering up her own name for my use. 
 Do you think she would ? It would be no more 
 than a fair exchange". I only hope it is a name 
 I should fancy. Marion de Montmorency or 
 something like that, high-sounding and im 
 pressive. For I propose to write nothing less 
 than an immortal epic." 
 
 "That's a good one," I shouted, as 
 John read me this part of the letter. 
 "Confess, Jack, that is the first time a 
 girl ever asked you, outright, to bestow 
 your name upon her." 
 
 John laughed too, but with a slightly 
 preoccupied air. 
 
 I ' I rather wonder that she should have 
 ventured on the Leslie," he said, "but 
 it makes a good name. There is contrast 
 enough in it to make it hold together." 
 
 The poems of Leslie Smith were to ap 
 pear early in January. It was not prac 
 ticable to get them out for the holidays, 
 and John said that was of no consequence. 
 They were poems which would require 
 time before they could gain general rec 
 ognition. If there should be a demand
 
 feints anfc Guesses 51 
 
 for them by the next holiday season it 
 would be as much as we could hope for. 
 The business preliminaries being pretty 
 well settled early in October, there seemed 
 to be no special reason for keeping up so 
 lively a correspondence as before. John 
 evidently regretted this, and he cudgelled 
 his brains for pretexts for writing. I do 
 not mean that the letters ceased coming al 
 together, but there were pauses and John 
 fretted. I was not surprised, about this 
 time, to find him dwelling a good deal 
 upon the winter climate in Colorado. He 
 managed to beat up considerable infor 
 mation on the subject, and it all tended to 
 prove that the man who had not seen 
 Pike's Peak in mid- winter was a fit sub 
 ject for commiseration. That, at least, 
 was the drift of his communications to 
 me. Preparing my mind, as I afterward 
 learned, for his grand coup.
 
 _,-' 
 
 VI. 
 
 THE PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 day about the middle of Novem- 
 her, John stalked into my office with 
 his most determined air. If any one were 
 to ask me what I consider to be John 
 Brunt's chief characteristic, I should say 
 it was determination. I have a will of 
 my own, as many people would readily 
 testify. In fact, I have, in my own fam 
 ily, a reputation for being rather stub 
 born. But, Great Caesar ! I am a mush 
 of concession compared to John when
 
 Gbe pilgrimage 53 
 
 once he has an idea. So when he marched 
 into my office that morning, there did n' t 
 happen to be any clients at the moment 
 I was curious to know what he was after. 
 I could see that he was in good spirits to 
 begin with. 
 
 "Hollo, Dick!" said he. "I hope 
 that 's not a brief that I 'm interrupting." 
 
 It was in reality a letter to my father, 
 thanking him for a very opportune re 
 mittance. But I did not think it neces 
 sary to explain, and I got it out of sight, 
 saying, carelessly: "Never mind, old 
 fellow ! I 'm not pressed for time." 
 
 John grinned, in a way I did not alto 
 gether like, and sat down on the arm of 
 a chair. 
 
 "Well, Dick," he said, without more 
 ado, ' ' where do you suppose you and I are 
 likely to be, week after next at this time ? ' ' 
 
 "If we are together," I replied, "we 
 are likely to be in this office." 
 
 ' ' You ' re out there ! " he cried. ' ' Bet 
 ter guess again." 
 
 ' ' Perhaps you know more of my future
 
 54 B Xfterarg Courtsbtp 
 
 movements than I do," said I, pretending 
 to resent his assumption. 
 
 " You may bet your hat I do ! " 
 
 Sometimes when Brunt is in the very 
 best of spirits, he relapses into the baldest 
 slang. To rest his English, he explains. 
 
 " Bless you, Dick," I 've heard him say, 
 " you don't want to drive a willing horse 
 to death I should n't have any English 
 left if I squandered it on you ! ' ' 
 
 " Perhaps you would be kind enough 
 to enlighten me as to my immediate fu 
 ture," said I. 
 
 ' ' Of course I will. That ' s just what I 
 looked in for," and he glanced at me 
 quizzically, yet I fancied a little doubt 
 fully too. 
 
 " Fire away," said I, "but just bear in 
 mind that the lease of this office has 
 another year to run. ' ' 
 
 John had walked to the window and 
 stood with his back planted against it, 
 fixing me with that look which I think I 
 have mentioned before, as though he were 
 taking aim.
 
 pilgrimage 55 
 
 "You and I," he announced with de 
 liberate emphasis, ' ' are to be in Colorado 
 don't interrupt me scaling Pike's 
 Peak, strolling through the Garden of the 
 Gods, where we shall probably pluck 
 Olympian bouquets, bowling over the 
 limitless prairies" this with a gland 
 'lourish, "penetrating into inaccessible 
 canons ' ' 
 
 ' ' And making the acquaintance of Miss 
 lyilian Leslie I^amb," I suggested with 
 a knowing smile. "It 's a good idea, 
 old man. Go, with my blessing, and 
 count upon my being with you in spirit. ' ' 
 
 " No, Dick ! I would n't give a nickle 
 for your spirit. It 's you I must have. 
 Flesh and blood are good enough for me. ' ' 
 
 ' ' You forget, my dear boy, that my 
 flesh and blood are indispensably neces 
 sary to my clients and also that the 
 railroad companies have an unconquer 
 able propensity to deplete the pocket- 
 books of flesh-and-blood travellers. Mine 
 is not plethoric. ' ' 
 
 ' ' Out again ! ' ' cried John. ' ' We are
 
 56 B Xiterarg Gouttsbtp 
 
 both going at the invitation of my friend, 
 Miss Lamb." 
 
 "At the invitation of Miss Lamb?" 
 said I, rather stupidly I confess. 
 
 "Certainly. Of Miss Lamb, the dis 
 tinguished novelist. If I am not too 
 proud to accept such an invitation from a 
 lady, why should you be ? A new batch 
 of four thousand is coming out for the 
 holidays, and she wishes her collaborator 
 that is, myself and her agent that 's 
 you, Dick to regard the proceeds as their 
 fair share of the plunder. She only stipu 
 lates that they shall enlarge their knowl 
 edge of the world, and especially of their 
 own country, by taking the proposed jour 
 ney, thus fitting themselves to 
 
 This being sheer bosh I put a stop to 
 it, and a lively discussion ensued. The 
 outcome of it was the triumph of Deter 
 mination over Common Sense, by means 
 of arguments which might be wearisome 
 if repeated. Only one fact can be of in 
 terest the fact that John's assertion was 
 correct, that we were actually in Col-
 
 ttbe pilgrimage 57 
 
 orado Springs within two weeks of the 
 time of that conversation. 
 
 Injustice to myself, I should add that 
 I am not in the habit of travelling about 
 at my friends' expense, but that seeing 
 how much John's heart was set upon my 
 going with him for he thinks more of 
 me than one would suppose at the first 
 blush, and I knew he would rather have 
 me along than any one else, and that it 
 would be rather slow music to go alone 
 considering that, I say, and that I should 
 feel just as he did if the positions were 
 reversed, and that he really was uncom 
 monly flush just then (what a snarl a 
 fellow gets into, by the way, when he 
 talks apologetically ! ), I thought I might 
 as well go, if only to keep him in counte 
 nance. I must also confess that I shared 
 his interest in Miss I/amb so far as to feel 
 that Pike's Peak dwindled to a mere noth 
 ing in comparison.
 
 VII. 
 
 THE PRAIRIE. 
 
 T T was a glorious morning early in De- 
 * cember when we arrived in Colorado 
 Springs. In fact we never saw anything 
 but glorious weather during our stay. 
 We got there in the morning, and had a 
 solemn consultation as to whether we had 
 better present ourselves at Miss Lamb's 
 door before or after luncheor . We learned 
 that Mrs. Ellerton's house was only a few 
 blocks distant from our hotel, and having 
 fixed upon twelve o'clock as the latest
 
 prairie 59 
 
 hour for which we could possibly wait, 
 we seated ourselves upon the hotel piazza. 
 and endeavored to appreciate Pike's Peak. 
 It did not seem to us very high, and it did 
 seem uncommonly ugly, in spite of its 
 nightcap of snow. But we looked at it 
 hard for an hour, and then we started up 
 Cascade Avenue in search of the house 
 which was, properly speaking, the goal of 
 our two-thousand-mile pilgrimage. Miss 
 Lamb not having been warned of our 
 approach, John had written a sort of 
 note of introduction in that exaggerated 
 hand which he had adopted in all his cor 
 respondence for some months past. 
 
 We found the house without difficulty, 
 but we did not find the ladies. Mrs. 
 Ellerton was ' ' not at home, ' ' and Miss 
 Lamb was out riding. We left the note 
 and our cards, and turned away very 
 much chagrined. I think we both had 
 confidently expected to see Miss Lamb 
 open the door to us herself, holding a 
 half-finished sonnet in her left hand. 
 
 ' ' What idiots we were, ' ' said John.
 
 6o a iLfteratB Courtsbip 
 
 "Why idiots?" I asked. 
 
 " Never to have thought of her not be 
 ing at home." 
 
 ' ' Speak for yourself, ' ' said I. 
 
 At that moment a young woman on 
 horseback cantered past. 
 
 "That girl rides well," I exclaimed. 
 
 "That's she," said John, andhe turned 
 abruptly round to watch her, regardless 
 of manners. 
 
 " How do you know it is she ? " 
 
 "That is the way she would ride." 
 
 ' ' She does not look like the author of 
 those melancholy ditties," I objected. 
 
 ' ' No, but she looks like the author of 
 the jubilant ones. ' ' 
 
 We were walking slowly back, and 
 John was much elated at his own penetra 
 tion when the lady stopped in front of the 
 house we had just left, sprang lightly to 
 the ground, patted her horse's nose, 
 hitched him to the post, and went into the 
 house. We were not quite a block away, so 
 that we could see every movement plainly, 
 though the face was not discernible.
 
 ZTbe Praide 61 
 
 " She walks as well as she does every 
 thing else," said John. 
 
 ' ' Have you ever heard her play the 
 piano ? " I asked, satirically. 
 
 " I have an idea that she does n't play 
 the piano, ' ' he replied, with perfect seri 
 ousness. 
 
 We were absurdly disappointed. Here 
 we were in Colorado, and all we had got 
 for our pains thus far was Pike's Peak. 
 John swore he had never seen anything 
 half so hideous, and I quite agreed with 
 him. 
 
 As we came out from luncheon the 
 bell-boy handed Brunt a note. John's 
 face flushed up as he broke the seal. 
 
 ' ' She invites us both to dinner in the 
 name of her aunt, at half-past six this even 
 ing, ' ' he announced with a delighted grin. 
 
 "She 's a trump," said I. 
 
 We went for a ride ourselves that after 
 noon, out onto the plains. John said he 
 wanted to get away from Pike's Peak. 
 But when we turned to come back some 
 thing had happened.
 
 62 B Uiterarg Courtsbfp 
 
 " By Jove ! " we both cried in a breath, 
 "look at that" 
 
 There was Pike's Peak apparently 
 about fifty thousand feet high, with the 
 sun just disappearing behind him, while 
 to the southward another great mountain 
 stood out, warm and mellow with the 
 bloom of a damson plum upon it, and 
 farther south yet, in the dim distance, 
 there was a ghostly glimmering range of 
 snow mountains that we had not seen 
 before. To the northward all the hills 
 were a sort of navy-blue. 
 
 One thing I had determined not to do, 
 was to give any descriptions of scenery, 
 mainly because I don't know how. But, 
 upon my word, the bare facts of that sight 
 were miles ahead of any description. 
 The horses, too, had suddenly waked up, 
 and bounded over the plain at a great 
 rate. They kept abreast of each other in 
 good shape, and the gait was so easy and 
 so swift that we felt as though we were 
 in a ship at sea. 
 
 Suddenly John cried : "I say, Dick,
 
 prairie 63 
 
 let 's jell ! One, two, three ! " and at the 
 word we, lifted up our two voices and 
 shouted ylike wild Indians. Some cows 
 chewing gravel on a little elevation that we 
 happened to be passing for they have 
 nothing else to chew at that season lifted 
 their horned heads against the sky and 
 gazed at us reproachfully, and a couple 
 of prairie-dogs scampered across the plain 
 and popped into their holes ; but our un- 
 echoed shout reached no other ears, and 
 we cantered on, much relieved by it. 
 
 It was dark before we got back, and a 
 young moon appeared, tilting over the 
 black shoulder of Pike's Peak, south of 
 the nightcap. We and the horses calmed 
 down and came in quite cool.
 
 VIII. 
 
 WITHIN THE PORTIERES. 
 
 A N hour later, having hung up our 
 " overcoats in Mrs. Ellerton's hall, 
 we turned to see two figures coming 
 through the portieres, and while the elder 
 lady greeted me without venturing a 
 guess as to which of us was which, Miss 
 L,amb met John with extended hand, say 
 ing very warmly : ' ' You are Mr. Brunt, 
 I am sure. ' '
 
 Gdftbfn tbe portieres 65 
 
 I thought it an unfair discrimination 
 though it was accidentally correct. John, 
 to be sure, is bigger than- 1, but why 
 should a big man be any more likely than 
 one of more modest proportions to be a 
 literary light ? The worst of it was that 
 John, when I sounded him later, would 
 not own to having felt flattered. He 
 seemed to take it for granted that she 
 should know him at sight quite as 
 though he had been labelled ' ' distin 
 guished author." But she was very nice 
 to me too, and we both felt at home im 
 mediately. John took the aunt in to 
 dinner and I the niece, but it really made 
 no difference, as there were only four of 
 us. 
 
 This would be the moment to describe 
 the two ladies if descriptions were in my 
 line. Mrs. Ellerton, I thought, would 
 have been a trifle commonplace if she 
 had not been so perfectly well-bred ; but 
 perfect breeding is perhaps too unusual 
 to leave its possessor quite without dis 
 tinction.
 
 66 a ILiterarg Courtsbtp 
 
 Miss I^amb, with the black hair and 
 blue eyes she had described, was not an 
 out-and-out beauty, and yet I thought 
 her uncommonly good-looking. John 
 said, afterward, that she had frank eyes 
 and a reserved mouth, and that that was 
 why he liked her. I was amused at his 
 definiteness, for I privately believed that, 
 with his preconceived ideas, a frank 
 mouth and reserved eyes would have 
 pleased him just as well. What I liked 
 about her was her self-possession and her 
 cordiality. You felt her good-breeding, 
 while there was that in her manner which 
 made you think that she thought as much 
 of you as she did of herself. But all this 
 splitting of hairs is not in my line, and I 
 will endeavor to confine myself to facts, 
 one of which ie that Miss Lamb had 
 long black eyelashes, which were highly 
 becoming to the blue eyes. 
 
 John's visit, thanks to Mrs. Ellerton, 
 was not wholly untroubled by embarrass 
 ment, and I wish I could describe his face 
 when that good lady said to him :
 
 TKHitbin tbc portieres 67 
 
 " Do tell us, Mr. Brunt, something 
 about Miss L,amb." 
 
 " Miss Lamb that is n't," her niece ex 
 plained. " It is not fair, Mr. Brunt, to 
 put your discretion to such a test. ' ' 
 
 " Thank you," Brunt answered grate 
 fully. " Mr. Dickson and I are in rather 
 a difficult position." 
 
 " Not at all," said I, cheerfully, think 
 ing that the situation was worth working 
 up. "We shall be happy to tell you 
 anything about Miss Lamb which does 
 not involve her identity. What would 
 you like to know ? ' ' 
 
 "Oh, everything," said Mrs. Eller- 
 ton, hospitablv. "Was Spoils her first 
 novel ? ' ' 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 ' ' Remarkable young woman ! And is 
 she delighted with her success ? ' ' 
 
 ' ' There can be no doubt of that. ' ' 
 
 ' ' How old a woman is she ? ' ' 
 
 ' ' About thirty-five. ' ' 
 
 ' ' Come, Dick, do you think that 's quite 
 fair ? ' ' John remonstrated.
 
 68 a literary Courtsbip 
 
 "Why not?" said I, airily. "The 
 age wont identify her. There are plenty 
 of women of thirty-five. ' ' 
 
 "Is she handsome? " asked Miss Lamb, 
 with a smile. She was evidently amused 
 at John's discomfiture. 
 
 ' ' That is a question for you to answer, 
 John," said I. "You're a better judge 
 than I." 
 
 But instead of embarrassing him, this 
 bold-faced attack on my part seemed to 
 put John on his mettle, and he answered 
 composedly : " She is very beautiful." 
 
 ' ' Dark or fair ? ' ' asked Miss Lamb. 
 
 "A delicate blonde," John replied, 
 with a perfectly straight face. " She has 
 dreamy dark eyes but her skin is fair as 
 a lily, and her hair is of that exquisite gold 
 which seldom lasts into middle life. I 
 have known her for years, and it seems to 
 me she is as absolutely beautiful as she 
 was when she was a girl." 
 
 " Very unlike one's idea of a middle- 
 aged authoress, " Mrs. Ellerton remarked ; 
 while Miss Lamb gave John a furtively
 
 TKHltbfn tbe portfires 69 
 
 penetrating look. An inscrutable smile 
 played about her lips. She clearly fan 
 cied that Mr. Brunt was betraying a 
 deeper interest in the ' ' delicate blonde ' ' 
 than he intended. 
 
 "Exactly," said John, in answer to 
 Mrs. Ellerton's remark. ' ' That is doubt 
 less one reason why she has been so suc 
 cessful in maintaining her incognito." 
 
 " Is she of good family ? " queried the 
 genealogical aunt. 
 
 " I do not know much about her ante 
 cedents. She lives with an invalided 
 father to whom she has devoted her life. ' ' 
 
 ' ' Is she unmarried ? ' ' Mrs. Ellerton 
 asked, with growing interest. 
 
 ' ' Yes, ' ' said I, not wishing to be wholly 
 left out of the conversation. 
 
 ' ; She is much sought, ' ' Brunt answered. 
 " Mr. Dickson, for instance, worships the 
 ground she walks on. In fact, we are 
 all more or less her slaves. ' ' 
 
 "John," said I, with emphasis, " I 
 question whether my esteem for her is 
 equal to yours. ' '
 
 70 a XtterarB Courtsbip 
 
 " Possibly not," he admitted ; " I only 
 said that you adored her. ' ' 
 
 ' ' And does any one besides yourselves 
 suspect the authorship ? ' ' asked Miss 
 Lamb. 
 
 "No," John answered. "Even her 
 father is in ignorance of it. In fact," he 
 went on, giving rein to his inventiveness, 
 " it is out of consideration to him that she 
 keeps the secret. He has a morbid horror 
 of female celebrities. You could hardly 
 deal him a more cruel blow than to tell 
 him that it is his daughter who has written 
 the book which is making such a stir. ' ' 
 
 "An aristocratic trait I am sure," said 
 Mrs. Ellerton, complacently. "My father 
 would have had the same feeling. ' ' 
 
 " Mine would n't have," said her niece. 
 " I am sure, from what I remember of 
 him, that papa would have been perfectly 
 delighted with a talented daughter. ' ' 
 
 " My poor brother was very Western, 
 you know," Mrs. Ellerton sighed. 
 "Copper is so levelling," she added, 
 turning to me for sympathy.
 
 "GUWbtn tbe portieres 71 
 
 I have not mentioned it before, but I 
 am said to have rather an aristocratic 
 turn of countenance ; a thing which prob 
 ably invited the confidence of the genea 
 logical aunt. I should, of course, prefer 
 to be like Brunt, rugged and imposing, 
 but if one must be on a smaller scale, one 
 likes to have the qualities of one's defects. 
 
 By this time I, for one, was quite in a 
 daze. But I reflected that the best thing 
 I could do was to try and believe in the 
 mythical Miss I,anib John had so vividly 
 depicted, and I think it was this distinct 
 image in my mind which kept me from 
 making a mess of the secret on several 
 subsequent occasions. 
 
 Meanwhile it seemed a pity to. let slip 
 so good an opportunity of getting a little 
 information ourselves, so I presently said : 
 "I wish, Mrs. EHerton, you would re 
 ciprocate by telling us something about 
 Leslie Smith the coming poet. ' ' 
 
 "I only wish I could," said Mrs. Bl- 
 lerton, ' ' but I really have n't the least idea 
 who she is. Lilian is so secret about it
 
 that I begin to suspect her of having 
 written the poems herself, and to regret 
 that I did not persevere in my attempt to 
 read them all." 
 
 Miss Lamb listened without a shadow 
 of self-consciousness, and said: "Don't 
 be alarmed, Aunt Bessie. You will never 
 have to blush over the discovery of a 
 genius under your own roof. ' ' 
 
 We both pondered that speech and we 
 both fitted it in our own minds with the 
 same adjective ; namely, enigmatical. 
 
 I was proud of John that evening. His 
 little fiction about the other Miss Lamb 
 seemed to have an exhilarating effect 
 upon him, and I had never seen him 
 more entertaining. Miss Lamb must 
 have been interested, though she evinced 
 her good breeding by showing me quite 
 as much attention as she did John. Out 
 wardly, indeed, I came out rather ahead, 
 for while Miss Lamb's good manners 
 led her to conceal the preference she 
 must have felt for John, the aunt, with 
 less tact, treated me with a marked con-
 
 Witbin tbe portfires 73 
 
 sideration which John did not share. 
 Perhaps that was why I liked Mrs. El- 
 lerton better than John did. You can't 
 very well help liking folks who like you, 
 especially when they seem to be rather 
 superior, critical sort of people. And 
 when she ofiered us Nestor cigarettes in 
 the parlor, even John softened and dis 
 covered, as he afterward admitted, that 
 ' ' the genealogical fiend ' ' was not quite 
 without humanity. 
 
 There was an open wood fire in the 
 parlor and a generally homelike air which 
 we footsore travellers found much to our 
 taste. 
 
 "How Eastern it seems!" said I to 
 Miss Lamb, as we lighted our cigarettes. 
 
 "Dick does n't mean Oriental," John 
 put in. " It is the Atlantic seaboard that 
 he has in mind." 
 
 ' ' It does seem like home, ' ' I main 
 tained. 
 
 " We are so glad to hear you say so," 
 said Miss Lamb. ' ' We like, of all things, to 
 hear any praise of our own hired house. ' '
 
 74 B Xfterarg Courtsbip 
 
 ' ' It seems like our own house, ' ' Mrs. 
 Ellerton added comfortably. "It is so 
 full of our own things. We have lived 
 here four years. I am sure I don't know 
 why we don't go away." 
 
 "But I know why," said her niece. 
 "It is because we have a genealogical 
 neighbor next door." 
 
 "And you?" asked Brunt. 
 
 "I? oh! I can't leave Cheyenne 
 Canon, to say nothing of Aunt Bessie. 
 And I am afraid a change of climate 
 might not agree with Tiger. ' ' 
 
 "Tiger is ?" 
 
 ' ' My horse. His real name is Tiger- 
 eye. When you see the gloss on his 
 neck you will know how he came by the 
 name. Tiger has never been lower down 
 in the world than six thousand feet 
 above sea-level. And, besides, he is 
 very fond of the Canon and of the Mesa. 
 Do you like it? " she asked, abruptly. 
 
 " We hated it this morning," said John. 
 
 " I am glad of that. Every real Colo- 
 radoan hates it at first."
 
 TJQttbin tbc fcortffcres 75 
 
 " But we did n't hate it long," I ex 
 plained. ' ' It was magnificent this after 
 noon, riding over the plains." 
 
 ' ' Over the plains ! ' ' she cried. ' ' And 
 not over the Mesa ! What remarkable 
 tourists you are ! How did you escape 
 going first to the Garden of the Gods ? ' ' 
 
 ' ' They told us we ought to, and so 
 John would n't." 
 
 " I admire you. You are the great 
 unprecedented. ' ' 
 
 "As a reward, we might take you 
 through the Garden of the Gods to 
 morrow," said Mrs. Bllerton. 
 
 " Or as a punishment," her niece 
 amended. ' ' They would much prefer to 
 ride or walk. ' ' 
 
 We protested, and the drive was 
 arranged. 
 
 " Well," said I, as we closed the gate 
 behind us 
 
 "Well!" said John 
 
 " Pike's Peak improves on acquaint 
 ance. ' ' 
 
 " Pike's Peak is great ! "
 
 76 a Xtterars Courtsbfp 
 
 And John lighted a cigar and nodded 
 approvingly at the enormous hump of 
 a mountain. The nightcap looked very 
 pretty in the starlight. 
 
 I waited for John to say something 
 more, for I wished the expression of his 
 views to be quite spontaneous. But he 
 did not seem to feel communicative, and 
 I had to begin. 
 
 "How about the cynicism, Jack?" 
 said I, at last. 
 
 " It is n't visible to the naked eye." 
 
 " And the poems. Do you believe she 
 wrote them ? ' ' 
 
 "She doesn't look it. But it is dif 
 ficult to judge. What do you think 
 about it, Dick? " 
 
 "Women are deep," said I, thinking 
 it best to be non-committal. 
 
 We discussed the question off and on 
 as we walked up to the north end of the 
 town and back, but we did not get much 
 enlightenment. It was clear which way 
 our wishes went. John did not wish her 
 to have written the poems, while I did.
 
 TKHttbin tbe portfires 77 
 
 I was charmed with the idea of convers 
 ing with an agreeable young lady, who 
 was apparently in the best of spirits, and 
 of being at the same time aware that she 
 was the prey to despair. There had been 
 moments during the evening when I was 
 almost able to fancy that I could hear the 
 "worm i' the bud"; but while Miss 
 L,arnb's cheek was not exactly damask, 
 it did not, on the other hand, look as 
 though it had furnished many repasts. 
 It was merely a very sound and normal 
 specimen of its kind. All the better. It 
 was, perhaps nay, probably a mask, 
 behind which lurked who could say what 
 chagrins and disenchantments. In our 
 future intercourse with Miss I/amb I was 
 eagerly on the look-out for signs of hid 
 den anguish, while John was searching 
 for proofs that she did not write poetry. 
 It may as well be confessed that one of 
 us was not much more successful than the 
 other ; that there was nothing in her 
 appearance or behavior to make Miss 
 I^amb seem other than rather a finished
 
 21 XfterarE Gourtsbfp 
 
 young woman of the world, with mind 
 enough to have written good verses if 
 Nature had given her the bent, and bal 
 ance enough to keep her own counsel on 
 any and every subject.
 
 IX. 
 
 THE GATEWAY. 
 
 |\ | OW that I have once begun describing 
 1 ^ things, I find I have quite a taste 
 for it, and I should like nothing better 
 than to try my hand on the Garden of 
 the Gods. How the huge red ' ' Gateway ' ' 
 appears as you drive across the Mesa, 
 in fact the Mesa itself, that splendid 
 natural boulevard away up in the air, 
 with the plains below on the one hand, 
 and the mountains rising up on the other, 
 and the silvery line of leafless cotton-
 
 8o B Xiterarg Courtsbip 
 
 woods, running like a brook from the 
 entrance to Glen Eyrie along the road to 
 the Gateway. But what I should like 
 best would be to describe the Gateway 
 itself, made of two thundering great red 
 rocks standing up on end, with Pike's 
 Peak looming in fine style beyond, and a 
 delicious blue sky overhead. We liked it 
 better than we had meant to, for, as John 
 said, it was undeniably theatrical, and it 
 ought not to appeal to a refined taste. 
 But Miss Lamb said she hated a refined 
 taste, and Mrs. Ellerton remarked that 
 she could n't see anything exactly unre 
 fined about the Garden, though she 
 often wished the rocks were of a quieter 
 color. 
 
 "O Aunt Bessie ! " Miss Lamb cried, 
 " you don't know what you are saying ! 
 It is the color that makes Colorado so 
 adorable. I am sure that when we go 
 East we shall find green quite tame by 
 comparison." 
 
 " Oh! I would n't have the rocks green," 
 Mrs. Ellerton replied, with a gleam of
 
 atewag 81 
 
 humor. " Only sometimes when the sun 
 strikes them they seem to glare at one." 
 
 Before going through the Gateway we 
 drove to the northern end of the massive 
 wall of rocks and stopped in the shadow. 
 They call the view there, where only the 
 narrow upright end is visible, the Tower 
 of Babel ; but, as John said, it looked 
 more like the prow of a great ship bearing 
 down upon us. 
 
 "That is what I always think of," 
 said Miss L,amb. ' ' I sometimes feel quite 
 afraid to stand here in the shadow. It 
 seems as though it must come rushing 
 upon one, or topple over from the shock 
 of arrested motion. In the summer, when 
 it does n't cast a shadow just here, you 
 don't have at all the same impression. I 
 never come here in summer. ' ' 
 
 " Then you enjoy the feeling of immi 
 nent destruction ? ' ' John asked. 
 
 " I like power, " she answered. 
 
 "Then," thought I to myself, "you 
 are pretty sure to like John, for he is power 
 personified."
 
 82 a XfterarB Courtsbip 
 
 Mrs. Ellerton and I, meanwhile, talked 
 plain English on the back seat. 
 
 ' ' I never before knew Lilian to let any 
 one else drive," Mrs. Kllerton observed. 
 "She is not usually happy unless she 
 holds the reins." 
 
 I hoped John did not hear this remark, 
 for I thought it would make him con 
 ceited. But Miss Lamb must have heard 
 it, for she immediately turned to John and 
 asked : " Does the make-believe Miss 
 Lamb like to drive ? ' ' 
 
 " She never gives up the reins," John 
 replied. 
 
 " Does she drive well ? " 
 
 "She thinks she does." 
 
 "And you?" 
 
 " I think she does too." 
 
 ' ' Is there anything she does not do 
 well ? " asked Mrs. Ellerton. 
 
 "According to John, I don't believe 
 there is," I answered. 
 
 1 ' There are a good many things she 
 does not do at all," said John. 
 
 " What are they ? ' ' queried Miss Lamb.
 
 Cbe <3atewae 83 
 
 " Oh, all sorts of womanly accomplish 
 ments. Needle-work and piano playing 
 and sketching in water colors. ' ' 
 
 " She writes a very good note." 
 
 " Do you claim that as a womanly ac 
 complishment ? ' ' 
 
 ' ' Not exclusively. But it is an ac 
 complishment of hers. ' ' 
 
 Everything seemed to conspire to tickle 
 John's vanity. 
 
 ' ' The critics think she has an ' almost 
 masculine power,' " I observed, casually. 
 ' ' Do you see anything of that in her let 
 ters ?" 
 
 1 ' Oh, no ! Her letters are extremely 
 lady-like. Don't you think so, Aunt 
 Bessie?" 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said Aunt Bes 
 sie. ' ' I am afraid I was not listening. I 
 was trying to make out whether that rock 
 was Ben. Butler or the Irish Emigrant." 
 
 " It is too good a rock for either," her 
 niece protested. " Is n't it a shame, ' ' she 
 continued, turning to me, ' ' to call these 
 splendid rocks names ! ' '
 
 84 a Uterarg Courtsbip 
 
 Miss I,amb always had a very kind way 
 of referring things to ine, but I did not 
 deceive myself for a moment. 
 
 "Speaking of names," I said, " what 
 a pity that Pike's Peak could not have 
 been called something else." 
 
 "Yes," said John. "Aside from its 
 ugliness, it is absurd to call a great round 
 dome like that by such a spiked name." 
 
 " We thought so, too, at first," said 
 Miss lyamb. ' ' We decided it ought to 
 be called the ' Manitou. ' That would 
 have been both sonorous and significant. 
 But after a while we got to like Pike's 
 Peak, perhaps because it was so gro 
 tesquely inappropriate, and when our 
 Swedish parlor-maid called it ' the Pike, ' 
 we felt that that could not be improved 
 upon, and ' the Pike ' it has remained in 
 our vocabulary." 
 
 Undeniably Miss Lamb had humor. 
 But then, so had Leslie Smith. Some of 
 the poems were as sparkling as others 
 were lugubrious. They were evidently 
 the work of a many-sided genius. It
 
 Gbe Gateway 85 
 
 was perplexing and it was ludicrous 
 too, I must admit. The young lady 
 was so unconscious of the scrutiny she 
 was undergoing, and she made her 
 little remarks so totally unaware of the 
 way they were being twisted and turned 
 by two inquiring minds ! I do not think, 
 however, that John listened in the same 
 spirit of investigation that animated me. 
 Occasionally some chance word of hers 
 may have aroused his suspicions. It was 
 probably in a spirit of speculation that he 
 suddenly asked Miss L,amb if she remem 
 bered Leslie Smith's poem comparing 
 Colorado to Egypt. 
 
 " Yes, indeed," she said ; "I remem 
 ber it perfectly. The resemblance is very 
 striking. ' ' 
 
 " Were you ever in Bgypt? " I asked. 
 
 " Yes, I went there with my uncle and 
 aunt before we came to Colorado. We were 
 all impressed by the similarity in climate 
 and general aspect when we came here. ' ' 
 
 How coolly she said it ! Yes, women 
 are deep.
 
 86 a Xiterarg Courtsbfp 
 
 But while John may have found food 
 for reflection in such coincidences and 
 suggestions, I think that, as a rule, when 
 in Miss L,amb's society, he was too much 
 occupied with her as she chanced to 
 reveal herself, to revert to any surmises 
 as to her concealments. 
 
 We had driven the length of the 
 ' ' Garden, ' ' and were passing out by what 
 Miss Lamb called the "Back Gate," a 
 passage between two huge boulders, one 
 of which is quite the conventional bal 
 ance rock, excepting that it is brick-red. 
 After that, there was no scenery to speak 
 of (for we turned our backs to the 
 mountains) until, as we returned over 
 the lower Mesa, we got a broad view of the 
 plains to the eastward. The vast, undu 
 lating expanse, streaked with mysterious 
 currents of light, looked wonderfully like 
 the sea, with the bluffs or " buttes " 
 rising here and there like rock-bound 
 islands, and the smoke from a distant 
 railway train simulating an out-going 
 steamer.
 
 Cbe Gateway 87 
 
 "To return to the ever interesting 
 author of Spoils" said Miss I^amb, as 
 we crossed the bridge over the totally dry 
 bed of the Monument River. ' ' Do you 
 not think Miss I^amb's handwriting very 
 like a man's? " 
 
 " Oh, all literary people write alike," 
 I made haste to say. " I wish you could 
 see Mrs. Raynor's handwriting. It is so 
 like Brunt's that you could scarcely tell 
 them apart." 
 
 This was pure fiction, but the moment 
 was critical. 
 
 "I think you must be right," Miss 
 L,amb replied. ' ' Do you know, I find 
 Mr. Brunt's hand and Miss L,amb's 
 of exactly the same character. His is 
 naturally a little larger and bolder, 
 but there is exactly the same turn in 
 both." 
 
 ' ' I have noticed it myself, ' ' said Brunt, 
 imperturbably . "It is really singular 
 that two people of such different tempera 
 ment should write so much alike. It is 
 enough to refute all theories as to the
 
 88 B Xfterarg Courtsbip 
 
 significance of the handwriting in char 
 acter-reading." 
 
 ' ' Have you heard from Miss Lamb 
 recently? " Mrs. Ellerton asked. 
 
 " Dickson hears from her oftener than 
 I do," was John's reply. "What was 
 your last news, Dick ? ' ' 
 . ' ' My last news of her, " said I , promptly , 
 "was that she thought no beings so 
 enviable as those who were in Colorado. 
 She inquired very particularly for you, 
 Miss Lamb, and said she wished she 
 might hear from you again. She said 
 you were too chary of your letters. ' ' 
 
 "She is very kind, I am sure," said 
 Miss Lamb, a little coolly I thought, 
 ' ' but I should be sorry to encroach upon 
 her time without even a poor pretext." 
 
 " I should think your time and atten 
 tion were to be considered also, " said 
 John. "Believe me, Miss Lamb, you 
 get the best of authors in their books. It 
 does not often pay to correspond with 
 them." 
 
 " What heresy ! " cried I. " You are
 
 atewag 
 
 a real dog in the manger, Jack. You know 
 there is no one whose letters you enjoy as 
 you do those of the author of Spoils. ' ' 
 
 ' ' Perhaps I have a pretext for writing, ' ' 
 said Miss Lamb, relenting. " She would 
 be interested to hear my account of your 
 visit. Do you really think it would not 
 be a bore to her if I were to write ? " 
 
 As I assured her of the pleasure it must 
 give, especially with such subjects as 
 ourselves to expatiate upon, we drove up 
 before Mrs. Ellerton's door, and John, 
 handing Miss Lamb from the buckboard, 
 said : ' ' When are we to have a business 
 talk?" 
 
 ' ' Whenever you will be so kind as to 
 come and see me," she replied, gra 
 ciously. 
 
 ' ' May I come this afternoon ? ' ' 
 
 ' ' Pray do. I am sure I could not 
 wait much longer before talking over 
 our book." 
 
 " Dick," said John, as we drove down 
 the avenue, "I did not know you were 
 such an unconscionable villain."
 
 go a Xtterarg Courtsbip 
 
 " I did not know it myself, dear boy ! " 
 said I, without looking at him. I did 
 not particularly care to see the expression 
 of his face. But I went on, callously : 
 "I don't know when I have been so 
 pleased with myself. Could n't you 
 make use of my character in your next 
 work of fiction ? ' The Traitor Confidant ' 
 would be a capital title, and I shall take 
 great pleasure in furnishing more ' copy ' 
 for the character." 
 
 " But, Dick, don't you see what a 
 shabby trick you have played upon Miss 
 Lamb?" 
 
 "Of course I do. That is where the 
 villainy comes in. And won't it be nuts 
 when the letter arrives ! "
 
 CONFIDENCES. 
 
 """THAT afternoon, as John and I were 
 smoking on the hotel piazza, who 
 should turn up but Ned Randall. We 
 used to see a good deal of Ned at the Pow 
 wow and elsewhere, but after he went 
 West we lost track of him. It was mighty 
 pleasant to run across him in this way, 
 and when he said there was tennis to be 
 had at the Club grounds, and proposed 
 our going up, I thought I had never 
 liked him so well. As for John, he de 
 clined the invitation on the score of a 
 previous engagement so cheerfully that 
 I wa*s disgusted with him. 
 
 "Can't you cut your engagement ?" 
 Ned urged. ' ' We ' ve got some pretty 
 good players up there."
 
 92 a Xfterarg Courtsbip 
 
 " I should like to have a whack at 
 ihem some other time," John said, " but 
 I can't come this afternoon." 
 
 "All right," said Ned. "We have 
 tennis all the year round in Colorado, so 
 you are not likely to lose your chance." 
 
 " What are you going in for out here, 
 Ned ? " I asked, as we walked up the 
 avenue. 
 
 " Tennis and real-estate." 
 
 " Which do you make the most money 
 at?" 
 
 "Not at tennis," said he. " I own 
 some pretty good property out here. 
 That, for instance," he added, as we 
 passed Mrs. Ellerton's gate. 
 
 ' ' The deuce you do ! " said I, with 
 undisguised astonishment. In old times 
 Ned did not enjoy the reputation of being 
 a financial genius. ' ' How did you do it ? " 
 
 " I did n't do it. The town did it. It 
 has been growing like a mushroom ever 
 since I came out, five years ago, and I 
 had the luck to chip in just in time." 
 
 " You know Miss I^amb then."
 
 Confidences QS 
 
 " Of course I do. But how did you 
 come to know her ? She is a Connecticut 
 girl to begin with, and she has n't lived 
 in the East since she left school." 
 
 " I wonder what makes them stay on 
 here ? " I queried, after having explained 
 our acquaintance after a fashion. " Mr. 
 Ellerton died here, did he not ? I should 
 think the associations might be painful." 
 
 " I don't think Mrs. Ellerton is enter 
 prising enough to go away. All the 
 enterprise she possesses goes into gene 
 alogy. And by the way, Dick, you had 
 better look out how you let her know 
 that you are a Rhode Island Dickson. 
 If once she gets hold of that fact you will 
 wish you had been born a ' mick. ' ' ' 
 
 Ned does not belong to the swell Ran 
 dall family. I suppose he had been 
 forced to confess as much in response to 
 Mrs. Ellerton' s investigations. Perhaps 
 that was why he spoke with such 
 asperity. 
 
 " Nice girl, Miss Lamb seems to be," 
 said I, tentatively.
 
 94 B Xitcrarg Courtsbip 
 
 " Nice girl ! I rather guess ! I never saw 
 any one nicer. I say, Dick, neither of you 
 fellows are going to carry her off, I hope. ' ' 
 
 "Not that I know of. But I should 
 think there might have been plenty to 
 try for it before now." 
 
 " Might have been. Only I don't be 
 lieve any one ever screwed up his courage 
 to ask her. / never did ! " this with a 
 profound sigh. 
 
 "Is she so stiff?" I asked, ignoring 
 the implied confidence. 
 
 "Not so much stiff as "he paused 
 for the word, "let us say lucid. A fel 
 low would have to be a bigger fool than 
 I am to imagine that he had a chance." 
 
 " And you don't think she ever cared 
 for anybody ? ' ' 
 
 " Well, of course I can't say. There 
 has n't been any one out here that she 
 would be likely to fancy, and she was a 
 mere chicken when she came. Why do 
 you ask ? " 
 
 " I was only trying to get some clue 
 to her lucidity. It is n't so common."
 
 Confidences 95 
 
 At this moment our arrival at the Club 
 grounds put an end to confidences. 
 
 I have sometimes wished that people 
 were not so inclined to make a confidant 
 of me. They are always telling me their 
 love affairs. Yet perhaps it is a safe 
 guard. For just as soon as I make the 
 acquaintance of a nice girl some fellow is 
 sure to tell me, under the seal of secrecy, 
 that he adores her, so that my own feel 
 ings don't get a chance to spring up. 
 But, as I say, that is perhaps just as well, 
 for I am not a marrying man, and it 
 might be awkward to get stirred up over 
 somebody for nothing. Though possibly 
 if I happened to like a girl as much as 
 all that comes to, my views might change. 
 That however would n' t fill the exchequer. 
 If I had come out West to be sure, as Ned 
 wanted me to, I might have owned houses 
 and things too. But I think, on the 
 whole, I prefer New York, and as long as 
 a few of the Pow-wow escape the ravages 
 of matrimony, life must still be pleasant. 
 
 I was interested in Ned's confessions,
 
 96 H Xtterarg Gourtsbip 
 
 fragmentary as they were. I rather 
 hoped he would tell me some more some 
 time. I never pry into other people's 
 affairs however, but John says that is the 
 very reason they all want to tell me their 
 secrets. John hzs noticed it, and he once 
 said some very kind things about it. 
 John is such a good fellow ! He would 
 give the very Devil his dues ! 
 
 The tennis was pretty fair, though Ned 
 started me off with some young ladies 
 and so I did n't go it quite so hard as I 
 should have liked to. 
 
 When I got home I found John read 
 ing a New York paper in the office. 
 
 ' ' How was the business talk ? " I ask 
 ed, as we stepped out into the deserted 
 piazza. It was the dark end of twilight, 
 and a few scattered stars were pricking 
 through. 
 
 "First rate," said he. 
 
 " Did you get any light on the great 
 subject?" 
 
 "Not a ray." 
 
 " Did you discuss the poems? "
 
 Confidences 97 
 
 "Some of them." 
 
 ' ' What did she have to say about the 
 sonnets of Constance ? ' ' 
 
 " Nothing." 
 
 " Did n't they come up ? " 
 
 " No. She did n't mention them, and 
 I had n't the cheek." 
 
 " Oh, I say, Jack ; you might have got 
 something out of her. Could n't you tell 
 whether she took your observations in a 
 personal spirit? Women are always so 
 personal, don't you know ? At least that 
 is what you literary fellows say about 
 them, though I don't myself see how 
 they could be much more personal than 
 the rest of us ! But come, now, you 're 
 an observer of human nature. Could n't 
 you detect ' the personal element ' ? " 
 
 " Stuff, Dick ! of course it was personal 
 to her ! Whether she wrote the poems 
 or not, their publication is all her doing. 
 I wish you could have seen her face, 
 though, when I told her that Nelson 
 Guild liked the poems and was going to 
 notice them."
 
 98 a Xiterarg Courtsblp 
 
 " How did it look ?" 
 He pointed to a bouncing great planet 
 that was shining away in the west. 
 " It looked like that star," said he. 
 
 " When only one is shining in the sky," 
 
 I ventured to quote in a sentimental 
 tone. He did not object to the amend 
 ment and I wished I had not said it. 
 
 As I look back upon that time the 
 situation seems to me more than ever 
 preposterous. For two grown men to leave 
 New York in the height of the season and 
 travel two thousand miles, merely for the 
 sake of giving one of them an opportunity 
 to fall in love with a girl neither of them 
 had ever seen, and one who, unless all 
 signs failed, was already the unfortunate 
 possessor of a broken heart ! But geniuses 
 are erratic, and if you allow yourself to get 
 entangled with a genius you never know 
 what you may be led into. 
 
 Yet I may as well say, right here, that 
 I, for my part, had a rousing good time of 
 it, with, tennis and riding, and lots of nice
 
 Confidences 99 
 
 people, and weather fit for a king. One 
 scarcely missed the Pow-wow and the 
 German opera, and as for clients, one 
 forgot that one had so few to forget.
 
 XI. 
 
 A DILEMMA. 
 
 next morning Brunt went off to 
 the tennis court with some fellows 
 he knew, while I started up Pike's Peak 
 Avenue on a shopping expedition in 
 search of a birthday present for my sister 
 May. If I were the hero of this story I 
 should not confess how fond I am of 
 shopping, but, as it is, there can be no 
 harm in owning that I spent a good two 
 hours among the Chinese bric-a-brac and 
 Indian and Mexican curiosities displayed 
 in the shops. I soon lighted upon a 
 pretty trifle for May, but meanwhile I 
 had come across a couple of Navajo
 
 21 Dilemma 101 
 
 blankets and some skins that were not to 
 be so easily disposed of. Not that I had 
 any hundred-dollar bills to squander on 
 such things, and it was the hundred-dol 
 lar ones which invariably took my fancy ; 
 but they were spread out invitingly and 
 one could enjoy them without incom 
 moding anybody. What took my eye 
 most of all was a royal Bengal tiger skin, 
 with head and paws finely mounted, 
 which an enterprising furrier had im 
 ported on speculation. He was a splen 
 did fellow the tiger, I mean, magnifi 
 cently striped. He must have been the 
 lord of his jungle, and the more I looked 
 at him, the more I wanted him to belong 
 to John. I could not conveniently pur 
 chase him with my unaided resources, 
 but it struck me that if ever an occasion 
 should arise for the Pow-wow to make 
 John a present, this would be the fellow 
 to choose. 
 
 Finding it was getting on toward noon, 
 I took leave of his feline majesty, and 
 strolled up the avenue toward the tennis
 
 102 a literary Courtsbfp 
 
 ground. Though the thermometer had 
 spent the night burrowing down well be 
 low zero, it had arrived at less inhuman 
 regions early in the morning, and now, 
 at noon, the sun was so strong, that I was 
 not surprised trr see Mrs. BUerton, well 
 wrapped up, sitting in a steamer chair on 
 her south piazza. It looked very pleas 
 ant there, and thinking that the tennis 
 would be about over, I took the opportu 
 nity to make my party call. 
 
 "This is very good of you, Mr. Dick- 
 son," said the lady, coming forward, 
 with a pleasant air of welcome, which 
 reminded me of her niece. There is a 
 strong family resemblance, in spite of 
 their unlikeness. 
 
 " Lilian has not come in from riding, 
 and I am quite too lazy to do anything 
 but sit in the sun and be glad of pleasant 
 company. ' ' 
 
 "Thanks," I said, taking a chair. 
 " How surprisingly warm the sun is." 
 
 I should not report such very com 
 monplace observations, only I fancy they
 
 B Dilemma 103 
 
 give an air of naturalness to the story, 
 and besides, if I were to confine myself 
 exclusively to picked conversations, it 
 would be making us out more brilliant 
 than we were. 
 
 ' ' Your niece is very fond of riding ? ' ' 
 I went on, in the same vein. 
 
 " Oh, very ! I was, myself, at her age, 
 though I never had her fancy for riding 
 alone. She says she does not often find any 
 one who is as good company as Tiger. ' ' 
 
 "Ah ha!" thought I to myself. 
 ' ' Your niece is communing with the 
 Muse, O unsuspecting aunt ! ' ' 
 
 "Has n't she a dog ? " I asked 
 audibly. 
 
 ' ' No, and it is a great pity, for she is 
 fond of dogs. She lost a beautiful Irish 
 setter last year poor Cop ! (short for Cop 
 per). He was kicked by a vicious horse. 
 It was a most distressing thing. We had 
 just come in from driving, when the acci 
 dent occurred. It was beginning to rain 
 a little. Dear old Cop had been so happy, 
 running on ahead of us, and scampering
 
 B Xiteran? Courtsbfp 
 
 about the fields after prairie-dogs which 
 he never caught. I remember that very 
 day, Lilian said that she did believe that 
 Cop knew as much as grown folks ! It 
 was a passing horse that did it. Poor 
 Cop was flung to one side of the road, in 
 a dreadful condition, and there he lay, 
 moaning like a child. Lilian was beside 
 him in an instant. We saw that he must 
 die, and she would not have him moved. 
 We laid the carriage rug over him to keep 
 the rain off, and then she sat down beside 
 him, in all the mud, and put her hand 
 under his head, and he stopped moaning 
 and licked her hand. Poor fellow ! he 
 died licking her hand." 
 
 I looked out upon the scene of the 
 tragedy with much sympathy as Mrs. 
 Ellerton rambled on. 
 
 "She won't have another dog, which 
 is a pity. I wanted to give her one on 
 her birthday, soon after, but she suspected 
 my intention and begged me not to do so. 
 He was a setter and quite as handsome as 
 Cop with even a better pedigree, but
 
 S Dilemma 105 
 
 Lilian declared she did not want a dog as 
 handsome as Cop. I told her how fond 
 she would get of him, and she said that 
 was just the trouble. She knew Cop 
 would never have loved another mistress, 
 and she did not wish to love another dog, 
 for the present at least. It would be too 
 cold-blooded. Afterward she relented so 
 far as to beg me to buy him for myself. 
 She said she would steel her heart against 
 him. Of course I did n't want him. 
 What should I do with a dog? They 
 are a great care." 
 
 " Don't you think she would have got 
 fond of him?" I asked. For this was 
 truly interesting. A girl who would not 
 have another dog would be just the girl 
 to cherish a hopeless affection. Besides 
 which, here was more circumstantial evi 
 dence in the case. I remembered a par 
 ticularly taking poem " To Cop." 
 
 Mrs. Ellerton was saying : " Why, no ! 
 She wouldn't have allowed herself to 
 grow fond of the new dog. She said she 
 wouldn't."
 
 io6 B Xfterars Courtsbfp 
 
 " Has she such a strong will ? " 
 
 It began to seem as though the two 
 Ivilians might be a good deal alike. 
 
 ' ' Yes, she has a strong will, but she 
 says she is n't stubborn, and I don't know 
 that she is. Only she wont drive a horse 
 with a check-rein on. She does not ap 
 prove of the overhead checks they use 
 here. It is rather a trial to me. I like 
 to see a horse's head held up." 
 
 "She does n't seem morbid, either," I 
 ventured to remark, feeling somewhat like 
 a detective. 
 
 " No, she does n't seem morbid ; and 
 there she is," Mrs. Ellerton added, as the 
 sound of a horse's hoofs caused her to 
 look up. 
 
 I ruminated a good deal on that an 
 swer of Mrs. Ellerton's. Was it purposely 
 evasive ? Did she know about the ' ' worm 
 i' the bud " ? If not, why did she mere 
 ly echo my words, instead of frankly 
 saying ' ' She is not morbid. ' ' 
 
 For the moment I had only time to get 
 to the block and help the young lady
 
 B Dilemma 107 
 
 dismount. She accepted my help with a 
 delicious lightness, as though it might 
 amuse me, and could n't hurt her. 
 
 ' ' I have been watching Mr. Brunt at 
 tennis, ' ' she said, as she stroked the tiger- 
 eye neck, which arched itself in grateful 
 response. 
 
 ' ' How did you like his playing ? ' ' 
 
 " lyike it ! " she cried, with mock solem 
 nity. ' ' I regarded it with fear and re 
 spect. ' ' 
 
 " He does play well, does n't he? " I 
 asked, for I am immensely proud of John's 
 tennis. So different from what you would 
 expect of a literary man. 
 
 ' ' He plays to win ! ' ' she said, and 
 then, laughing : "I trust I may never 
 be called upon to play against him." 
 
 " He does serve like a streak of light 
 ning," I admitted, " and it is not easy to 
 surprise him." 
 
 Miss L,amb disappeared within the 
 house, returning in a moment with a 
 letter in her hand. 
 
 "I suppose," she said, with a slight
 
 its a Ztterars Courtsbip 
 
 hesitation, " I suppose Miss I,anib's 
 letters are forwarded from your office, 
 but it seems rather a round-about way 
 of approaching her, when you are on the 
 spot. Would it be asking too much of 
 you, to forward -this to her? " 
 
 " Not in the least," I said. " It shall 
 go this very day." 
 
 "Thank you." 
 
 She handed me the letter and then 
 stood striking her habit lightly with her 
 riding whip. 
 
 " Is Miss I,amb at home ? " she asked, 
 with an odd look which I have since re 
 called. " Will she be likely to get my 
 letter without delay ? ' ' 
 
 "She is away from home just now, 
 but I know her address. There shall be 
 no delay." 
 
 "I am glad of that." Then, after a 
 slight pause : "I was wondering how 
 soon I was likely to have an answer. ' ' 
 
 I made a grave calculation. 
 
 "I think," said I, "that you might 
 have an answer a little sooner than usual.
 
 B Dilemma 109 
 
 say in six days, if she replies immediately, 
 as she doubtless will do if the letter is 
 important," this with a diplomatic 
 inflection which might be taken as inter 
 rogatory or not. 
 
 "It is not exactly that, ' ' she said, 
 thoughtfully. Then, looking up with a 
 deprecating smile, and a pretty motion of 
 her head : ' ' Oh no ! It is not in the 
 least important. She may not answer it 
 at all, though I hope she will. Don't 
 you think she will ? " 
 
 ' ' I am sure of it ! " I cried, with effu 
 sion. ' ' I know how much she values 
 your letters." 
 
 She looked at me with the same odd 
 smile. 
 
 " How well you and Mr. Brunt know 
 Miss Lamb! "she said. "But I must 
 go now and dress for luncheon. Perhaps 
 you will stay. No ? Some other time, 
 then." 
 
 " Be sure you don't forget my letter," 
 she called, over her shoulder, as she 
 stood in the doorway.
 
 Zfterarg Courtsbip 
 
 A riding habit is extremely becoming 
 to some women. 
 
 I do not know why it had not occurred 
 to me that I should be asked to forward 
 that letter, for of course nothing could be 
 more natural. But the possibility had 
 not entered my head, and as I walked 
 back to the hotel with the thing in my 
 pocket I did not feel at all easy in my 
 mind. Somehow when the letters were 
 coming in due course of mail, addressed 
 to that well-known personage, Lilian 
 Leslie Lamb, I had handed them over to 
 John without the least compunction 
 even the occasional ones from Miss Lamb. 
 To all intents and purposes he was Miss 
 Lamb, for the letters were intended for 
 the author of Spoils. 
 
 Now, however, the case was quite dif 
 ferent, as anybody must see. As I thought 
 of it I grew hot and cold, and cursed my 
 own idiocy for deliberately setting such a 
 trap for myself. I was in such a muddle 
 over the whole thing by the time I got to 
 the hotel that I decided not to say any-
 
 B Dilemma m 
 
 thing to Brunt about it till I had got my 
 own ideas straightened out a little. How 
 ever, by the time luncheon was over, and 
 we were sitting, the sole occupants of the 
 smoking-room, I had decided that, though 
 I had got Jack into the scrape, he would 
 have to get himself out of it. So with as 
 indifferent an air as I could muster, I said : 
 
 " By the way, John, here 's a letter for 
 the author of Spoils." He took it and 
 glanced at the superscription. 
 
 ' ' The Devil ! ' ' said he, with a very red 
 face. 
 
 ' ' The writer would be flattered if she 
 could hear you," said I. 
 
 ' ' I wonder how she would feel if she 
 could see us both," John retorted, and he 
 looked from the back of the letter to me in 
 a very fierce manner. Then, tossing the 
 letter across the table, he said : " Well, 
 it is your affair this time and not mine, 
 I 'm thankful to say. What are you going 
 to do with the thing ? " 
 
 "Do with it? I've done with it," 
 said I.
 
 literacy Gourtsbfp 
 
 " You wont leave it there on the table, 
 I suppose. ' ' 
 
 ' ' I have delivered it to the person to 
 whom it is addressed." 
 
 " Is it addressed to me ? ' ' 
 
 " It is addressed to the author of Spoils. 
 If the author of Spoils is not the. dream 
 of beauty you described to her namesake 
 that is your look-out not mine. Seriously, 
 Jack, I don't see but that you 've got to 
 read the letter. She evidently expects an 
 answer to it. Either that," I added, " or 
 make a clean breast of it. ' ' 
 
 The "either, or" is usually John's 
 method, but this time it did not seem to 
 appeal to him. It must be confessed, too, 
 that his adviser was rather half-hearted in 
 his counsel. So we beat about the bush 
 in an unsatisfactory manner, till suddenly 
 John seized a pen and cut the gordian 
 knot, so to speak, by filling out the 
 address : 
 
 " Care F. DICKSON, Esq., etc., 
 
 " New York."
 
 B Dilemma 113 
 
 "There," said he, eying his handi 
 work with a look of relief. ' ' Perhaps 
 when it comes back postmarked and 
 smutched by contamination with the mail- 
 bags I may know what to do with it, but 
 I '11 be blessed if I could break the seal 
 of that spotless envelope to save my soul." 
 
 And he marched forth to post it with 
 his own hand. 
 
 That was after all the best solution for 
 the time being, and we both felt that a 
 weight had been lifted from our minds.
 
 XII. 
 
 HER CAfiON. 
 
 \ 
 
 COR a few days we did not see as much 
 of Miss L,amb as John, for one, 
 would have liked. We found we knew 
 a good many people, and there were 
 dinners and picnics and tennis galore. 
 Sometimes we met Miss Lamb on these 
 occasions, and sometimes we did not, but 
 even when she was of the party she was 
 usually taken possession of by people who 
 seemed to think they had a prior claim.
 
 1>er Canon us 
 
 One night there was a heavy fall of 
 snow and. the next morning, the sun 
 was shining like mad and all the world 
 was glittering white. The mountains 
 were much improved by this dispensation, 
 and though the snow in the streets had 
 vanished by noon, and the foothills soon 
 shook it off, the high mountains were 
 not so bare after that, and the nightcap 
 had turned into a superb snowy canopy 
 which was immensely becoming to Pike's 
 Peak. 
 
 We had promised Miss L<amb not to 
 visit North Cheyenne Canon until she 
 should give us leave. She said, when 
 we first came, that there was too much 
 ice for a comfortable ride, and, as she 
 justly observed, one could not appreciate 
 nature with one's thoughts all bent upon 
 one's horse's feet. 
 
 The snow having blanketed the ice 
 and rendered the road passable, we took 
 advantage of the favorable circumstance, 
 and one morning soon after, we found 
 ourselves cantering, I and the two Lilians,
 
 n6 a TLfterarg Courtsbip 
 
 through the town and out toward Chey 
 enne Mountain. It was an exhilarating 
 ride in the frosty air, with the sun blazing 
 upon our backs and the buttresses of 
 Cheyenne frowning down more and more 
 superbly as we approached them. 
 
 " Mr. Dickson told me of your Indian 
 war-whoop out on the plains," Miss 
 L,amb said, as we rode along three 
 abreast. " I know just how you felt 
 when you did it." 
 
 "Try it yourself some time," said John. 
 " It will do you lots of good." 
 
 " Oh, no ! That is one of a woman's 
 disabilities. If I were to try to shout, 
 the result would be a shriek. Women 
 are always in danger of doing some 
 thing shrill if they allow themselves the 
 slightest intensity." 
 
 ' ' Yes, a ' slight intensity ' might be 
 shrill," John admitted with a laugh. 
 "Did you ever run across anything so 
 phenomenal ? ' ' 
 
 "Indeed I have," she rejoined, good- 
 humoredly. "It is the most common
 
 t>er Canon 117 
 
 form of weakness. Have you never met 
 with it?" 
 
 ' ' You convince me that I have, ' ' said 
 John, who is always delighted if he can 
 get anybody to talk in riddles to him. 
 " Is it not a characteristic of L,ila Jean 
 ia Spoils?" 
 
 "Precisely," she agreed. Then turn 
 ing to me : ' ' That was rather well 
 parried, don't you think? Henceforth 
 ' slightly intense ' is promoted from the 
 level of bad English to that of an elaborate 
 theory." 
 
 1 ' Speaking of Spoils, ' ' she said later, 
 as the horses fell into a walk, "you 
 have never told me, Mr. Brunt, how you 
 like the book. " 
 
 " I think it an unusually strong novel. 
 Do not you? " 
 
 ' ' Oh, there can be no doubt about 
 that." 
 
 ' ' But you do not altogether like it ? " 
 
 "Yes, I think I do. Yes, I like the 
 book very much indeed. I am not sure 
 that Maud is not my favorite heroine.
 
 a Xtterari? Courtsbfp 
 
 It is Lansinge whom I am not quite 
 reconciled to." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 ' ' I suppose, because he is not enough 
 of a hero to suit my romantic notions." 
 
 ' ' He is surely the central figure of the 
 book. I think myself he is the best-con 
 ceived character in it." 
 
 ' ' That may be. Indeed , I am sure it 
 is. But he is not straightforward enough 
 for my taste. ' ' 
 
 ' ' He does finesse, I grant you. But he 
 is never dishonorable." 
 
 "Dishonorable? Oh, no ! There are 
 many degrees between dishonorableness 
 and the sort of transcendent integrity one 
 requires in a hero. I suppose L,ansinge 
 is pretty honest as men go. I mean 
 humans in general and here is the 
 canon." 
 
 We had been walking our horses for 
 some time through the snow which was 
 deep in the shade of the evergreens. The 
 entrance to the canon was not so marked 
 as to be fixed at any one point, but at
 
 fjcr Canon 119 
 
 Miss Lamb's word a sort of hush seemed 
 to descend upon us, much as though we 
 had entered one of those solemn old 
 cathedrals in South Germany. The road 
 was narrow, so that we soon went single 
 file. Miss 1/amb led the way, her horse 
 making the first marks in the unbroken 
 snow. Not strictly the first marks, how^ 
 ever, for soon our guide turned aad 
 pointed out to us the tiny footprints of 
 little creatures who had crossed the open 
 space in search of water from the ice- 
 thatched brook. Some of them we 
 thought must have been coyotes, the 
 tracks being as large as a child's shoe. 
 But oftener the little marks suggested 
 rabbits and squirrels, timid, furry bits 
 of wild life, the thought of whose bright 
 eyes and quick, sensitive motions seemed 
 to animate the lonely scene. Once in a 
 while we came to a bridge over the frozen 
 brook, whose course the road followed. 
 In the shadow of the gigantic gray and 
 red walls on whose perpendicular heights 
 there was no chance for the snow to cling,
 
 B Ufterarg Courtsbfp 
 
 the network of leafless bushes, bending 
 over the brook, was glittering with ice, 
 while the branches of the blue-green fir- 
 trees, drooped beneath their feathery 
 burden. The way those walls towered 
 up above it all was astonishing, with the 
 sky like a blue roof spanning the interval. 
 
 I rode last, and it was pretty to see the 
 other horses winding on ahead. I do not 
 know that I ever saw a woman ride so 
 well as Miss Lamb. If you notice, lots 
 of women make a good appearance when 
 the horse canters or trots. When the 
 motion is marked they get going with it 
 very well. But there was a litheness about 
 Miss Lamb's figure, even when the horse 
 was laboring up hill with his head hang 
 ing, which was rhythmic as music. 
 
 After a while we came to a widening of 
 the canon, where a cloisteral group of 
 trees made a natural resting-place, l^ere 
 our guide turned and waited for us. She 
 had a brilliant color which quite flashed 
 upon one, after having watched her dark 
 hair and habit so long. At the moment
 
 *er Canon 121 
 
 I could not but admit that there was 
 something incongruous in the supposi 
 tion that she was the author of those 
 metrical laments. 
 
 "Your canon is very fine," said John, 
 lifting his hat in chivalrous style. 
 
 ' ' I am glad to see that you acknowl 
 edge my ownership," she responded, 
 gaily. ' ' I took formal possession here 
 long ago." 
 
 " It is good of you to admit the general 
 public," said I. 
 
 " It is only the initiated who ever really 
 get in," she replied. "But those who 
 are kept out do not know it. ' ' 
 
 " I wonder whether we are in ? " John 
 queried. 
 
 " At least you know it if you are not ! " 
 
 "Oh! Brunt's in, fast enough," said 
 I. ' ' You can see that at a glance. But 
 seriously, Miss Lamb, this is mighty fine. 
 Can we go any farther ? ' ' 
 
 " Won't you let me go ahead ? " John 
 begged, as we put our horses in motion. 
 "There were some places back there
 
 & Xfteran? Courtship 
 
 where I did n't enjoy seeing you feel your 
 way." 
 
 "Very well. I will try to be more 
 philosophical, and to take pleasure in any 
 perils which may threaten you. But 
 don't try to keep in too close to the wall. 
 There is a treacherous slant in the road." 
 
 " Thanks. I will court destruction on 
 the outer verge. Will you engage, if I 
 go over, to watch the catastrophe with a 
 'slight intensity '?" 
 
 ' ' I will engage that you do not go over. 
 It is not Mr. Brunt's way to go over preci 
 pices ; is it, Mr. Dickson ? ' ' 
 
 "Not usually. But there might be a 
 first time." 
 
 This part of the canon was as wild, but 
 not nearly as solemn as the other, and we 
 got quite sociable again. We passed a 
 waterfall, which made a bold plunge into 
 a rocky basin below us. The two Lilians 
 stopped to examine it at rather an unfor 
 tunate spot for me, as it obliged my horse 
 to linger on an ugly shelf where his hind 
 leg kept slipping out, and I felt myself in
 
 t)er Canon 123 
 
 danger of making a more intimate ac 
 quaintance than I wished, with said 
 waterfall. But just as we were about to 
 descend gracefully, hind quarters fore 
 most, into the abysm, Miss I,amb, turn 
 ing to speak to me, saw my predicament, 
 and crying, ' ' Go on, quick, Mr. Brunt, ' ' 
 touched up her horse, kindly giving me 
 another chance of life. 
 
 " Why didn't you tell us to go on? " 
 she asked, reproachfully, when we were 
 on safe ground again. 
 
 " I could n't be so rude," said I. 
 
 ' ' What was the matter, Dick ? Were 
 we in your way ? " asked John. 
 
 "Not in the least," I replied. " It was 
 the wall of the canon that was incommod 
 ing me." 
 
 I always make a point of appearing 
 especially nonchalant when my heart is 
 in my mouth. 
 
 The descent was just a little less exhil 
 arating than the ride up, but altogether 
 it was a fine trip, and when we were can 
 tering again, three abreast, toward the
 
 B ILiterarg Courtsbfp 
 
 town, we all agreed that it had been a 
 success, and that we would have another 
 ride soon. 
 
 "Unless we disturb your tete-&-tete" 
 I suggested, with a glance at the tiger-eye 
 head and neck. 
 
 ' ' Oh ! Aunt Bessie has been telling 
 tales," cried Miss Lamb. " It is n't often 
 that Tiger and his mistress get a chance 
 to play the guide to two such apprecia 
 tive tourists, ' ' she added politely. 
 
 " Dick," said John, thoughtfully, after 
 we had left Miss L,amb at her gate, "do 
 you think Miss I/amb would consider us 
 models of ' transcendent integrity ' ? " 
 
 " My dear fellow," said I, " That was 
 her definition of a hero. I had no idea 
 you were so ambitious. ' ' 
 
 " I am ambitious of common honesty," 
 he replied, with some warmth, " and I be 
 gin to feel remarkably like a pickpocket. ' ' 
 
 " Rubbish, Jack ! You are all right! 
 Don't go bothering your head about the 
 romantic notions of a highstrung poetess 
 and blighted being."
 
 f>er Caiion 12^ 
 
 "I don't more than half believe that 
 Miss lyamb is a poetess. If she is, she is 
 an uncommonly good one, and she is not 
 the kind of woman whom it is altogether 
 pleasant to be playing tricks upon. Con 
 found that novel ! I wish I had never 
 written it." 
 
 It was like Jack to confound the novel, 
 and not his ' ' experiment ' ' ; but I merely 
 called his attention to the fact that, if he 
 had not written the novel, he would never 
 have ridden up Cheyenne Caiion with 
 Miss L,amb and me and then I left him 
 at the livery stable and went and took 
 another look at the Bengal tiger before 
 luncheon. In those days of dawning 
 insecurity about John, it was always a 
 solace to commune with the Bengal tiger. 
 It would be such a peculiarly fitting gift 
 if the occasion should arise, that the 
 thought of it was superficially soothing 
 to my gravest apprehensions.
 
 XIII. 
 
 AN AUTO-DA-FE;. 
 
 'T'HB days went pleasantly by, and it be 
 gan to seem so natural to be in Colo 
 rado that I could almost understand Ned 
 Randall's preferring opulence there to 
 penury in New York. Almost, but not 
 quite. Every little while a Pow-wow letter 
 would strike a chord, or an item in a New 
 York paper would break the spell, and I 
 would find my thoughts reverting fondly 
 to a certain dingy old den in the midst of 
 the hubbub, and I knew that I should be 
 ready enough to return to my native pav- 
 ingstones when the time came.
 
 Bn Buto=>a=3Fe 127 
 
 Among the letters arriving for rne and 
 my Lilian, I had almost forgotten to look 
 for that fateful one which had caused us 
 such embarrassment. But one evening 
 when John and I came up from playing 
 billiards, we found it in my room, staring 
 us in the face. John had evidently been 
 less obli vious of the impending crisis than 
 I, for he was prepared for it. 
 
 "And now what are you going to do 
 with it ? " I asked, feeling that he must 
 be quite up a tree. 
 
 " There is only one thing to do," said 
 he, eying it distrustfully, as though he 
 expected it to break its own seal and un 
 fold itself to his unwilling sight ; and he 
 pulled a match out of his pocket. 
 
 " Is n't that rather a high-handed pro 
 ceeding? " I asked, in some trepidation. 
 
 "Better be high-handed than under 
 handed," he declared, and forthwith he 
 struck a match, lighted a corner of the 
 envelope and put it into the empty grate. 
 The paper turned brown and curled up a 
 little and then the flame went out.
 
 128 B literary Courtsbip 
 
 " Try again, Jack," said I ; " the evi 
 dences of crime are not so easily disposed 
 of." 
 
 This time the flame licked its way over to 
 the sealing wax, which sizzled and blazed 
 up for a moment, and then out she went 
 again, leaving an ugly smutch in the 
 grate. 
 
 " I say, Jack, this is grewsome. It 
 reminds a fellow of all the detective 
 stories he ever read. I '11 bet a dime you 
 won't succeed in burning that all up. 
 The infallible clue will be found lurking 
 in a swallow's nest in the chimney, and 
 your crime will be proclaimed from the 
 housetops literally. ' ' 
 
 " It isn't the right shape to burn," he 
 muttered, without a flicker of a smile at 
 my little sally. John has such a way of 
 getting absorbed in what he is about 
 that he loses a good deal ! He had taken 
 out his pocket-knife and was now gravely 
 cutting the envelope with its contents 
 into strips an inch wide, which he 
 placed crosswise on top of each other
 
 an 
 
 John flung his scruples to the winds, 
 snatched the paper, and read the fol 
 lowing blood-curdling fragment "not 
 but admire his beautiful self-confidence, 
 though it " 
 
 "Now don't you wish you hadn't 
 burned it up?" I cried, much tickled. 
 
 ' ' ; Pooh ! ' ' said he, with pretended 
 indifference. ' ' Nobody knows whom 
 she was writing about "; and without 
 reading what was written on the other 
 side of the strip, he tore the paper up 
 into microscopic fractions. 
 
 "Perhaps it was Benny Mortimer," I 
 suggested. 
 
 Benny was a meek little man, who 
 blushed when he was spoken to. 
 
 ' ' There are worse things than self- 
 confidence," John declared, as he held 
 the door-handle, ' ' I wish I had a little 
 more myself." And with this rash and 
 startling assertion, he went off down the 
 corridor, to his own roost. 
 
 John has his faults like the rest of 
 us, but I had never suspected him of
 
 132 B fcfterarg Courtship 
 
 being self-distrustful. No reason why 
 he should be, as far as that goes. He 
 has always carried everything before 
 him. The only wonder is, that he keeps 
 his relish for life when it goes so easily. 
 I never realized how unspoiled he was 
 by his invariable good luck, until I wit 
 nessed the boyish and headlong way in 
 which he fell in love. Poor old Jack ! 
 He never does anything by halves, and 
 much as I regretted the catastrophe I 
 felt that I never should forgive Miss 
 L,amb if she disappointed him. 
 
 I remember asking John once, a year 
 or two before this, how it happened that 
 he had never been in love. 
 
 " Bless you, Dick," he said, with that 
 patronizing air he occasionally takes on, 
 "what a babe you are! I've been in 
 love lots of times. ' ' Then settling back 
 in his leathern arm-chair, and stretching 
 his legs comfortably, he added : " Only I 
 could never manage to stay in long 
 enough to make it necessary to give 
 myself away."
 
 133 
 
 I knew, however, from the beginning 
 that this was a different matter alto 
 gether. Poor old Jack ! I could hardly 
 sleep for thinking of the look in his eyes 
 when he stood there with the door-handle 
 in his hand.
 
 XIV. 
 
 AT CROSS PURPOSES. 
 
 OR the next few days I hardly knew 
 Brunt. He was depressed and out 
 of sorts, not to say out of temper. John 
 is always rather breezy, but I never 
 before nor since knew him to be irrita 
 ble. When his friends are aggravating 
 he laughs at them, and if other people 
 are bothersome he turns his back, which 
 is a good broad one. 
 
 "What's the matter, Jack?" said I, 
 one day. ' ' You seem out of sorts. Is 
 it because you haven't been up Pike's
 
 Cross purposes 135 
 
 Peak according to your original pro 
 gramme ? ' ' 
 
 "Yes," said he, "I always hate to 
 have heights continually before my eyes 
 that I can't climb." 
 
 " But you might go up if you liked," 
 said I, ready to humor him. 
 
 "Yes, and get frozen to death at the 
 top. Thanks, it does n't tempt me." 
 
 ' ' Did you ever hear of any one getting 
 frozen to death up there? " 
 
 ' ' No, but I have an idea that the 
 summit is strewn with corpses." 
 
 It always refreshes Jack to talk in 
 riddles, and when they are transparent 
 enough for my comprehension, I some 
 times join in. A vision of Ned and 
 Benny frozen stiff in characteristic atti 
 tudes in the ' ' lucidity " of a certain high 
 altitude visited my imagination, and a 
 sympathetic shiver accompanied it. 
 
 We were to start for New York soon 
 after Christmas and I began to think 
 John was likely to be poor company on 
 the journey. He had got absurdly morbid
 
 136 H Xiterarg Courtsbip 
 
 on the subject of that letter. I believe 
 he tried two or three times to confess to 
 Miss Lamb, though it went sadly against 
 the grain. I think, myself, that a twen 
 tieth edition would have loosened his 
 tongue ; yet I must say, in justice to him, 
 that Miss Lamb was partly responsible 
 for his ill success. She had the most 
 singular way of warding off confidences. 
 I remember one occasion in particular 
 when she turned the conversation so 
 effectually that it would have been im 
 possible to go on. 
 
 It was two or three days after our 
 solemn auto-da-fe, and we were picnicking 
 with a party of people at Monument 
 Park. By rare good luck John and I 
 had got Miss Lamb to ourselves, a little 
 apart from the rest of the crowd, in 
 a warm, sunny hollow, at the foot of 
 one of those huge yellow monsters in 
 stone with hats on their heads. Miss 
 Lamb and I were making an amicable 
 exchange of a very plump quail in return 
 for a glass of claret, when she suddenly
 
 Ht Cross purposes 137 
 
 asked me why, I supposed, Miss I^amb 
 did not answer her letter. 
 
 ' ' Have you had no answer yet ? " I 
 asked in feigned surprise, trying to gain 
 time for invention. 
 
 " Not a word," she said, "and I begin 
 to think that you were mistaken in sup 
 posing that she wanted to hear from me." 
 
 ' ' I suppose, ' ' said I, ' ' there must have 
 been some error in the address, either on 
 her part or mine. ' ' 
 
 " Miss L,amb," John began, visibly 
 bracing himself for the effort. ' ' I have 
 something to tell you about the author of 
 Spoils." 
 
 ' ' Oh, please not ! ' ' she cried, in mock 
 dismay. "I really don't want to hear 
 anything more about her. I know just 
 enough to make her interesting. ' ' 
 
 " But it is something I must tell you," 
 John began again. 
 
 ' ' Stop a minute, please. I will listen 
 to you only on one condition. Are you 
 sure that what you wish to tell me will 
 not diminish my interest in her ? "
 
 B Xfterarg Courtsbip 
 
 "I think it will increase it," said I, 
 anxious to help John. 
 
 " But shall I admire her as much as 
 ever ? Are you perfectly sure you would 
 not destroy an ideal ? It is so seldom that 
 one has a full-fledged ideal to satisfy one's 
 imagination with. Are you perfectly 
 sure that what Mr. Brunt is going to tell 
 me will not disturb that ? ' ' 
 
 "I am afraid it may," said the undi 
 plomatic John, ' ' but ' ' 
 
 "Then I positively refuse to listen." 
 And would you be so kind as to get me 
 a glass of water, Mr. Brunt ? Your wine 
 is delicious, but it does not take the place 
 of water." 
 
 Before John returned with the water 
 some of the other picnickers had joined 
 our little party and the time for disclos 
 ures was past. 
 
 Very much the same thing happened 
 on several occasions which John reported. 
 It seemed to be a caprice of Miss Lamb's 
 to hear nothing more about her name 
 sake. Once, indeed, when we were call
 
 at Cross purposes 
 
 ing upon them and Mrs. Kllerton opened 
 the subject, her niece interfered so reso 
 lutely, that I began to wonder whether 
 pique had not something to do with it. 
 Was she offended at having received no 
 answer to her letter ? Or a sudden light 
 burst in upon me was she jealous of her 
 gifted namesake. The latter suspicion 
 I ventured to impart to John, who 
 promptly demolished me. 
 
 " Why on earth should Miss Lamb be 
 jealous of anybody under heaven? " he 
 demanded. ' ' I think you must have 
 been reading dime novels, Dick." 
 
 "Then why won't she hear the name 
 mentioned ? " 
 
 ' ' She is tired to death of it, as I am ! 
 Hang it all!" 
 
 As I said before, John was very unlike 
 himself. 
 
 To make matters worse, a little thing 
 happened about that time to stir him all 
 up again about the authorship of the 
 poems. Having borrowed some current 
 magazines from Miss L,amb, we were sit-
 
 i4o S XtteratB Courtsblp 
 
 ting one evening in my room, turning 
 them over, when I came across a sheet of 
 paper on which there were three verses 
 written in pencil in Miss L,amb's hand. 
 Considering poetry to be public property, 
 I glanced over the verses, which rejoiced 
 in the hilarious title of "A Plaint." 
 They were not so harrowing as some of 
 their predecessors, to be sure, yet they 
 were hardly calculated to have an exhil 
 arating effect upon John. He had about 
 succeeded in convincing himself that the 
 " friend " was genuine, that appearances 
 were not deceitful, that the girl of his 
 choice was not a blighted being. This, 
 although there was so much evidence of 
 the poems having been written in Colo 
 rado Springs and by some one sharing 
 all Miss I^amb's personal interests, that 
 he was almost driven to accept the " un 
 enterprising " Mrs. BUerton's authorship 
 as the sole alternative. And here was 
 Miss I/amb herself no mistaking the 
 author this time still fondly and mourn 
 fully contemplating the fragments of a
 
 Ht Cross purposes 
 
 broken heart. It would perhaps have 
 been kinder to suppress my discovery, 
 but such magnanimity was beyond me, 
 and I cried : 
 
 1 ' I,ook here, John. Here 's a clincher [ 
 No question about this anyhow. See, 
 she has corrected two of the lines. Dated 
 on the loth of December too," I went on, 
 as he began reading the verses. ' ' A 
 week after our arrival. By Jove ! Wo 
 men are deep ! ' ' 
 
 While I was endeavoring to reconcile 
 my memory of Miss I/amb's cheerful 
 countenance with the graveyard phan 
 tasy I had just read, John was spending 
 more time than seemed strictly necessary, 
 in perusing the verses. By the time he 
 had got through, his face looked pretty 
 black, and he said, in a peculiar, jarring 
 voice : 
 
 " I don't know, Dick, whether to be 
 more proud of the way in which we have 
 deceived Miss I^amb about ourselves, or 
 of the manner in which we have suc 
 ceeded in prying into her private affairs,
 
 142 B ILtterarB Couct6bfp 
 
 Anyhow I am going to bed. Good 
 night !" 
 
 He departed, carrying the paper off 
 with him. 
 
 The next morning he asked me if I 
 did not think we had been in Colorado 
 about long enough, and we agreed to 
 start for home on the 26th.
 
 XV. 
 
 EPISODES. 
 
 'T'HE day on which we fixed our plan 
 for departure was the 22d, and we 
 had promised Randall to come up to the 
 polo ground and see the first game of the 
 season. We were rather late in arriving, 
 and we found a gay crowd collected at 
 one corner of the ground. It was a 
 mighty pretty sight. The wide, level 
 field just out of the town, with red- and 
 blue-capped riders tearing about after 
 the balls, and cutting sudden and impos 
 sible angles on their stocky little ponies ; 
 the bright-colored flags flying from the
 
 144 B Xiterarg Gourtsbip 
 
 poles, and the groups of pretty turn-outs 
 with well-dressed people looking on. 
 There were lots of riders, too, among the 
 spectators, so that there was no lack of 
 life and movement outside the grounds, 
 as these free lances passed from village- 
 cart to buckboard, from buckboard to 
 victoria, paying their respects to the pros 
 perous-looking occupants. The moun 
 tains appeared very big that morning, 
 brooding, in grandfatherly fashion, over 
 the gambols of man and beast. 
 
 We soon discovered Miss Lamb on 
 horseback standing near a victoria in 
 which her aunt was seated with their 
 neighbor Mrs. Brown, and her little two- 
 year-old child. Benny Mortimer, also on 
 horseback, seemed to be acting as escort, 
 and we were about to brave Benny's 
 blushing displeasure, by joining the 
 party, when the baby in the victoria 
 began to wail, at the same time putting 
 up its little hands to Miss Lamb. As 
 we rode nearer, Miss Lamb was saying : 
 "Rosamund wants a ride. Why won't
 
 Bpfso&es 145 
 
 you let me take her home ? I was just 
 going." 
 
 The child seemed to perceive her ad 
 vantage, and her cries became more 
 vociferous and more unintelligible than 
 before. 
 
 "But were you really going ? " asked 
 the mother. 
 
 " Indeed I was, and am. Do let 
 me take her. We should both enjoy it 
 so much ; and you will never be able to 
 leave the field till the ' blues ' have won." 
 
 ' ' She is a naughty, fretful baby, but, 
 if you want to spoil her you may. I sup 
 pose it is all a jumble to her poor little 
 head, and she probably does not know 
 whether her ' dee papa ' is a red or a 
 blue," and then with a most astounding 
 confidence this rash mother resigned her 
 offspring to the alarming situation pro 
 posed. 
 
 Miss Lamb reached down and lifted the 
 child with a charming ease and grace, 
 and then, holding her in her right arm, 
 she walked her horse toward us, escorted
 
 146 B Xiterarg Courtship 
 
 by the faithful but embarrassed Benny. 
 The little yellow-haired midget held on 
 to Miss I^amb's neck, her small, flushed 
 face pressed against her protector's chin, 
 and looked out upon the world with the 
 light of victory in her blue eyes. The 
 polo was exciting, at that moment, and 
 all faces were turned toward the field ; 
 but I am sure John and I had the amaze 
 ment of a great multitude in the fasci 
 nated gaze with which we met the little 
 cavalcade. 
 
 "But, Miss Lamb, isn't that awfully 
 risky ? " I remonstrated ; for I felt that 
 it was somebody's duty to interpose for 
 the rescue of the child. 
 
 " Not a bit ! " she said. " Rosamund 
 is a real horsewoman ' ' ; and she put 
 Tiger into an easy lope and rode off, the 
 baby crowing with delight, and Benny 
 looking rather nervous as escort. 
 
 John and I desisted from our intention of 
 visiting the victoria, and walked our horses 
 to a point close up to the boundary, 
 where we could follow the game better.
 
 JEpisoOes 147 
 
 ' I suppose that is the Rosamund of 
 those pretty verses," said I ; "they are 
 evidently cronies." 
 
 Perhaps you remember the poem in 
 which a certain ' ' Baby Rosamund ' ' is 
 addressed as "My little crony." John 
 once said it was a ' ' gem. ' ' 
 
 He now sat lost in thought, instead of 
 looking at the field, till suddenly the 
 whole game came charging down upon 
 us with such a thundering noise that 
 John's horse shied almost from under 
 him. The rider stuck fast, however, and 
 thus recalled to his senses, had the grace 
 to look on, as Ned himself, from out of a 
 tremendous scuffle, sent the ball flying 
 between the goals. 
 
 " Pretty work that !" I cried, as the 
 applause subsided. 
 
 John assented rather vaguely and then 
 turned his horse's head and seemed about 
 to take French leave. I gave chase and 
 asked where he was going. He said it 
 was so confoundedly hot standing there 
 in the sun that he was going for a ride.
 
 148 a Xiterarg Courtsbip 
 
 He "had seen polo before." So had I; 
 but I didn't propose to lose the rest of 
 the fun, for all that ; so I stayed on and 
 had a very pleasant morning. There are 
 lots of nice girls in Colorado Springs. 
 
 When I rode down the avenue an hour 
 later, I was not altogether surprised to 
 see John's horse tied to Mrs. Ellerton's 
 hitching-post, and finding him sitting 
 on the piazza with Miss L,amb, in the 
 " confoundedly hot" sun, by the way, 
 I thought I would go in and inquire 
 what had been done with the remaining 
 pieces of the baby. Before I could bring 
 on my little joke, however, Miss Lamb, 
 who, for the first time in our acquaint 
 ance, looked slightly agitated, was say 
 ing : 
 
 " O Mr. Dickson ! please come and 
 defend me. Mr. Brunt is accusing me 
 of having written L,eslie Smith's poems." 
 
 "And do you deny it?" I asked, 
 filled with a burning curiosity to know 
 the truth. 
 
 "What! You think so too?" she
 
 149 
 
 cried, reproachfully, and my curiosity 
 went out like a candle. 
 
 "I couldn't be so indiscreet as to 
 think anything about it, " I said, feeling 
 very small indeed. 
 
 ' ' And we have no right to ask you 
 any questions," said John, promptly 
 mounting his high horse. ' ' Dick, I 
 have made an unconscionably long call. 
 I really must be going ; but don't let me 
 hurry you." 
 
 ' ' Have you told Miss Lamb how soon 
 we are going home ? " I asked, as we all 
 stood up. 
 
 ' ' Going home ? ' ' she repeated, with a 
 sudden change of countenance, and a 
 swift glance at John. 
 
 John did not see it. He was occupied 
 in winding the lash of his riding crop 
 about the stick in complicated and artistic 
 twists. 
 
 "We are going on the 26th," said I, 
 with a penetrating look at Miss Lamb. 
 
 There was a dead silence for a second, 
 and then Miss Lamb replied with a queer
 
 150 B literary Courtsbfp 
 
 little laugh, the queerer, because she is 
 not the kind of girl to laugh by way of 
 conversation. 
 
 " I don't know why I should be so sur 
 prised. I only wonder that you should 
 have stayed as long as you have. There 
 is so much coming and going here, ' ' she 
 added, more easily, ' ' that we name our 
 fleeting visitors ' episodes.' " 
 
 " And shall you call us ' episodes ' ? " 
 John inquired, letting the artistic design 
 untwist with a snap. 
 
 " Why, we shall have to." 
 
 At that moment Mrs. Ellerton drove 
 up to the gate. 
 
 " Bad news, Aunt Bessie," said the 
 niece as her aunt came up the steps. 
 " Mr. Brunt and Mr. Dickson are to join 
 the noble army of ' episodes ' on the 
 26th." 
 
 "Lilian ! Don't be so rude ! Are you 
 really going, Mr. Dickson ? ' ' 
 
 "I am afraid we are, though we hate 
 to." 
 
 "It must be afflicting to go back to
 
 poor little provincial New York," said 
 Miss L,amb. "Just think of it, Aunt Bes 
 sie ! To exchange Pike's Peak Avenue 
 for Broadway, and picnics at Monument 
 Park for the German Opera and the Pow 
 wow ! Is n't it the Pow-wow ? ' ' 
 
 Miss Lamb's manner as she said this 
 was singularly out of character, but as we 
 turned to go, she spoke like herself again, 
 and that is always charmingly, whatever 
 she may be saying. 
 
 " We must not forget, Mr. Dickson, that 
 you have not yet got that book of pressed 
 Colorado flowers for your sister. Do you 
 remember, I told you they were done by 
 ' a bird in a cage ' ? Aunt Bessie, could 
 we not all drive to Manitou and visit the 
 cage some day this week ? Say the day 
 after to-morrow ? ' ' 
 
 ' ' By all means, if the gentlemen can 
 spare the time when they are going so 
 soon." 
 
 The gentlemen expressed themselves 
 as delighted. What had we come to 
 Colorado for, I should like to know !
 
 152 & Xiterarg Courtsbip 
 
 We had taken our leave, when John 
 turned deliberately back and said, " right 
 out in meeting," as it were : 
 
 "I was unpardonably rude, Miss I,amb. ' ' 
 
 "I think you were," she said, with a 
 slight shake in her voice, of some sort of 
 emotion, I could not tell what ; ' ' and I 
 am afraid I shall not have time to forgive 
 you before you go. ' ' 
 
 There was a look, half-aggrieved, half- 
 deprecating in her eyes, but she gave him 
 her hand, and reminded us once more of 
 the hour fixed for the drive. . 
 
 I don't know how much Miss Lamb 
 had to explain to Mrs. Ellerton, but my 
 curiosity, at least, was aroused. 
 
 ' ' What on earth ' I began the mo 
 ment we were out of hearing. 
 
 " Oh, I was an ass. That 's all. She 
 sat there looking so cool and self-contained 
 that I got suddenly perfectly furious at the 
 whole thing, and tried to break in upon 
 her confidence. I can't tell you, for the life 
 of me, what I said, but it was enough to 
 that I knew, and when she tried
 
 153 
 
 to evade me, I pulled out that confounded 
 poem you found between the leaves of the 
 Atlantic, and handed it to her with what 
 I think must have been a perfectly devilish 
 grin, and told her how sorry we were to 
 seem to have pried into her affairs." 
 
 ' ' Good heavens, John ! You were an 
 ass ! ' ' There are moments when one 
 must be frank, or burst. " But go on, 
 go on ! What did she say ? ' ' 
 
 "What did she say ? She looked vol 
 umes, but she only said, ' One can hap 
 pily copy much better things than one 
 could write ' ; and at that moment you 
 rode up, and I am perfectly certain you 
 saved my life." 
 
 ' ' Glad to hear it, Jack. Did she seem 
 so dangerous ? ' ' 
 
 " No, not that ! I was merely wither 
 ing up inside. Not a pleasant form of 
 demise," he added, dryly. 
 
 ' ' But, on the whole, what impression 
 did you get?" I asked, for being of a 
 practical turn of mind I wanted to get hold 
 of the facts.
 
 i54 B XfteratE Courtship 
 
 ' ' I got the impression that I had better 
 mind my own business. ' ' 
 
 I was really sorry for Jack. He had 
 certainly made a mess of it. But I felt 
 that it was the duty of a friend to cheer 
 him ; so I said, hopefully : 
 
 " Never mind, Jack. When you are 
 an 'episode,' you won't care a rap about 
 the whole affair." 
 
 To this cheerful proposition he had 
 nothing to say ; and I tried another tack. 
 
 " Don't you see ? " said I, " Miss Lamb 
 was sure to be offended in either case. 
 Whether she wrote the poems or not, 
 she would hate to be taxed with it, con 
 sidering the ' autobiographical ' ones. ' ' 
 
 " My dear Dick, when a man knows 
 he has been an infernal idiot there is no 
 use in proving it as though it were a point 
 of law. Unless, of course, you think 
 it valuable practice. In that case, just 
 reduce me to powder without a qualm." 
 
 Upon that I returned to my first tack. 
 
 "Well," I said, " I hope you will be 
 as glad as I shall be when we are out of
 
 155 
 
 the whole muddle. I, for one, am sick 
 of complications. I already lie awake 
 nights, thinking how simple life in New 
 York will seem. There, at least, one 
 can call a spade, a spade, and if there 
 are broken hearts lying round loose, one 
 does not know it. ' ' 
 
 "Can't you pursue the comparison 
 with some allusion to clubs and dia 
 monds? The joker might certainly be 
 worked in here. ' ' 
 
 John must indeed have been very low 
 in his mind. With some men a pun is 
 the natural outcome of exhilaration ; the 
 head and the heart get light together. 
 With John, on the contrary, it was only 
 an indication of the deepest gloom. 
 
 I gave up trying to cheer him, and 
 turned my thoughts to Miss Lamb. Her 
 demeanor had suggested many ques 
 tions which I found myself quite una 
 ble to answer. Was she aware of 
 John's interest? Did she reciprocate? 
 What was the significance of that swift 
 glance, and the ensuing pause, when I
 
 156 a literary Courtsbip 
 
 announced the date of our departure ? 
 Why did she suddenly seem flippant? 
 The flippancy was a mask of course. 
 Was it assumed to hide her chagrin at 
 being found out, or to conceal her dis 
 pleasure at John's impertinence ? For 
 indeed no milder term will suffice. Was 
 she merely afraid that we should see how 
 sorry she was that John was going ? In 
 other words, did she like him ? If she 
 did, was he her first choice, or had she a 
 "past," as the saying is. How fer 
 vently I now hoped that the ' ' past ' ' 
 existed only in our undisciplined imagi 
 nations. I could not bear that John 
 should break his heart over the woman 
 who wrote the ' ' Sonnets of Constance. ' ' 
 Yet she must have written them. Every 
 thing went to prove it. And then I 
 thought of her clear eye and her healthy 
 way of looking and talking, and I was 
 more in a mix than ever. 
 
 Yes, nothing could be more futile than 
 such speculations, and I finally made an 
 end of them.
 
 XVI. 
 
 A BIRD IN A CAGE. 
 
 "THE 24th was cold as Greenland, 
 but one does not mind the ther 
 mometer in Colorado when there is no 
 wind, and we found the double buck- 
 board before Mrs. Ellerton's door, and 
 the two ladies equipped for their drive. 
 I remember how well Miss Lamb looked, 
 dressed in the cheerful black which can 
 not be mistaken for mourning. I liked 
 the little round velvet hat she wore, and 
 she was particularly becoming to the 
 shoulder cape of long shiny black fur 
 which she had on. Mrs. Ellerton, who
 
 158 a Xtterars Courtsbip 
 
 appeared as a dimly defined but very 
 expensive mass of sealskin, invited John 
 to sit with her, while Miss I,amb, with a 
 half apology to me, kept the reins herself. 
 
 1 ' The horses are going to dance, ' ' she 
 said, " and I am sure I shall enjoy them 
 more than you would. ' ' The horses did 
 dance, and Miss Lamb managed them 
 beautifully. 
 
 ' ' I am afraid Mr. Brunt wishes he were 
 nearer the scene of action," said Mrs. 
 Ellerton, as the nigh horse gave a play 
 ful kick, and the other one cocked his 
 ears at an eccentric angle which boded 
 mischief. 
 
 John protested, politely, and I reflected 
 that he must have a fine view of the 
 driver. The stinging air had heightened 
 her color, and there was an intent look 
 on her face, and an alertness in her eyes 
 which must have been agreeable to look 
 upon. I was myself debarred by my 
 close proximity from an unrestricted con 
 templation thereof. 
 
 The horses afforded us a good deal of
 
 B JBirO in a Cage 159 
 
 entertainment as we bowled along, 
 past the flourishing collection of 
 ' ' sample rooms ' ' in Colorado City. 
 There was not much talking done. As 
 we approached Manitou it was curious to 
 see how the mountains seemed to gather 
 themselves together and frown at our 
 intrusion, a sort of dumb protest which 
 never appears to make a deep impression 
 on any one but the writers of descriptions 
 in prose and verse. Manitou looked won 
 derfully Alpine, lying in a cleft of the 
 hills, so narrow that the village had been 
 obliged to find room for itself by climbing 
 up the hillsides on either hand. The big 
 hotels were nearly all closed, and there 
 was a Sunday-like calm in the street, but 
 the noisy brook went rollicking through 
 the valley, and as we got opposite the 
 soda spring, the beginning of a huge 
 drove of cattle emerged from the Ute 
 Pass with deep and various lowings and 
 bellowings. By the time we had reached 
 " the Perch," the streets were swarming 
 with the great beasts, accompanied by
 
 160 H Xiterarg Courtsbip 
 
 shouting cowboys, riding scrawny but 
 agile broncos, under whose generalship 
 for the ponies seemed to take the initia 
 tive in the affair the moving mass of 
 creatures was kept in marching order. 
 
 We stood for a moment on the little 
 verandah, waiting for admission "The 
 Perch " is a tiny cottage well up on a 
 brick-red hillside, whence the peak is 
 just visible above the enfolding hills. 
 
 The door opened and a little woman on 
 crutches stood before us. She was Miss 
 Willet, the presser of flowers, the friend 
 and presumably the protegg of Miss 
 I^amb. She seemed prepared for our 
 coming, as much so as so small and frail 
 a creature, in so tiny a room, could be 
 prepared for an avalanche of four great 
 hearty men and women. And we soon 
 found that she was mistress of the situa 
 tion. 
 
 "Don't sit down, lyilian," she said, in a 
 high, bird-like treble, "don't sit down till 
 you've fetched the tea. You must be 
 nearly frozen. It 's all ready ' ' she added.
 
 B S31rD in a Cage 161 
 
 as Miss Lamb vanished, "but I am not 
 fond of hobbling about in company, so 
 Lilian waits on me. ' ' 
 
 Not exactly the tone of a protigt I 
 thought, and I said : 
 
 ' ' How pleasant it is to hear the cattle 
 goby." 
 
 "Yes, indeed," said Miss Willet. 
 "That is about all the music we have 
 here in the winter. In the summer we 
 are very gay, with our hops and Sunday 
 concerts. ' ' 
 
 "Do you go down to the hops?" I 
 asked. 
 
 " Dear me, no ! I have n't been down 
 the hill for three years. But the music 
 comes up to me which is much easier. 
 Mahomet and the mountain you know. ' ' 
 
 John looked with a benignant smile at 
 the minute speaker, and said : "So you 
 are the mountain ? ' ' 
 
 " Sometimes the mountain and some 
 times the squirrel, just as I please. I 
 often think of Emerson's squirrel when 
 I sit here, face to face with that big Pike's
 
 i6z a literary Courtsbip 
 
 Peak and crack my own little nuts. What 
 good things you have said about Emerson, 
 Mr. Brunt. That essay of yours was one 
 of the most toothsome nuts I ever cracked 
 saving your presence." 
 
 The sort of twinkle of appreciation that 
 accompanied this remark was delightful, 
 and I don't think I ever saw John more 
 pleased with a compliment. 
 
 Just at that moment Miss I^amb appeared 
 with the tea, and he took the tray from 
 her hands in his masterful way, and set 
 it on the table beside Miss Willet. 
 Then we watched our little hostess pour 
 out tea, with dainty, bird-like motions. 
 One was constantly reminded of Miss 
 Lamb's "bird in a cage." She looked 
 as though she might be thirty or forty 
 or fifty years old ; it did not matter 
 which. She had bright dark eyes, and 
 a peculiarly crisp enunciation ; the two 
 most noticeable things about her. After 
 a while one observed a slightly drawn 
 look about the mouth, but it smiled 
 and talked so much that it was only at
 
 in a Gage 163 
 
 rare intervals that one could surprise it 
 at rest. 
 
 The tea wanned a body up delight 
 fully, and the little cakes were most 
 pleasing. 
 
 ' ' What a famous cook you are, Miss 
 Willet," said Mrs. Ellerton, as she tasted 
 the cakes. 
 
 ' ' Did you make these delectable little 
 things yourself? " asked John. 
 
 ' ' Who else should make them ? ' ' she 
 demanded, with a quick turn of the head. 
 " You don't suppose I keep a retinue of 
 servants in this dry -goods box ? " 
 
 " Would it take a retinue ? " 
 
 "Lilian," said she, with apparent ir 
 relevance. ' ' You are the most conside 
 rate young person of my acquaintance. 
 You never find it necessary to embellish 
 your conversation with an account of 
 your friends' idiosyncrasies. Now some 
 of my very well-meaning acquaintances 
 show me off to their friends as a sort of 
 curiosity, as being a woman who lives 
 quite alone, and is an extremely odd fish.
 
 164 B XtteratB Courtsbip 
 
 I '11 warrant that Lilian has never even 
 told you of the five cats which have 
 lightened my solitude from time to time, 
 only to go the way of Colorado cats as 
 promptly as though they had an appoint 
 ment to keep. ' ' 
 
 ' ' And what is the way of Colorado 
 cats ? We don' t even know that. ' ' 
 
 "A premature death. They are as 
 rare as peacocks here. You can't induce 
 them to live. And I won't have a dog, 
 because he would bark if a burglar ap 
 proached the house, and scare me out of 
 my wits." 
 
 ' ' And you really live here entirely 
 alone?" asked Brunt, in that great, 
 friendly, benevolent voice he has for all 
 fragile creatures. We both thought of 
 the wild Indians and wilder cowboys, 
 with which our imaginations had former 
 ly peopled Colorado. Yet, even so, the 
 wild beasts seldom harm the birds. 
 
 "Well, not quite alone," the tiny 
 woman was saying. ' ' There are Gog 
 and Magog up there" pointing to two
 
 B JBtrd in a Case 
 
 monstrous rocks on the opposite mountain 
 side, " and there is my cuckoo-clock 
 that little Rosamund brought me on her 
 first birthday. And then a woman comes 
 in for an hour every morning to tidy me 
 up. I name them in the order of theii 
 importance. I could dispense with the 
 woman much more lightly than with Gog 
 and Magog, or the clock either. ' ' 
 
 We looked with interest at Gog and 
 Magog, remembering that Leslie Smith 
 had celebrated their "uncouth majes 
 ties." Miss Willet's talk ran on with 
 unfailing fluency and spirit, and, withal, 
 a quite irresistible charm. It was like 
 firelight. It flickered from one theme 
 to another and brightened everything it 
 touched. John was clearly enchanted 
 with the whole situation. He sat there 
 looking from the ' ' birC ' ' to Miss L,amb 
 and from Miss I^amb to thv. " bird, " with 
 such a blissful content in his face, that it 
 seemed to me he must have a deeper 
 source of satisfaction than the mere pleas 
 ure of listening to this bird-like chirping.
 
 166 B XfterarE Courtsblp 
 
 She showed us her books of pressed 
 flowers and we longed to buy out her 
 entire stock. But delicacy forbade, and 
 we were obliged to content ourselves 
 with taking two of the very largest and 
 most expensive. I am sure that when 
 Miss Willet told us that "Lilian" had 
 gathered most of her flowers for her, John 
 would have joyfully paid half his for 
 tune for a single specimen. That, how 
 ever, was happily not necessary. We do 
 not have to pay half our fortune for the 
 things we most desire. If we get them 
 at all, they come as a free gift. 
 
 When we were taking leave, Miss 
 Willet, still sitting in her chair, put her 
 tiny hand into John's big one, and said, 
 very warmly : " I don't suppose I shall 
 ever see you again, Mr. Brunt, but I 
 should like you to know that it has been 
 a very particular gratification to me to 
 see you to-day." 
 
 " It cannot possibly be to you what it 
 has been to me, Miss Willet," said John, 
 in his very deepest voice, "and I think 
 we shall meet again. ' '
 
 B JBtrD tn a Cage 167 
 
 I stood stupidly wondering at this 
 exchange of rather ardent compliments, 
 without an inkling of what it all meant ; 
 nor could I divine why John was in such 
 spirits on the homeward drive. He talked 
 so entertainingly, and with such delight 
 ful abandonment, that his companion, 
 Mrs. Bllerton, seemed quite swept out of 
 her usual placid indolence, and responded 
 with an animation which I had not 
 thought her capable of. Miss Lamb and 
 I did more listening than talking. 
 
 To cap the climax of this exhilarating 
 morning, we found an advance copy of 
 Leslie Smith's poems awaiting us at the 
 hotel. John tore open the wrapper with 
 feverish impatience, as we walked along 
 the corridor to our rooms, and by the 
 time we got to his door he had taken a 
 bird's-eye view of the entire contents. 
 
 "Is n't that a pretty bit of binding 
 and printing ? ' ' said he, exultantly, as 
 we shut the door behind us. 
 
 It was, indeed, all and more than our 
 fancy had painted. Whoever might be 
 their author, the poems of Leslie Smith
 
 i68 a OLfterars Courtsbip 
 
 had made their debut, equipped, as the 
 newspapers say, "with every advantage 
 the bookmaker's art could bestow." 
 
 I was still admiring them, when John, 
 who had stood, meanwhile, fairly fuming 
 with impatience, cried : ' ' And now we 
 know who wrote them ! " 
 
 "Has she confessed?" Tasked, look 
 ing up from my favorite Knighted. 
 
 ' ' Confessed ? No. But there can't be 
 any doubt about it. Everything goes to 
 prove it. ' Gog and Magog,' ' Solitude,' 
 'The Cripple's Cup.' I tell you that 
 ' Cripple's Cup ' is an inside view." 
 
 ' ' Good gracious, Jack ! ' ' said I. ' ' You 
 don't think the ' bird in the cage ' wrote 
 them?" 
 
 " If she didn't, nobody did ! Why it 
 was all in her eye as plain as print. ' ' 
 
 ' ' What was in her eye, Jack ? Do talk 
 sense." 
 
 "The inspired ones, the best ones; 
 and the melancholy ones were in the cor 
 ners of her mouth ; and the witty ones 
 were in the cut of her nose ; and the de-
 
 a JBtrO in a Cage 169 
 
 scriptive ones in her whole environment ; 
 and the philosophy was in her crutches ! " 
 
 I did not propose to be convinced by 
 such random talk as this, but somehow I 
 began to feel as though I had made the 
 discovery all on my own account. 
 
 ' ' How are you going to make sure ? ' ' 
 I asked. 
 
 ' ' This is how I am going to make 
 sure, ' ' and John sat down, and scribbled 
 off these few lines : 
 
 " MY DEAR Miss LAMB : 
 
 "An advance copy of the poems 
 of Leslie Smith has just arrived. Could we 
 not take them to her this afternoon ? You 
 were intending to ride, were you not ? 
 " Yours, 
 
 "John Brunt." 
 
 In half an hour the answer came : 
 
 " MY DEAR MR. BRUNT : 
 
 " I saw you had guessed our 
 secret. The days are very short We must 
 start by two o'clock. 
 
 " Yours very sincerely, 
 
 " Lilian Leslie Lamb."
 
 170 H literate Courtship 
 
 At two o'clock they were off and I was 
 left to chew the cud of my reflections. 
 These were not altogether soothing. I 
 felt perfectly sure now that sooner or later 
 John would take the plunge, and I felt 
 for him. Such an awkward thing to do 
 under the most favorable circumstances, 
 and who could tell how Miss I,amb would 
 like it after sitch a very short acquaint 
 ance. She did not impress me as a girl 
 who would say ' ' Yes, thank you " as a 
 matter of course just because John was a 
 distinguished man and a fine fellow, and 
 I could not form any surmise as to the 
 state of her feelings toward him. I did 
 not think she was indifferent to him ; no 
 intelligent person ever was, to my knowl 
 edge ; but from indifference to " for bet 
 ter, for worse," is a far cry. I recalled 
 what Ned Randall had said about her 
 " lucidity," and that was some little com 
 fort. Yet, on the whole, I was not sure 
 that John was the man to be deterred by 
 "lucidity," unless it were very marked 
 indeed. He had not Ned's vanity to
 
 H JBirJ) in a Cage 171 
 
 cause him to shrink from a rebuff, nor 
 Benny Mortimer's excessive modesty to 
 make him self-distrustful. He would 
 survive a rejection, of course. It would 
 take more than that to demolish John, 
 or at least I hoped so, but it would 
 be rough, and I could n't bear to think 
 of it. 
 
 Then I imagined her saying yes, and 
 that was about as bad as the other. 
 
 ' ' O I,ord ! " I caught myself saying. 
 ' ' Why need she have been such a pro 
 voking paragon ? What did she want to 
 go and do all those charming things for ? 
 Was it not enough that she should write 
 such uncommonly good letters, and drag 
 us out by them to this fatal place, with 
 out being so unnecessarily good-looking, 
 and riding so absurdly well, and talking 
 just after John's own heart, and being, 
 altogether, I verily believe, the one woman 
 on this planet whom John would lose his 
 head over ? ' ' 
 
 My mind reverted to the grace and 
 sweetness with which she picked up that
 
 172 a Xtterarg Courtsbip 
 
 picturesque infant at the Polo Ground 
 and rode off with it ; to the manner in 
 which she poked the fire the first evening 
 of our acquaintance, letting the flame 
 light up her face ; to her firm hand and 
 quick eye as she drove those prancing 
 steeds to Manitou. All seemed like so 
 many wanton shots let fly without regard 
 to the mischief they might do. And of 
 course it was her perfect unconsciousness 
 which rendered them fatal. I actually 
 felt a grudge against her for having tum 
 bled out of the apple tree at the age of 
 seven, and for having so politely thanked 
 her torturer for his services. I remem 
 bered with a shudder a remark John made 
 one day when we first came to Colorado, 
 and I was harping on the old string of 
 Leslie Smith's identity. 
 
 "I don't care whether Miss L,amb 
 writes poetry or not, ' ' John had suddenly 
 declared. ' ' She is a better poem herself 
 than any I ever read. ' ' 
 
 Yes, John was in for it, that was sure 
 as sunrise, and as I could n't make up my
 
 ll Strd in a ttage 
 
 173 
 
 mind which would be my choice of two 
 evils, I went forth and paid some duty 
 calls, thanking my stars that all girls were 
 not so exasperatingly admirable as this 
 one.
 
 XVII. 
 
 ON HORSEBACK ! 
 
 \\ 7 HEN I got home, long after dark, I 
 * ^ found John striding up and down 
 
 my room in a blaze of glory from all the 
 
 gas-burners, every one of which he had 
 
 lighted up, for some reason best known 
 
 to himself. 
 
 " Hullo ! " said I. "Got back ? " 
 To which original greeting he responded 
 
 by wringing my hand unmercifully. 
 "Good heavens, Jack!" I groaned, 
 
 partly from physical anguish, partly from
 
 n f)orset>ach! 175 
 
 the shock of a tremendous conviction. 
 "You don't want my hand." 
 
 He dropped it, and then he laughed, 
 that splendid old laugh of his that would 
 make a raven smile. 
 
 ' ' Dick, you blessed youngster, ' ' said 
 he, "are n't you going to congratulate 
 me?" 
 
 "John Brunt," said I, "you have n't 
 done the deed ?" 
 
 He says my voice was awe-struck, but 
 I know better. Awe was not the emotion 
 I felt at the moment. 
 
 "Yes, Dick," he said, with a sudden 
 solemnity, ' ' she has accepted me. ' ' 
 
 "What! On horseback?" I cried, for 
 that circumstance was really the first 
 thing that struck me. 
 
 "Yes, on horseback," he admitted, 
 and then he laughed again. 
 
 I did not press for details. In fact I was 
 too much taken aback at first to ask any 
 more questions, and I found John more 
 inclined to talk of the earlier part of the 
 trip. He gave a comical account of little
 
 a Xiterarg Couttsbfp 
 
 Miss Willet's consternation when she 
 found that her secret was out. But John 
 swore himself and me also to secrecy, 
 and bye and bye she thawed out and let 
 him see her joy in the book, which she 
 handled in a caressing way that told her 
 story better than words. 
 
 On their way home he seems to have 
 confessed to his companion how he had 
 tormented himself with the question of 
 the authorship, and that was sure to 
 bring about a declaration, as anybody 
 could see. 
 
 They rode in over the lower Mesa. It 
 was getting dark, and was so cold that 
 they rode fast. I can imagine how the 
 hoof beats chimed in with John's im 
 petuous words, and if Miss Lamb is the 
 woman I take her for, her own pulse 
 must have kept time with both.
 
 XVIII. 
 
 A TOAST. 
 
 IT was a glorious Christmas morning 
 * and Pike's Peak was in his grandest 
 mood, glittering white in the sunshine, 
 with warm dark shadows in the deep 
 ravines. 
 
 We stood, paying homage to the splen 
 did old fellow, on our way to the break 
 fast-room, and I gave John's hand a good 
 hard grip by way of apology for my some 
 what incomplete congratulations of the 
 night before.
 
 178 a OLiterars Gourtsbfp 
 
 " Is n't it glorious ! " he said, with an 
 air of including life in general in his 
 encomium. 
 
 " You like Pike's Peak better than you 
 did at first, ' ' I remarked. 
 
 "Like it? I adore it." 
 
 "All in three weeks," I murmured, 
 ruefully. 
 
 " All in three weeks !" 
 
 His tone was positively jubilant, and I 
 could not but admire him. A man who 
 can keep up his spirits at such a time 
 must have a lot of grit. 
 
 " Have you told her about the other 
 Lilian ? " I asked. 
 
 His face fell, and I fancied he was 
 thinking of the twentieth edition. Only 
 nineteen had yet appeared. 
 
 " No. I meant to, but it did n't come 
 in naturally." 
 
 " You '11 have to tell her before long, 
 you know. ' ' 
 
 "Dick, I wonder how she will take 
 it." 
 
 " Poh ! she will be pleased as Punch, I
 
 B Coast. 179 
 
 warrant 3x511. But I wish I might be 
 there to see her surprise. ' ' 
 
 The two Lilians were to ride again that 
 morning. John was polite but not urgent 
 in inviting me to accompany them. But 
 we were both bidden to dinner, and I 
 felt that I could curb my impatience till 
 then. 
 
 In the course of the morning, however, 
 I paid my respects to Mrs. Kllerton, who 
 seemed to be taking it very philosophi 
 cally. Women have so much nerve in an 
 emergency. To be sure, Mrs. Ellerton 
 had come to like John very well, es^ 
 pecially after she learned that his mother 
 was a Van Deusenberg. As for me, it 
 *would not have reconciled me in the least 
 degree if Miss Lamb's mother had been 
 the Empress of Madagascar. I often 
 wonder if women care as much about 
 things as men do. 
 
 Just before we started out to dine at 
 Mrs. Ellerton' s John received a letter 
 from the Sandersons. He opened it and 
 read it with a grunt of satisfaction.
 
 i8o B literary Courtsbtp 
 
 " What pleases you, Jack ? " I asked. 
 
 1 ' The twentieth edition, ' ' said he. "I 
 always meant to tell when the twentieth 
 edition was out." 
 
 "I do believe," said I, as we walked 
 up the avenue, " I do believe that you 
 are perfectly easy in your mind about the 
 whole thing since you have gained your 
 point." 
 
 "Perhaps you are right, Dick," said 
 he. " I suddenly feel as though I had 
 been a fool to worry about it. I am sure 
 Miss I^amb will understand everything 
 perfectly. I say, Dick, why did n't you 
 tell me what a fool I was ? ' ' 
 
 " I did n't find you susceptible to hints 
 in that direction, and one does n't want' 
 to be brutal. But, look here, Jack. She 
 may forgive you, but what will she think 
 of me for making her write that letter ? ' ' 
 
 "Oh, she won't resent anything you 
 have done ! ' ' 
 
 This was more consolatory than flatter 
 ing. 
 
 " I should like to be by when the cur-
 
 B Coast. 181 
 
 tain goes up," I said, meekly overlooking 
 the snub. 
 
 " Perhaps you may be. I don't mind 
 if you give it a hoist yourself." 
 
 The two ladies met us in the hall just 
 as they did the first evening we dined 
 there. Miss Lamb had on a gown of 
 some sort of lacy black stuff that was 
 very becoming. She wore some roses, 
 which, together with her brilliant face, 
 lighted things up finely. I don't mean 
 that her color was brilliant. It was more 
 the look. I thought of the star John 
 once compared it to. He evidently was 
 not so far afield in that comparison as 
 lovers usually are. Somehow I found 
 myself with a very warm feeling toward 
 Miss Lamb, in spite of my personal 
 grievance, and I had a much easier time 
 with my congratulations than I had an 
 ticipated. 
 
 I never saw a newly engaged couple 
 carry it off better than did those two. 
 They seemed to take it for granted in 
 such a comfortable way, yet there was no
 
 i8a a Xttcrars Courtebip 
 
 mistaking them. Their state of mind, 
 though unobtrusive, was clearly beatific. 
 After all, one must be a monster of sel 
 fishness, not to rejoice in the happiness 
 of one's best friend, however misguided 
 he may be. Besides which, there was the 
 Bengal tiger in the background. That was 
 a justification such as few weddings have. 
 
 Once more John took Mrs. Bllerton 
 in to dinner, and I Miss I^amb, and the 
 similarity of the situation, together with 
 the stupendous changes, made it really 
 bewildering. Once more Mrs. Ellerton 
 opened the subject of the mysterious 
 author of Spoils, and this time her niece 
 attempted no diversion. 
 
 "You must write to Miss I^amb soon," 
 said the elder lady, beaming at her niece 
 over a great dish of roses. ' ' She will be 
 so interested in everything. ' ' 
 
 Miss I^amb looked across at her aunt 
 with a singular smile and said : ' ' There 
 is no use in writing to her, Aunt Bessie, 
 I have reason to think she does not read 
 my letters."
 
 B Goast, 183 
 
 "Does not read your letters?" Aunt 
 Bessie repeated, in an incredulous tone 
 of voice, while John and I looked at each 
 other. I don't know how he felt, but a 
 cold shiver ran down my back. It is one 
 thing to confess, and quite another thing 
 to be found out. 
 
 John retained his self-possession and 
 said : " The author of Spoils was re* 
 solved, long ago, to reveal his identity 
 whenever the twentieth edition should 
 be out. The twentieth edition was out 
 yesterday. ' ' 
 
 ' ' Then we may congratulate you 
 now? " said Miss Lamb, with a delicious 
 turn of the head, and a brimming sort 
 of smile. " I have long wanted to." 
 
 This time John flushed, and Mrs. Bller- 
 ton looked more mystified than ever. 
 
 " What is it all about, Lilian?" she 
 asked. " Are you in the secret ? " 
 
 ' ' Yes, Aunt Bessie. I have been in the 
 secret for more than three weeks. Is it 
 possible that you did not recognize Mr. 
 Brunt's description that first evening?
 
 184 H Xiterarg Gourtsbtp 
 
 You said yourself that it was strangely 
 unlike a middle-aged authoress. ' ' 
 
 The champagne had just been served, 
 and without waiting for explanations I 
 proposed a toast. 
 
 Within, the roses and the candle-light 
 and the sparkling wine adorned the feast, 
 but it was of Pike's Peak I was think 
 ing, of Pike's Peak wrapped in snow, 
 towering big and benignant in the star 
 light, as we gaily drank to the health 
 of "the two Lilians." 
 
 THE END.
 
 40^73