MI INGALI 5&v & GERTRUDE r MISS INGALIS > . 'Grace, there has been something I have been wanting to ask you" MISS INGALIS BY GERTRUDE HALL Author of "Aurora the Magnificent," "The Truth About Camilla," etc. $ & * ** rf f€*& NEW YORK THE CENTURY CO. 1918 fright, 1918, by Til TTRY CO. Published, October, 1'J18 A EMMA EN SOUVENIR DE NOS MILLE SOUVENIRS MISS INGALIS • ' ' - . MISS INGALIS CHAPTER I HE had called at her house before, one night of snow. The woman in black who came to the door — visibly not a servant — had told him Miss Ingalis was absent. She had made way for him to enter, so that she might shut out the cold, and in the hallway had imparted the further knowl- edge that her sister was in the West Indies; she had gone the first of February and was not expected home until the second week in March. "A friend, passing through the city on her way down there," she said, "picked up Grace at an hour's notice and took her along." He had not known he could feel so dejected by not getting a sight of her at the end of that first pil- grimage to her dwelling. Tightening his overcoat to breast the icy wind, he had laid balm to himself by picturing her amid sunshine and warmth, palm-trees, pomegranates, hibiscus. He praised the friend who had had eyes to see that she was paler than she should be, — thinner, too, though that aerial thinness was so charming, — and had whisked her away for a holiday. 3 4 MISS INGALIS She continued to haunt his thoughts, as she I done for - months. Be ento what might I"' died tlie fourth period of his Bentiment with re- gard to her. The Bn curious to remember. Be had wished to know who was guilty of certain remarkably poor mens appearing ou th< eeu at every conto the com] id class in company with hifl own i and many more --riving evident tell in . of power and promise. She had "ii point--. 1 out to him. and he had wondered what made her try to be an arti Be had not thought hei Bia in; ■ had been awakened in time I oiser- ile Little pastel that he found pinned near his own illustration of '*!' ty.' Amid thirty picture* set- ting forth ■ them, the sordid hoi children, -d beggars, want, filth,— there had shon< tfa faintly just one of a different inspiration: hers, badly drawn as usual. '.. showing the pun i «rIorious bride 9 ■ • Francis. Something within him had bowed and done hoi: Be had looked at her more attentively, and entered the >nd period. One can be an execrable painter, y.-t an ex. | ii. S •' loo e might ha d through some • - irrow and were still sad. though trying not to let it be seen. She wore mourning for her father. MISS INGALIS 5 He believed her to be poor, like himself. That she was delicately bred was more than evident. Poverty was perhaps new to her, and the pursuit of art her innocent conception of going to work. She ceased coming to the art school soon after, and he saw her no more until one of the richer students held at her house a reunion of her fellow students. To this she also came, still in black, but a black less funereal; and he hardly left her side during the whole evening. They talked of their favorite authors. In answer to his prayer at parting for permission to call on her, she told him where she lived. There be- gan the third period. And now the middle of March had come, when she must be home again. He could not disguise from himself a certain emotion as he set forth a second time for her house. His little mother asked him where he was going, and he satisfied her curiosity as kindly as he could without telling her anything. But he kissed her with real fondness. She had been so good to him ; his debt was always present to his mind. To afford him the education that was to make possible his rise in the world, she had taken lodgers. For years. While he mixed paints on a palette, she cared for the rooms of untidy bachelors and exacting old maids. He was de- termined to repay her. That the pearl of girls stood on a spiritual eminence which enabled her to see poverty as sacred, that she could never feel scorn for (i MISS CNGALIS the poor Little hard-worked widow, his mother, en- hanced her preciou8nes8, her fitness in his < 1 t*« a m ^. still misty though these were. And bo he came to her house, a small house in an unfashionable neighborhood once in better social mding. Again the older r opened the door, — much older Bister, 1m- thought: by the ring on her finger, married. He could nol perceive that ->.-(! ..i ,uii of the younger sister's charm. "Yi be is back, 1 he heard with relief. "Won't you come into the parlor! I will tell her. Bur. Andreas Dai l remember perfectly . " She opened the door into an unlighted room. While she fell for tin- matches and while he waited, ime aware of an odor like thai in a florist and carnations. ie sprang into being, the room into sight, ;m•, enriched by costly laces; her liair had a look of pretty formality and fashion. And she had discarded aadn< Bhe had niourninir. She brought into the room an addition of perfume. On her bi lay violets in a thick knot -viol< thai made one jealous. B< fell his courage forsaking him. Bui after a few minul talk he regained some- thing of her reality and became a litt! irecL Ber smile had a I riah brightness, but her were unchanged s that had oothing about them of Spanish or Oriental - with a characteri tic look <'t" spiritual curiosity, a deep-G 1, half- troubled preoccupation with spiritual values lie frit at home with them, and presently began again • ■ she led the way into the neighboring room, which Dtained a literary workman's large writing-desk, only it w . Id and orderly, as it could not have been for one moment during his life, she lighted the drop-lamp, and with her new animation made her visitor adi the curiosities she had brought back from the islands — baskets, pottery, corals, shells. MISS INGALIS "It has been too, too wonderful!' she said. "I can hardly believe it yet." She pressed a hand to her forehead, as if to get a firmer hold on her thoughts and make sure she was not taking dreams for waking. "I came home from my work one afternoon — I must have told you that after giving up the art school I was learning the kindergarten method, so as to be able to teach — I came home and found a friend I had not seen for several years, Mrs. Lamont, waiting for me here. She had married, and was taking her hus- band — he is a retired army officer — on a sea voyage to make him well of a cold that worried her. 1 ' She is such a dear, Ida Lamont ! ' ' she interpolated enthusiastically. "Except for liking each other so much, you might say our acquaintance was very slight before this trip together. We had met at a hotel in the mountains where we only spent two weeks — my father and I. But she had said that if ever she came to this city she would look us up. And she did. As soon as she saw me, she decided I must go with them. And, mind you, it was almost a honeymoon she was going on. Yet she wanted to take me along. Don't you call it noble of her? "I hadn't time for anything; she didn't give me time to think. We started that same evening for New York, and next day we sailed. In a blizzard. I shall never forget the mean ferocity of the weather that day. Then gradually, gradually, it became 10 MISS [N6ALIS quieter, milder, warmer, brighter. One after an- other, we dropped OUT winter wraps. And then it was all blueness and wonder. We came in Bight of land, and it was tropical — banana-trees and palnis and sii. ane plantation-, with little gray cabinfl along ..." "1 am glad for you — to have escaped our disagree- able February,' he said, with ■ dry throat. "In a few days -prim: will begin It ha- been like a fairy story, a transformation ." b] tinned. " Almod before we w< >nt of the harbor, Mis. Lamont said she could not bear to me in black, and made me give up mourning, she had her maul take in oi ' iwn dres i lit me. This that 1 q iBoneofhers. Did you ever hear b e/i'D'T His breast f if a physical weight had en lifted from it. Be found a ready tongue again. They talked tor a while of travel and tropics. Tien Bhe wished to hear about his fortunes, and showed a kind gladi it the news of p - and frontispiee he had been commissioned to supply. "Isn't it singular/ 1 she said, "how one can never tell what is round the corner 1 A reason why we OUght never to despair. On Saturday yon may be trudging with half-frozen feet to work you hate, be- cause it \s so uncongenial, and Saturday of the week after may find you on an enchanted island where the maddest fair\ series and romances come to pa MISS INGALIS 11 He became uneasy again, because her glance, fixed actually on the worn carpet, rested with a brooding air, a happy wonder, on scenes that he could not guess at. While she was thus occupied with visions of Caribbean seas and skies, one of her hands played with a ring on the other hand, a ring sparkling with newness. Could Mrs. Lamont be the donor of that too? It formed a rather startling ornament for the slender, brownish hand whose mate — as he had had occasion to remark — handled the pencil so nervelessly ; it shared some quality with the massed roses and acutely odorous pinks. It was composed of one great drop of ruby fire and a diamond imprisoning one great drop of quintessential light. The sight of it produced a return of his faint sickness of soul. "And now?" he forced himself to speak. "Do you think of going back to the work you left — the kinder- garten?" She smiled as she very softly shook her head in the negative. He was made to wait a moment before anything was added to that answer. "No." She looked at him as if she thought he ought to be able to guess the reason; and, after a little pause that gave him time to do so, said that which, ever since his first sight of those insolent roses, he had been fearing to hear: "I am going to be married." 12 MISS [NG HAS The words he uttered right after this were so me- chanica] that he did not know what they were. They drew forth, however, a little amplification on her pari : ,- It is a oame you must often have heard— or, if not heard, Been. ( Overcome. I !i yon mean — Overcome Brothei The big men 's-clothin^ house " Tea, It is the youngest of the brothi I hirer II<- \\a> a fellow ; r on board the Pretoria, an [uaintance of Mrs. Lamont 'a." She looked musingly al her ring, and again smiled. "Almost funny, isn't it', by any chance, be this I thought of the possibility of marrying, I supposed, oi it would be somebody lit- or ar • —or a pr ; •'••ssional .u. It a fairy ry. a fairy prince wouldn't have to be artistic essional, would he 9 ' sh< I with merry frankness. Andreas D did riot shorten his call because he is in pain. ll> did not find ything changed by the fad that this young girl was promised to an- other. Something of her, he p< 1 in believing belonged to him through the affinity he had been sure of. I I*i* brown ■ in uo wise ahul him out, though their new radiance was due to circumstance which, after thi ming, would banish him. Th Were and friendly. Were they also a little MISS INGALIS 13 pitying? . . . Since she was no longer a damsel] in the position of being tried and, if found satisfactory, honored with the offer of one's name, but a poignantly lovely and desirable woman forever out of reach, his heart jumped to a quick knowledge of itself, and he remained as late as possible, to get what pleasure he could from being near her gentle beauty, and to carry away the more to remember. He had not come with the definite idea of looking for his happiness, or with the certitude that it lay there: but he went out into the March night — and, as far as he knew, out of her life — with the gloomy distaste for existence of one who feels no doubt of having lost Paradise. I BAPTEB II A^ climbed the stairs after the departure of her caller, Gi ilia was carefu] to make do hois W'nh velvet tread Bhe ; I the black L r ;i|» <>f a half open door on the second-floor land iri'_r Mi fully, she hoped. Bui when she turned cut t)i.- Bpark of hiit had been left burning in tli*- hall, a woman's \' •• in the dark above husband a mi. re. " Your young ma: sJ later than i- decent, it seems to me. Couldn't you have sent him home earlier f ' No reply. "Ha vi yon locked up?" ,4 Y< :r. I have '" I > i « 1 you put up the chain ?" "Yea, dear, I did." •And turn out the 1:. "Yea. Good night, Lydiadear. Pleasant dreams When she reached her bedroom on thi >r aboi Grace had already forgotten the annoyance of that questioning. II. r thoughts followed Andreas Dane. She had become conscious, before the end. of some smothered suffering at her side. Though wondering and half doubting, she had laid it to the right caus. . 14 MISS INGALIS 15 Thinking it over, she said to herself that she was sorry for him, and sent after him a great heartful of good will. At the same time she warmed with pride. She felt her value increased by his estimate of it, her pleasure in this resting mainly on the fact that it gave her more to bestow on another man. It was difficult to recall how she had regarded Andreas before. She tried, and was surprised anew to find how everything belonging to the time preced- ing the first of February — only six weeks ago ! — seemed part of another existence. But she knew well enough that she had shared the general admiration of the girls' portion of the art school for the young fellow whose work made that of every other look weak in execution and trivial of fancy. She had been flattered by his assiduity on the evening they had spent so largely in a corner together, talking of Keats and Shelley. Instead of being sleepy, as the hour warranted, she was keenly awake, too greatly excited to care about going to bed for a long time yet. This was well, since she had a happy task to perform. She sat down at the cluttered table under the gas- globe and, with bright eyes fixed on her imaginings, nibbled the end of a pen-holder. Then she wrote : "I promised to write you this evening, but it is al- most to-morrow. Are you still at your Athletic Club, I wonder? Very likely. But if you are smok- 16 BUSS LNGALIS ing and talki nir with brawny athletes, and not think- i tilt one Lit of me, it a Dot fair, for 1 am sitting up into th- ■ dl hours, thinking of V00 and writing to prove it. 'Do you know, I almost think it a good thing that there should be eveningB when you are unable to >me and I must write you. I. • there are this I rir\ . when vmi are 1. i ef 1 want von » * • * to km>\v thrin. When w< together we do nothing but fool — which, n sir, is wholly your fault A 10 as you J iv. • I think of things I had meant ind that aeeii i put out of my mind. No, that, either; I don't know what it is. 1 can't D th. you, and \ «'t I want von to know them Thej things you ought to be glad to know, it seems to me, and writing gives me the chan< "l had a caller this ing; that is what makes it l* ••' ss : I had doI dnce before I knew you; and I a I I dearly the feeling of the past, ' my life to which you did not b Long. Clare, I could almost feel sorry for myself when I Look back at the gray, terrible da; the L ar and a hal Ida came on th the days between my dear father's death and my Bailing away on the ship that carried OS both. Happily, they have come to seem far. far away; an eternity divides me from them. But this evening, as I v. saying, brought them back. MISS INGALIS 17 ' ' There are things you can never know, Clare. One of them is what it feels like to be faced with the prob- lem of earning a living, and discovering that you are too stupid to do it in any of the ways that could con- tain a little satisfaction, a little zest, anything but hateful drudgery. "I am afraid poor Papa spoiled me. I grew up thinking quite well of myself; I supposed I had talents. So I tried to write ; I tried music ; I even tried to paint — to have it finally impressed upon me that no one would ever want any of it. Then I buckled down to what was real work, within the com- monest capacity — teaching small children. And the dreariness of it, Clare, I can never describe. Perhaps I should have grown to like it. They say that doing your duty brings its reward, and I believe it. But I was dreadfully far from that point. "What I am telling you all this for, dear Clare, is not to give you an idea of the difference you have made, but to say that I look back upon the person I was then, who dragged through the work of the day, ' unhappy like the stones,' as they say in French, with surprise and scorn. I can't place myself back in her shoes and understand how she could be such a coward. That, you see, is the great difference. Now I could stand all I had to stand then and still keep a song in my heart. If it were part of my great task of trying to make you happy, would I not with a cheerful smile teach kindergarten ? Or do IS IOSS 1NGALIS anything else — fix your dinner for ymi in a tin pail. fur example, or help you to weed the potato-patch. 1 She paused in her Writing, and with shining w.-nt through these devoted performances in miasma tion, and in imagination received full thanks. It W88 COld at the top .if the QOUS< The furii.. wa managed a- to hum economically during the oight; even by day ili<- heal rather 1' fore rising bo high. The window-frames were shak- ing in the wind. Grace trembled, in spite of the shawl wrapp' OUnd ln-r. But this did not d n her 1' in which she v. n stent, Since writing a lei my tin.- is h-s> work than weedii -patch. Presently si BUm( d : < >ur whole w>; □ f'T me the aspect of a tnbol. I )( » yon r Bpitefulni — of r <>n the day w -• Bailed I It was wirr like that all through i ben came the wanner and warmer gold-and-blue daj I opened my heart, just ! did my t ravrlii)'_ , -< , l< , ak. to let it in. I had never Uy been aliv< I had not imagined, when I tried n.. \ that life could he like that, so miraculous — oi tiny so unforeseen and miraculous,— you, Clar miraculous! The wl difference was like the difference 1 n the storm we Left port in and the heavenly atmosphere we MISS INGALIS 19 found in Saint Thomas. It all entered my soul and saturated me; so that when, on the way back, it grew colder and colder again, I found it only delight- ful, bracing, tonic. I carried my climate within me, you see." She finished with the happy assurance that he would care to read these things, though she would not have been permitted to say them, being strictly denied the role of debtor or flatterer or sentimentalist. He would care to read them because the expression of her sense of what she owed to him was, after all, nothing more than an expression of love. If writing a letter in the cold, late hours is less laborious than weeding a potato-patch, the merit of going out to post it after one o'clock in the morning should count equal at least to picking off the cater- pillars. Grace stole past her sister's door like a mouse. The manly breathing proceeding from it covered an unavoidable creaking of the stairs. She let down the door-chain without a clank, made the key turn without grating, and, leaving the door on the latch, flitted like a shadow to the letter-box at the corner lamp-post. Grace paused in her undressing to think of her father. She took a photograph from its place at the head of her bed, and, gazing at it, tried earnestly to commune with him. The imaged face had the peer- MISS INGALIS inL r , pu/.zlr.l Look of a man who wants immensely and vainly to understand this world, more enigmatical to him than to stupider people; B man justly and onahly maddened, beneath his habil of regardful Dtlene8s, by the inconsequence of people and the contumacy of thini The face had a critical, quar- relsome air, an air of pugnacity, checked and mad*' I by tl 'ntinual self admonishment, "What ifl tin* g They know no better. 1 Bui ■ taw in it chiefly affection. So dose a tic 1 ted between her and her father thai she was n-". r Qg to lei it !»•> loosened, never lei him any ' part of her daily life. As fthi ed she tried to think of him, in the unimaginable cir- cumstai hk | i ejoicing o\ the good fortune that had come to her. She even thoughl that her happiness mighl in some way he due to I In the forenoon there came, brought by hand, an answer to her Left It is perhapfl nol n< ry to . thai Grace had seen her fiance* on the morning tlir day fi him on tip- eveni] fif tl day; hut we utilize the occasion to men- tion that tins exchange <>f letters took place at a time when the telephone was not y.-t in common use. I. till wr • ich nth. -p. With a joyful throb, she unfolded the lar*,,"' Bhi MISS INGALIS 21 of office paper, half covered with his bold, clear hand- writing, and read: "Eight you were. I was still at the Athletic Club while you were writing, O accomplished in the art. I don't mind telling you that we smoked too much, drank too much, and talked too much. I am not answering your letter, much too good for a plain man. I pass it all over till it comes to the passage where you speak of trying to make me happy. Persevere, Amiable One, in that laudable ambition, and you may, with diligence, succeed. I have my dark projects, too, in that line. "But to turn from these frivolities. London Bridge is falling down, my fair lady. Which will you take for a guard-ring, a diamond hoop or alter- nate diamonds and pearls ?" The young woman who read could see the smile of the young man who thus wrote. She could feel his eyes and the spell of his personality. She found in the brief note as much manly tenderness as she could wish. I iiaitki; 111 Til E youngest of the < h I Irol I ei - found it • till Sunday 1" the house, newly acquired,— which was reJ to as th( . ' in company with its prospe Tl . in pro lecoration, is filled with carpenl ad painters, 1 hiring this row ion • I than : :■• [uent of Lai it all i improb 'hat Bhe must nol entirely l in it. The roi i peared Jto her atial. Life "ii a indicated by tlif very nan the mai ir separate uses — butler's pantry, billiard room, linen-room, laundry. dar-closet, wine-cellar. She ■ not unfamiliar with luxury, hut had known it only as gu< id passer-by, with ne i thoughl of envy. The homes that had Been ' POW to h-T t wnty-tv. STS 1: ■ •n modest, and the living simple; it had seemed a d deal ti» have on wn house. The leap from i nnt so much elafc [cite her and give her moments — as has already been told — nt" doubting that the ironical deception could last. Ti. inisition of wealth, however, was Less >trango MISS INGALIS 23 than the acquisition of Clare. Truly, a rajah, blaz- ing with rubies and emeralds, would not have seemed more removed from her than he had at first sight. And wherefore? She could not have told. That he was not "her kind" was the best she would have found to say, voicing the common fallacy that a handsome, daring, full-blooded king of good fellows must be looking for some brilliant counterpart of himself. Instead, his eyes, meeting hers, had begun court- ship at once. She had been lifted as if by a warm flood, and carried along on glistening, hastening waves; she had come to consciousness of herself as capable of infinite affection — astonishing, passionate affection — for this man who such a little time before had been a stranger. * * This, then, is what it is like, ' ' she had said, with a sense of great riches, and looked back with pity on her pale conceptions of love in the colorless past. It covered everything; it tinged everything; so that, while walking through the empty rooms of the new house beside him, she was not using her judgment with regard to the hues and shapes selected for their embellishment — she was accepting all as being of necessity admirable, since it suited him. It was with those things as with many others that had regard to Clare : taken by themselves, they might not have been to one 's taste ; but taking them as part of the content of that conquering personality, one M MISS [N6ALIS lost the disposition to discriminate. Clare could do th<»sr tint. i could w} those things, because — because, simply, there wi much life in his fiery blue glow in his ch< . light in his smile, and harmony in his feature Then there was such b in the whole of his well proportioned body — and If, Those were the things you v lly heeding, warming yourself at, when, if yon had wisely kepi your critical faculty on- entangled, you might have l n able to give valuable hints and perhaps save the decoration of your house ing utterly obvious and middle-clast In thai which \ I i be the drawing room two m were layii of varied woods; in the dining- in with a paint- : .1- helping <»ut the carvinj k marble mantel-piece and fir place with 1 Id. A 1 of planin me from somen I When the owner and his intended had been from p of the hou 'id were looking fur a in which I ry a moment OUt of Bight of the workmen an restful < i • ■ 1 1 lt 1 1 1 home, they returned natural! the one mom that was finished ami already contained a little fund- tui Bere tl Lfter beauty was marked and, in way. successful. PaiN ' turquoise brocade in- i by gilt moldings, below a frieze of rose gar- lands, wen ted in four tine mirror .' in the MISS INGALIS 25 blue panels. The bare floor was a light, smooth yel- low. The suggestion of the whole was that it had been designed for a feminine occupant or occupants. The ample, uncurtained windows overlooked the river, whose farther bank of crowded city buildings took on a poetic air under the sunset. Grace and Clare, standing in the doorway, looked for the second time slowly around the room. "Clare," she broke the silence, "how does it hap- pen? What were you, a bachelor, going to do with such a big, imposing residence?" "Settle down in it and wait for you, maid with the delicate air!" he said. "You thought I was a blonde, did you?" she lightly asked. "Sure as I live, this room was planned with a blue-eyed, golden-haired sister of Venus in your eye. So sorry, Clare, to disappoint you. ' ' Only with Clare was she accustomed to talk in this vein. She had learned to banter, so as to play up to him in the style of comedy he affected. Learned? It came easily when she was in the mood that his presence provoked. In answer to her "So sorry, Clare," he drew her from the open doorway to a part of the room shel- tered from passing eyes, and embraced her. As al- ways, she turned her head away and let his kiss fall beneath her ear. She could not overcome the feeling that there was something wrong about accepting his MISS LNGALIS kiss. She le1 him take her in his arms it was now his right The answering warmth with which she melted to him, when in his clasp, was very sweet, ycl An element of anguish, (ear, re- fusal, was always in it. Some inveterate result of her bringing up, Bhe supposed it such conduct as inconsistent, for she was allured as a moth to- ward flame by the prospect of those endearments from which, when the moment came, she shrank. The lov< med to understand how it was; he had i 1 1 1 « • 1 1 i j_r « - 1 1 » - « • and tact sufficient never to press his ad- vantage, but to take without contention what m in ted him of the virginal, shy face. It was sw< I enough under her little ivory ear, still mi.-Ii a qovi I light to him; her hair W88 BWeet and Soft and fragrant enough. urity of j ssion mad.* y. The appropriate care inyhow, med to be, in I. an inhalation, I a flower, ther than a kiss. Ele drew in B 1" notional .ith and sighed it out again. ■' i 'in must 1m- eh l ! ' he said briskly, when next 1 Il«- looked around him, and then meditatively at her. She was what In* called a idy in browns. Her hair, with its dim dusting of gold, was only a little lighter than her which had soft brown shadows over tin- lids and around them; her cheeks were brown in the last, palest dilu- tion; only her mouth was pink, a faint pink, alm< anemic, in the midst of which her lustrous teeth MISS INGALIS 9TI showed attractively even, like the pearls of a neck- lace. "This robin 's-egg blue has got to go," he said de- cidedly, "and yellow — a Marshal Niel rose yellow — take its place. What do you say? And the floor stained dark. What ? It 's for you to choose. This room is going to be what you may call your bondoor, if you fancy the word. These chairs, I guess, will tone in with yellow/' He began tearing the paper off a chair, one of four still in their wrappings. She watched it emerge with natural interest : gilt, with blue seat and back, medal- lions of pink roses. "I picked them up at an auction," he took the trouble to explain. "Joking apart, I had no idea of living in this house myself. I was getting it into shape to let. I didn't buy it; I came by it. The firm had had a mortgage on it for years. This was finally foreclosed. But how handy it comes in, eh?' He was tearing the wrappings now from the sofa, which, with two armchairs, completed the set. "You bought them at an auction, did you say?' she asked, but unsuspiciously. "They look brand- new.' i i I guess they are new,' he said without embar- rassment. "It was a furniture-store selling out after bankruptcy." They seated themselves on the sofa he had uncov- ered, and leaned back, with her gloved left hand and 18 Miss [NGALIS his ban righl lying clasped in the space between them,— bo diverse, the two, and each penetrated with a peculiar joy in the other's difference: he, so sturdy, tilled with tin' ruddy color oi life to the roots of his black hair, sugf in all his person a fitness for 5 like tl B >man gladiator of whom, with his cropped and curly round head, his bro neck, he at I minded Grace; she, belonging to a much lal human advance, with little :t of thai primitive red force, bul a shadow <«\ which madi r appear costly, some- how, the inheritor of generations who had accumu- lated t: of a kind Impalpable, distinguished, superior. "Wellf h< l. "How do you think you like . folk*!" "Like the are wonderful !" was the ready and gratifying bj "What a dinner-party 1. ■ iit ! 1 was bewildered; there p many of them : * much. Whal a 1. I Hare — wi houseful] Don'1 ask me for separate impi sioi It w ad had hem playing, a loud. ly hand, till I could D 't think ■ ■ Thej 're a 1 lo1 he brought in blnffly. "< raef What do you mean? 1 found them «tly delightful; one and all— genial, bright, full of life. It Looked as if the; the dinner-table, the house, everything, had come tumbling out of an enor- MISS INGALIS 29 mous horn of plenty. You must n 't expect me to tell your numerous family apart quite yet. But your sister, I know, will never cease to be my favorite. Not because she was my first friend among them, but because she has been so nice. I was nervous yester- day evening, — it's in the part, isn't it? — meeting them for the first time, and she furnished me with moral support. What a kind, lively, loveable per- son!" "Theresa 's all right." "How nice for you all to live together like that! And rather unusual, is n't it ? " "There 's a lot more of us who don't live in the house you saw last night. We 're a big tribe. I 'm one of eight, among brothers and sisters, all married but me." "I hope — " said Grace, with her eyes demurely turned away from him and downward — "I hope they liked me, too." "Well!" he exclaimed, and halted expressively, to produce a commensurate effect of irony. "We are not quite swine, I hope, pearl!" Shamefacedly and hurriedly, to banish the idea that she desired compliments from him or the report of any pleasant things that might have been spoken of her by her future family, Grace asked: "And how do you like my folks, Clare? Tell me." "Immense! Oh, immense! Rare!" At his exaggerated emphasis, she looked directly at SO MISS [NGALIS him. He smiled Btraight into her . .1- if confi- dent that Bhe rnusl at bottom be in sympathy with his \ iew of the persona in question. •• First rati .'" he went on, still emphasizing. "Like 'em first ra Love to have 'em for mine. No px tense about it. Graa But, tell me true," — the oar- rowing gleam of h eye had the significance of a wink, "didn't your l»n»t Iwr-in-la w at BOme time during Ins cart bild] 1 get a knock on the head that flattened his bump of fun She began to laugh, then refrained. Poor I. finding it impossible to stand up for him as, pi rhaps, she ought. ■( >r Bat( 3 Poor. I- n 't thai pr ident tal name "But my sister Lydia ni<-t with no such accident," she pri'sM,! mi quickly in a different direction. ■ Tl ■ plenty of fun in her. Foo like her, don't yon I >h<»nld ha I did ' A \ ->-v\ fine woman. Lots to her, character, Bpunk. I can that. Want to keep on her good side. She daunts me \\ ith hi Again lit- looked at her as if tin that, behind the decent hyp died for by consanguinity, she saw the tiling precisely as he did. Again the effect of a wink flashed in the depth of his mirthful "Don't you find she can daunt you tool Don't MISS INGALIS 31 you grow uneasy when, with a steely glance, she sort of curdles the milk in your veins ? ' ' Grace had to laugh, not at what he said, but at his look, which demanded a response of laughter, and free pardon for his irreverence. But thereupon she said seriously, deprecatingly : "You don't understand Lydia, Clare. She — she 's had such a trying time — so many disappointments — enough to sour anyone's nature. Not that I admit she is sour. She 's worried and preoccupied; the burden of everything always seems to fall on her. "She married when I was approaching my teens, and went off, full of expectations and happiness, with Batey, who was a clergyman then. Yes, he used to be a clergyman. Perhaps that is what you noticed. Everything seemed bright and promising for them. But, somehow — I don't know. After a few years Batey left the Church. He couldn't subscribe to every part of the creed, it seems. After that he did one thing after another, but nothing seemed to suc- ceed. It 's easy to think it was his fault or their fault, and yet it never quite seemed to be, if one ex- amined the facts and tried to be fair. "When I was sixteen Mama died, and for several years Papa and I lived alone. I kept house for him ; we have always had a house, even when there were only two of us, because we had such a lot of things — furniture and books, you know, such a lot of books — that had belonged to us all our lives and that we MISS CNGALIS liked to keep around d Then, in time, Lydia and Batey came back to make their home with d I.ydia has always kepi her belief that Batey will find the right tliii g to do otly, and make a sue Bui somehow — You can Bee thai the situation might take some of the hu. :' him and some of th< et- ncs Papa died, I Lydia 1. so- to feel — shf 1 Oh, I 'm not go it all that jus w! Only, 1 want i to like Lj lis want in in tlif worst kind of way for • ■ r tty well " ' . ; believe mo when 1 tell v unjust than i to lo 1 ily to . when 1 wi a little tot —her : it out . the t-bubfa he blew. Once, v. ting the measl< she—" ''Little ' y pi . ' 'there 'a d i telling me all thi Y .:• your — Yes. In We : •'- in the store for br if you think it would do — if he would n't t much above it." His tone •■ ir her feelings. The sub; • of relati oul of their conversation. They d at a window and watch the sky and river slowly paling after sunset Then t. MISS INGALIS 33 strayed across the spacious landing, while the house echoed with emptiness, to the front room, and looked out of the bay-window up and down the street with the dignified darkening fronts of many other such houses as theirs. It was very still; the workmen must have gone home. Though the windows were still light, the stairs, when they returned to them, were dark. Hear- ing her slide her foot to find the top step, he cautioned her: "Wait! Don't try! You'll break your bones!" Without being asked for her consent, she felt her- self lifted. She seemed very light to him, and he im- mensely strong to her. Yet she could not rest in his arms whole-heartedly and be borne downstairs like a child. He could feel her try to weigh as little as possible, touch him as little as possible. But this had attraction for him, like the soft flutter of a bird inside the hand that has captured it. She remembered a thought of her childhood. Watching her father carry her mother upstairs, when the latter was weak after an illness, she had decided that she would never marry a man who could not carry her over the stairs. CHAPTBB IV GRACE, coming down late after oversleeping, was glad to find that no tronble had been taken to keep her breakfast lift, beyond turning a neer over the oatmeal. This was according to her request She felt ' uilty Shi down tn it absent-mindedly. The basement dining-room was darker than usual, because of the rainy sky, but Bhe did not mind tin* ^lomn this morn- ing. Her still retained an impression of bright- in- d hei I music, Prom the theater of y- terday evening. Lydia could be heard stirring in the kitchen. Bate] at the window for the better Light. He had exchanged ''good 1 1 h » r 1 1 i 1 1 !_- - ' with bia sister-in- law upon her entrance, and then had spoken no more. Thia signified nothinj ept thai he was busy reading his paper, and did uot demand of himself, any more than (i: ted of him, sociability in the family. 11.' would presently, it was quite possible, let her have some of the facts that into i 1 him in the day news Meanwhile she hardly felt his presence in tip' room. It would be difficult to describe Batey Poor more than from his outside of -allow features and black 34 MISS IXGALIS 35 hair, because it was difficult to feel that one under- stood him. There was proof that he had a good in- telligence and had received a good education ; but why should there be so little of flower and fruit from a normal tree? Of foliage, even? If he had said, "You prick us; do we not bleed? You tickle us; do we not laugh?" why would one have been tempted to say, "No, you do not!" Was he less than an ordi- nary man, or more? Whichever way one answered the question, one found reason later to question the answer. He did no harm to an3 T body, but he did no- body any good, either, that one could see. Perhaps he did do a little harm by dulling the light and lower- ing the temperature wherever he was; on the other hand, he no doubt did a little good to Lydia, who in- credibly, mysteriously, loved him. Winfred Ingalis, his father-in-law, had applied an excellent mind to the study of Batey, he too with scant result. Positive only that Batey was not contented and did not content him, Winfred, having a taste for manipulating abstractions, had tried to fit him with imaginary circumstances amid which he would have been satisfied and satisfactory. He had stopped upon the idea that Batey ought to have been a Sicilian prince of no importance, living in a hot climate and a sleepy old palace, with nothing to do but read a little, ride a little, and go at evening to a cafe. He could see him as quite distinguished in a monochromatic, taci- turn way. 86 MISS IN6ALI8 in the same way. he tried to arrange an ideal life for Lydia, his eldest child; but this he found more difficult, becausf . I she were to be happy, her particu- lar faculties must be brought into play, and her points were order, prudenc tonomy, with the eorrelat virtues, not tly demanded bj the fa*iry story. imetimes 1. ttled her in life as mistress of moni( a queen of Spain, with all the maids "t* honor under her discipline; but oftener he made 1 in- | sublimated Q01 witl and Btore-cli !id a bunch of !• . Part of the peering, led look obi le in Winfred [ngalia's photograph was due, do doubt, to pond ' the m\ E both Lydia and -" 1 ing his daughfc children of tl moth it- eoi: the same c When it came 4 I i tutu love interfered With Ins fixing upon any; human bilities • much restricted the field. Hia sei of a Fat! r'a shield his child Forever br in him the keener longing to place in her hands a lamp t-> guide herself by, and the despair that en this was more than on.' could be <»f accom- plish!] rs •• was not one of those fortunate younir women who look well at all times. The humor she was in had everything to do with her appearance. At a thought, an uplift of the spirit, beauty could dawn MISS INGALIS 37 in her face like a star clearing its silver path through mist. At a pang of discouragement, disillusion, it could fade like the rose color out of a sunset cloud. Since coming home from the West Indies she had looked softly lovely all the time, not after the man- ner of the great heartbreakers among flowers, — rose, lily, gardenia, — but one of the secondary favorites, yet thoroughly sweet : a daffodil on its slender, thorn- less stem. She cared about her looks, but not constantly. She knew that a girl can use them to captivate, as a fairy good or bad can use her wand; but a very little ex- perience had made her afraid to do this, lest the re- sult be a burden and a bore. A man she disliked had once pursued her with attentions; she had become careful not to arouse attention that might result in pursuit. She would not have been displeased to know that men were in love with her, but she could not en- dure being made love to. When it came to Clare, needless to say, all this was changed. It was still a marvel, the simplicity with which, on their last evening aboard the Pretoria, when he caught her in a dark corner of the deck and said she had got to have him, she gave him his way. And now, with the sense of being loved, she was bloomy and shiny-eyed even while eating lukewarm oatmeal and a cold egg. Lydia came from the kitchen, and pulled out a sideboard drawer to place in it the handful of silver MISS [NGALIS she I). id polished. She wore a spotless apron over a neat Mark dress. Lydia could do any kind of nous work ami not Boil herself or her apron: it partook of the supernatural. [1 was doI altogethi ■ trange, perhaps, that, with hi rched linen collar, her black hair compactly done, she should casl a look of disfavor at Grace, who, in hurrying I to !><' disgracefully late, had wound up her hair oegligently and tied a carele pink scarf around her neck. But there was felt to be tmething subtly reprehensible likevi tomething in- insidei ( diibition, through enhanced beauty, of inward warmth and content. Further- more, to >unt for the eoohi of Ly dia's ei when ng on her Bister, there was - stand ing offi of letting her do all the work. True, Gra wanted to help; but her waj of going about it made Lyd is th. ar.-d she bad ten timi ther do it alone. I had more than once mildly otured I he thought it would be better to have a servant They had always had one: it seemed to her that they could even now afford a general houi maid. Bui Lydia had sniffed iu contempt, and re marked that <«'i ridently failed to grasp the finan- cial situation. The old< r now sal down at the table, as it" to it and be companionable for a few minutes while the other finished her breakfast. There existed between the two an ordinary family MISS INGALIS 39 likeness of proportion and texture ; the wide differ- ence was in their coloring and expression. Grace's brown pallor was warm beside Lydia's grayish white- ness. Lydia ought to have been the handsomer, if firmer, clearer, more classic lines could have achieved it; but those well carved features were the cover, too obviously, of bitter depths. The habitual look of Lydia's eye called the universe and every person in it to sharp account for the fact that things had not gone better with her and her mate. The universe could not be expected to like it. Grace felt sorry for her, to the point of trying not to mind the things Lydia said and did to her. She loyally held the be- lief that under it all her sister loved her. 1 ' Well ? ' ' asked Lydia. ' ' How was it last evening ? Did you have a good time?" Grace woke up and began telling about it. She related the play, scene by scene, laughing with a re- turn of her first delight. After a description of the popular Rosina Vokes, she jumped up from the table to give as much as she remembered of "You should see me dance the polka!" — a poor imitation of one inimitable, but well meant. Batey, without laying down his paper, turned his head to watch. Lydia, with her lips set to a smile, yet looked rather inscrutable. But it was a part of gen- erosity with Grace to take for granted Lydia's pleasure in hearing about the good time. The con- trast smote her, too, between the two pictures : Lydia K) MISS [NGALIS and Batey Bpending the evening according to their dreary custom, she mending, he reading to himself, the heater not giving forth much heat or the econom- ical lamp much light j and herself going to the theater in a hackney-coach with a young fellow lavish as new love, a fur robe for her I . a bunch <>t" violets for her hand, a DOI of CI els, the D€Sl srats in the houa It verily hurt her a little But it' she had ition t<> hid-* these things, lest they hurt her - 'too, ild have hated herself for so insulting the I - in thought She cherished the intention of movii tte hint to com- plete her pleasure i ■ time by inviting the oth< to go with them. "And , wardsf" asked Lydia, "Did he take We went to bai T! relation, plunged Lydia in thought She looked past Qi I the wall; and (,': when the Bilence had 1 a minute or two, ■ the unc rtable im] m that Lydia had - mething on her mind which Bhe was preparing to make known. L. dia. howei tided her businet "Batey, you ought to no and I the furnace, 1 lid. l: leaving his chair. Batey took time to stretch his arms and legs. B I up and obediently vanished. MISS INGALIS 41 Grace folded her napkin, and was collecting her dishes to take them into the kitchen, when Lydia ful- filled her presentiment. "Never mind those," she stopped her. "Sit down again ; I want to talk to you. ' ' Grace's wonder had a strong tincture of alarm. What followed dispelled the alarm without alto- gether clearing the wonder. 1 ' How soon do you suppose you will be getting mar- ried?" Lydia asked. "My dear," faltered Grace, "I 've, only been en- gaged a little over two weeks." "I know that. But have you any notion? Can you form any idea?" "No, dear. We haven't spoken of it. Why do you want to know?" ' ' I want to know because your plans, unfortunately, affect ours." "In what way do you mean, Lydia?" "Use your brains. Is there any single, solitary way in which they do not ? ' ' As Grace, trying to follow instructions and use her brains, was for some time mute, Lydia pursued: "We can't feel ourselves free, of course, until you marry. ' ' "You mean that, if it were not for me, you would want to do something different — go somewhere else?" "I mean that the lease here expires the first of May. I 've put off the landlord, and put him off, when he MISS [NGALIS hafl wanted to kn<>\v if we meant to keep OIL We should certainly doI renew the lease if yon were going to be married, say, in six months. " "Bui thai is nol a1 all Likely. A year is the mm. first." Why nil earth do you wail bo Long iked Lydia unexpectedly, and added, with b Btinging laugh: \- the pace you are going, 1 should Bay the sooi the better. ' Qrace blushed darkly red, and \'<*r a momenl soughl words to expi I r with some adequacy without in- volving her in an instantaneous quant While she allowing ber annoyance, Lydia wenl on: 'This house is t an) bow. Too I and for and me -1 < i ■ -till did qo1 to be sure tl • voic i\^\ !"• calm. Lydia went <>n: always seemed nonsense inyhow a whole boo such a small family. \V. could have boarded, any time, for much less." "'I arc all th»- 1 ks. There is all the furni- tur 1 '.ipa liked the feeling of hom< ' I know. That u;h the explanation he An I l b thought it a funny one, considering thai he never would stay l"n-_ r enough in any place to ha gol the feeling thai it was hom< 'It wasn'1 the love of change, Lydia. You know that" ■ 1 >o 1 r What - it then I Pure restlesaiK MISS INGALIS 43 that made him give up one job after another and move from city to city?" "No, it was not restlessness," spoke Grace staunchly, and stiffened her voice to keep it from tears of indignation. "I understood perfectly. If you don't understand, I am not sure that I can make you. In every case there was a good reason, but not as everyone would see it. The methods, the policies, of the people he had to work with would always dis- gust him in the end. He could not adapt himself to being a party to what he regarded as humbug. He would try to change things and when he found he couldn't, he would grow impatient and speak his mind, then get out of it — throw it over. You ought to be proud of it. I am. That he was valuable, that he was respected, was shown by magazines and news- papers, one after the other, offering him positions. In a world where so many people are careless about how they get success, if they just can get it, there ought to be a few who are particular. I am glad my father was one of them." "You need n't get so hot, my dear, as if I had cast a slur on Papa's memory! I was only saying it had n 't been very nice for us. You were always his favorite, though; you can't be expected to see the thing exactly as I do. I 'm not doing him an injus- tice, I hope you admit, in saying you were his fa- vorite." "Lydia, I loved Papa more than you did. That ii Miss i\c;alis was tin- explanation. I love him more now than you do. It was that that made me his favorite. Prom a baby, I loved him inure." 'And why, pl< did you love him more? Be can d yon more, naturally. From the first . 1 was never spoiled and petted aa yon were. Papa and Mama were Strict with in I was only a little girl when you came— a little «. r irl of nine; hut I used to have to mind you like a little hired nursery-maid." " Poor Mama was ill." "No, she wasn't Tt was jusl their different way with mi I wa 1 to be unselfish and make If useful. When your turn came, they let yon ou p] I-, they never seemed to notice t ; ■ m w< Ifish. I w at alwayi rificed to j >u. but i emed to notice it. " < ! : I at I r with • of young be* wilderment She dd not nnderstand this nnpro ked overflowing of venom, because she looked for subtle reason for it. And it w i simple. "Oh, Lydia, please not to <_ r o on like that'' she tried to end the horrid scene and with shuddering pngnance wipe away th< on of it. "It makes me sick to the soul: it makes me want to die and be out of it " My dear, a little truth won't do you a bit of harm I ' ' said Lydia. in a voice as brisk and ontender the t-ast wind. 5 looked elated, as if at a success " Yuu have always lived with your head in the clouds. MISS INGALIS 45 so that you never see the things that have no direct reference to yourself. And now, more than ever, with your head filled by this new grandeur, it is easy for you to be wrapped in yourself. But there are other people, you know ; there are other things. When I married Batey, it was in part to escape from a home where I was always made to play second fiddle. " "I was the baby, Lydia. They had lost two chil- dren between your coming and mine. Can't you un- derstand? I was their last." "Last but not least — yes. I remember my feelings of irony when, as soon as I was well out of the way, married off, you closed shop and all went to Europe for a holiday." 1 ' Lydia, how can you pervert things so ! ' ' ' What am I perverting ? Did n 't you wait to go to Europe till I could n 't go ? " "But — but — Papa made you a present of money when you married, didn't he, which might be re- garded as an equivalent for the traveling you missed ? ' ' "Oh, that! It would have been rather too pointed if he hadn't given me anything. Don't look at me like that, Grace. I 'm not a curiosity. I could never see why one shouldn't tell the truth about people because they are dead. I call them well off when they are dead. It 's the time when they 're surest not to care." M MISS [NGALIS • h might I"' better to drop the Bubjec rid (ii so faintly as to give her words ;m effect of \i<»- lem ■ I low ever did we come to it .' I Eow did this dreadful conversation begin 1 . . . You were Baying you didn't want to renew the Lease unless it were rtain I .should not be married inside the year. I .shall do! I"', [f it depends on that, you can i Jlt'U ]• ll'>u do you know, if the matter has never come up between 3 1 ad .Mr. < >\ ercon 'However it turned out, I should pay my Bhare of the rent I will pay more than my half, to make up my inconvenience there may be for other- Lei Mir pay three quart Lydis or Lei me pay the w h dow. my child. You haven't married your rich man yet ' I ' b of Papa's life [nsuranc ■ l don 't want it. I I... her n \'<>v \ ring to renew the !■ We might well talk the thing OUt now. An opportunity which I don't think he ought to miss. It would in- • itiL' Soutl "Going & uth .'" 'Yes; to Florid !• s something that •• up whili away, and I 've wanted tn ) it a careful thinking saying anything about it. Batey'a brother P r, who ha en in Welaka for >mii, wants Bat to join him Hx-p- and go MISS INGALIS 47 in with him. There 's an opening, an excellent chance. Batey grew up in the South, you may re- member, and has always wanted to go back. This climate is too harsh for him. The point now is to see what arrangement we can make about you. Your coming home engaged seemed at first to complicate things ; but the more I 've looked at it, the more I 've seen that it really simplifies them." "Oh, please don't think of me. You mustn't let me make any difference. Please think only of your- selves. ' ' "That 's easy to say, my dear. Don't be silly. I 've got to think of you and make some proper ar- rangement. What would your future family think? I can't leave unless you are suitably settled some- where and everything is right for you till you get mar- ried. The best solution, of course, and the most natural, would be for you to spend the interval be- fore your marriage with friends. Now, what friends have you who could and would take you in?' "I can't think of any, Lydia, that I would care to ask for so great an accommodation, such a very great favor. We haven't a single relative in this city, or a single friend that we 've had for any length of time. How should we have? We haven't lived here long enough. ' ' "We 've never lived anywhere long enough to have friends — it 's what I was saying when you picked me up and seemed to think I was such a monster. 7 ? 48 MISS INGALIS 'Ma Lamont is the only person in the world I would think of asking so much of. And she livi 'way off in Maine "Well, then— " "But there arc boarding-hous< I suppose people arc Bometimes married from a boarding-hou "You would have a church wedding; the boarding- house Deed n't ar in the matter at all. Tin are | ttly n ttable boarding-houses, of coun ■it oni i. I :' we ; b business of looking them op, I •■ no doubt we can find one kept by a iy with daughters, who would take you right into her own family. Or- this would b a better— i in look for oily, aot a boarding-hous,< at all. a nilv who would make i like one of themselvi • ■ i ii- • time kink, liydi 1 ton 't do anything ahout it for a day or t "We shall have to : f this house before the first of Mav. v-m r "I know. Go ahout the pari that concerns you and 1 '.,.•■ 7 as if I ^ i .lv let me think out for myself the part that concerns Bolely me. Give me a little time. 91 "Very welL i go ahead, and w.- '11 «ro ahead. If we could get away •; earlier — say, by the middle April — it would l"' that much better for Batey and D This is a turn in our lives when no one can blame us, I should think, for looking out for our- MISS INGALIS 49 selves. We aren't going to marry a rich man, you see. As for being beholden to rich relations, I shall be excused, I hope, for saying that it 's not to my taste. ' ' "I have n't said that I 'm glad of this new opening for Batey. But I am, I hope you know — with all my heart. I wouldn't for anything in the world be a hindrance in the way of it." "No. With all the magnificence that is coming to you in a few months, — for if, when he asks you to set the day, Clarence Overcome lets you put it a whole year ahead, he 's not the man I take him for, — if, I say, with all the wealth and grandeur that 's com- ing to you so soon, you grudged Batey and me our poor little prospects, you 'd have to be meaner than I 've ever thought you." "I want you — I want you so much to succeed. This will be the very thing for Batey, I am sure. ' "It does look more promising than usual, because my half of the life insurance gives us a little capital to start with. It would be no use trying, Foster says, without some capital. For once in our lives, we have it. It 's not much, but it 's something. That 's one reason why it 's so important not to wait till the cur- rent expenses of this house have eaten it up.' "You 're quite right. Yes, I 'm sure you will do well this time. There always comes a turn, doesn't there, if one waits long enough. >> so mis> [NGALIS "It was about time, I should Bay, that something fortunate happened to us. I was coming to tin- con- clusion thai there wasn't an atom of justice io the world." CHAPTER V GRACE went to her room in a daze. She would have liked to go out and walk, but it was rain- ing too heavily. She could reflect while walk- ing in the open air better than in any other way ; her puny bits of poetry had in their time been composed on her long walks. In the afternoon the sky partly cleared, and she started forth, with rubbers and umbrella, not quite trusting the season and its moods. She passed in the upper hall, with a pang, a roll of carpeting, already pulled up by zealous hands, the beginning of the dis- ruption of the last home that had known her father. She decided that the hour called for calm reasonable- ness, helpful philosophy. She soon reached the street she had been aiming for, where there were never many people — the long street of elegant habitations among which stood her own that was to be. This led to a suburb ; then, after miles, to a wooded hill and a lake inclosed by stone banks for city drinking. As she walked, Grace was not only trying to think things out and come to some definiteness about her best course: she was also com- bating the soul-sickness born of Lydia's holding up 51 MISS IXGALIS the sacred past in so hateful a li<:ht ; she v rrug- ing to subdue the burning in her breast of wrath ■ I indignation. That there was Clare in the world- that she n happy in Ids love, and wore in token of it. pinned to the front of ber coat, violets whose odor was counted upon to keep ber in mi E it all day long— did do! make any differ in the hurt of having Lydia think of ber and the n bad shown thai ahe did. The most horrible fact was to know that Lydis ear ried all that of injury within her, even when thin^ ran smoothly and ahe remained silent; the most ama/niL' W8J ' think that Lydia was si- in all that d about her father and mother and er. Lydia fell that ahe i right, even .'i I knew that al is wronu. It was enough to drive one quite mad. . . . With i sliding inattentively • the bricks <»f the sidewalk, I I ramped quickly along, goaded by those thoughts which are enough to drive one mad. she did not believe herself as selfish as Lydia said, but she knew she was oftm forgetful, absorbed in whatever at the moment inb 1 her. She w caught in this and brought I of sin too often qoI 1 I humble. STet, knowing jusl how it hap- pened and how compatible it was with a Btrong desire to I"* nice to everybody, particularly to Lydia, she could not feel it to be unpardonable or heinous. Now, while walking in meditation, she was forced to recog- MISS INGALIS 53 nize that she, too, had dreadful thoughts about Lydia sometimes — she had them at this moment — thoughts as cruel as Lydia 's about her. Only she never said them. She would have been afraid to say them, with the stronger woman sure to turn upon her and say worse. But that was not the whole truth. She could not have wished to wound as much as the publishing of her inedited thoughts in moments of grievance and excitement would have wounded. Her cowardice was not greater than her charity. Moreover, she retained, however angry, the understanding that it would be wronging herself and the other to let thoughts and words represent her that had no place in her calmer hours. Between thinking and uttering her thoughts there was a margin where the precepts for right con- duct dwelt, whose voice she could still hear above pas- sion; and these precepts established that to create a piece of ugliness, such as a wrangle, was a thing which, while one retained the control of oneself and the dream of a serene and seemly world, one did not consent to do. Lydia — who spoke her mind, she! — had simpler mental motions. She never examined their origin. Why should she, with the inborn, lifelong, and flaw- less conviction of her own right-mindedness? "In such a little while, less than a month," Grace reflected at last, ' ' Lydia will be going far away ; and when I am not there to irritate her, time will soften 54 MISS [NGALIS everything in her memory. And 1 shall rememl how 1 my dresses for me, and ironed my handkerchiefs, and Lei me sleep in the morning, and a thousand other rly things, and the picture of this day will fade. In less than a month I With what confusing rapid- ity things had been happening to her, [f made one dizzy. Burling her clothes into a trunk for the v7es1 Indies, becoming en i. and now the whole back- ground of her lit'.- crumbling t<» mas m for things still onimagined ! . . . . For w hal tliin. Thai j<>\\ the question : where to go, how to live, after the Poor ftt The boarding-house was the • choice, the do choii Lamont 1 i . who would bo surely have given her ho pitalityl ... A minut< imong hei quaint- ana the; irere dc4 numerous had no more result than her I brief review of them: nol any of them re sufficiently close friends to ask a favor of. Her thoughl stopped on Andreas Dane. Had not one of the girls at the art school told her that his mother lei room With quickened interest she fol- lowed this thread, and passed, exploring, through a picture-world of her creation. Hi> mother would be Bure to be motherly; his home would have the [uisites that were her requisites, too. Bui do, it would n<>t do. There were reasons why it would not do. A pity, for it might have filled her Deed. Though she could I Lydia's poinl of vi ad MISS INGALIS 55 find Lydia's action natural, it was bitter to be moved just now from the decencies of her home to the un- picturesque promiscuousness of a boarding-house. Clare had known her such a little while; his family and friends did not know her at all in her true set- ting, and now would never do so. Her home was not that of money-rich people, but it was something much better in being that of nice people, with an- cestors and traditions and education and old furni- ture. She was proud of being her father's daugh- ter; their house, in a manner, stood for him. Clare, in coming to see her there, was not stooping. A sensitive nerve in her winced at the picture of him calling on her in a boarding-house, with its hodge- podge of properties, its odor of meals, its prying and gossiping fellow boarders. She had no experience of boarding-houses, and carried in her mind a distasteful caricature of them. A tortured self-love filled her in anticipation with the burning of a permanent blush. With this trial ahead to meet unaided, already she felt lonely — and rather appalled; because never had she been without someone to take care of her. She did not know what it was to take care of herself, even for a day. During all her childhood there had been near her that dear mother to whom she still jealously apportioned half of her filial affection, though the father who had had so much larger a share in her life, after she began to think, had become the closer com- rade, the dominant influence. After her mother's 56 MISS [NGALIS death her father had been there; he had not Bent her away to school or college, but had kepi her with him for the eomforl of both. Finally, and up to this day. there had been Lydia to direei and Bcold her, but Likewise to stand, with her Longer knowledge ..t' lit'.', between her and th< difficull world. There are bo many things a lt i r 1 cannot know. A girl is timid abonl bo many tiling. And now, ignorant, unprac- tised, she was to decide everything, be responsible for ythii: If. I i But something warned r that this was dii I : it was not such wisdom his that a youi d to walk by. '•It is tin. hr.i . ace thought, because she felt so much fear in Looking ahead at those da; after the famil irroundings had vanished and the ailiar folks had fled. H< r father had said thai you might 1. .11 the virt pi courage and the mo- ment might come when all your virtues would be made void for lack of that one. 1I-- had tried to im plant courage in her, knowing deficient in it. sin- held com in ideal he had given to her, pired toward it when she felt her i I til- ing. '"It is tune to be brai • said. Sudden and unlooked-for came the need to spread r umbrella. At t! she turned and. be- neath the pattering tent, went back over th< ne road, with the pain >1. oul to walk oil' a MISS INGALIS 57 good deal deadened. A star shone through the melt- ing tempest, of whose shining behind the clouds she had not at any moment lost consciousness. Clare was coming to take her to a concert that evening. She decided not to say a word of the change in prospect. She shrank from talking about it with him just yet, lest some remark of his draw forth awkward admissions from her — lest, in brief, being prejudiced in her favor, he should fail to get the Poors' point of view and be disposed to criticize them, in his frank way. He was not much taken with Lydia and Batey, she feared — at which she genuinely wondered, be- cause when the Poors went with her to the family dinner at the Overcomes' they both made such a fine appearance. Batey was distingushed, if nothing else, and Lydia, in her severe way, had looked on that occa- sion so handsome. She would not say a word about the new plans that evening, but after coming in she would write. Her mind was clearest late at night, when all the world was still; she was least sleepy then. She would ex- plain everything, and so present it to Clare in that letter that he would see all in the right light, and not blame her people any more than she blamed them when she was regarding them — as she hoped to do, in time, altogether — calmly and unselfishly. She let herself in with a latch-key, and was placing her umbrella in the stand when she perceived in it a 58 MISS INGALIS wet umbrella strange to her: a handsome umbrella with a solid Bilver knob, an elegant 3 um- brella, large for a woman, though anal] for a man. Whose! Thi oer was in the drawing-room, talking with Lydia. Qra old hear them, but ao1 what they d. Nor could 1 whoc it was. She up the stairs, when Lydia came to the door and called : Mf in 1 lira \'.iu ter is hi Mrs. v * ' . ( Hare's Bister Theresa, < ; d in to see her, with the abundanl joy- I'ulncss that attends any boon after a Lonely hunt with Tl. from the Brsl minute been irmly welcoming. She \\. one who had made If the repi family t«» < Clarence's • rothecL She looking woman 1 rty-five, with an attracts r of physical soundness, noi a thread nf gray in her black hair, oor any diminution of Liveli- 9 in her black eye. H-t smile was immensely cheering, and was used t<» cheer you all the while she talked in her vivacious, hearty way. She could ad- mit that the World was a vah' <>: • • had Dot an ezcuf >r it, on the contrary; hut she in- duced you, while with her, to do a- Bhe did. and get BOD m1 m spite of it. he arose t<> b . . and — MISS INGALIS 59 "What is this I hear?" she began at once, breezily. "Your sister tells me that she is leaving, and that you are thinking of going somewhere to board. My dear child, how could such an idea enter your little head or your sister's? You are going to do noth- ing of the kind. You are coming right to your right- ful family. Do you think Red would hear of anything else ? ' ' "Red?" "My brother, whom in your quaint little way you call Clare. Our house is big, — you saw it, — and it is elastic. We have plenty of room. When necessary, the girls double up. Think how we should feel, child, to have you go to anybody else ! ' ' Grace, a little dazed again, smiled foolishly, without stirring. Her eyes moved from Theresa to Lydia. She saw from Lydia 's face that all had been settled between them before she came in. The smile began to tremble on her lips; a quick moisture gathered in her eyes. So the terrors besieging her had been ghosts. That burden of trouble, so real to her, had been of a kind to drop and be lost in the sea at the end of an hour. How phantasmagorical is this world. Theresa, seeing her tears, so easy to interpret, took her comfortingly in her arms. "I think I see her, Red's dainty little sweetheart, in a stuffy old boarding-house!" she petted her. Grace returned her kiss affectionately, and let her 60 MISS [NGALIS head Lie on the other's shoulder; through the whisper of silk she could hear, deep down, Theresa's muffled krt-beats. . . . She felt, <>t* a sudden, that she must tree herself or smother. She \\a> frightened. In the midst of her Belf-abandonmenl to relief and ratitude, she was frightened. Things were going too fast, her destiny was i ii» • \ i 1 1 lt too fast, by too great pa. it did no1 give her time to breathe, to think, • way. . . . Nothing nicer could have happened than this, obvi- ously thai th( ercomes should take her to live with them until her marriag fright came in part bom the recognition that, between Tl amiability and her own, could Dot help herself. She was a> much bound * had been de livered over by Lydia, with hands and feet tied. This condition lasted but a second. ,v ' she mentally talked back to her bad aei tii I am free. ' >f course I am free ; and t hi nothing I bad rather do than go to stay with CI ! | ■ w CHAPTER VI HEN it came to a division of the things that had belonged to them in common, it was de- cided that, as Grace would be so well pro- vided for, Lydia should take very nearly the whole of the furniture for her home down South. Grace should have the books, all of them, and Lydia most of the silver ; Grace her father 's writing-desk, Lydia her mother's India shawl. The books had been packed in many boxes, and carted, on Clarence's suggestion, to his new house, along with the worn old mahogany desk. Furniture and crockery and household stuff of every sort had been crated and burlaped and barreled, conveyed and piled into a roomy freight-car. And the house stood empty. When there was nothing more to do in preparation for leaving, Grace went slowly from floor to floor, in a little sentimental journey of last farewells. She had been at times so busy, and at other times so tired, dur- ing the great dismantling, that she had seemed to herself surprisingly dead with regard to it all. Now she tried to penetrate herself with feelings appro- priate to the hour, go piously over the memories at- 61 f>2 MISS [NGALIS tached to each room, imprint on hor mind the bare ill-papers and floors, last aspecl of the friendly, sheltering house ion to become ;i Btranger. In t ; that had been Lydia 'a bedroom, she found her sister, sitting on a trunk. Batey and she were going to a hotel for the last night, before start- ing on their journey. Grace v. -in ■_- on that afternoon to th< Ovei i\ The 1 '< >ra had refue th' (i ercome invitation to dinner that evening — the tlity beneath their • ■•• being Lydia 'a idiosyn- cratic desire to dine alone with her husband, at a ho- tel, and !>•• reminded of tl meymoon ! had gone out to or- der Lydii i already put her hat on. i looked at her with much the >rrowfu] t< e had been spending on the things that ~ ; ould • no She said to herself, however, to keep from ti that in the case of Lydia it would only be a q year or tv. In t ; 3 just past Grace had largely lost i membranes of Lydia's brutally frank BpeaMng and unfair interpretations. Lydia, in her own way. had been th< si r, saving the younger fatigue and trouble, taking thought for her, as a matter of cour But there was more than that I dear Lydia at this moment — Bat y, I >: the prospect of a change, new faces ai rtures new, the hope of 1 t1 r fortune, the hilaration of a little power in hand, in the form of MISS INGALIS 63 money, lighted the faces of both in a manner that made them touching — to Grace, at least, whose spirit had so often been weighed down by the misfortunes and dejection of her relatives. She seated herself on the trunk beside Lydia. For a few minutes they remained silent, thinking, Grace supposed, the same thoughts. In this supposition, she pushed her hand into Lydia 's, to show that she understood, and to comfort her. Lydia returned the pressure, and said, with an effect of sudden resolve : "Grace, there is something I have been wanting to ask you. And I haven't done it, for fear you would misunderstand." "Misunderstand, Lydia? How could you think such a thing — if by misunderstanding you mean mis- judging your motives? "What is it?" "It's this, Grace. In a few months you will be a married woman, wife of a rich man, and have every- thing heart could desire. The little bit of money you have in your own right you won't need." You mean Papa's life insurance?" Yes. It would merely lie in the bank, bringing you a tiny interest, if it brought you any at all. Whereas, if you lent it to Batey and me, we should be glad to give you good interest for it. Of course, any time you wanted it back we should manage some- how to pull it out of the business and let you have it. We should give you as security a claim on all we a t < 64 MISS IN6AUS • •wri. Th> - the furniture and the silver — every thing." lent, taken aback. Lydia went on: "Of course, if you don't want to, you don't have to. and vou won't. Only, I wi thinking: the little bit more would make a big dif- rence to us, and 1 don't Bee what difference it could make to vou. ■ "Wait, Lydia. Give me a moment to think. How can I make up my mind so quickl) 11 Take j our I 1 don 't want to m yOU, anyhow. Nor do I want lk it a^ a particu- lar favor. V ulil have the il t, von would have the security ; it \s a bus i ion, like any other. My being your eed n't influence you Wait a minute. Lydia; let me think.'* Ton would keep enough out of it, ol course, to • your wedding outfit and give you Bpending mom until you marry. A thousand dollars ought to do it handsomely, because you won': oeed furs or laces or jewelry: all those things will l>c Bhowered on you. Think of thi of that family, and their wealth. and then think of tic wedding presents you are likely to re "But just because Clare is BO rich. Lydia. don't . I Bhould Like to come to him not quite like a "D BShe know you have any thin: Have you told him about the life iii.siirai: MISS INGALIS 65 "No. We 've never spoken of money together." "If you think, my dear, that a paltry five thousand dollars would make the slightest difference to Clar- ence Overcome — You must know that that ring on your finger can't be worth much less. Later in life, when you 've been married for some time, you '11 be much more likely to be glad of a little money in your private exchequer — to pay a dressmaker's bill, per- haps, that 's grown so big you 're afraid of a scolding even from the fondest of husbands. If you have the money now — I know you, my child — it will melt through your fingers to the last penny, for nothing. If you do us this good turn, you will really be doing yourself a far better one." Grace sat looking down, thinking it over, with a shadow on her face. She wanted so much to keep her money, the first she had ever possessed, and by means of it to appear well among the Overcomes. The pleasure of having money of her own was new : Lydia had turned it over to her only a day or two before. She remembered an episode in the life of a queen of France who, when she crossed the border of her husband's country, the land over which she was to reign, changed all the clothes on her body for other clothes, of his giving. One who loved her as much as Clare did would be glad to take her like that, with nothing of her own, and to give her everything. Clare so loved to give her things ! And the prospect of utter dependence on him had its special quality of Mi MISS [N6ALIS iweetnei But yet, she would have liked to hold on to her pennies, and be generous with them in her turn. Hut yet again, she had Clare'a love what did Bhe need mor< Ami poor Lydia had nothing hut this new chance, <>i" which she was rightly anxious to make the moat I >\ « 1 i a loved Batey — stran i il Beamed — just as Bhe I"\' i lare. This additional money would perhaps add to the chance of Batey 'a sue Grace turned t<> look at Lydia. It was Lydia who now was looking down, thinking it over, with a shadow on her face, a bitter twist to her mouth. She was thinking, Grace felt it, how selfish her sister w — how selfish Bhe had always 1 n. Grace wanted to say, "if 1 give you this money, which I want so mm-h to keep, will you promif wipe out all that old thinking of me Will you n gnize in it a sign that I you, and want to h< rly, and want you to • I and he happy. and love me ! But those things she could not say to Lydia though, when at Grace 'a clearing her voice to Bpea Lydia looked op, they were plainly to he read in her shiny young i "All right, dear." Bhe said; "yon Can have it. What must 1 d Write you a el Lydia was moved. With an impulse of sincere af- •timi. sip- clasped the little sister's oeck and k her hard. When they drew apart, each saw, with trembling Bmiles, tears in the other' CHAPTER VII THE house of the Overcomes stood at the corner of a block, where the broad street, one of the city's main arteries, grew quieter as it neared the suburbs, and — taking time to breathe, as it were, and remember its youth — leaved forth here and there in a green square, a little park, with a fountain and garden-seats under the trees. The house, a hand- some structure of brownstone and brick, five stories high counting basement and mansard, rose on its own ample lot, inclosed by a wall of brick and brown- stone topped by an iron railing. A house built by individuals to meet individual re- quirements, and not by a compan}^, for rent. It expressed, if one chose, power and pride; it had the air somewhat of a stronghold, and could, in fact, be- come a species of castle with drawbridge updrawn, if one closed the iron gate made to span the interrup- tion in the wall at the foot of the front stoop. This gate, however, stood continually open, and any passer with curiosity enough and little enough fear could have entered, passed along the side of the house, and seen all that the wall hid: a wide rectangular lawn with one spreading tree, encircled at the foot by a 67 68 MISS [NGALIS ru.sti and, at tlif farther end of the green, COB- stitutin hack wall, a low building with dosed wooden shutters — a warehouse, possibly. Grace, arriving late, was given hut a minute before being rted to the dinner-table. Clare met her at the stair-. "Welcome, Beauty, to the house of your Beast l 1 -aid. and drew h»T hand through his arm. Mr-. Vawter sat at one end of the board, in what was the chief seat, by token of the carving knife and rk laid before it. She placed Grace at her right, een herself and ( Harem '• Y"ii SHOW them all." she indicated tin- rest of tic family; '"hut there are so many of us. you ean'1 he pected to disentangle djb and <>ur relationshi] early in the day. Now, listen. Prom left to right. This Lb Sim, or Simeon, my husband. Thai i^ Fanny, more often called Pinky — mine, and I am proud of it. \ her Lb Dolores, my Bister-in-law. She and all that end of the table are Overcom< Wnatever in this house isn't Vawter is Overcome.) Uncle Syl- vanua, my uncle and the young f his. Then, oexl to Bed, another chick of mine. Seetah, short for Tereaita, 'little Theresa 1 -we 're both Theresa, you And there yon are." lira : rained from asking about the little j^irl MISS INGALIS 69 sitting at a small table alone, lest the explanation of her exile involve some disgrace. She had not seen this member of the family before. Theresa remembered her after a moment. "And that is Mabel," she said — "My youngest ex- cept Bobby, who is away at school." "Zip, how are you getting along?" Clare asked over his shoulder. "You '11 have to give me something for this, Uncle Red ! ' ' said the little girl at the separate table, in the manner of a spoiled child. She looked toward him with an air of injury. "If you don't behave yourself I '11 give you some- thing!" Clare promised, with grim jocularity. "You '11 have to give me some new roller-skates, or else a new croquet set," proceeded the little girl, un- alarmed. "I tell you, Uncle Red, I mean it. If you don't, you '11 see. I— I '11—" "I '11 hang you up by the heels, young lady, if you aren't careful." "You 'd better promise, Uncle Red. I 'm not afraid of you, and you know it." "Can't you guess" — Clare turned to Grace — "why the sweet and winsome Mabel sits over there? It 's because she does n 't know how to feed herself ; she lets the gravy run down on her bib." "No, it's not!" cried Mabel. "It's because there 'd be thirteen at the table. There ! Now, Uncle Red, how do you like it ¥ " 70 MISS [NGALIS He laughed oul gaily. "The tension is Lessened] And 1 'in in a croquel set Qol the better of yon that time, you little blackmailer, did n 't 1 "Blackmailer yourself!" shouted Zip. "You're a mean, mean, mean, dirty — ' ' ■ My child, my child!' Thi hushed her, with- out ceasin "What do you Buppose Mi I gabs will think . " ••Ml jalis •■ ' ands, ' ' ( Irace turned sooth- ingly toward the child, — "and thinks there is much to u your Bide. It is I. who have driven yen out your pi • table, who ought to make it righl with you. Which do you want most, dear, the cro- quet or th( Zi] I si her, as if plumbing h< al. 1 don't wanl eith( ' sh< l after a moment, and at- tended in Bilence to hi d. • I itious too,' said Therec "but. if von aren'1 you must n't think we 're all of as afraid of being thirteen at table. Dolores is the only one who really 3. Aren't you, Dol Dolores doesn't mind I j called ^u j>fr^t it ion-. ' e looked the table at the one in question, who was quietly eating, with her eyes on her plate, and not saying anything for herself in reply to the charge of n. Gra k her to be of a dif- ferent rai Spanish, perhaps, like her name She had prematurely white hair — Btriking, with her black » yes. Her face was deeply lined in forms suggestive MISS INGALIS 71 of old griefs; the pouches under her eyes might be imagined to have been enlarged by containing tears. The broad, lowered eyelids gave to her face at that moment unusual dignity; the silver crucifix on her breast helped further to make her interesting to Grace. It was difficult to tell why Dolores looked of minor importance among the rest, for all the air of aristocracy which she alone wore. A matter of per- sonal caliber, perhaps. She had domesticated trag- edy and made sorrow tame. Grace felt much sym- pathy for her, a widow, a Catholic among Protestants. She said, speaking toward her : "I am superstitious, too. I don't want to be thir- teen at table, either. Because" — she justified her attitude — "you can't sit down thirteen at table and not be thinking of it, more or less, and I don't want to think of death at dinner. But it 's a shame the littlest one should pay for everybody. I '11 take turns with you, Mable. I '11 sit at the little table next time — your Uncle Red with me. Is it all right, Clare ? ' ' "Your ideas are inspirations, O princess of ro- mance ! ' ' "Why" — Grace turned to Theresa — "why is it you call him Red ? " "For the best reason possible. It 's his name." "His name?" His middle name, or the first syllable of it." Oh! I thought his middle name was Robert. MISS [NGALIS Mrs. Lament was under the impression that hifl middle initial Btood for Robert." "No; it stands for Redivivus. Clarence Redivivus Overcome. Mother had her way aboul calling him Clarence name Bhe just had a fancy for; there was never anyone belonging to her <>r to father called Clarenci Then father, suspecting it was hifl lasl chance to name any son of fa lid it' he let her have Clarence she must let him I Redivivus, which he had been trying in vain to I i on to the b after the otl 1 've heard the name till I don't know what it BOUndfl 1 ik«- 1 gueflfl it funny, the first tin it the short for it is all right \i I a .1 g 1 name Our mother died not lonj» af t< \i d s birth, > i he b d called < Harenee in the family. Father thought it 1." "Red an»l Black, I without comment, and turned her I . with a smile that sought favor, toward tiif head of the house, i at, rather grand in her ad a shade formidable. II led by aa much smile pray business man ip a little girl, but left it to Th< i go on with the talking. Oh, Black ia a family name,' 1 the latter willingly continued. "Father's name was Ji ther al- ways called this Jess< Black's I nan Jesse — Jesse I '.lack, to distinguish them; then it got to be just tck. Red and Black. 1 1 s a happen.' "Black Overcome. Red K becca, MISS INGALIS 73 Black's low-browed daughter, spoke the names thoughtfully, as if holding them up to inspection for a fresh point of view. "They sound like robber chiefs. ' ' Grace, turning in the direction of the one who spoke, was amused by the bold fancy that she looked for all the world like a robber chief's daughter of the days when such folk were romantic. She was re- markably well developed at twenty, with brows and eyes so dark they lowered like a storm-cloud, and lips trenchantly crimson over teeth that appeared sharp, the canines being pointed. Her hair lay in loose black rings all over her head, smothering her fore- head. She should have had, to complete her, gold hoops in her ears and a knife in her garter, Grace thought. She put admiration into her smile as she turned it upon this future sister — no, niece. Though Rebecca's eyes met Grace's, they did not seem to see it. She looked fixedly back for a few seconds, then took her glance away, without acknowledging the smile. Those lustrous orbs must be short-sighted, as fine eyes so often are: thus Grace excused her. "And why" — she turned to Clare — "why was your father bent upon calling you Redivivus? Such a singular name ! ' ' "Oh, that — that 's part of the family history. It 's Theresa speaks that piece. Come on, Theresa, with the family history." 71 MISS [NGALIS A dramatic groan rose from 'Junior, another from Alec, a copy ot them from Seetah, who appeared to faint <>n her chair; Last and more of it. the same pert :iftly from Zip. Theresa waved her hand toward them all with un- broken good humor. "You don'1 hai Listen. Talk among yourselvi • your victual Misa [] galis is one of the family now. and will be interested, or if she isn'1 she '11 pre- tend to he. Miss In^alis isn't like you. Miss ln- galifi i> a lady. You know Latin. I guess, Grace, Then you know what Etedivivus means. Well, when the fortun( unily, which w( retty low . bb, had begun I father wanted to 1 it in the name of one of his children. It 'k the i in Bible d 1 i . Bib! "1 I 1. in her . and mann< the flattery of a p t attention. "Do toll me th< : it — the \n h- it. of course 1 want to "Well, then, to go bad .nin'_ r . ae far as it — t!. ■ unily uame w a- H Y Buggies Oi about it. Till one of them n n,. Thon 1 1 >me B iggles, just a- Bed was tiled Etedivivus, a name witli an idea in it. They were merchants, and aol doing well, and needed to overcome a good many i ties, you see, to get themselves up again to the Level where they had used MISS INGALIS 75 to be. That one, Thomas Overcome Ruggles, when he had made up his mind he could n 't do it at home, came to this country, about a hundred and fifty years ago, and on coming here dropped his last name, just for luck. ''That was the first Overcome. But he didn't do well, in spite of the change, and died a disappointed man. Next we know of, his grandson, who was our grandfather, came with his wife and young children to settle in a place called Woodbury, a village in a farming district only about thirty miles from here. I don't suppose you 've ever heard of it. He got a house, and built a barn, and planted his land. He was a hard-working, strong-headed fellow, they say, and ought to have got on. Instead of which, what do you suppose ? His barn caught fire one night, and set fire to the house, and both burned to the ground with everything in them except the human beings. Doesn't it look like bad luck? Can you blame him? When his wife died of her burns, he went out into the wood-lot and hanged himself, leaving those four young ones without a soul to take care of them, or anything to do with." In spite of their affectation of disdain, most of the family were listening; Dolores perhaps not, and Alec flagrantly not. But Sylvanus followed the story of which he had been a part with a wistful expression on his wrinkled brown face which, had a lace cap hidden his hair, might have been taken for that of 16 MIS9 [NGALIS an old woman as well, exactly, as thai of an old man. And Black listened with an expression thai Gra ■in- to know later as habitual— an effect of smiling with solidly closed jaws, when he was in reality i smiling at all. "The eldest of tin- children was ten ye M that was father, 1 Theresa continued. "The youngest wa> one; that was Uncle Sylvanua. There were Aunt Marinda and Uncle William in between. The com- munity didn't know just what to do wit 1 1 them, they divided them Qp; each child was taken to live in a i • family. Now. will yon believe it. father, that little r, made up his mind • that family of his r aga He has told me abool it many lie w | it to work on a farm, where he L r wt up at four, and milked and hoed and weeded like any »wn man. When he n n he came to this city . • two dollars in his pocket. He went to work in a dry-goodl ( «ri: did it. and afterwards Luck. At thirtv he had his own store. Hi- had mar- ried mother, and I - tin try to understand these manly thi MISS INGALIS 79 Black, from the far end of the table, joined in; and then Alec. It was when Alec's remarks came out so high-colored as to catch attention that she real- ized more definitely that Clare's nephew resembled him as much as a brother. They were nearer in age than Clare and Black, youngest and eldest of a long family. But how were Clare 's harmonious good looks spoiled, to what an extent was his charm lost, in Alec, with his keener, more irregular features and rougher hair ! Alec 's nose and chin were aggressive, where Clare's were intrepid, alert; his face was common red, where Clare's was suffused by a soft glow. Alec's eyes were the same fiery blue, but one of them confessed a slight cast; and his eyebrows, if he scowled, produced the effect of a dog's snarl. Clare's brows were Olympian in their authority and calm. Alec had not Clare's great strength, either — Grace was sure of it. Black might have been as strong once upon a time, but he could not be so now. The strongest as well as handsomest of those strong, vivid Overcomes was hers, fortunate girl. She hoped she should get on well with Alec and Black; with Junior, too. The latter was more the same kind of person as Sita — a little uncouth, clumsy, the least attractive of the younger people, in her opinion. But she meant to like him. She meant to like them all, and make them like her. "Thy people shall be my people — " What other people had she now but these? Her blood kindred, scattered and so MISS CNGAUg far, were very shadowy to her. Lydia, on the day to How, would ': ceding, receding with I into unknown places, ou1 of calculation. Bere was ber world. She had the imp] n all through dinner <>f be- ing watched. She would catch dow one glance, dow another, bent apon her with b perceptible fixity of in- Thej iking her measure, too, very naturally. [\ w ;i- \am to hope they WOUld DC BS Well pleased with her as she was with them. Diverse as they were among th< and different from her, she included th< 1 in i pproval. The qualities amoi filled tl thai she could not per DOl all jionm > .. -.1 those qualiti< i. 1 i • ich si ttribut of Clare's splendor i . with independent if surance, personal things that won her nothing of hen ild win them, unle s she hoped, with time given her efforl to pl< S! d their frank enjoyment of rich* Well SS their frank avowal of the pauperism from which they ! She rel I their simple Bat- faction with themsel their freedom from pi ten If they lacked something of culture, tl lacked oothing of intelligence. She trod down nar- row!: and shyni and sensith of 1 own like onworthy weeds, to rejoice in their breadth of nature, their sturdy carelessness of criticism. Tarts of Shaki plays where the language is MISS INGALIS 81 gross but pertinent and felicitous had given her pleas- ure of the same kind as their pithy, inedited con- versation. The largeness of light reflected on those spacious walls, after her dim dining-room at home; the beau- tiful flowers in extravagant abundance on the table; the luxury of the meal ; the shine of silver and crys- tal and damask; the excitement of the many people and the new life, had undoubtedly gone a little to Grace's head. She was intoxicated, taken out of her- self, like a grub just sprung from its cocoon into the world of butterflies, when that evening with an in- finity of good will she opened her arms in readiness to take to her breast all of her lover's family as one. CHAPTEB XIII AN unusual feature of the Overcome mansion was the rotunda — bo called for want of a more exact word: an oval of Btately dimen- sions, a story and a half bigh, in the center of the building. A gallery surrounded it at a third of i height, <>n to which opened a dozen wide and dec tive dooi i '•• • »n the d<»..r thai belonged to the din- ing room, and that waa the central door at the back, a flight of ilso v and decoratr dropp from the gallery into what might 1"' called the pit. The latter \\ ther dark by day. receiving its light chiefly from twi len d it the end of the crypt- hk beneath the dining-room, and for thai reason was little until night, when dual i of globes at th( Ided poatfl -part of ti Uery railing — became large and lumi pear!- Then thi tunda, on the commoneai even- ing, aasunu d a When, after dinner, Grace Btood on I illery with Clare, sh< asked wl r this unuBual architecture had been b r'a id "No; we found it - il answered. "This house * lilt fifty or sixty years ago by a doctor — a nerve Bpei \ he to have been — for a private 82 MISS INGALIS 83 hospital. Pretty high-class patients, it looks like." They went down the stairs to the polished floor. A piano stood under the gallery, in the part that Grace thought of afterward as the crypt. Rebecca had opened it, and was thumping out a gay tune, by ear, with a good deal of knack. Clare bent toward an open door, lighted within, and shining darkly red from the color of the stuffs in the room beyond. Sev- eral steps led from the oval pit into this, which was low-ceiled, smoky, semi-subterranean, and called the den, sacred to the men-folk of the house. In this sanctuary they might smoke, play billiards, box, fight, read newspapers, and, if they so pleased to do, place their feet on the mantel-piece. Black and his sons were there when Grace and Clare looked in. Alec promptly challenged his uncle to a game of pool, and Grace pressed Clare to re- main. To make herself beloved by not disturbing family habitudes, she ran from him and up the stairs. There were things of which Theresa and she could talk much better if Clare were not present. Theresa had promised to show her pictures of Clare when he was a little boy. Grace found her by the parlor lamp, with a bit of pick-up work in her hands which did not require eye- sight or attention. Fanny sat near the same table, with a more ambitious piece. "Pinky is a Vawter," the family was wont to say ; and, though Grace could not so soon gather all the fitness of this classifica- m Miss [NGALIS tion, ahe could that, more than any of the r« • cepting her father, ahe apj 1 uninterested in tin* people and things around her. Rather dry and set, she W88; DOl \ ' :> pretty, with her sandy hair and whitish ej'ela and features a trifle f leaving the impression that Q wished I friendly, and thai Fanny was not alto . r shut to tenders of friendship. .\r her mother's request, Fanny went to gel the family ph raphs and da and Grs was shown pictures old and new and given fragments of biography. Sere n la B baby even then (Iduoki: Red as a little curly boj Bed in the uniform of his school regiment ; Bed when he graduated from high school. "He a the only one that went to college," Then 1. "Father never believed in it for the boys: he had an idea it spoiled them for business. Besides, MISS INGALIS 85 we weren't rich enough when the others were of col- lege age. Red didn't care about it, either. It was my doing. I was determined to have him have every- thing worth having. Red, you see, was my baby, really. I was fifteen when mother died, and I took him and did for him just as I would have done if I'd been his mother for a fact. ''Sister Ellen was married; sister Nancy was old enough to be thinking about it; the others were younger: so Red fell to my share, and I suppose that 's why Red is my favorite and I can't conceal it. I 've washed him and spanked him and unsnarled his hair ; I 've nursed him through croup and mumps and measles. No brat of my own, I declare to you, Grace, was ever any closer to me than Red. We 've always lived together; I 've brought him up. 'So, having the say, I decided that father must have him go to college. But we 're not bookish people, I 'm afraid. He did n 't finish ; he only stayed two years, and found he 'd had enough. All he cared for in college was the athletics." "He couldn't have got through, anyhow. He never could have worked off the conditions he 'd piled up," came a voice from over Theresa's shoulder. Grace looked quickly behind her, and saw Rebecca. "That 's as it may be." Theresa did not seem in the least annoyed; but Grace's heart quickened with resentment. "You can't make it out that Red didn't have the 86 MISS [NGALIS brains, Becky,' Th< ud, with the calm of one making an ineont r '.in. nt. K 1 1 a lifted her chin and lei down her eyelids, with the expression of one who thought she ought be able to make onl a if she eared to take the trouble or til.- risk; then, pointedly, she dropped the sub- it. una and < lharlii ." she said. "< '1 lie 's in ti !i. Bmma wants I for some- thing in particular, and I me op to your room." Bmma and Charlie were fclra Vawter's eldest daughter and ber husband. Qrace continued to turn over ph raphs by 1, self. New \ •' the rotunda, mixed with la R i dance music, created the pe that she would ool be summoned to meet the always u< I n a d< shyni i -tart in with new people, though Bhe di guised it well. II: I fulfill -he relaj I in re ' Fanny left I Lng to go and see who I come, and did i. "urn while wondering what Clare was doing a w much l< i1 raid I looki im- wii od ipb t<» th.- next, with little thought about them. Strange, how .she was sl- ays aware of Clare. No matter where he might be — all the time, all the time, h< r uerves were in an in- describable way aware of him. A- an undercurrent MISS INGALIS 87 to all other thoughts, feelings, interests, lay that per- petual consciousness of Clare's being. It was sweet — yet it tired one, too, and was pain, at moments, of its own especial kind. But yet, to lose it would have been to die. With the turn of mind of one who had composed fairy tales and poems, she paid more intelligent at- tention when she came to the picture of that Jesse who, as a little boy, had undertaken the task of get- ting his family together again. He had in ripe man- hood just such a face as one might have expected to find: keen and firm, of high character — but hatchet- hard; yet not without humor, and in humor is feel- ing. From the mother entirely his children must have got their amenity. Hers were the fine black eyebrows and the wavy hair and the comeliness. She had been called Maria, but Inez Maria had been her full name. This, and the fact of there being among the brothers an Alonzo and among the nieces a Teresita, suggested to Grace the possibility of Spanish ancestry somewhere up the line. And if Spanish, perhaps — in the far back — Arabian. Who could tell? Clare might have de- rived his crisp curliness from sheiks of the desert. This fancy so appealed to her that she amused her- self seeking corroboration of it in the physiognomies of Inez Maria's descendants. She had thought the room deserted but for her- self, and looked up quickly upon hearing a rustle. It ss MISS [NGALIS was Dolores approaching. Grace bent on her at once the Bmile that tried to win. Dolores gazed bach with i benignity, which took the place sufficiently well of a smile in th.it face committed to gravity. The picture she made, with her Locks white as powder, her mournful, ar •. and around her throat the black velvet band fastened by b diamond clasp, re- mind- d Gi a tale from the R I rror : bow ing i i unfastened th< p of such a veil :i>1 <>n an in* er found wandering at midnight near the p of executions — and tin* head l from the /. As I>"i > I i * 1 nut take the initiative, Grace b .-•<\ night to Clare, when, to Bay it more circumstantially, he drew her by a not unwilling hand insXi tall doom opening (.11 to the gallery. They b1 1 in a parlor, of rich and somber b had not yet A shaded lamp cast its circle of bright on a table with pipes, tobi jars, and mannish things Box- ing gloves, BWOrdS, Indian dubs, BCUllS, silver cups such as arc swarded for athletic victories, were to be sen in the twilight around. She did nol realize that it was Clare'a own room until he told her, and with likeable simplicity showed her the boa of his do- MISS INGALIS » 91 main : the elaborately fitted dressing-room contiguous, the goodly bookcase full of authors laughably choice which at night became his bed ; the convenience to the front door, permitting him to leave or enter at his own hour without disturbing the household. It had used to be the great doctor's consulting-room, he told her. From the whole world seeming so very still, she thought at last that everyone must have gone up- stairs to bed, and moved to leave him. "Good night," she said. ' ' Good night, ' ' he said after her, and enfolded her. She turned her face so that his kiss should light on her cheek or hair. It was her caprice, which he had always respected. But to-night he, with a mur- mur of protesting fondness, reached insistently for her lips: she must see that something was changed, that a great stride had been taken nearer to each other. For a moment she would have withstood him if she could. Then, closing her eyes, she yielded ; and, while deep chords of her being, unawakened until that moment, trembled in response, she tried to feel some- thing sacred in that burning red seal upon their love. After a stretch — she did not know how long — of the sleep that is like empty hollows of black velvet, she woke without knowing why, and thought herself in her bed at home. Then the memory came back of the luxurious chamber, last vision to smite her open eyes. Miss [NGALIS sin- fell the unfamiliar fineness of hex sh< softness her mattress. But, even as the warmth of the boo was far from the earth, bo pleasure and comfort were withdrawn from the things around her and within. A feverish uneasiness pervaded her; a sickly light lay over all Bubj< ti I thought ; the night was full of dull. Lonelj anguish. She attributed her condition, when she was a little wider awake, t<> the unaccustomed itements of the evening, added to the strain and fatigue of the Last weeks She lay, for a s] unaccountably ap- palled by tl. ■ that great house around her, with all its unknown BO deeply unknown. . . . si a few times, turned over, and tried to go to sleep but soon, forgetting her pursuit of foi get fulness, was watchii as they r ted themselves on the lighted stage memory. The mo I ial things looked disquieting in that hushed and heavy hour: the redly glimmering low dour; the haggard fiic- .,f tin- phot :»h; tin- es of Dolores burdened with meaning but mean- ing what '■' . . . \ 1 of which abruptly faded when shame and re- morse clutched her with punishing hands, at the recognition that not one- since crossing the threshold of this house had she thoughl of I tther. She had gone to sleep, for tin- first time since lie died, without turning her mind toward him. Bending him one good night i .re. Was it possible that riches and MISS INGALIS 93 pleasures and love-making would be able to obliterate an image so rightly dear? Ah, she had proved her- self a shallow thing ! She humbled herself to the immortal part of Win- f red Ingalis with the whole of her contrite heart ; pro- tested the truth of her affection, and implored par- don, and cried a little ; and went to sleep, chastened, full of high resolves. D CHAPTER IX ONT get op till vim feel like it.' Theresa had bidden her ad ( trace had been happj to imagine herself in a fairj palace where such thing ild I"- done without the compunctions tint ompany Indulgences of the kind in I She came to herself al a faint rattle of dishes anil Fragrance of : was standing oear, holding tray. Having piled pillows al Gi back and placed her breakfi *, the girl seated b< If on tli- :' the bed "Don't apologia she dismissed Grace's polite phi "Wi all do it. [f you sit np late you can't Up early. In this family, if yon iy in bed long enough, somebody or other brings yon nettling t, Mother it." adering around th< a. "Weren't yon tired Ux Grace asked her. "Weren't yon ap as late as I? Bow did yon wal up bo much earlier I ' "] guess yon "<1 wake ap it* yon slept with Zip, in the mi aexl I i Aunt Dolores. Zip has a way of itting her that's perfectly maddening; thru, all a sudden, she '11 double ap like a jackknife snapping shut, and land her cocoanut in the middle 94 MISS INGALIS 95 of your stomach. Take that, along with Aunt Do- lores sawing wood all night. . "Why, Miss Sita, what a shame! "Don't you care! I suppose I '11 get used to it. Sita's melting dark eyes continued to wander around the room with an expression that could be interpreted as marking regret mingled with a sense of injury. Grace's long, sound morning sleep had done her a world of good. She had waked with nerves com- posed — more, indeed, than that: she had waked with something very like elation taking the place of those creepy, causeless midnight misgivings. She was go- ing to take possession of her new world in the man- ner of one equal, through the spirit, to all its prob- lems, tasks, and encounters. She rejoiced in the mere multifariousness of life as it now offered itself, af- fording endless objects for the exercise of her facul- ties. It was, with her, one of those mornings of youth when the novice, girded for adventure, is lifted upon the consciousness, or the illusion, of illimitable strength — capacity to provide out of deep funds within him for whatever chance may come. In this mood, rich and spendthrift, the desire to endear her- self to Clare's people without exception made her reckless of what there might be to pay. An especial magnanimity was in order, anyhow, in the case of one who, like Sita, had given evidence of eagerness on her side. 96 MISS INGALIS ur room before I came?" Grace asked Sita stared at lior a moment. ■ ■ Fes, 11 w as. I lov< did you know ?" "^ u don't seem quite used to Zip and Aunt Do- luD's." "You're right I 'd had this room since Emma got married — tin* first tin I ever did have a room to myself. B if course, I don't mind giving it up to you. I don't mind. 1 I like you. Don't tell Mother I Id «>n." My d< ar M 8 t, quite th< favor yon old do me would be 1 to j our own mom, if you wouldn't mind my sharing it. I am a qu si. I Del 1 know thai 1 haven't many clothes and thii '.ill be plenty of room f both of os, and 1 shall much happier. v i tainlv must c "Do you mean it? ' 'ii. Miss Imialis. what a per- feel darling you an jumped up to squei r in a j< bear-hu " You 're lots nicer than I thought anybody could 1"-. if yon un n't our kind. Ybn 're ^uv<- now you want m< You know, 1 shall hai e ' tell Mother you insisted." When Clarence heard, thai evening, of this insi em ' — "What mad.' you do that. <> Amiable One?" he in- MISS INGALIS 97 quired. "You will find it — to use one of your own expressions — direful. ' ' But Theresa, upon Grace's saying the proper thing, had raised no objection — being, indeed, glad to have her child stop fussing to her in private about the burdens unfairly put upon her because she was younger and better-natured than Pinky or Rebecca. "Now, when exactly are you children thinking of getting married?" Theresa asked point-blank that same evening, at a moment when she and Clarence and Grace were by themselves. "Soon," said Clarence, pressing Grace's hand de- voutly. "Sooner. Soonest. Grace, set the day." Grace stammered a little in saying: "I have al- ways thought that a year was the shortest — " But an outcry from Clare and Theresa, wonderfully of one mind and one voice, cast her back, deeply blushing, into silence. "Did you hear the hard-hearted little thing!" cried Theresa. "I never knew anything like it. What have you got against the poor boy? A year, did you say? A year? Why, what do you want to wait for? Isn't everything all right? Come, now, Grace, give us a human answer. What do you say, Red?" "I say that a year is all right, and about what I should have expected from the pale-rose lips of the well-brought-up Miss Ingalis. But to fall in with it MISS [NGA1 [S would look like a powerful I of entbu i on my part. Try again, Gra Take a tip: don'1 make it a daj over three mouths. "Yes, yes," agreed Theresa "Three months is more than enough. The idea! And three .short months, too, bo as to I if into June. June is the month for weddings. Say the end of June: that will give as time for everything." Grace had arrived at a theory that she musl hold her own against Clare. Sometimes, when disposed t<> be submissive, she made herself Btifl and wayward, taught by intuition that BDC was thus finally more de- lightful to him. She would have liked in this ease to be obstinate; hut the fad that sue was to be a gu< of the Ovei - until her marriage mad.- it seem indelicate to gel a term deemed by her hot extremely loi | Whose prerogative is it suppose ! to be to the d,i ' sked, witli a sparkh- of that spri-jhtliness which she was learnin affect "Do I remember rightly thai it is the l Well, then. I will be sable, however; I won't claim it entii We will do before marriage, <"l »ple do after it: • ■ half way in making eon ms. So — wo '11 have the wedding in half the length of time I pro- posed, and in twice the time proposed by you; that is to Bay, in six months. A u suit d Ther< d the compromj fair, and made calculatioi MISS INGALIS 99 "That will take us into September. Six months from the beginning of your engagement will take us to the second week in September. You '11 have to be married, then, from our summer home on Jaffa Road. Well, we can give you just as pretty a wed- ding there as here. The family moves out to Jaffa Road the end of June, and the men come down by train every afternoon. We '11 have to set about get- ting your things at once, my child, so as to be through before July, for we sha'n't want to be running back and forth in hot weather." In her aspiration to establish charming relations between herself and the different members of his fam- ily, Grace received small support from Clare. His attitude was that of saying, "What makes you bother? Let it work out as it will. You 're a lot too good for them." He was immensely candid with regard to his family, calling them whatever names at the moment best represented his meaning, however unflattering it might be. Grace suspected him, none the less, of a strong clan feeling, of its own kind. She continued tactfully trying to show liking and make herself liked. Aside from Sita, whose conquest was really too easy, she felt least shyness with Dolores, toward whom she was impelled by a kind of pity — pity on fairly in- tangible grounds; for, although the offhand manner of the family seemed out of keeping when applied to 100 Miss [NGALIS l' -. this was iidi sufficient to creai pity She put into 1. lilf a double i if honey when bend- ing it on Dolon The depressing lady seemed not to care to talk, yet must like — as everybody likes — to be the object of a distinguishing and appreciative smile Meeting her on the h ay to mass,—] tolores went daily to mass, Gract would say ingratiatingly, 'Tray for me tun!" At which Dolores would bow Ql in entire seri -s and. < ■ • fancied, make it a point of .v. Several times Qrace had seen on the stairs a large, middle-aged woman, carrying covered dishes on a tray, before th< tition of this event had bu the question, " [s anybody illT Who lives upstairs?" si i with I » Doloi ret nrning from ma when her curiosit; I and the que • ht of tin- servant ap- proaching with her tray. ' It is Miss < > • ' Dol< 1. "'Aunt Nfarinda," she elucidated. Qrace remembered at i Marinda, r <»f J< sse and William and Sylvanus— -one of the four or- phans distributed and <: i. who by this time must be an old, old woman. "And she is illf" tannot walk or stand. She never leaves her room. Good morning, Nora." Grace's i took in more riously the face of > 1 > • MISS INGALIS 101" the large woman in a blue-striped gingham as she passed them, and she liked its broad kindness, its small pretty eyes like a child's, even its button nose, com- ically counterbalanced by a button of gray hair at the back of the head. She expressed to Theresa, that day, her desire to be made acquainted with Marinda. Already when she was much younger Grace had discovered as one of the painful things that a person learns in life, if he be at all observant or sensitive, that there is among people in their strength and health a disposition to neglect the old ; also, that old people pathetically love remembrance and affection from the young. This perception had created in her a habit of regard for them, in part ideal of chivalry, in part honest tender- ness. Theresa looked at her, when she made the request, as if she thought it supererogatory; her glance inti- mated that Grace would not find the enterprise re- warding: if it had been anything in the nature of a treat, would it not have been proposed? But she readily consented. "Come on," she said, and led the way. They climbed to the top of the house; Theresa knocked at a door. The room they entered was so different from her unconscious expectation that Grace made a small, unguarded sound of surprise. It was as if a magic carpet had transported them in a twinkling from the LM MISS [NGALIS city to an old -fashioned country house, filled with a countrywoman's old-fashioned belonging There u ii the faintly musty smell that is exhaled from old thin Near the embrasure formed by one of the mansard window . high-backed chair, covered with a faded goods printed with once gay flowers, and fur- nished with projections designed to shield the ears from draughl In this sat an ancienl lady, with hi d od and a shavi I tucked around her up !«» the v. 'Well, Aunt Marinda. how do yon do to-dai Theresa asked in 1 • .;. cheerful tones, which ahe sharpened ?■> \ li«' dull ear of ag " I 've broughl R young lady up I 'Oh, Red 'a young lady. 1 Aunt Marinda spoke in a . • edly deep, and, after a moment vagueness, took the hand thai Grace at once extend with her prett; nnile. She looked from one t<» the otl. • ill in doubl ; thm. ' • JTes, I rememb she nodded. '* 1 1-T oame i^ I < Irace I Qgabus "01 Qra Same as the other." Aunt Marinda. I gueSfl you aivn't quite awak'.- ;. Did '•'■ e break into \ our nap f See, bei i a letter from Sarah I 've broughl for you to read. I m _r to h ' for ymi to l«>ok at when you 're ready. Sh< lot to say about Belle's baby. They 're • Sally Marinda. Are n't you plea MISS INGALIS 103 Grace was happy to feel that, with Theresa at hand, there would fall upon her no obligation to talk. She could talk so much better another time, when she came up here alone. This strange, delightful room! Strange through its mere existence in the same house as the ambitious apartments below; delightful in being so like some- thing in a story book. In a corner stood a solid four- post bed, with colored patchwork spreading over its mound of feathers. The chair she had taken was an old wooden one with worn seat and rungs; on the floor lay braided rag carpets, dim with long use. An iron stove with little Gothic windows shed that even, caressing heat which old people so much prefer to fresh air. In which details, the room was not unlike rooms Grace had seen before. What made the place curious was to find in it so much that ordinarily would have been relegated to the store-room, not to say the rubbish heap. Piled in the corners, on the deep window-sills, on the old lounge and under it, were boxes and boxes, bundles and bundles, sheaves of yellowed newspapers and magazines, picture-frames laid one on top of another, with here and there revealed such private and per- sonal treasures as a stuffed black-and-tan terrier, a bunch of ghost- white flowers — bridal or funeral? — stiffened and eternized by a preparation of wax. The eye received from these promiscuous stacks of port- able property an impression of irregularity, but not 104 MISS [NGALIS ly of disorder; for the things were systematized and condensed as far as possible, so as to leave a fair remainder of spa i live in. It might !><■ thoughl thai when Aunt Marinda trans- rred hei '«> her brother's h'-u^e in town it had been t<"> I in her from the familiar poss< ins. She had brought along the accumulations of a life, besi d them temporarily, then grown accus- med t<. the ang md shadows they made. Per- haps th. re ha. I been i at first of making - tion, reduction, destruction. Perhaps her great affliction had overtaken hi • it could I"' carried into ert'< 1 1. v. -hat mighl 1 tood the dim. dj I things: glimpsed them on top of the wardr divined them under tin' bed, bid- den hv the valanci i : tilted forward and backward in an old wooden rocking-chair p 1 pale yellow and embel- lished with pah- pin and cheerily fed tl i ; relative with news of th.- a . as family. Aunt Marinda W8S DO doubl in" d. -could One COn- ive an a'_ r ''d count rywuinaii Dot d by a string of gossip I but lid tit i I eon- n alive. Tl not wait for her ; she gave to th< ion an • entin ial su by reeling off her ready talk alone, with hardly an interruption. "Lonzo is thinking of building — did Dolores tell you I Carrie wants him to buy the house her brother MISS INGALIS 105 wants to sell; but Lonzo doesn't see it, and I don't blame him. It 's gloomy and it 's cramped. We 're watching to see who '11 come out ahead, whether she '11 get her way or he his. I guess it '11 end in their build- ing. I guess it 's safe to put your money on the Overcome side of the house." Grace, meanwhile, could study the old lady's face without rudeness. She perceived in her some re- semblance to the pictures of her brother, but was re- minded more of someone else. She had seen before that bony, elongated face, with the large eye-sockets and the great dignity. That Aunt Marinda should be paralyzed seemed to Grace the more tragic in that she had, to the most casual observation, a great deal of character, and must have been purposeful, powerful, active. There was something mannish about her, with her gruff chest-voice and bit of beard, so that the trifling head- gear of black lace and velvet, worn by old ladies to hide their thin spot, seemed in her case a foolish, im- pertinent affair. Grace found herself immensely, respectfully sorry for Aunt Marinda, not the less so because Aunt Ma- rinda looked strong in patience and able to bear her lot. From the serious-looking black book on the little table at her elbow, she presumed that Aunt Marinda was religious. But, religious as you might be, and pos- sessed of superhuman comforts, it seemed to Grace a sad thing to be old : to be at the end of things — love 106 MISS rNGALIS finished, work finished, hope abbreviated, nothing from day to day to thrill you. the sun gone nly to be arrived at after thai tin- that transition, the thought of which is so repulsive to warm young flesh and blood! ... A great deal of sympathy \\a> due to the old, it seemed to Grace. 'Well, Aunt Marin da/' Theresa talked glibly on, hut an Intimation was in I idence that she ap- proached the point of winding up,— "the wedding da, for the second week in September; bo yi 1 to Jaffa Eta tli. ison. B I 'i honi I '_ r '»t i !y, .. The carp* od paintei 1I3 just out »t. They "11 be busi k th< asion to Introduce Into 1i«t smile the final essence of all her thoughts on old ag The two l»-t their glances n npon each other with directness and simplicity. R >m faded l»lu»- fire of shadowy caverns mel with the gold-brown Light of clear woodland Is. "You seem to be a nice Little thing/ Aunt Ma- rinda fame out, addressing herself to Q and breaking unceremoniously across Tl chatter to MISS INGALIS 107 do it. "What makes you want to marry into this family ? ' ' "Well, I like that!" Theresa burst out laughing. "Who 're you hitting, Aunt? The family or Grace? You do have a way of saying things!" She did not seem anything but amused ; but, when she had caught Grace's eye, she shot a glance at her such as people exchange behind the back of the de- mented, and got up as if she felt it time to go. "We don't want to stay long enough to tire you, Aunt. Good-by. I hope the boys below don't make noise enough to disturb you. If they do, you must let me know. Send me word by Nora any time there 's anything I can do for you." As she held out her hand to take Aunt Marinda's in farewell, Grace was reimpressed by the likeness she had noted. Who was it that Aunt Marinda re- sembled, so severe as she looked, but also gentle and, possibly, a little cracked? Who but her dear old friend, and her father's particular favorite, that valorous knight of the Mancha, Don Quixote? On the way downstairs, Theresa said: "Isn't she a freak? You never can tell what she '11 be like. Some days you '11 find her in a sort of daze, like to- day, when she gets all mixed up and doesn't know what she 's dreamed and what is so. Once you know it, you 're all right. Sometimes, though, she has scold- ing fits, when — my conscience ! — you want to keep 108 MISS INGALIS clear of her. They 're the reason thai some of the family — Bed, Cor instance never go near her. When t hut a en her, ahe appears to have idge against the lot of as. It 's her mind failing, of coum The girls go up, from time to time; but the} hate it so, l don't make them I nl with her a good deal myself, though, ami >•• does Dolores; ami Bylvanu i up there nearly every evening. "Well, lunacy i.sn't catching, thank L r Inc.- Clare said cheerfully to 1 much in 1 1 oimmering silvery and opaline world of poetry, and this Dew person called upon to give heart and mind to such a different, di>tra<-tinL r . crimson-and gold-lighted world. When a month had p • ho] f maku herself dear to all th< d undergone modi MISS INGALIS 111 fications. She knew by that time what could be done and what could not. Her desire for popularity among Clare's family had risen in part from a desire to be quite perfect toward him. But, since he genuinely cared so little. . . . In part she had wanted to be liked because that was the ideal : to live with your neighbor in more than a mere absence of friction. Human relations should have positive amenity ; fellow guests at the great Inn should go toward each other with hands extended, offering flowers and fruit. . . . But at the end of a month she was willing to let all that be, even as Clare had bidden her. Clare had his own kind of wisdom. Some of the Overcomes could not be made to care for her ; and others, the truth was, she did not much care for. She found comfort at all times in Theresa, who regarded her explicitly as the rightest person in the world for Red, and a reason for congratulation to the whole house of Overcome. Theresa and Red were enough to keep the most modest of girls in conceit; and, as far as conceit was concerned, the rest did nothing to shake it, for their attitude — which one got like an emanation — was that of regarding her as, while not of their kind, belonging to a kind that would naturally think itself entitled to put on airs with them. Her little early attempts to deserve some mark of 112 MISS INGAUS - .ml from the head of the house bad the fate of thoi dfl in the parable thai were scattered on rock. Black was primly unamenable to the fascinations ol little girls. Carious, to see him at Ins end of the table, acting just like a human being, handsome in a y, having — though mostly rather lent — a twist <»f hard hinin.r and any quantity of hard Bense, and yel aol Quite having human feelings. For, if a person smiles to you in a soft, sunny way, it only human to r back a little Warmth. <.' m ■•■■ tame a tin\ bit afraid of Black. Uncle Sylvanus apj ntle beii with his look of an old woman with .short white hair, and «•- pable of a beard, and • thai infi- oitely kept their own counsel She fell an affinity between him and herself; but when she attempted to talk with him, he baffled her lik> nail retiring into his shell, and she d usement In the others over her freshness in attempting a difficult and worth- less task. She learned that Sylvanus was the on< the family who had "never amounted to anything.' 1 Hut old J( » I ad felt fraternal toward him too, and _- en him a share in the business and a right in the house, the Ban r Marinda. They could not turn old Sylvanus nut, if he did from time to time po on a darkling exp< a alluded to as a "spn They could award him. though, a Bleeping apartment in the cellar, as it were,— a darkish, moldy-smelling room entered from the den, to which he could be con- MISS INGALIS 113 ducted without scandal when his step was unsteady and he was not to be restrained from lifting his voice in song. In the case of Simeon Vawter, Grace had had little hope from the first. He was not stone, like Black; he was wood. There was proof of his excellent, even exceptional capacity in the clothiers' business; but that did not make him, from Grace's standpoint, easy to talk with. Beyond the flattest commonplaces, she did not know what to say to him. After giving him up, however, she rather liked him. His dry, sandy face had a superior, silent good sense. It was funny to feel about him as a man who, in spite of the appearance given to the situation by the fact of wife and children, had once and for all made up his mind to have nothing to do with any of the people around him. Between him and Theresa there existed, as far as one could tell, good accord, though no visible sentiment; between him and his children natural feeling without demonstrativeness. Toward his daughter Pinky, Grace had taken the steps requisite for the cultivation of friendship, to find her before long rather too unrewarding for one to wish to proceed very far. When Pinky let herself go, one day, to the point of making confidences and revealing her shy, inmost aspirations, she said she should like to be a hotel-keeper or else the wife of one, with the huge linen supplies belonging to such an es- tate — towels, sheets and pillow-cases, table-cloths and 114 MISS [NGALIS napkins, all indelibly marked; and then thousands and thousands oi plated knives and forks, also marked; d pure! od to be made on a colossal scale, bargain pi . and then, of course, all the monej i-"lliiiL r in — ■ had shown I -iiial. but a limit had been • to the distance the tun could travel together. On never offered t«> read her favorite lines on ■ Tinteni Abbe; with Pinky, nor the "Ode to the We8t Wind"; she U( into the region of »• r,- ; ed darkly and found oothing to reply. That, then, was how red to Rel eecs like one thinking Qer&elf superior I ■:■ it and judtrimr them from a height: a Sufficient explanation of tie' hostility which she, from that time onward, distin- in Rebecca's attitude toward her. she w ry. Because Kehecca — though Bhe rather hated \i \ now — was the one of all the young people whom she could have liked most. Rebecca in I MISS INGALIS 117 riding-habit, with her neat top-hat, her gauntlets and quirt, had the attraction for Grace of a figure in ro- mance. Not the good heroine, but the other, the darkling, the fascinating one. Though Rebecca's black eyes were bold, and her pouting red lips in a sleepy, latent way cruel, one could quite well imagine warmth of heart in her, headlong, headstrong loyalty, where once it had been enlisted. But there was no use trying, Grace felt — the less so that Rebecca was right about the mental reservations. She wished, when it was too late, that she had had the spirit and readiness to reply, as she could only have done in truth had she been a different kind of person : "If you had an inkling, my dear girl, how strange and novel are to me some of your ways, — your squabbles, your points of view, the quality of your gossip, the tone of your conversation, the taste of your remarks and sometimes of your dresses, — I have a notion that you would regard it as a mercy that I do reserve my mind!'' Yes, Rebecca was right about the mental reserva- tions. Only, there was so much else to consider, which, if Rebecca had done, she might have granted to Grace some of that devotion of which she looked capable. But Rebecca was offensive and unladylike. She was petty, too, and unfair: she discussed Grace with the others — Grace knew it because she more than once caught her name in conversations not meant for her ears. She wondered what was said. lis Mis< [NGALIS There i young man. by name Barvey Stok who haunted the house and was sure to turn ap at the places where they wentr— a suitor for Rebecca's favor, plainly. Sitting ool far from the two, Grace overheard them talking about her; but, sine- they did do! Dotice her neighborhood, she did ooi move out of hearing, embarrassed by the feeling thai it would barrass them to be made aware of her. "Grace- d, and I gain, and ' I The young man also took the Liberty of calling her 1 • :■ . did qoI hear the rest, until her i rjuotin imething she had oei aid — apoo wi knew thai the two, ving realized her presence, \. trying to mis- lead her into thinking it was n< her they m speaking, bul of some other Grace. I de dare Eto i ecca said, simulatii aestm 'that it is. firsi and la-:, jusl a n. ble DUSUnder- indin At which G ■ Liberty to i and tak<- herself farther. It was : ble, «>t' eoui that they wi * . 1 1 k i 1 1 lt about another Grace; our heroine had own opinion as to that. S It that g tuted an offense t<. Rebecca merely by * » ■ \ i - t i n <_r at her aide, and to try t«» make her Bwain her with her own spiteful eye was what Bel would vulgarly do. These things troubled Grace only now and then, and for minutes at .1 time. There was t<».» much el making demand on her for 1 1 1 « » u lt 1 1 1 and emotion. MISS INGALIS 119 Then, there were Clare and Theresa — when all was said, the most telling personalities in the house, if not the most important persons. Fortified by their approval, she truly did not need to care about the others. There were all the activities, all the diver- sions. There was the wonder of never being scolded or disciplined or called selfish and slack and ineffi- cient, and made thereby to feel so, hopelessly; but being represented to herself as the precious acquisi- tion, the new event, the bird-of-paradise among crows. It was mere graciousness to make little of Zip's and Rebecca's and Alec's discourtesies. If a twinge was inseparable from the recognition that someone unkindly did not like you, it must be treated with philosophy: patience for the present, and trust in the future for bringing things round. ( BAPTEB XI GRACE had always regarded Bhopping as a wearisome, (inescapable annoyance; but buy- in tty things for a bride, with Tl. i as an at, enthusiastic and indefatigable, belong to events of a diff Th i lightened the burden of choosing among a multitude of thin by being definite in quick in decision She carried the mental an image of what Gr raghl to look lis married woman, which « li Grace, with I ag that The- in this matter i I Clare, took her coun- sel in ain. without demur. ' « Bed does D H want to marry a little rent girl! 1 Th< lid, with the g humored bluffi ss that makr- » . ppy conveyance t<>r criticism, a- she sv le a humbly dainty pile snowy linen with Bmall embroideries, looked upon with l. : favor by Grace. "These monoto- .is little puritan g r little old maids, my dear I Y >n want to keep Red ca] ted, j kn..\\. Nothing in your life, lei me tell you, will e important to yon than that." A n.l she had directed the eh _- with Buch ef- 120 MISS IXGALIS 121 feet that the trousseau which Grace found herself ac- quiring cast her in a state of vast doubt. But when she put on, to try them, the filmy, lacy, coquettish things, she could not but be struck by the change they wrought, the charm they imparted to the figure before her in the glass. She captivated herself while revolving the thought of captivating Clare. Was it possible that all it took to be an enchantress was the right clothing? . . . Theresa had seemed to regard it as a duty that she make herself into an en- chantress for Clare. As she gazed into the eyes gazing back from her reflection, potentialities of her nature, submerged be- neath accumulations of training and maxim, floated nearer to the surface, and she was instructed through all her quickened nerves of the zest to be found in cultivating arts of beauty for the power that beauty gives. While Theresa helped Grace to buy her wardrobe, it was with Clare she went to choose the more im- portant pieces of furniture for their house. But in the minor matters — draperies, linen, utensils — it was again Theresa who gave the advantage of her lights. In entering the new house, now almost ready to receive a happy bridal pair, Grace would still have sometimes that old feeling of being in a dream. No, it was not possible, every appearance notwithstand- ing, that she should become mistress of all this. . . . 1 from m» There was another short silence, during which, both women, with very different thoughts in their minds, let their • around the fanci- ful, deliberately frivolous room. 1 Theresa again Bpoke op, 'talk to me i little about this Mrs. Lamont. How did you come to know her My father had taken me for a couple of weeks to Sugar Hill in the White Mountains— it will be four years ago this summer. And Mrs. Lamont, who Mi-- Ida Manville at that time, was Btaying at the same hotel. We didn't know anybody; neither did she. \\'. _ • acquainted by Papa filling her gin for her in the spring-house. After that, whenever she went to drive Bhe asked us to <_ r <> with her, and we MISS INGALIS 125 returned the compliment. So we were a great deal together. She took to us, as she has told me since. And we delighted in her. Yet, except for a Christ- mas card the first year, we lost touch with each other after we came away. She lived in New York. But she had said she would be sure to look us up if ever she came our way. And she did. She is such a faithful, affectionate dear. Then — you know the rest: how she picked me up and made me go with them. If it hadn't been for that — " "You might never have seen Red. That 's true, too. Are you very, very fond of her?" "I adore her. Even aside from all I owe her, you have no idea of her attractiveness, her delicious fun- niness and good spirits. She is five or six years older than I am, but she seems younger, somehow. And then, her generosity. I believe she is the most generous person in the world. She gives the clothes off her back, literally. This that I have on she made me take because she couldn't bear the sight of me in mourning. I wear it all the time ; I love to wear it, because it was hers. So, you see, nothing I do for her can be too much. This room — " "Grace, I 'm sorry you 're so fond of her," said Theresa, without looking at her. ' ' Sorry ? What do you mean, dear ? ' ' As if with an effort after resolution, Theresa turned her head so as to face Grace squarely, and Grace gathered an evil omen from her expression. 12fi MISS [NGALIS I :•:! Try. my child, because I *m afraid what I Ve got to tell you will be a shock. When you met Miss Manville at your mountain hotel you knew oothing what about her, did y< 5Tou very iturally Bupposed she was all right." what are you trying to tell met" "That she was Dot, my child; that a the amounl of it. I 'm awfully sorry to you a disillusion, hut 1 don't see how it ran he helped. If you • ing to aak her to nail you in this house, 1 want you [east to know whom you iking. " " Then sa, 3 ou can 't make me believe Little «_ r irl. you don't claim to know the world very well, dow do Fo 1 're quite safe in believing what I tell you. I have no intention of • unkind word about your frimi bo, I have do doubt, is nerou thful and si oate and L r - od fun as you make her out. What I am going to say is that she has what is ral 'past.' Perhaps you won't like her a hit Irss for it It all depends. 1 tat it does ma' in the suitability of asking fa re. 1 ' " What is- there again Tl ■ \v ; al tl ere wot against her was a disagreeable, in- Dvenient, anahakable wife, whose husband could n't quite make up his mind to choke her and marry Ida. 9 that [da— adapted I 1 the circum- Lel her excuse be that Bhe loved much, and that he loved equally. This went on for years, with MISS INGALIS 127 a steadiness that gave the affair a kind of — almost respectability. Then the wife providentially was taken off, and everybody supposed the two would marry. But no such thing. By that time he had gotten over the notion. He sneaked out of it. He had the excuse of a young daughter due to come home from her boarding-school in Europe. Ida was ter- ribly broken up over the whole thing. But she made the best of it finally, accepted a good little income from him, and tried to forget him by marrying some- one else." "Oh, poor Ida!" cried Grace, with a catch in her breath, and held her hands over her eyes. "Poor, poor Ida!" "Yes, my dear. Give her sympathy, but don't go on idealizing her." "How do you know all this? Who told you?" "Who? Red, of course. Sydney Morgan was a friend of his — member of the same yacht club at Jaffa Road. Red first met Ida on board Morgan's yacht. He had to have some place besides New York where they could be together." "So when Clare met us on board the Pretoria, he- >> "Yes. But if you 're thinking he for a single in- stant made the slightest mistake about you, you 're wrong. No one, my child, could make any mistake about you, no matter whom you were traveling with. He saw the whole thing at a glance. It 's quite like L*8 MISS [NGALIS that boiI of person, you know, to 1" leen in pub - friends with someone there ean be no doubt about. Ami she had her excellent old :iy man to impress- •• Tl • : sa, don 't speak of [da, pi i * thai sort of j i.' " begged Urace, who had visibly winced. And please nol to interprel her to m< You can tell me facta, if you have them to tell; but to me who know her- know her nature bo really well, her large-hearted, generous nature you mustn't explain her n. "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings, ( i: I you think thi i a pli it duty — " "Oh, I know it hasn't. I know VOU ' kind as you can be. But now now what am I going to dot' 1 "D Nothing, my child. That s the point. Nothing. 1 1 !. '• ask 1 visit you. ■ I '>ut v. Bpoken of it. SI I - it. I owe her so much. Without her "You regard her as having made tin- match, ■l made it. my dear. She was its very poor in- t. It' vou had not been what von arc Four connection with Ida Lamont, you must for 3 irself, was hardly a recommendation. "Clare and shi Died Buch good friends!" "You will find, as you iearn the ways of the world. that a man isn't and doesn't ha\ particu- lar as a woman. Clare no doubt liked her wry much. That 3 rson 1 beg your pardon; I MISS INGALIS 129 mean — ladies of her kind are very likely to be just what you describe, good-hearted, lavish, amusing. Red would very naturally take pleasure in her so- ciety. ' ' "Would he object, do you think, to my asking her here?" "Grace, don't put it to him. It wouldn't be fair. You know he can't refuse when you ask — he 's silly about you. His not having told you about Ida him- self shows how much he would hate to hurt your feel- ings. He thinks you 're such a little idealist. Doesn't it seem to you he deserves some considera- tion in return? For a young bride to invite to her house the very first thing a — One must draw the line somewhere, my dear. Things have a way of leaking out and making talk. The situation is simple, after all. Instead of asking her, you don't ask her. When the invitation to visit you doesn't come, she '11 understand, bless your heart. She '11 think it 's Red who has put his foot down: she won't make any comment. You can go on writing to her if you wish; but after a while, you '11 see, the thing will taper off and die." "No, no. I '11 find some other way to show my gratitude." "My child, nothing is owed her. People can't expect everything. If you have the fun of kicking over the traces, you can't have all the advantages, too, of being moral. > > 10 MISS [NGALIS ' 1 don't know what to think. There 1 don't know how I fed D01 talk of it any more just now, if yon WOllld D 't mind. With a blank face, Grace for a little while Longer looked Btraighl before her, then went to one window after the other and pulled down the shad--, plunging the thousand r In .i melancholy whitish gloom. When G d the following day, made her ap- black dress having folds of shabby crap", ti ■ otion n .i> one of surprifl Then, a- Bhe remembered, impatience crept through 1 ry healthy M<>..d. She sup] I th.it Grac< itimental little was signifying, by putting on mourning, h( of the death <>f an illusion or of a friendship. Bui when Grace who rtainly if ah< gh1 have wept in tie- night then ( i' l to her, "Too must hHp ne' to buy an even' da\ di black I • w 4 is all I have ■ my wedding tiling, which I sup pose oughl to be kepi new, 1 Tl • moved on to e different wonder, and only after a deal of thinking cau in inkling of the queer young ere tui icruple. And then si till mor<- ironical. CHAPTER XII JESSE BLACK and the other men of the family, Red excepted, betook themselves to business in the morning, democratically, by the street-car. Red drove to it in a shining buggy, drawn by a sleek black mare named Kate, which a spruce young negro named Sam brought to the door punctually at half past eight. Red took a man's delight in Kate, her glossy coat, her long, free stride. Often, after an early dinner which Grace and he, escaping from the intrusive crowd, had by them- selves at a hotel or a club, he would take her driving behind Kate. The days were long and pleasant, the suburbs in flower; the country had that freshness of green which marks the last of May and the first of June. Nothing gave Grace so much delight as those rides, with their miles and miles of sunset, twilight, moon- or starlight ; glimpses of ponds, low hills, happy homes, all bathed in poetic evening haze. In the easy silence that fell on them, her love of nature took turns with the other love in lifting up her heart. They sometimes had quarrels: Clare could not al- ways know, in the tossing of chaff that so largely formed their conversation, what he must not say. Clare was never — or seldom — vulgar when he was 131 Mis- [NGALIS minded not to be; but something worldly or cynical or conscienceless would now and then escape him. and then there would lie the genteel prejudices of his beloved to reckon with. Grace did oot find requisite, for assailing him, any of the courage she had Deeded to oppose Lydii The poor boy was touching sometimes, watching her face for guidance i what he musl avoid ; touch- ing in Ins willin«rn< ke h mything!— to be "ii happj .tin. Making up was, in fact, • it \s rth while to quar- rel. I [e [earned from those p under her playfulne was always serious, while she found thai under his seriousness lay mock- But it' ever their differei 1 the flash b thought in her that just possibly they might not happy tog he would to herself: me dors oot marry to 1"' happy. One marries to be I ther.' That was it: for better, for worse, togeth In the adorable moments of making up. she knew that do fault I ire might have could l"- bo great the Bweet i f being his lo\ But some of their quarrels had no reason for them, illy, beyond an instinct in I an instinct i old as woman- I sisl the domination of | trong young man into w ! hand she had surrendered. That tl. jer should be mi be inept: a different thing must he pretended for the dignity of the weaker, for the Looks of the thing. MISS INGALIS 133 She quarreled with him sometimes — fancifully, gracefully, yet with a grain of acrimony — because, merely, he was he and she was she, and the Ama- zonian drop in her blood drove her to oppose him, bother him, put him in doubt, deny him a facile tri- umph. For her lover alone, in all the world, the amiable girl reserved a side that was a little difficult, incalculable, and that while keeping him guessing kept him bewitched. On days when they were to go together to choose a feather or twig, as it were, for their joint nest, he invited her to lunch with him downtown. On the occasion of a painting to decide upon, she arrived at the great Overcome Brothers building a trifle before the hour agreed upon. The elevator flew with her to an upper floor; she passed through the ground- glass door which she was coming to know well, and which to-day stood a little way open. Because she could hear Clare talking to someone, and because she was early, she quietly took a seat. The revolv- ing chair before the desk of Clare's secretary stood empty: the woman had gone out, for her lunch, prob- ably. Clare's desk was on the farther side of hers, and Grace could not see him or the man with whom he was engaged. Business talk being avowedly dull, she reached for the nearest book, a small blue-bound directory, and turned over the pages, but without much curiosity, l ;i MISS [NGALIS to which of her acquaintances, her art-school mates, were in it. Any one of those girls meeting Grace now must have wondered at the change she would Bee in her — to-day particularly, when Bhe was arrayed in a oew dress and hat, bought to replace the ir garments which, by a c istlj scruple, she refused to wear after they bad been traced to a sour. impure ydney Morgan the disloyal: a dress and hat chosen with, among the dim springs of action at thr back of the mind, the object of making herself Ear ;h she might into an enchanta The color of her dn - enhanced the clearness of her cheeks; the vel idow of her hat brought .»ut ii ft liriu'litii' lirr ■ I tat, more than by hat <»r di r the far great ire she took <>t* her person, < changed by a thing with which she had nothing to do: by her glance, which in th< days provi interest -oh, so much more than for merlj I' had grown deeper, more unreadable, ami with this lovelier. She laid down her ln.uk after a time, concluding that business could not he more dry, and L r a\'- her tention I I I .•■ 'a talk with this man, whom he died Quixy, while Quixy more punctiliously ad- dressed him as Mr. Overcomi The tone of their on- moderated ?< i^as, on one side, vigorous and ani- mated, characteristically that of an Overcome; on the other, a shade nuating, exculpatory. A puck Line 1 n her eyebrows tx long, MISS INGALIS 135 and the look of an enchantress left her eyes, which grew more and more like those of Winfred Ingalis, with his pained, incurable curiosity as to what is wrong with the world and why people gifted with reason and soul will act as they do. It was a long half hour before the secretary came in, and, seeing Grace, slipped behind the desk to ask her employer whether he knew that Miss Ingalis was waiting. In an instant Clare came forward with a delighted smile and greeting: "So sorry to have kept you waiting, dear. Have you been here long? Just a minute, and I '11 be with you. > > The large oak-brown, heavily ornate dining-room to which he took her was half empty when they were shown to their little table near a window. By the time the dishes he ordered had been brought, there was but a sprinkling of people left, for it was hard upon two o'clock. They were a little more than half way through the list of good things, chosen by him with a girl's tastes in mind rather than his own, when it struck him that she was more silent than usual, also that she had not shown herself properly hun- gry. He observed her, and did not fail to perceive the line between her eyebrows which made her re- semble her father, though he was not aware of the latter fact or its implication. i;i; MISS [NGALIS "Gi lit* said finally, "is anything the mat- ter?" She lifted her e; Prom her plate and rested them directly on him. •• 5 id, ai i moment A fter another moment — "Whal " be .1- jeously. There was another pause, during which she 11 felt to screw up her course The matter i^ -that I was there while you were talking with .Mi-. Quixj "Wellf he asked, with flawless composun "If in.- the feeling, Clare, of Listening to a anger, an entire Btranger. It came over me that you, < Hare, wi • anger. " 'Lit1 tie,' il indulgently, "it is true that I don'1 ordinarily talk business with you, wh re there would be novelty in hearing mm- do it. Bui I you mean more than that. What exactly do 3 Mil mean, c . ly one moment ! let me aol- einiih entreat you nol to let any of the notions you have got out of l"»uk^ run away with you, making you unfair to those who run this world in the only way it can be run. '" " Well, then, ' be fair: listen to the id. -a I got of the transaction you were discussing with .Mr. Quixy, and -•••• if I have got it correctly. Will you be frank .' .Mr. Quixy 1^ a kind of agent of voir isn't he MISS INGALIS 137 "A kind. He 's a lawyer." " There stands in Chicago a row of dwelling houses which you have been trying to buy up in order to turn them into a branch store. ' ' 4 'Quite so." 1 ' You had bought them all except one, but the own- ers of that one asked more for it than you were will- ing to give. You offered twenty-five thousand, they wanted forty." "Which was out of the question for a tired old building ripe to come down anyhow." "Wait. You had given forty apiece for the other buildings in the same block, hadn't you? — though you only bought them to pull down." "True; but that makes no difference — the others were better property. The trouble was, the owner of the house that had been standing out against us was a woman, perfectly unbusinesslike, who had some fool idea of what her house ought to fetch. We were in no particular hurry; we wouldn't come to her price." "You offered her twenty-five thousand dollars, but she wouldn't accept it. She too could wait. But she died, and when the affairs of her children — minors, girls — were taken in hand by the administra- tor, he was willing to make the sale at your figure. Quixy, your agent, before concluding the affair came to talk it over with you." "Goon." 1.-18 MISS [NGALIS \m<1 you found explicit and emphatic fault with .Mr. Quixy — gave Mr. Quixy a Btartling piece of your mind— for entertaining such a thoughl as thai of buy- ing the house now for the Bum offered at first. Gath- ing that, with the bread-winner of the family re- moved, ruin Btares those poor creatures in the face, ii will give ten thousand for it: or just possibly, if the administrator turns out to be sharp enough, yon will up to twelve thousand five hundred— one half the original offer. They are to be informed that ifthej don't t, you -as their old house inclines by several inches over the land you have acquired next to tfa iu will sue them; that you will without .i doubt win your suit, when their <>ld house will be tern down by order of tin- court, and the bare pri of the lan.i will be all tl. get Clare, 1 L r "t tli is dreadful Btory straight T' "I »tly. M And -t flare you an not ■ .• hut oh, very, rj much Blighter than Alec's; it in truth hardly isted at all; it had nol existed, absolutely, a mo- menl aL r ". she could almost have Bworn. Clare's ej blue that Bhe had described as fiery; but at this point i r acquaintance with them they MISS INGALIS 139 were cold instead of fiery, and shut as a porcelain ball. "Now, Grace," he began quietly, "I ask you to be reasonable and I ask you to be fair. Business meth- ods are what they are. I did n 't make them. This that has outraged you to the point of calling me — po- litely, as is your never failing habit — a robber, is what any business man in this city would have done in my place. Make up your mind that your school- girl morality does n 't apply to grown-up deals. Sentiment has no place in them. Am I in business for my health, do you think? I am in business to make money. I work hard. The simple world-old principle is to buy as cheap as you can, and sell as dear. The transaction you have described was above-board, perfectly. The thing is a game, my dear girl; both sides know the rules and play ac- cordingly. ' ' Those people wanted to do us, did n 't they ? They thought that if they held out we should eventually have to pay what they asked, which is a lot more than the house is worth. And we should have had to, or give up the whole scheme. We should have paid, in that case, exactly thirty thousand dollars more than the thing was worth. They would have made a round thirty thousand out of us. The tables are turned: we shall serve them as they were going to serve us. Only, we sha 'n't make so much. We shall turn a poor twelve thousand five hundred." I 10 MISS [NGALIS When he stopped, On who had k • • p t her ej fixed on bis while he talked with his unflinchingly on hers drew her glance away, as it' with difficulty, and if it ached from the strain. It fell on her plate, where she saw, as if very far away and unimportant, a mound of strawberries. Ber glance slid from tho in a lost, unconscious way, to Clare's hand, where it lay on the table, pinching and releasing th of a pair of sugar-tongs: a tint-, strong hand, heavy but well Bhaped. She nol is having some indefin- able l>rariiiL r 00 the situation, how. from the point where his powerful wrist vanished inside tin- wide bed cuff, t ; ;it forward, less and less dm till h bis knuckl* miniature jungle of black. Her own hand lay not far Prom hi fragile by i' ed at this moment, with tin • ss of her mental anguish, around the 1.,: of ,t tumbler. "Little one,' Clare Ih-lmh again, now with <_ r »-ntle- i ess and pr< in his voic< *I wish you showed a little more confidence in me! Make up your mind — you can do go without any danger of going wrong — that I 'm all right. You don't BUpp at big business like ours lias been built up by crooked pro- edings If there were nothing else- it wouldn't p,i;. ' Say to yourself that, though we might all Im- crooks at heart, it would n't paj V7e have our credit to uphold, our good name to <_ r uard. Com< His vi iftened Btill more. "Don't you think you've MISS INGALIS 141 been just a little hard on me ? You think in such ex- aggerated terms. Come, now ! You know I want you to have just what you want. You know I want to do what you want, be the kind of fellow you want. But your ideas of a man have been gathered from books of poetry, I 'm afraid, amiable one. Come ! Stop thinking hard things of your Beast and pay a little attention to your strawberries. Look at me, Grace.' After a moment of silent refusal, she obeyed. He was smiling ; his eyes were again the eyes she knew — knew so intensely. " Smile at me, Grace," he coaxed. But this she would not do. She tilted back her head in the pretty overshadowing hat that embodied a very innocent idea of an enchantress, and looked at him meditatively. Grace's upper lip could curve, when it pleased, with a beautiful and very superior scorn. Her air of inveterate good breeding clothed her at all times in his eyes with an effect of pride; when this was turned into a frosty armor from within which she looked at him, lofty, unapproachable, the thing came near to being insufferable. It was vain to seek for the reason why those girlish, gold-brown eyes, of an ex- pression so subtly different from all eyes he had so far gazed into, why that languid rose, her rather colorless but sweetly shaped mouth, affected him at this pass of his life as they did. It was vain to seek for the reason why, just so far as they were pleased to with- draw, he must insanely, insatiably pursue. . . . 1 t2 MISS [NGAUS "Smile at mo. I ' ho coaxed, still more plead- ingly. ■■ wii.it is a smile worth?" she I tied tl ained u of her ironica] lip to ask, with a bitter inflec- tion. & d I did Dot at answer ; Dor did he remove I From hers, whether he were trying to id her or offering himself to 1"' read. The Bilence was sufficiently long to permil the revolving of many thoughts. II r, when it came, fell slowly: •• h Lb worth twelve thousand five hundred dollars," he said and lei <>ut a greal breath. < lr : ••• '- ids tin- a tide of lor moui ■ he metallic hardness melt< d out of h. - 3he looked as it' on the 1 1 be looked, when she had taken in his meaning, as if 1" f the power i b. A - for him, the pleasure of his g< si u him. I le glowed. you in earm i lould ool Imt in- credulously ask-, when the knot in her throal untied a Little. "Do you mean that you will let those poor things have their twi five- Be ' "To plea* i." a; ntinn die that idow diploma I no duality. At the turn of softness in her I had * irh the im- pulse to reach for her hand: though all the other its had by this time left, a waiter was standing MISS INGALIS 143 where he could keep an eye on them. He murmured a word that took the place of a caress. " Psyche!" At that name, the tears which she had contrived to keep back forced their way into her eyes. It was not as he excusably supposed, his magnanimity that made her cry — although that, after her great alarm, had brought relief so great that only the shame of being seen to weep in public had saved her from such dis- grace : it was that Ida Lamont had been the first one to call her Psyche, and the poignant image of that sweet friend floated before her at the sound, dear and discrowned. While the tears trembled on her eyelids and she strove to look as if they had not been there, a wave of a different sorrow succeeded to the pang for Ida Lamont: it was a passionate regret, a veritable yearning over the yesterdays when she had believed the ideas of honor of the persons she loved to be the same as her own. The strawberries were like sawdust in her mouth when, to please him, she tried to eat them; and she did not recover that afternoon the blitheness that ani- mated her so often when they were together. She was subdued — and no wonder — by the burden of love and indebtedness, abasement before his magnanimity, contrition for her unjustice. He understood ; he was silent and serious too, in sympathy. So they went to the picture dealers' in whose win- dow he had seen a painting that impressed him fa- 1 U MISS [NGAUS voral completing ornamenl for their dining • mi. II-' unshed tor the corroboration of her before making the purchase. This he received almost too family, she was stil at-minded, he feared; she did ooi care much, at the moment, what pictun hung on their walls. But hen sin, 1m- under and did oof bother her about it. < atching chance to divert her he Led the way into the exhibition room, where a small miscellaneous collection wa> hung <»n maroon walls under coolly showering I Max and Bender's exhibitions are usually very choice ' be encouraged her t<» take an interest. Ber eyes, after ori< circlu that brushed marines, su . snow bright large fishes on a plat ■ d on a selection tl emed to him at first t nothing but queer unusual to the point of being que< Bis natural quickness of per ption was shown by I gnition of that pictui 1 in the room which his well educate l beloved would be sure to take to. It represented a friar, monk, hermit, ich thing, on Ids kni at the feet of a kind of Bpirit, saint, vision, or ghost — . spindling female in white, unearthly pale, ethen iL Be bent forward at On to try to make it out. " What do you suppose it " he asked. "It is Saint Francis and his bride, Poverty," she answered, aftei uspense that could be attributed to iineertamtN . MISS INGALIS 145 "Oh, is it?" He examined it more minutely. "Grace!" he exclaimed with animation. "That white lady has a kind of look like you! Do you no- tice it? What a funny coincidence. Who painted it ? Nothing but initials. ' A. D. ' That does n 't take us very far. Wait a moment. I '11 go and find out, and the price. I guess we '11 have to have this, Grace." She remained gazing at the picture in a wonder that affected her heart-beats: they had slowed and thick- ened; they seemed to burn. She decided, with very little weighing of the question, not to reveal the fact that she was acquainted with the painter. It would infallibly be supposed that he had been in love with her. Clare came back disappointed. "Too bad. It 's by a young artist named Dane. The man says it 's not for sale." w CHAPTEB XIII BEN you Love a great I, you must t . •■• id ;. • it deal. Eon must Listen to the heart rather than take counsel from the head. Love is very mysterious, but 1' ali right— that Lb to Bay, if it b it enough, if it be i I thoi ;» loves thai surge from below the <].. i. When it is such, y one man out of the millions of men. It wa^ on ber li: Lei as Dot go to the pai all! Tell the driver to take us Into the moonlit ontry i' I." when the I on her liair whis- pered: "1 want my pear] of girls to 1 tl q i« n and the belle this evening. I want to wear her Like the jewel of my good fortune When Grace entered the Stol ' drawing-room with Clare and Theresa, it b 1 to her thai a hush MISS INGALIS 153 fell, and that all eyes were for a moment turned on her. An absurd thought crossed her mind: "Is it pos- sible that I am lovelier than I had ever suspected?" Then she bethought herself of her dress, her fan, her necklace, and placed the glory where it belonged. The fiancee whose betrothal was sociably solemnized that night was the young sister of that Harvey who had hopes of winning Rebecca. Grace had seen her before, as well as the happy young man. But the older Stokeses, the parents, were strangers to her. The eye could easily find them: they stood with the rest of the family, aligned — according to the stiff manner of formal occasions — and "receiving" in front of a mantelpiece banked with roses, as was the fireplace below. As Grace and Clare approached, a jostle occurred, then a break, in the row of smiling, handshaking per- sons arrayed there — caused by one of them sharply facing about and escaping from her post, while the others turned their heads for the briefest moment to look after her. Grace saw vanishing in the far- ther drawing-room the back of a golden head above a neck and shoulders of rose-misted marble rising from a bodice of black. The small episode had, to her scant attention, the commonplace look of an impulsive per- son reminded of some such thing as a gas-jet left flaring near a blowing curtain. A band of Neapolitan musicians in an operatic 154 MISS [NGALIS adering of their Dative costumes were picking t h*» ■i!iL r > of mandolins and guitars amid the Luxurious greenery of the bay-window. Prom time to time thi sang; but their song was drowned by the chattering of the people, who at Deed raised their iroi« as to be heard above the dulc ains. "Yon are a vision to-night! Ton are a dream I M (Mar.- benl bis lead to breathe in Grac . they oear the music and the open windows. Au.l I •. uplifted, inspired, bloomed and radiated me oever bad before. Tl tioo of something onusual was in the fa Alec, when h< 1 tin- room to join her Clare was leaving her Bide to respood to the greeting sign of an old friend whom he wished to bring over duction i'» hi ' ' Well, ( ! ra< A! ; he alu a\ a winced at igh she would b - aid thai it wi and she had do objection. "Are you accepting compliments tin You have mi' 5 >u can have me \ room had beeu made in the middle of the floor for a little danrini: if tin- youj tared aboul it, and •heir work au ay from tl ipol- ins, had -truck up Itz, be asked her to give him that dan B it Gra <»<.k her head ^i\>\ it was too warm, whereupon A!-- • kinL r n<> farther for a partner, MISS INGALIS 155 took the fan out of her hand, and with an air of gal- lantry devoted himself to fanning her. Junior, wearing on his face the same look as his brother, of following the lead of a light, responding to the power of a spell, came to ask her, rather unimagin- atively, how she was getting along. Junior never ventured to call her anything but Miss Ingalis. Both youths seemed to her to-night rather nicer than she had lately thought them. Nature has had the justice to arrange that the visible melting of the masculine being under the fire of beautiful eyes should touch to sympathy the beautiful eyes. Junior, too, asked her to dance; but she answered him as she had answered Alec. When, therefore, Clare returned and asked the same thing, though she wished very much to dance with him, she repeated the excuse she had made to his nephews. The nephews had discreetly melted away when they saw Red returning. He only laughed and held out his hand for hers. Hoping that the boys would understand, she rose and rested her bended arm on his shoulder, and was floated away on the tide of the waltz. Few were dancing — it was in truth too warm. Seeing before long that they were the only couple on the floor, Grace would have liked to stop ; but the im- pulse of Clare's arm resisting hers swept her along, round and round, strongly and smoothly. People were L56 MISS [NGALIS watching them she could feel it. She also felt tl thia was an evening of triumph for her. Clan declared it. and. conscious of herself through him and ihr glances following them as slender and Light-footed, ■ ■fill and luminous, she yielded herself with a happy abandonment to the arm which, as the music kepi "ii and on for their Bakes and her strength began to fail. ■ i'-ognize; yet I can member ••• eing her b foi I mean the very beautiful one, with gold hair and a Mark «ln i rriinxm i il the of her Clare turned with tl (it circumspection and air of Lesaness. Alter a second, turning again, he i in a tone of disdainful disparagement : "Do you call that briiiitiful?" ed. " Don 't j on F" she asked. Then she perceived that she had fallen into a trap: this \ Clare's jokes, a way <»f briny rompli- mentary to her by pretending not to admire any other woman, by nut condescending to consider any style MISS INGALIS 157 beauty but her own. But when Clare went on, it really sounded as if he were serious. 1 ' Can 't you see ? She 's painted. And she 's laced. And I 'd be willing to bet money God never made her hair that same splendacious gold color." "Oh, Clare!" said Grace, unable to repress her surprise, "do you honestly think that? To me it looks so exactly right and natural ! ' ' "I love your innocence, my love ! Come, you ought to make her acquaintance. She 's one of the family. Mrs. Fenn, divorcee, Harvey and Gertie's sister, the Stokeses' eldest daughter." The lady in black, seeing them approach, waited, statue-still. A sister of Venus, was Grace 's classifica- tion of her. She had the hair of burnished gold, the sapphire eyes, the flower-fair skin, pink and white, the soft roundness of form, the charming clearness of feature, that painters from of old have lent to the Sea-born. Her face had literally no fault. "How can anyone look at me while she is there?' thought Grace, sincerely, and not without a pang. She saw herself as a goose-girl standing face to face with a goddess. But in this she was not just to her- self. She was not beautiful in the same sense of the word as Mrs. Fenn; but the fact proved, somehow, no inferiority. No person of discernment would have thought of comparing them: nature, when she made the two, had so perceptibly not been trying for the same end. Grace was pallid, toneless, glimmering, [58 MISS [NG \ I IS efl beside Mrs, Penn's direct and pointed per ona ; but M re, Penn p obvious as the red n she was wearing by the side of I trace I agalis, with hi Little air of bouL When Clare had made the presentation, bin Penn said : this is the young Ladj • he 3 oung ladj , ' * said < Jlar ratulations ratulations. I I I not i .-in ir \". to the Wes1 I odies, ( Jlar enc I' ' did yon all the good you hoped as I All ti I in thf world. \ • i, yon behold a cured man. i remember, little one,"— this to "that it was becaus nerves in danger of pr lion 1 had cut 1' from basin ess in midwinter and \v.i> traveling on the P I forget now that I ever had oerves" tl s again to Mrs. Penn. "Mat, Bleep, transacl busu dance, and am by way of • ing married. 91 •Mure, my dear friend, congratulation »n- gratulations, with all my hearty 1 kid Mrs, Penn. Her voice had faded «>n th<- Ias1 syllabi 3he bit I lip, and pr hand over the place <-\dr with a a arm around Mrs, Penn and drew MISS INGALIS 159 her away, the latter gasping a little. They passed under the arch dividing the drawing-rooms, and reached a sofa, around which a group quickly formed. Grace turned an astonished and afflicted face to- ward Clare. He looked excessively quiet, ironically untroubled. "She 's such an actress!" he muttered, in reply to Grace's questioning face; in his mustache, with fiercer disgust, he grumbled: "She 's such a liar! — You needn't be alarmed, Grace. Come away. Let 's go and sit down." Eebecca passed them hurriedly. 1 ' What 's the trouble ? ' ' Clare asked carelessly. His niece gave him a look of black hate and con- demnation that included Grace. "I 'm going to her room for smelling salts." Clare 's ironical calm was not shaken. "Don't be taken in," he said to Grace, not alto- gether liking the look in her eyes, and wishing to re- move the possible idea that he was cruel. "She hasn't anything more the matter with her heart than I have with mine. I 've known her for a long time. It 's temper. It 's her way of making herself inter- esting. ' ' The gaiety of the party was, in fact, not destroyed by Mrs. Fenn's momentary ill turn. She was seen later, somewhat pale, but showing in laughter the magnificent teeth that made of her mouth a crimson rosebud filled with snow, as, standing at the supper- 160 MISS [NGALIS table, Bhe ladled punch from a gleaming block of ic Uowed '»ut and crowned with vine l- Sow beautiful Bhe is!' thought Grace. "How beautiful a iV She could qo1 help feeling sorry for her, liar and ss though Bhe mighl be. But was slr\ entirely irelj Bhe had been in some kind pain. ning wi od. Among the last to leave, I followed Theresa to the upper room where their wraps had been left. Turning from the glass after adjusting I. ind Mrs. Penn at her elbow, bo close and unez] i that her Burpr partook of fright Mrs Penn, showing fa th in a oed smile, was looking at (irace with • that appeared black instead of blue, under the writhing line of her ej brows. ■* I did nol 1 night to you," she said, i tending her hand, and when Qrace had given hi t>und it in a grip that hurt "I did not congratu- \ on • arlier in tl My eongratulal ions were all for Clarence. * vou are to be congratu- Lated, too. V a prize, let an old friend of his tell you, who known him a long time, and pretty well. First of all,"- -her beautiful mouth was twisted to a grimace by t ; m, — "fir of all. bo chivalrous! Then — so faithful! True! Tender and true— that 's it I "' MISS INGALIS 161 "Be careful, Grace!" came a sharp warning from Theresa. Grace turned quickly to ascertain what there was to beware of; but the warning had obviously been given to the other woman, at whom Theresa was look- ing with a frown of wonder and reproof, and who now relaxed her vicious grip on Grace's hand. "Yes," she laughed — and there was a catch in her laugh, like a sob; "I must be careful, or in my en- thusiasm I might bring on another heart attack." Her hands were laid over the seat of the endan- gered organ, and, biting her lip as before, she drew in a long breath, as if with difficulty, and turned for the door. Theresa's gaze as she looked after her had the same scornful composure and coldness as Clare's with regard to Mrs. Fenn. "I can't think what 's got into her!" she said, with a shrug that dismissed an insignificant bother. "I should say she needed a keeper. Hasn't she been queer this evening? What she 's got against Red is just some imaginary slight. He doesn't admire her, you know, as she is used to having all the men do. : > > It was a long time before sleep came to Grace. The stimulations of the evening, impressions of music, lights, flowers, faces, talk, stir, — the remembrance of salient events, — were slow to grow confused and fade. The necessity also of lying very still so as not to dis- turb Sita, who had dropped into sea-deep slumbers, 16* MISS [NGALIS helped to keep off sleep. Bui at last it was there, the dreamless trance of otter fatigue held her bound. ( face m every Long w bile a streel -car, the noisier tor being empty, would slide rumbling past <>n the rails before the house; no* and then a string of footsteps or of boof-1 would grov< from oothing into ooise, and dwindle into nothing again. But m the bouse all Wfl I e. The raj I lamp brightening the ceiling made visible the {>;• of furniture the little drift* of clothing [aid off by two tired and c e young girls. Light picked out on the dark carpel a pair of Blender, high i slipp I n that dark I hour of all. w bich I des dawn, a small commotion developed in the Btr under the open n indoi mutter of \ oi< a Stifled I'f am — Qi t bolt uprigl id. Ber heart had jumped and was nishing. . . . There was QOthing m< d»'ad «|iiirtn»'>s had re turned to the street I ild not know whether shriek that had Btartled h me from with- out or within herself —whether, indeed, it had been a shriek and ool a lightning-flash or the rending from top to bottom of a curtain. "1 musl 'it of this houa Bhe said, with a conviction the force of which, there in the oppressive darkness, clenched her hands and locked her jaws. " 1 must f this house CHAPTER XIV GRACE and Sita had a quarrel next day, the true cause of it probably being that both were tired from the evening before and enervated by the first hot weather, but the ostensible cause Sita's deplorable lack of reasonableness. It began with her requesting Grace to stop writing and come sit in front of the glass to let her fix her hair like Gertie Stokes 's. Grace excused herself and went on with her letter. Sita cared very mildly about the amusement she had proposed, but she had nothing better to do, and felt the urge to use up a little of the nervous fluid sur- charging her. Who are you writing to?" she asked. To my sister," answered Grace, without looking up. Feeling Sita creep behind her, Grace laid a hand across the sheet of paper, and turned round with a frown that was ominous, had Sita been shrewd enough to see it. But she laughed out in silly glee : " I don 't believe it 's to your sister ! ' ' and danced out of reach, in de- light over the brightness of her joke. ' ' If you look over my shoulder, Sita, I shall tear the letter sooner than let you read one word of it, ' ' 103 164 MISS [NGALIS 'That shows, doesn't it? That shows! Ah ( aught ! I | A to find out who you 're writing to. n ■ • Yon are warned, 3ita i don '1 r me. It 'a my day for not earing to be t< Oh, it mi day. It "> my day for wanting to :t tlir model girl of the '1 is lik( when she loses her temper. 5 u will, i' . try to read over my should< r, I have had more tl Qougfa of your bad manners." This was tln« first time iu their el ind over-clo quaint t Gi patient pla; fulness when o] avasionfl and in. Sita, in an aston r ly si ioment, turned sober, gloomily n iciously still It might ha\ es.snl rl w light had. at word, given to the J'.:-* •' oew as] ■ ' I suppose if ful st "no i.n and j our od manners right along to live wit and our b main 1. ••oh. sita :"* broke forth Gi away, will j ou I and [el me alone "You !•■ QOt any sicker of me, I may as well t.'ll i. Grace Ingalis, than I am of you! cried Sita, shaken by a sudden tempest. "I 've tried everything to pl< you. I Ve done all I know how. But I sha'u't after this. Wait and see. Now I know how you look "ti inc. I \vuii"t I"- any BUCh fool !' Grace let her flounce out of the room without a word MISS INGALIS 165 to stop her, then tried to forget the discomfort, the shame of their passage of arms, and center her mind on the business in hand — needless to say, without avail. The letter which was completed late in the night, and started the following morning on its way to Mrs. Batey Poor, read thus: 11 Darling Lydia: ' ' I am afraid that what I am going to ask you will be a great surprise, and a rather upsetting one. But I feel sure I can make you understand, and that as soon as I have done it you will be willing. Here it is : I want you to send for me. I want you to write as soon as you receive this, and say that you need me and that I must come at once. You must make an excuse, of course. I can 't think of anything that would seem im- portant enough except that Batey is dangerously ill. It would be a lie : but you will tell one for me, I know, just as I would tell one if it were to help you and there seemed to be no other way. And now I must explain why I want you to do this, and it will be very difficult to make clear ; because, though it is so real and urgent, it is not altogether clear. It comes down to a feeling I have that I cannot go on living in this house. I can 't breathe here any longer. I want to get away as much as if it were a prison or a trap. If I couldn't get away from it, having the will so strong to do so, it 166 MISS [NGALIS \\«>iil>ut. And those tilings I -hall never find in this house ; the influences ai b1 pod I '"ii 't think. L) dia jugf ;i m I I that it will pass, [t has 1 m growing fur a long time. Almosl from the flrsl hour in this house I ha t oppi at . hut i have called it something else ami pushed it aside. Prom the ti there have been things that troubled me, but often nearly intangible that I only blamed myself for not trusting people who i kiml to me. For th< have been awfully kind: 1 could n't half tt-11 von the kindi hat h. n .shown me, particularly by Mr Vawter besides, of course, her brother Clarena They shower kindness on me, in gifts, in pleasun :-y way. Then, in spite of it. | will come up to make l 1 that I don't understand them, not any of them; t hat they ar ingers- even Clarence sometimes. Their eyes affeel me like shuttered win- MISS INGALIS 167 dows. Without seeing into their minds enough to judge of what they are, I feel at those times that they are different from me, from us, from Papa and Mama — different enough to give me the queerest feeling of an abysmal gulf. ' ' Then all that will pass, and it will seem as if I had dreamed it. But it comes again at something else they say or do, till I have moments of not being sure of anything in this world. Then, there have been inci- dents — small things, but that put me on the alert — showing that there is more to discover behind and under what appears, which I have the conviction I should not find out by any asking. ' ' You must see from all this why it is I want you to send for me. If I remain here, in the middle of Sep- tember I shall be married to Clarence. I shall have no choice — that is all there is to it — if I remain in their house. Now, I wish and hope to marry him; but I want to have a choice. I don't want to marry him while there are moments when I feel him to be a total stranger. And so, at the thought of remaining here to have my will overborne by theirs, or circumstances compel me, I am frightened. But I shall not remain here, therefore need not be frightened — because, thank God, I have my sister, and she will come to my aid. Oh, Lydia, how grateful, how grateful I am that you are there — the one, the only soul in the world I have to turn to ! Now you will be quick, darling Lydia, won't you? i i 168 MISS [NGALI9 Foil won't let anything delay you. It mayn't like a matter of life ami death — all 1 fan Bay LB that to iii** at this moment it is on i >h. 1 implon you ool lose a minute, dear, because I shall have to play a part while I am waiting, and I am aot good at it. besides hating it dreadfully. " ' With all the love in the world. •• Four own Q I "i that same day she went to the hank and drew out u hat money si I be ready to start, it* ii' ■ night I' i • rt ways, Imperceptible en to ahe prepared facilities for awifl depart- nr It seemed to her that brushing her must d( unusual in her face, her man le -r ; hut n<» one mad.- an\ to it. * She ! i out is Bhe could the num- ber of daya and hours that must pass l ahe could tr from her - unless He should inspire her to teli graph. . . . she was not to be disappointed. Punctual as trains ami mail deliveries, punctual as Lydia, the letter earn.-. k it to her room for privacy. Sita, dra- matically COOl and distant in lmr manner toward i trace, had taken her p novel on rs, to read in the shadow of the elm. With the tctually in r hand, <;■ •-•It with greater emphasis the huge difficulty of the task before her i play con- vincingly — such a poor act ifl she was! But if MISS INGALIS 169 anyone were told he must pretend or be shot, it seems likely he would make shift to pretend. Since she ab- solutely must, she should get courage and art from somewhere. It was the hour, if ever, for valor: that quality with which her father had desired so strongly to arm her, in provision for the time when he should no longer be there. She tore open Lydia's letter. She read: My dear Grace : I cannot imagine what you are thinking about ! Your letter sounds to me quite mad ! What is the mat- ter ? Nothing you tell me gives me any idea but that you are nervous, overwrought, fanciful, and have worked yourself into a panic. I have been told by Batey of an experience not uncommon to clergymen — that the bride at the very ceremony, instead of saying yes, will say no. It always turns out to be a case of nerves : the overwork, the excitement of getting ready to be married, affects them that way. After a day or two the couple — who usually belong to low life — come back to the parson, the bride hanging her head and heartily ashamed of herself. "Now, my dear little sister, I believe your case to be similar. It can be read in every line of your letter. There is not one real complaint you have to make or reason you have to give. If I should fall in with your plan, I should be acting like a fool, helping you to ruin your life. Just suppose that to accommodate you I 170 MISS [NGAUS should tell thf lie you prompt what would happei Foil would come to this out-of-the-way place, hundreds of miles from Mr, How would thai lead to knowing him better, as you seem to fee] it q< vy to do before marrying him I The chances are that it would ••inl the whole thing. 1 don M see him— -do you? — giving up business to follow you oul here for the sake of gradually surmounting your objection "You seem determined to throw awi our best chance in lit''', and I am ool going to lei you do it. Y.mi are morbid, thai a the whole difficulty. Think- ing "f yourself ami your own feelings, you lose all :' proportion and reality. V mr <>un feelu •in tn you qow. as thej have always done, the mo important thing in the world. indulge a whim, you wish t" tal ' will laud you iii thf very same position from which you were overjoyed to be taken ;t |Vw montl the man you now propose to thro* overboard, after all bis being so kind, as you furself Bay, and Bhowering you with presents and pleasun "Do please take a momenl to look back and remem- ber how discontented and down-in-the-mouth you re, 1 wish 1 could show you a picture of yourself I remember you, to incline you to overlook a few ilts i" the one to whom you owe your deliveranc and not to expect | rtion from mere mortal man. "Even if I didn't feel tronglj thai as a matter of duty 1 must not comply with your request, the fart MISS INGALIS 171 is that I could n 't do it. We have n'ta home to offer you. We have hardly had time to turn round yet. We are living at the Foster Poors, as you know, oc- cupying their one spare room. Our things are still in packing-boxes, waiting the time when we shall have found a house to suit us. Batey is in with Foster, and has invested the money. It can't be pulled up by the roots the very minute after it is planted. 1 ' You will thank me for this, Grace, by and by, when you get over the particular fit of blues, or vapors, or megrims, or whatever it is that is queering your vision of things. You will see the matter exactly as I do, and own that I was right. In that certainty, I am recon- ciled to being regarded temporarily as a cruel monster. I am, nevertheless, ' ' Your devoted in the right sense "Sister Lydia.' When Grace had finished, she pressed a hand to her forehead, then to her throat, in the futile way of per- sons for whose emotions the event is literally too large. The air trembled with a tatter of laughter, accompani- ment to a remark that did not find its way into sound : "And I have been objecting to the people around me because of their moral vulgarity ! ' ' But, with time to think, Grace got a better grasp on herself. A spark dawned in her eye, which grew to be hot and steady : a signal-light with which Win- fred Ingalis would not have been dissatisfied. CHAPTER W GRACE bad preferred a rammer theater, this evening, to a drive; and after it had asked I e brought home, instead of being taken for an The lover fell defrauded, and, with the aversion parting for the eight which marks the heartily in In. axed Grac( to come with him to the dining- room, wh< . being famished, would find himself bit The house was in darkness but fur one high-hung eled lantern in the hall. Theresa had g to iffa Road to look after tin- bothersome thin m- oected with opening the house, and had taken Pinky and with her; they r pending the night. Tl • had wry likely gone to bed, or the young men .u cho - The •rirls sit on the Bands by the hour. I L r(, t down at about four. I 11 take yon sailing on the h \d MISS INGALIS 175 — dandy boat. We '11 ride horseback, too; I '11 teach you. We 11—" Grace interrupted him, speaking in the same com- posed and steady voice : "I don't want to go to Jaffa Road, Clare." "Not Jaffa Road?' His tone and face expressed a certain wonder. "You think, do you — ? Where should you like to go, then, dearest ? ' ' "I want to go to Florida, to my sister Lydia." Clare watched her in silence, while trying to get his bearings among new and unmapped lands. He brusquely laughed. "No, maid of many and curious inventions, find a better one ! Don 't tell me you 're homesick for Lydia — not for Lydia and Batey ! No ! " he crowed. ' ' No, I insist. I see what it is. It 's my family that you can't stand. You 're right. Are n't they swine?" he came out with comic violence. ' ' I know all about them, and understand why you — O princess that couldn't sleep on twenty mattresses over one pea — should find them sickening to live with. Tell me, have they — has any one done anything in particular to you? Anything spiteful ? Rebecca 's the damndest of them all ! Has she annoyed you ? But Alec 's a poisonous ape, too. Just tell me, Grace, and I '11 wring their necks. Now I 've frightened you. Oh, I 'm a beast, like the rest. Don't I know that you wouldn't make a peep of complaint, you polite angel, if they put pins 176 MISS INGALIS in your pillow and red pepper in yonr pie. You not accused them, but 1 'm informed. And now. de u!i;iT ifi there we ran do? It" vmi don't lliink you could manage to stick it out until the middle of September, all I can « it Is thai we should bring the dal weddintr nearer. Whal do you say to that!" "I don't want the wedding-day brought Dearer. Just the other way. Clare— 1 want it put off.' At the hmk lit- gave her, of riowly growing, dismayed e tonishment, she changed her ton< one do1 to dry and tinu: she trembled with earm "Oh. can'1 . Clare can't yon feel- thai we don't know ■li other well enough I married i >n H yon realize how Little, in ;mv true sense, you know of met" Ee let oul I reli f ad 1" >ked himself ;in. 1 1 posture : Leaning his ell the table and his chin on his clasped hands, he watched her with Bparkling amusement. "Ail 1 Deed to know about you. <» praeiousness, O good' ifl that 3 oted little prickly the mOBl mellifluous little perkin<_r canary, that I ha met. If I am ready to marry you on that, what objection have yon to mak Bui if you imagine that 1 don't know you. ... I know you. my lady, a heap better than you think. art- Lessandyon ample and yon '• >h ep, so meek — when you vixen You have, in fact, MISS INGALIS 177 Miss ! modesty ! with all your refreshing innocence and delicate air, the makings of a most awful little flirt. With this coming on, then drawing off, this in- viting, then repulsing, making yourself scarce, mak- ing yourself precious, warm one minute, cold the next, refusing your lips every single time and having to be prevailed upon all over again, full of more fancies than the most acrobatic imagination can flap after — if you wanted to make sure that your slave and victim would never escape you, or let you escape from him, you could n't have taken a safer line." Grace had become deeply quiet again. "In every word you say you are proving, you see, that what I said is true: that you don't know me at all. If you did, you would know that it is the simple truth that I want to go away. Be serious, Clare, and listen, and believe what I say, no matter how much it astonishes you. I want to go away for the sake — precisely — of being far from you — yes, from you. Whether for a long or a short time, I can't tell. But 1 want to be away from your domination, your at- mosphere, until I can get back possession of myself; until — can't you see? — I feel my soul my own — very likely to give myself over again, but in any case to do what I do from my own free will." "Now, what the — Well, well, that is a point of view ! Something, of course, has happened to put you in this frame of mind — sitting there talking to me like a little book of metaphysics. What is it, Grace? 178 MISS [NG OJS Bave I done something t<> offend yo The measure of the extent to which 1 try nol to, little one, it 'a not likely that yob 11 e^ The way l \>- looked out for my language, my manners, my morals, Bince 1 Ve known you, it would □ a marble Image to contem- plate. Now, ju Lmewhat I 've done wrong. r IVli me \\ hat you want me to do." ' ■ I have told you, M c ime from I e. 'I want you to let mi I Ee had a 1 i for 1 c tlemn obsl inacy. \h. do, Psyche, girl with the lamp! If you pro- pose to and think UK" ov( r in <'<»ld detachment, you can say to yours* If with a conviction HI. that it won't ' msented and Id the door op< n for you to . . . What ridiculous nff all this is, my p he blu I in despera tinn. "Did you tell me there was insanity in your famil; In your priggish moments you may wanl to diss* ' ar;l classify tl timenta that hind as to ther; but if you have the astounding hardihood to in?n; :t tliis tin.' *hat we were not made ther, 1 I inswer for you. N no, T h<- g • with which ; boo an obnoxioui mblebee h I lo. I never in th< old ha mad»- you : r ' I had 1 □ b woolly lamb. . . . ■ ■ omprehensible child." buret forth in anew and poignant voice, "what i a you want I break my heaii She did nol struggle in his arms, be were MISS INGALIS 170 too hopelessly strong. She withdrew herself from the surface that his lips pressed, and offered such blank- ness as might have discouraged one less fixed of will. But him her deadness incited to try the more to bring her to life, to warmth. That he could make her feel how much he loved her better than he could tell her had been his pertinent thought. Between the kisses with which he smothered her cheeks and unrespond- ing lips, he murmured the fond things bubbling from a deeply stirred heart. He held her away from him, finally, to scan her little impassive face for some hope- ful sign. It looked — pure and waxen — like the mask of one at once suffering and asleep. Tears hung at the edge of her lashes. Again he brought her close, and kissed her tears. ' 'You don't want to go away from me, do you?" he whispered, moved to the verge of tears too. : ' Are n't you as much mine as I am yours ? ' ' She nodded very faintly and her lips shaped a soundless "Yes." CHAPTEB -W'l Gli A< E '•'• Bfl | ■ - .• :'ul tint night I ita 'fl nee, which permitt - to toss at will i bed and weep at Liberty. When, tired i . it was not to pe all >geti er 6 Tl • had pnrsned r lince her fir ht of it, making Itself tl. rting-poinl of confused thr surmise and their ided itself in her dreams u ith a bu1 ita individuality ri- ln this distorted I forth intensely unpl< the fanl m- of a perfectly convinci i-world, an 1. while railing like a mad-? in, work that tl larmingly melted from one shape inl i another, like reflecti ters. Grace was afraid of her i violent ai •• ap- ared, till something wl n< i d wakeu to escape; thereupon the dream tr rr 1 her to a groi tall pines, where all I ind to be ard v squirrel angrily i a branch on which he sat jerking himself a- •■ a pine-cone to shreds. When she awoke, the image of Mrs. Fenn return 180 MISS INGALIS 181 at once, as she was actually remembered, beautiful as the masterpiece of some Greek carver of Aphrodites, or else a rose that could be imagined self -convinced of its perfection. Many and mixed as were her senti- ments with regard to Mrs. Fenn, and some of them sharply, intuitively inimical, Grace felt no proper scorn for the woman's unbraced conduct, lack of dig- nity and good taste ; they affected her like those of a child whom some misfortune, such as being too ailing to punish or too pretty to scold, robbed of indispens- able discipline, so that it could never rightly grow up. With the fury of pain in Mrs. Fenn's voice still pres- ent to her, Grace felt sorry for the other Grace, felt outraged in her deep sense of what should be by the treatment she had seen her receive. From a long, late sleep she woke unrefreshed and unnerved, asking herself, in despair at her size by comparison with the size of her problems: "What — what shall I do?" To take advantage of a circumstance which might not recur — that of Theresa and the girls being away from home — seemed to her, amid boundless uncer- tainty, one thing obviously to be done, whether she should afterward decide to leave or to remain. Un- bothered by any person asking whither she was going or what she meant to do, she went out to procure a time-table for Florida and to make inquiries concern- ing the journey to Welaka. Sita entered the room, in the afternoon, with a IS MISS tNGALIS happy air of having enjoyed herself; she humm< while patting her hat and things into their plac< She had do! forgotten thai she was playing a comedy rand indifference toward her erstwhile "crush." < i race \ do her pari then and there to- ard making op. in the same room with one who regards herself as i led bj you is burden- brings of a constant and Moreover, to have a person w' i it was, inconsiderate, ->v. marks of ant ip thy i hing, after all, less p what was not excellent I yery Dear surprising her an apologj . an ap iL But flesh and i I at the critical instant re- 1 lied. aid 1 ..mmd her Deck, <-n her ha: . She took a less dan« p: that If sufficiently fn interest in the jaunt ■ . in the endeavor I * plea i them, as if oothing had happened to ation was ai d, like that of a dog at a fall. Grace aa sharp a L( ok dug cal : - • . a were capable of, Ived not to b •• w hat she aaw, not to surrender anythii. She was taking a good deal • part of the play. MISS INGALIS 183 When she rose with the others from the dinner- table, Grace, fearing that to go at once to her room would subject her to questioning, went, for the first time since taking up her abode with the Overcomes to the piano that stood in the crypt, out of the way of the dancers when there was dancing. It was strewn with Rebecca's music, which she slowly looked over and none of which she knew. Rebecca was going for a buggy ride with her beau, as he was designated by the family, Harvey Stokes, even as Clare had wanted her, Grace, to do with him. She sat down at the piano and began to play, as evidently as possible for herself alone, making the least noise compatible with playiag at all. After a little of it, Alec, in his shirt-sleeves, came to the door of the den, a billiard cue in his hands, a pipe between his teeth. "Oh, it 's you, Grace. I was wondering who the deuce — \ No, go on, go on; I like it." Junior came to the door, too, in his shirt-sleeves likewise, and likewise smoking. The brothers neg- lected their game of pool to stand listening for a while. Theresa leaned over the gallery railing to call down: "Beautiful ! But you do play the dolefulest music I ever heard!" On such warm evenings the men took their cigars to the glass doors wide open on to the green yard. Red sat with them to-night, not so far from the piano 184 MISS [NGALIS but thai lit- could watch the I f his incalculable love who was not being nice to him. Zip had Bcented something in the fad of Grac* unsmiling air and this sudden fancy for piano-playing, - well as from Uncle Red's respectful distance from her. It encou • start a romp around him like those of the old days, full of wild laughing, and poking, and climbing over hia person, and whisper- ing in I r. II-T fun nil ecrel caused her such laughter that part of it was spluttered audibly. "The tune thai made the old cat d "ace heard, and wondered that even onder the circumstanc I • did Dot resent, for hi ke, thai joke of the impudenl little thii However unreasonably, it hurt that he did imt. Bluish tr r.mt darkness was < I » ■• ■ p >« • r i i r i *_r <»nt- In the rotunda the darkness was -jray. wl. d glimmer came from the den. «ira< iuld let tl in * • < » 1 1 1 « - in - i without danger of b ing At last Clare drew a chair close, and I i on the giving his full attention to her shadowy "What is that you are playii he asked, if whoc ery inflection was an entreaty to be nds with him again. "It i- Schubeii 's, and called 'The Inn. 1 It is really in- ant to be Nin answered, with well simulated indifference. 'Jolly sort of inn, 1 should call it.'' he laughed. MISS INGALIS 185 "But I guess if you were to play 'Yankee Doodle' it would sound soulful." Tired of the pokiness of sitting in the dark, The- resa, without warning touched a taper to one group of the pearls. Grace's face stood revealed, bathed with tears. Instantly on his feet and bending over her with all the magnetism of warmth and strength, Red begged: "Come out under the elm with me, won't you, Grace ? ' ' But, though she yearned to be comforted, and com- forted above all by him, though the sadness of the whole great universe seemed poured on her in a drenching rain, she shook her head in denial, fearing, more than anything she could imagine of the flames of hell, the torrid Paradise of his embrace. It seemed to her on the next day that the family must suspect a lovers' quarrel. How could they fail to? — when she, so contrary to precedent, avoided to be alone with Clare. The only sign, however, from Theresa, and that a doubtful one, was an opportunity she took to tell her what extraordinary luck she was in to get such a husband. Red, said Theresa, was a. fool, he was so generous in quarters where he loved. Nothing too good to give, nothing too much to do. And wasn't he good to look at? She only wished that Heaven had not made her Red's sister, or else had made a few more men like him. No reason why im; MISS INGALIS you should ever have the smallest difficulty with Bed, if you understood him and used a little tact bowed some degree of tacl in her manner of receiving this implied advice. She was do1 impelled let Thi . into the secret of her difficulties, and listened like any .-i i u;t - . •- 1 L r irl well satisfied with the changi itate before b It was a long, soul-wearing day to live through, with a heart unremittingly burning amid the desperate difficulty of Dot only oot knowing whal were best t»> do, but not knowing what at bottom she wished to do: a confused battle going on between desires, bu pic . and then the simple be of yearni] ed by the love potion of which she bad drunk. Red tin to '- r » driving with him. im t»> a theater, ( rawalk anything! H< asked it with .1 reproachful face. She refused, and felt Liculous when b) _' . i i n . to give herself a counte- nance by doing something, seated herself at the piano play her mournful melodii Red turned testily away from her, and repaired to the den to play pool with his oephei Be could be u through the doorway in his shirt , chalk- i 1 1 «_r !. i different In* was from the others, tl hulking Junior, the esa AJecl The shirt of fine lii i\ well on I thletic shoulders; the flat white liar increased the vividness of his black head and gl b< had more than ever an air of manly MISS INGALIS 187 elegance in that undress. A sister's partiality did not in every respect mislead Theresa. He could be heard now laughing with the boys, in the boisterous way of Overcomes when in the mood. Grace, playing scarcely above breath, tried with a tor- menting interest to hear what he said. But so much nearer to her were the tiresome other men, smoking their thick cigars by the open door. When she strained for Clare's voice, she was severely tried by hearing their droning business talk instead. Until her ear was caught by a name occurring in that conversation near the door: "Quixy." After that her attention to what Black and Sim were saying became so com- plete that, forgotten, the hands on the keyboard were still. While she sat by a window next day, to all appear- ance reading her book, and while Sita in the same room busily did things to winter clothing in prepara- tion to putting it away from the moths, Grace was saying, in the picture language of internal conversa- tions, what may be rendered as follows: "If I am to get away, I must go without farewells or discussion. I must leave the house as if on the most ordinary errand, and go instead to the railway station and take my train. As soon as I am far enough away, I will send back a letter to explain. I shall take with me a bundle so small as not to arouse any suspicion. My things will have to stay behind, 188 MISS INGALIS for them to do what they please with. Almost all my Latter purchases were paid for in pari by Then sa, who lias always wanted me to have finer things than 1 wanted to buy; much <>i' it, therefore, ba really then "Lydia does Dot dream of the thing that i- pre- paring for her. She thinks me bestowed, for g 1 ami all, in the little niche that it was convenient in- sider as fitting iih'. What a blow to her castle of dreams when, unannounced, unexpected, 1 stand in the door do ghost, 1 > 1 1 1 solid ami t<> l»c counted with, my own avenger, with steadfast, aceu>ini *. The fancy that 1 am a little pawn to be moved about <>n tli ssboa rve the ends of other people will iddenly when ah< my fa© I feel in myself an actual desin f battle-lust, for the moment when Bhe learns a new lesson eoneerninp me, i aew person in I pineless little sister. si want He-, hut she shall have me, pen- alty for not having quite succeeded in selling me into slavery. "Poor Lydial After a while it will be all right In her own way. .she will be a good sister to me again ; she l. | hristian conscience, and, under everything, • ion of a kind for the baby Bister of her little girl- She ifl Papa and Mama's daughter, after all, JUSI as 1 am. rhey will have to make up a bed OD chairs for me in the sitting-room, I BUppOSe, at the Foster Poors'. They can't wry well turn me into tie t& I won't MISS INGALIS 189 ask for my money back, but I can demand a roof and food till I have found work. I shall not be dainty as to what I am willing to do. There must be children to teach, or old ladies to companion, or places where shop-girls are wanted, or factories where they need hands — at the worst, floors to scrub. Anything, any- thing, will be more tolerable than to remain where I am." Having waited till Sita had left the room, she went to her bureau drawer to take and transfer to her pocket-book the money for her journey, which she had left in an envelope beneath a little pile of handker- chiefs. . . . But the money was no longer there. CHAPTEB XVll ON the third even ince the inexplicable turn taken by his love affair, Bed 0\ did nol ; himself to further refusals. He .1 away from dinner and went to the Athletic Club. There he had purpoc remaiii till late, but before thi waa old changed his mind and irted for home -to see how Grace was taking it. He did doI pretend to und ad thai trirl. Who could tell but her cure mighl be ai sudden as her attack ? A •making 1 • bedtime I It wei RreU to l" 1 on the Bpot. Hearing sociabl •■ red the 1. Listened for G roice, or, through the voi ad laughing, the notes of her piano. He could b< neither; In- spirits dropped flat with the fear that he was already too late, that she had gone u He damned the whole bn As 900n, h0W( he Si I from his room on to the gallery, one of whose pearls the size of moons was whitely aglow, he saw her, and was con- vinced in tJ insl ant tl. I e had Been him. A dozen young people sat distributed in groups over the stair-: a in or two from outside were among them, beside Harvey, G 6anc6, and a friend 190 MISS INGALIS 191 of Harvey's whom Red knew only by sight. The lat- ter, seated near Grace, was making himself agreeable. A string of "good evenings" and "hellos" greeted Red as he came to stand above the assemblage and look down over them with his smile of a fine fellow. Grace rose at once, as if she had only been waiting for him. In the manner of one who expects to be fol- lowed, she drew a few steps apart. "May I speak with you a moment?' she asked, when he had joined her. Strolling slowly, they took themselves, with the recognized right of lovers, outside the line of curious and profane glances. Glances curious and profane nearly as many as there were eyes played over their backs as they went. Theresa, who at the sounds hail- ing Red's arrival had come to the door of the drawing- room, followed the pair with a look of relief and hope. With strict good taste, Red had never, when Grace entered the parlor that admitted of transfiguration into his sleeping apartment, closed the door. He left it open, as usual ; they could not be watched or over- heard anyhow, unless by someone coming frankly to the door. At the weary finality of the gesture with which his sweetheart disposed of his affectionate attempt, Red had a laugh. Instead of appropriate dejection, a look of wicked fun came into his eyes. Without insisting on the toll of a kiss, he ceremoniously placed a chair 1W MISS [NGALIS c her, and made it more comfortable by a cushion. " I )u you mind if I Bmok< ' be asked. I -ace took the edge of h< it ; be leaned back at in his. and gave her all the time ahe wanted to come to tlir point "1 hate to tell you what I have to tell — " she ap- proached it. II What 'a coming no Bui i ahead I I 'm braced for anything I " "You are mistaken, Clai It baa nothing to do with — I v.,i! • tn promise not to tell any- ly or make ;i fuss about it." "Whi "You won't makes fuss aboul it. will vouT I c so particularly. My fi impr upon i. a child, bo that I never can fi * that the moment something is mis suspicion falls on tl . poor thin. [1 'a BUCh an unfair position to be in. where, no i p bow honesl you are. the mo- ment anything is missing you feel yourself regard" Bible thief.' 1 " \nw \,- missed something "1 had nearlj a hundred dollars in an envelo] Clare, in the top drawer of my bureau. I am certain it was ther sterday. because I counted it over. To- day 1 looked for it. and it is gone." "You Ve looked carefully, [suppose?" "Bverywl Absolutely. Over and over. Would 1 speak of it without being Buret" MISS INGALIS 193 "Hm. Queer. Very well; I won't make a fuss, but I '11 do what I can to find out who 's got it." "It 's sure to have»been someone from outside, some- one who slipped in, perhaps, while we were all at din- ner. ' ' "Leave it to me." Clare smoked reflectively. Grace watched him in a questioning, expectant silence. "The trouble is," she got out with difficulty, "that it leaves me almost literally without money.' She was looking downward as she said this, in em- barrassment. When she stole a glance at him to see why he did not speak, she found him grinning. The deviltry in his eyes required her to view and take ac- count of it. "Providence," he began in the characteristic man- ner of his lighter vein — "Providence, O lilies and lan- guors, has come to my aid!" At the challenge, Grace leaped into the saddle, to joust with the same sort of lance. A belligerent gleam was in her eye. "Providence, roses and raptures, has let you in for ninety-seven dollars, which you will please pay to me. I shall be astonished if I am kept waiting." "Astonishment is good for you, airy fairy!" He settled back in his chair, looking supremely debonair. "Listen. I will return the ninety-seven dollars stolen from you in my house, of course. But I must be al- lowed to pay as I can, by instalments — say, five dollars 194 -MISS 1M.AI.IS .1 week, which will keep you in i" • tamps. That will bring us to -N't m< -long past the second week in September, after which what 'a mine ia youi and all your little l»iiu summit of felicity 1 [deal attained ! Bow 'a that, 1 1 r come in to me. n "\ • jo i ist! Am I to understand thai I might have to ask twice — tu ■ . ' I imitatioii of a prince— for palt ry sum of ninety sei en dollars "<> ivorj statuette, coolness personified! Some w,i\ - oi asking are moi than othei "And some dii ries are more painful. <> plaster copy of A polio ' 3ay n<. more. Thai laal knock does it. Apollo ■." \i : ' tpped 1) : k( ' p nr by pair, hi; -at. . prior to turning them inside oul on to the table II" counted the green and yellow paper, the l< i lil r, the gold lucky piece tossed down with the rest. ■ I ry i- tboul half. Fifty-two do! Lars and eighty-five cents, I 11 ha ■ si for yon morrow. There you are, Little rewl Little touch me-nol With an effect of ahame in spi rything, Grace's hand moved toward the money. As it hung like a bird aboul to alight, Red's hand closed upon it. '•dust a moment. Jusl one thi: g Promise, Grace, that you won't u>«- this money against me. n u Against you? What do you meant' 1 MISS INGALIS 195 An equal seriousness was suddenly in both their faces. "You know what I mean. Promise that you won't use it to go away from me." Grace's hand turned limp within his, and like a hawk with its capture the two dropped together. 1 ' Promise. ' ' " Clare," she said, after a little while given to anxious meditation, "have you ever read a play called 'The Lady of the Sea,' by Ibsen?" "Ibsen? No, nry pretty, not I." "I wish you had, because it is the illustration of a thing that I shall have trouble to make you see. There is a woman in it who wants to leave the man she 's married to. It is a morbid obsession in her case — a longing to return to the sea. You feel that nothing could have kept her from it, except the one thing her husband finds to do,- which is to release her. When she is free to go, the obsession ceases, and she finds it possible to stay. You had much better let me go to Lydia, if I want to." "Had I? If I do, will you promise to come back? . . . You see? You won't promise. Then how can you expect me to let you go ? You don 't seem to un- derstand, little one, that it 's a thing I care about.' Grace pulled at her hand ; he relinquished it. With both hands, systematically, but as if thinking the while of other things, he rounded the money into a neater pile, and turned a brass bowl over it. i:k; MISS im.ai.is imething in his action, in the hatefulness of feeli] her dependence upon him for disgusting money, Btung her to Bharp anger. Upon the impulse to hurl back, she .slippfil his rinirs from her linger, ami laid them on the tab! " Fou can pur these \\ ith it." si).- ha.. ben you used to talk about your great b of making me happy and 1 ]aiiL r h a hollow laugh. Grace, I 've got to Laugh; 1 've 'jot t<> treat tliis thing like a spell of weather that will pass; for it' 1 don't I shall he t: And if 1 'in tragic, it' 1 begin t<> tell you how you Ve mad.- me feel, 1 shall ridiculo I laugh, ><> ;i> oot t-> do worse. And the ll came wheu I thought I was .h>inL r so well! I 'd cu1 "ii! : went around like a blankety school edition. Did yon ever bear mi sigh one small hid you ever . whiff ou my breath of any- thing you should i l (hewed perfumes 1 bought of .t French barber, if there was anj hope of a kiss. Pat at-leather Bh Manicui Pii e dollar t i< Dtl r fnlii' N< ver a s,j , tight, a long, in, with regard t<» matters mental and moral: in our ( »nal arguments, didn't 1 all knuckle under l superior wisdoi When you even at- tacked my \ >f doing business, didn't 1 yield 1 . cheap luxury, either, your Little conscience — ' < Har I can 't lei you beliei e thai 1 beli< illy did what you said you would do that ti: about the ( !hi building V >u de< I me ; I know it perfectly Clan s widened, thru narrowed, and he gave MISS INGALIS 199 the prolonged exclamation of one finding the key to a riddle. " Oh ! Now I see ! That would account for much ! But what, my dearest, makes you think I deceived you?" ' ' I heard Mr. Vawter and your brother Black talk- ing the thing over while they smoked their cigars in the doorway. They mentioned Mr. Quixy's part in the transaction that he had just brought to a satisfac- tory termination. They mentioned the bargain price paid." "I see. And you made up your mind, without fur- ther investigation, that I was a liar. Have you any idea, my gentle love, how such a line of conduct as you laid out for me would strike three seasoned busi- ness men who do not happen to be in love with you? We are partners, you remember, Black, Lonzo, Sim, and I. Just try, by the help of an excellent imagina- tion, to figure it out. That loss of twelve thousand five hundred dollars was, and had to be, my personal loss — and strictly private, let me add. I shouldn't care to be laughed at as Overcome Brothers — the rest of them — would laugh at me if they came to hear of my tomfoolishness. Quixy is in my confidence, no one else. So you see where your general bad opinion of me leads you." ' 'Clare, are you willing to give me your word of honor that what you have just told me is true?" 4 'Will you believe me upon my word?" 200 MISS [NGAUS '•1 >li,i!l be forced to." "Very well, then. . . ." By an instinctive gesture ah pped him. "No, Clare! Don't Bwear it :" The word* I her lips than she cringed with terror at the enormity of the implication. But Clare had fixed his heart upon a particular cul- mination of the evening. After three days of fastii iwerful was the ache of hunger to catch her in his arms that, instead of uncorking vials of wrath, he laugh i d a hi'- r laugh. "Thai was b i do, fond doi i ' Now you 're going to >ay you 're aorry. A: his Lifting himself out of his- deep chair, ahe alertly got behind hers, where ahe stood watching him like a bird or a deer. "1 i 're going t rry," he repeated, and advanced with deliberation. She bent out of tch with a balf-suppr im of nervous laugh- ter, Buch as t ! e invariably elicita from young girls. After whirling successfully around the chair. Bhe made for the door, Clare after her. At !■ ln.l of their all fa turned to Watch this merry Q of loV( r ' _ r . "Go it, Gr \ lee from the pit. Junior shouted after him. she had nearly the entire circle of the gallery to run befon lUld reach the hall door, the liall- way, the Staircase, and. if victorious, the safety of her MISS INGALIS 201 room. Seeing the space before the dining-room nar- rowed by the loungers on the stairs, she got out through her panting laughter, in an. acute cry: " Fair play!" Rebecca, after a second wasted in lightning debate as to which of the two it would be sweeter to spite, Grace or her uncle, sprang to sweep the space clear. Grace flew by. But Clare, two yards behind, came to momentary grief over a silk cushion deftly pushed be- fore his foot — just enough to give the race to the fleet-foot nymph. I BAPTER Will THERESA came to Grace with an air of secrecy and chagrin : 'My dear child, Red baa told me o! your misfortum I don't know what to say. I was never mortified in my lift*. Such a Bum, to EIow did you come to ha i much money on handl You know it \ never wis< V? to be careful doI to put temptation in the i servants Oh, yes; B told me that nothing whatever waa to tx I ibout it. BO that n »£ their feelings might )»<• hurt, and 1 . ;. 0] I ri 't think their feelings are i\u\ its, my child. However, I think it d plan, in this . to keep still. to put tli i T their guard, whoever La the thief. I will manage to 1 their quietly irched. 1 1 - denomination of the bills T >- the cool fternoon out, which will simplify the matti r of hers. Sam has a room in the basement, and he 'a at the stable a lot of the time, bo that will be Then Ellen will be taking the eook'a place, and 1 '11 jiin down Kate to some piece of work in the laun- dry. Then there 'a Nora — " "No, no, not Nora! I wouldn't for the whole 202 MISS INGALIS 203 world that Nora's room should be searched!" cried Grace, in pain. "We may find the money before we get round to hers. But, of course, we mayn't find it at all. They may have taken it outside the house ; or it may be — it most likely is — someone from outside who stole it. It would n 't be difficult ; we 're all so careless about catching the glass doors. Grace, my dear, in view of this theft and the lesson it is, had n't you bet- ter let me have your pearl necklace to keep for you? I will put it in the safe. Not one of these old bureaus has a key that locks. Have n't you any other jewelry you 'd like me to take care of for you ? ' ' "I have nothing of any value. My mother's things Lydia took with her — all but her wedding ring." "That 's all right, then. Red has commissioned me to be your banker up to any figure you choose to men- tion. But my suggestion is that you keep very little money on hand, and ask me as often as you need more. Wait a minute : here are two twos for you, and a one." When Grace passed Nora with her tray that day, she slipped by without a word. She could not bear to meet the small pretty eyes of Irish blue with black lashes. They were acquainted now, she and Nora, be- cause she often spent an hour at Aunt Marinda's, and Nora would be in and out, waiting on the old lady. *04 MISS tNG \i.l> When Grace read aloud from the Book of Psalm Mora would stay and listen with a grave and recol- lected air. Grace preferred to think Theresa moved by prejudice when she disqualified Nora tor an on- mingled r< ' .in.l tni>t by relating that she brought home from her far-spaced "afternoons out" an un- natural cheerfulness along with a breath that roused misgivings. The honest, motherly, so human Nor And now her room was to be searched. Bui bow could this be done without her knowing it. when her in wa bt nexl to Hiss Marinda'c She would difl would ask what the impertinenl rum maging meant; she would be told that Miss [ngalis ha«l missed moi tnd would believe thai Miss In having stolen it. for the misery of thf imagined Bcene. She wrung ber impotent bands, and yielding to tl cry, when what did it — a thread - sp thai bad held a blind In place : whereupon -illumination I She need no1 Buffer this torture of shame. Nor n would do1 be rched. Nobody's room would li«- rched. in reality. Nobody had stolen the money. TL . knew all tin- while where the money .-. havimr subtracted it herself, or hail it subtracted. \d wh; Because Red had told her to. And again wh Because he wished to make sure that Grace could doI away. A degree of excitement pertained to this conviction MISS INGALIS 205 that robbed it of pain and fear. The instinctive re- ply was defiance. Grace rejoiced that she had al- ready, early that morning, as a result of the night's counseling, taken the next step on her side of this in.- credible game. She could wait with confidence, and be amused with watching machinations doomed to failure. Grace had no name — she did not practise at twenty- two the self-analysis rendering a name necessary — for the quality that would have made death rashly prefer- able to having her will bent by that of Clarence Over- come, or any other belonging to the sex boastfully called the stronger — her dear father always excepted. In the person of Clarence Overcome, above all, the arrogance of man must not conquer. With her battle mood cooling, she began not to feel so sure of a thing for believing which she had no ground but a flash of intuition. She brought reason to bear upon that strong, ungrounded opinion. It must have been Red's glibness in explaining the Quixy episode which had created the detestable suspicion that he lied. Theresa, in talking of the lost money, had shown the same glibness : she had reminded Grace ever so much of Red. Paradoxically, the two of them overdid naturalness. When she was entirely calm, Grace refused to har- bor such dishonoring and unjustifiable thoughts. The difficulty was that, having once seen the thing in that way, she could see it in no other. 06 MISS [NGALIS An hoar or two later, Sita Burprised her by reveal- ing a disposition to make up. The i f apology be- i 1 1 «_r at best full of awkwardness, Grace was eager to ease it — but found this solicitude of hen uncalled for. Sita 'a embarrassment took the mask of an ex- trem< ■■/. Between thai and Grace's ideal of charity, in a few minutes the faults of the past wiped out and all was restored to the happy point of friendship | ling the break. There was laughing, there w< < Had an "d..r of flow( • • r vulgar and defiling fum< I - ed aft d hit of it to l"' free from - v. To manage an escape •fully, she put on her thin L r <» «>ut for a walk. May I con asked Sita, with the thought- l< 58 pr< cipitancj . irlhood. A marked pause followed 1 ■ I am afraid " I Irace hi ' it won 't be much fun : iu, I ahall w I it to talk. I want to think. '•I shall Like it all the betl Sita er- ntly. "Because it will be treating me like a n n 't tell me that tl ire aboul '1 dinner I ' -1 them at it —oner or t w i Red can adapl himself to an\ crowd, can hold his own anywhere. is n 't an rk and remember tl myone has 1 letter brain than Red. See hi aong your artists and musicians, or iliticiam him anyw hei u could put him, Red would stand out, Red would be found 1 a head as anybody present — the best ■_rht, D ' likely. And th -t would tell. You M always bav< be proud of Red. It \s the wi the a of tl she in her hom< I* rests with you to be the great si swell in town, of a high-up, refined sort. All MISS INGALIS 211 the money you want, the best of everything, a beauti- ful house, beautiful dresses. For Red not only is willing to give you beautiful dresses — he is keen to. You couldn't be extravagant, as he would see it, in the matter of dressing. He loves a pretty woman, and it takes clothes to make a pretty woman ; you know it as well as I do. You can bank on getting whatever you want in the matter of clothes and jewels. With all these things, as I was saying, I don't see what there is a girl can want more than you 've got to make her perfectly happy." Grace intrusted to her silence the mission of passing for contented acquiescence, so that she need say nothing in reply. She was looking down with a pensive air that could have been mistaken for that of a bride im- pressed by the good fortune falling to her share, while she was in fact asking herself whether Theresa might not get some whiff of the thought in her mind, and see a likeness between herself and the probably quite elo- quent personage who had before this shown to more than one soul, no doubt, all the kingdoms of the earth in one vision, with their glories. Resentment so fired her that she could not refrain from looking up and squarely at Theresa, to let her judge how easy it would be to buy her with a house and clothes, or any of the things she had men- tioned. . . . If Theresa's fine eyes — which permitted so little to escape them, of a kind — saw nothing in Grace's but II* IUSS [NGAUS their charming clearness and pretty color, it was I cause she was really stupid, bo far as Grace was con rned ; or else because in the very aexl instant < \rw afranl of what might follow upon an unguarded ut- rance, had forbidden her e; II Theresa any- thing. In tin' [light Clare, the old Clare, ••am-' si L d)in<_r to thr door of her heart: the fairy prince, tin- deliverer, Clare the wonderful, the tender, wlw> had filled 1 days with beauty, to whom she had vowed th»- love and loyalty of a li' He was there unchanged; her heart could not keep him cut, <>r wish t.». Sh implained to him with the rtainty <>f sympathy about this stranger, this Bed ( >\ ercome, who usurped his features: one who showed do honor or compassion toward orphans; one guilty of brazen untruthfulness; one capable of conducting hiniBAlf toward B woman in of mind and body as a chivalrous gentleman would nut conduct himself toward an afflicted monkey; among the pag< of whose past, moreover, were passages kept hidden from her. What was it that everyone in the ho knew, herself she wished, in the sad blackness of a clouded, thun- derous night, that sh,- might have laid down her life for Clare; and wished with the same passion that she >uld die to If rid of the horror of Red. w CHAPTER XIX HEN Theresa set her daughter Pinky to the task of hemming the marriage table- linen, Grace's amiability was put to the test, with the result that could be foreseen ; for the unfor- tunate child's amiability was a thing to be played upon like a piano. With what countenance let Pinky sew for her and not sew with her, or read to her while she sewed, at the very least remain in the room for com- pany? When she had read aloud from the book of Pinky 's predilection till her voice was tired and she was nau- seated, Grace considered her choice of occupations: to remain with Pinky and take a hand at hemming nap- kins, or to go out — with Sita tagging on. She looked for a thimble and needle. Clarence, in search of his fiancee, found her in the sewing-room. It was an unusual time of day for him to be in the house; at the sound of his approach her heart beat thickly; a wave of color creeping over her face nullified the effect of her cool and collected air. She went on placing her careful, unpractised stitches. He drew a chair near to hers in the bay-window overlooking the yard with its one great elm. Pinky did not get up to go ; Red seated himself with his back 213 n i MISS [NGALIS • .vartl her, and for b few minutes talked of ordinary thing Alter watching for a moment in silence Qrac t over her work — I come to Bay good-by," he said. "I 'm going Jaffa R >ad I Snnday. I 'm taking a couple of fellows for a shorl cruise on the I 5 d, I shall L r ''t back on Monday, but have to go straight to tin* offic i won't Bee me till the usual time. Three days without the l»iu r brute, Gra I Bball be gone three whole f the time buried under gru< ations, came t * > the surface, as once in a while she did, Bhe was tender for brief spells toward the subject of her perpetual im- patience, the Bister whom her scoldings bad never been able to reform. The girl paused to brace herself for the possible f disappoint men! ; but lid it \\ ith a of lu\ur\ mid feel the monej of deln erai * — the letter thick ' it. She tore it open. The letter \\a> thicl s, be of inclosing B Bmaller letter, in at ber <>hl addn and readdressed I l to the care of Mrs. B Poor at Welaka. After a wave of Bick- ness that ui to the end of every nerve and took tl. ength out of her kne I sadly that she had been over guine in thinking that, even ii L; dia had made all h ery !>«,-:. ii wheel would move surately as to bring her letter at the earliest minute possible She studied the envelope, but got uo idea from it. Tearing that open too, she looked for the Bignatur Andrei - I >an< Wit! of wonder, Bhe turned hark to the h»*- iiiniiiLf. MISS INGALIS 219 i c My dear Miss Ingalis : I am writing to ask your pardon for an offense of which I cannot repent, but for which I yet desire most sincerely to be pardoned. If you have lately visited the exhibition room of Max and Bender, you may un- derstand what I mean. You have not forgotten our old contests of the composition class at Fowler's — you remember the screen on the morning when our subject was 'Poverty.' But you cannot know how a ray from the halo you placed around your Bride pene- trated the armor in which I was prepared to fight the world. I have seen so much of poverty, and hated it so deeply, I could not be sufficiently revenged on it, however monstrous and loathsome I painted it. Yet, when I saw your picture, I knew that the one who had made it was somehow in the right. My intelligence re- volted, and I said to myself all the practical modern things, in which there is a great deal of sense, in which there is all good sense. But when you had been pointed out to me, I knew that you were angelically right. "I have thought about it a great deal since that time, to discover why you were right. It is clear that the things accompanying poverty are not good. We are not barefoot mendicant friars ; want, sickness without alleviations, ignorance, narrowness of circumstance, are evils that the lovers of their kind try to end and not to encourage. "But I find that there can be a frame of mind for the 10 MISS [NGALIS modern man also which your white bride of Sainl Francis symbolic When I examine the world. I thai the love of riches is at the bottom of an enormous share of the basem ad wrong in it. A contrary, a ting love, if one mighl attain to it, would bring the balan< fhl : love of the tasks that have largely 1" gned to the poor labor, Bervii every kind of servic L ire of thai frugality which makes men more equal, as well as prevents the pam- pered body from smothering the spirit. And then, simply, thai loi I man which would forbid wanting mi r oneself than others hi >r wishing to keep things from otl and would resull in a noble pov- •y the poverty thai coi sharing, and again iring. Saint Francis was hardly poorer actually than Penelon in his epi il pa] r away 1 enue dai by day. stimony of all tliis I w ished to 1" ar, and ur thoughl ; counting upon your generosity to ••_ r i\ -• me for declaring according to my abilit; pel forgotten bj ;- body I ha er known pi you. Thai I made the vision in your likeness yon will rgh -• also, 1 I It was only because the i that it embodies has become inseparable from you, but i ir the treacheries of lit''-, and that the im- e of the far-away princess mighl fade a Little from my visual memory with a Longtime pa>sin^. ■• If you have do1 be< d to Max and Bender's, I hope yon will go, after which you will understand butter MISS INGALIS 221 what I have written. Will you send me a line to tell me you are not annoyed? 1 When I was placing all my strength in the ambition to conquer fame and fortune with art for my tool, you reminded me that there is something more beauti- ful — which is beauty. For which I thank you. "In profound sincerity, "Yours to command, "Andreas Dane." I SAPTEB XX GRACE s rendering of the theme given onl 1 '..v. ler'a art school had Dot involved, on the ferred to by Andreas Dan-', any great profundity of though! and feeling, and Bhe knew it. 5T< •• there took place in Iht a anting reaching back toward a time when it seem to her Bh< r to being fine and ■_ 1. It was owing to 1 I to revive the ideala «»t" her wl unhappy as she w 'I bean ul thoughts I' lolation that, coming half aw; in tl found herself murmuring and over, like a child in f< f t'<.rL r <'t t Lng its i: "My father's daughter makes do comprom- ise \\ ith ei il ' " Sunday stretch her, waste and long. No ly in the ho pi A.un1 Dolores and the serv- ants went to church. She did not often go herself: it had not been her fat] tn. Bui what an e cellent way to get rid of i he interminable noun Monday and the nearest mail-time I In Uy, t] rable ceremonies, the organ music, tin- Bofl light strained through holy symbols and pre :• in her breasl a little qui 828 MISS INGALIS 223 But the motive above others for going to church was to get away for a breathing-space from the house and all its inmates. Sita, who followed her around like a dog, would not offer to accompany her to church — of that she could feel reasonably sure. But Sita did. It was when Grace, in consterna- tion, looked her in the face that she saw what she might have seen earlier, had she looked as search- ingly: that Sita was playing a part. Grace's thought traveled back, as nimble as light- ning, over their late intercourse, and the situation became so clear that she was ashamed of having been deceived by such an inferior actress. So as not to appear to have noticed anything, which she took to be the game, she went to church in spite of Sita, and with her. She marveled that such perfidy could yet seem almost innocent, because the per- petrator was devoid of moral shame. Sita wore the pleased air of a young one intrusted with a grown-up task, and proud of acquitting herself so well. It was a pleasure, though, to see her yawn during the ser- mon. However much one's heart felt as if a wreath of thorns pressed down upon it, there was nothing to do, when on Monday the early mail brought nothing, but readjust one's hopes and fix them on the after- noon. To remain still while waiting taxed the nerves so beyond their capacity that Grace, in search of 14 MISS [NGALIS tne way to allay her restl< 3, cl >se the rotunda Uery for the exercise of walking — a pastime which she could hope to enjoy there without company. The domed room waa in delicate half-light, « ■ \ « * 1 1 though Bummer Buushine entered through the <. open "!i the yard, whence came Indian \<" s wid inds of romping, happily deadened by distance B ibby was home for the hoi i da: Round and round Grace went, with bands clasped before her and benl on the floor. When, Buffering from a begin- ning of dizziness, she till to lei her head un- wind, something clinging to il M walls f u I it i 3 ble for the first time to communicate with her. si use for th< »1 time of the poor thini inhabiting that house wheu it was a private hospital: the oervous patients politely bo called, most likely ,i little mad; prisoners there, pacing the floor per- haps like '1 auimals, while they dreamed and plotted their esca] The iron gates and railings had t up to 1 them. A thought sprang, in that connection, which Buspend i irt-1 was it conceivable that she no more than th< se oth would find it possible to tway IV inister do ; tht re d ' al times ; this was the end of the nineteenth cenl in a free coun- try. si 1 walking again, and made a sharp effort to think collectedl; idy. With the best intentions, Lydia might not have been able to find the money out MISS INGALIS 225 of hand ; it was unfair to think she would fail alto- gether to send it. But — the wisest course in an un- intelligible world being to prepare for the worst — suppose Lydia did fail? What was there to do? After two months in their midst, she knew a good deal about her companions in the house. She had eyes and ears; Pinky, besides, let herself go in a good gossip now and then. Was there anything to hope from any one of them? To begin with those to whom her heart was most inclined — the best, who ought rightly to be the most promising: Uncle Sylvanus, the kind old man, had, alas, nor resolution nor resource : he was what Dolores must have meant by a hen. And Dolores herself, the dignified, the pious — would she not, but for being a hen, have fled long ago from this house of her humilia- tion? Yes, though it had been to become a scrubber of floors. Set aside the thought of help from the good ones. Pinky, who came next in the order of innocuous- ness, might not belong in the same broad division of humankind, but how expect from one so narrow and dry a befriending for which a little impetus of gen- erosity was indispensable? Sim Vawter was, in the same way, out of the question: a girl could not be imagined taking her troubles to him. Nor to those young hawks, Alec and Junior, violent, indiscreet, alert for the price. Black Overcome she had come to fear and hate, to regard as having blood on .Mi MISS [NGALIS his hands almost, for be had been cruel to his wife—- a poor enough hen, from aLl accounts: he had broken her heart. Dolores, who loved the meek departed lady, had talked about it. bo had Pinky; There herself had inadvertently lei .1 reference to it fall. Black ercome's corner <>i" tl im, his end of the table, v. if filled with a cold gray fog, enveloping something evil and do! understood. The one upon \n h< »m the mind dwelt most wi fully, after all. was Rebecca, her cruel mouth and iriimii.il eyes notwithstanding. It had been strange to learn that I; .1 had had brain fever ae a resull of grief her mothi death: the Bhorl hair \\ ;i reminder of it. Ami yet during her mother's life- time Bhe had not been od or dutiful daughter— quite th<' Qgular, passionate, discomfort ing Lrirl! I had been well disposed toward one, hers were the I and daring to have made her an tual aid; but since she was not. and never missed chance to show it, how trust her riot to betray one with the same \i--i"ii- me hail been seen to • hibil in stamping out a Bpid< Qrace flamed with Budden rage and horror at them all. nightmare people of this nightmare house. She clenched her fists with the yearning to annihilate i: and them to r, and wake in a world where th< had no more reality than any other bad dream, and she could take up again, as if it had not been inter rupted, the life with Lydia and Batey. STes, it shone MISS INGALIS 227 in the past with a thin glaze of gold, for those days had been happy at least in being innocent; they had been peaceful at least in that she had not been at war with herself. Though Lydia returned to would not be suave, or the bloodless Batey sympathetic, yet the power to rejoin them represented at this pass the sum of earthly desire. Her heart in its desolate search turned, not for the first time, to Ida Lamont, and she wept tears of ach- ing affection. There was one who would respond to an appeal, no matter how demanding. Why not secretly write to her, without waiting longer for Lydia? Why not? That which gave Grace pause was the reflection that Ida — lavish, laughing, warm-hearted Ida — had known Clarence Overcome for years. Her joy in discovering him on board the Pretoria, their long talks from steamer-chairs brought close together, while the old major and she, Grace, paced the deck arm in arm — all had proclaimed his footing of an old, inti- mate friend. And knowing Clarence so well, Ida had done what she could — delicately, but sometimes not so delicately — to bring about the match between them. She had taken frank credit'for fitting her little friend with a rich husband, the grand prize in life, avow- edly. Grace held to the belief that Ida would be true to her — but yet, how forecast the actions of a person who in fundamental ways has been proved different .'8 MISS INGALIS from oneself 1 Bfighl aol 1< la fear the appearance of working againsl Redt and haw reason to fear it And then, to place oneself under an obligation for money after taking a high moral attitude toward the manner of acquiring that money- was n dec< could it come to g Were it nol better to pray I d and rely on Lydi And -". caught in a coil of youth and timoroi oess and Bcrupulosity ; groping with troubled hands Of thought, and vainly, around the walls that dosed her in, Qrace trod the rotunda gallery. Becoming aware ol Theresa in the dining-room doorway watching her, she stopped short, 'id was the arch-enemy; yet every time Theresa spoke to her in thai hearty voice, tli ( ' fear would com.' thai she mighl be guilty of a ridiculous injustice When Theresa asked, "Whal a' ing, my dear?' (Jracc ans\ I amiably, with a drawn smil< "1 was feeling nervous,- the weather perhaps is to blame, and I th<>UL:ht this a ! way to work it, off." Red l Overcome took for granted thai his three da of absence were the ••an-- of his sweetheart's paler, sadder lool Be was startled by the change in fa and onlv after scrutiny realized that it was due in pari to her having returned to wearing her hair she had worn it at the time of their first acquaint- ance, when on the Pretoria th< .-wind used to MISS INGALIS 229 ruffle the adorably demure little unfashionable head. That she was deeply enough in love with him, to have dark rings around her sweet eyes for his sake gave him, after the first whip-cut of glee, a melting sensation within. lie wanted to gather her in his arms on the spot, and carry her away, away, out of memory of the mysterious bothers playing the devil between them. With a face like that after three days' separation, not to know, the darling dunce, that what she wanted was hardly to go away from him ! He had high hopes of a better understanding be- tween them before parting for the night, and, elated, showed a cheerful animation all through dinner, hop- ing to raise her spirits by it. He thought he had succeeded; but when they got up from the table, she surprised him by slipping away before he could stop her, and, with the excuse of a headache, retreat- ing to her room. CHAPTBB XXI LATE thai eight, after all sounds in the house feel withdrawing to Bleeping quarters had died away, the door of I bedroom opei without a premonitory knock. Reb< ca st 1 on the threshold. SI - in the Bummer silk of the evening, and had oof taken the cherry ribbon out <>f her hair. Her o unusual that I . half undres ed, and Sita, already in bed, looked at her with a certain ten- • what Bhe wanted Hei :iily lustrous beneath the habitual frown; the pout of her lips wa i disdainful, as usual; but ex- [ tided n tril > a hint of some emol ion at work, the character of which was oot revealed. "Come into my room, Q will you Bhe said, demanding than one making a requi • 1 want to show yon something • ■ ( Jan I con tool Can I come to cried sita. and in a p of curiosity jumped half out of bed. "No!" Bna] her cousin, turning to leav< Q] 1 on a wrapper A Btir of hope • in her heart becaus this simple-seeming event, which wore the face, to her, of something good hap- pening at last. Rebecca was going to ahow \kt some 230 MISS INGALIS 231 ordinary girl-thing, probably — a hat or dress she had just bought : the lateness of the hour has never formed an obstacle to young women who wish to show one another a hat, or dress, or his photograph. The important point was that Kebecca must have felt an impulse to express friendliness, and was taking this naive way of making a beginning. Her brusqueness covered a pardonable embarrassment. The smothered, trembling regard that Grace har- bored for Rebecca was reinforced, on the way to her room, by a kind of confidence inspired by the straight young back and proudly set head going before her. After she had closed the door, 'Rebecca said, point- ing to a chair near the window, "Sit down.' As she turned off the only gas-jet till it was the size of a sapphire in a ring, and then pulled another chair to the same window, Grace understood that the prom- ise to show her something had been a pretext to bring her where they could talk. She was waiting with too great interest to see what would be the subject of their conversation to try to forecast it. Rebecca leaned on the window-sill, with her head projecting into the soft June night. At the darkening of the room, the nocturnal out-of-doors had become relatively light; street-lamps reddened the house- fronts and made the stars of the far-away sky look blue and tiny, almost invisible. Grace examined the outlook with greater care, to see whether it had any- MISS [NGALIS thing unusua] to account for Rebecca's absorption. No: ill-' front p; the iron gate, wide open to- night; the sidewalk with its lamp-post; the deserted street ; the h< ... A- Rel had brought her there for a purpose, she had only to wait, Grace r ' I d, for this to un- fold. Meanwhile, it ttj about her I And he 's 1 1 her like dirt. Rebecca '8 voice had the defensively aggressive ring of a child's 1': wi'ui The news with which sin- thought, presumably, to Btartle Grace fell "ii do unprepared ground. It aed to <;race that she had known this already. She f«'lt it vital to I a JU ' i j « • n ^ i < . 1 1 of the situation, and asked: ! row had she treated hi] "01 ' l •'•■■ ■• is a beautiful woman, and she Rebecca 'a voice changed defiantly exculpating. "She wasn't careful of his him jealo i but, after all he'd Bworn about devotion, Bbe never supp e could 1 k on He ^ enl off to the tndiee u >vy with 1 tnd h hen she n looking for him to come back in a bett tnper, and was prepared I e him, he turned up whistling >u. We all supposed it tting square with her, till w n you together. Then w< it up — it was too mysteriou "Was he 1 to Mrs. Fenn 1 re wanted to be he pleaded to I It amount to his l)'iii'_ r i her, don'1 you know, without her being exactly engaged to him. She "> always been a 1 eauty, I told you, and used to having her own way. she wenl so far, anyhow, as Letting him go ahead and buy a house and tit it up for her— the house that 's ing to I its; but she didn't consider he had MISS INGALIS 235 any right to make a fuss if she went to dine and to the theater with another man. She 's a spoiled beauty, I've told you already! But she couldn't have believed — could anybody? — that he would come back in six weeks hating her just as much as he loved her before ! And no pretense about it — can 't toler- ate the sight of her. It 's genuine ; I see it, and tell her so. But she can't believe it. Now he spits on her, she thinks he 's the only man she ever loved or meant to marry. She thinks he 's only pretending about you to hurt her, because his hate is only a dif- ferent kind of love. "And when he paraded you at the party with the pearls on you that she 'd thrown back at him in their last quarrel, it did look like it, I own. But I knew better: I knew it was only Uncle Red's nature not to miss a chance to get a knife in; it was n't love in dis- guise. But she 's been possessed with the idea that if she could only get at him by themselves for a min- ute, and explain, plead, everything would come right again. He 's been sending back her letters unopened ; he won't let her come near him. "So I finally agreed to help her, because she 's fretting herself into a sickness. When she 's seen for herself that it 's no use, she '11 start in to get over it. She promised to make a sign when she came out — a sign of joy if she 's won him back. But if I hadn't been dead sure of the outcome I don't know that I 'd have helped her. I don't want her to marry MISS ING \l IS l( Red know linn too welL 5 i d have him "You hate him verj bitterly That ia not as liki to make ua i lited for I In* u'o.ul in a \wv*oi\ as for the bad, ia it I known him all my 1> Hon long li * tli. 11 pie question, put moekingly, the that follow i dropped ill- Il NN 1 '1(1 threw I it> i advei K herself, h inkind to 1 ill, unkind to h in lh( io in tlir tliii f the ul, I i i the world of St'S :iiins I ply in f to d t«» I will ith, Rn 1 i n«>t know n Iiim 1 igh to v him mi |Mlll n little trouble w >• ' But MISS INGALIS 237 see your faces, both, of you, to know it won't amount to anything. "What 's it all about, anyhow?" "I had rather not tell the reason of our difference, but I will tell you that I have been wanting very much to have the marriage put off and to go away for a time. But I can't seem to accomplish it. The things you have just told me make me wish, naturally, more than ever that I could go away. But they don't want me to. Clare and Theresa don't want me to, and they won't let me. And it happens that at the moment I am without money, or I should not have to wait for their consent. If I had my fare to TVelaka, in Florida, where my sister lives, not for twenty-four hours longer would I remain here. Nothing could keep me. If you would let me have the money to go, Rebecca, — lend it me, I mean, — if you would show me this friendliness, I should cease at once to be a source of anguish to your beautiful friend Mrs. Fenn. She would have a free field. " "You 're bursting with jealousy, are you? Good work ! ' cried Rebecca, harsh as a cock-crow coming to disturb some flattering morning dream. "But vou 're mistaken. I don't want vou out of the wav. v mm I told vou, I don't want Grace Fenn to marry Uncle Red. No, I thank you ! To get him twice in my family, when once is too many. Then, I care too much about Grace. Uncle Red 's got a mean, cruel streak in him. you '11 find out. Xo ; everything 's for 18 MISS IMi.U.l th( ' Marry him and take him out of the hou All I wanted was to drop a spider in his ••up of hap pineas for future u Tins quarrel of yours will blow over, hut you won't feel mtented and aafe in your marria oil didn't know he <1 been dotty about another woman just before you came — and could 1"' dotty over you minute, and willing t In oexl t chop] '1 on a chopping-block and the p throw ii to tin i You won t i glad, w hen \ ou know w hat \ ou ; [f I could beii< Q rd breathing quickly . from do um ion—" it' I could be- li.\ e, R are in < and are d doing th > l- i are in 1 irtun lur friei I and m I should think you w cruel, as malignantly you '.ill your I fuel • R< I si >uld think it a family l What harm have ] 'donetoyouf 1 and you ve made me sick, w it h your airs and aff ton •• I hav( I now. I ry. I have n 't known how to help it. And for things that arc i my fault you want, jual power, to make me wretched for my whole lif< It' th | not cruel it' that 'a oot mean — ' ■• l don't care what you call me I And I don't care what you i Even if I wanted to lend you money tor youi irida, where I have n't d ailowam We have accou il all the big MISS INGALIS 239 stores, but pa doles out spending money to rne ; there 's rowing about it the whole time ; I 'm always without a cent. Besides, they 'd find out." ''You 're not afraid of them." "Not afraid of them? Not afraid to work against Uncle Red? Ain't I?! . . . You don't know Uncle Red, I 've told you already. And Aunt Theresa is right there, like another of him. All she knows in the world is brother Red. Let her see he wants a thing, she gets it for him. Let her see he wants you, and she 's ready to feed you to him like a little pink radish. She hated Grace Fenn because she kept him dancing ; and she loved you because you were a sweet revenge. She pretended to think anyone in the world could see you were ten times superior. She made it out you were a feather in the family's cap, and a whole cap of feathers on Uncle Red's head in the eyes of the people that had seen Grace Fenn make him look small. Of course she was pleased with you! And of course he won't let you get away. I shouldn't like to be the one responsible for your escaping.' "What would he do to you, Rebecca?' "I don't know. But if you think he 'd just let it go — He 'd do something devilish, never you fear, if it was only to scare me to death, like poor Uncle Miles. See here, don't you dare tell about to-night, or I '11 do something in that line myself." "I won't tell, Rebecca — but not because you threaten me, not because I 'm afraid of you. For io MISS [NGAUS if you are afraid of them, don't you you 're do better than I for courage and strength. Rather worse because suddenly, I Bwear to you, I could burst «-ut laughing, I am so little afraid of you all. The thing is too runny, too fantastically vulgar and ugly; it doesn't belong to real life. 1 laugh, yon Bui that yon 're anxious I -il in safety irprises me, rather, in youj because I bad imagined, befoi ing yon Dear to, that yon * i different kiml of girl bold, yon know, and generous. It h me notion of romantic fitness, I suppose, clinging tO n n th< I ' ' I don t u hat yon saj ! I doo t w hat yon think I 1 know what I m about I know Uncle \i d . ou don 't. Cine l does \\ bal he want he he want I !• it t that '> alL 1 1< always got it ; 'I'll' brought him up like th.it. Be did n "t get it with l an, and bow he catching up. It' yon think Uncle Red leta u,n or gii es in, don 't j ou I ed. And it' it loo] if were giving in, look out! for he isn't, — then par- ticularly he isn't. Bush! I heard the d click. She 'a coming. I 'nil hack out i B i lram d rth. and < Irace, her heart throbbing with t In* strength of her emotion, looked downward from the shadow of the curtain. The street-lamp lighted ;i figure in black descend- ing the j. As if reminded, it stopped half way, and. twisting backward, raised a white face to the c c i i MISS INGALIS 241 window where Kebecca was stationed. It was recog- nizably the beautiful Mrs. Fenn. After one small flap with it as a sign, she pressed her handkerchief to her lips, while a convulsion ran over all that re- mained visible of her face. With the other arm she made a desolate gesture, eloquent of failure. She hurried to the sidewalk, and, with the weighted, trembling feet of one struggling in a bad dream, ran down the street. They watched the knot of her lu- minous hair as it diminished and went out. Rebecca, breathing through clenched teeth, turned from the window. Damn Uncle Red!" she came out burningly. Oh, damn him! I wish something — the most aw- ful that could — would happen to him. I hope he '11 have some disease. I hope he '11 have some accident. "Wish his horse would bolt with him and break his neck. No — I wish it would drag him along the ground and spoil his face for him. Grace Fenn would get over her infatuation then, and so, I guess, would you, Grace Ingalis. You ! You ! — " her intensity in- creased, as her imagination entered fields even more rewarding, "I wish something hideous would hap- pen to you ! Wish I could stamp my foot and make the ground open to swallow you, while his heart is good and bound up in you. That would give him a wrench; that would get Grace Fenn even with him." Her wrath fell suddenly; it was difficult, in the darkness, to tell why. Miss [NGALIS 'I don'1 mean I i ish you any harm for your >wn sake this mimr ' she took up. as if weary from her own passions. "This minute, I don't. I t the money, and don't Bee any way of jetting it without their finding out. And it 's not a tin).' when I want t" get into a family row. I Ve loei my nen mehow, this lasl year.' Her wrath flared again. "Why on earth should I gel myaeli in hoi water for yoi What business of mine i^ r I < food DJghl lie said dr\ ly . "' I want to go to bed." She turned up th< . and the illumination df the room torn - clear a Bign of dismissal as turning it would ordinarily do. CHAPTER XXII IN the dead of night, Grace wept deeply, endlessly, as one weeps only in youth, and in youth a few times only, but as it were fitting to weep at any age if one could believe that the stars were blinded, the flowers withered, for good and all, love and hap- piness done with. So as not to waken Sita, she cried inaudibly, as far as possible inside of herself. It seemed to her at one moment that, notwithstanding her efforts, Sita had heard, and was lying awake in strained immobility to listen. The diversion of this perception quelled her grief for a few minutes: the thing seemed too monstrous. But, upon the reflection that it was not different in that from all the rest, she wept on with reckless abandonment of the spirit. Her woe, translated into a wind-wail that swept through and whirled around her, would have carried to a distant ear able to interpret the wind one an- guished, reiterated question : ' ' What snare is this that youth had set for my life ? "What pitfall had life pre- pared for my youth?' Being alive, being young — nothing but that — had involved loving, and contained the great illusion that what one loves must by that same sign be worthy. And now, what to do forever 243 S44 MISS [NGALIS with this burden weighing down the heart, indestruct- ible, useless, and ashamed ! When tlit> blackness of oighl was b< irimiin^ to \ h-if wm- hlliness into which Ik c t for ;i time had strayed. she wept till her head fell liki Iden wood, and her trange and drowned and diminished. Tears were wrung from her by the contemplation her personal tragedy and the I ly of life in gen- ii, till qo1 one was lefl d, and she lay empti of gri( well as of joy. Then J ■ • ■ r a fVw hours, and awoke surprisingly calm. II' r bn ■ is quiet I city <>f which all the inhabitants ha' en killed rried into captivity. Aide, in this suspension of sibility, to think with great singlen* ted to think thoughts of purposeful strength and of hop< Her term in this house wai a it- end. The delayed letter would com -day. She should start forth • on a walk a1 the right hour in relation to her train. Site would be with her, no doubt. Very well; Sita MISS INGALIS 245 would behold her buying her ticket. What could she do about it, little spy, except run home and tell, too late to alter anything? There were others in the house who had not had their normal good night. The delights of satisfied anger had retarded sleep for one of these, as a too full repast might have done. Red Overcome did not grudge the time taken from rest to indulge visions of the humiliation of one who had earned his hate. Sleep finally drowned out a bitingly zestful frame of mind, to keep him, however, in dreamless darkness for all too short a while. He emerged from it in the small first of the daybreak, to feel annoyed at waking in this unaccustomed fashion before time to get up ; he accounted for his broken sleep by the fact that he was bothered about Grace. He was worse than bothered — he was tormented. Her face of yesterday afternoon spurred him to find some remedy, and that quickly, to a misery that re- acted on him in a searching pain through heart and vitals. The poor child was her own first victim ; that obstinacy which made her stick to her point was like a weapon in her hands, with which she wounded her- self while wounding him. She had her own kind of strength, the darling dunce, and his strength — since she balked so at domination ! — must not be put forth, except so far as necessary to keep her from doing lasting mischief. Ingenuity was here in demand — or £46 MISS [NG \i is perhaps only eloquen There were in the language the righl words to I a yielding thai would Leave p pride unoffended. Be did d< I gard himself . poor in verbal resour .M korms of words, aptly let 1' mighl d>> them both the service of giving Imt do ch talk back, she thought he did Dot understand her. I* was she who did do! understand complete I fortune in having a man as ready he w. pari she wished to Bee him in — just Bhorl of the lunatic who would Lei her go. to that, he could n't: it wasn't the way be was mad.'. e had □ aprehenaion, even dow, of the strength He thought of this a long time; he meditated up th< finally holding her and having his : of her stilled l»y «pii«'t p< ion. \ little thing whose v raid almost pan with his hands, v. ankle hi ild encircle with thumb an 1 ' p — wh aade her the only girl in the world thai counted 1 i inquiry into this question resul :t isfj iiiL r to tlir intelligence. Th< • pr i of her upper Lip had something to do with it, he thought. II \ drowsy amid yearnings to give her pr ent poil hi her his little queen, revive in her that admiration for him which she had Dot oaed I i nceaJ so well. God almighty! how glad he was of the rupture with ( Penn devil and now a dose -that had opened the way for Grace [ngalis. MISS INGALIS 247 That last heavy sleep, from which he waked with a start and the feeling of having overslept, left him enervated, languid, with his good humor — that fine flower of a good appetite, good sleep, the habit of suc- cess — notably in eclipse. A cold shower-bath brought him more nearly up to pitch, but could not dispel a most unphilosophical impatience with the very nature of things, the slowness of time included. A most un- characteristic fear, too, worried him, while in this con- dition, of things going wrong in spite of all the fore- thought and attention to detail that a man could bring to a good cause. He was at the office, attending to work, when a ray illumined the part of his mind that was not concern- ing itself with profits or losses to Overcome Brothers, and warned him of one thing that might easily go wrong. At the picture of the increase of vexation to him following upon the venom-darting of a serpent hacked in two, he ground his teeth and, dropping work, turned his undivided mind upon the subject. Not at once, but after perhaps half an hour of re- flection, he had his breath-catching inspiration ; he gave another half hour to examining it. Then he did an almost unexampled thing for an Overcome ; in the middle of the forenoon he left the store and went home. His search for Grace was short; Theresa could tell him where to find her. She had. seated herself, with her book, on the part 248 MISS [NGALI9 of the bench under the elm thai faced away from the ho :M'l bo could oof aim approach. Sanguine as he felt, and rare of his big strength, the firsl glim] ice's arm beyond the tree-trunk— slender, too, and clothed in gentle white— deprived him of the absolute confidence he was wont to cherish in his power of putting his projects through. He pe- lted valiantly against this lover's nervousness, and, If thai it \ mquer or die this time, walked over the gra It w • day. of thai warmth which has qoI lost all f real md -park If ; the gn en had aummei fullness already, bul do dustim et Red could Bhe I i him, thai < I pace was doI read inu r : her book was on her lap, while her ■ tixed on tic ghostly head dandelion gone to Bead. She looked up quickly when his hulk cul off the green glare of the gi and be Baw her hand tighten on the ■ of her book, aa ii ed with a 'Tamp. It rather hurt him, and her face, which she had amu gled cut into tin- open air. hoping that before lunch- time the I WOUld have blown away the mark- of tic aight, Bhocked him at the same time that it hurt. For the breeze had do1 done the work • tpected of it. Be fell Dothing trongly .it the moment as that this must he Btopped. 0] crying herself blind — mys- child! — when there was he, peady to unhitch tic moon from tic skies u> please her I "Isn'1 this rather unusual.'" Bhe Baked, in a voice i i I i MISS INGALIS 249 which, with the revelations of her face directly under his eyes, came as a surprise, so controlled it was, cas- ual, in good form. "You mean my coming home at this hour of day? Unusual? Yes. I don't know when I 've done it be- fore. I don't remember, in fact, ever doing it. May I sit down? I notice you don't ask whether I 'm sick." It 's easy to see that you aren't." I am, then — sick to death, Grace, of this situation. I can't keep my mind on my work. I can't think of anything but you and how to bring things round again. Now, darling girl, I have something to say, and I want you to hear me out before you bring in anything of your own. Because, little one, I 'm get- ting to know you. "Words count a lot with you. You say something, — it may be just a whim that makes you, — and then you feel you 've got to stick to it, be- cause to give it up would look like weakness. So don't say a word before I 've finished telling you my plan. "What 's going to save us, Grace? We can't go on like this, all tangled up in a quarrel about God al- mighty himself does n't know what ! The moment has come when the building 's afire and we 've got to jump. We can't stop to unpick knots; we 've got to burst our way through the snarl. What are we wait- ing for to get away from this house and folks that you seem to hate so? The fifteenth of September? For what reason, will you tell me ? Has it occurred to you 260 MISS [NGALIS thai we « 1< »n t liavc to? Come with me quietly and be married, to day, to-morrow, or Thursday, and on Sat- urday we '11 start for Europe. What do yOU say? No, don't speak yet. The moment we 've done that, don't von Bee, all this won't count any more than rain in th< We >hall be bride and groom beginning our life together. You don't know me in the part of that happy man. You 'II see whether I 'm in earnest aboul wanting to make yon happy. We '11 have the »d old days of the Pn I dn, only thai 1 .f 3 ou as I want to, and show that it amounts to something to be the sweetheart and wife of < Harence ( >verconn The emotional inflections of bis vo reminding him of th< y morning thoughts in pi of eloqueo l • p ached after a little poetrj : •■ You '\ >■ told ni ir 1"\ e for Italy. 1 've only m in London for a few days, on busine 5Tou can show me your Italy. We 'II do the thing in style, Grace. What \s that passa^f aliolit "a villa on Lake < Pauline We '11 take one. Then then Venice ami gondolas, Naples and Vesuvius, Rome and ruin<. Florence and what-not, towers and templ< hhi' and < when i faint. We '11 do the whole thing. 1 '11 take bLx months off— 1 '11 take a year. You'll you Tl see, iinamiable person, what kind of a husband you 've got Jo, don'1 Bpeak yet Don't speak at all, 'Jrace. Just look at mel No, don't even look, rou don't MISS INGALIS 251 have to make the smallest sign. Leave it all to me. Only don't holler when I come with horses and car- riage, and pick you up and carry you off to be mar- ried. Pretend to faint. That will be all the sign I want that you 're not so cruel as to wish to break my heart." He stopped and watched. Grace, with her book on her lap, had been fingering the corner of a page, curling it into a tight roll. When he ceased talking, she smoothed it out, and, see- ing that it would not lie flat, took the pains to curl it in the opposite way before she said, in her dry manner of that morning, out of keeping with the stain of tears plainly to be recognized on her eyelids : "You are speaking to someone who is not there.' ; What do you mean ? " he followed her quickly. Isn't that clear? You are speaking to someone who you think will be moved by what you say, and I am not." Her calm jerked him out of his. "You look this minute as if you 'd cried your eyes out," he said, with a tempestuousness not free from petulance; "you look as if you 'd half-way gone into a decline with grief, and you talk to me like that, as if you were perfectly indifferent! Child, can't you make up your mind to have a little mercy on me as well as yourself ? ' ' Again she took her time before speaking, and dur- ing the silence ran a careful forefinger round and round a patch of light on her knee. It was nearing < i Miss [NGALIS Doon. They Bat in a tenl of shade, but through renta ami there sunshine rained down, ling Little pools; now and then, at a rustling, all ti of »ld would swing am .t. unite and si I b< o lie .still again and shine tremulously. ind and sun, it all kept on in beauty and gladm mnd these tn whose more pressing affairs made it unimportant to them. Ai1 I rture of brushing away the sun- beam, <»: ilasped her hands to keep them qui "Vim oeed have do anxiety for me. I Bhall do ry well, I think. " sin- said, with more of her unfeel- ing calm. "As for you " Did a little emotion her \ "I'-'-, "i" it an increase of coldne which produced the same "As for you, I am imt afraid of luv.ikini: your heart. What you m do is take tl. Lturday in any case, and go off for a diversion fr our c You may on board meet .just tin- right person to transfer your af- I ions to. ' !«■• d •!'. The ! ateni I him to still while hi Ived it. Then he burst forth, aim - much in relief as in anger : "l> thai what the matter be Who V \»'>-\\ talking to you \ thim_ r that everybody knows is nut easily 1. |y in this house did it. all tin- Same. I know how you got it. When did she do I should Like her letter of li Now, just Listen to my side MISS INGALIS 253 of the story, and see whether you 've got anything to feel sore about. It 's true that I was in love with her. Why should I have told you about it, just to upset you? I made a fool of myself; I won't conceal it. And what did I get? Fairness? Decent considera- tion ? She 'd promise one minute to marry me ; she 'd take my gifts fast enough ; but she could n 't treat me fairly even when she was letting me kiss her to heart's content. She played with me like the damned flirt she is. She 's been in Canada, where she got a fancy for titles. A Canadian friend with a handle to his name came to town, — a little insignificant, high-nosed stick-in-the-mud, — and I was made a supernumerary, a back number. The Canadian was played off on me, and I on the Canadian. Whether she really thought she 'd like to be called 'Lady,' or just wanted a chance to refuse a title, I was made ridiculous. My objec- tions to the part were funny, her way of looking. When I 'd lose my temper I was funny. When I 'd had enough of it, I broke away, as sick of Grace Fenn, I swear to you, as I ever expect to be of anything in my life. The thing ended — it ended right there. When I 've had enough I 've had enough. Go too far with me, and it 's like the scales : you overload one plate, the other comes up. It isn't safe, with me, to go be- yond the line I draw. If you feel the least inclined to jealousy on her account, you can drop it. I hated her when I ran away to try to change the current of my thoughts; I 've hated her ever since. She could £54 MISS [NGALIS no more gel me back than hrin^ the dead to lit She 's tried, and tried her 1" It would have < i« >n«» you good '" hear me talk to her in our last interview — which took place oot bo awfully Long ag "Ton are mistaken; it would not have done me g l. [t does nol latl r or gratify me, whatever ur righteous motives for wrath, to have been taken up as an Instrument with which to punish another ighting \\ ith words will drive insanel You were not an instrument, you were a godsend! Aifter that empty-headed bunch of vanity, 3 our modesty, 3 our 1 3 our quiet I od inemenl -is it ■ wonder I tumbled head over heels in with youl and in a wa\ as different as you ai diffc ' the hart panteth after th( brook ■ ' 1 was after you like a >>li I Fou remember 1 5Tou don 't doubt, [ i to con ider the thing impar- tially. "No, 1 don't Buppose 1 'I". The trouble is that 1 don't want it now. There is just one thing I want. 1 tave told you what it is. I want to go away from here. " '•1 k me in the face, Grace. Do you '-are one little bit about me She complied without hesitation with his request to MISS INGALIS 255 look him in the face, and in her eyes of determined detachment the glimmer grew of a tricksy expression with which he was familiar. She smiled oddly. "Which do I have to say in order to be let go?" 4 'You mean you 're ready to lie to get your own way. You can lie, but your eyes can't. Say what you please, your eyes tell a different story, in spite of all you do to conceal it. ' ' "I know — I know I can't conceal the fact that I cried all night. It was dreadful — but the dreadfulest thing about it is that I could never make you under- stand why I cried like that. It was like forest fires, that rage hour after hour. Then they are put out with damp sand. All I have here now" — she pressed her hands one over the other against her breast — "is damp sand. It 's a wonderful relief. The fire is out to the last spark, Clarence. You had better believe it, and give me the pennies that I regard as belonging to me, and let me go to my sister; for I shall never be the slightest good to you in the world after this." He burst into a laugh whose ring would have made the children uneasy in the house of the ogre who had given them shelter for the night. "You are speaking to someone, my love, who isn't there ! No, snow-peaks and frost-bites ! If you think that when you 've got me where I can't live without you I 'm going to give you up with less fuss than a tooth, you are n't thinking of Overcomes. I 'd have to be a thundering fool, and you 'd be the first 6 MISS [NG Mis in think me one ( hild, can't you You 're in- dulging a mood, a whim; you don't know your-. 'If what you want. Ami you i : afl if it were my mood, too, my whim, ami I didn't know either whal I want What will happen if 1 let you Nobody can tell. Whili here, though yon 're nol always a perfect joy. | k at] isi where find you. [f yi ibility is there '11 1 e One flat-chi I 1 maid the more in the world. If )nii Btay, there '11 be a wedding in September, if i I 1 1 lly dii e why Bhe should all at on blazing angry. II'- had nol meant any melodramatic thi : he \ ring a mere incapacity to be) rarac merely, derived from a \ ari( m- inine chai that I eptember or b -her mood wonld have changed. Bui it \- as if he had touched a match to pine-pitch. She started to her and stood quivering like a lil ■ ■ fixing him with coruscatii ■'What will happen in September I do not know."' aid. with lips that made missiles of the v as they gushed from thai fountain. "1 may ing away from here I ' that, or not — God know I -hall do my b Bui you ha methods in this house that I am not used to and am no match for. Don't think I don't know that I am w; 1 and followed, robbed and i !. I 'm in MISS INGALIS 257 a trap ; I'm in a prison. You count on my not hav- ing friends or money. It looks just now as if I hadn't any, I own. Still, it may turn out you were wrong. But about one thing nothing will make any difference, and that is about marrying you, Red Over- come. You can keep me here under guard, and you may be able to get me to the altar; but you can't make me say 'Yes.' I will say ' No '— ' No '— ' No ! ' I will say it aloud. I will scream it before everybody. I am not a hen, you will find out. Do you see this?" She raised her right hand; though so delicate, it for the moment looked steel-strong. "I swear it! By everything I believe in, I swear it. Now don't you think you might as well let me go ? " He had been watching her from under a gathering frown, at first of puzzlement, and gradually, as her tirade progressed toward its climax, of less scattered and floating emotions. She looked back at him with eyes of intense and indignant earnestness, recalling her father's when he had denounced a tyranny or de- clared a bitter truth. The jilted man must obviously be allowed a little time to grasp the new ideas presented to him ; but he adjusted himself more quickly than might have been expected. "Yes," he said, breathing audibly, "I do." He was angry, too, no doubt ; but, instead of grow- ing redder, like her, he had grown pale; rigidity in- vested him to the lips. His ' ' Yes, I do, " would have B Miss [NGALIS •i her greater cheer, bad he qoI at the moment of Baying it looked bo dai is. Still, the words thai her free had been spoken. It becoming certain, in a momenl more, thai there was to be do outburst from hi !•• proach or pleading, her relief was increased on the one ride, and on the other her uneasines "When do von want | ' he asked, in a manner that Indicated lm\ initely she had —by words that oever could ' ailed or forgive] it herself Loo from him ami placed herself beyond Borne mysterious pale. any timi she said eagerly. "To-day, to- morrow. I' d -n't matt i much, it' I only km>w that I surely can ^ r ". ' "Will Saturday do I can't very conveniently re that." It her turn, taken aback, t<> be silenl while she tried to grasp a new id< a. "No," -I"' -.lid ; "'I am go lone. I wish to go alone. " "I am going with you. Fon an g to be • • 1 to your Bisti door and deposited there like a bundle of return la." She Looked in his for h< Ip to und od him; but that {>". Miliar and bafflil J ithdrawal of expres- n had taken place which made him appear like a stranger- a Binisti ■■ this time, a had >tranger. "No, lid, more firmly; "I am jroing by my- self. MISS INGALIS 259 ''You 're going with me, or you 're not going!" The hint of brutality in his peremptory voice af- fected her very curiously. There could be no mistake about his being blackly angry. The tide of red had returned to his face, darker than ever; the veins in his forehead stood forth, swollen and purplish ; he too could snarl with his eyebrows, she saw, like Alec Over- come. 'Why should I trust you?" he came out violently. 'How do I know where you intend to go? 1 know mighty little about you, it turns out. You 're going with me — or you 're not going." "Very well," said Grace, after another silence; "I will be ready for Saturday. ' ' < BAPTEB XXIII IT seemed strange I be quietly and openly folding her thu ind laying them in her trunk. She felt like one who by aecidenl had .spoken the magic w which the enchantment snaps and tl fall. She kepi herself reminded, however, that she w as -;ill in the I ochanter. Clarence did not i home to dinner; but Bhe found tin • family who tnbled around the table informed of her ap] rture, and in b general way, with unohtrusi as, un< pectedly pleasanl about it. The understanding v. quickly gathered, that she wa to 1 lily for a li; - 'ore her m< professed I jard i; as a very natural desire ou 1 Pt, ami was kind and Sympathetic. Seeing it an act ni' generosity t<» L< ; the one whom she \ appointing ■ he cl I • lent her- self to tin m like the little woman of the world she a1 her mom< ota aspired to become. A good deal wai I about mi - her. It wa iving to the sensibilities thai Theresa, who in known the truth, should | id thua hard- ily, and fn r from the dread of reproaches or into 200 MISS INGALIS 261 cession; but Theresa's eyes! — those frank, good-hu- mored eyes! . . . Grace could not adjust her ideas to the mendacious eyes of Theresa. Rebecca, from her place farther down and across the table, gave her a long, steady look of indefinable im- port, but turned away as soon as Grace's glance urged hers to be more explicit; and when Grace, after din- ner, approached her, she avoided Grace, consistently with her habit. After the lights were out, and Grace lay in bed, wakeful for a long time beside the slumbering Sita, and thinking of a great many things that she had put away from her to think over more pertinently in the undisturbed, secret, and counsel-bringing hours of the night, she tried to interpret Rebecca's look as con- veying sober congratulations at her prospect of escape. In that connection, she reviewed all that had passed the night before between herself and Rebecca; she recalled their words with reasonable exactitude. From much thinking, a little cold place came to be at the mysterious spot — in heart or brain or spine — which we will call the central seat of her. The hour at which Aunt Dolores was wont to start for mass found Grace listening for the rustle that re- vealed her passage down the stairs. She waylaid her, to say good-by a little personally and privately. A beam of genuine tenderness came into Aunt Dolores' face as Grace pressed her soft, plump hands. The £6 MISS [NGALIS two looked at each otl r a moment ; then ( Ira threw her ai iround Dolores, and Dolores, noise- lea ly in teai . , turned the embrac They did not speak, as if the; red to 1"' overheard, or as if th had known thai they understood by touch better than by v. until < Ira aid, a i often before, '" Pra; Shi led, underlining the word, and ceasing suddenly to smile, " Really!" SI 1 her room with a lighter heart, as if she 1 pardon and been forgiven: because e bad d able to exclude contempt from her ml I >ol< and \\ ith growing ju hours oldi • had seen her conl ii«-\\ light. Dol res, well I irn, Southern, constitu- nally ilent, bad known bitter poverty in the 1. he bad been brought i. "u ben l Mil< a intervened. So th u ith ill languor upon her, to I"' ! red, had lue to I who rent. The in. by right \v;i> involved in »uld be ruined by a turn of the wrist if e if. Not brave in tl . .sin* took the burden of her cro the Church each day, and got reconcilement there, en love for her enemies, some of them, to whom 1 Mi.-.l. For Bhe w ai an affections ai : she dressed dolls for Zip, who waa impudent to her; she darned la ir Th< who did not reprove MISS INGAIJS 263 Zip. Grace made apology to her in her heart — while determining never to become like her. Later on this same day, Grace slipped upstairs to inform Aunt Marinda personally of her departure, and to take leave — fondly, without witnesses — of her as well as dear, decent Nora, who, if her room had been searched for the missing money, had given no sign of knowing it. Grace had delicately tried for the favor of the in- valid, pleasing her with little attentions, offerings of her favorite pansies and old-fashioned peppermints; reading aloud to her from the Bible, which voluntary task the old lady utilized in part to the child's own profit: Grace, in her opinion, did not show sufficient diligence in the reading of her Bible. On the Sunday before, after the memorable church- going with Sita, Grace had gone to sit a while with Aunt Marinda, largely to escape the others, but also for the pleasure of being able to answer Aunt Mar- inda 's slightly severe question: "Have you been to church ? ' ' for once in the affirmative. She had found Uncle Sylvanus occupying the rock- ing-chair on the other side of the cold stove, and had been happy over this, because, if she was before long not to see him ever again, she would have liked to leave with this Overcome who was so little of an Overcome the knowledge of her affectionate respect. He was more responsive to her conversational lures 64 MISS [XGALIS thai afternoon than he bad ever been, with the rest the family present. [Ie remembered her interest in tin* story of i In* young .1. e win) delivered his breth- i'ii from capth he went far back in his life to tell something of his part in tl ry — the bardshi] his boyish lot until Brother -I ame to the res- The r gard of both the old pe >ple for the mem- ory of their big brother was touching. Grace noticed th( texture I 3^ 1\ anus' I ined old bands, the deli of his featur Iness of hi- .id 1" 1 that nature ! ad had what are called "absi when Bhe mixed the elements tl formed those t\* Tl i man ile, in respoi mile at ia . had been plainly old man 's blessii It warmed r t roubl feel that quite every rela- tion of hei h the people of thai house had been a A^ Bhe mounted I od flight taira betw< »r and Aunt Marindas, a voi ■ i I ire and more distinctly, issuing from tin- high room j an unusual event, because Aunt Marindas door n d with weath rips to keep out the draught — or keep in the n Tl d aboi e ordi- nary pitch, quavered like organ-tones; remarkably, tlif words home on that solemn and powerful breath, able to pi( "In' do r, Bounded to Graces ear li! " 'Woe unto thee, Chorazinl woe unto thee, Beth- MISS INGALIS 265 saida! ' " But they could not very well be that, she thought. She hesitated; then, jumping over the process of making up her mind, knocked. Nora opened the door a very little way, but, seeing who was there, threw it wide open for Grace to enter. Dolores was in the room, too. Her face and Nora's both wore that blankness which serves to cover per- turbation. Aunt Marinda was perceptibly in a state of excitement : her cheek-bones burned, her cavernous eyes were alight ; her black cap had been shaken out of the ideal symmetrical squareness on her head. With the same fine and unaccustomed vigor exhibited by her voice, her hands grasped the ends of her arm- rests, and appeared like an eagle's claws, superb in some piece of decorative carving. It was borne in upon Grace by the sight of her that the old lady must have been having one of those " times" to which she had heard reference made. "Woe unto thee, Chor- azin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida!' might, after all, have been her cry a minute ago. Uncertain what else to do, Grace proffered her hand. Aunt Marinda looked at her for some time be- fore moving: she might have been trying to see her through a fog. She quieted down marvelously during that wait, and when she said, "It 's Gracie. How do you do? " and gave her hand in reply, it was done naturally; she appeared her ordinary self again. Dolores rose with the alacrity of a guilty gladness £66 MISS WG \l.is to yield to another her plaee of patient and respect- ful audience. After an expressive sign covertly to < i r tiptoed toward the door, carrying the nar- A.-.i Bhouldera and drawn-in neck of one who Bcut- tles to shelter out i m. Her impulse, it I ame idenl <1 i r«-<-r I \-. was shared by tin* sturdy Nora who ••■.] upon it. hoi r, in a manner more accordant with her stiiutnrss-. si ie straightened a few things on the little Btand; sli.' shook into Bhape tin- cushion on which Dolores 1 i .• ; then, still affecting i<> be busy, Bh< . which having caUL'ht. sh< it with her own little black lashed him' to the purpose of making herself excused for taking advantage of the young lady's fortunate com- ing to gain a r ■ from the mtatn tongue. Wasn '1 she young and strong and t'n-^h to the task? Wouldn't she DC willing with tie- old woman a bit and ■ the others a ret i she would, humane ami Christian girl. And Nora softly vanished through the door to her own room, closing it after her all hut a crack which slender reservation r< d her unforgotten responsibility as a qui "Dolores i< a coward!' 1 announced Mi - me »norously, looking at one door. "Nora dor. ii 't wi- tle witli sin b ight I she declared, looking at the other door— -and, after a challenging look all rand the room, lapsed into a brown study. There \ - chair with a hard. Btraight, high back of puritanical look, lor which Grace had a liking be- MISS INGALIS 267 cause of its low seat. This she drew close to Aunt Marinda's arm-chair, placed herself under the old woman's eyes, and laid a hand on her knee, with a not very clearly formed theory that by mere sympathetic nearness she might woo her from her mood. Aunt Marinda looked at her broodingly, and de- cided to take her into her confidence. "This house," she said, "is going straight to hell!' Grace's beseeching gesture and murmur of pro- test did not check, but fired her to livelier fulmina- tion. "Is there one person in this house who lives as if he had a soul to save? Is there one person who you 'd think had ever heard of the kingdom?" she inquired, and, receiving no reply, proceeded with fearful flu- ency: "I 'm not speaking of Brother Sylvanus; I 'm not speaking of Dolores ; I 'm not speaking of Nora — though if they are n't careful they '11 land in hell too. I 'm speaking of Jesse's tribe. They 've builded them temples in groves on high places to false gods, and de- served the Lord's curse. Behold! they've let the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, like thorns and weeds, choke the good seed that is spoken of in the parable. ... I don 't see what they 're com- ing to ! " she dropped from the biblical into the vernacu- lar. "I don't see what they 're coming to! To eat and drink and dress up, turn night into day and day into night, with theaters and dancing and feasting — it 's all they seem to live for, and I 'm like a lonely 268 MISS INGALIS sparrow on the b< >p, preaching, preaching! 'Fli m the wrath to conic! Flee from the wrath to :ii«l it does n "t do a pari icle o 1 ! ' ( ir;ir on of one of her hands, and bj ■ irning pressure tried to quiet fa But the gentle otacl had mi i • beyond making the <»1«1 lady more exactly aware of tin- personality of her listener. "I know, I she said. "I know it looks to me t*«>lks -maybe it da vou as if I must be to have tl when I can't keep from coming out with what I keep inside of me the rest of the tin But it piles up. it piles up. till it i my throat and chokes Hi''. Why isn't it my dutl as much thi old t<> warn these people in the name the I--:' I »' ■} ' ' ■ to listen. They run the moment I begin. And what I tell them is true 1. They 're going the broad v. perdi- tion, everj on< hem. y don't care for any- thing in the world, that I can see, but just the thin this world. And it 's the deceitfulness of rich< that lias done it. Grade.' She had an effect again of taking I into her confident ' ' The trouble I is with working bo hard for money that your whole it; then, after «_ r • * t r i 1 1 «_ r the money, you 1 big and important for having got it ; it looks lar tn ymi, and you l«K»k large to yourself because of it ; you put it before everything else; till, when it comi to the choice between money and doing right, between money and the good of your soul, you choose money MISS INGALIS 269 every time. I 'd like to smash their golden calf for them!" she exclaimed truculently, tightening her fist into hammer shape. Grace, to divert her, used the magic of a name. "Your brother Jesse," she began — "your brother- Jesse, the crayon portrait in the drawing-room shows that he was a very fine man — a man, I should say, of very fine character. I — I like to think of him ; I should like to hear more about him." But the old lady disappointingly shook her head, and looked sternly despondent. "No!" she said, with firm justice. "He was a fine man at the beginning. Jesse was as good a boy as ever lived. But the root of all the evil in this house was in him. He was the first to get caught by the lust for money-making. He grew proud of what he 'd ac- complished all by himself, forgetting it was part the Lord helped him, and part the devil set up riches for his temptation. And then he went and married Inez Maria. After that there was no hope." "She died when Clarence was a baby," said Grace tentatively, invincibly curious to hear more of that Inez Maria whose dark eyes in the crayon portrait hanging beside the portrait of Jesse reminded her of Theresa's. "Yes, too late to do any good !" Aunt Marinda fol- lowed on vengefully. "She ought to have died before she brought her streak of black-haired bandit blood into the honest and upright Overcome blood. Where <> MISS [NGALIS sh< ' it from I don't know. A mean character. While she lived we «lirr_r as wrong fan I They 're a different Bort <»t' young people from what ur youth. They have no respect for the old. no inything ; tin .• do mind I re about doing r i lt 1 1 1 with their in- •.'Mt low-cut fir and rod bair- ribbons and nn- Uy bedizenini Mat. -rial things, I heard a min ter call them once— material things, thai 's all th< think about 'l'" !!•' comfortable, to dress vain, to eat rich, make a show, ha\ I tin. the flesh, and their immortal souls go ahead as if they had n't got an.\ Aunt Marinda." —Or 'id, — 3 change with time passing, and tl mg p< pie .1 knnw. are not tin- same as you remem- ber. But pert ime of them about the san thing tially, only they h. i different way <>\' shorn ing it. " 1 icie, don't try to turn me away from anger; don't try tn ■ hem ; don't think you know het 4 MISS INGALIS $71 than I." Aunt Marinda stiffened to grimness. "I sit here, and it comes up to me like the reek of some- thing rotting — all the wickedness in this house. Down below me there are liars, and blasphemers, and extortioners, and oppressors of the poor, ' ' she enumer- ated with vim, ' ' and robbers, and adulterers, and mur- derers! Everything except pickpockets and dese- crators of graves! And I 'm not sure even of that. Jesse Black, or his brother Ked either, would dese- crate a grave in a minute, or pick a pocket, if they happened to want to and it was so they could escape the law. ' ' You need n 't wonder to hear me talk so strong, and call them names like murderers and generation of vipers. I know what I 'm talking about. Those two and Lonzo have blood on their heads, as sure as Cain. Their brother Miles would be alive to-day if it wasn't for them. I mean it. Don't let anybody de- ceive you. They wanted to make him sign a docu- ment that he wasn't willing to sign. Brother Jesse, so 's*to keep the business together, left all so no one could act for himself, but they had to agree. So they had to get Miles 's signature before they could go ahead, and he held out. They knew he had heart trouble; they knew they 'd no business to worry or frighten him. If there was one thing Miles was frightened of, it was of being frightened. And that 's what they played upon, making believe to be just fooling. You could hear them laugh to the top MISS INGALIS of the houi I had my legs then, l went hall wag ah tin- stairs to Listen and try to make out what it was all about They a heart-spell. "<>im' moment you could hear their coarse rack down in tl >m they call the den tl rt moment it was Bt ill as d< ath. I ran down I • Btaii and bo did I tolorea, w bo d been li^ - was lying on the carpet, and bis tin-..' brothers were inding round, not much at that | mo- ot. 'I'li« ; *d the n take anj blame ; I oei saw any t'rnr p repentaii Tl I it nothing udent, and did d t let it both* eir nsciei I don't know >ublii] much about that about tl, ening <»f heart of .'■ ight «in ni\ t ion. I don 't know l»nt it was that.' 1 bid 3 ou it might be the only I should li.r. I want vmi to know. Aunt Marinda, tl it 1 I fe appreciated you, and that I shall • many thing •• Baid to me which will 1 h. I will read my i want '* T I f j ou remember it God's \ t t inl to I it. 'II • it '11 grow to 1"- your gn m- \i:«l 3 "ii 'r marr R< 1. did you A d ! 3 1 •! mi ii- jood and all? Well, well, this is nev I Imp.- yn\i aren't having any big 1.- about it, Gracie, a Though I 'in aorry if you are, 1 can't help glad, too. You ' : • • b I ' ter man." "T! thing I want to Bay about it. Aunt MISS INGALIS 275 Marinda. I just want to talk with you for a little while about other things." As if in search of a fresh, unrelated subject, Grace let her eyes roam around the room; or she might have been taking that circular look with a view to impress- ing on her mind for remembrance the things she was perhaps seeing for the last time : the stuffed dog on top of the wardrobe, the copper warming-pan in the corner, the box for firewood pasted over with bright pictures. When she spoke, however, it was not clear that she had been doing anything but summon up the special kind of courage needed to ask an unusual question. "You have lived so long, and seen so much — thought so much, too," she fumbled for a beginning. "You are very wise — I feel that you are. I feel as if there were many things you could tell me that would help me, if I only had the sense to ask them. There is one thing particularly that you could tell me, perhaps. There is a passage in the Bible — you who have read the Bible so constantly, and meditated upon it — there is a passage that I wish you would tell me what you think of. It is this : ' I have been young, and now am old ; yet have I not'seen the righteous for- saken, nor his seed begging bread/ Haven't you, Aunt Marinda, ever seen the seed of the righteous, the children of just people, brought to where they were forced actually to beg their bread? It seems so un- likely, somehow, that because your father was a good (i MISS [NGALIS man you, as a reward for his deeds, ihoilld be Saved from the dreadfulness of having to beg. if a person could believe the Bible absolutely, and feel that eon- Bdence when he had to sel out alone, for [nstanc without money, without knowing in the least what he was going to do next, oh, bow differently he would el, how wonderful it would b< What do you think iiit it. Aunt Marind "I have been young, and now am old : yet have 1 not seen the righteous for- saken, nor his seed begging bread. 1 I «1 give an; thing to know." Tin' old woman appeared for a space to be thinking. Perplexity grew in her face if from a difficulty in remembering, or concentrating her mind. An un- usual effort of brain was reflected on her forehead. She said at last, honesth : ■ "I don't think I ever noticed, Gracie, whether the paup- ra I 've known ahout had g od fathen The folks w ho were on the town v aostly a pretty shift- let r . Which sle.ws they hadn't 1 n brought Up right — and that wasn't to their parents 1 credit. But I don't know. Gracie; I don't know from personal experien This I do know" her voice reacquired •lie of its earlier vigor: "that if you Serve God you i trust Him. We Vc 'Jot to trust Him, and take what He sends in the right spirit, as being what good for Ufl '"1 know. Aunt Marinda. I know that 's the right way of Looking at it — for religious people. Hut it MISS IXGALIS 277 dreadful, all the same — it 's dreadful to be altogether without money." She covered her face again, as if to shut out a fear- ful prospect, or to shut in what further there was to say on the subject, and keep a hold on herself until this wave, too, of panic and woe should have passed. Aunt Marinda felt herself as not having been ade- quate, as not having given the proper comfort. She groped for some way of meeting the necessity of the hour more handsomely. Affection went out from her toward that young brown head bowed upon slender young hands which, she had an uncomfortable sus- picion, smothered tears. In search of ideas, she re- volved and then repeated aloud the child's last words: " It 's dreadful to be without money. Yes, so it is. Who are you thinking of so situated, and feeling bad about it? It isn't you, Gracie, that needs money?" Grace moved her head in a manner that could not be interpreted as meaning yes or meaning no. The first tremble of a glimmering current of understand- ing was yet established between her and Aunt Marinda. "Is that what you have on your mind — that you need money? How does it come ? I thought you had plenty." "Oh, Aunt Marinda, I hadn't any thought of ask- ing you when I came up here. But if you could — oh, if you just could, without telling anybody, let me have enough to pay my expenses down to Welaka, MISS [NGALIS where my Bister li\' I did have some money — plenty ; bol it has been stolen. No, I don't mean that, but — [f yon could lei me have forty or fifty dollai in a few days I would return it -and it would make ich a differen to me! I could almosl believe that miracles were worked for tin- Bake of the righteous, to ep their children from having t«» beg their bread. My father "1 !" ■ I .1 dn it in a minute, Qracie; 1 M do it in a min- ute, 1 1 1 « » : i _r 1 1 I don't seem t<> understand bow il es that you— No matter, for the present. But 1 haven't got any monej \>< u I never have, though 1 ' ot quite >od deal in the bank and in the business. They t. : my money for me; th< draw out my 1 money ami they pay Nora's \\ 1 ha> •• n it of money by inc. ' Never mind, then, dear Aunt Ma rind Thank you ,iu- iUCh. I that I i. 1 1 won't make any differen 1 Buppo I shall have to launch my little hark on an unknown sea in the dark, in any * ' I »ook hei l have n 't any money, hut I \ e got somethin .in-' I for \ •ii it. Now, list* n. ami doo t ma any noi Sh red ber voice to ,i wrhis] "Yon L r <» ami look under the bed, -lift the iralam 1 can see too, and direct you, and you dl see plenty i.l thing Tl. i nit you to pick out MISS INGALIS 279 is a good-sized green cardboard box. You pull that out and undo it, and you 11 see in it a brown cedar- wood box that was a cigar-box. Bring it to me." So utterly had Grace a moment past given up the expectation of anything fortunate happening to her in this house, that at the sudden stepping into an old- fashioned story book, with its fairy godmother and fulfilment of forlorn hopes, the very quickening of her heart warned her to wait before she rejoiced, and make sure the treasure was not a fusty nut. Her hands trembled as she raised the valance, exposing just such a still-life composition as the old country- woman's words had evoked. The apple-green box was easy to find. With fingers clumsy from their very eagerness, Grace at last had the dusty string un- knotted, and lifted the cover. It was packed full with rolls of dress-pieces, balls of worsted, bundles of newspaper clippings and tissue- paper patterns, a collection of corks, indescribable miscellanies — but the cedar box was plainly in sight. This she brought to the waiting old lady, who pulled off the flimsy yellow ribbon holding it shut, and turned back the hinged lid, faintly fragrant still of cedar and Havana tobacco. This box also was crammed with things: the eye was first caught by a glass knob with a bright flower embedded in it, like a fly in amber, fit to charm the eyes of a child; caught, next in order, for its strangeness, by a shape- 30 MISS ING VLIS less lump of blackened metal, which Aunt Marinda, i'< 'i-Lj'-t t i iilt the more important thing, lifted and lin- gered w it h curiosity. 'We've never been sure what it was, but Ji thought it was the old sugar-bowl melted down in the fire when our bouse burned to the ground. He picked it up "Ut of the roil She was lapsing into a dream of past things, but recalled herself. "Now, this is what I want you I It was a round wooden pill-boi of an old kind with a faded inscription r it 'a \i i I >vercomi 'a soul searching for me II. r flesh had crept, a wave of desire had swept over her, and she had been near th< ay <>t" t< in, when n "1" sanity had * * * I T down Like a flashing sword l ii her lost prince and that Red Overcome of whom she was coldlj afraid d Ilk-- the un- happy lady affia to the mysterious Mr. Fox in the eld tale, after sin- had i-spifd t ho little Livid red hand with its Load of stolen rings. . . . Things of the Qight, of the COmpleJ and confused nature (.1" man, m whom the schism i en heart and brain can !•<• wide, between bouJ and fleah deep. . , ■ The return of d had mended it ; from tl jion where we are the con scions i: ftimss had been expelled. Ami now she sat beside fcfra AJonzo, with a deep Light in her aalizing her sense of being mistreea of the situ- ation — oh. so much more than anybody dreamed] Theresa joined th< and fell to talking with f'ar- bout the plans for the new house, d ling the merit s hard w Is, different kinds of "tin- MISS INGALIS 291 ish." Grace withdrew her attention altogether, to penetrate herself with the thought that this was her last evening in all her life among these people, and to say good-by to them in her mind. Rebecca and Harvey were the ones at the moment parading before the judges — like peacocks, like Car- men arm in arm with her toreador on their way to the bull-ring. Sita was at the piano, strumming over and over, as if for a reel, one of the few pieces she knew by heart, and producing each time the same false bass- chord. Zip and Bobby chased each other, with the irrepressible cries of childhood, as if they had been in the school-yard during a recess, and their mother did not notice a noise to which she was accustomed ; they were now and then ordered, in a casual way, by a cousin or an aunt, to shut up — but ineffectively. A veil of kindness rose between Grace's eyes and these people. Clutched by the sense, tragic in youth, that she should never, never, see them again, she de- sired, with that disposition of hers to put her little in- ward house in order, to do them greater justice, to leave them, in any case, with wishes of gentle good will. She had said that they were different from her, warp and woof; but human beings are not different to that extent from one another. She thought it a pity that she could not have been patient, magnanimous. But was it not only because she was going away that she was willing to see them in softer colors? For nothing in the world, she reminded herself, would she MISS INGALIS have remained. No matter. Let them prosp.-r, ppy, and the light that they Deeded — as i rerybody - Light .' — come to them in it d tin. Prom her place she got a glimmer of the redness of the den, where a large ei a-shaded banquet-lamp ar the door made vivid the crimson of the carp six years ago three brothers had I "not laugh- ing much at that exact moment" — around a fourth brother sti d on tl r. . . . >w a glim] ild be caught of Miles' widow I ar a little table in the drawing* . thought- fully placing one card beaid< r in a e, in the inextinguishable love of life, telling her own fortuni Black < i •• and l inxo n tranquil]; og their ci outside in . who 1 . Ore to tind himself a different -n th< ■ e oval, oblivious enough, and full Strong, in case Of memory, mzn'w • ■ importunit I [e * as talk'' • the i ter-in-law, the one of whom Carrie had just been telling. The young wife, who very likely was y, had excused herself from taku - irt in the fun below, on the ground Prom tin- distance Gn gol a view of Red, in perspectii a whole, like a pictur Be i - thinner; he had lost his fine color. Poor Clar Be ; is dJ dreadful characterizations of him true or aot, who could say that he was withoul libilitj MISS INGALIS 293 And how good to look at, in that manifest, manly- way! Such a successful specimen of the genus man as he was! Well shaped head, well shaped every- thing, engaging — completely, even nobly a man, to the eye — until you had come to understand that his outlook on the opportunities of life was identical with that of beasts, whose way it is to get what they want if they can get it, and no necessity felt for justifi- cation. With this knowledge, you were enabled to see, as she was doing for the first time, — to see stamped on him physically, marking his brow, a limitation, a default. His elbow rested on the railing, and his hand stroked his mustache — that masterful hand in whose exhibitions of strength she had delighted; that hand so admirably formed by nature to grasp and hold on. 1 'Uncle Red doesn't let go, and if it looks as if he were letting go, look out! for he isn't — then particu- larly he isn't!' repeated Rebecca's voice in her brain. Grace rose to her feet like one in a dream. It was the moment. Theresa deep in conversation with Car- rie, Red absorbed in the youngest Mrs. Overcome and not looking her way, everybody engrossed and gay — With quiet gait, though her knees trembled, she with inconspicuous presence glided behind the chairs of Theresa and Carrie; finished, without looking to the right or left, the half-circle of the gallery; and passed out through the door to the entrance-hall, wide 294 Mis- [NGAUS open, like all the doors to-night in the rotunda. Quite empty, the hall,— God be praised! and dim tinder the single Lamp of colored glac So empty and quiet, and everything apstairs quiet, too it almosi Beemed as it' she might safely venture to creep to her room and gel a few tiling, si].- debated the poinl I'm* half a minute; but, .it a tiny sound from somewhere oear, decided againal it. and took a hurried step or two Dearer the front door. Then her heart ", r of you to do I MISS INGALIS 295 I pray! I entreat! Come back with ine, and let them know we 've changed our minds, or some cir- cumstance has risen to change our plans, and we 're not leaving to-morrow morning, after all. Be my good girl, Grace, and tell them; then let all this be as if it hadn't been." Without quite being humble, his voice, lowered to a whisper, was supplicating; his earnestness was compelling. But it did not get past the guard of one who in wisdom and solemn forethought had stopped her ears against all siren songs. She looked at him as if such thickness of wit as he persistently showed made her hopeless, without mak- ing her unkind. "You don't seem to understand. I don't seem able to make you ! ' ' "Grace, I will do anything you say, anything you want me to. If ever a miserable offender loved a girl and wanted her love — Just in this one matter, listen to me and do as I ask you. Give up going to- morrow, and you will have no reason to repent; you will have a lamb in me — you will have anything you want. ' ' ' ' But, Clarence, the point is, I can 't live near you ; I can 't breathe any longer. You ought n 't to have lied to me, you see. In an atmosphere of lies I can't breathe; that 's the whole of it. I can't help it — I am so made. I can't live!" "You talk as if everybody didn't lie! Everybody •fi MISS [NGALIS lies, you two-days-old kitten I rather less than other men. ' • • • • Nol everybody. My father i lied. "Don't expect me to be like your father. Men in love are a different animal. I had lived thirty irs, l knowin >u. Won't you member it. and bold the hope that your ideas will per gradually, and I shall know finally just what you do want If you knew, Clan how much I want to be i— to up. Harsh and final judgment! ar nel folly, always. And I myself so blind, full of fault 9 what I apparently can't make you understand: thai in order to be just, in ler to do anything thai ia right and real, I mu first D6 away fn u. Fou musl lei me gO. 11 Elere jain at th( I turn in the road, t! P( Gra t a it a little I this thing into the right light. Thi ning, if you would only ir whole live We can Btill be as i appy :nt to be perfectly happy, little it if you p ir liv< ruined,- they will be, I warn you mine lura, you well as i it \\il ! ilt, your fault ■ tirely. Four hi 1 be on your own headl" '•So be it. Clan "Damnation, l Ho^i can you be ^<> stub- Put you in a mortar and grind you with a MISS INGALIS £97 pestle, you 'd go on saying the same thing! Don't, I tell you. Don't put up this front of blank wall to me. I 'm talking for your good. Don't get me where I don't care what I do. Don't turn me into a devil ! ' ' "I think — I really think it would be better if we returned among the others. There can be no use in our talking together," she said, showing every femi- nine sign of offense and fright. "No! Wait!" 1 ' I can 't ! ' she cried back from the door to the bright gallery. With his imperious instinct to have his way, he sprang to stop her; but she was running outright around the curve of the gallery. He could have caught up with her, doubtless, by putting forth his athletic agility; but, having their last race in memory, he was held back by shame at being seen behaving like an idiot for the second time before the same ironical audience. He repented an instant later, and started, after all ; but, seeing her descend to the floor, he again lost impetus and stood still, watching her as she rushed — under the impression, apparently, that he was at her heels. She looked rather silly, he thought, fleeing unpur- sued, and wondered how soon she would discover her mistake and let up and blush for herself. At the foot of the stairs, he thought, she surely would look back. ti MISS [N6ALIS did by .1 swift, birdlike turn of her head «»■■ Ikt Bhoulder; her glance swept round till it Located him, standing Btill, hands In pockets, savagely dis- dainful witness of her futility. He thought she would then have Btopped short, laughed, gol her breath, and, to Lend herself counte- nance, done Borne Bueh girlish thing as hide her face in the bowl of roses on the piai p the pile of music, pretending to 1< r a fav< Bui - continued, mi ly n< : d liber- ty in her • □ nna iff I [er l tck, the tilt of her he she passed to om 1 thr ' I 1 er id tin' chair up<-f 6re spreading to thr end Tv. Is, <1 in what ptten pi memory, leaped from ag after her, already in ti. dark <>ut- w CHAPTER XXVI HEN out of sight of the loungers near the door, Grace ran — along the side of the house, along the front, through the iron gate, wide open for guests, down the street to the corner, around the corner — There her hand was drawn through an arm, which tended to check her speed. "Oh, hurry, hurry!" she whispered, and tried to drag the arm along. 'Please not to be afraid. Please believe you are safe, ' ' said the looming man, the owner of the arm. At the affrighted "Oh! Oh!" which she uttered in dismay over his lack of comprehension, he con- sented, however, to hasten, but with a quiet steadi- ness. They had only the length of the Overcome wall to go to reach the alley behind the line of low buildings bounding the Overcome yard. There stood a closed carriage with its waiting horses and driver. In a second she was inside of it ; in another second he was beside her; the horses started up and off at such good convenient speed as can be wrung from estimable hackneys. 299 00 MISS [NG \l [S 'Am I in timel Oughts ughtn't we to «ro fa < taghl n *i the i gallop .'" Bhe whis- pered. 1 We have abundant time," he Baid. si, head between her hands, and there v. silence in thi ih, parallel, as il were, to the clatter «>t* i * I \ ; >u would be there," she said. By this time the red mansion in the midsl of its black rail- ings 'mI blocks behind. '*I was perfectly — .Oh, thank < tod thai you were ther He slight sign in the semi-darkness. He I, appropr thing -the . too charged with won- der. 'It from your saying at tl end of your jrent on. "I know it ia .iiou foi the cl< f a letl I i it as it" you haf having * hou Thi it not almost too g to be true the usual, the normal thing: that human being Id aid i * one ■ her, should - the truth ; thi ami ool black villainy] 1 returned to b world where she could once an bn grasped momenl with appropriate triumph and gladness tl :ompl Traveler* itching the midnight train saw walk- ing down the railway platform • E three who had nothing striking about them, i perhaps, its very beauty, t ; f the mantle worn by thf alend :'i going between t 1 ray-haired woman and the young man with t £. ,t if any among them had been gifted with an i ial kind of sight, ho would hav( □ that the girl in the blue mantle was carrying out of the conflict Bomething like a MISS INGALIS 307 chalice, borne as high as her arms could lift it, to keep it safe from the jostlings and the dangers; and in the chalice something comparable to a precious liquid — her inviolate soul. THE END Other Novels by Gertrude Hall AURORA THE MAGNIFICENT A wholesome and altogether enjoyable love story, with a mellowness and an easy distinction that cannot be claimed by a great many modern novels. It is the sort of story that used to be read aloud to the family circle ; it is a novel that can pass that healthy test with unusual credit to the author. "Aurora the Magnificent" is the story of a Cape Cod woman set down in the sophisticated Anglo-American colony of Florence — a woman whose robust character is a substantial delight. The novel tells of her triumph over the machinations of the jealous Florentines and over the super- civilized sophistication of Gerald Fane. It is a tale of people worth know- ing, in an environment worth being taken to for a visit, an environment, by the way, intimately known to and loved by the author. Eigkt Illustrations by Gerald Leake, Price $1,40 THE TRUTH ABOUT CAMILLA Out of the ordinary in fiction is this story of a fascinating Italian adventuress — fascinating rather than beautiful, gifted, unscrupulous, of extraordinary character and career. She is the daughter of a peasant woman and a nobleman, educated by her unacknowledged father, then left to shift for herself. She is by nature a consummate and dramatic actress and fabricator, but with a power that brings all men and most women under the spell of her gifts ; and the days which make her in turn paid companion to a famous literary woman, a princess, the wife of an opera singer, a lace-maker, and, finally, a deeply religious marchioness, are crowded with color and adventure. The Italian background and character, the conception and portrayal of Camilla are delightfully done. Frontispiece by W. B. King. Price $1.30 At All Bookstores TOC PFISITITRY CC\ 353 Fourth Avenue Published by * "Ei VXll 1 UiV 1 \Aj. New York City MISS MINK'S SOLDIER AND OTHER STORIES By Alice Hegan Rice Author of "Mrs. Wiggs of Cabbage Patch, n etc. Thi .bining all - qualities of autl cli ha "Mrs. \Y iny million r< in all parts of tin- world The literar illy a; tin- American reader, and i: en "Mrs. \\ A ; | author much more varied portunil :ng her rea .an docs a no\ author ma n the comic to the tr the r crcnt settings of place and time, ma i of 01 hat feeling cd • the cor 11-turncd whole, which comes to the reader with the good story ;>crtly told. Thi- Mink'* Soldier.' her si. 12 mo, 221 pages. Frontispiece by Walter Biggs Price $1.25 At All Bookstores TIIP rFNTHRY CC\ 353 Fourth Avenue Published by Hill VLlllUlvI \A). New York City THE FIREFLY OF FRANCE By Marion Polk Angellotti This is not a story of laughter or tears, of shock or depression. It has no manufactured gloom. It preaches no reform. It has not a single social problem around which the characters move and argue and agonize. No reader need lie awake at night wondering what the author meant; all she intends to convey goes over the top with the first sight of the printed words. The story invites the reader to be thrilled, and dares him (or her) to weep. Briefly, "The Firefly of France" is in the manner of the romance — in the manner of Dumas, of Walter Scott. It is a story of love, mystery, danger, and daring. It opens in the gorgeous St. Ives Hotel in New York and ends behind the Allied lines in France. The story gets on its way on the first page, and the interest is continuous and increasing until the last page. And it is all beautifully done. The Philadelphia Record says: "No more absorbing romance of the war has been written than 'The Firefly of France.' In a sprightly, spon- taneous way the author tells a story that is pregnant with the heroic spirit of the day. There is a blending of mystery, adventure, love and high endeavor that will charm every reader." 12mo, 363 pages Illustrated by Grant T. Reynard Price $1.40 At All Bookstore* TUI7 rTWTITDV C(\ 353 Fourth Avenue Published by 1 nL Ltll 1 U IV I LU. New York City FILM FOLK "Close-ups" of the Men, Women and Chil- dren who make the "Movies." By Rob Wagner a humor an