IN THE HOUS2 
 OF HER FRIENDS
 
 V 
 
 Acres v 
 140
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF 
 HER FRIENDS
 
 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 OF 
 
 HER FRIENDS 
 
 NEW YORK 
 ROBERT GRIER COOKE 
 
 INCORPORATED 
 
 MCMVI
 
 Copyright, igo6, by 
 ROBERT GRIER COOKE, INC.
 
 To Katherine 
 
 The form and matter of this book is at once 
 sacrificed and dedicated
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF 
 HER FRIENDS
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF HER FRIENDS 
 
 SYLVIA came in from the garden and flung open 
 all the parlor windows to let in the spring. The 
 memory of the winter was so recent that she felt 
 something of license, almost defiance in the act; but 
 nothing resulted from it except the mildest zephyrs 
 smelling of young green things growing in the woods, 
 and the acrid smoke of dead grass burning on the col- 
 lege campus. 
 
 She took her old accustomed place in one of the 
 broad window-seats and looked out. Everything about 
 her seemed freed from fetters and rejoicing in a new 
 liberty. Some collegians were playing ball on the 
 Athletic Field, others were loitering on the chapel steps 
 or sprawling in heaps on the brown grass under the 
 elm trees of the Promenade. Some children passed the 
 window with their hands full of wild-flowers from 
 the college woods. Sylvia had seen them last, wrapped 
 like little red mummies, skating up and down an ice- 
 bound puddle in front of the house, but now they were 
 walking lightly in fluttering garments in a sort of visi- 
 ble celebration of the spring. She stopped them and 
 spoke to them as they went by, in renewal of the easy, 
 
 3
 
 4 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 human intercourse which had lain dormant under the 
 long frost of the season that was just past. 
 
 The door of one of the buildings at the other end 
 of the campus opened and shut with a click as the tall 
 figure of the professor of engineering came out of his 
 recitation room. He stood a moment to withdraw his 
 key from the lock and then came slowly across the grass, 
 so lately freed from snow-drifts, walking with the 
 swing of a cavalry officer and taking the short cut to 
 his own house, which brought him, in the course of 
 time, past Sylvia's window. 
 
 There he stopped and took off his soft felt hat, 
 lingering to talk a few moments in the flattering sun- 
 light of the spring afternoon, and Sylvia, smiling down 
 into his handsome narrow face, and noticing the flecks 
 of gray in his dark waves of hair, and the clouded look 
 in his blue, heavy-lidded eyes, knew that the winter had 
 gone hard with him and forbore to ask after his wife. 
 
 Sylvia had known him all her life ; he was, in fact, 
 part of the furniture of her existence, to be taken for 
 granted without criticism; but when she first remem- 
 bered him he had no wife. He had lived alone in the 
 house next her grandfather's and hardly a day of all 
 her little girlhood had passed without the sight of his 
 tall, soldierly figure, now sitting on the front steps 
 with her mother in the long summer evenings, while 
 her brother Tom and she ran races up and down the 
 shadows of the elm trees on the green, now in the little 
 walled garden in the rear, where his long arms were 
 especially useful to reach the higher branches of the 
 cherry tree or to help in the training and clipping of
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 5 
 
 the climbing plants on the chapel wall. But most often 
 during the winter evenings with her mother and grand- 
 father in the old Dean's study, where, as she grew 
 older, she had been vaguely influenced, vaguely enlight- 
 ened, by the kind of talk that went on about her. 
 
 Yet there had been another side to her memories 
 of Wilfred Cochran, a something wordless and shad- 
 owy, so dim that it was almost like a dream. It seemed 
 as if more than once in her little girlhood there had 
 been a closed carriage rolling late at night into the 
 silent college inclosure, and she must have seen, or the 
 words of her nurse telling it to some one the next 
 morning had affected her so vividly that she thought 
 she had seen, something dark and helpless lifted out 
 and supported up the steps of Professor Cochran's 
 house. No one had ever told her what it meant. 
 Nevertheless she had long retained the impression then 
 received of hidden tragedy and disgrace, all the more 
 mysterious because so ill understood, nearly effaced at 
 last for lack of reinforcement, until the time, not much 
 more than two years ago now, when Professor Coch- 
 ran had disappeared suddenly, just before the Easter 
 holidays, and for several weeks no one, not even the 
 Dean, had known where he was. 
 
 Then, only from the deep anxiety and preoccupa- 
 tion at home, the rage of conjecture and discussion 
 which seemed to be going on everywhere except at 
 home, she had learned all she was able to understand of 
 Wilfred's hidden struggle against hereditary tendency, 
 his bitter failures, his long abstinence, his last defeat. 
 
 He came back in the course of time. Sylvia, as the
 
 6 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 Dean's granddaughter, did not hear the storm of cen- 
 sure which greeted his reinstatement in the little society 
 of which he was retained a member, but she could 
 clearly remember how surprised and excited every one 
 was to hear that he had been married during his ab- 
 sence. At first she herself had been a little offended, 
 and then very much interested in picturing to herself 
 what this new Mrs. Cochran might be like, who had 
 come to be their next-door neighbor. But Mrs. Coch- 
 ran had turned out to be a very strange, undesirable 
 sort of person, who kept herself hidden away and seldom 
 was seen by any one. Her husband, too, had ceased to 
 be found among his old friends. He never came any 
 more into the Dean's walled garden, or sat with them 
 on the steps in the twilight, or spent long pleasant 
 evenings talking to the Dean in his study. Weeks 
 passed sometimes and Sylvia did not see him; but as 
 she had formerly accepted his presence as one of the 
 necessary details of her life, so she had adapted herself 
 to his entire withdrawal with a dreamy, youthful 
 egotism which kept her in a half imaginary world of 
 her own, content to let all that part of the show of life 
 that did not vitally concern her go and come without 
 question, almost without notice. 
 
 Yet she was glad to see Professor Cochran again 
 as he stopped under her window, and she quickly re- 
 sumed the little familiar manner which belonged to their 
 former relations with one another, when she had known 
 herself to be a favorite, and had always been able to 
 make him laugh by telling him what she was thinking 
 about. They were laughing together quite like old
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 7 
 
 friends, when Sylvia, as she looked down upon him 
 from above, saw a sudden enlargement and intensity 
 in the expression of his eyes, a lifting of the head, a 
 change in the whole man, so significant, so remarkable, 
 that she had it on the tip of her tongue to ask what 
 he was looking at. Just at that moment, however, she 
 felt the touch of a hand upon her shoulder, and, turn- 
 ing, saw that her mother had come into the room so 
 quietly as to leave her unaware of her presence until 
 she perceived her close beside her in the window. 
 
 " O mamma," she said, turning eagerly, " See, 
 everything can be open again ! " 
 
 " Yes, the winter is over." Mrs. Lawrence's voice 
 sounded very low and grave after her daughter's sweet, 
 high treble. " The winter is over." She said it again, 
 smiling down at Wilfred Cochran, as a sort of greet- 
 ing, a magical repetition of what all the creatures in 
 the world were repeating to one another with promise, 
 with encouragement. 
 
 But he, seeing her again standing there above him, 
 with the reflection of the beauty of spring upon her 
 face, hearing her beloved and familiar voice as she spoke 
 to him Wilfred Cochran could only feel a more de- 
 spairing sadness, a more helpless regret that for him 
 the loosening of the winter's bonds could bring no 
 lightness, could mean nothing, nothing but the added 
 consciousness of galling chains which already held him 
 fast. He stood silent, gazing up at her, his eyes dim 
 and anguished with the strain of the one thing which 
 was not denied him. Sylvia, too, was looking up smil- 
 ing into her mother's face. She loved its clear outline,
 
 8 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 the blue eyes which looked out with a sort of poignant 
 beauty from under their perfect arches, the sweet curves 
 of the lips, which seemed cold till she smiled as she 
 was doing now. 
 
 Katherine Lawrence stood very quiet under the 
 double gaze of those two widely dissevered beings who 
 both loved her, while caring nothing for each other. 
 But after her first smile of greeting, during all the 
 interchange of cold little words which must be spoken 
 to bridge over long winter months of silence and soli- 
 tude, she kept her own eyes with almost shrinking care 
 far away upon the faint greens and browns of the 
 spring landscape. 
 
 Sylvia at last, half-involuntarily, turned to follow 
 that wide gaze out to the glimpses of distant mountains 
 under the arching trees. 
 
 All at once she began to flutter and preen herself 
 and her eyes to dance with new gay interest as she 
 caught sight of a youth in knickerbockers (it was be- 
 fore the days of " safeties ") who suddenly swept past 
 the corner and began to flash in and out among the 
 tree trunks of the Promenade. Now he disappeared 
 behind the gray buildings to come into view again 
 on the brow of the hill where the library stood, square 
 and ungraceful, with its ugly squat tower; and 
 now he turned with a birdlike sweep into the straight 
 white path which must soon lead him by their win- 
 dow. 
 
 " Mamma, here is Stephen," she whispered with' 
 her hand on her mother's arm, just in time before he 
 glided up at their very side, catching at the window-
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 9 
 
 sill to support and steady himself as he brought his 
 machine to a stand-still. 
 
 " Don't let me drive you away, Professor," he 
 shouted in his cheerful young voice, as Wilfred Coch- 
 ran stepped aside to keep from being run over. 
 
 " Thank you, I wouldn't, if I did not happen to be 
 going already," the other responded sharply, his face 
 growing scornful in the impatient intolerance which 
 had always been his for " braggart youth," as he was 
 wont to call it, and which he veiled too slightly ever to 
 be very popular with his students. 
 
 But the new-comer, a big, handsome fellow, with a 
 square chin cleft in the middle, and seal-brown, smil- 
 ing eyes, which he used like a woman, was too confi- 
 dent of himself and the kind intentions of every one 
 round him to be offended by the other's ungraciousness. 
 
 " I saw the window open." His voice, too, was 
 touched with the triumph of spring. 
 
 " Yes, everything can be open again; isn't it nice? " 
 echoed Sylvia. 
 
 " Good-by," said Wilfred abruptly. The boy an'd 
 girl, openly absorbed in one another, hardly heard him, 
 hardly saw him go. But Katherine's eyes came back 
 to his for a moment just as he turned away. For one 
 grave moment their gaze met. 
 
 [Then he went on down the path past the chapel 
 to his own house.
 
 II 
 
 THE evening closed chill after the withdrawal of 
 the setting sun. The pale April moon rose like 
 a ghost among the leafless trees, higher and higher 
 above the cold white mist which had rolled up the 
 valley when the sun set, silvering the roofs and filling 
 the dark quadrangles of Littel College, lending a sort 
 of classic dignity to the barren lengths of gray stucco 
 wall which began to glimmer at her bidding into vague 
 colonnades and stately lines of dim white arches. But 
 there was a certain witchlike quality to her radiance 
 which seemed in the end to chill the magic of the spring 
 which had been working so beneficently all day in the 
 sunlight, till it took forms no longer wholely kind, no 
 longer harmless and beautiful. For, as the evening 
 advanced, on the pale whiteness of the Promenade there 
 came by ones and twos, from among the buildings, sev- 
 eral dark, muffled, bat-like creatures, who fluttered for 
 a little while up and down among the trees, now gath- 
 ering in a little group at the end of the walk com- 
 monly called the Dean's corner now separating again, 
 and finally vanishing as suddenly and mysteriously as 
 they had come. It was nothing more at first than Mrs. 
 Brauer, the wife of the professor of physics, and her 
 great crony, Miss Mix, creeping along together on 
 
 10
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF HER FRIENDS n 
 
 their way to the South Gate, where lay Miss Mix's 
 road home into the town. But the moonlight lent some- 
 thing fantastical, almost malicious, to the two figures 
 as they went along, now swaying close together in the 
 deeper interests of their conversation, now drifting far 
 apart with the shock of recoil. 
 
 Mrs. Brauer, her narrow shoulders enveloped and 
 her thin arms folded tight together over a large blanket 
 shawl, carried her little shrunken body thrown well 
 back upon her hips and moved with the swinging de- 
 liberate gait of a very large woman. Miss Mix went 
 hurrying by her side on her short, fat legs, bouncing 
 away like a rubber ball whenever her somewhat un- 
 steady steps brought her in collision with her com- 
 panion. Their tongues wagged pleasantly in the mag- 
 ical moonlight ; the promise of the spring that had been 
 in the air all day had got in their veins too. It stirred 
 in their impoverished imaginations ; it gave new activ- 
 ity to their small intelligences. In the weird moonlight 
 the old tales and surmises about the under history of 
 Littel College, the scandals of the past and the mys- 
 teries of the present, assumed a new enchantment, made 
 new demands to be stirred up, repeated, rehabilitated. 
 
 And so, like well-intentioned witches (Miss Mix, 
 especially, being one of the kindest creatures in the 
 world) they wove their futile spells out of the web 
 of other lives, and brewed their pot of boiling gossip 
 over their crackling fire of talk. The red light which 
 shone out through unshuttered windows at the Dean's 
 corner added new fuel to the blaze. 
 
 " The Lawrences seem to be having company," re-
 
 12 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 marked Mrs. Brauer dryly as they came nearer and 
 nearer. 
 
 " Oh, no one but Stephen Dullas," said Miss Mix 
 officiously. " I saw him going up the street just about 
 tea time; and later, as I passed the Lawrences' on my 
 way to Patty Cochran's, I caught a glimpse of him 
 with Sylvia near the window." 
 
 " He is there everlastingly, isn't he ? " said the 
 other. " I'll be bound Mrs. Lawrence is glad to see it. 
 He would be a fine match for Sylvia. She has as good 
 an eye for the main chance as other people, for all she 
 gives herself such superior airs." 
 
 " She was always like that, even as a chit of a girl 
 when Tom first brought her here to be head of the 
 Dean's household in place of the old lady. Dear old 
 Mrs. Lawrence! She was gone before ever you came 
 here, Mrs. Brauer. It was a very different house in 
 those days. No such stiff, formal doings as there are 
 now. This having to ring at the bell and wait for the 
 servant-girl to open the door every time you drop in 
 on the way by. Open house and open heart, I say; 
 and you had only to look at the old lady to believe it. 
 The Dean has never been the same man since she was 
 taken. But I was always thankful she went before 
 Tom did. You never knew Tom Lawrence, Mrs. 
 Brauer. He was drowned trying to save the railroad 
 bridge when it was carried away by the high water in 
 '71, a year before your husband was called here. The 
 merriest, warmest-hearted fellow in the world, always 
 ready for a laugh and a joke, but I never could get on 
 with his wife, though I tried hard enough, goodness
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 13 
 
 knows, if only for Tom's sake. So anxious he was 
 for his old friends to make much of her. But she was 
 always stiff and offish, just as she is now, and as cold 
 as a stone." 
 
 " Perhaps it is just as well he died when he did," 
 Mrs. Brauer ventured tentatively, but Miss Mix did 
 not perceive the underlying malice of the suggestion. 
 
 " I don't know. They say all is for the best, but 
 it is hard to believe that of everything that happens 
 to us. Everybody loved him. I declare there wasn't 
 a dry eye in the town on the day of his funeral. Every- 
 body was pitying her, left a widow at twenty-two witK 
 two little fatherless babies. We all thought she never 
 would have lifted her head again. Well, I suppose she 
 considered it her duty to bear up for the sake of her 
 children, but I remember how it struck me the first 
 time I saw her in her widow's weeds. She was in the 
 Dean's garden. I don't suppose she expected any one 
 to come in upon her, but I thought afterward how 
 strange it was that she should be at work among her 
 flowers again as if nothing had happened. Before I 
 knew what I was about, the tears were streaming down 
 my cheeks, and I was sobbing like a child, for I loved 
 Tom Lawrence like a brother. And she standing there, 
 answering as calmly as if she were a stick or a stone! 
 I said then and I say now, I won't deny she does her 
 duty as she sees it, I won't say she hasn't been a good 
 mother to Tom's children, but you never can convince 
 me that any one has a warm heart who never shows it." 
 
 The other responded with an ill-concealed fleer. 
 " I know it is as much as one's soul is worth in this
 
 14 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 college to say the least thing in blame of Mrs. Law- 
 rence, but I must confess I can't understand how she 
 suits it with her conscience to neglect Patty Cochran 
 as she does. Coming a stranger as she did among us, 
 and such a sick woman as she has been all this year. 
 It is a lonely life at best, but it would have been far 
 worse for Patty if she had had to depend on Mrs. 
 Lawrence for neighborly kindness." 
 
 Miss Mix replied with some humor : " I am not so 
 sure that was entirely her fault. I don't believe Patty 
 ever made her very welcome. You see from the very 
 first Mrs. Lawrence was one of the people she couldn't 
 abide." 
 
 " And no wonder ! Do you remember the first 
 Sunday he brought her to church, and took us all by 
 surprise, he had been so sly and secret about it ? Even 
 the Dean was just as much surprised as any one else. 
 That I know from what he let fall afterward to Brauer. 
 And for all she carried it off with a high hand, it 
 must have been a fine come-down to Mrs. Lawrence. 
 You know there never was a day that he wasn't there 
 about the house, ' like a tame cat,' Brauer used to say. 
 And no reason why not, if he liked it. But the next 
 minute, without any warning, to see him walking up 
 the church steps with his wife on his arm! " 
 
 " Yes, poor Patty ! How daunted she looked with 
 all the new faces. I can see it as if it were yesterday." 
 
 " And Mrs. Lawrence came out afterward with 
 the boy and the girl, one on each side of her, and went 
 past Cochran and his wife as they stood in the porch 
 as if she didn't see them. But she came back when she
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 15 
 
 heard what every one was saying. ' Aren't you going 
 to present me to your wife, Wilfred? ' she said in that 
 high and lofty tone of hers, sweet enough to kill you, 
 calling him by his Christian name, too, right before 
 Patty's face. And as if that was not enough to set 
 any woman against her, what must she say next to 
 Patty herself, but ' I hope your husband has told you 
 what a good friend of his I am,' or something of that 
 sort. Poor Patty stood there not knowing what to 
 answer. I could have told my lady that wasn't the 
 wisest thing to say to a young bride. Patty Cochran 
 couldn't endure her from that moment, and I'm sure 
 I don't wonder." 
 
 " Patty has no call to complain," said Miss Mix 
 comfortably. " She is the one that got him. And for 
 my part I always had a sneaking suspicion that Kitty 
 Lawrence cared more for Cochran than she ever let on." 
 
 Mrs. Brauer replied sharply, " She lost him then, 
 while she was making up her mind." 
 
 " And it's women like Patty who are the ones to 
 stand by a man when he is down in the world, as Coch- 
 ran is now." 
 
 Mrs. Brauer assented, carried away straightway 
 into this new theme. " It is getting worse and worse, 
 Brauer tells me, in the college. Half the time he does 
 not know what he is doing in his recitation-room, and 
 at the last faculty meeting he was so evidently under 
 the influence of liquor that it was a shame the Dean did 
 not notice it." 
 
 By this time they had reached the Dean's corner 
 again and were hesitating whether to turn back or to
 
 16 IN THE HOUSE OF HER FRIENDS 
 
 continue their way on to their destination, when a third 
 shape came out into the moonlight of the Promenade, 
 emerging so suddenly from the deep shadow of the 
 big dormitory as to take the others quite by surprise, 
 till Miss Mix recognized the tall, thin figure in the 
 fluttering black cloak. 
 
 "Is that you, Nannie Chandler?" 
 
 " How do you do, Mrs. Brauer ? How are you, 
 Harriet ? " said the new-comer in a pleasant, hurried 
 voice. " I was on my way to see how Mrs. Cochran 
 was this evening. I hear she has been ill again, poor 
 woman ! Do you know anything about it ? " 
 
 Miss Mix wished no better than to produce all her 
 store of well-furnished knowledge on the subject. It 
 was some time before the little cluster under the elm 
 tree separated again into its component parts. The 
 white moonlight gave meantime a kind of grotesque 
 significance, a fluttering uncertainty, to their tenta- 
 tives toward departure, as if some unseen and hidden 
 force held them mysteriously together. Till the latest 
 comer disengaged herself with a swift, almost fugitive 
 movement which carried her quite across the strip of 
 road between the elm tree and the Dean's front door. 
 She did not stop, indeed, till she had reached the last of 
 the two low steps before the entrance, looking back then 
 only to wave good-by to her late companions ; but they 
 had already disappeared into the deep encroaching 
 shadow of the buildings beyond. 
 
 The door swung open lightly in her hand and she 
 entered with no lack of confidence, evidently, in the wel- 
 come that awaited her beyond.
 
 Ill 
 
 THE occupants of the spacious old drawing-room 
 were all so absorbed in their own affairs that 
 Mrs. Chandler stood for several minutes on the thresh- 
 old before any one perceived her. Sylvia sat in one 
 corner of the old-fashioned sofa with its high back 
 and broad, cushioned arm, Stephen quite at the other 
 end, a gay array of cards lying between them in 
 the complicated arrangement of the game they were 
 playing. 
 
 She was quivering and sparkling with the joy of 
 contest, the color deep in her cheeks like a wild rose, 
 and her eyes full of the liquid light of childhood, de- 
 lighted, evidently, because Stephen was getting the 
 worst of it. At the other end of the room a great, 
 long legged boy sprawled upon the rug preparing his 
 Greek lesson for the next day. In the circle of light 
 under the lamp stood a little work-table, and a chair 
 from which some one had evidently just risen, leaving 
 a mass of soft knitting behind. But other occupancy 
 of the room there was none, though the sound of voices 
 came through the open folding doors beyond a man's 
 voice chiefly, somewhat husky from old age, but still 
 beautiful in many of its notes. 
 
 Mrs. Chandler spoke herself at last. 
 17
 
 i8 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 " How do you do, Sylvia ? Where is your 
 mother?" 
 
 The two youths sprang to their feet, and Sylvia 
 cried : " Oh Mrs. Chandler, I can't get up ! If I do 
 I shall spill my cards. She is in the other room with 
 grandfather. Mamma ! " She raised her voice and 
 called aloud with scant ceremony. 
 
 The mistress of this pleasant, peaceful interior ap- 
 peared at her daughter's call in the opening between 
 the folding doors, and stood for a moment looking out 
 questioning, almost startled, as if she had been not 
 unconscious of the venemous foam of talk beating upon 
 her from outside, as if she were on guard against its 
 possible invasion of her remote tranquillity. But she 
 put away her little hostile manner and came forward 
 with a cordial smile when she recognized Mrs. Chand- 
 ler. 
 
 " O Nannie, is it you ? I might have known you 
 would have come drifting in with the first days of 
 spring, like a bird from the South." 
 
 Mrs. Chandler, with her extreme thinness, her long, 
 slender, aquiline nose, and wide-open eyes, set in dark, 
 arched hollows, and her fluttering black cloak, did not 
 look unlike a bird as she advanced farther into the 
 room at the other's bidding, with a certain hesitation, 
 however, as if she had come only to perch a moment 
 and then fly on. 
 
 " It is too late ! I really can't stay ; I was coming 
 by and saw that your curtains had not been drawn 
 oh, you haven't put them up again after the spring 
 cleaning. But I must run on."
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 19 
 
 " Oh, no. Stay a little while," said Katherine, tak- 
 ing up her knitting and sitting down in the circle of 
 lamplight again. " It isn't late." 
 
 In this little place of her very own, with her chil- 
 dren, and the youth who, loving her daughter, enclosed 
 her in the same circle of affectionate sentiment and 
 admiration, with her familiar friend, into whose inti- 
 macy she had come through long years while they had 
 sat together watching their children grow up, surely 
 she might put aside the grave, almost repellant reserve 
 which is often the only protection of natures too sen- 
 sitive, too fastidiously shrinking, to go quite unarmed 
 among their fellow-men, though she might have re- 
 membered that best friends often partake enough of the 
 nature of enemies to serve as hybrid links to conduct 
 shocks which might otherwise have missed their victim. 
 
 " I ought to have been at home long ago," hurriedly 
 continued Mrs. Chandler, " but I have been standing 
 under the trees at the corner talking to Harriet Mix 
 and that horrid little Mrs. Brauer, I don't know how 
 long. They were telling me " 
 
 " Have those two begun to walk up and down 
 again?" interrupted Katherine in a tone between 
 amusement and disgust. 
 
 " Yes. Well, they were saying " 
 
 " Oh, don't let us begin so soon about what they 
 were saying ! " cried the other almost pathetically. 
 
 " Dear me ! " exclaimed Mrs. Chandler, " you are 
 always so superior to a little harmless gossip." 
 
 " It is only an instinct against taking liberties with 
 other people's affairs which I should resent in my own."
 
 20 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 " My dear, we can't keep people from talking 
 about us." 
 
 " It is only an instinct. Considerations of that 
 kind would not be likely to affect it." 
 
 " Besides," went on the other, too full of the story 
 which had just been poured into her ears to be long 
 diverted from the pleasure of its discussion. " Besides, 
 I don't think you are quite fair in your judgment of 
 those two women. Mrs. Brauer, I admit, is a vene- 
 mous little toad. I should always suspect her of some 
 mean motive if I found her putting herself out for any 
 one. But Harriet Mix is the kindest-hearted, most 
 helpful creature in the world, dear old Dr. Mix's 
 daughter, and her mother was the salt of the earth. 
 She has her faults, as we all have. I know she is a 
 terrible mischief-maker and busybody when the occa- 
 sion offers itself, but where can you find a person more 
 ready to spend and be spent than Harriet is when 
 any one is in trouble ? For instance, which of us, Kitty, 
 would have sat up for two nights, as she has this last 
 week, with that poor woman, Mrs. Cochran, because 
 she was alone and there was no one else to do it? 
 I don't know about you, but I am sure I haven't been 
 once this winter even to ask how she was." 
 
 " I hardly know Mrs. Cochran," said Katherine 
 coldly, " and she has never shown any signs of want- 
 ing to know me any better. Even if I had known she 
 was ill, which I did not, I can't think of any way I 
 could have offered my services to her that she would 
 not have resented." 
 
 The other woman assented instantly.
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 21 
 
 " I know, I know ; she is perfectly impossible, and 
 it is ridiculous to pretend anything else. Mrs. Brauer, 
 for instance, with her airs of championship for a young, 
 neglected wife ! " 
 
 " You are so funny," said Katherine, with a hur- 
 ried change of subject, " with your extravagant prej- 
 udice against that poor woman. I rather like the 
 Brauers myself. They used to come here a good deal 
 at one time. He was very much interested in my port- 
 folio of French photographs, and I found him quite 
 touching in his belated love of art and his desire to 
 collect a library." 
 
 " Yes, my dear," said Mrs. Chandler, giggling, as 
 if suddenly amused by some thought that had occurred 
 to her, " I have no doubt you were very kind to them 
 both, but with that sort of people one is easily mis- 
 understood. In fact I happen to know that your man- 
 ner to her husband has given Mrs. Brauer a good deal 
 of uneasiness. She thought it too familiar to a mar- 
 ried man. Not that she thought you meant any- 
 thing by it really, or that she minded it herself, 
 she assured me, but she feared with people who 
 didn't know you well it would lay you open to criti- 
 cism." 
 
 " My manner to Mr. Brauer ! " echoed Katherine in 
 such wide amazement that they both began to laugh 
 involuntarily. But long before the other had ceased 
 to be amused, Katherine drew her shoulders together 
 with a shrinking gesture as if the whole subject had 
 become distasteful to her. 
 
 " How impossible it is to be prepared for what they
 
 22 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 will think of you ! " she said a little bitterly, as she took 
 up her knitting again. 
 
 " But, Kitty, I know you hate to talk about it," 
 continued Mrs. Chandler, drawing her chair nearer and 
 lowering her voice. The fumes of the pot that had 
 been boiling so hotly out in the moonlight over its little 
 fire of crackling thorns were still constraining her, 
 against her better judgment, in spite of discourage- 
 ment, to return to the college scandal that she knew 
 must be peculiarly unacceptable to any member of the 
 Dean's household, most unfit for discussion almost 
 within earshot of the Dean himself. 
 
 " I am not speaking merely for the sake of retail- 
 ing gossip. But don't you think we have some re- 
 sponsibility in this matter of the Cochrans. If all re- 
 ports are true I am not only taking what Harriet 
 Mix says he neglects her shamefully; she is most 
 unhappy. I suppose she deserves it. I suppose it is 
 no more than she might have expected." 
 
 Katherine was silent. The other continued, with a 
 sudden change of position. 
 
 " And after all what ever is going on there, how- 
 ever he treats her, I am a great deal sorrier for him 
 than for her. It has shut him entirely away from 
 his friends. No one ever sees him now except as he 
 goes to and fro to his recitation-room, unless it is you." 
 She turned suddenly upon Katherine, who answered 
 briefly, " Never," without looking up from her knit- 
 ting. 
 
 " All these reports are growing against him from 
 day to day. No one exactly accepts them, but nobody
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 23 
 
 denies them. It seems to me heartless that all his old 
 friends should dismiss it all as you do, as if you hadn't 
 the slightest interest in the matter." 
 
 " That is not true, I have an interest," said Kath- 
 erine faintly. With evident effort, after a moment she 
 resumed : " What good does it do to listen to the vul- 
 gar surmises and conjectures of people like Miss Mix 
 and Mrs. Brauer, who, however well-intentioned, must, 
 from the very bias of their minds, desecrate everything 
 they touch ? I know nothing, I can do nothing. What 
 is the use of talking about it? How can his friends 
 help him by making his misfortunes the subject of end- 
 less humiliating discussion ? " 
 
 " Oh, well, my dear," the other began in tones of 
 some impatience, when an indignant voice at the door 
 made them both look up. 
 
 " Mamma ! You here ! I have been all the way 
 to Miss Mix's to look for you." 
 
 It was Marjorie Chandler, a very pretty brunette 
 about Sylvia's age, with soft, amorous brown eyes, 
 strongly curling dark hair, and round red lips which 
 curved charmingly over brilliant teeth. Sylvia sprang 
 up to greet her friend. 
 
 Mrs. Chandler rose to her feet in a sort of comical 
 deprecation of her daughter's anger ; the Dean himself, 
 a notable figure, more than six feet tall, with a fine 
 head, and a shock of gray hair falling about his ears, 
 came out of the inner room at the sound of the new 
 arrival. 
 
 Marjorie was a great favorite of his and he turned 
 at once, with old-fashioned gallantry, to defend her
 
 24 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 from her mother, who, quickly recovering from the dis- 
 advantage of her own discovery in an apparent lapse 
 from duty, had begun to upbraid her. 
 
 " You naughty child ! Do you mean to say you 
 have been all the way down to Miss Mix's by yourself 
 at this time of night? " 
 
 Marjorie accorded the Dean one of her brilliant 
 smiles, but a veil of blankness descended over her soft 
 brown eyes as she turned them on her mother. 
 
 " I thought I should meet you every moment," she 
 said softly. 
 
 " Well, come along now. We must go at once. 
 Your father will be waiting to shut up the house," said 
 Mrs. Chandler, drawing her long black cloak around 
 her. " Oh, what a night ! " she cried as they all went 
 to the door with her. " Why not walk part of the 
 way back with us ? " 
 
 " Let us all go ! " cried Sylvia. " Look at the 
 moon; it is as big as the dome of the capital." 
 
 "Are you mad, young people?" said the Dean in 
 his rolling old voice. " Don't you know it is only 
 April and there is rheumatism in the air lying in wait 
 to catch the unwary ? " 
 
 " Only to the corner, sir," said his daughter-in-law 
 respectfully; but he would not risk the night damps 
 and went back to his study, shuffling a little in his 
 leathern slippers, and quite sure they were all sorry to 
 go off without him. 
 
 Marjorie at once slipped to Sylvia's side and put 
 her hand clingingly within her friend's arm. 
 
 " O Sylvia," she whispered, " I have seen him
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 25 
 
 again! He was still downstairs in the parlor at Miss 
 Mix's when I came in to look for mamma, and he 
 talked to me for quite a while." 
 
 " Did he? " cried Sylvia, much interested. " What 
 did he say ? " 
 
 " Oh, I can't tell you ! Nothing really much, you 
 know, but very nice. He has the most beautiful eyes 
 in the world. Don't you think so ? And he looked at 
 me all the time he was talking in the most peculiar 
 way. O Sylvia ! " She squeezed her friend's arm and 
 sighed ecstatically. 
 
 The moon was still filling everything with its misty 
 light and gave the effect of an incantation to the warm 
 young voice murmuring in Sylvia's ear. She felt 
 vaguely confused and excited. Something was going 
 on in the world all round her, in the very earth under 
 her feet. Her youth demanded that she should be a 
 part of it, else what good was there, what reason for 
 the beauty of the great pale moon and the brown, 
 fragrant earth, and for the little damp breeze blowing 
 from the woods and smelling of wild-flowers. Stephen 
 walked at her other side, but she was not in the habit 
 of considering him an especially illuminating person. 
 What he had for her just then was not at all what she 
 wanted ; it was too obvious, too simple, quite unadapted 
 to the faint flutterings and stirrings of her half- 
 awakened emotions, which had been aroused into vague 
 self-consciousness by the spring moonlight. She con- 
 tinued to turn him her shoulder and go on listening 
 to Marjorie. 
 
 At the corner they parted, Tom, not quite by his
 
 26 IN THE HOUSE OF HER FRIENDS 
 
 own intention, accompanying Mrs. Chandler and her 
 daughter the rest of their way home, Stephen to his 
 boarding-house, and Sylvia and her mother back to the 
 Dean's. Soon everything was silent and solitary again. 
 The moon rode now in the very heights of the heavens, 
 but her splendor had summoned the mists from all 
 quarters of the heavens. With long black veils and 
 streamers they began to pour themselves across her 
 face. For a time she could withstand them and shone 
 out gallantly again and again in all her earlier glory, 
 but as she passed the zenith of her power they more 
 and more encompassed her, and her setting was buried 
 in dense clouds.
 
 IV 
 
 IT was the regular Thursday meeting of the faculty 
 at Littel College and all the professors were as- 
 sembled in the treasurer's office, a large corner room in 
 the science building, smelling a little of the chemical 
 solution which preserved the biological specimens next 
 door. 
 
 On one side the windows looked out toward the 
 smooth campus of the main quadrangle with its fringe 
 of elms, still leafless, while all the other trees were 
 beginning to put on their spring foliage. In the other 
 direction the view was less extended, being shut in by 
 the back side of the chapel and the Dean's walled gar- 
 den, invisible from the road, but showing all its sun- 
 drenched, bright enclosure to any one who chose to 
 look across from the higher elevation of the science 
 building. 
 
 Wilfred Cochran sat leaning back in a chair by the 
 window, his long legs stretched out in front of him, 
 his head bent forward, one hand supporting his elbow 
 while the other deeply shaded his heavy eyes, ap- 
 parently entirely oblivious of what was going on about 
 him. If his colleagues looked at him at all it was 
 askance, with contemptuous or curious glances, as if 
 wondering how far he was himself this afternoon. Far 
 too much himself he would have answered, if he had 
 
 27
 
 28 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 spoken the thoughts that were devouring him ; far too 
 conscious of himself and all which that included. 
 
 Within the rim of his fingers he could see from 
 where he was sitting a brilliant picture, focussed sharp- 
 ly by the hollow shadow; held, as it were, within his 
 hand, yet far remote, almost magical, in its brightness 
 and perfection. In it he saw the figures of Mrs. Law- 
 rence, Sylvia, and Tom sitting among the flowers in 
 the Dean's garden. He could see Sylvia spring to her 
 feet and begin to flit about the walks, leaving Tom, his 
 flexible young back bent like a bow over his book, still 
 on the bench beside his mother. He watched the dis- 
 tant pantomime which told him how she was begging 
 her mother to come and see something she had dis- 
 covered among the box rows, how Katherine resisted, 
 hesitated, but finally was persuaded to rise from her 
 seat. Then he saw them both bend to examine some 
 small object among the sharp red flames of the tulips. 
 At last Katherine stood erect again and Sylvia, spring- 
 ing upon what was evidently some little plant which 
 had met with her disapproval, and for whose destruc- 
 tion she had gained consent, tore it up by the roots and 
 flung it over the wall. Tom at last strolled out into 
 the sun, evidently at his mother's bidding, and sprang 
 up with his hands on top of the gray wall to spy out 
 the result of Sylvia's lawless action. 
 
 There was no harm done for they all laughed a 
 little and then went back to their seats in the luminous 
 shade. It was nothing, nothing more than he himself 
 had seen and felt and lived through a thousand times 
 in those days when he still had the right to come and
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 29 
 
 go in that garden. Such a little time ago it had been 
 so easy. A few long strides among the gray college 
 buildings, his hand on the latch, his shoulder against 
 a stiffly moving gate, and it had all lain open for him, 
 with beloved eyes smiling a sure welcome at the end. 
 The road had grown no longer, the gate would move 
 no more grudgingly on its hinges, and she would al- 
 ways greet him kindly, compassionately, for Law- 
 rence's sake, if for nothing more. Apparently just the 
 same, but different as one of those troubled dreams 
 which, while preserving a semblance of delight, tor- 
 ture the dreamer with the underlying sense of loss and 
 desolation. It was gone from him forever; no hope 
 could flatter him with thoughts of restoration. For- 
 feited, plucked from him, rather, by an inexorable and 
 pursuing fate, sometime eluded, almost escaped, which 
 had at last outrun him. 
 
 With a half-suppressed groan he shut out the little 
 enchanted picture with his hand, and turned his face 
 upon the group inside the dusty room, still dark and 
 cheerless with the winter's chill. This weekly meeting 
 of the faculty was seldom a very friendly occasion, and 
 when Cochran finally brought his attention back to 
 his colleagues he was not surprised to find himself in 
 the midst of a heated, jangling argument. The Dean, 
 always a most informal and arbitrary chairman, looked 
 shaken and agitated. Directly opposite him sat the 
 little group of the opposition, headed by Merritt, the 
 professor of mathematics, a lean, sallow-faced man, 
 with reddish hair and a salient nose and chin. It was 
 he who was speaking when Cochran began to listen,
 
 30 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 and his insolent manner to the Dean made the other 
 man's blood boil and his wandering thoughts collect 
 themselves into a longing, whatever the subject under 
 discussion, to prove Merritt in the wrong. 
 
 " But the young man, my dear Merritt," the Dean 
 was saying. " Can't we stretch matters a little and 
 give the young man a chance ? " 
 
 It was one of his weaknesses, inherited no doubt 
 from an earlier less rigorous idea of education, to think 
 that any young man was of more importance than the 
 law and order of the college. 
 
 " Quite impossible ! Quite impossible ! " answered 
 Merritt in his strident voice. " He has a very poor 
 record ; besides, this special condition stands over from 
 his junior year." 
 
 The old Dean drew his brows together and looked 
 around him. " How does he stand with you, Chand- 
 ler? " he asked, at last, turning to a little well-brushed 
 gentleman near by, whose softly colored face, framed 
 in fine gray curls and whiskers, looked exquisitely well 
 bred and unofficial between the lean countenances of 
 the men on each side of him. 
 
 " Young Dullas," he said now gently. " Yes, yes, 
 yes. A charming fellow. Yes, with me he has done 
 very good work, very promising work." 
 
 A hardly disguised mutter and grin of contempt 
 and hard amusement went round the group, betraying 
 the small esteem in which his colleagues held Pro- 
 fessor Chandler's courses. 
 
 The Dean, however, raised his head with a sort of 
 mild triumph, till the harsh voice of the professor of
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 31 
 
 mathematics broke in again with ill-concealed impa- 
 tience. 
 
 " All this seems somewhat outside the question, 
 Dean. Whether the fellow has or has not done well 
 in one course does not alter the fact of this condition 
 in another, and until he has passed it off he is not eligi- 
 ble for a degree." 
 
 " A degree, a degree," said the Dean, made incau- 
 tious by his irritation. " But he must get a degree. 
 I promised his father as much when he sent him back 
 to try again." 
 
 There was a moment's horrified silence. The fac- 
 ulty conscience was outraged. Professor Merritt threw 
 himself back in his chair and whispered rudely to his 
 neighbor. 
 
 " At least," said the Dean, conscious too late of his 
 mistake, " Of course he must meet the requirements." 
 
 " But I say that he has not met the requirements," 
 answered Professor Merritt. 
 
 The Dean was annoyed and replied, rather crossly, 
 " Possibly not, possibly not, so far, at least ; but there 
 is no reason why he should not be helped to meet them. 
 Honorably, honorably, of course," he added testily. 
 Then, seeing a look of disapproval, of opposition, 
 flash from one face to another, he turned with a sort 
 of tacit appeal in his kind old eyes to where Cochran 
 was sitting, still silent, staring straight in front of him. 
 But he did not look up or show any sign of being 
 conscious of anything around him, and the Dean him- 
 self had to break the dead, unfriendly silence. 
 
 " Suppose the lad has that one condition about
 
 32 IN .THE HOUSE 
 
 which he can really claim a certain negligence on our 
 part in letting it run on so far without reminding him 
 of it. He stands very well in some of his work. Con- 
 sidering his perseverance and pluck in coming back for 
 a fifth year after all his class had left, to retrieve his 
 failure, to win a degree and please his father " 
 
 " A trustee of the college," muttered Merritt un- 
 pleasantly to his neighbor; but the Dean did not hear 
 him, and concluded, with all the charm and warmth of 
 his beautiful old voice bent to an appeal. 
 
 " It seems to me not impossible for us, working 
 together, to find some way " 
 
 But the magnetism and grace of manner, irresisti- 
 ble in its own place, fell fruitless before these unfriend- 
 ly men, who thought he was using his influence for 
 Stephen because he wished to curry favor with his 
 father, who was a rich man, with power among the 
 trustees. They never would have believed, they were 
 incapable of understanding, a certain quality of gen- 
 erous enthusiasm which, while not utterly indifferent 
 to the material advantages and consequences of an ac- 
 tion, glorifies it with a sort of fine optimism and raises 
 it far above mere mercenary calculation. 
 
 But here Cochran's voice broke in so unexpectedly 
 among them that it was several seconds before any of 
 them understood what he was saying. 
 
 " Why, I thought he was drunk," whispered Pro- 
 fessor Merritt, with a half-sneer, to his companion ; but 
 he broke off in a hurry to answer the question sud- 
 denly directed against him. 
 
 " I didn't know you were teaching physics, Mer-
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 33 
 
 ritt. I did not know physics was one of your subjects 
 this year." 
 
 " It isn't," stammered Merritt in some surprise. 
 
 " I thought not. That is what puzzled me at first 
 to hear you talking about Dullas's condition as if it 
 were your own affair. I see now you were just stand- 
 ing by and lending a hand to Brauer to protect him 
 from being come down on for an extra examination." 
 
 He spoke with a bravado of good fellowship which 
 neither Merritt nor Brauer knew how to resent. To 
 the others it came as a relief after the long jangle which 
 was prolonging the meeting far beyond its usual length, 
 and they frankly showed their amusement at the in- 
 sinuation of the real reason of Brauer's unwillingness 
 to oblige the Dean the laziness of that gentleman in 
 his department being quite well known in Littel Col- 
 lege. 
 
 Mr. Brauer, a large, slow-moving, middle-aged 
 man, with a square brown beard and a fat face, re- 
 plied at last somewhat pompously in a mellow, pleasant 
 voice, spoiled by a pretentious accent : 
 
 " I shan't refuse him the examination if he asks 
 for it, but it will be a mere waste of time. He didn't 
 know anything about the subject when he finished it, 
 and that was two years ago." 
 
 " Time enough for him to forget what he didn't 
 know," remarked a flippant voice from the other end 
 of the room. 
 
 " Why don't you hand him over to a tutor? " Coch- 
 ran continued. " Some man who knows the course 
 and what will be expected of him. That nephew of
 
 34 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 yours, Brauer, might turn another honest penny out 
 of it. He is doing a good work in that way already, 
 I believe, with the juniors." 
 
 Professor Brauer, who had been rocking gently to 
 and fro on two legs of his chair, looking very smug 
 and pompous in his character of faithful upholder of 
 the college laws, gradually allowed himself to settle 
 firmly on the ground and to say that the matter might 
 possibly be arranged in some such way. 
 
 " Well now, well now, very good, very good," said 
 the Dean with great satisfaction. " Shall we call it 
 settled? I shall speak myself to that young nephew 
 of yours, Brauer ; put him on his mettle. He is a very 
 promising fellow, I understand, in your department, 
 isn't he, Cochran? We must keep our eye on him. 
 He has his way to make." 
 
 " Immoral old cuss ! " soliloquized the young tutor 
 whose blue eyes had such an effect on Marjorie Chand- 
 ler's imagination. 
 
 But Cochran cut in hastily with a motion for ad- 
 journment before the Dean could further entangle him- 
 self. 
 
 The assembly, thus suddenly restored to the safe 
 and narrow ways of parliamentary usage, quickly made 
 use of them to dismiss itself. 
 
 " I am very grateful to you, Brauer," said Dr. 
 Lawrence, turning to the professor with the gracious 
 manner which the other knew so ill how to receive. 
 " In fact I take this from you as a special favor. I 
 have a personal interest in the young man for his 
 father's sake ; it would have greatly annoyed me at this
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 35 
 
 late day if anything had happened to prevent him from 
 taking his degree." 
 
 He glanced across to where Cochran stood upon the 
 steps, as if he would have liked to speak to him too, 
 but the other kept his face turned away, avoiding the 
 chance of meeting his eye; so after a moment, with 
 his usual courtly bow and " Good evening, gentlemen," 
 he joined Professor Chandler, who was waiting for 
 him below, and the two went slowly off together down 
 the path toward the chapel, the Dean towering above 
 his little companion, his loose cloak lending a sort of 
 amplitude to his slender old figure, his fine head bent 
 forward looking on the ground. 
 
 Merritt shrugged his shoulders and turned to 
 Brauer. 
 
 " He seems to think it is quite settled, doesn't he, 
 after he has once mentioned his personal interest in 
 the matter? Well, I suppose with men trained under 
 his uncle that is the way he would have carried it, but 
 I guess he is beginning to find that this faculty is made 
 of different stuff." 
 
 " He can hardly fail to feel it so," remarked Coch- 
 ran, who had been listening. " I don't see any men 
 among us who take the place Constable did in botany, 
 for instance, or who equal the scholarship of Curtis and 
 Lewis, let us say. We are just a lot of fellows, well 
 trained, perhaps, in our special subjects, moving along 
 the line of preferment which takes us for the time to 
 this small college on our way to more important posi- 
 tions, if we can get them." He laughed a little scorn- 
 fully. " Of course we are devoted to the college while
 
 36 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 we are in it. Our only hope of advancement, in fact, 
 is by keeping it in line with the others, because connec- 
 tion with a second-class institution injures our own 
 chances of advancement." 
 
 If there had not been such mordant scorn in the 
 manner of this speech the matter might have gone un- 
 challenged ; but " Oh, come now, Cochran," said one 
 of the group who still stood on the office steps, " you 
 needn't take such a high and mighty tone about it ! " 
 
 It was the head of the classical department who 
 spoke, a pleasant-looking man with rather rigid feat- 
 ures, light, curly hair, growing scanty on the temples, 
 and bright, cold blue eyes. " You know there is such 
 a thing as law and a standard. If the dear old Dean 
 had his way the degree conferred by Littel College 
 would be no better than the paper it is written on. I 
 got mine from here and I propose to keep up its value." 
 
 Cochran turned upon him with a face like a thunder- 
 cloud. " My dear fellow, I can perfectly see that to 
 a man of your calibre the value of your degree is of 
 the greatest importance, and I should advise you to 
 keep it up as high as possible by all means in your 
 power. As for you, Brauer," he bent his gaze suddenly 
 on the professor of physics, who was beginning to 
 make his way ponderously down the steps, " as for you, 
 and this matter of Stephen Dullas's condition, the Dean 
 thanks you because it all lies in your hands. Of course, 
 you can give the boy a paper that no man can pass, 
 and just as much of course you can give him one that 
 no man could fail in. Now I would advise you not 
 to let the private spite of another man influence you
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 37 
 
 in this matter, and if the Dean chooses to take your 
 leniency as a personal favor, why in God's name do a 
 personal favor to a man old enough to be your father, 
 who, in the natural course of things, won't have many 
 more to ask you. Good Heavens, what a hurry you are 
 in some of you " He cast an ominous glance at 
 the retreating figure of the professor of mathematics, 
 who, in his haste for the supper his wife was keeping 
 hot for him, was already out of ear-shot. " What a 
 hurry you are in to fill a dead man's shoes, and how 
 little fit any of you are to do it ! " 
 
 He was already some distance on his way home 
 before Brauer could open his mouth to reply or Brown- 
 ell had begun to realize that he had been insulted. 
 
 It was so like Cochran to flout them in the face of 
 all they knew about him, to challenge their motives and 
 conduct when any one of them could have turned upon 
 him with retorts so obvious as to be almost banal; to 
 sneer at their hard-working incapacity, when any gift 
 of his which might have made him their superior lay 
 in the dust at their very feet. There was something 
 so daring, so insolent about it that it struck them with 
 a sort of unwilling admiration. So Brownell con- 
 tented himself with saying, " By Jove," though his 
 blond face grew rather red, and the others only laughed 
 a little and started off peaceably in different directions 
 to supper that simple evening meal which was still 
 universal in Littelton.
 
 THE Dean felt himself suddenly unusually de- 
 pressed as he sat down opposite his daughter- 
 in-law at the pretty, old mahogany table, shining with 
 silver and glass. He noticed with a sort of querulous 
 discontent that Sylvia's place was empty. Where was 
 the child? 
 
 " Taking supper with the Chandlers," said her 
 mother. 
 
 He leaned back in his chair and sank into a trance 
 of meditation, his fingers tapping the table in front of 
 him, his heavy brows knit, his lips pushed out and 
 drawn together in a sort of pout, apparently quite un- 
 conscious that every one was waiting his attention be- 
 fore the meal could begin. 
 
 " Won't you say grace, sir," said Katherine at last, 
 with a little effort over the inherent shyness which is 
 so apt to reassert itself in any prolonged silence. She 
 would rather not have spoken at all, but Tom's en- 
 treating looks, cast toward where she sat behind the 
 tea-urn, as well as the decorously concealed impatience 
 of the white-aproned servant at her side, at last com- 
 bined to overcome her diffidence. 
 
 The Dean started. 
 
 " Yes ; oh, yes, of course," but he sank immediately 
 afterward into renewed abstraction, hardly noticing the 
 
 38
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF HER FRIENDS 39 
 
 dishes that were passed to him, and forgetting to drink 
 his tea till it was cold. 
 
 Tom, however, made all the haste that was con- 
 sistent with decency and a good appetite. He was only 
 a Freshman at Littel College, but his class had done 
 him the honor of entrusting him with office. He was 
 the kind of youth who took his responsibilities very 
 seriously and he deeply felt the importance of the busi- 
 ness awaiting him this evening. He had been already 
 suffering from the fear of being late, and the moment 
 they rose from table he was preparing to take a hur- 
 ried departure when he stopped aghast on hearing his 
 grandfather speak to him. 
 
 " Halloo! Where are you going so fast, my boy? 
 Down-town ? Just wait a moment, I want you to post 
 a letter for me." He went toward his study table. 
 
 Tom stood stock-still, not saying a word, but gaz- 
 ing at his mother in dumb entreaty. His grandfather, 
 noticing his silence, looked back quickly. 
 
 "Well?" said he. 
 
 " Can't Molly take it ? " muttered Tom in gruff 
 embarrassment. 
 
 The Dean turned upon him with a sudden burst of 
 irritation. 
 
 " Molly? No ! " he exclaimed. " If I had wanted 
 one of the servants I should have called her in the first 
 place. But that is always the way; a great, strong 
 fellow like you about the house, never willing to do 
 anything for anybody, always trying to shirk any ser- 
 vice that is asked you, to put it on some woman. No, 
 sir, don't wait," as Tom silently and with downcast
 
 40 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 eyes laid aside his cap and dropped himself into one 
 of the chairs in the study, preparing to assuage his 
 impatience with a little brown book he found at hand 
 upon the table. 
 
 " Do you hear me ? I don't want you to wait. Go 
 about your business. I can't stand ungracious service. 
 I shall take the letter down myself when it is finished." 
 
 " Tom is quite willing to do anything for you, sir, 
 that is necessary, I am sure," Katherine broke in depre- 
 catingly between them, " but it is Thursday night, you 
 know, and there is the Freshman meeting " 
 
 " Oh, if there is any good reason, that makes it a 
 very different matter," said the Dean, quickly mollified. 
 " It is all right, boy. I am sorry I was so short with 
 you. Cut along, cut along." 
 
 Though before Tom could disappear, he burst out 
 again with an aftermath of indignation. 
 
 " But why didn't you say it out frankly as your 
 father would have done, instead of scowling and hang- 
 ing your head like a surly dog? " 
 
 Tom disappeared without a word. 
 
 " I hate an ungracious manner," continued the 
 old man, grumbling, half to himself, half to his 
 daughter-in-law, who had followed him into his study 
 and was trimming his lamp and arranging the ma- 
 terials on his table. " I am sure I don't know where 
 he gets it. It is quite different from his father at his 
 age. My son would have run his legs off for any one 
 at the slightest word, and never stopped to ask if it 
 was necessary." 
 
 " Tom hasn't the gift of expression," said Mrs.
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 41 
 
 Lawrence gently. " I am quite sure he is as ready to 
 help you as his father would have been, but he doesn't 
 know how to say so." 
 
 " Oh, I suppose so, I suppose so," said the Dean, 
 letting himself down heavily into his study chair, so 
 that the screw on which it turned groaned with his 
 weight, and beginning to fumble with his knotty, 
 bloodless old fingers among the pens and papers. 
 
 " It is like all the young fellows, now a days, al- 
 ways wanting to do everything their own way ; no such 
 thing as unquestioning obedience." 
 
 His daughter stood looking at him gravely, anx- 
 iously, and then with a sort of wistful intensity which 
 brought out all the underlying sadness in her calm 
 young face. She understood too well to resent his 
 causeless burst of irritation against young Tom, and 
 she was too unused to considering her own sensations 
 to be more than dimly conscious how unreasonably she 
 was hurt by it. She was absorbed in a poignant sym- 
 pathy, almost anguish, for the old man, used to com- 
 mand, used to preeminence, whose power was slipping 
 away from him that was inevitable, with his advan- 
 cing years but whose decay was every day made more 
 painfully evident to himself by the unfriendly criticism 
 and opposition of men who should have been his co- 
 workers ; men his inferiors still in genius and generous 
 forces, but strong and pitiless in their youth and the 
 understanding of a generation which had left him be- 
 hind. 
 
 He finished his letter with his usual vigorous, pict- 
 uresque signature.
 
 42 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 " What is the date? " he said, raising his massive 
 old head. " May 3d." He fell into a fit of musing. 
 " My son Tom's birthday. He would have been let 
 me see, six from seven are forty-one. Heigh-ho I 
 wonder " 
 
 It was not so much a question as a cry of regret 
 and need, the dropping of the cloak which covered 
 from every one, himself most of all, the wounds which 
 daily humiliated his pride. Then his vain old spirit 
 quickly caught his disguises around him again. When 
 he looked up and saw his daughter's eyes full of 
 tears, he never dreamed that it was for him they were 
 shed. 
 
 " Forgive me, my dear. I ought not to have re- 
 minded you." 
 
 She smiled faintly and shook her head. 
 
 " You must be very tired. It was a very long 
 faculty meeting; I thought it would never end. Was 
 Professor Merritt making himself more than usually 
 disagreeable ? " 
 
 This remark was provocative and brought forth its 
 customary reply. 
 
 " My dear, you misjudge him," said the Dean, lay- 
 ing himself down very carefully on his long leathern 
 sofa ; " he has an unpleasant manner, I grant, and he 
 was rather offensive to-day, I own ; unintentionally so, 
 unintentionally, I am sure, in his desire that I should 
 account for the expenditure of your Aunt Sarah's leg- 
 acy to the college. You know there was great infor- 
 mality in the way it was left us. Upon my word," 
 said the old Dean, with a sudden burst of indignation,
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 43 
 
 " they couldn't have been more insulting if they thought 
 I had stolen it." 
 
 " But I don't see how even Professor Merritt can 
 think he has anything to do with the finances of the 
 college," answered Katherine with ironic gentleness. 
 
 " Well, you see, some of the trustees have been 
 talking imprudently, and this fellow has got wind of 
 the proposed cut in the salaries. Of course there is 
 nothing yet decided. I, myself, am strongly opposed 
 to it. But something must be done to bring down the 
 expenses. The college is falling behind every year. 
 We feel the competition of the large universities even 
 in the attitude of the alumni. They are more and more 
 transferring their interests and sending their sons and 
 leaving their money to Harvard and Yale. It is a pity, 
 a great pity," concluded the old man with a touch of 
 melancholy, " for there is much to be said in favor of 
 a small college." 
 
 " This has never been a small college," said Kath- 
 erine with soft pride. " In numbers, perhaps, but the 
 men who served it have been great and had great aims." 
 
 The Dean was pleased. 
 
 " Yes, my dear, there is a great deal of truth in 
 what you say. When I think of Lewis, unapproach- 
 able in his subject, to whom any place was open, con- 
 tent to spend the prime of his life here among his 
 boys and Curtis." The Dean told over the old names 
 one by one. 
 
 " What scholarship ! What rare and gifted intel- 
 ligence, and, my dear Kitty, what character! It is 
 there I feel that the men of the present age are lacking.
 
 44 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 There is a hardness and coldness, a mercenary spirit, 
 a lack of generous fire and enthusiasm. Perhaps it is 
 because I don't understand them." 
 
 His mind went back to the long, quarrelsome meet- 
 ing of the afternoon. 
 
 " And then, you know, dear doctor," said his 
 daughter-in-law, a little mischief showing through her 
 seriousness, " even in those old times, under your 
 uncle, I have heard that his faculty did not always 
 let him do as he wanted." 
 
 " Ah, yes ! " said the old man with sudden energy, 
 " but those were battles of Titans. I remember once 
 I had just been appointed to my professorship there 
 arose a point of difference between my uncle and Dr. 
 Welling. I have forgotten the subject. We young 
 fellows held our breath and listened. Such eloquence, 
 such acumen, such keenness of argument, and such 
 courtesy ! Never ruffled for a moment, though the dis- 
 cussion was not without warm feeling on both sides. 
 But any of those men would have given their lives for 
 the college, and their last hour of service to my uncle, 
 without stopping to weigh the cost. Ah ! " he sighed, 
 " I suppose it is my own fault that I have not been 
 able to win the same support." 
 
 " No," said Katherine, " it is only that you have 
 fallen upon different days. Those older men gave 
 these men want to gain distinction in their service of 
 you and the college." 
 
 "Ah, well! Ah, well! We won't judge them 
 harshly," said the Dean with kindly optimism. " Some 
 of them are men whose education meant the most stren-
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 45 
 
 uous self-denial, a constant struggle with small means 
 and poor opportunities. Look at Brauer, for instance, 
 a farmer's lad, who himself supplemented the defi- 
 ciencies of the country school. And Merritt, the son 
 of a saloon-keeper at Statesburg, whose cleverness won 
 him a scholarship at Yale. They must have their en- 
 thusiasms. They must have their ideals, if one could 
 get at them. But Cochran managed them better than 
 I did this afternoon," he concluded with a burst of 
 frankness. " There was a question about the fitness of 
 one of the young men Stephen Dullas, my dear for 
 final degrees. It was a small point in itself, but a 
 great deal was made of it. I own I found myself en- 
 tirely at a disadvantage among them. They had jus- 
 tice on their side, technically," the Dean admitted; 
 " yes, technically, they always do have a certain jus- 
 tice; but Cochran can understand that there are things 
 beyond technical justice. But he is young, he is one 
 of them. He knows where to find them as I do not. 
 It was all perfectly simple afterward." 
 
 " Then he was there ? " said Katherine very low. 
 
 The Dean nodded. 
 
 " Yes. I did not speak to him. He did not seem 
 to desire it. I left him talking to the other men on 
 the steps." 
 
 There was a pause of a few moments till the Dean 
 began again in a different tone of voice. 
 
 " How your husband loved him, Kitty ! How 
 he watched over him! It seems strange that all 
 that care and devotion should have been utterly in 
 vain."
 
 46 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 Katherine was silent and the Dean went on, half 
 to himself. 
 
 " Sometimes I wonder whether I did all I could in 
 that matter." 
 
 " He himself thought so," murmured Katherine 
 half-involuntarily. 
 
 " Yes, yes, in the past. Perhaps I did, but I mean 
 this last. I sometimes think that if Tom had been 
 alive he would have managed better. The woman was 
 evidently venal, she might have been bought off. But 
 I never quite understood. She and her father evidently 
 thought they had some prior claim on him. It was 
 certainly a marriage, and I could find out nothing to 
 show she was not a perfectly reputable person. I made 
 it very clear how little she could gain by it, but she 
 was dazzled by what she seemed to consider an advance 
 in social position. And then I believe she was at- 
 tached to him after a fashion." 
 
 Katherine put her hand over her eyes and held it 
 clasped across her brows as the Dean went on talking. 
 
 " Cochran himself was a difficulty. You know he 
 was always capable of acts of quixotic extravagance. 
 He seemed to feel it was the price he must pay for his 
 fall. If I had known, however," said the Dean, ram- 
 bling on, " if I could have foreseen. He was not fit 
 then to judge for himself. The price was too great. 
 He ought not to have been allowed to pay it. Ah, Kitty, 
 what a noble nature, but how pitiably alloyed! And 
 yet in his deepest falls he always preserved a chastity 
 of spirit. The soul remained clean, however low it was 
 dragged by the body. And even now, when he gives
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 47 
 
 himself a chance, the fire flashes up again as bright 
 as ever, untainted by the dross it feeds on. But when 
 I think of him as he was, such a little time ago, his 
 powerful, gifted mind too intolerant and impatient of 
 slow stupidity, perhaps, and yet so gentle and tender 
 with those he loved; his graceful, vivid fancy; his 
 charm of manner ; all this, and then to see him as he is 
 now ! Ah, Kitty, what a wreck ! what a wreck ! " 
 
 He fell silent. When Katherine at last looked up, 
 with a certain effort, she saw him rapt in anxious 
 thought. For a moment she did not interrupt his 
 musing ; then, hearing him sigh : 
 
 " Shall I read to you, sir ? " she said, and took up 
 the book that lay open on her knee. 
 
 In a very little while his regular breathing showed 
 that he had fallen asleep, but she did not move or try 
 to occupy herself otherwise. She sat very quiet, the 
 book lying idle in her lap, her hands clasped above it, 
 sunk in profound and melancholy revery.
 
 VI 
 
 A VOICE came to her softly from the darkened 
 outer room. " Mamma ! " It was Sylvia, 
 come home from her party, pausing now on the outer 
 threshold with her usual cry, the insistent demand for 
 welcome after the shortest absence. 
 
 Katherine put aside her book and went out to meet 
 her. 
 
 " Hush ! You will wake your grandfather. Did 
 you have a nice time? " 
 
 " Well, let us stay out here, then," said Sylvia, 
 drawing her mother down upon a seat in the hall and 
 taking her place on the last curved step of the stairs 
 at her feet. 
 
 " I want to tell you about it. Oh, yes, we had a 
 very nice time, at least I did! Do you know, dear, 
 I was very amusing? That young Mr. Field was there 
 the new tutor whose eyes Marjorie thinks so beauti- 
 ful and I talked, I am afraid I talked a great deal; 
 but they all laughed and encouraged me, and I felt 
 that I was appearing to advantage," she concluded 
 quaintly. 
 
 " I sincerely hope you were," replied her mother 
 a little cruelly; " but I am afraid you were being very 
 silly and imprudent." 
 
 4 8
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF HER FRIENDS 49 
 
 " Probably I was, but one has to be a little silly to 
 be amusing, and I shall try to forget my imprudences, 
 so as not to worry over them. That is the trouble of 
 having a nice time; it always leaves you so much to 
 repent of. The kind of life I should choose, the kind 
 of life I should like to live, is where everything comes 
 so fast that there is no time to think about it, and 
 consider it, and wonder how one could have done dif- 
 ferently. Here one thing follows the other so slowly 
 that it leaves too much time for reprisals no, that 
 isn't the word." 
 
 " I am afraid that is the word," said her mother 
 laughing a little. 
 
 " Reflection is what I really meant," concluded 
 Sylvia with dignity. Then, with an abrupt change of 
 subject, she continued: 
 
 " Well, what did you do while I was away ? " 
 
 " Let me see," said her mother, sitting with one 
 elbow on the back of her chair, her head supported 
 against her hand, while she looked down sideways and 
 smiling at Sylvia on the step at her feet. " After you 
 went " she mused a moment ; " I stopped in the 
 kitchen, on my way from the garden, to speak to Liz- 
 zie, and before I could get upstairs Stephen came 
 with a great armful of apple-blossoms." 
 
 " He could never have got them himself," cried 
 Sylvia unkindly ; " he is too lazy." 
 
 " Perhaps not, but he brought them himself," re- 
 marked her mother, " and stayed while I was arrang- 
 ing them. You will see them to-morrow in the parlor ; 
 they look very pretty. Then it was time to get ready
 
 50 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 for tea, and Tom and I waited and waited for your 
 grandfather, who was very late and very tired. After 
 tea he lay on the sofa and I read him to sleep. That 
 is all, I think." 
 
 " Was Stephen sorry I wasn't there? " asked Syl- 
 via with naivete. 
 
 " He bore it very well," answered her mother, her 
 smile becoming more amused. 
 
 But Sylvia's high spirits had begun to evaporate. 
 She sat silent a few moments, and when she spoke 
 again her mood had entirely changed. 
 
 "Oh, lam sobered!" 
 
 Katherine echoed the word with some surprise. 
 
 " Why, just now you were very much amused." 
 
 " Oh, yes, that ! But I mean really. When am I 
 going to grow up and go away from here and have 
 things happen to me? " 
 
 " Things may happen to you here," said Katherine 
 with a grave smile. 
 
 " No," cried Sylvia extravagantly, " nothing ever 
 happens here ! I have lived here all my life long, and 
 nothing has ever happened either to me or any one 
 else." 
 
 Katherine broke into a little cry of somewhat pain- 
 ful amusement. 
 
 " You are very absurd ! " she said reprovingly. 
 " What do you know about it ? At least as far as other 
 people are concerned? You, of course, have led what 
 may be called an uneventful life, but then you are still 
 very young." 
 
 " Not as young as you were, mamma," rejoined
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 51 
 
 Sylvia plaintively. " Just think of all the things you 
 had seen and known, long before you were my age; 
 all those amusing years in Paris with grandmother and 
 Aunt Ruth, and the clever, exciting people you met 
 and then, papa," she concluded in a lower voice. 
 
 " Yes," said Katherine with a sort of wonder, 
 " when I was no older than you I was already married 
 to your father, and had come here to live, and was 
 thinking of you," looking down at her little daughter 
 with sudden tenderness. 
 
 Sylvia caught her mother's hand, which was hang- 
 ing straight beside her, and pressed it against her 
 cheek. They both sat silent a few minutes, Mrs. Law- 
 rence gazing musingly in front of her, Sylvia watching 
 her more and more wistfully. 
 
 " Mamma, dear," she began again abruptly, " what 
 is it about your eyes sometimes that makes me want to 
 cry ? Are you sad ? " 
 
 " My eyes always looked sad, even when I was a 
 child," said Katherine, recalled from her own thoughts, 
 and smiling a little dimly. " It is something in their 
 shape and the way they are set. Yours, on the con- 
 trary, always laugh." 
 
 " I don't want them to laugh," cried Sylvia. " It 
 will make everybody think I can never be unhappy." 
 
 " Poor baby," said her mother, not very seriously, 
 " are you unhappy, now ? " 
 
 Sylvia nodded. 
 
 "And why?" 
 
 " I want something," she whispered with a rest- 
 less sigh. " I don't know exactly what, but I think
 
 52 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 it is sorrow. Don't say you hope I shan't have any. 
 That is what people always do when they have had a 
 great deal themselves. And yet you wouldn't have 
 wished yours away, would you ? " 
 
 " No," said Katherine, and caught her breath as 
 if she would have recalled the word as soon as she had 
 spoken it. Then she went on more seriously, though 
 still smiling a little into Sylvia's upturned face. 
 
 " I shan't wish yours away from you, Sylvia ; it 
 will come some day, in its own time; but you know 
 one of the things about sorrow is that it always comes 
 from the direction you would rather not." 
 
 " The thing one would rather not," said Sylvia 
 meditatively. " Well, I don't care ! " Her mind went 
 roving, with a kind of daring, among various possibili- 
 ties. " If only you don't die, dear mamma," she con- 
 cluded suddenly. " Please, don't ! " She buried her 
 face in her mother's lap. 
 
 " You little goose," said Katherine, laughing, and 
 laying her hand lightly on her daughter's hair. " I 
 think it must be time for you to go to bed." 
 
 " I am glad you belong to me ! I am glad you are 
 all mine ! " cried Sylvia, springing to her feet and press- 
 ing her cheek against her mother's, with something of 
 the gesture of an affectionate kitten, as she said good- 
 night. 
 
 All hers? So she believed, and Katherine did not 
 contradict her, though the smile which followed her 
 as she ran upstairs grew fainter through the pang of 
 the half-untruth. For what was there of Sylvia's in 
 that little heap of letters, such a tiny heap indeed that
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 53 
 
 they could be entirely covered by a man's two hands, 
 as they lay before Wilfred Cochran on his study table, 
 though their dates reached back for many years, all 
 the years while Sylvia was growing up and turning 
 from a child to a woman? Nothing there which be- 
 longed to her, nothing that was not all his, all that 
 was left him now of a much greater treasure. 
 
 He took one letter from among the last of the little 
 heap before him, drew it from its envelope and read 
 again the familiar words, little, cold words, formed 
 smoothly and gracefully, in her pretty, legible hand- 
 writing. " Thank you for the book. I found it when 
 I came home this afternoon. I was especially glad, 
 because it told me you were back again. I missed you." 
 
 He opened another and felt a pang as he remem- 
 bered his happiness when he saw for the first time the 
 words, " Dear Wilfred." Then came one, " Wilfred, 
 dear, you are very good never to reproach me for be- 
 ing cold to you. Is it because you know when I say 
 nothing, and you say so much, that I am not silent 
 from coldness? I think I am shy, dear. I have 
 thoughts in my heart for you, thoughts you would like 
 to hear, but when I try to say them, something keeps 
 them back. Even now, when I am alone and you are 
 far away, I feel my heart beat and my breath grow 
 short while I am only writing ' Wilfred, dear, I love 
 you.' " 
 
 The paper dropped from his hands, and for a few 
 moments he sat immovable, staring widely in front of 
 him. This was what he had got, the slow consent, 
 after years of patient and devoted wooing; the difficult
 
 54 
 
 surrender of a shy, proud nature, to whom expression 
 came as a sort of anguish. And how had he re- 
 warded it ? 
 
 In the height of his confidence, without warning, 
 almost without a struggle, his hidden enemy had seized 
 him by the throat and overcome him. In the first 
 madness of defeat nothing had seemed left to him but 
 instant flight, escape, concealment ; and then, he hardly 
 knew how, by the dim influence of half-effaced asso- 
 ciation, he had been led to a little place where long ago, 
 when he was a cadet at West Point, he had gone in a 
 moment of like extremity, in the indulgence of the 
 weakness which had ruined his career, which had 
 stripped him of his first-class honors, and left him at 
 last to begin the world over again, with damaged fort- 
 unes. There had been a woman there then, a girl 
 his own age, who had been kind to him. She was there 
 still. 
 
 When he came to his senses he found her beside 
 him, bound to him. He took up the last of the little 
 pile of letters. 
 
 " Dear Wilfred," it ran, " I understand and I for- 
 give you. Please be good." 
 
 " Forgive me ! Oh, forgive me ! " he said, with 
 the bit of stained and rumpled paper close against his 
 lips, " for there is no good in me any more."
 
 VII 
 
 KATHERINE was very busy in the Dean's garden, 
 setting out a box of plants which had just come 
 from the nurseries, when Stephen Dullas opened the 
 gate. 
 
 " May I come in ? " he asked with decent hesita- 
 tion. 
 
 She smiled at him kindly from under her shady 
 garden hat. " If you don't mind my going on with 
 what I am doing. They ought to have been put in this 
 morning, and they will be spoiled if they wait any 
 longer." 
 
 He closed the gate behind him at once and came 
 to stand beside her as she worked, following her from 
 place to place, ministering to her wants with mechan- 
 ical officiousness when she made demands upon him 
 for watering-pot or garden tools. She was always sur- 
 prisingly patient with him, no matter how often he 
 came or how much of her time he wasted. She was 
 at ease with him, sure of his affection, and touched, 
 perhaps, more than she knew, by the sweetness of his 
 vicarious love-making, for he came to her with all the 
 more serious part of his sentiment for Sylvia, a per- 
 fected Sylvia, gentler, more human, less elusive, to 
 whom he could pour out his mind with no danger of 
 being laughed at. 
 
 55
 
 56 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 But just now she was too absorbed in her own oc- 
 cupation to give him more than a perfunctory atten- 
 tion. She had on a rough pair of gauntleted gloves, 
 and with her trowel she was digging deep holes in 
 the earth, which she filled with water from a great 
 green can, till they looked like a mud pie. Then she 
 took a plant from her basket, turned it upside down 
 with a skilful tap of her trowel against the sides of its 
 pot, and out it dropped into the hand ready for it, a 
 little compact bunch of earth enveloped in white roots. 
 These roots Katherine pulled apart and shook out, and 
 then plunged the whole plant into the place prepared 
 for it, pressing down the oozy earth with her fingers, 
 and, after a new baptism of water, covering it with a 
 large flower-pot and turning to the next. 
 
 " They won't even know they have been moved," 
 she said, as she caught Stephen's gaze fixed upon her 
 handicraft with some interest. " There, that is the 
 last! Will you help me up, please? " 
 
 She held out a hand which looked very white and 
 clean when she pulled off its rough sheath. " Now, 
 come and sit in the shade on the bench a moment and 
 I can really attend to what you are saying." 
 
 He responded instantly. " It is that darned condi- 
 tion. They won't let me off without a special exami- 
 nation, and I don't know how I am going to get it up, 
 just now at this season of the year. They seem to think 
 I have nothing else to do with my time, hang them ! " 
 
 Serious feeling of any kind had an unfortunate ef- 
 fect on Stephen. It was never enlarging, and often 
 had the contrary result of making him insignificant or
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 57 
 
 even ridiculous. When his brown eyes ceased to laugh 
 they often lost all expression. His voice, when he was 
 depressed or aggrieved, assumed a monotonous, dron- 
 ing tone, which deadened interest. His manner, when 
 it lost its lightness and gayety, betrayed an almost fatu- 
 ous commonplace of nature. 
 
 " If they had been going to come down on me this 
 way, why didn't they do it sooner, when it wouldn't 
 have made so much difference," he wailed, " instead of 
 waiting till I was practically sure of my degree ; and dad 
 coming up to make the Chancellor's address, and 
 mother and Sylvia. Think what a fool I'll look if I 
 fail. It is all Merritt's fault, I know. He never could 
 bear me. It is just like him to get me stuck on pur- 
 pose." * 
 
 " No one can stick you, if you work hard enough 
 beforehand," said Mrs. Lawrence anxiously; but Ste- 
 phen knew better. 
 
 " Can't they, though ? but all I can say is it will 
 be dirty mean of them if they do." 
 
 He sat staring straight in front of him with blank, 
 glassy eyes, pulling his little, rough mustache, as was 
 a habit of his when deeply disturbed; and Katherine 
 watched him gravely, for she was too familiar with 
 the petty struggle that was going on over his head to 
 be quite untouched by his mood of anxious foreboding. 
 
 " You must work very hard," she said at last 
 gently. 
 
 He looked up. " But, confound it, I don't want to 
 work hard ! I can't work hard ! I can think of nothing 
 but Sylvia."
 
 58 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 Katherine made no answer beyond a little reserved 
 smile, but she looked at him very kindly as he sat with 
 his elbows on his knees, his head clasped in his hands. 
 
 " When I think that in a month, only a month," 
 he went on, his voice rising into a little squeal of de- 
 spair, " what shall I do when I have to go away and 
 can't see her every day. But you will give me a chance 
 to speak to her before I go. You won't go back 
 on me ? " 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " I am awfully in love with her," concluded the 
 young fellow earnestly. " I never imagined I was ca- 
 pable of such a feeling, such a real, deep, serious feeling 
 for any one. I shall never care for any one as I do for 
 Sylvia." 
 
 " But you know you have thought that same thing 
 before about other women, Stephen," said Katherine 
 a little cruelly. " How can you be so sure that it is 
 the real thing this time? " 
 
 He clutched his hair and hung down his head in 
 exaggerated self-abasement. " Don't rub it in," he 
 pleaded, " it is mean, for you would never have known 
 about most of them if I had not told you myself. Be- 
 sides, none of them compared to Sylvia, anyhow." 
 
 She laughed. " You are very young, Stephen, to 
 think of marrying." 
 
 " Oh, father wants me to marry early," said Ste- 
 phen blithely ; " he thinks nothing steadies a man more 
 and gives him such a sense of responsibility as marry- 
 ing the right sort of girl." 
 
 " Very true, but Sylvia may not be the right kind
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 59 
 
 of girl for you," answered Katherine, with a fine little 
 smile. 
 
 He replied hotly, as at a charge of blame against 
 the child he loved. " I don't know what you mean ! 
 I'd like to know who could be better ? " 
 
 Katherine was silent, and the fine irony of her smile 
 was entirely lost upon him. 
 
 " Of course she is pretty young," he began again, 
 " but not as young as you were yourself when you were 
 married." 
 
 " No," assented Katherine, her eyes fixed musingly 
 on a distant clump of flame-colored iris, as if there 
 could be nothing in the world more beautiful for them 
 to rest on. 
 
 " I suppose you are thinking that I am not so much 
 of a man as Lieutenant Lawrence was," burst out Ste- 
 phen jealously. " Well, I don't suppose I am, but all 
 the same " 
 
 But Katherine interrupted almost sharply. " It is 
 Sylvia herself I am thinking of. It is impossible to 
 compare her with me, Stephen ; she is very unlike me. 
 She will demand more from life than I ever did. She 
 is more critical, more intolerant ; she would not be very 
 merciful to any one who disappointed her." 
 
 " But I shouldn't disappoint her," said Stephen 
 confidently. " She should have everything she wanted." 
 
 " You really know very little about Sylvia." Mrs. 
 Lawrence looked at him suddenly, with a little teasing 
 smile. 
 
 " Well, I like that ! " he exclaimed in great indigna- 
 tion, " when I've been doing nothing but think of her
 
 60 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 for nearly two years ! Two years ! How's that for con- 
 stancy ? We like the same things. We want the same 
 kind of a good time. She doesn't care for any one else, 
 does she ? " He looked at Katherine anxiously, though 
 he knew there was no one. " And once we were mar- 
 ried she should have anything in the world she wanted. 
 I should give her everything she asked for." 
 
 " Yes, but suppose she asked you for things you 
 couldn't give her ? " 
 
 '' What things ? " asked Stephen vaguely. 
 
 Katherine shook her head. She saw that he could 
 not understand her. 
 
 " I don't believe you want me for a son-in-law," 
 he burst out, half-caressing, half -threatening. " You 
 don't think I could make her happy." 
 
 Mrs. Lawrence smiled back at him without reply- 
 ing. She had the gift of silence, so gentle, yet so im- 
 pervious, that an unobserving person often took it for 
 conversation and approval. Besides, Stephen had not 
 taken his own accusation very seriously. 
 
 " I know her so well," he continued, " that I know 
 just what will please her. She is such a baby, dear 
 little thing! You'll see what a good time she has this 
 evening. Of course she can dance up and down on me 
 but the other fellows ! I shall arrange that her card 
 is filled by the best men in the fraternity. There is 
 nothing much left since my class graduated, but some 
 of them can dance well. She shall have all the flowers 
 she wants. By the way, have those roses come from 
 Statesburg? I gave special orders. Marechal Niels 
 she said those were what she wanted."
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 61 
 
 " Yes, they came this morning. Sylvia will thank 
 you herself. She was very much excited at getting 
 such a formal offering in a florist's box." 
 
 "Dear little thing!" muttered Stephen, rising at 
 last reluctantly to go away. " You are sure you don't 
 want a carriage for this evening ? You know we have 
 arranged for one to fetch all the chaperons. Well " 
 as she shook her head, " it is only a step, and a beauti- 
 ful night. I don't wonder you prefer walking to going 
 in one of Hazard's smelly old hacks. I'll be along 
 about nine to walk over with you. By the way " he 
 stopped, reminded of a lesser grievance he had almost 
 forgotten in his discussion of the more serious annoy- 
 ances come to threaten his peace of mind. " I have often 
 told you before, but you can just see now how impos- 
 sible it is to do anything really decent in this college. 
 You know how I have been working to make this ball 
 a success for the fraternity our first formal entertain- 
 ment in the new house. You know how I have been 
 trying to keep the fellows from asking all the old 
 frumps they knew to receive with you. And now, at 
 the last moment, we have Mrs. Cochran on our hands." 
 
 Katherine's eyes had gone to rest on the flame- 
 colored iris again, but she brought them back to Ste- 
 phen with a sudden start, and widening of the lids, 
 which showed the pain of an unpleasant surprise. 
 
 " Mrs. Cochran ? " she echoed rather faintly. 
 
 " Yes," said Stephen crossly. " Of course we had 
 to ask her, if only out of civility to Cocky the Pro- 
 fessor, I mean. He sent us a thumping check for ex- 
 penses without waiting to be asked, and he is always
 
 62 IN THE HOUSE OF HER FRIENDS 
 
 awfully good to the fraternity. We put her name 
 among the other patronesses in the invitations, but we 
 never dreamed she would come. You know she never 
 goes anywhere. I suppose she will look an awful 
 frump." 
 
 " Oh, I hope not," answered Katherine gently. 
 " In any case, you must see that the other men are very 
 nice to her." 
 
 She drew her breath softly through her lips in 
 a long, slow sigh, but Stephen only saw her smile 
 " Good-by." 
 
 " Good-by. At nine o'clock this evening. Don't 
 forget ! " he shouted back at her as he shut the gate.
 
 VIII 
 
 STEPHEN was prompt to the moment of the hour 
 that he had appointed for himself; so prompt, 
 in fact, that he found no one ready for him but Mrs. 
 Lawrence, who was standing alone in the flower-filled 
 drawing-room buttoning her long gloves. 
 
 " Where is Sylvia ? " he asked, looking round anx- 
 iously. 
 
 " Gone to get her flowers from the ice-box, where 
 Molly put them to keep fresh." 
 
 Even as she replied, she appeared in the parlor 
 door, a radiant vision, her garments still fluttering 
 from her rapid flight. She did not take the slightest 
 notice of Stephen, but extended toward her mother a 
 heavy bunch of yellow roses, which she held at arm's 
 length. 
 
 " They smell of fish ! " she exclaimed tragically. 
 
 It was too true. Even Katherine, when called upon 
 for an opinion, could not deny that very slightly, but 
 very distinctly, they did smell of fish. 
 
 " I'll have that fellow's life ! " cried Stephen. 
 
 " No, no ! It was Molly ! I found them in the ice- 
 box, lying close beside the codfish for to-morrow." 
 
 There was a silence, during which Sylvia continued 
 to survey and smell her flowers with increasing dis- 
 favor. 
 
 63
 
 64 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 " I shan't carry them at all," she said at last. Ste- 
 phen tried in vain to conceal his disappointment. 
 
 " Sylvia," said Katherine in a very low voice. She 
 was answered by a swift, sidelong glance of mischie- 
 vous deprecation. 
 
 " Am I behaving very badly ? " 
 
 Her mother answered gravely, " Very badly." 
 
 " I am sorry," she replied, not too seriously. " Ste- 
 phen, thank you for these beautiful roses. It was very 
 kind of you to think of me, and they were just what 
 I wanted. At least, they aren't quite," she concluded 
 with a sudden change of tone. " I thought they were 
 going to be pink." 
 
 Stephen burst into a great roar of good-natured 
 laughter. " Did you think Marechal Niels were 
 pink?" 
 
 But Katherine did not even smile, and Sylvia, mis- 
 trusting her silence, turned to her coaxingly. 
 
 " Don't be cross with me, mamma dear, now that 
 I have repented and Stephen has forgiven me. Please 
 don't, for I can't begin to have a nice time as long as 
 you look severe, and it is my first party, and quite nec- 
 essary that I should enjoy myself." 
 
 Her spirits flew up like champagne as soon as she 
 saw her mother betrayed into laughter, and she had 
 no thought but delight when she found herself walk- 
 ing about the little ballroom on Stephen's arm, child- 
 ishly pleased that he was so tall and good-looking, 
 exhilarated by his shouts of laughter at her smallest 
 sallies. They had been among the first to come, but 
 the room filled up almost immediately. The semi-
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 65 
 
 circle of arm-chairs prepared for the patronesses 
 was surrounded by an ever-changing group of new 
 arrivals. 
 
 Mrs. Loomis, blandly middle-aged, in an ample 
 black silk; Mrs. Chandler, whose thin, aquiline face 
 and spare figure still showed the remnants of former 
 beauty, and Mrs. Lawrence. These three, at least, 
 were capable of satisfying Stephen's standard of re- 
 quirement for the outer appearance of the ladies whom 
 the Adelphics might wish to receive their guests for 
 them that evening. And the other chair of state had 
 been prepared in vain. 
 
 At last the orchestra ceased to tune its fiddles and 
 began to play a march. All the couples instantly fell 
 into line for the ceremony with which the college dances 
 were usually initiated. Round and round the room 
 went the small procession, through various simple 
 evolutions, Sylvia and Stephen leading the way. She 
 had never before felt so gracious toward him, so ap- 
 preciative of his importance in the enjoyment of an 
 honor for which he alone was responsible, and she was 
 half-intoxicated with the aroma of festival, that small 
 but important adjunct which rises like an effervescence 
 out of the most commonplace things and people, when 
 they are assembled together with the idea of enjoying 
 themselves. 
 
 Too soon the grand march came to an end, and 
 the programmes were distributed, and then Sylvia 
 found herself standing in a group of black-coated 
 youths, some of whom she knew, some whom Stephen 
 had just presented, who were all asking to write their
 
 66 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 names on her card. She watched its progress among 
 them with dancing eyes. 
 
 " Oh, thank you ! " she cried, as a tall, slender 
 Senior inscribed his initials in the last two places and 
 returned it with a bow. 
 
 Marjorie Chandler was standing near her, looking 
 very pretty, though somewhat preoccupied by the way 
 her sash ends hung behind. 
 
 " Sylvia," she whispered, quite scandalized, " don't 
 say ' Thank you/ that way. It sounds too grateful." 
 
 " But I was grateful," returned Sylvia with her 
 gay smile. " I was so afraid he would find those dances 
 taken on his card. Now, see, there isn't a space left." 
 
 Franklin Field, coming up at this moment, was re- 
 ceived with triumphant assurance, " Not one left." 
 She could not feign a regret she did not feel. Just 
 now she was riding on the crest of the wave, a pleas- 
 ant place if one wishes only to enjoy oneself, and to- 
 night Sylvia had forgotten that she had ever felt the 
 slightest curiosity about any other sensation. Noth- 
 ing ever happens on the tops of the waves. One has 
 to go down beneath to learn the strength of the cur- 
 rents, and there Sylvia never sank, not once through 
 the whole evening, though even Marjorie peeped and 
 found things underneath once or twice; girls who had 
 difficulty in getting partners, some of the young hosts 
 themselves, who looked fagged and anxious under the 
 responsibilities of their position. 
 
 Professor Chandler, looking as exquisitely pink and 
 white as a silk powder-puff, his short, curling, gray 
 hair and whiskers perfectly arranged around his bland-
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 67 
 
 ly smiling countenance, came and stood by Mrs. Law- 
 rence, and took a whimsical pleasure in pointing out 
 the places where the recent struggle of preparation 
 for the festival showed loose ends of imperfect com- 
 pletion. 
 
 " So pretty ! " He pronounced the word as it was 
 spelled with an " e." " So graceful, yet everything 
 left unfinished. See ! " he made her peep in an out 
 of the way corner, hidden out of sight, where a great 
 mass of fading flowers, broken branches of lilacs, pink 
 honeysuckle, and the white fringe tree, lay thrown to- 
 gether and left among other rubbish to die. " The 
 poor, pretty flowers ! " he exclaimed pityingly, for 
 many of them came out of his own garden. " And 
 yet, I suppose, it was necessary. The young are al- 
 ways spendthrifts." 
 
 " Poor boys ! " said Mrs. Lawrence, with a more 
 personal interest in the matter, as she thought of Tom, 
 " they have worked so hard, and some of them look 
 so tired." 
 
 " Yes, they have wasted more than their lilacs. 
 Well, they can afford it. It is only old age that needs 
 to husband its resources." 
 
 " Dear Albion, how silly you are ! " said his wife, 
 drawing near, and speaking to him with her usual 
 affectionate depreciation, which he, on his part, never 
 seemed to resent. " Kitty, look here a moment ! Do 
 you see who is just coming in ? " 
 
 Katherine started nervously, looked, and was si- 
 lent. 
 
 There was Miss Mix, her ignoble, good-natured
 
 68 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 countenance beaming with friendliness for all the 
 world ; Mrs. Brauer, decorously attired in a high, gray 
 mohair dress, and a yellow lace fichu disposed around 
 her meagre throat, and Mrs. Cochran. 
 
 All the faces about her were either almost silly with 
 youthfulness or else emptied of all significance by the 
 hypnotizing effect of the whirling crowd of dancers 
 passing and repassing in endless succession. Only that 
 one face started out in strange, almost shocking con- 
 trast to the others in its brooding intensity of expres- 
 sion, its watchful self-consciousness, ominous sus- 
 picion. It was difficult to guess exactly what rank and 
 circumstance had produced, only some tragedy could 
 finally have set such a woman down in such surround- 
 ings. She still showed the wreck of a certain kind of 
 beauty rolling, dark-brown eyes, whose suffused sur- 
 face seemed to show the flesh they were made of; 
 coarse, curling black hair, purple cheeks, a redundant 
 breast, over which the ill-fitting black silk dress she 
 wore was strained almost to bursting. Yet there was 
 a kind of carelessness and stupidity in her adornment 
 which seemed to show the virtuous woman, and her 
 manner, in its brooding defiance and self-restraint, was 
 not without a certain rough dignity. 
 
 The little group stood hesitating a moment, unat- 
 tended, unnoticed by their young hosts, all too busy 
 in their own amusement to spare time for ceremonious 
 civility. 
 
 " Why does she stay over there by the door, do 
 you suppose ? " Mrs. Chandler continued with a little 
 nervous giggle. " She looks quite imposing. Oh! are
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 69 
 
 you really going over to speak to her ? Well, I'll come 
 too." 
 
 But it was Miss Mix who sustained the burden of 
 conversation in the courtesies that followed. 
 
 " No, I don't think we had better go across and sit 
 with you all; I am afraid of the draught from the 
 window for Mrs. Cochran. I had the greatest work 
 to persuade her to come, and I should never forgive 
 myself if she caught cold. No, we'll just stay here, 
 thank you. We can see nicely, and it is not so near the 
 music. We are only going to stop for supper; the 
 professor is coming over then to take her home." * 
 
 At this mention of her husband Mrs. Cochran, for 
 the first time, raised her face and fairly met Katherine's 
 rather shrinking glance with a look which seemed to 
 unveil something in the depths of her stupid, savage 
 soul ; something resentful, suspicious, and yet not with- 
 out a certain flaunting triumph. 
 
 " Could anybody be colder than you, Kitty, when 
 you don't like a person ? " said Mrs. Chandler in friend- 
 ly amusement, as they retraced their steps across the 
 room. 
 
 The other answered rather languidly : " I did not 
 mean to be cold; I am afraid I have an unfortunate 
 manner." 
 
 "Oh, no, not at all ! You were magnificent ! Noth- 
 ing could have been more admirable than your serene 
 civility. I confess I was terrified; I felt my knees ber- 
 come as water under me. You never can tell what 
 will happen next with such a woman, and really she 
 was very rude to us, Kitty."
 
 70 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 " Perhaps she did not mean to be rude," said Kath- 
 erine after a moment's pause. " It is quite possible she 
 resented our manner to her as much as we did hers 
 to us." 
 
 She turned with evident relief to answer Tom, who 
 had been looking for her, and now welcomed her re- 
 appearance with unconcealed satisfaction. 
 
 " Mother, may I speak to you ? Will you come 
 with me for a moment ? " 
 
 He looked worn and distracted, and his face was 
 deeply shadowed with that ineffable youthful weari- 
 ness, purifying, transparent, infinitely touching, which 
 has so little kinship with the withering, disfiguring 
 exhaustion of maturer years. He led her out beyond 
 the circle of lights and dancing to the back veranda, 
 where Bob Merton, his fellow-committeeman, came to 
 join them. Both lads were distressed to the limits of 
 their youthful self-control. Merton's blue eyes were 
 full of tears under their fierce eyebrows, nor was the 
 faint, dark shadow of Tom's budding mustache able 
 to conceal the trembling of his lips. Another freshman, 
 Jimmy Snell, was there too, lurking somewhat shame- 
 facedly behind the open door of the pantry. But the 
 others quite ignored him; and, indeed, his turned-up 
 nose and broad, smiling mouth seemed quite out of 
 place in the presence of their tragic intensity. 
 
 " O mother ! " Tom began at once, his voice break- 
 ing a little in his hurry and agitation, " Bob and I are 
 in such a scrape. Perhaps you can advise us." 
 
 " A scrape, dear Tom ! " cried Katherine anxiously, 
 "do tell me about it. What can it be? "
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 71 
 
 " We forgot the sugar for the coffee," he an- 
 swered, with a gasp which in a girl would have been 
 a sob. 
 
 Katherine drew a breath of relief so sharp that it 
 was almost painful. Life is sometimes so hard, so en- 
 tangled; its demands are often so intricate, so cruelly 
 impossible. To be confronted by a problem still so 
 simple that it can be solved by the offer of a few herbs 
 and apples, given with an unstinting hand, is such an 
 exquisite surprise that it touches one's self-control 
 more than a blow. 
 
 " It is my fault ! " said Tom desperately. 
 
 " No more yours than mine ! " cried Merton in loyal 
 parenthesis. 
 
 " I don't know how it happened." He put his hand 
 across his eyes and held it there a moment with an 
 inherited gesture, as he went on speaking. " I could 
 have sworn I gave the order, but it hasn't come." 
 
 " All the upper classmen will laugh at us when 
 they find it out," said Bob in an agony, but Tom mut- 
 tered under his breath : 
 
 " It is the disgrace to the fraternity that I mind." 
 
 " Can't you advise us, Mrs. Lawrence ? " said 
 Jimmy Snell, encouraged by her presence to venture 
 out from behind his barricade, his face drawn into the 
 very absurdity of seriousness. 
 
 " Yes, indeed," she hurried to assure them. " Why 
 didn't you come to me before? Dear Tom, you can 
 get all the sugar you want if you run across by the 
 back way to the kitchen, and if Molly and Lizzie have 
 gone to bed, you know where it is kept. I gave an
 
 72 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 order to have the canister filled only yesterday, so I 
 am sure there is plenty." 
 
 Tom turned and rushed off at once into the dark- 
 ness, leaving Bob to take his mother back to the ball- 
 room. It was only a little way across a narrow strip 
 of campus, past the office building to the Dean's gar- 
 den gate, and then by the back way into the kitchen. 
 There, unhindered by the curtainless darkness, not 
 waiting to light the lamp on the table, he found and 
 loaded himself with his treasure and departed, leaving 
 every closet door open. A moment after he was run- 
 ning back again up the glimmering white path leading 
 to the fraternity house. The goal of his rapid flight 
 stood very near, pouring light from every one of its 
 lower windows, as transparent as a bubble in its illu- 
 mination from inside, when he nearly ran over some 
 one going the same way, walking very quickly, yet 
 with a sort of rigidity of direction which did not turn 
 out for him. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," Tom cried, crashing into the 
 shrubbery which bordered the path in his hurry to get 
 ahead and lose no time. 
 
 Then he saw that the tall, dark figure was Wilfred 
 Cochran. 
 
 " Good Lord, he is drunk ! " said the boy to him- 
 self, and hesitated and almost turned back in the fear 
 that took possession of him. But then he hurried on 
 again. Some of the other fellows must see to that. 
 
 " I can't do everything," he muttered to himself 
 in a sort of helpless apology. 
 
 He returned to a scene of growing confusion in the
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 73 
 
 kitchen of the fraternity house. Supper was already 
 being served in the ballroom; the place was invaded 
 with boys demanding food for their guests. The 
 old colored woman they had hired for this emergency 
 was growing more and more excited by the diffi- 
 culties and deficiencies of her position. Tom stayed 
 only long enough to supply her with the belated sugar 
 for the coffee and then hurried off to the ballroom to 
 find Marjorie Chandler, whom he had engaged for 
 supper. He swept her away to a cool corner by one 
 of the windows, where Bob Merton and one of the 
 Loomis girls were saving a seat for him beside Ste- 
 phen and Sylvia. It was his reward for past exertions 
 that Bob should go for the supper. Tom had at last 
 come out into the light places of the earth and was 
 preparing to enjoy himself. 
 
 He cast one satisfied glance about the gayly lighted 
 room, that he might assure himself at last of the brill- 
 iant success of his fraternity's last social effort. Then 
 he looked again, more anxiously, here and there, for 
 he had suddenly become conscious of a strange, hidden 
 agitation somewhere in the midst of the rustling, chat- 
 tering throng around him. Among the merry, freshly 
 tinted faces of the groups at supper round the room, 
 here and there one stood out unsmiling, shadowed with 
 a kind of expectancy, an almost strange attention and 
 suspense, all turned in the same direction. 
 
 " O Tom," said Marjorie in his ear, " look at 
 Professor Cochran! Isn't it shocking? Some of you 
 ought to make him go home." 
 
 But Tom had already caught sight of that tall,
 
 74 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 rigid figure standing against the wall, silent and mo- 
 tionless, staring, with eyes that saw nothing, into the 
 blank space before him. There was a kind of empti- 
 ness near him, as if people had withdrawn themselves, 
 perhaps in protest, perhaps from a certain alarm, for 
 in spite of his absolute stillness there was something 
 formidable in his expression as he stared out straight 
 in front of him, his eyebrows sharply raised and drawn 
 together, as if in a last desperate effort to steady his 
 swimming senses. On his lips there was a strange, 
 painful smile, hardly a smile indeed, rather an ago- 
 nized muscular contraction, which seemed to draw his 
 face into a mask of tragic, poignant madness. His 
 eyes saw nothing of what they looked at, but one 
 shrank involuntarily from the place where they rested, 
 as if at any instant they might wake to consciousness, 
 wild with question, or laughter, or anger, or despair. 
 A little distance away, among her friends, Tom saw 
 Mrs. Cochran in agitated palpitation, moving vaguely 
 to and fro behind the two poor women who were bend- 
 ing over her trying to restrain her. He was conscious, 
 too, of Mrs. Chandler, with her hand on her husband's 
 arm, her small, dark head, with its haggard features, 
 moving to and fro, as she gesticulated earnestly, evi- 
 dently exhorting the bland little man to some action; 
 to avert something which might become humiliating, 
 unmanageable, scandalous; while he was evidently re- 
 assuring her, and Colonel Loomis, who had come in 
 lately to look after his wife, stood by, also quiescent, 
 though big and ominous with disapproval. Among 
 the lads who saw, too, here and there one moved rest-
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 75 
 
 lessly and uncertainly. " Let him alone," whispered 
 others, " he is not doing anything. If we try to speak 
 to him, he may make a row." 
 
 Marjorie looked on with great, ruminating, brown 
 eyes, rounded into shocked curiosity; but Sylvia saw 
 nothing at all; she was busy snapping rose leaves 
 against the backs of Stephen's hands, and did not 
 even notice when Tom sprang to his feet and walked 
 away across the room. He could not help it; some- 
 thing must be done if by no one else, then by him 
 to save the fraternity dance from painful interruption, 
 to rescue an Adelphic from open humiliation. 
 
 A quiver of expectancy went through those who 
 were looking on, as they saw him approach the silent, 
 stony figure against the wall. He laid his hand on its 
 arm. Wilfred Cochran stirred slightly and bent his 
 anguished eyes on Tom with a growing effort of at- 
 tention. Then there was an almost audible sigh of 
 relief throughout the room, for his face suddenly 
 changed and melted ; his smile ceased to be formidable, 
 became foolish, harmless, merely drunken. He let 
 Tom lead him away quietly out into the darkness be- 
 yond. Before any one began to notice her again, Mrs. 
 Cochran was gone after her husband. 
 
 The whole affair had taken a very few moments. 
 The murmur of laughter and gay movement had hardly 
 been diminished; it now reasserted itself with a burst 
 of almost turbulent merriment which quite drowned 
 the undercurrent of confused whisperings, shocked crit- 
 icism, and explanations; but the undercurrent per- 
 sisted, running stronger and stronger among the older
 
 76 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 people beneath the foam of youthful laughter, stealthily 
 at first, in the memory of old resentments between the 
 town and the college whose dignity Cochran had com- 
 promised. Even among the faculty general indigna- 
 tion against him had to assume a strained and cautious 
 expression in the thought of the Dean's unwise cham- 
 pionship, in the presence of the Dean's daughter. As 
 long as she sat there among them in a sort of resolute, 
 unsmiling composure, they had to keep their eager 
 tongues in check. But she went at last, effecting her 
 retreat with a careful watchfulness which ran no risks 
 of invasions upon their self-restraint. 
 
 " O mamma, so soon ! " cried Sylvia in dismay, 
 as she looked up from the midst of the gay party still 
 lingering over their ice-cream in one of the windows, 
 and saw her mother standing beside her on Professor 
 Chandler's arm. 
 
 Tom sprang to his feet at once, but Stephen 
 joined Sylvia in a clamor of reproach and entreaty 
 for just one more waltz, just once more round the 
 room. 
 
 " Come along, Sylvia, don't be a pig ! " said Tom 
 gruffly. " Don't you see that mother is tired ? " 
 
 But Sylvia still exclaimed : " O mamma, the music 
 is just beginning again ! Just one more dance ! " 
 
 " No," answered Mrs. Lawrence with a sort of un- 
 yielding, expressionless gentleness, which permitted no 
 appeal. 
 
 Tom and Stephen took them home. They let them- 
 selves in carefully, so as not to waken the sleeping 
 household.
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 77 
 
 " Mamma," whispered Sylvia, " may Stephen come 
 in, too, and have some milk ? He likes milk, you know, 
 and there is a big pitcher of it in the ice-box." 
 
 But Katherine was obdurate, and the youth sub- 
 mitted, with what grace he might, to be sent away 
 at the door, lingering a few moments for some last 
 words about a dying rose for his buttonhole. 
 
 The others entered the shuttered darkness of the 
 house. 
 
 " It went off pretty well, on the whole. Don't you 
 think so, mother, considering it was the first in the new 
 house ? " asked Tom anxiously. 
 
 He could only hear her voice. " Very well, indeed, 
 dear. I am sure it will be a great success." But he 
 felt her catch hold of him and lean against him, hiding 
 her face against his shoulder. 
 
 " O Tom, my little boy! my big son!" she whis- 
 pered with a long, sobbing breath. 
 
 He put both arms round her and bent over her, 
 half-ashamed, for he thought she was laughing at him, 
 but loyally still. 
 
 " It is all right, mother, I don't mind ; and I sup- 
 pose I did make an awful ass of myself about that 
 sugar." 
 
 Sylvia, flying after them, having finally dismissed 
 Stephen, found her still in his arms. 
 
 " O mamma, you love Tom best ! " she cried in- 
 dignantly. 
 
 Katherine disengaged herself and stood looking at 
 them both in the half-light, surprised for the moment 
 into a certain wan amusement at the two young creat-
 
 78 IN THE HOUSE OF HER FRIENDS 
 
 ures, facing each other in such hot defiance after the 
 shock of Sylvia's outburst of reproach. 
 
 " Are you never going to be anything but a child, 
 Sylvia?" she said at last, with a catch in her voice 
 that was sharper than laughter.
 
 IX 
 
 FRANKLIN FIELD, the blue-eyed tutor, sat on 
 the window-sill in the third-story back room, 
 which for the time he called his own, in Miss Mix's 
 boarding-house. The outlook was not unpleasing, even 
 though it commanded nothing more than back gar- 
 dens, kitchen entrances, and dilapidated sheds, for the 
 horse-chestnuts were in bloom to their highest tips, and 
 the vine was everywhere freshly, beautifully green 
 the vine, in other lands so carefully and reverently 
 trained and fostered, debased here into all sorts of un- 
 worthy services, as a screen for wood-piles and gar- 
 bage heaps, or a rough fence marking the limits of the 
 kitchen garden and the clothes yard. The northwest 
 exposure gave to Franklin, sitting in the window, a 
 wide expanse of blue, sunset sky, against which the 
 needle-like wooden spires of the little town stood out 
 dark brown above the clustering trees. 
 
 The room itself was large and low and dingy, 
 tainted with the smell of long-dead tobacco smoke, 
 which seemed to have become a part of its very walls ; 
 furnished in the double capacity of bedroom and 
 study, but with a simplicity and meagreness that left 
 it very empty. There was a little bookcase in one 
 corner, where rows of college text-books were here 
 and there enlivened by yellow-covered novels, from 
 
 79
 
 8o IN THE HOUSE 
 
 which, however, Franklin's position as tutor of French 
 and German in Littel College withdrew all compro- 
 mising significance. The study table, an ugly, service- 
 able affair, with a bare pine top, four strong, brown 
 legs, and a deep drawer, was loaded with papers and 
 exercise books, the first fruits of the senior examina- 
 tion, which antedated the lower classes by nearly three 
 weeks. 
 
 In the depths of a dingy, chintz-covered chair, be- 
 tween the window and the table, sat Professor Brown- 
 ell, the head of the classical department, who was mak- 
 ing the tutor an afternoon call, and taking his ease, as 
 far as is possible with a man who doesn't smoke, while 
 discussing at length the subject which had absorbed 
 all others among the faculty since Wilfred Cochran's 
 unfortunate appearance at the fraternity dance two 
 days before. 
 
 " Well, he has done for himself now. Even the 
 Dean can't support him any longer after this," said 
 Brownell, with a sort of buoyant satisfaction in an 
 indisputable fact, which did not necessarily mean spe- 
 cial animosity toward the person under discussion, for 
 he added almost immediately : 
 
 " Poor Cochran ! Somehow I always liked Cochran, 
 though there is no denying he had a darned unpleasant 
 way of saying things when he felt like it. One had al- 
 ways to remind oneself that he was nobody's enemy as 
 much as his own. I hear he has gone off again not 
 shown up since Friday night." 
 
 Franklin sat listlessly leaning against the window 
 frame, his head bent forward, a little on one side, his
 
 OE HER FRIENDS 81 
 
 eyes, which were singularly blue and clear, fixed on 
 the tops of the fruit trees in the next garden. He was 
 bored, melancholy, indifferent, for he never forgot to 
 consider himself an alien amid circumstances and actors 
 from which he would fain hold himself aloof. So he 
 answered the inquiry with a kind of plaintive patience, 
 since he could hardly deny some knowledge on a sub- 
 ject of which Miss Mix was high priestess, and her 
 dining-room a centre of information. Cochran had 
 indeed disappeared, and no one, not even his wife, had 
 the least idea of his whereabouts. 
 
 " It is about the worst thing that could have hap- 
 pened for the Dean," said Brownell meditatively. 
 
 " Why the Dean ? " asked Franklin, betrayed into 
 some surprise. 
 
 " Well, you see, if he were anywhere he could be 
 got at, some of the Dean's friends might be able to use 
 their influence with him to make him send in his resig- 
 nation, in which case the trustees need do nothing but 
 accept it. But now that he has gone off this way and 
 left everything at loose ends, the whole matter must 
 come up for action at the next meeting, and the old 
 Dean may have to hear things said he will find hard 
 to swallow. You know how near he sailed to the wind 
 already, when he insisted on retaining Cochran against 
 the sense of the whole board last June. All this gives 
 a mighty good handle to the other side." Brownell 
 flung his head back against his chair and began to beat 
 a tattoo upon the arms with his restless fingers. 
 
 "What other side?" murmured Franklin, con- 
 scious of a faint anxiety, for he could not help remem-
 
 82 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 bering that his tutorship, despised indeed, but necessary 
 for his daily bread, had come to him by one of those 
 irregular, high-handed appointments by which the 
 Dean was always overriding the rights of the trustees 
 and the wishes of the faculty, and might be very much 
 endangered by the existence of another side, if it should 
 happen to be unfriendly to him. He looked up and 
 caught Brownell's eyes fixed on him with a sort of 
 careful scrutiny. 
 
 " Of course, you wouldn't be likely to know much 
 about it," said the other man with deliberation. " The 
 Dean has kept you very closely in his own interest. 
 We haven't cared to say anything before you that we 
 were not ready to have go back to him." 
 
 Franklin reddened a little, for he thought that the 
 other might be wishing to insult him, but Brownell's 
 manner showed nothing but friendliness as he con- 
 tinued. 
 
 " Still, I think it is just as well for you to know 
 that the Dean is not nearly as strong a man in the 
 college as he used to be. There are plenty of men on 
 the faculty, in the alumni, and higher yet, too, who are 
 beginning to think that he has lost his grip, and 
 needs to be watched ; needs a coadjutor, in fact ; a man 
 who could gradually assume all the practical running 
 of the college, even if the old fellow were retained in a 
 kind of nominal supremacy; even if he were let to 
 think he was still doing it all." 
 
 " Wouldn't that be rather difficult ? " asked Frank- 
 lin cautiously. " The Dean is a very old man ; I have 
 no doubt he has lost a good deal of his original force
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 83 
 
 of mind, still, even now, he seems to me very far " 
 he faltered and hesitated with his soft, deprecating 
 manner, surprised, and really offended at what seemed 
 to him a sort of indignity to his mother's kind old 
 friend, yet afraid to commit himself too soon against 
 what might be the winning side if it came to a final 
 struggle between the Dean and his faculty. 
 
 " Well, that depends," said Brownell, kicking his 
 legs about. " He may find there is nothing left for 
 him to do but to grin and bear it. I have reason to 
 know that there are plans on foot of course it is 
 being kept very quiet." 
 
 " Then why are you telling me ? " said Franklin 
 in his heart, but he kept the words from his lips, for 
 he felt that it might be to his interest to know what 
 was being kept very quiet, if for any reason Brownell 
 should happen to tell him. 
 
 " The trustees are becoming convinced that the col- 
 lege needs heroic measures to put it on its feet again," 
 that gentleman went on, relapsing into cautious gener- 
 alities. 
 
 " The Dean himself is a trustee," murmured Frank- 
 lin, his eyes still fixed on the blue, sunset sky. 
 
 " Of course ! of course ! and he has strong friends 
 on the board," answered Brownell impatiently. " A 
 lot of hide-bound old fossils who take all he tells them 
 for gospel truth. But there are some new men who 
 will listen to reason, if they ever hear it; some of the 
 later appointments. We have canvassed them rather 
 carefully. Of course Porter is all on the Dean's side. 
 He took the place of his father, old Judge Porter, who
 
 84 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 thought he owned the whole college, except what be- 
 longed to the Lawrences, uncle and nephew. The 
 Porters were great people about here in the past, I 
 am told, but the college was cheated out of the legacy 
 the old man left it, for the estate turned out worth just 
 nothing at all, frittered away by bad investments; the 
 son was in my class, lives in New York, and is a rich 
 man now, but I am willing to bet we will never see 
 any of his money. He was put on the board ten years 
 ago by the Dean's influence, but he never comes to the 
 meetings or takes any interest. As for the other men, 
 except Dullas you know how keen the Dean is to 
 keep Dullas in a good humor they seem a pretty de- 
 cent set, quite ready to see reason if they only get a 
 chance." 
 
 Brownell broke off suddenly and cast a scrutinizing 
 glance at the youthful figure, with its fair, bent head 
 and listless attitude, outlined against the sky. Then 
 he began again on a new line. 
 
 " Of course you came here bound hand and foot 
 to the Dean's interests; you owed him your appoint- 
 ment. Well, I guess he has made you pay for it," and 
 the professor laughed rather rudely. 
 
 Franklin winced. There were a number of men in 
 the college who went about the Dean's business, fur- 
 nishing their quota of unspecified service in return for 
 past benefits and obligations the Dean's henchmen 
 they were called, even by the Dean's friends, this es- 
 pecial weakness of the eager, unscrupulous old autocrat 
 being well known to all the little world he lived among. 
 
 One of the Dean's henchmen! There could be no
 
 OE HER FRIENDS 85 
 
 other meaning to the professor's burst of contemptuous 
 laughter. 
 
 " I wish you knew Merritt better," Brownell con- 
 cluded, relapsing into gravity again. " I am afraid you 
 are rather prejudiced against him now, but I tell you 
 the more you see him the more satisfied you will be 
 that he is the man to pull this college out of the hole 
 it is sunk in. He may not cut any ice with the swells 
 who turn up their noses at their old classmates, and 
 have grown too fine to send their sons to their own 
 alma mater, but he holds the younger alumni in the 
 hollow of his hand. It is the new blood of the college 
 that sooner or later is going to make itself felt. The 
 trustees are beginning to understand already ; they will 
 understand better when they see the faculty arrayed as 
 a unit in their demands." 
 
 " Are they arrayed as a unit ? " asked Franklin, 
 wondering a little where he himself stood in the align- 
 ment. 
 
 " Practically they are," replied the other with con- 
 fidence. "Of course there is some dead wood on 
 the other side; the Dean's old friends; that old fool, 
 Chandler, for instance ; but the workers the men with 
 futures before them! That is the reason I am talking 
 to you this afternoon. It is Merritt who proposed it. 
 ' He is too good a fellow to be left out. We want 
 him too,' he said to me, * and I propose to give him 
 a chance.' ' 
 
 " It is very kind of him," said Franklin politely. 
 " How does he propose to give me a chance? " 
 
 He was amused and surprised to find how flattered
 
 86 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 he felt that Merritt, the blatant, the insolent, Merritt, 
 who had insulted him on every possible occasion of 
 their past intercourse, laughing at him, making his 
 work with his students ten times more difficult by his 
 open derision, should accord him now these belated ex- 
 pressions of regard. Yet he listened intently as 
 Brownell went on talking, for he had begun sometimes 
 to feel a dreary disgust for the creed he had learned 
 from his mother, so full of impossible virtues and un- 
 suspected meannesses, where reverence and gratitude 
 went hand in hand with loss of self-respect and a state 
 of servile dependence. The other side, little as he ad- 
 mired them, small as was the sympathy which could 
 exist between him and their methods of action and 
 expression, might nevertheless be able to offer him op- 
 portunities for self-advancement more satisfying to a 
 man's pride than any he had ever gained from the 
 Dean. 
 
 The other side was evidently not lacking in virility 
 and audacity of conception. Brownell spoke of a letter 
 which Merritt had been preparing a sort of protest 
 from the faculty directly to the trustees. 
 
 " How else can they know how affairs are being 
 run here ? " he asked with some justice. 
 
 It was to be sent, signed, to every one of the trustees 
 individually, with the request that he should consider 
 its contents before the June meeting. 
 
 "Of course the more names we have, the better," 
 said Brownell frankly. " Not that we care a snap for 
 old Chandler's, or little Billy Pepper's. In fact, those 
 we would rather leave off than on. But yours is a dif-
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 87 
 
 ferent matter ; there is always work for a man like you 
 on this college faculty, and we would like to keep you. 
 There is to be a meeting at my house this evening of 
 the protestants that is what we call ourselves. If 
 you come it won't commit you to anything, but you 
 will see exactly what our demands are." 
 
 Franklin hesitated. "What time?" he asked at 
 last, faintly. 
 
 He had never felt the necessity of taking any but 
 a passive part in the endless bickerings of the faculty 
 with their president, and when he suddenly found him- 
 self personally involved, his position in Littel College 
 jeopardized or assured by the side he took, he felt him- 
 self shaken by the inevitable attraction that all weak 
 natures feel to an irrevocable decision, not realizing 
 that to a weak nature no decision is ever irrevocable, 
 but must be made and remade with endless anguish 
 until fate itself steps in and decides by removing all 
 alternatives. 
 
 The sound of the tea bell broke gratefully upon 
 their conversation. 
 
 " Won't you stay to supper ? " said the young tutor 
 in his soft, plaintive voice. 
 
 But Brownell declared that he must go, that he 
 was expected at home. He went clattering downstairs 
 in great haste, on his way to his wife and imprudently 
 large family, stopping at the door a moment to call 
 back: 
 
 " Eight o'clock sharp, remember ! We shall expect 
 you!"
 
 X 
 
 MISS MIX sat at the head of her own table be- 
 hind the silver tea kettle and the piles of old 
 blue cups which had been her mother's. She had lived 
 all her life in this comfortable, roomy old house, with 
 its Greek portico and fluted wooden pillars, and had 
 sat in the same place at every meal since her mother 
 died and left her, a girl of fifteen, to take care of her 
 father Littelton's family doctor. 
 
 For thirty years she had poured out cups of fra- 
 grant tea from the same Chinese teapot. In the old 
 days it was her father and brothers who had drank, 
 and sent back for more; but as time went on their 
 places had been filled by a heterogeneous assemblage 
 of old friends or the friends of old friends. A word 
 from the Dean, for his mother's sake, had given Frank- 
 lin the entrance into this selected society, which only 
 strangers to its evolution ever called a boarding-house. 
 But once received, he had become one of Miss Mix's 
 prime favorites, and sat on her left, in the very shadow 
 of the tea-tray, where she asked after his health with 
 motherly interest at every meal, and confided in him 
 so much information concerning her own affairs and 
 those of other people that he was proportionately sur- 
 prised, when he took his place at the tea-table some- 
 what later than usual, to find a lady of whose advent 
 he had not been forewarned a lady not young, but 
 
 88
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF HER FRIENDS 89 
 
 still very young looking, and especially interesting to 
 Franklin because bearing many of the signs and hall- 
 marks of the wider world from which he felt himself 
 an exile. 
 
 He stood with his hand on the back of his chair, 
 hesitating before he took his seat, till Miss Mix turned 
 round and saw him. 
 
 " Oh, here is Mr. Field at last ! " she cried. " You 
 are late, Mr. Field. I was beginning to think you had 
 deserted us. Well, it would have been your own loss, 
 for here is my old friend Miss Ethel Porter, dropped 
 down upon us unexpectedly, who says she knows your 
 mother and has a message for you from her." 
 
 The new-comer smiled upon him cordially. 
 
 " Yes, I saw your mother only the other day, and 
 she told me I should find you here, but I think I should 
 have recognized you anywhere as Emily Franklin's 
 son. You are the image of her; besides, I remember 
 seeing you once, I won't say how many years ago. You 
 were still a very little boy, just promoted to knicker- 
 bockers, so I shall forgive you if you confess to hav- 
 ing forgotten me." 
 
 " I still wear knickerbockers," said Franklin, in 
 his soft, somewhat plaintive voice, " as I can show you 
 if you ever do me the honor to play tennis with me; 
 and I am afraid I shall never be anything but a very 
 little boy," he concluded, in deprecating acknowledg- 
 ment of his small stature. 
 
 Miss Porter looked at him a moment intently with 
 her bright brown eyes. She had a spirited head, which 
 she held with graceful erectness, an almost girlish
 
 90 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 figure, and a fresh young voice. Only her gray hair 
 betrayed her as having entered upon that tableland of 
 preserved youth, formerly known as middle age, where 
 American women know so well how to retain them- 
 selves that they descend from it into the grave more 
 easily than into obvious decrepitude. 
 
 " I can see at a glance that you don't belong here," 
 she said to him, laughing. " And I am not so sure 
 I like to find you here. I don't say you may not be 
 an improvement, but I am conservative. I can't get 
 over the shock of seeing a person of your years on the 
 faculty of Littel College. But tell me how you like it. 
 Of course you know everybody the Chandlers ? " 
 
 " Yes, they have been most kind to me. I had the 
 pleasure of dancing with Miss Marjorie at the Adel- 
 phic dance the other night." 
 
 " Marjorie Chandler grown old enough to go to 
 dances! The last time I was here I remember spend- 
 ing an afternoon dressing a doll for her and the little 
 Lawrence girl Sylvia, of course. When did there 
 ever fail to be a Sylvia Lawrence ? How has she turned 
 out? She ought to be very pretty if she looks at all 
 the way her mother did when she was her age. Is 
 Kitty as lovely as ever, Harriet ? " 
 
 Miss Mix's square, twinkling face was shaded for 
 a moment with cold reserve. 
 
 " Well, we are all grown older, I suppose," she 
 said guardedly. " Everybody said she looked very well 
 at the fraternity dance the other night. She was there 
 with Sylvia, dressed like a girl ! I declare it gave me 
 quite a turn to think of poor Tom dead in his grave
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 91 
 
 and every one else dancing. He was always such a 
 one for balls and parties. But I mistrust that there 
 was a single other person in the room that gave him a 
 thought. I suppose she will take Sylvia to all the par- 
 ties this Commencement." 
 
 Miss Porter passed over most of this speech with 
 a smile of mischievous appreciation of the jealousy that 
 lay beneath. 
 
 " Sylvia, too ! Going to parties ! Alas ! there are 
 no little girls left anywhere. But I am quite curious 
 to see how she has turned out. She was a bewitching 
 little creature. I remember telling her once that she 
 was very pretty. ' No, I am not,' she said very grave- 
 ly. ' It is Marjorie every one thinks so pretty. I am 
 only fascinating.' ' 
 
 " Don't speak so loud ! " said Miss Mix in a pene- 
 trating whisper. " That is Stephen Dullas three seats 
 farther down the table. He is everlastingly at the Law- 
 rences, and everybody says he is going there after 
 Sylvia." 
 
 Miss Porter turned her alert brown eyes in the di- 
 rection indicated. 
 
 " What a good-looking boy ! " she said, gazing a 
 moment calmly, and then turning away. 
 
 " I think I shall stroll up there after supper. Do 
 you want to come, too, Mr. Field ? " 
 
 Anything seemed better to Franklin than returning 
 to his third story and his French exercises. He ac- 
 cepted with enthusiasm, and followed her docilely out 
 of the front gate into the shady street. 
 
 " I suppose you are very comfortable here," she re-
 
 92 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 marked, glancing back at the white, Greek portico shin- 
 ing among the trees. " Harriet is a good, kind soul, 
 and a famous housekeeper. She has her weaknesses, 
 of course, as no doubt you have discovered; rather 
 pushing, rather intrusive," Miss Porter continued 
 with facile indiscretion. " When we were all children 
 together, Sylvia and Annie Lawrence and Nannie 
 Chandler Nannie Constable, she was then and I, we 
 were always running away from her, losing her in the 
 college woods, and otherwise maltreating her. It would 
 sometimes have been convenient if she had taken last- 
 ing offence at us, but she never did. You can imagine 
 just what kind of little girl she was, always peeping 
 and prying, listening round corners, and then coming 
 up with offers to help just when we were ready to kill 
 her for finding out our secrets. She adored me; she 
 does still, though I treated her worse than any of the 
 others did." 
 
 Franklin listened wonderingly. At last he broke in. 
 
 " I can't get used to the strangeness of finding a 
 person like you here in the midst of this little place, 
 talking about it as though you belonged to it." 
 
 " But I do belong to it," said Ethel, turning upon 
 him with her bright, intent gaze. 
 
 " Oh, no, you don't, though it may please you to 
 pretend you do ! " he answered audaciously, careless 
 how his metropolitan contempt pierced through and be- 
 trayed his feeling for his present surroundings. But 
 Ethel did not laugh, half -flattered, and agree with him 
 as he had expected. She answered instead with a de- 
 gree of feeling which surprised him.
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 93 
 
 " I was born here, I was brought up here. My 
 family belong to the very roots of the place. That old 
 yellow house with the big garden, at the corner of State 
 and College streets, was where we lived. My father 
 was a trustee of the college for years and years. This 
 is the only place in the world for which I have a senti- 
 ment. So you must not turn up your nose at it to me. 
 I won't give you a ray of sympathy." 
 
 Franklin was profuse in his assurances of respect 
 and admiration. He was a little anxious, too, to re- 
 move any impression she might have received of his 
 disaffection or indifference to his surroundings, which 
 might injure him with the old inhabitants of the town. 
 But Ethel did not listen to his explanations. 
 
 " At least you can't deny that it is a very pretty 
 old place," she said, as they approached the long lines 
 of elms, the smooth, white walks, the green enclosures 
 and gray walls of the college precincts. " Let us go the 
 back way through the gardens, in memory of the time 
 when it would have been unmaidenly and indecent to 
 walk boldly past the dormitories and the crowds of 
 students sitting on the steps. Silly fellows! I see 
 them sitting there still, singing the same old songs with 
 the same disregard of key. This is the way, right past 
 the Merritts' windows. I hope they won't look out 
 and see us. It used to be the dear old Curtises' when I 
 was a girl." 
 
 The path led through the intricacies of back gar- 
 dens which no fence separated one from another; it 
 approached boldly close to kitchen entrances ; it skirted 
 a long, low trellis-work and a little grape-arbor.
 
 94 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 "Do you smell it?" cried Ethel. "Isn't it en- 
 chanting? It is the grape in bloom." 
 
 They had come up close beside a big, straggling, 
 unkempt house, set so far behind the others that it 
 really faced on a back road. From two of its lower, 
 open windows, faint and colorless in the still luminous 
 twilight, came the glimmer of a student lamp casting 
 its narrow light upon a study table covered with books 
 and papers. A sound of men's voices, the acrid smoke 
 of pipes drifted out and mingled with the odor of the 
 grape in the garden. 
 
 " Hush ! " whispered Franklin involuntarily. " I 
 don't want them to look out and see me. It is a meet- 
 ing of the faculty, where, perhaps, I ought to be." 
 
 Where perhaps he ought to be? As he spoke, he 
 realized that his mind was not quite made up about his 
 wisdom in the rejection of Brownell's invitation. He 
 recognized Merritt's voice, strident, authoritative, dom- 
 inating the others, and was stung again with the doubt 
 whether, after all, safety, dignity, and ultimate ad- 
 vantage did not lie for him rather with that little group 
 of eager men around Brownell's study table, than here 
 where he was, wandering aimlessly in the perfumed 
 darkness with a woman, one of his mother's friends. 
 
 But he walked on beside her, wavering and uncer- 
 tain, still persisting, in spite of her frank assurances 
 that she could do without him perfectly, and that he 
 might much better go where his business called him, 
 till they came out into the open space behind the Dean's 
 garden. Then Ethel sprang forward with a sudden 
 cry.
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 95 
 
 " Do my eyes deceive me, or isn't that Nannie 
 Chandler herself coming out of the Dean's gate?" 
 
 She ran like a girl across the short grass. 
 
 " My dear Nannie! " 
 
 " Why, Ethel, where did you come from ? " 
 
 Franklin sauntered up a moment afterward into a 
 hubbub of pleased explanation, question and answer. 
 
 " I was just on my way to you if I didn't find Kitty 
 first." 
 
 " She isn't there. I have just been looking for her 
 in the garden. She may be over at my house now. 
 She promised to come after tea to get Sylvia. I prob- 
 ably missed her by going the back way. You had 
 better come back with me, and you, too, Mr. Field." 
 
 She smiled kindly upon the young man, who was 
 still lingering beside them. 
 
 . " Oh, he ought to be at a faculty meeting this very 
 minute! " cried Ethel. " I have been feeling it on my 
 conscience for the last half hour." 
 
 " A faculty meeting ! " cried Mrs. Chandler in sur- 
 prise. " Albion knows nothing about it. I left him 
 at home reading the paper." 
 
 Here Franklin's demure voice broke in between 
 them. 
 
 " Miss Porter misunderstood me. I didn't say a 
 faculty meeting, but a meeting of the faculty. Mark 
 the difference. You, Mrs. Chandler, will understand." 
 
 " Treason, I suppose," she said, shrugging her thin 
 shoulders. 
 
 " Possibly." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " cried Ethel, hot with curi-
 
 96 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 osity. " Harriet Mix was in my room for two hours 
 before supper, helping me to unpack, and I really 
 thought I had arrived at bed-rock of Littelton gossip 
 when she had finished, but I see she has left me unen- 
 lightened on many points." 
 
 " Oh, well, even she would hardly have the face to 
 talk to you about the college while she is hand and glove 
 with its bitterest enemies ! " 
 
 " Enemies ! Tell me all about it, or are we indis- 
 creet to talk openly before this gentleman ? " 
 
 She cast an impertinent glance at Franklin. 
 
 " Oh, no ! He is on our side, of course," said Mrs. 
 Chandler confidently. " It is only these new men, who 
 took the places of my father and Dr. Curtis. You 
 must remember most of them, Ethel. Professor Mer- 
 ritt is the ringleader, and don't you remember that 
 dreadful Mrs. Brauer, with her toothpick and her im- 
 pertinent questions ? It is her husband, too, and some 
 of the new instructors. They have formed a party 
 in the faculty who seem to make it their business to 
 insult and thwart the dear old Dean at every point. 
 Albion says they make his blood boil by the way they 
 often speak to him. But there is nothing to do but 
 bear it. The Dean can't turn them out." 
 
 "Turn them out, why can't he turn them out?" 
 cried Ethel, instantly dropping the inquisitive yet 
 inattentive flippancy which had hitherto somewhat 
 ruffled Franklin in her manner to himself, losing her 
 temper, losing her distinction in all the simple preju- 
 dice and passion of partisanship. 
 
 " Grown old ! too old ! " he heard her cry at last,
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 97 
 
 her voice thrilling with genuine feeling. " Well, sup- 
 pose he were, suppose he were so old that there was 
 nothing left of him but his name ? What then ! With- 
 out his name and his uncle's, who outside this valley 
 would have even heard of or cared about Littel Col- 
 lege? These men Merritt and Co. when they try 
 to enlarge themselves by putting him down, had better 
 remember that his name now has greater power in the 
 world than the name of the college itself, to say noth- 
 ing of their insignificance." 
 
 Her words roused the enthusiasm he had once felt 
 for the Dean as a great man; that facile enthusiasm, 
 born of other people's applause, which had so soon 
 waned in the chilling silences of Littel College. Her 
 eagerness whipped him into line again. He lost the 
 little ironic smile which had come to his lips at first 
 as he heard his faculty colleagues abused, and thought 
 how easily he might some day be classed among them. 
 The momentary attraction he had felt toward the other 
 side went out, never to be renewed. This was really 
 his side people who talked in soft voices, and used 
 his own language, and hung upon his words with 
 breathless attention when he found himself, almost in- 
 voluntarily, divulging by veiled hints and cautious 
 statements what was the purpose of that meeting of 
 the faculty to which Professor Chandler had not been 
 bidden. 
 
 " Do you mean to say they think they have a ma- 
 jority in the board of trustees? How about Richard, 
 then ? " said Ethel suddenly. 
 
 " Well, they rather count him out. You see he
 
 98 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 comes so seldom to the meetings of the board that his 
 vote is almost a negligible factor." 
 
 Ethel drew a long breath. 
 
 " He is coming this year," she said with a subtle 
 change of tone. 
 
 " Oh, Ethel, are you sure? " said Mrs. Chandler. 
 
 " Yes, quite sure. He has some business with the 
 college. He will be at the June meeting. I saw him 
 only the other day. It is all arranged." She broke off 
 rather abruptly. 
 
 They had nearly reached the end of the Promenade 
 and had entered upon the shadow of the great, gray 
 laboratory and school house of engineering. Beyond 
 stretched the tall, brown palings of the botanic gar- 
 den, and the Chandlers' house could be seen glimmer- 
 ing white and ghostly among its surrounding trees. 
 But here they stopped, hearing heavy, swift steps be- 
 hind them, as of some one running to overtake them. 
 A tall, shambling figure loomed out of the twilight of 
 the elms. It was young Hough, a scholarship student 
 who was working his way through college one of the 
 Dean's henchmen. He came up now, breathless and 
 apologetic. 
 
 "Mr. Field, may I speak to you a minute? The 
 Dean wants you, sir." 
 
 " Now, at this minute ? " said Franklin discontent- 
 edly. His old chains surprised him after his brief mo- 
 ment of imagined freedom. 
 
 " Yes, sir, as soon as you can, he said." 
 
 Franklin shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " Some letters, I suppose, that he wants to get
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 99 
 
 off by the midnight mail. Well, there is no help 
 for it." 
 
 He took ceremonious leave of Mrs. Chandler and 
 Miss Porter and turned back with Hough down the 
 long white path across the campus.
 
 XI 
 
 A VERY nice fellow, such good manners and ex- 
 ceedingly intelligent," said Mrs. Chandler, dis- 
 missing him absent-mindedly. " Don't let us go in just 
 yet, Ethel. The children and Albion may be in the 
 sitting-room and I want to talk to you." 
 
 " Yes, I want to ask you," said Ethel almost at 
 the same moment. 
 
 They sat down on the broad top step, under the 
 little Greek portico of the porch, with its two fluted 
 wooden columns. 
 
 " Is it true that the Dean has broken so much ? " 
 asked Ethel at once, with a tremor in her voice. 
 
 Mrs. Chandler stammered a little. 
 
 " No, oh, no ! not much ! Not at all until about a 
 year ago. You know this awful affair of Wilfred 
 Cochran's had worn upon him dreadfully, and lately 
 he has begun to show it a little." 
 
 " Well, do tell me, what is the truth about Wilfred 
 Cochran? Harriet Mix has been narrating the most 
 horrid tales, but I want them confirmed before I be- 
 lieve them. I never knew he had a wife, but now I 
 hear he has deserted her." 
 
 " Oh, my dear, not exactly ! A great deal worse for 
 him, poor fellow ! Of course it all happened since you 
 were last here. You knew he drank ? " 
 
 100
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF. HER FRIENDS 101 
 
 " No, I didn't. At least I knew of course that was 
 why he was turned out of West Point, but I thought 
 he'd got over it." < 
 
 " Not entirely. It seems there were times in the 
 past when the old craving came over him and he had 
 to cut loose from everything; once or twice, even, 
 since he was made professor here, but the dear old 
 Dean covered it up and no one knew. But I believe 
 it had been years and years since the last time, and 
 there was every reason to think it would never happen 
 again, when, without any warning, or any special 
 reason to explain it, two years ago last Easter he dis- 
 appeared in the middle of the term, no one knows 
 where. The Dean finally got word from some wretched 
 place near Highland Falls. He was there, ill. The 
 dear old man went down himself to look after him. 
 The awful thing about it this time was that there was 
 a woman with him, taking care of him, who swore to 
 the Dean that she was his wife. But if she was, there 
 is no doubt she had taken advantage of his condition 
 and made him marry her when he didn't know what 
 he was doing. Albion thinks there may have been 
 some connection in the past, perhaps from old West 
 Point days, which made him drift there this time when 
 he lost control of himself. When the Dean came, it 
 was apparently too late to do anything to save him 
 from the consequences." 
 
 " He ought never to have come back," said Ethel 
 harshly. 
 
 " I suppose not," Mrs. Chandler admitted. " But 
 after all, what was he to do ? He hadn't a cent in the
 
 102 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 world except his salary. She is a decent woman, ac- 
 cording to her lights, I believe, and he had to support 
 her. At any rate, the Dean helped him to come back. 
 Most people think now that it was a great mistake, but 
 he is such a brilliant man in his subject that the col- 
 lege hated to lose him, and every one was willing to 
 give him another chance. We all called on his wife. 
 You can imagine what sort of a woman she is, with 
 that story behind her. It is my secret suspicion that 
 she drinks too. At any rate she is utterly impossible, 
 besides being fiercely jealous and suspicious of every 
 one and everything connected with her husband before 
 his marriage, which rather complicates one's expres- 
 sions of good-will, doesn't it? Fortunately Harriet 
 Mix and that horrid little Mrs. Brauer seem to find 
 points of contact, so she is not entirely neglected. He 
 pulled himself up at first, and did pretty well, but after 
 his child died " 
 
 "Did he have a child?" 
 
 " Oh, yes, very soon ! Fortunately it died almost 
 as soon as it was born. For a long time every one had 
 known that he was drinking again, but after that he 
 ceased to make any attempt to conceal it. In fact it 
 is an open scandal in the town and has done so much 
 harm to the Dean and the college. I am sure it is one 
 of the most serious causes of all this trouble in the 
 faculty. None of his old friends ever see him or have 
 anything to do with him." 
 
 " Not very merciful of them," interpolated Miss 
 Porter dryly. 
 
 " My dear, it is not their fault ; it is himself. He
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 103 
 
 is always putting himself beyond the pale. I suppose 
 Harriet Mix has told you about the dance the other 
 night?" 
 
 " Yes. Hardly a pleasant incident to enliven a 
 festivity, was it ? " 
 
 "Well, exactly! What is one to do? With the 
 best intentions in the world, what is one to do ? Even 
 the Lawrences see nothing of him. Kitty told me so 
 herself the other night." 
 
 " I always thought he might be in love with Kitty," 
 said Ethel musingly. 
 
 The other cried out in disapprobation. 
 
 " Oh, my dear child ! Don't bring such lurid ideas 
 into this simple little place. The thing is quite bad 
 enough without that." 
 
 " He was perfectly devoted to her." 
 
 " Yes, and to the Dean. It is very natural when 
 one remembers how much he owed to Tom. You know 
 how fond Tom was of him, and Kitty is not the kind 
 of person to forget a thing like that. I think she al- 
 ways felt a certain responsibility for him, in Tom's 
 place, as it were. She was always angelically good to 
 him, and I think she had a very good influence over 
 him. He never talked in that exaggerated, extrava- 
 gant way he had sometimes, when she was there. Such 
 a pity ! For he could be so nice and simple and agree- 
 able when he was in the mood for it, and Kitty always 
 brought out his best side." 
 
 " Still, I shouldn't say Kitty was exactly the kind 
 of woman to inspire nothing more than Platonic friend- 
 ship in a man like Wilfred Cochran."
 
 104 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 Mrs. Chandler replied with some heat. 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 But the other had taken refuge in flippancy. 
 
 " Far be it from me to blame her for something so 
 entirely beyond her own control. It isn't her fault she 
 is so peculiarly fitted to be somebody's wife that no 
 man can know her very long without asking her to be 
 his. Still the fact remains, and makes it not quite im- 
 possible that he, at least " 
 
 Mrs. Chandler cried out in almost absurd annoy- 
 ance and agitation. 
 
 " Why do you even imagine such a thing? As if 
 it wasn't bad enough already. My dear, if what you 
 say is true, it would be a tragedy, a tragedy ! " 
 
 Her earnestness imposed her serious tone upon the 
 other in spite of her efforts to escape it. 
 
 "I suppose it would," she agreed musingly; "but 
 not nearly as bad as if she had cared for him." 
 
 The mere sight of Mrs. Chandler's outraged coun- 
 tenance made her hurry to defend herself. 
 
 " I haven't said she did. It was merely a sugges- 
 tion. I really don't see why the very idea is so impos- 
 sible. After all, Kitty is only human. And he when 
 I knew him, at least " But Mrs. Chandler's indig- 
 nation snatched the words from her mouth. 
 
 " Ethel, I don't know what you mean. I don't see 
 how you have tne heart, you who know all about it 
 her happiness with Tom Lawrence, their ideally per- 
 fect relations her grief " 
 
 " But it was such years ago," said Ethel feebly. 
 
 The other echoed the word with withering scorn.
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 105 
 
 " Years ! My dear, what have years to do with 
 it, when a person feels herself married for this world 
 and the next, as I am sure Kitty does. You have only 
 to see her from day to day, as I do, to know that her 
 life is buried in the past, wrapped up in her children 
 and the dear Dean. Really, Ethel," Mrs. Chandler 
 gave her little nervous laugh, "you make me posi- 
 tively uncomfortable by your hints and suggestions." 
 i " I wasn't hinting," said Ethel, laughing too. " I 
 never said even in my wildest ^imaginings I never 
 thought more than that Kitty might have felt a mild 
 sentiment for Wilfred Cochran, which would be ag- 
 grieved at the sudden appearance of an unheralded 
 wife. Nothing more. I assure you, nothing more. 
 I won't go as far as you about the impossibility of her 
 ever caring for any one again in this world, but I quite 
 agree with you in this particular instance. I liked Wil- 
 fred, myself, the little I knew him. All the same, I 
 must admit a sort of gifted uncertainty about the man 
 which must have kept a woman like Kitty eternally 
 upon her guard to say nothing of her own little pose 
 of fastidious remoteness from vulgar human weakness, 
 which makes one feel it almost sacrilegious to imagine 
 her in any extremity of emotion. After all, it is per- 
 fectly possible there was nothing but friendship even 
 on his side. All conjecture based upon the obvious is 
 unlikely to be correct in extraordinary instances, and 
 then only by accident. What does she think about this 
 trouble in the faculty ? " 
 
 Mrs. Chandler made a little despairing gesture. 
 
 " What does she think of anything when she doesn't
 
 106 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 choose to tell you ? She goes about and does her duty 
 by being particularly civil when any one is particularly 
 rude." 
 
 " I thought you said she was coming over this 
 evening." 
 
 " Yes, I thought she was. Something must have 
 kept her. Oh, here is Tom ! " as a tall shape appeared 
 suddenly out of the darkness and approached the two 
 shrouded figures on the Chandlers' steps. 
 
 " Tom, where is your mother ? " asked Mrs. 
 Chandler. 
 
 " At home," answered the youth briefly, in his shy, 
 base voice. 
 
 " Isn't she coming over ? " 
 
 " I don't think so. She sent me to get Sylvia." 
 
 At this moment the upper half of the door behind 
 them swung slowly open, and Professor Chandler's 
 bland little face peeped cautiously out into the darkness. 
 
 " I thought I heard voices talking out on the porch 
 for some time," he said with a mild satisfaction in his 
 perspicacity, " but I thought it best to wait till I was 
 quite sure you wished to come in before I opened the 
 door." 
 
 " Well, we wish to come in now," said his wife 
 with her usual affectionate disregard. 
 
 The front door led directly into a sitting-room 
 quaintly old-fashioned and uncompromising in its 
 barrenness of ornament, striped green and white wall 
 paper, and heavy, horse-hair covered, mahogany furni- 
 ture. Professor Chandler had been sitting in a small, 
 modern rocking-chair, close to the circle of light, by
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 107 
 
 the centre table, half-asleep over the evening paper. 
 From the porch on the other side of the house, out of 
 the fragrant darkness where the vine was in bloom, 
 came Sylvia and Marjorie, in white, with dazzled, 
 luminous eyes, their cheeks smooth and pale with the 
 coolness of the night. 
 
 " O you lovely creatures ! " cried Miss Porter, with 
 her usual frank indiscretion. " Do come into the light 
 and let me see you. Nannie, is it possible that we were 
 ever so deliciously, so extravagantly young as they? 
 Do you remember who I am ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Marjorie, her cheeks going up, and 
 her lips curving prettily over her white teeth in her 
 charming smile. 
 
 " No," said Sylvia. She never remembered any 
 one. Life dropped away every day like the sheath of 
 an opening flower; but she was all the more eager for 
 the present, and her eyes began to dance with excited 
 interest as she listened to Miss Porter and thought she 
 recognized signs of the training and experience of that 
 wider world of which she knew so little and thought 
 so much, that desirable world which moved so swiftly 
 that its inhabitants might escape the darkest shadows 
 of repentance and reprisal, as those never could who 
 lived in the little valley where she had been born. 
 
 " Tell your mother that I am going to be at Miss 
 Mix's until after Commencement, and I hope to see 
 her very soon," said Ethel as they parted at the Dean's 
 corner, she having accepted Tom's shy offer to take her 
 home; " and give my best love to your grandfather." 
 
 "Is that you, children?" said Katherine's voice
 
 io8 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 from the upper hall as the front door went open with 
 its usual crash in Sylvia's heedless hand. " How late 
 your are! Come in, and tell Molly to shut up the 
 house." 
 
 " Tom is not in yet ! " cried Sylvia, running up the 
 shallow steps, clamorous with her sense of injury and 
 curiosity. " O mamma, why didn't you come for me ? 
 I have been waiting and waiting for you over there! " 
 
 She reached the upper hall, dimly lighted by the 
 lamp which hung below. Her mother was not there, 
 but had gone before her, back through one of the doors 
 which stood half-open, into unlit spaces of shadowy 
 rooms beyond. Sylvia, as she followed, heard the 
 scratch of a match and saw the light spring up from 
 the newly kindled lamp, shedding its illumination on 
 the heavy, swinging glass of the dressing-table, begin- 
 ning to send back dim reflections of the spacious, 
 gravely furnished room beyond. She saw her mother 
 glance quickly, almost curiously into the glass as her 
 own reflection grew clearer in the strengthening light ; 
 she saw her put up her hand to the soft, heavy knot of 
 hair behind, as if looking for its disarrangement. 
 
 " Where have you been ?" she asked again, eagerly, 
 but did not wait for an answer. She was in too much 
 of a hurry to retail her own piece of news. 
 
 " We all expected you, and there was some one 
 you know who wanted to see you Miss Ethel Porter. 
 She is going to spend Commencement here." 
 
 " Hush, dear, not so loud ! " said Katherine, shrink- 
 ing a little, as one does sometimes when a human 
 voice breaks in again upon solitary thinking. " Your
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 109 
 
 grandfather needed me, and I am afraid afterward I 
 quite forgot about you until I heard Tom come in, and 
 sent him over." 
 
 "How tiresome of grandfather! " said Sylvia cross- 
 ly. " She wanted to see him too. Where is he ? " 
 
 " A telegram came for him suddenly this evening 
 while he was at supper, calling him to New York on 
 business. He went off by the 8.57 train," said Kath- 
 erine slowly, and then hesitated a moment in silence, 
 as if deliberating how she should answer the amazed 
 curiosity which confronted her. She spoke at last with 
 a certain effort, a careful, gentle brevity, as if already 
 discounting the greater length, the extravagant com- 
 ment which was already beginning to buzz through the 
 silent places of Littel College; which must sooner or 
 later be retold for Sylvia, in spite of all the most care- 
 ful restraint. 
 
 " Professor Cochran is dead. He was found in his 
 room at the hotel where he was staying in New York. 
 The proprietor, who knew of his connection with the 
 college, sent the news to your grandfather, who thought 
 no one else would be as able to do what might be re- 
 quired, so he went himself." 
 
 " O mamma, dead ! " cried Sylvia, advancing far- 
 ther into the room, full of surprise and shocked emo- 
 tion. " O mamma ! " she exclaimed again, in a tone 
 still more acute with anxiety, as a second thought 
 arose and struck her, " do you think it will put a stop 
 to the Commencement ball ? "
 
 XII 
 
 THE Dean was away from Littelton nearly four 
 days. He wrote to his daughter-in-law several 
 times, though for the most part brief telegraphic de- 
 spatches, which told no more than the most neces- 
 sary details. But on the third day after his departure 
 she received a long letter, written in his usual leisurely, 
 old-fashioned, epistolary style. When she found her- 
 self alone at the breakfast-table, Tom having departed 
 for his first recitation, and Sylvia not yet come down, 
 she perused it again more than once, re-reading the last 
 pages, especially, with an almost painful attention. Dr. 
 Lawrence was staying at the house of a friend of his, 
 the rector of one of the uptown churches. He wrote : 
 " I am very comfortably settled. D is most at- 
 tentive, and his wife a very agreeable, well-informed 
 woman. They insisted on inviting several people to 
 meet me yesterday evening, very informally. It was 
 in no sense a dinner party, and I own I enjoyed it, 
 though I began by feeling very little in the spirit for 
 it. I had a good deal to say on that new bill for the 
 taxing of college property now before the Legislature, 
 and I could feel that I had succeeded in putting it 
 
 before them in a new light. D took me round to the 
 
 Century Club for a few minutes later in the evening. 
 It is, of course, rather late in the season. People are 
 
 no
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF HER FRIENDS in 
 
 already beginning to leave town, but I saw a great 
 many new faces, and several old ones. I was shocked 
 to notice the change in my old friend Dr. Eustis, 
 younger than I am by several years. He looked shriv- 
 elled and bent, and walked with difficulty, supporting 
 himself with a heavy stick. I felt myself a lusty young- 
 ster beside him, for this life in New York is a great tax 
 on a man's vitality. The constant noise and confusion 
 
 is very fatiguing. D 's house, of course, is in one 
 
 of the quietest of the uptown streets, just out of Park 
 Avenue, which, with its broad, sunny spaces and little 
 flower gardens, imparts at least some small freshness 
 to the stale city air. But I own, in spite of all the 
 comforts with which I am surrounded, I have found 
 great difficulty in sleeping since I have been here, great 
 oppression of breathing, which makes me prefer to sit 
 up reading or writing long after the late hour when 
 we all retire ; and the noise of the milk carts wakes me 
 in the morning earlier than at home. The surcharge 
 of material things provided for one's comfort ends by 
 impressing me almost painfully. That luxury and re- 
 finement of living, whose only excuse is when it leaves 
 a man freer from wasting detail, seems to be used here 
 only to complicate and entangle one's simpler daily 
 life, leaving less and less time for the things of the 
 spirit. Perhaps just now I am the less in tune for 
 it because I seem to see constantly before me that 
 wretched upper room in that unsavory corner saloon, 
 the rigid, silent figure covered carelessly with a sheet, 
 the dreadful change on the familiar features the 
 tragedy of that shameful end to so much promise.
 
 ii2 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 " The owner of the saloon Michael Murphy, by 
 name has been most considerate, most obliging. No 
 gentleman could have done more to make my sad task 
 easier. But, indeed, every one has been most kind. 
 The coroner turned out to be a Littel graduate Bates, 
 of '79 perhaps you remember him. I believe I told 
 you that there were several suspicious circumstances 
 when the body was first discovered, which made them 
 suspect suicide. Nothing of the sort, it turned out 
 from the autopsy. The dreadful discoloration of the 
 upper part of the face was the result of purely natural 
 causes. But Bates was as anxious as I to keep it out 
 of the papers, and as luck would have it the reporter 
 sent down by the Globe was another Littel College 
 boy. He never graduated, I believe, but I remember 
 him perfectly. The other men were a very gentlemanly 
 set of fellows, so there has been only the merest men- 
 tion of the affair in any of the daily papers. 
 
 " I have become quite familiar with this dreary lo- 
 cality, this wretched little upper room, with its out- 
 look on one of those broad, squalid avenues beyond 
 the elevated road. I am sitting alone now, at a bare 
 table near the window above the saloon, while I write 
 this letter to you. The proprietor's son, a most intel- 
 ligent young fellow, has put himself entirely at my dis- 
 posal. Only a public-school education, but the result 
 is creditable to himself and his country. I was able 
 to dictate to him a great number of my letters which I 
 could not write myself, owing to the pain in my hands. 
 I wrote Chandler about the details of the funeral, even 
 before we could decide on the day, and through this
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 113 
 
 lad I have been able to arrange with the undertaker at 
 Littelton, besides a hundred other small matters which 
 I can't leave to Chandler, and should hate to impose 
 on you, my dear Kitty. There is one thing, however, 
 I should like you to see about, if you will. It concerns 
 Mrs. Cochran. I do not feel it right to leave her in 
 the dark about all the details of her husband's death 
 and funeral. I have felt greatly tempted to write to 
 her, yet I cannot help believing that all my former 
 relations with her would make any news coming from 
 me unnecessarily painful. Can you see her yourself, 
 and explain to her as much as she will bear of the 
 painful story? Assure her that everything has been 
 done with the utmost consideration for her feelings 
 and his dignity. And one other matter, my dear Kitty, 
 I hope you won't think me too fanciful, but I should 
 like something from Tom to lie on his coffin in the 
 memory that they would have been soldiers together 
 if fate had not broken him so soon. Will you see to 
 that for Tom and me ? " 
 
 Katherine folded up the letter and returned it to 
 its envelope, letting it and her hands fall together in 
 her lap. She was still there, leaning back in her chair, 
 her head a little raised, her eyes strained with an inner 
 look of more and more poignant sadness, when Sylvia 
 came in with the cloud of an uncertain morning mood 
 upon her brow. The shadow lifted, however, when 
 she found herself met with no uncomfortable comment 
 on her want of punctuality, and saw Molly come in 
 unexpectedly with hot toast from the kitchen. 
 
 " Mamma, dear, I like that linen dress you have on.
 
 114 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 It makes you look so nice and clear," she cried with 
 affectionate admiration, as she stretched out her bowl 
 of oatmeal for some more cream. " You always look 
 so pretty in the morning." 
 
 Katherine gazed at her dimly a moment, as if she 
 hardly saw her. Then she smiled, though not enough 
 to drive away the melancholy of her eyes. 
 
 " Nevertheless, I must go and leave you," she said 
 with a faint effort, after her usual half-ironic accept- 
 ance of her little daughter's flattery. 
 
 " Oh, don't go ! don't go ! " cried Sylvia, reduced 
 to entreaties. " I hate so to eat alone ! Don't go, and 
 I will help you afterward with the flowers ! " 
 
 Katherine shook her head. 
 
 " The flowers are finished, and I am in a hurry, 
 for I have something to do before I go downtown. 
 Would you like to drive with me, Sylvia, at nine 
 o'clock?" 
 
 " Where? " asked Sylvia cautiously. 
 
 " First I must stop at Miss Mix's, and then leave 
 some orders at Van Deusen's, and then I am going out 
 on the Statesburg road to the nurseries." 
 
 " Will you promise me you won't make me get out 
 anywhere ? " asked Sylvia suspiciously. 
 
 Katherine laughed a little. 
 
 " You needn't go at all unless you wish. I can 
 do perfectly well without you, and I shan't make any 
 promises. But if it isn't too muddy we might drive 
 a little farther out on the Statesburg road toward that 
 pretty view. Should you like that ? " 
 
 Sylvia nodded.
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 115 
 
 " Then run over to the stable as soon as you have 
 finished your breakfast and tell Mike to bring round 
 the horse at a quarter past nine. And put on a coat, 
 for it is cold after the rain last night." 
 
 But Sylvia almost wished she had not gone, as 
 she sat by her mother in the phaeton in front of Miss 
 Mix's, and heard what seemed to her an interminable 
 conversation between Katherine and that stout little 
 lady, who had come out as soon as she saw the dark 
 brown mare draw up and stop at her horse-block, and 
 now stood, one pudgy hand on the dashboard, the other 
 holding the side of the open top, as if she never meant 
 to let go. 
 
 Yet it was in answer to some request of Katherine's 
 that she was pouring out that flood of rather lurid 
 details about poor Patty Cochran; her entire collapse 
 when she first received the news of her husband's 
 death ; her shrieks ; her hysterics ; how Mrs. Brauer and 
 Miss Mix herself had watched with her night and 
 day; how this morning Harriet had already been to 
 see her, but had found her calmer, more resigned. 
 This and much more she said with her usual volubility, 
 increased tenfold by the flattering attention of Kath- 
 erine's grave blue eyes. Sylvia felt quite vexed with 
 her mother for not cutting her short. But far from 
 impatience, there was something almost like humility 
 in Katherine's voice when she spoke at last. 
 
 " You have been very kind. We ought all to thank 
 you for doing so much more than your share of the 
 duty which belongs to us all alike." 
 
 " Oh, but I could never consider it a duty, Mrs.
 
 ii6 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 Lawrence ! " cried Miss Mix, her ignoble little face 
 aflame with something that looked like genuine feeling. 
 " In times like these, we can't but feel ourselves all 
 sisters, and there is something in poor Patty's condi- 
 tion which would touch the heart of a stone. If you 
 could only see her " 
 
 But Katherine interposed somewhat hurriedly: 
 
 " I am sure you have been a great comfort to her, 
 and it is to you, as her friend, that I come now." She 
 hesitated, her brow sharpening a little under her infre- 
 quent frown. " I I haven't been to see Mrs. Coch- 
 ran. I didn't feel that she would wish it " 
 
 " Oh, I am sure she would be very much pleased ! " 
 cried Miss Mix officiously. " Any little mark of re- 
 spect in times like these is sure to be appreciated." 
 
 Katherine was silent a moment, then began again, 
 softly putting aside the other's last remark. 
 
 " I think, however, if you will be so kind, I shall 
 still ask you to go to her for me. I know how pain- 
 ful it must be for her that all these last arrangements 
 should have been made without consulting her. She 
 might easily resent being informed of them by some 
 one almost a stranger, as I am to her," Katherine 
 added after an almost imperceptible pause. 
 
 " Well, I suppose, now you mention it, that might 
 be so," said Miss Mix, a serious meaning beginning 
 to dawn over her face and purse her lips. " After all, 
 poor Patty is no more than human." 
 
 Katherine paused a moment to take breath and then 
 went on in a voice which she kept perfectly steady, 
 though before she had finished her face was more than
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 117 
 
 half-averted from the curious, peering eyes which were 
 watching so intently to make their own interpretation 
 of any shade of unexpected expression they found there. 
 
 " Dr. Lawrence wished Mrs. Cochran to be in- 
 formed of all the little details of the funeral, as far as 
 possible as soon as he knew them himself." 
 
 "Yes," said Miss Mix, ".I am sure the Dean is 
 most considerate." 
 
 " Here are the copies of parts of his letters to me, 
 which I have made, so as to be sure that nothing is for- 
 gotten. The train arrives to-morrow at 1.45 from 
 New York, and they go at once to the chapel without 
 stopping at the house." 
 
 At this point Miss Mix's face, which had been 
 bland with gratified and sympathetic curiosity, became 
 dark with surprise and disapproval. 
 
 " Do you mean, Mrs. Lawrence, that not even poor 
 Patty herself is to have a chance to view the remains 
 before the interment ? " 
 
 Katherine drew her breath sharply. 
 
 " The Dean is very sorry about that," she an- 
 swered, surprised into a sort of apology. 
 
 " Well, of course, it is not my place to offer advice 
 when it is not asked," said the other, voluble, almost 
 truculent, in the shock of her own disappointment, 
 " but I must say I can't be responsible for the way 
 Patty takes any such news. Indeed, I don't feel that 
 I can see my way to facing her with it at all." 
 
 Katherine turned to her quickly, her face suddenly 
 unveiled by a personal appeal. 
 
 " I am sure, Miss Mix, you are too kind a woman
 
 u8 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 to wish to make anything more difficult for us just 
 now ; you are her friend, and you have known the Dean 
 for a great many years. Won't you try to make Mrs. 
 Cochran understand that, far from there being the 
 least disregard for her feelings in this respect, there 
 has been the greatest care to save them. If you will 
 only recall the little that is known of the circumstances 
 of his death, you will see why any other arrangement 
 would have been infinitely more painful to her, even 
 if it had been possible." 
 
 Instantly mollified, Miss Mix drew near to share 
 what might be a new tidbit of hitherto withheld and 
 unsavory detail. Her voice dropped to a cautious whis- 
 per and she glanced discreetly at Sylvia, who sat drear- 
 ily inattentive on the other side of the carriage, her 
 eyes and thoughts apparently bent on the end of the 
 whip, which she was trailing among the green maple 
 seeds sifted between the cracks of the cobble-stones. 
 Miss Mix turned to Katherine again. 
 
 " I had heard there had to be an inquest," she be- 
 gan again in her gusty whisper, " but I didn't know. 
 Does that mean ? Did they have to ? " 
 
 Katherine shrank from her base curiosity in an al- 
 most visible recoil, cutting her short, though her voice 
 was too soft to betray the dislike hidden in her reply. 
 
 " I am afraid I cannot tell you any more. The 
 Dean himself has preferred to spare me everything ex- 
 cept the barest reference. When you have read these 
 extracts from his letters you will know quite as much 
 as I, and will be quite as able to draw the necessary 
 conclusions."
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 119 
 
 She took the whip in a way that made Sylvia sit 
 up as if she had been found fault with. The brown 
 mare started from a sudden tightening of the reins, 
 Miss Mix drew away from the dashboard in fear for 
 her square-toed slippers. But Katherine's manner had 
 already resumed its former deprecating gentleness. 
 
 " And if Mrs. Cochran would really like to see 
 me " she concluded almost timidly. 
 
 " Yes, I understand; I shall let you know," replied 
 Miss Mix, all officious kindliness and encouragement 
 again. 
 
 " Mamma," said Sylvia as they drove down the 
 street together, " I should not think Mrs. Cochran 
 would like people to talk about her and tell everything, 
 as Miss Mix was doing just now to you. I should 
 think she would almost rather be left alone." 
 
 " O Sylvia ! " said Mrs. Lawrence, with what was 
 almost a cry of despair and discouragement, " as you 
 grow older you will find that almost anything is for- 
 given sooner than suspected coldness and want of sym- 
 pathy."
 
 XIII 
 
 A LITTLE way farther down the street they 
 passed Ethel Porter and Mrs. Chandler walk- 
 ing slowly along together, arm in arm, under the 
 branching maples. Ethel was moving alertly, the well- 
 preserved youth, of which she was justly proud, show- 
 ing in every line of her supple figure and spirited, erect 
 head. She was twirling and twisting the white lace 
 parasol which lay against her shoulder, and talking 
 earnestly, with all the energy of emphasis which was 
 one of her mannerisms, while her companion listened 
 rather limply, clinging to a sustaining arm, and mak- 
 ing no effort to keep in step. They both nodded and 
 smiled, and Ethel waved her parasol as the little car- 
 riage went by. At a corner where the street made a 
 bend, and the imposing yellow stone house which had 
 been old Judge Porter's stood empty, facing both ways 
 in its neglected garden, they turned into State Street, 
 the main avenue of Littelton's commerce, a dirty, ill- 
 paved, narrow thoroughfare without trees, where the 
 houses and shops stood close together as they might 
 in a larger town where space was precious, but always 
 sunny, for it stretched east and west; now full of the 
 light and life and movement of a June morning, with 
 a jocund west wind frolicing everywhere after two 
 days of rain. 
 
 120
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF HER FRIENDS 121 
 
 The street was full of farmers' wagons, up to their 
 hubs in mud from the country roads, and the rough- 
 laid cobble-stones had been hammered into the ground 
 and covered with a layer of black dirt, so that the little 
 phaeton ran more smoothly as it threaded its way 
 through the traffic, though its brightness was soon 
 dimmed by the greasy mud which splashed from every 
 rut and puddle. 
 
 They drew up at last before Van Deusen's, the 
 principal provision store and market of the town, an 
 untidy place, with heaps of roughly disposed fruit and 
 vegetables blocking its two narrow doors of entrance, 
 leaves of the ever-marketable cabbage lying about the 
 pavement, with broken pods of the first spring peas. 
 Mrs. Lawrence intrusted the reins to Sylvia and went 
 in under the dingy awnings to the back part of the 
 store, where canned vegetables, bins of dusty crackers, 
 and garden implements hanging in bunches against the 
 walls added further to the confusion of trades. 
 
 Sylvia, left sitting out in the sun, was very well 
 pleased watching the people go by to the post-office, 
 which was just across the way. Very soon Mrs. 
 Chandler and Miss Porter appeared round the corner. 
 Sylvia sat up straight and began to sparkle and preen 
 herself, for she had conceived an extravagant fancy for 
 Ethel, and hoped she would come and speak to her 
 before she crossed the street. And, indeed, both the 
 ladies stopped at the curb as they passed. 
 
 "Are you waiting for your mother?" said Ethel, 
 smiling kindly at the pretty child. "Where is she? 
 Oh, I see her talking to Mr. Van Deusen in the door-
 
 122 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 way! Do look at her, Nannie! Did you ever see a 
 more angelically interested expression, and yet I am 
 sure he is telling her nothing more thrilling than the 
 price of spring vegetables." 
 
 Katherine looked up from her examination of the 
 little stream of peas which was falling from a pod to 
 the dirty ground in obedience to an impulse of the large 
 thumb of the old shopkeeper. She caught sight of the 
 little group outside in the sunlight and smiled. 
 
 " I suppose you are making fun of me for my ab- 
 sorption in wretched domestic detail. It is quite like 
 you," she said to Ethel, as she stepped over Sylvia to 
 take her place again in the carriage. 
 
 " Not at all ! I was admiring your hat ! " replied the 
 other flippantly. " Well, Sylvia, how about tennis this 
 afternoon? I believe that faithless swain of yours is 
 going to desert us." 
 
 " Oh, yes ! " said Sylvia innocently. " Poor Ste- 
 phen! He has a horrid examination at four o'clock. 
 It isn't his fault. It makes him very angry. But Tom 
 will play, if you like. He has plenty of time and he 
 serves nearly as well as Stephen." 
 
 " May I have your daughter on the college courts 
 this afternoon?" said Ethel, turning to Katherine. 
 " That infant, Franklin Field, has asked me to play 
 with him, and I am getting too old for singles." 
 
 " O Ethel, you will never get old," said Mrs. 
 Chandler, half-complaining. " Each time you come, 
 you begin with a new set." 
 
 They all laughed, even Sylvia, who only half-un- 
 derstood.
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 123 
 
 " Be sure to stop in the garden on your way home. 
 I feel as if I hadn't seen you at all," Katherine was 
 beginning, and then cut herself short somewhat ab- 
 ruptly, driving off just as Mrs. Loomis arrived on 
 the curb-stone, after a perilous passage across the 
 muddy street, leaving that lady panting and pon- 
 derous and disappointed, looking after the departing 
 carriage. 
 
 " What a pity ! I crossed on purpose to speak to 
 her. I wanted to ask about the service for Professor 
 Cochran in the college chapel to-morrow. It seems a 
 bad plan to give it any publicity, considering the man's 
 past record, doesn't it ? " 
 
 Mrs. Chandler answered somewhat stiffly, resent- 
 ing, with inherited feeling, the right of the town to 
 criticise anything the college might think proper. 
 
 " Impertinent of her ! What business is it of hers 
 who the Dean permits to be buried in the college lot? " 
 she said with more than usual animation, looking after 
 Mrs. Loomis's receding back. 
 
 " Her escape was so well-timed that if it had been 
 any one but Kitty I should have believed she did it 
 on purpose," remarked Ethel laughing. 
 
 " Oh, do you think so ? " said Mrs. Chandler ab- 
 sent-mindedly. " Shall you go, Ethel, to the funeral, 
 I mean?" 
 
 " Not I. I feel just badly enough about it to run 
 no unnecessary risks of having my feelings lacerated. 
 I am going to spend the day with the Hetheringtons, 
 at Statesburg. Really, I don't think I could stand an- 
 other funeral in that college chapel, even if it were
 
 124 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 my worst enemy. How can Kitty bear it? I don't 
 wonder she is looking so sad." 
 
 " Do you think so ? I hadn't noticed it," said Mrs. 
 Chandler in some surprise. 
 
 There was a moment's silence between them, till 
 Ethel began again rather abruptly, " I find her very 
 much changed." 
 
 " Changed ! " echoed the other. " How do you 
 mean ? Of course we are all a great deal older." 
 
 " Older, yes, of course, though I don't mean that. 
 She still looks absurdly young to be the mother of 
 those great children. And I have seen her sad enough 
 before, Heaven knows! It is not that only. Perhaps 
 it is the contrast. Do you remember when I was here 
 last, Nannie, six years ago? Richard came up, too, 
 for a visit, and we all renewed our youth together and 
 had such a good time ! She was just beginning to wear 
 colors again, and come out a little, and there was some- 
 thing about her, I thought then, a sort of radiance in 
 her whole look, a joy and expectancy, and yet surprise 
 that life could be just merry and happy again after 
 all those years in the grave with Tom. It didn't last 
 very long, did it? Certainly there is none of it left 
 now." 
 
 " I remember that summer," said Mrs. Chandler, 
 mildly reminiscent. " Yes, now that I come to think 
 of it, we have never been quite the same since. It was 
 very soon after that we began to notice a change in 
 the dear Dean's health." 
 
 " Does Kitty ever confess she is worried about 
 him?"
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 125 
 
 Mrs. Chandler gave her little dry giggle. " No, 
 that isn't Kitty's way. But you can see that he is 
 never off her mind for a minute." 
 
 " I wonder what she will do," said Ethel, half- 
 unconscious where she was following her thoughts. 
 
 The other answered quickly, " Oh, my dear, she 
 won't stay here a moment ! She doesn't really care for 
 it here. Outwardly, of course, she is all that is sweet 
 and loyal to the college and the place and us, but she 
 has never really cared for Littelton, never really taken 
 root here." 
 
 " I suppose she has been too unhappy." 
 
 There was a tone of reasonable irritation in Mrs. 
 Chandler's voice as she replied, " My dear, what has 
 that to do with it? Every one has to be unhappy 
 somewhere, and for that matter she has been very 
 happy, too: All her married life! Both her children 
 were born here. No, fond as I am of Kitty, I can't help 
 having that little grudge against her. She never opened 
 her heart to us here in Littelton. It is only her duty to 
 the Dean that keeps her here now." 
 
 " I suppose she is very comfortably off," remarked 
 Ethel. " Of course Tom could leave her nothing, but 
 she was believed to be something of an heiress when 
 he married her." 
 
 " I suppose so. Kitty never speaks about those 
 things. They live very simply, just as the rest of us 
 do. But one can't help seeing that she never has to 
 scrimp about money as we poor people on salaries 
 must." And Mrs. Chandler went on to give instances 
 to show forth a comfortable lavishness in the adminis-
 
 126 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 tration of the Dean's household, which she herself, with 
 narrower means, was unable to imitate. 
 
 " Mamma," said Sylvia, as soon as the cobble- 
 stones had given place to a sandy road, made firm and 
 pleasant for going by last night's rain, and conversation 
 was again possible between them ; " mamma, I want to 
 ask you something. Did Professor Cochran commit 
 suicide ? " 
 
 " Has any one said so ? " said Katherine, turning 
 upon her with a somewhat startled attention. 
 
 " Not exactly," said Sylvia looking down. " Just 
 little things, and the inquest. I thought there never 
 was an inquest unless a person committed sui- 
 cide." 
 
 " An inquest may be held after any sudden death, 
 and find, as in this case, that it came from natural 
 causes," said Katherine in a tone that imposed silence 
 till she herself chose to break it, which she did at last 
 almost abruptly. 
 
 " Have many people spoken to you about Professor 
 Cochran ? " 
 
 " Oh, no," said Sylvia ; " only Marjorie and Jimmy 
 Snell and some of the boys just at first, when they were 
 angry because they were afraid it would put a stop to 
 the Commencement ball." 
 
 "And you, too?" said Katherine somewhat bit- 
 terly. 
 
 " A little, mamma, at first. It seemed so unfair 
 that everything should be spoiled for some one we 
 hardly knew. Then afterward, when it turned out that
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 127 
 
 it was going to be all right about the ball, we were 
 sorry and took everything back." 
 
 " It would be impossible for children like you to 
 know enough about him either to praise or blame cor- 
 rectly," said Katherine in a tone between pride and 
 pain. 
 
 Sylvia dropped her eyes and moved her shoulders 
 uneasily, for she thought she was being found fault 
 with. Her mother went on wistfully: 
 
 " You speak of hardly knowing him. I suppose 
 you have forgotten that you were ever fond of him." 
 
 " No, I haven't," said Sylvia, touched at a tender 
 point. " It was the boys I meant when I said ' we.' 
 I remember very well, of course. It was he who gave 
 me my set of Miss Edgeworth, and taught Tom and 
 me to shoot at a mark in the garden, and was always 
 talking to Tom about West Point, till you told him to 
 stop, for it would make him discontented with going 
 to college here. Why, it was only a little while ago 
 that we all had such fun making paper butterflies for 
 the Christmas-tree, and he was so cross because you 
 wouldn't think his butterfly as pretty as yours. And 
 finally he made a great big one with black feelers and 
 gorgeous blue and gold spots all over its wings, which 
 he insisted upon putting at the very top of the tree. 
 Do you remember that butterfly ? " 
 
 Katherine shook her head. She had listened with 
 a sort of suspended attention which seemed trembling 
 every moment on the verge of withdrawal, but she let 
 Sylvia go on, uninterrupted, to the very end. 
 
 They stopped at last before wide-spread lines of
 
 128 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 glass-houses interspersed with patches of shining green, 
 of plants in open frames and flourishing gardens the 
 nurseries which supplied even the Statesburg florists 
 from their abundance. A boy came out of the office 
 to hold the horse. 
 
 "Are you coming in?" said Katherine in some 
 surprise, as Sylvia prepared to follow her out of the 
 carriage. 
 
 Sylvia laughed. 
 
 " I don't mind here. It is only shops and errands 
 I hate so." 
 
 The German gardener knew Mrs. Lawrence well. 
 He led them about the different houses and out among 
 the bedding plants, confident that she would care for 
 nothing in the world so much as the sight of hundreds 
 of little plants of a new petunia ready to be sent to 
 market. But to-day, contrary to her usual custom, 
 Katherine wished to see the cut flowers. From these 
 she chose, after some deliberation, some very beautiful, 
 dark-red roses. Sylvia listened with mechanical inter- 
 est to careful directions as to how they were to be ar- 
 ranged, not stiffly in a florist's bouquet, but in a soft, 
 loose bunch, with their own leaves. But her interest 
 suddenly sharpened as she heard her mother telling 
 where they were to be sent, and saw her grandfather's 
 card, with a black dash through the prefixes, given to 
 be fastened on the wire which was to secure them. 
 
 " Mamma," she said, when they were again to- 
 gether in the carriage, " I thought people sent only 
 white or purple flowers for some one who was 
 dead."
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 129 
 
 " So they do, very often, but not always. It de- 
 pends on what they think the other would like; and 
 Wilfred hated funeral wreaths," she added, with a 
 facile use of the Christian name of which she was evi- 
 dently unconscious, and which Sylvia did not even 
 hear, so eager was she to see the brown mare's head 
 turned for the longer drive. 
 
 They had left the town well to the south of them. 
 The road, following the curve of the valley, yet mak- 
 ing all the time a sort of sidelong ascent of one of its 
 sloping sides, reached at last the brink of one of the 
 insignificant little watersheds of the pleasant, rolling 
 country. To the east was Statesburg, invisible behind 
 the sand barrens, with their groves of gloomy pines. 
 But there was a break in the roadside to the west which 
 gave a wide glimpse of the Littel valley, with the 
 town and its brown spires, and the tufted trees and 
 square tower of the college lying half-way down its 
 slope, the silver thread of the river, winding with its 
 islands through the narrow flood plain. Opposite were 
 the broad lines of hills, the same hills one saw through 
 the arches of the elms on the college green, but higher, 
 wider, more transparently blue, from this more lofty 
 vantage ground. The Alban Hills they had been 
 named by some classic pioneer of the valley. 
 
 Katherine checked her horse and they both sat for 
 a few minutes looking widely out before them in si- 
 lence, that strange alembic which separates and divides, 
 what was a moment before a unity of intercourse, into 
 its own parts, unknown and unknowing, as if they had 
 never been one.
 
 130 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 Katharine spoke first, quite unconscious of the long 
 road by which the words had come to her. 
 
 "Your father brought me here the first time he 
 ever took me to drive after we came to Littelton to live." 
 
 Sylvia glanced swiftly at her mother from under 
 her eyelashes and wondered to see her speak so calm- 
 ly and look so tranquil. She herself was always 
 strangely moved by any mention of her father. All 
 through her childhood she had been nourished by sim- 
 ple, touching stories about him, such as would amuse 
 and interest a little child. She felt that she knew him 
 very well and all about him. But as she grew older, 
 as she reached the age that had been her mother's when 
 her father first came into her life, she had become 
 vaguely suspicious of all this surface intimacy so 
 freely bestowed upon her. She longed to know more 
 more than Katherine, in her shy reserve, could ever 
 tell her of her joy and of her sorrow. And now, as 
 she heard her mother speak so simply of what was so 
 soon to be such utter loss and desolation, she strained 
 to touch the anguish which must so often have dimmed 
 and stained those eyes, now so gravely, purely blue 
 under the arches of their white lids, feeling no comfort 
 that it was long ago, that time had done away the sharp- 
 ness of regret, for it was the past itself she demanded 
 the inexorable past. She felt that she would have 
 given her very breath if, by some necromancy, she 
 could bring back the moment of that first drive to- 
 gether, hold those two who loved each other suspended 
 here on the verge of the sunny valley forever, out of 
 the power of the impending disaster; forbid the little
 
 OE HER FRIENDS 131 
 
 river ever to rise above its shallow banks and over- 
 whelm them with its yellow, separating flood ; she her- 
 self might never be born, but she hardly felt the pang 
 of her own annihilation, for, by a strange dual con- 
 sciousness, she seemed to have possession in that golden 
 moment, in virtue of her own deep love and her father's 
 love for her mother. 
 
 The mare, feeling her head turned toward home, 
 set off at a good trot down the gradual incline, pulling 
 a little against her mistress's steady hands, flirting bits 
 of the soft, sandy soil into the carriage in her long, free 
 gait. But her pace slackened somewhat as they came 
 to a rise in the road, and then Sylvia, feeling all at once 
 very sad and lonely and far away, put both hands 
 on her mother's arm, all tense and firm from driving. 
 The jealous, human child was dominant in her again 
 and demanded satisfaction. 
 
 " O mamma, if he had lived you wouldn't have 
 loved me so much ! " she cried. 
 
 Katherine disengaged herself and drew quite away 
 to the other side of the carriage. 
 
 " Who what do you mean ? " she said, almost 
 fiercely. Then, seeing the child's dismayed and wist- 
 ful eyes, she caught herself together again, though still 
 trembling from that first touch of a little, soft hand 
 against her privacy. 
 
 " Don't be silly, Sylvia! " she said impatiently; and 
 Sylvia was silent, not sulky, but sorrowful and abashed, 
 drooping a little in her corner of the carriage. Kath- 
 erine turned upon her suddenly with one of her sweet, 
 sidelong glances.
 
 132 IN THE HOUSE OF HER FRIENDS 
 
 " Shall we take the short cut through College Lane ? 
 Perhaps we shall find some columbine in bloom." 
 
 " O mamma," cried Sylvia, between laughing and 
 crying, in the sense that a base advantage was being 
 taken of her injured feelings, " you always get the 
 better of me! You know if we find any you will ask 
 me to get out and pick it for you, and I shan't be able 
 to resist you, though picking flowers is the thing I hate 
 most in the world."
 
 XIV 
 
 WHEN the tennis players stopped in the Dean's 
 garden on their way back from the courts 
 that afternoon Sylvia found Stephen with her mother. 
 
 " How did you get on ? " she asked with indiscreet 
 directness as he came to meet them. 
 
 He made no answer in words, but his looks showed 
 deep dejection. 
 
 " I must rush home to dress," said Ethel, " for I 
 am going to a tea party at the Loomis's, all my mar- 
 ried friends and their husbands and Dr. Mills to keep 
 me in countenance. Don't you envy me? " 
 
 " I am sure you will have a very good time," said 
 Katherine with a polite discretion that made the other 
 laugh. 
 
 " Poor Kitty ! You are always so pathetically civil 
 about Littelton gayeties; but it is no good. You never 
 take any one in as to your real opinion of them. 
 Strange, isn't it, Mr. Field ? " 
 
 Franklin smiled his little, cautious, courteous smile. 
 He thought Mrs. Lawrence did not look entirely 
 pleased by the sudden attack upon her. 
 
 " Are you coming with us ? " he asked Stephen as 
 they turned to go. 
 
 " No, I am staying here," answered Stephen out 
 of the depths of gloom. 
 
 133
 
 134 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 " Poor old man ! " said the tutor in a kindly aside 
 as they all walked down the gravel path to the gate; 
 and Stephen, in reply, muttered between his teeth : 
 
 " That boarding-house table is more than a fellow 
 can stand when he is down on his luck. I am glad 
 to cut it to-night." 
 
 " Well, stop in my room when you come back, and 
 we will have some ' polly ' together," said Franklin 
 almost affectionately. It pleased him to lay aside the 
 formal professorial manner with this senior and treat 
 him on the plane of equality, as one man to another; 
 not difficult under the circumstances, for they were 
 nearly the same age. 
 
 " Stephen is going to stay to tea," said Katherine 
 to Sylvia, with a certain gentle warning in her voice 
 which the other understood even as she rejected it, for 
 she had already made up her mind that she was not 
 going to be nice to Stephen, whatever her mother said. 
 It was really too stupid of him to fail in that silly old 
 examination, and she was tired of talking about it, 
 anyway. 
 
 She turned her brilliant, hardening eyes upon him 
 as he sat, dejection in every line of his figure, beside her 
 mother on the bench, and answered with a kind of 
 stony cheerfulness: 
 
 " Oh, is he ? Well, I must go at once and change 
 my tennis things." 
 
 He watched her, with wide, expressionless gaze, 
 down the grassy path between the cherry-trees till she 
 was out of sight, and then turned to Katherine dumbly, 
 in such frank, blank, unmodified appeal for sympathy
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 135 
 
 and protection that she nearly laughed in his face, 
 though she was really very sorry for him. 
 
 " Don't expect her to be very kind to you this even- 
 ing, dear Stephen," she said encouragingly ; " I am 
 sure she is really sorry, but she doesn't want to say so." 
 
 " Doesn't she ? " said Stephen meekly. 
 
 " Don't ask her to sympathize with you just at 
 first. Talk about other things and try to be a little 
 cheerful." 
 
 " All right," said Stephen sadly ; and he seemed to 
 Katherine almost pathetic at tea in his perfunctory 
 attempts at taking an interest in Sylvia's lively chatter 
 with Tom about the tennis and Miss Porter and Frank- 
 lin Field. Even Sylvia relented at last enough to turn 
 her starry eyes upon him and ask, with something that 
 might at least pass for interest : 
 
 " Was the examination very hard? " 
 
 Once let loose he galloped away madly on his 
 grievance. It was impossible, outrageous, a paper that 
 no one could have passed, no man in his class, he was 
 sure of it. He turned to Tom. 
 
 " You understand how a paper can be hard, darned 
 hard ? It breaks you all up, and yet you feel you were 
 a fool not to have made something out of it." 
 
 Tom nodded as if he understood perfectly. 
 
 " You must say to yourself that you have no one 
 but yourself to blame for not grinding harder at it," 
 Stephen continued ; " but this stuff ! As soon as I 
 looked at it I saw I had no chance. Why, it was full 
 of things I had never even heard of. Electricity, for 
 instance. My coach never touched anything after the
 
 136 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 twenty-second chapter. We didn't have time. And I 
 know the diagram of the path taken by the violet and 
 red rays in the secondary bows comes after that. I 
 can show it to you in the book. You can see how 
 unjust that was, Mrs. Lawrence? " he turned to Kath- 
 erine. " Remember, it was only elementary physics, 
 only the introduction to physics, the obligatory Junior 
 subject, not the advanced." 
 
 " Dear Stephen, I am sure I should have found it 
 all equally impossible," said Katherine, stirred as usual 
 with mild wonder at the strangely buoyant quality of 
 the average masculine mind, which permits it to rise 
 triumphant through four years of obligatory sciences 
 and philosophies, to float at last in the same limpid 
 purity of uninformed ignorance. " But if you are so 
 sure it was an impossible paper, why don't you go to 
 Professor Brauer about it ? " 
 
 " I did, and he was perfectly nasty and disagree- 
 able. He didn't want to give me the examination in 
 the first place, and I think he is tickled to death that 
 he has stuck me." 
 
 " Suppose you go to the Dean about it," said Kath- 
 erine, suddenly grown serious. " He will be back to- 
 morrow afternoon. I am afraid he will be very tired, 
 but I think he will want to know. He is very much 
 interested in your getting your degree." 
 
 " Yes, the dear old fellow ! I never should have got 
 as far as this if it hadn't been for his encouragement ! " 
 
 " Cheer up, Stephen ! It is nearly yours ! " said 
 Tom, rising from the table and patting him encour- 
 agingly on the shoulder. " You hold it already with
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 137 
 
 one hand and three fingers. One more finger and a 
 thumb and you have it fast, so that no one can take it 
 away from you ! " 
 
 With an expressive gesture, as if he felt the longed- 
 for parchment even then in his grasp, Tom took his 
 departure to work for his Greek examination at the 
 room of his chum, Bob Merton. 
 
 The others went into the garden. 
 
 " It is really too cold, but it is so much nicer, and 
 grandfather isn't here to tell us we mustn't," said Syl- 
 via disloyally. 
 
 They sat on a garden bench beside a row of lilies 
 all in bud. 
 
 " Do you think they will be open for Commence- 
 ment, mamma ? " said Sylvia, touching one of the leaf- 
 fringed stems. 
 
 " Not if it stays so cold," answered Katherine, 
 shivering a little, even under the heavy, clinging folds 
 of her long silk shawl. 
 
 Sylvia had appropriated another of her mother's 
 wraps, which she especially affected, shimmering and 
 voluminous, with a hood in which she half-concealed 
 herself. Stephen was enchanted with her, and she was 
 flattered and excited to see his querulous depression 
 change to a melancholy much more to her taste, because 
 she felt herself to be the cause. She seemed suddenly 
 older, full of elusive feminine charm, but the look in 
 her eyes was not tenderness, rather the quality of some 
 mischievous feline creature who feels that it has some- 
 thing at its mercy and makes passes into sweetness only 
 to tempt and confuse in rebuff. She found Stephen
 
 138 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 easy game. He put his head down at last on the back 
 of the bench with his cheek against Katherine's hand 
 as it lay there in the dusk. 
 
 " Nobody is good to me, nobody cares for me but 
 you," he said pathetically. 
 
 " Poor Stephen ! " said Katherine, withdrawing her 
 hand to pat his smooth, seal-brown hair. 
 
 But Sylvia flung herself against her mother's other 
 side and drew her away. 
 
 " You mustn't touch her ! " she cried, looking across 
 at him, half-laughing, yet half in earnest. " She is 
 my mother and doesn't belong to you in the very 
 least!" 
 
 "How can you be so unkind?" said Katherine 
 severely. " I shall send Stephen home if you are not 
 more polite to him." 
 
 " I don't care! I wish he would go, if he makes 
 you nice to him and scold me, when I am your child 
 and he isn't," said Sylvia in greater indignation, as she 
 saw Stephen and her mother look at each other and 
 laugh in mutual understanding. 
 
 " Wait a moment," said Katherine suddenly, as he 
 turned away, " I want to look at you ! " 
 
 His smiling brown eyes met hers fairly. The brow 
 and forehead were not wanting in nobility, and the 
 mouth and chin well cut, though a little too heavy. 
 The fault of the face was in the cheeks, which began 
 too soon under the eyes and extended to the very tip 
 of the jaw. 
 
 " Well, do you think you can trust me? " he asked, 
 half-laughing.
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 139 
 
 " In a great many things, I am sure I could trust 
 you," she answered gently. 
 
 " You can trust my heart. That ought to be 
 enough." 
 
 But one's heart is not always quite enough.
 
 XV 
 
 THAT very day, as soon as she was at liberty after 
 the early dinner, Miss Mix made her way 
 through the afternoon sunlight over the college green 
 to the sealed and shuttered house which had once been 
 Professor Cochran's. On the threshold she met Mrs. 
 Brauer coming out. The two ladies paused a moment 
 to exchange confidences. They had both been good 
 friends to Patty from the very first, perhaps from acci- 
 dent, but perhaps also through genuine kindly feeling. 
 They had taken her part, and had spread, only to con- 
 tradict, any discreditable stories which were current 
 about her. It was only lately they had begun to feel 
 the inconvenience which must inevitably accompany 
 their earlier partisan attitude; it was only within the 
 last few days they had begun to drop the veil which 
 they had hitherto used so mercifully in their discussion 
 of poor Patty's sufferings and misfortunes to one an- 
 other. The time had not yet come, though it was fast 
 approaching, when they should feel themselves quite 
 free to throw open to the world the spoils they had 
 been collecting through more than two years of loyalty, 
 intimacy, and discretion. 
 
 In the mean time they permitted a very cheerful crit- 
 icism to intrude itself even in the midst of their real 
 kindness and service for their unfortunate friend a 
 
 140
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF HER FRIENDS 141 
 
 very clear recognition of what was grotesque and ig- 
 nominious in the drama of crude, stupid bereavement, 
 unveiled so recklessly for their benefit. They had 
 found, especially, a sort of dreadful entertainment in 
 the burst of savage jealousy which drove her all about 
 her husband's study, tossing and turning the poor 
 little things he had left behind him, searching his 
 drawers, his closets, everything that had been closed 
 against her during his lifetime; and wherever she met 
 an obstacle in a slowly turning hinge, a closed lock, 
 breaking and tearing and laying open before her with 
 brutal, almost frenzied strength. 
 
 " She is at it again," said Mrs. Brauer, in answer 
 to the other's question, as the one coming in and the 
 one going out stood together a moment on the steps, 
 which were still dirty and defaced with the mud of 
 yesterday's storm. 
 
 " Now, I wonder what she expects to find ? " said 
 Miss Mix. 
 
 " You will see she has found one thing that hasn't 
 been any too good for her," returned Mrs. Brauer, with 
 grim meaning, which the other acknowledged with in- 
 quiring eyebrows and pursed-up lips. 
 
 " She says it's Dr. Mills's medicine," continued 
 Mrs. Brauer, whereat they exchanged deep looks, 
 breaking at last into a subdued giggle, followed by 
 some last words of expiring loyalty. 
 
 " Well, if ever there was a woman driven to it ! " 
 
 " Those who find it in their hearts to blame her 
 had better remember how she was tempted." 
 
 Miss Mix went in without knocking to the dis-
 
 142 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 honored study where she found Patty sitting crouched 
 together over a heap of papers which she had collected 
 in her lap, whimpering softly to herself as she turned 
 them stupidly over and over. She hardly noticed her 
 friend's presence, lent only a confused and partial at- 
 tention to her efforts to rouse her to some interest in 
 the next day's requirements. As for the Dean's letters 
 about her husband, she made no effort to take them 
 herself, and evidently was not listening while Miss Mix 
 read some extracts from them aloud to her. All her 
 energies were absorbed in her almost mechanical search 
 of the little heap of papers in her lap. Miss Mix 
 turned her eyes upon them at last with peering interest. 
 
 "Now, where did you pick those up?" she said 
 curiously ; " and what do you expect to find in them, 
 anyway ? " 
 
 " I'll find them if they are here," muttered Patty 
 over and over to herself, in a rough, half-strangled 
 voice. "I'll find them!" 
 
 She stopped to snatch apart a little packet, fixing 
 its contents with her turbid, rolling eyes, but when she 
 saw nothing but various scrawling, boyish handwrit- 
 ings, bearing a date of long ago, she tossed them 
 furiously to the ground, where they fell and lay in 
 the litter of torn papers, dusty examination books, and 
 old class lists, which were tumbled about her husband's 
 desk. 
 
 It was among this heap, however, half-buried out 
 of sight, that Harriet's sharp eyes perceived a long 
 blue envelope, one of many, fastened loosely together 
 with a wide black band. Something about the shape
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 143 
 
 and color, and the dimly seen handwriting, made her 
 glance back into her lap, where the folded sheets of 
 note-paper Katherine had given her that morning still 
 lay, fresh and new. The others were faded, stained, 
 and worn at the edges, yet there was no doubting that 
 they came from the same hand. 
 
 Any one who had been looking on at that moment 
 would have seen a powerful change pass over Harriet's 
 good-natured, coarsely cut face, giving it a new sig- 
 nificance, making it strangely ominous and dangerous. 
 Long ago, when she was a girl, peeping among her 
 father's private papers, she had found a letter contain- 
 ing a professional secret. For days she had been stung 
 by it in silence, until finally, unable to resist it any 
 longer, she had rushed out and spread it abroad, whis- 
 peringly at first, then more and more recklessly, till 
 there was no one in the town with whom she had not 
 shared it. Her father's reputation never quite recov- 
 ered from the stab she gave it, though she herself had 
 gone about sobbing, swearing, doing all she could to 
 make people believe that she alone was to blame. Yet 
 even this had not cured her of an almost insane attrac- 
 tion to things written and secret. So when she saw 
 that little packet of half-hidden letters directed in Kath- 
 erine Lawrence's handwriting to a man whom all the 
 little world of Littelton had believed in love with her 
 before his strange, sudden marriage, she was at first 
 struck dumb, then burned to possess them, to seek out 
 their contents. Patty, with her absurd, suspicious 
 jealousy, would have been only a hindrance to her en- 
 joyment. She must get them without her knowledge.
 
 144 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 She sprang up again, and, with a sort of instinct to 
 tempt the other away from where they were lying, went 
 to the window and looked through the cracks of the 
 shutters out on the sunny green. 
 
 " How well you can see from here to the ten- 
 nis courts," she remarked with assumed indifference. 
 " There is Ethel Porter and Sylvia Lawrence and Ste- 
 phen Dullas, I suppose, though I can't see him. Well, 
 I hope Mrs. Lawrence may get him for Sylvia. She 
 certainly deserves it, the pains she is taking." 
 
 She heard, as she had hoped, a heavy, slow move- 
 ment behind her, a slippered tread across the room; 
 a moment after Patty, too, was standing at her side, 
 peering out between the slats of the shutters. She, too, 
 gazed a little while at the group of boys and girls in 
 their white tennis flannels. It was too far away for 
 more than a confused impression of life and graceful 
 movement, but it was enough to shake Patty's dull 
 lethargy into violent expression again. With a hoarse, 
 hysterical shriek she flung herself back across the room 
 in a great burst of clamorous, unrestrained weeping. 
 It was a long time before Miss Mix's ministrations 
 could reduce her to some measure of tranquillity. She 
 was still hysterical when nurse Wilkinson came in to 
 sit with her a while before supper, leaving the other 
 lady free to go back to her household duties. 
 
 But Miss Mix did not take her departure without 
 transferring the little packet on the floor to her own 
 voluminous pocket. It would have been safer left 
 where she found it, safer even in the hands of Patty 
 Cochran herself, anywhere, indeed, than in Miss Mix's
 
 OF. HER FRIENDS 145 
 
 keeping, for that little lady possessed a merciless, small 
 intelligence for her neighbors' affairs, great skill for 
 commonplace deduction, combined with a singular lack 
 of delicacy and discretion, and a rapid, racy style of 
 narration which held her audience almost against their 
 will and made her an ideally excellent scandal-monger. 
 She lost no time in making herself mistress of the 
 papers so accidentally fallen into her hands. 
 
 Ensconced in her little upstairs sitting-room, the 
 door closed on all intruders, she prepared to make the 
 utmost use of these helpless witnesses, to wrest from 
 them all the secrets of a relation she suspected between 
 people she disliked. And in fact it lay open before her, 
 too simply self-revealing to need surmise or invention 
 to supply the missing links. 
 
 The packet contained, evidently, every scrap of 
 Katherine's writing that Wilfred had ever possessed, 
 even dinner cards written in her hand, addresses, a 
 sheet of note-paper with her own name scribbled across 
 the end, and every note and letter he had ever received 
 from her. There was the shy, formal thanks for his 
 wedding present, in a still unformed girlish hand. 
 There was also the first little note written him after her 
 husband's death, telling him that she was glad it was 
 he who had been chosen to fill that place, and that she 
 would see him if he came in the afternoon, ending: 
 " But please don't speak to me about him, for I can't 
 quite bear it yet." There were others, so purely formal 
 and conventional as to be quite without value; others 
 more familiar; a few, a very few, that were nothing 
 less than love-letters, intimate, tender, more than ten-
 
 146 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 der, confident in a relation of which she made no con- 
 cealment, for which there was no need of concealment 
 except her own inherent shrinking from the publicity 
 of discussion. Till the " Dear Wilfred ... I under- 
 stand and I forgive. Please be good. K. D. L." 
 Undated. There was nothing else to show the sever- 
 ance of his marriage. And, indeed, no more was 
 needed. Long before she had finished, Miss Mix's eyes 
 were glistening and blinking with satisfied curiosity. 
 
 " So he jilted her ! " she said at last, half-aloud. 
 " Well, I never would have guessed that ! " She gave 
 vent to sudden wide-mouthed laughter. " Kitty Law- 
 rence, with all her superior airs ! Well, I never would 
 have guessed that ! " She said it again, adding then, 
 with new emphasis, as a new thought struck her, 
 " There are some people in this town whose faces I'd 
 like to see if they knew it, that's all." 
 
 She returned to the perusal of the letters again, 
 reading them all over to the very end, pausing long 
 to decipher the places where the paper was so yellow 
 and stained as to be almost illegible, chuckling audibly 
 at any word or expression which the very universality 
 of love has permitted most easily to be vulgarized by 
 the understanding of the eavesdropper. 
 
 It was only after she had made herself entirely mis- 
 tress of their contents that she began to consider what 
 was to be her next step in the disposal of property to 
 which even her facile morality could not give her the 
 slightest permanent claim. She was by no means an 
 unkind woman according to her lights. As her friends 
 were in the habit of saying about her : " She wouldn't
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 147 
 
 willingly have hurt a fly." And now, as she communed 
 with herself, she made up her mind that she wouldn't 
 give the letters back to Patty. " So jealous as she was 
 of him, and she never could abide Mrs. Lawrence. She 
 might do some harm." She even contemplated hand- 
 ing them back at once to Katherine. " After all, she 
 has more right to them than any one else, now that he 
 is dead and gone, and left them behind. I warrant 
 she will be glad to get hold of them again." And Miss 
 Mix laughed again, this time a little maliciously. 
 
 For a moment she mused on her possible interview 
 with Katherine; what she herself would say; how the 
 other would answer ; till she was checked by a pang of 
 regret at the thought of the too prompt relinquishment 
 of the heap of papers in her lap. 
 
 " I've a good mind to run over with them after 
 tea to old Miss Mills, and see what she will say to 
 them. It won't do a bit of harm. I can trust her, as 
 I would myself, not to say anything about it to any 
 one else ! " 
 
 This was her final decision, but she did not get 
 across the street to old Miss Mills. She was delayed 
 after tea in the boarding-house parlor, by little Miss 
 Schuyler, with a complaint about a recrudescent cob- 
 web which had appeared in the corner of her room for 
 the last few days. Miss Mix listened good-naturedly, 
 even accompanying her upstairs to be shown the very 
 corner in which the insect had made its lair, that she 
 might give proper instructions to the housemaid to 
 seek the creature out and kill it in its tracks the next 
 morning. Then she sat down on the edge of a high
 
 I 4 8 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 chair near the door, her hands on her knees, her feet 
 spread out to preserve her balance, and watched Miss 
 Schuyler fluttering about her small possessions, col- 
 lecting wraps and making preparations for an evening 
 to be spent on the side piazza. 
 
 There is a certain quality in every born story-teller 
 and scandal-monger, an instinctive appreciation for 
 strange, inordinate effects produced by contrast on the 
 smug, commonplace expressions of friends and neigh- 
 bors, which no doubt adds very much to their inability 
 to keep any piece of extraordinary information long to 
 themselves. It is certain that Miss Mix's natural in- 
 clination to impart what she knew wherever it would 
 be listened to was increased a thousand-fold by that 
 instinct toward the grotesque, fed, in this case, by the 
 obvious incongruity between the little spinster's bus- 
 tling, innocent activity, and the effect a word from her 
 might quickly produce. 'She was not disappointed in 
 the result. Miss Schuyler dropped her heap of shawls, 
 sank into her easy-chair, her wrinkled, faintly tinted 
 face growing agitated and confused in a very agony 
 of shrinking curiosity. 
 
 " My dear Miss Mix," she quavered at last, break- 
 ing in on the other's endless flow of words, " you speak 
 of letters ! Are you sure you are not mistaken in their 
 character? I cannot believe that Mrs. Lawrence, with 
 her reticence, her nobility of nature, her dignity, could 
 have written anything in the nature of love-letters to 
 a married man like Professor Cochran." 
 
 Miss Mix's cheeks were flushed, her eyes were 
 sparkling with mischievous excitement.
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 149 
 
 " He was not married when she wrote them. Do 
 you want to see for yourself? " 
 
 " No ! no ! I haven't the right ! Dear Miss Mix, 
 I hope you are not going to show them to anybody. 
 Think of her sensations at having her innermost emo- 
 tions known to unsympathetic outsiders ! " 
 
 Miss Mix broke into a great laugh. 
 
 " You needn't look so scared. There is no harm 
 in them. It is only a joke to think how quiet and 
 demure she kept through it all, never giving any one 
 to suspect how she felt about him. Don't say any- 
 thing to any one about what I have told you. I 
 wouldn't have it get back to Patty for the world." 
 
 She only waited to receive Miss Schuyler's trem- 
 bling vows of secrecy, then went off gayly to her own 
 room to get her knitting to take over to old Miss Mills. 
 
 On the way, however, she caught sight of Franklin 
 Field going upstairs to his third-story room. He had 
 not been one of those invited to Mrs. Loomis's tea 
 party and was finding time a little heavy on his hands, 
 deprived of Miss Porter's sprightly conversation after 
 tea. He looked so demure and secret that Miss Mix 
 was filled at once with a desire to confide in him. Be- 
 sides, he was a new-comer, more open to unprejudiced 
 impressions, not entangled by any special affection or 
 admiration for Katherine, and, moreover, she had al- 
 ready recognized him instinctively as one of those 
 hybrid links through which information can be most 
 easily conducted from one sex to the other. 
 
 " O Mr. Field ! " she cried. " Come in ! come in ! 
 I want to show you something ! "
 
 150 IN THE HOUSE OF HER FRIENDS 
 
 He followed wonderingly into her little upstairs 
 sitting-room. It was some time before he came out 
 again, to continue his progress up to his own third 
 story. 
 
 " Don't breathe a word of what I've told you to 
 any one," said Miss Mix earnestly, as she dismissed 
 him at the door. But he did that very evening, later, 
 when Stephen came home from the Lawrences, and 
 stopped to share a bottle of Apollinaris, the young 
 men's innocent tipple before they parted for the night.
 
 XVI 
 
 MISS MIX came back from marketing next morn- 
 ing somewhat later than usual, her little black 
 silk bag on her arm, her bonnet strings loosened so as 
 to show the hole under her chin, between her short, 
 fat neck and her ample bosom. She walked buoyantly, 
 almost bouncingly, as is often the case with active, fat 
 people, and her square, downy face wore a broad smile 
 of ample satisfaction, as though the world were going 
 well with her. 
 
 She was rather in a hurry, for she had been delayed 
 in the town and there was much to be done at home, 
 with dinner half an hour earlier, if she wished to be 
 of any use to her friend Patty Cochran before the fu- 
 neral that afternoon. But just as she was closing the 
 gate behind her she caught sight of Mrs. Brauer, com- 
 ing along from the college with old Mrs. Jenkins, 
 through the checkered shade of the maples. Mrs. 
 Brauer was wrapped, as usual, in spite of the warmth 
 of the day, in her striped blanket shawl ; the other lady 
 was clothed in shabby black, with a round shade hat 
 to keep the sun out of her eyes, and carried her head 
 with a high, sidelong lilt, which showed the whole 
 length of her smooth, white face, its pale eyes and 
 close-lipped, acid smile. 
 
 Mrs. Jenkins was the wife of the man who had
 
 152 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 once been professor of engineering in Littel College, 
 struck useless many years since by paralysis, and re- 
 tired on half-salary, but still living in the cold old 
 house which had always been his, quite the other side 
 of the college grounds. No one saw much of her in 
 the winter; she was old and rather feeble and could 
 walk with difficulty over the slippery roads, but with 
 the first warm day of spring she always emerged from 
 her little hollow, white and bloated with the poisonous 
 hate of all things and persons better off than she, which 
 had nourished her solitude, but glad to mingle with 
 her kind again, and eager to hear anything to the dis- 
 advantage of her friends and neighbors. And though, 
 bringing with her as she did, everywhere and always, 
 the blight of personal grievances and the bitterness of 
 fancied wrongs, she was not a person anywhere warmly 
 welcomed, still she was received with an anxious and 
 propitiating politeness arising half from pity, half from 
 fear of her rancorous tongue, which was known to 
 spare no one who might have ever so little offended her. 
 
 Miss Mix retraced her steps, and as they passed 
 the gate she was standing there to greet them. 
 
 "How is Patty this morning?" she asked Mrs. 
 Brauer, who might be presumed to have just come from 
 the house of mourning. 
 
 " Very quiet and dull, poor soul ! " replied the other 
 lady. " I left her just now. Nurse Wilkinson was 
 with her. She seemed only half herself. I don't think 
 she has taken it in at all that the funeral is to be this 
 afternoon. Of course it is hard realizing it without 
 the remains in the house. It is very hard for her, too,
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 153 
 
 not a soul belonging to her to keep her company. I 
 told her she could count on us, at least, to go with her 
 to the chapel." 
 
 But Miss Mix answered almost flippantly. Her at- 
 titude toward her whilom friend had suffered a cer- 
 tain disarrangement in the flood of new and more 
 exciting interests on which she was lately become em- 
 barked. She hardly noticed Mrs. Brauer's reply in 
 her haste to exchange her new lamp for her friend's 
 old one. 
 
 " Poor Patty ! She would not be so quiet if she 
 knew what I carried away from under her nose yes- 
 terday afternoon after all her trouble of looking for 
 them. But I didn't dare to leave 'em, seeing the state 
 she was in about it. I thought I would just look them 
 over first to see if there was anything to harm anybody 
 in them. And I am glad now I did. You never can 
 guess what I found, and yet I don't know why not. 
 It stands to reason that Patty must have had some 
 good cause for the way she always hated Mrs. Law- 
 rence." 
 
 It was not reluctance or hesitation to impart all 
 she knew to these two fresh recipients of this last ex- 
 quisite piece of gossip; it was nothing more than the 
 natural instinct of a story-teller that made Miss Mix 
 stop and draw breath a moment before proceeding. 
 When she began again her voice had dropped to the 
 veiled accents of the professional violator of secrets, 
 and the others only had to draw a little nearer to hear 
 the extreme limit of what she had to tell. As she lis- 
 tened Mrs. Brauer's pale, triangular countenance began
 
 154 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 to twitch nervously in the strain of her various emo- 
 tions crude surprise, gratified animosity for a woman 
 who had stirred her thin blood once or twice, however 
 involuntarily, with vulgar jealousy, and then a flame 
 of excitement, a light of mean, clear-sighted convic- 
 tion which brushed the other's clumsy conclusions aside 
 as if they were cobwebs. Her words broke in, at last, 
 harsh and rancorous across Miss Mix's excited volu- 
 bility. 
 
 " Do you mean that she was ready to take him ? 
 With her position and all that money? And still he 
 went off and married Patty, without a cent? Then 
 depend upon it, Miss Mix, there is more truth than 
 Patty would allow in all those stories of how she got 
 him." 
 
 But Miss Mix was too much interested in the im- 
 mediate subject of discussion to be deflected into vain 
 surmises about Patty Cochran. 
 
 " Take him ! " she echoed, and began to fumble 
 among the contents of the little black bag she carried. 
 " Just listen to this, and you will see how ready she 
 was to take him! 
 
 " ' You flatter me by rinding a hundred things in 
 me which I do not possess. But you are putting your 
 cleverness to an extravagant use when you tell me you 
 love me for the very stupidest of my defects, my help- 
 lessness among people who don't understand or like 
 me. Wilfred dear, how did you come to understand 
 me so well ? You say it is your love for me that tells 
 you; but I can't quite agree with you there, for love 
 can be very deep, yet not at all discerning.' '
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 155 
 
 Miss Mix interrupted herself abruptly. 
 
 " That isn't the one I thought. There is another 
 here that is much plainer. If you come up into my 
 sitting-room now, I will show you the others. I have 
 them here in my bag." 
 
 Mrs. Brauer pressed forward at once, but Mrs. 
 Jenkins, who had stood all this time in her usual atti- 
 tude, remote yet attentive, now made as if she would 
 continue her way downtown. 
 
 " Don't go, Mrs. Jenkins," said Miss Mix hospita- 
 bly; but seeing the other would not be prevented, she 
 changed her invitation into an equally cordial leave- 
 taking. 
 
 " Well, I shall see you at the funeral. Mrs. Brauer 
 and I are going to sit with Patty, but I shall look for 
 you among the faculty as I come in, Mrs. Jenkins." 
 
 The other lady drew herself up and answered grim- 
 ly : " Possibly, though we shall be obliged to come 
 early if we expect to find seats in the reserved pews. 
 At Mrs. Curtis's funeral, if you remember, my hus- 
 band was crowded out from his rightful place among 
 the professors, and was obliged to take a seat in the 
 side aisle with the freshmen." 
 
 She gathered her cloak about her for departure, 
 shaking, as it were, the dust of the past insult from 
 her sombre skirts. She hated the Dean because he 
 was still in the enjoyment of honor and office, though 
 he had been for many years her husband's friend, and 
 though even now it was only by his influence and gen- 
 erosity that Mr. Jenkins was retained on half-salary 
 in one of the college houses, long after disease had
 
 156 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 taken away his faculties and made him incapable of 
 performing his duties. She hated Katherine because 
 it was Tom Lawrence who had taken her husband's 
 place. And even death had not brought forgiveness 
 for the imagined injury. These unconcealed animosi- 
 ties, even more than her own solitary habits, had ended 
 in making her so extraordinary a visitor at the Dean's 
 house that Katherine might be forgiven some surprise 
 as she came down the hall, her hands filled with flowers 
 from the garden, and saw the old woman on the steps. 
 But Mrs. Jenkins addressed her at once with an un- 
 usual degree of acid friendliness. 
 
 " I feel myself rather faint with walking through 
 the hot sun, my dear. I wonder whether you will let 
 me come in and sit a little while in your parlor? " 
 
 She suffered herself to be conducted into the cool, 
 flower-filled drawing-room, refusing, however, all of- 
 fered refreshment except a fan and a seat on the wide 
 old sofa near the window. And Katherine remained 
 beside her, attending to her wants with a soft, unsmil- 
 ing courtesy, not quite able, however, to keep a certain 
 wonder out of her eyes, very coldly sweet under their 
 wide arches, over the strange quality of a mind which 
 could permit this visitor's presence, for any conceiv- 
 able reason not an insult, in the house of the man she 
 had for years been doing her best to injure by every 
 means in her power. 
 
 It was Mrs. Jenkins who broke the silence at last : 
 " Shall you be at the funeral this afternoon ? " 
 Katherine drew herself together with an air of of- 
 fended gentleness. There were so many things, so
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 157 
 
 many obvious things, which Mrs. Jenkins might mean 
 just then. She answered with a certain deliberation: 
 
 " Why should I not be at Professor Cochran's fu- 
 neral?" 
 
 Mrs. Jenkins replied with her usual acid smile: 
 
 " Oh, my dear, don't think that I have come here 
 to criticise anything Dr. Lawrence chooses to do in 
 this college. In this matter, at least, he has suffered 
 as much as any one else from the consequences of his 
 indifference to my husband's advice in the appointment 
 of his successor. No, I was going by, and I thought 
 I would stop in to tell you " There was just a thread 
 of hesitation in the implacable old voice, but only for 
 a moment. " To warn you," she resumed, " that you 
 had better try to get back your letters to Professor 
 Cochran, before Harriet Mix hands them over again 
 to his widow, or you may have difficulty in regaining 
 possession of them at all." 
 
 There was a moment of almost breathless silence. 
 
 " My letters ! " said Katherine. Her eyes had 
 grown wide and strained in an expression that had 
 no room for anything but blank, almost stunned amaze- 
 ment. She made no effort to defend herself, to conceal 
 herself, to gather round her the cloak of her usual 
 impenetrable reserve. She sat perfectly still, perfectly 
 helpless, letting Mrs. Jenkins drive home the blow as 
 fast and as far as she chose. 
 
 " He kept them, then ! He kept them ! " she mur- 
 mured to herself, in a voice almost inaudible in her 
 pathetic, crushing bewilderment : " I can't believe it." 
 
 " You had better believe it, my dear," replied Mrs.
 
 158 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 Jenkins grimly. " Mrs. Cochran found them among 
 her husband's papers, and Harriet Mix is now busy 
 scattering their contents broadcast through the town." 
 
 But Katherine, though she remembered it in its 
 own time, did not even wince under this new blow. 
 She seemed stunned, blinded, incapable of understand- 
 ing anything else after the stupendous fact that Wil- 
 fred had kept the letters she had written him, and died 
 without destroying them. She accompanied Mrs. Jen- 
 kins to the door with perfectly mechanical formality, 
 standing blank and dumb before her last words of 
 leave-taking, but every chord and fibre of her being 
 seemed to be repeating, voiceless : 
 
 " He kept them ! I can't believe it ! " 
 
 Mrs. Jenkins walked away with her long, gliding 
 step, her pale face held a little higher and a little more 
 sideways than usual. No one would ever have accused 
 her of having done a good action ; no one would have 
 suspected her of anything but malicious curiosity in 
 the change of plan which had made her stop at Kath- 
 erine Lawrence's on her way home that morning. But 
 it is not entirely impossible that the act was impelled 
 by a kind of curdled kindliness from a proud, secretive 
 nature which had suffered its own humiliations, who 
 felt that another might be glad to be warned in time 
 that her friends' eyes were upon her. 
 
 Sylvia running in a few moments afterward, from 
 a morning spent in playing croquet with the small 
 Brownells, found her mother standing alone in the 
 middle of the room. 
 
 " O mamma ! " cried she, " I just met Mrs. Jen-
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 159 
 
 kins at the corner. Has that horrid old woman been 
 here ? What did she want ? " 
 
 Mrs. Lawrence did not answer immediately, but 
 slowly, after a moment, as if recalling herself from 
 some very great distance : 
 
 " Mrs. Jenkins, did you say ? Yes, she has been 
 here." 
 
 She remained standing, looking dimly in front of 
 her, while Sylvia rattled on unheeding, telling how 
 many games they had played and who had won and 
 how hot it was, and yet how she wanted to play tennis 
 in the afternoon but there was no one to play with, 
 because every one was going to the funeral. 
 
 " The funeral ! " echoed her mother, raising her 
 head with an air of startled interest. 
 
 " Yes ; Professor Cochran's, you know. And it 
 doesn't do any good that it is a half-holiday, for Tom 
 and all my especial friends are to be pall-bearers be- 
 cause of the fraternity." 
 
 But Katherine had relapsed into her state of dreamy 
 inattention. 
 
 After a moment she went mechanically across the 
 room to the table near the window and began to read- 
 just the bowls and vases of flowers that stood there, 
 carefully withdrawing a faded leaf or flower here and 
 there and putting in its place one from the fresh ones 
 she had just brought from the garden. Suddenly both 
 her hands fell on the table beside the flowers. 
 
 " I can't bear it ! I cannot do it ! " she said, half 
 under her breath, with a gesture of her head, as if in 
 denial of something too painful to be demanded of her.
 
 160 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 Then she went on quietly arranging the flowers. 
 Sylvia came and stood beside her. 
 
 " Mamma, why should I go ? " she began again. 
 " I hate funerals ! I don't see why I should go when 
 I have nothing to do with it. I suppose you will say 
 it is out of respect, but " 
 
 " No, dear child," answered Katherine with a sort 
 of expressionless gentleness, " there is no reason for 
 your going if you don't wish it." 
 
 " Are you ? " asked Sylvia, somewhat disappointed 
 at having her grievance thus rudely snatched away 
 from her. 
 
 Katherine was gathering up the fragments of stems 
 and fallen petals which littered the table where she had 
 been rearranging the vases. She went on with her 
 occupation for a few seconds without answering. 
 
 " Yes," she said at last, quite without emphasis or 
 comment. 
 
 " Oh, I suppose I'd better go too, then," said Syl- 
 via, grumbling. " Marjorie is, and there will be noth- 
 ing else to do." 
 
 But Katherine had gone out of the room, carrying 
 her little heap of fragments with her. She came back 
 almost immediately. 
 
 " Sylvia, have you gone upstairs ? Don't take off 
 your hat, I want you to carry a note for me down to 
 Miss Mix's." 
 
 " Yes, mamma," said Sylvia absently. She had 
 found a new magazine and was so absorbed in its con- 
 tents that she did not notice how long a time went by 
 before she was roused by a sudden movement from her
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 161 
 
 mother, who had been writing at the Dean's table. 
 She now arose to her feet, tearing decisively and 
 crumpling together in her hand the letter she had just 
 finished. 
 
 " It is no use ! I can't ! It has to go without," 
 she said half under her breath. " Never mind, Sylvia, 
 it doesn't matter about the message."
 
 XVII 
 
 IT was one of those beautiful, brilliant afternoons 
 when the sky seems especially blue and boundless, 
 and the great, sailing white clouds cast moving shad- 
 ows on the waving grass in the meadows, when the 
 air is full of the perfume of uncut hay, when all the 
 summer can still be felt rushing up the circle of the 
 year toward that brief, perfect moment that precedes 
 and ushers in its slow decay. The life of the season 
 went on inexorably, but the life of the college had 
 paused just this one afternoon, in virtue of its human- 
 ity, to pay its brief, perfunctory respects to death. 
 
 The recitation-rooms were closed, the athletic field 
 was deserted, the great bell that marked the hours from 
 the squat tower of the library tolled now to assemble 
 the students to the college chapel, toward which came 
 from all directions little groups of young men who 
 were still laughing and murmuring to one another in 
 subdued voices as they jostled into position in the long 
 black line that was gradually lengthening outside. 
 
 Within, the seats reserved for the faculty and their 
 families were rapidly filling up. Sylvia, sitting beside 
 her mother in the Dean's pew, very near the front, 
 looked round her furtively, with half-awed curiosity. 
 The interior of the chapel looked somehow strange and 
 unfamiliar, with its mourning decorations of drooping 
 
 162
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF HER FRIENDS 163 
 
 boughs of white syringa, white June lilies, and the 
 great, handsome wreath sent by the Adelphic Society, 
 of which Wilfred Cochran had been a member. As 
 her eyes fell upon this last, her mother's words, half- 
 heard and half-forgotten, came back to her : " Wilfred 
 hated funeral wreaths," and she was stirred with dim 
 wonder where all that part of him was gone which had 
 hated and loved and died before they came here to bury 
 his body. 
 
 She was conscious of the same strangeness and un- 
 reality in the faces and gestures of her friends and 
 every-day acquaintances who came in quietly, by twos 
 and threes, taking their seats near by. She tried to 
 catch Marjorie's eye, as she sat by her father and 
 mother, just across the aisle, looking very pretty and 
 grown-up in a fresh lilac muslin and a black hat with 
 a long, curling feather. But Marjorie kept her eyes 
 fixed straight in front of her, with an expression al- 
 most rigid in its solemn, decorous expectancy, and 
 would not return her glance. 
 
 Mrs. Jenkins and her feeble, shuffling old husband 
 had found a place to the left and a little behind them. 
 He sat silent and abstracted in his corner, blankly ob- 
 livious to all that was going on around him, though 
 the constant flicker, and twitching, paralytic move- 
 ment always trembling on his lips and eyelids, gave 
 an air of strange, fictitious intelligence to the sad, noble 
 old mask of feature which hid now only the emptiness 
 of a ruined brain. 
 
 Mrs. Jenkins leaned forward and spoke to Mrs. 
 Chandler. She then turned and entered into a long
 
 164 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 and absorbed conversation with old Mrs. Sears and 
 her daughter, who sat behind her. The sibilant buzz 
 of her s's against her false teeth was distinctly audible 
 to Sylvia where she sat, and ended by irritating her, 
 strained as she was by the solemn stillness of expect- 
 ancy all about her. She looked at her mother to see 
 if she also was annoyed at it, and finding her sitting 
 almost breathlessly still, apparently impassive, gazing 
 straight in front of her, wondered vaguely what she 
 was thinking of. 
 
 Then came the echoing noise of many feet on the 
 wooden floor as the classes filed in, one after another, 
 and took their places in the space reserved for them. 
 One after another the black-coated figures poured in, 
 till it seemed impossible that the chapel could hold 
 them all. The ushers hurried to and fro, crowding 
 them more and more closely in the benches. At last 
 they stopped coming. They stood for a moment mo- 
 tionless in their serried black ranks, and then subsided, 
 with a final crash, into their places. 
 
 There was another moment of expectancy, till the 
 tall, old Dean, in his doctor's gown, came slowly up 
 the aisle with one of the city clergymen Dr. Brimmer 
 beside him. Then followed a little delay and bustle, 
 while two of the college workmen and the undertaker's 
 assistant hurried to and fro, making some alteration 
 in the arrangement of the trestles standing near the 
 reading-desk. Sylvia started nervously and slipped her 
 hand into her mother's, for she heard a rustle and noise 
 as if the other half of the double door at the other end 
 of the chapel was being pushed open to let something
 
 OF! HER FRIENDS 165 
 
 in, and she suddenly found herself invaded with unex- 
 pected, almost choking, agitation. She heard a sound 
 on the wooden floor as of feet moving very slowly, 
 very unsteadily, under some heavy burden. Faltering, 
 uncertain, the little procession made its way up the 
 aisle, passing at last so close to Sylvia that she could 
 have put her hand out and touched them. Tom, Bob 
 Merton, Stephen, and the other lads she knew so well. 
 She could hear their tightened breath and see them 
 stagger and totter and sway together under the heavy 
 weight they bore. She bit her lips together to keep 
 herself from sobbing, in a strange, unreasonable re- 
 sentment that it should be they who were bending 
 under a sorrow that was not their own, that she should 
 have to shrink and wince at a hurt that really did not 
 touch her. 
 
 Mrs. Cochran followed closely, a shapeless bundle 
 of black, between her two still faithful supporters, Mrs. 
 Brauer and Miss Mix, who even in the midst of their 
 attentions to her still found time to cast about them 
 glances of recognition, nods and gestures explanatory 
 of the condition of the principal mourner, as befitted the 
 position of confidential friend. 
 
 But when they had taken their places in the very 
 front seat, in the very shadow of the great black coffin, 
 Mrs. Brauer twisted herself round so as to look behind 
 her. To and fro over the well-filled pews went her 
 little, peering, thin-lidded eyes, till they stopped and 
 rested, for a perceptible moment, on the place where 
 Sylvia was beside her mother. Mrs. Lawrence sat erect 
 against the stiff back of the narrow pew, her face a
 
 166 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 little raised, her wide-open blue eyes as still and cold 
 as a mountain lake, and gave no sign of conscious- 
 ness when Mrs. Brauer looked or when she looked 
 away. 
 
 The old Dean's beautiful, thrilling voice began the 
 burial service, and Sylvia felt herself more and more 
 invaded with poignant emotion that touching, wistful 
 emotion of the young, which comes for nothing and 
 goes for nothing, that shakes and thrills and moves 
 often to passionate tears, that has no certain cure be- 
 cause it has no reason. She was frightened to feel 
 herself over and over on the verge of weeping, and 
 hung her head low upon her breast lest any one should 
 see how much she was moved. But her mother, ex- 
 cept for the involuntary start she gave when she felt 
 Sylvia's fingers close on hers, sat quite impassive, look- 
 ing straight in front of her with a gaze in which even 
 the most remorseless scrutinizer could detect no sign 
 either of sorrow or pride or resentment or regret. 
 Only a faint, almost disdainful smile was drawn across 
 her lips, like a veil for protection between the vulgar, 
 curious world around her and her own deeply wounded 
 but unalterable reserve. 
 
 The solemn service went on to the end. The little 
 band of youths approached to resume their burden. 
 Then there was a gasp and groan of hysterical excite- 
 ment as Mrs. Cochran, who had hitherto been sitting 
 dumbly, sunk together behind her heavy veil, suddenly 
 collapsed and had to be supported out with difficulty, 
 an unmanageable, struggling heap. 
 
 " O mamma, how horrible it was ! " whispered Syl-
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 167 
 
 via as she followed Mrs. Lawrence through the side 
 door which gave immediate access to the Dean's 
 garden. All the rest of the world was pouring out 
 of the main entrance on their way to the college 
 burying-ground. There was a pleasant feeling of 
 solitude, silence, and repose among the roses and 
 lilies of the little garden, basking in the golden light 
 of afternoon. 
 
 Mrs. Lawrence sank down into the Dean's loung- 
 ing-chair and leaned her head against its sloping back, 
 closing her eyes for a moment, with a long breath of 
 infinite weariness. Sylvia dropped upon the small gar- 
 den bench at her side and leaned her arms across her 
 knee. 
 
 " Oh, if she hadn't cried and screamed that way at 
 the end ! " she began again. " It sounds in my ears 
 yet as if I should never stop hearing it ! " 
 
 But Katherine sat as if she was not listening. 
 When she did speak at last, it was with a sort of touch- 
 ing irrelevancy. 
 
 "How blue the sky is!" 
 
 She did not want to talk of what they had just 
 been doing. She did not even want to think, but just 
 lie back in the great chair and look at the flowers in 
 her own garden, and feel her little daughter safe be- 
 side her. 
 
 " It is lovely out here, Sylvia," she said almost 
 plaintively. " Let us not go in. Let us sit here till 
 some one comes to call us. Look at that eglantine over 
 there. Isn't it wonderful that a single bush can bear so 
 many flowers ? "
 
 i68 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 But Sylvia did not want to look at the eglantine 
 or be diverted in any other way from talking about her 
 late impressions. 
 
 " Mamma ! " she began again seriously, leaning 
 both elbows on her mother's knee and looking up into 
 her face. " I wish you would tell me why they make 
 funerals so unnecessarily painful. They would be bad 
 enough if they were as short and simple as possible, 
 but it seems to me that everything is done to play upon 
 one's feelings. Everything happens as if it were trying 
 to upset one's self-control. It is as though they all 
 wanted to make one scream and cry, as Mrs. Cochran 
 did at the end." 
 
 Katherine smiled absently down into the vivid little 
 face raised to hers. 
 
 " I suppose they are meant to give one comfort," 
 she said at last, with an effort of attention, seeing that 
 Sylvia still demanded an answer. 
 
 " Comfort ! " echoed the child indignantly. " How 
 can it be comfort to have the thing that grieves one 
 ground in and repeated over and over, in as many pain- 
 ful ways as possible? " She broke off to begin again 
 almost immediately. 
 
 " If I had cared for him ! If it had really been a 
 loss ! Mamma, did it comfort you ? " 
 
 " Me ! " said Katherine, drawing a long breath. 
 
 " Yes. I mean when papa died ? " Sylvia looked 
 down and grew slowly pink with feeling. 
 
 " Oh ! " said Katherine, leaning back in her chair 
 again, and half-closing her eyes. She looked up at 
 last dimly.
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 169 
 
 " Perhaps so. It is very hard to tell. One is com- 
 forted finally, I know, by little things." 
 
 There was a moment's silence which Sylvia broke 
 again : " Mamma, do you know what I mean by the 
 abasement of sorrow ? " 
 
 " No," said Katherine, looking at her with faint 
 amusement. 
 
 " I mean what Mrs. Cochran was doing this after- 
 noon. Sorrow ought to be always beautiful and stately 
 and dignified, but she was making it shameful." 
 
 Mrs. Lawrence smiled, a little, painful smile. 
 
 " Poor Mrs. Cochran ! Let us grant her the right 
 to grieve for her husband in any way she thinks fit." 
 
 " But she hasn't the right," said Sylvia earnestly. 
 " Not as long as there are other wives and other hus- 
 bands. I felt all the time, dear mamma, that in her 
 very presence there, she was an insult to you." 
 
 Katherine broke into a little breath of laughter. 
 
 " O Sylvia, what a fanciful child you are ! How 
 came you to think that, my baby ? " 
 
 She bent down and kissed her little daughter's hair, 
 for Sylvia had hidden her face in her embarrassment. 
 When she spoke again, however, it was with an effort 
 which made her voice unsteady. 
 
 " Dear child, you have a habit I catch you at it 
 often of idealizing what I may be feeling at times 
 and seasons which you believe have painful associations 
 for me. You are wrong in thinking they always have 
 power to make us suffer as we did at first. Life would 
 be unbearable if they did, for in time nearly everything 
 comes to have some painful association; and Sylvia
 
 170 IN THE HOUSE OF HER FRIENDS 
 
 dear, I don't think it is wise ever to try to follow an- 
 other person's sufferings too closely. It doesn't do any 
 good, rather the reverse. It often unfits you for the 
 demand, a real demand the person you love would 
 make upon your sympathy. I you " She hesitated 
 desperately before Sylvia's wondering eyes, and they 
 both started, and Katherine drew herself together 
 quickly, behind the proud shyness which had so nearly 
 let her go, as the gate clicked on its latch and Marjorie 
 Chandler came into the garden.
 
 XVIII 
 
 MARJORIE, seeing mother and daughter to- 
 gether, stopped, hesitated, and made as if she 
 would have retreated, but when she heard Sylvia call 
 after her in quite her usual manner, she turned back 
 and came forward rather shyly. 
 
 " I I am afraid I am disturbing you. I thought 
 I wanted Sylvia. But it really doesn't matter." 
 
 " We weren't doing anything," said Sylvia inno- 
 cently. " I was only talking to mamma. What do 
 you want ? " 
 
 " I thought perhaps you would come with me to 
 the Old Woman's Home with the flowers mamma sent 
 over for the chapel." 
 
 " Isn't it rather warm ? " said Katherine, almost 
 wistfully; but Sylvia, though without any great en- 
 thusiasm, had already scrambled to her feet. 
 
 " I suppose I might as well. There is nothing else 
 to do," she said with youthful frankness. 
 
 "Would you rather she didn't go?" asked Mar- 
 jorie, looking at Mrs. Lawrence with a kind of shy 
 interest; but Katherine shook her head. 
 
 " No, no. I only thought the walk across the fields 
 would be rather hot. I am going into the house, dear." 
 She said this to Sylvia, and went away slowly across
 
 172 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 the grassy path under the cherry-trees, leaving the two 
 young girls alone. 
 
 " Doesn't your mother look beautiful? " said Mar- 
 jorie with a sort of awed respect as she gazed after 
 her. Sylvia laughed. 
 
 " What made you so funny and solemn to her just 
 now? You are not a bit like yourself this afternoon. 
 Is it because you have been to a funeral? " 
 
 " I thought I might be interrupting. I thought 
 she might be talking to you." 
 
 " So she was, but that didn't matter. We always 
 talk when we are together." 
 
 " Yes, but I meant " The other hesitated and 
 grew a little confused before her friend's perfectly 
 matter-of-fact manner, concluding at last rather lame- 
 ly : "I mean this especial afternoon. You know what 
 I mean, Sylvia. You are only pretending you don't, 
 but there is no use pretending any longer. Everybody 
 knows." 
 
 " I don't know the least bit in the world what 
 you're talking about," said Sylvia bluntly. 
 
 " What ! Not that your mother and Professor 
 Cochran have been in love for years and years, long 
 before he was married, and she must be feeling dread- 
 fully now he's dead ? " 
 
 " What nonsense ! " said Sylvia angrily. 
 
 " It is not nonsense. I overheard Miss Mix talking 
 about it to mamma this morning, and I thought of 
 course you had known all this time, though they were 
 so surprised. They said they never would have guessed 
 except for the letters. Don't you know about it ? Then
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 173 
 
 she did not let you know on purpose. O Sylvia, I 
 am sorry I told. Please don't let anybody know I 
 told." 
 
 " Stop, please ! " said Sylvia suddenly. " I don't 
 believe it, but I don't want to talk about it." 
 
 They had reached the chapel door. At the foot of 
 the steps, where it must have slipped and fallen from 
 the coffin in its slow descent, lay a bunch of deep 
 red roses. Sylvia stood still and drew in her breath. 
 Then she turned upon Marjorie with a burst of 
 passion which rendered that serious damsel quite 
 speechless. 
 
 " You have no right to tell me such things. Do 
 you hear me ? Whether they are true or not, and they 
 are not. I am furious with you. No, don't speak to 
 me ! " she cried with such a lightning flash that the 
 other's words of self-exculpation died on her lips. " I 
 won't listen to another word, and I am going home. 
 Please let me alone." 
 
 She rushed away, leaving Marjorie very much 
 alarmed at the effect of her own indiscretion, but too 
 much in awe of Sylvia's temper to make any effort to 
 follow her. 
 
 " I don't see why she is so angry, if she doesn't 
 believe it's true," she said plaintively to herself as she 
 prepared to carry out her mother's behests alone. But 
 if she had understood, she would have seen that Syl- 
 via's anger was all the fiercer because she did believe 
 it, because she knew that it was true. For Sylvia was 
 still such a child that she had not learned to be hurt 
 without being angry with some one, Marjorie first,
 
 174 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 and most openly, because she was the nearest the mes- 
 senger. But deep in her heart her anger was not so 
 much against Marjorie as against the one person in 
 the past with whom all anger had been blameworthy, 
 and connected with wrong-doing and punishment her 
 mother. It gave her no satisfaction to assert her right 
 to it now, for every reason which added justice to her 
 resentment only increased her sense of bewilderment 
 and disaster. 
 
 She had turned instinctively to her grandfather's 
 study, which she knew would be deserted at that hour, 
 because she wished to be alone, to collect herself, to try 
 to understand all the bearings of this new discovery 
 which concerned herself, only herself, for it was a long 
 time before her simple selfishness permitted her to reach 
 conclusions of suffering involved in it for any one 
 besides herself. Deeply hurt, jealous and humiliated 
 by the sudden realization of the comparatively insig- 
 nificant position she had held in her mother's heart, 
 where she had long believed herself first, as soon as she 
 found herself alone she could not refrain from a burst 
 of angry weeping. But she was too proud to cry very 
 long. After a little while she grew very still, sitting 
 at her grandfather's table, her chin on her hand, star- 
 ing out in front of her, absorbed in miserable, passion- 
 ate thinking, not sparing herself one detail of past, 
 present, or future which would help her to realize the 
 utmost consequences of her disillusionment, as if in 
 this way she could measure and grow acquainted with 
 her sudden misfortune. And here she showed her in- 
 experience, for sorrow cannot be learned all at once,
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 175 
 
 and by violence, as it were. Its effects are never the 
 work of a single moment, or even a single hour. No 
 prescience of imagination can tell us what it is going 
 to be to us. For it teaches us one day after the other, 
 as each shows us some things worse, but others bet- 
 ter, bringing as alleviations what we had told our- 
 selves would be only added torture, and striking us 
 down unawares with the added pain of things we had 
 forgotten to count in at all. 
 
 So time passed and still Sylvia sat alone, uncom- 
 forted, though more and more invaded with youthful 
 impatience of her unaccustomed state, and she was 
 beginning to wish for her mother, as if she had been 
 long parted from her, though at the same moment 
 she found herself trembling and shrinking from the 
 thought of ever seeing her again, when all at once the 
 sound of voices and steps in the outer room made her 
 spring to her feet and look about her for means of 
 escape. 
 
 But the Dean's study was a sort of cul-de-sac. She 
 had to stand and meet the intruders whoever they 
 might be, trusting to her erectness of attitude and the 
 courage of her lifted head, to conceal the depths of 
 the wretchedness from which she had just risen. It 
 was her grandfather himself, followed by Franklin 
 Field and Stephen Dullas, who came into the room 
 and it would have been easy to take flight as soon as 
 they entered, for the Dean did not notice her at all, 
 nor did Stephen, hurrying in after him, pale and pom- 
 pous with anxiety. But her very surprise at the latter's 
 disregard of her presence, caused her to linger and
 
 176 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 hesitate, to find out what was the reason of his ungal- 
 lant conduct. The Dean looked worried and excited. 
 There were two spots of color high up on his furrowed 
 cheeks and deep caverns round his eyes. He was 
 speaking impatiently almost irritably to Franklin as 
 he entered. 
 
 " Just come in here a moment, Field. I can give 
 you those lists immediately, I believe." 
 
 He began to rummage through the careful piles of 
 paper collected on his desk, saying in the mean time to 
 Stephen : " Well, boy, what is it ? I didn't understand 
 you just now." 
 
 Of course! As soon as he spoke she remembered. 
 It was Stephen's anxiety about his degree which had 
 driven him so soon into her grandfather's presence, 
 which absorbed him so entirely now that he could see 
 and think of nothing else. Could it have been only 
 yesterday that they had all been discussing it in the 
 garden ? 
 
 His voice had already risen into that clamorous 
 insistent tone he assumed when he had a grievance, 
 his bray, Katherine had called it once to tease him. 
 The word came back to Sylvia now, with the echo of 
 her mother's voice and made her heart contract. 
 
 " O mamma ! Was it all pretending? " she thought 
 pitifully, and the tears rushed into her eyes again. 
 
 Franklin, who had fallen resignedly into his usual 
 attitude of waiting, civilly patient, his head bent for- 
 ward and a little on one side, saw her tears and won- 
 dered whether he could tell the reason. Did she know 
 what all the world knew ? Did she resent ? A girl of
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 177 
 
 her age might easily resent her mother's interest for 
 anything outside herself. He had always thought of 
 her as very much of a little girl, but this afternoon she 
 seemed older, graver, even taller. It was easy to 
 imagine how she would look some day when she had 
 left her childhood behind her. The old Dean sat down 
 in his leather-covered arm-chair listening impatiently 
 and tapping his knee with an ivory paper-cutter which 
 he had taken from the lamp-stand beside him. 
 
 Stephen stood before him, still so absorbed in his 
 own distractions that he did not yet see that there was 
 any one else in the room, talking so fast and furiously 
 that everybody perforce had to give him attention. 
 
 He was telling about his unlucky examination. 
 Every one but the Dean had heard it before but every 
 one listened while he told it again, till he concluded 
 with the words: ' 
 
 " I believe he intended to stick me all along and is 
 glad of it." 
 
 " Tut, tut, tut! " said the Dean. " Don't talk like 
 that to me, my boy, about your professors. You told 
 Mr. Brauer you thought the paper very difficult? I 
 hope you were courteous, respectful." 
 
 Stephen declared he had been most courteous, most 
 respectful, but all to no effect. The examinations next 
 day were closed to him as long as that condition stood 
 against his name. The Dean listened for a little while 
 longer, but more and more impatiently, his bushy brows 
 drawn together till they met over his eyes. He inter- 
 rupted Stephen abruptly at last. 
 
 " There, there, my boy. That will do. There has
 
 178 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 been a mistake here which I think I can set right. I'll 
 see Brauer myself this evening." 
 
 " But will there be time, sir ?" said Stephen anxious- 
 ly. " You know the lists are going to the printers now. 
 I have an examination with him to-morrow at nine." 
 
 " To-morrow, you say," said the Dean shrugging 
 up his shoulders and running his eyebrows into his 
 forehead, and puffing out his lips as he did when he 
 was perplexed. But in a moment he resumed briskly, 
 " Let me see, Field. Haven't you Brauer's list there 
 with you among the others ? Just give it to me a mo- 
 ment. I want to look at it." 
 
 Franklin ceased all at once from a reserved de- 
 tached onlooker, to fall into his other state of word- 
 less futile questioning as to his own line of conduct 
 in unexpected emergencies. The sheaf of papers in his 
 hand had been intrusted him by Merritt, clerk of the 
 faculty, to take to the printers. They were only for- 
 mal lists furnished by each professor, of the men in 
 their courses eligible for final examinations. But sup- 
 pose some one challenged his right to hand them over 
 to the Dean's inspection, what could he say ? " 
 
 The Dean himself, however, seemed to have no 
 scruples as to his right in the matter, but took them 
 from his unwilling hand without even noticing his 
 hesitation, and began to glance through them. There 
 was a moment's silence while Franklin was still ask- 
 ing himself whether he ought to have relinquished 
 them, or on what principle he should have retained 
 them, when Stephen, suddenly perceiving that Sylvia 
 was in the room, crossed over hurriedly and stood be-
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 179 
 
 side her, bending down, making shamefaced excuses 
 for his absorption, while she looked up, laughing, 
 teasing him, though all the time vaguely surprised that 
 she could hide her misery under something so like her 
 usual manner. He soon put away his gloom, and began 
 to toss his head, and smile in his little caressing way, 
 quite confident in his pampered experience as a pet of 
 fortune, that his cares were safe on the back of some 
 one eminently fitted to bear them, and that everything 
 was coming right at once. But he turned with a dis- 
 mayed squeal, " What sir ? " when the Dean stopped 
 suddenly in his perusal of Mr. Brauer's list with an 
 abrupt exclamation 
 
 " No it is not here. His name is not here -is it 
 Field?" 
 
 Franklin looking over the paper extended to him, 
 was obliged to say it was not. 
 
 " Does that mean I shan't be able to go up for the 
 examinations, sir ? " cried Stephen trembling again. 
 
 " No, no. Not at all, not at all. It only means 
 a little delay." 
 
 " Delay sir ! " echoed Stephen in alarm. " Does 
 that mean another private paper with him? Then 
 I'm done for. It is no use. I can pass anything the 
 class has, I'm sure, but if he gets me alone, he'll stick 
 me again sure." He added in an aside to Sylvia, 
 " Just wait till I get him outside of this college some 
 day ! I'll make him sorry he ever hit a man when he 
 couldn't hit back." 
 
 Sylvia laughed, so that Stephen did not hear what 
 the Dean said next.
 
 180 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 " I beg your pardon sir," he said starting forward. 
 " Did you say I could not go with my class? " 
 
 " No, no," said Dr. Lawrence, " I don't want to 
 make too many exceptions for you. That would be 
 favoritism, which would never do. No exemptions 
 from class requirements," he added, with a specious 
 air of judicial integrity, which evidently quite deceived 
 himself, though it made Franklin smile furtively. 
 " We must manage it some other way. Let me see," 
 he went on meditatively. " If I had time ..." draw- 
 ing out his watch and returning it without looking at it, 
 " if I had time I should just run over to Brauer's now 
 and see him about it before these lists go to the print- 
 er's. But I am afraid it is too late. I suppose you 
 want to go along at once, Field ? " 
 
 " As soon as I have yours, sir," replied Franklin 
 softly. 
 
 " Well then I think," said the Dean pulling him- 
 self round in his big chair, knocking down some books 
 and papers piled neatly together on the stand as he 
 reached across it to his desk, " I think, considering 
 how little time we have, and how much there is at stake 
 for this young man . . . this is the better way." His 
 efforts to reach his desk being quite futile, he spoke 
 to his granddaughter whom he noticed for the first 
 time, "Just reach me that pencil, child." 
 
 She handed it to him and then seeing what a bad 
 business he was making, trying to write against the 
 soft arm of his chair, she offered her services, half- 
 mischievously, 
 
 " Let me do it grandfather."
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 181 
 
 He gave her the paper and she took a pen and wrote 
 in her pretty handwriting across the place where Dr. 
 Lawrence had begun his illegible scrawl " H. Ste- 
 phen Dullas," amused to feel Stephen's eyes upon her 
 and to know that he attached some pleasant sentimental 
 importance to the fact that it was by her hand his name 
 was replaced in the roll of hope. Then they all started 
 a little to see Mrs. Lawrence come in. She paused a 
 moment in the doorway at the sight of other people 
 with the Dean, and Franklin who was watching her 
 with keen interest in the new light which had been 
 lately poured upon her, saw her glance in a sort of 
 startled surprise from Sylvia to Stephen who had not 
 raised their heads on her entrance but stood close to- 
 gether, with drooping heads, each unconscious of the 
 other's embarrassment. In an instant she had gathered 
 herself together again and came forward quickly to 
 greet the Dean who had risen to his feet and stretched 
 out his hand on seeing her crying : 
 
 " Well Kitty, my love, how do you do ? Were you 
 beginning to wonder what had become of me? " 
 
 She caught his hand in both of hers leaning against 
 him for a moment as if for comfort in the mere per- 
 sonal contact of that kind arm, looking up to his dim 
 eyes fixed affectionately upon her, grateful for the con- 
 fidence that his kindly loyal old mind had no room, 
 no interest to receive any other thing about her than 
 what he knew and had place for already. 
 
 He began at once to ask her about his lists. Where 
 were they? Did she know? 
 
 " Yes of course. They are here somewhere. Don't
 
 i&s IN THE HOUSE 
 
 you remember? You gave them to me to copy just 
 before you went away. There was one name you 
 were still uncertain about passing. Let me show 
 you," and she began to look through the papers he 
 had scattered about his desk in search of what he 
 wanted, and when she had found it, to call his atten- 
 tion to some parts of it still in doubt. 
 
 If she had known it, at the first sound of her voice, 
 Sylvia was quite her own again. For a little while 
 the needle of her affection had gyrated wildly after its 
 sudden shock, but no single blow, however violent can 
 really break an inveterate habit of love and trust ; mere 
 sight and sound, the mere resumption of formal inter- 
 course made it settle constant to its pole again, with- 
 out tangible reason for its readjustment. She looked 
 up eagerly, and seeing her mother's aspect so entirely 
 as usual, defiantly as usual, if she had understood as 
 far as that, she felt herself relieved from a childish 
 fear that her cause for resentment might in some mys- 
 terious way have injured and disfigured the outward 
 semblance of the one she loved best. For it was not 
 so. Katherine was somewhat pale indeed. There was 
 a certain intensity in her expression which made her 
 eyes almost poignantly sweet as she talked to the Dean, 
 but there was no difference at all in her manner to 
 Franklin as she gave him the lists with a little laugh- 
 ing apology about the delay. Then she spoke to Ste- 
 phen, who had all this time been standing stiff and 
 silent almost at her side. 
 
 " Is it all right now ? Are you quite reassured 
 about that condition ? "
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 183 
 
 No doubt she tried to address him in her usual 
 friendly affectionate tone, but her voice did not ring 
 quite true, and she turned away almost before he began 
 to start and stammer and answer clumsily, with a kind 
 of embarrassed flat formality so entirely different from 
 himself that every one noticed it except the Dean. Syl- 
 via in fact stared at him openly till she guessed a reason 
 which made the fierce color rush up into her cheeks 
 again. 
 
 " Has Miss Mix told him ? Well what if she has ! 
 What difference does it make to him ? What business 
 is it of his ? How dare he speak that way to mamma ? 
 How stupid of him ! " she said between her teeth. 
 
 And Franklin too, asked with friendly amusement 
 as the two young men walked away together : 
 
 " Why in the world did you make such an ass of 
 yourself?" 
 
 " I don't know. I couldn't help it," answered 
 Stephen mumblingly. " I wish you hadn't told me. 
 It breaks me all up to think of her caring for that 
 brute." 
 
 " My dear fellow," said Franklin smoothly, " I 
 would not have done so, I assure you, if I had had the 
 slightest idea of the effect it was going to produce 
 on you. Certainly not if I had known it was going 
 to make you so outrageously rude to a perfectly harm- 
 less woman who was trying to be civil to you." 
 
 " Was I rude? " said Stephen meekly. " I didn't 
 mean to be rude. I felt so rattled I didn't know how 
 I behaved. Did she look angry at me ? " 
 
 " Angry ? She looked as if she thought you were
 
 1 84 IN THE HOUSE OF HER FRIENDS 
 
 a darned fool. Excuse the language my dear fellow, 
 but I know no other word for it. Really you couldn't 
 have behaved with a more unreasonable bearishness, if 
 you had been in love with her yourself, and outraged 
 at her unfaithfulness." 
 
 " Oh let up," said Stephen in a muffled voice. 
 " You don't understand. I have always stood in a 
 rather peculiar relation to Mrs. Lawrence . . ." he 
 hesitated. 
 
 " Perhaps you think she ought to have confided in 
 you," said Franklin softly. 
 
 Stephen turned his glassy eyes upon him and an- 
 swered out of his own thoughts, " It isn't as though she 
 was anybody else. It wouldn't have mattered with any- 
 body else, but I didn't think she was that kind of a 
 woman." 
 
 " What kind ? " said Franklin with concealed 
 amusement. "Merely human? Not good enough for 
 a mother-in-law ? Not an angel, in fact ? " 
 
 " Oh there's no good poking fun at me. I am not 
 in the humor for it. Besides you wouldn't understand. 
 You didn't know her." After a moment he spoke 
 again, mournfully harping upon his disillusionment 
 with a kind of dull wonder. " To think of her caring 
 all this time for that cur, when I thought . . ." 
 
 " When you thought she was caring for you ? " 
 Franklin concluded for him with mischievous sym- 
 pathy. But Stephen only answered: 
 
 " I don't expect you to understand," and relapsed 
 into moody silence, walking with glassy wide-open eyes 
 as some one who looks but does not see.
 
 XIX 
 
 SYLVIA made a sudden shy movement toward her 
 mother as they all stood in the hall together after 
 the departure of the two young men. But Katherine 
 did not even see her. She was looking at the Dean, 
 who was talking buoyantly, discounting beforehand 
 any seriousness she might find in the incident he was 
 confessing ? 
 
 " Not any coffee my dear, not any this afternoon. 
 In fact I have already had something. I found myself 
 a little done up after the ceremony at the grave noth- 
 ing serious. Just a momentary dizziness. But Chand- 
 ler, who was with me, made me go into the house of 
 the caretaker to rest. While I was sitting there, his 
 wife, a very nice woman she tells me she was once 
 in service with my uncle, brought me a glass of milk. 
 That, and the few moments' quiet there, quite set me 
 up again. Let me see " He stood a moment with 
 his hand on the newel post of the stairs, as if delib- 
 erating with himself, while Katherine watched him in 
 a kind of silent intensity. 
 
 " I suppose I ought to go over and see Brauer 
 about those examinations," he said at last reluctantly; 
 his spirit was evidently longing after his familiar cus- 
 tom, the resumption of routine, that strength-giver of 
 old age, whose suspension may bring confusion and for- 
 
 185
 
 186 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 getfulness to jaded functions, whose return, more than 
 anything else, brings rest. " I think it will do just 
 as well after tea," he said at last. " Better, in fact," 
 he concluded speciously. 
 
 " Will you come into the garden then ? " said Kath- 
 erine with a little breath of relief. " Your chair is all 
 ready. Sylvia, will you bring your grandfather's 
 cushion ? " 
 
 The old Dean stretched himself out in his long 
 chair with " Well this is nice to be at home again," 
 he said genially, clasping and unclasping his hands. 
 " It has been the first really warm day of the season. 
 In fact I found it quite oppressive in the train. But 
 toward evening the air grows fresh again. Sylvia, 
 child, I wish you would run and get me some wrap 
 or another. I feel cold just about my knees." 
 
 Sylvia went, not quite willingly. She had no es- 
 pecial affection for her grandfather. She couldn't un- 
 derstand why other people thought him a great man. 
 To her he seemed quite dull and often very silly. And 
 though he was a philanthropist in great matters, she 
 thought him a very selfish person in all small things 
 which concerned herself or Tom or even her mother. 
 She was vexed when she came back with the rug, to 
 see him take it and put it over his knees without even 
 interrupting himself long enough to say thank you 
 to her. He had begun already to talk about his own 
 affairs, on and on, as if he would never stop, and 
 now, as often before she asked herself how could her 
 mother seem interested in all the little tiresome details, 
 the endless evidence of what seemed to Sylvia, petty
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 187 
 
 vanity in his accounts of what had happened to him. 
 Yet Katherine listened and encouraged with an effort- 
 less patience and attention which ended in making Syl- 
 via almost angry. 
 
 " He thinks she would rather hear that than any- 
 thing else in the world, and it is her fault. She makes 
 him. I suppose it was just the same with me. Does 
 she never do anything she really likes? " for it was on 
 this point that all her hurt feeling had finally concen- 
 trated itself. 
 
 But Katherine was not pretending an interest she 
 did not feel. On the contrary, for her too the resump- 
 tion of familiar custom was bringing a certain peace 
 and comfort. She listened gladly to the Dean's eager 
 old voice, pouring itself out upon the little things 
 which she had learned to recognize as the safest salve 
 for the deepest wounds. 
 
 " I saw Judge Daly in the Statesburg station, where 
 we had to wait half an hour to connect with the local," 
 the Dean was saying. 
 
 " Did you get anything to eat ? " interposed Kath- 
 erine but the old man waved her question aside with- 
 out answering. " It was fortunate I met him for I 
 have been much exercised about poor Mrs. Cochran. 
 Of course the last quarter of her husband's salary is 
 due in July, but I wanted to propose to the trus- 
 tees to double it and allow her the use of the house 
 through the summer. Judge Daly seems to think there 
 will be no opposition, so I can assure her of the addi- 
 tion at once and relieve her mind of mere financial 
 anxiety. But I should not have liked to do that with-
 
 188 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 out some knowledge how the trustees would consider 
 it in the state of the college, though I should run the 
 risk of repayment and advance it to her myself at once, 
 if I could afford it." 
 
 " That can be easily arranged," said Katherine 
 quickly. 
 
 "Poor woman! I must find out if she has any 
 plans, what she means to do. Perhaps I can help her." 
 
 " Oh do you think that is necessary ? " said Kath- 
 erine almost in spite of herself. " She had friends, you 
 remember, who came to her aid when you tried to 
 interfere before her brother. Don't you think he is 
 the best person to look after her interests now ? " 
 
 " I saw none of them at the funeral," said the Dean 
 thoughtfully. " Do you know anything about it ? 
 Have you seen her at all, my dear ? " 
 
 Katherine answered briefly, " No, I sent her your 
 messages through Miss Mix," and Sylvia breathless 
 in her new knowledge of hidden meanings saw her 
 mother's face change and harden as she spoke the name. 
 
 The Dean passed on in serene unconsciousness to 
 speak of what he considered more delicate matters, with 
 his usual indiscretion in Sylvia's presence. But it had 
 been one of the earliest lessons of her little childhood 
 never to repeat under any circumstances the things she 
 heard discussed at home. This was the more easily 
 complied with as the subjects most discussed were of a 
 kind she most easily forgot. 
 
 " By the way Judge Daly was asking me about 
 Merritt, what I thought of his ability, how much in- 
 fluence he had with the faculty and the boys especially
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 189 
 
 the younger alumni. Of course we all know that he 
 finds fault with a great many of the ways things are 
 done here perfectly permissible, it is perfectly permis- 
 sible to have one's own opinions about one's own de- 
 partment. But the Judge insinuated that his criti- 
 cism, openly expressed, of me as head of the faculty 
 amounted to something very like personal animosity. 
 That seems to me an overstatement. I hardly think 
 that can be true of Merritt's attitude to me, my dear 
 Kitty," said the Dean with a feeble laugh. The tone 
 of wounded feeling in his voice made Katherine put 
 her hand over her eyes for a moment. 
 
 " I don't think he would hesitate to do you harm 
 if it happened in the way of his own advancement," 
 she said at last with a sort of controlled resentment 
 which made her voice lower than usual. 
 
 " Mamma, doesn't your head ache? " Sylvia broke 
 in suddenly, moved beyond discretion at what she felt 
 was the Dean's selfish monopoly of more than he had 
 a right to. 
 
 But her mother shook her head and looked annoyed. 
 
 "Hush, dear! Don't interrupt," she said a little 
 impatiently. 
 
 Just then Molly, the white-aproned maid-servant, 
 came out from under the cherry-trees with the evening 
 paper. The Dean took it eagerly and glanced through 
 its pages. 
 
 " I am looking to see ..." he said and then broke 
 off. " Oh by the way Kitty, I saw Prentiss in New 
 York. He told me that appointment for West Point 
 which he offered Tom is likely to be vacant again.
 
 190 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 The man who got it was badly prepared. There is 
 little chance of his passing the June examinations. 
 Prentiss asked again about Tom, but I told him the 
 boy was contented, and doing well here, and that his 
 mother didn't want to part with him." 
 
 Katherine smiled, the resigned ironic smile which 
 is all that is left us, when we hear some one we love 
 quoting us in opinions not our own to uphold a course, 
 to which we have submitted rather than consented. 
 
 The Dean continued his survey of the evening 
 paper. 
 
 " Here it is. Isn't it remarkable, Kitty, the speed 
 with which these things are done nowadays? Here 
 is my address at Cochran's funeral this afternoon, en- 
 tirely reported, correctly as far as I can see by glanc- 
 ing through it. I suppose it was taken down not 
 earlier than three and it is hardly six now." 
 
 He continued to scan the closely printed columns. 
 
 " Let me see. If I can only get my eyes upon it. 
 There are one or two things here I should like to 
 hear how some of it reads. It was a very difficult 
 subject to treat, requiring the greatest delicacy, in the 
 face of his unpopularity here deserved, I won't deny 
 it, deserved, yet there were some things I felt I must 
 say, even at the risk of your thinking me indiscreet. 
 Kitty." 
 
 He turned to her with his charming smile. 
 
 " I didn't think you indiscreet," answered Kath- 
 erine rather sadly. 
 
 Sylvia watched them both in a sort of wonder. 
 How could her grandfather sit there quietly discussing
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 191 
 
 what had seemed to her so touching and spontaneous 
 when she heard it first, as if he had weighed it, studied 
 it, and questioned, even as he uttered it, how it would 
 read afterward. She blushed with anger at what she 
 thought his childish vanity as she saw him hold the 
 paper at different lengths while his far-sighted old 
 eyes tried to make it out without his glasses. And her 
 mother, what must she be feeling to hear the thing 
 which was no doubt a living pain discussed so coldly ! 
 
 But Katherine answered quite simply in a perfectly 
 steady voice : " Let me read it for you, sir." 
 
 He relinquished the paper willingly, and leaning 
 back in his chair again, prepared to listen at his ease, 
 but Sylvia started with such passionate surprise, that 
 Katherine herself looked up, and seeing her little 
 daughter's face turned upon her, all flushed and quiv- 
 ering with sympathetic knowledge and outraged affec- 
 tion, she hesitated and drew back, struck with un- 
 expected embarrassment. Then she frowned, as if 
 rejecting her own weakness, and began to read with 
 forced serenity. But Sylvia's presence, her knowledge 
 of hidden meanings, had made impossible the task 
 which she had undertaken as not especially difficult, 
 as perhaps not without a certain sad consolation. She 
 drew her breath, faltered, repeated herself, began again, 
 then, beneath the gaze of Sylvia's wistful eyes, frown- 
 ing but helpless, as she felt her breath fail her, she 
 stopped altogether. The Dean looked up in surprise 
 at the sudden silence, and Sylvia hung down her head 
 in alarm. But Katherine's voice was desperately gentle 
 when she spoke again.
 
 " Dear, I am afraid you must let Sylvia read the 
 rest to you. I shall have to go and lie down." 
 
 He began with kindly fussiness to insist on being 
 told what was the matter, to explain that he did not 
 need any one to read to him, to propose things to be 
 done. " Was it a headache? The heat of the day? " 
 He was evidently very much put about. But Katherine 
 answered with hurried tenderness: 
 
 " No, no it is nothing. I am only a little tired. 
 I can stay perfectly well, if you would rather." 
 
 But the Dean was in haste to have her gone. A nap 
 would do her good, he declared. 
 
 " Sylvia, run along with your mother and shut her 
 blinds for her!" 
 
 Sylvia sprang to her feet, but Katherine turned 
 upon her almost fiercely: 
 
 " No, Sylvia, do you hear ! I don't want you ! I 
 want to be " her voice broke and she caught it back 
 with a sort of gasp " I must be alone."
 
 XX 
 
 ETHEL PORTER came home from Statesburg 
 that afternoon, tired and a little cross after a 
 day's merrymaking. She walked up alone from the 
 station, through the quiet, tree-fringed streets, and did 
 not meet a single soul. Everybody was in the house 
 preparing for tea. Yet there was a kind of laxness 
 and languor about the mellow afternoon sunlight 
 which seemed a sort of evidence of spent forces not 
 necessarily any more than those of the day itself, but 
 adding a certain melancholy reflectiveness to the sum 
 of one's own weariness. As the latch went click in 
 the little white gate which opened to the path leading 
 up to the Greek portico of the boarding-house, Miss 
 Mix looked out of her upstairs sanctum and nodded 
 a cheerful welcome: " Did you have a good time? " 
 
 Ethel raised her head and saw the little, pink-col- 
 ored, inquisitive face at the upper window. 
 
 " Come in as you go by," said the owner of the 
 Greek portico. " I have got something here that I 
 want to show you." 
 
 By this time her story was known to so many that 
 she had lost even the appearance of discretion in her 
 desire to outstrip competition in telling of it. But 
 those of her patrons who looked closely at their land- 
 
 193
 
 194 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 lady at the evening meal which followed soon after 
 saw a woful change upon her cheerful countenance, 
 and, indeed, in her whole demeanor, as if some gay 
 balloon which had been soaring all day in the sunlight 
 had been suddenly pricked by a pin, and lay in your 
 hand, shorn of its importance, reduced to a little bunch 
 of wrinkled, discolored skin. Miss Mix was unusually 
 silent behind her tea-tray, sniffing a little now and then 
 as if in memory of past emotion, casting deprecating, 
 side-long glances from time to time at Ethel, who, on 
 her part, talked more than usual, so that the whole 
 table was pleasantly enlivened by the reflection of her 
 day's festivity at Statesburg. When supper was over, 
 however, after a few moments in the dining-room, 
 where Miss Mix held her in a sort of whimpering con- 
 versation, Ethel did not delay, even for the few minutes 
 she usually talked with the old ladies who spent the 
 summer evenings sitting among the fluted pillars of 
 the boarding-house piazza, nor did she permit Franklin 
 Field's escort, eagerly offered and frankly refused, but 
 strolled off by herself, out of the front gate and up 
 the street toward the college. 
 
 " It is evident that a certain little person we know 
 has been getting something she richly deserves," said 
 one of the old ladies to another, with great satisfaction. 
 
 " There is no one better able to do it than Ethel 
 Porter," replied the other. " Dear me ! It seems as 
 if it were only yesterday that she was a big girl with 
 yellow braids down her back, and I saw her shaking 
 Harriet Mix so hard in her father's own garden that 
 I had to step over and interfere."
 
 OE HER FRIENDS 195 
 
 Meanwhile Ethel was threading her way through 
 the hidden paths among the professors' houses, till she 
 came by the back road to the open space behind the 
 Dean's walled garden. She opened the little gate and 
 looked in. 
 
 There was no one there but Tom and Sylvia. Tom 
 was sitting on a low stool, bending forward, his elbows 
 on his knees, his hands busily engaged in weaving and 
 plaiting together a few long blades of grass, which os- 
 tensibly engaged his whole attention. Sylvia had flung 
 herself down near him, across her grandfather's chair, 
 her face hidden against her arm as if she had been 
 crying. At the first sound of a new arrival she sprang 
 to her feet and, without even looking round to see 
 who it was, fled away through the cherry-trees, while 
 Tom came forward slowly, even more shyly than was 
 his wont, still twisting and twining his blades of 
 grass. 
 
 " How do you do ? " said Ethel kindly. " I wonder 
 whether I could see your mother for a moment. Where 
 is she?" 
 
 He looked more and more embarrassed. 
 
 " I don't know ; I think she has a headache. I 
 mean she is lying down upstairs." There was a mo- 
 ment's silence, then Tom said : 
 
 " Do you want me to tell her you are here ? " 
 
 He looked up for the first time, and she was struck 
 with the wide sweep of his brows, and the long, gray 
 eyes, which gazed out at her with an instinctive sadness 
 in them, which was like his mother's. 
 
 " No, no/' answered Ethel. " I just wanted to
 
 196 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 give her something." She found herself stammering, 
 almost embarrassed. " It is something of hers, some- 
 thing Miss Mix found of hers, and that I bring back 
 to her. She will understand." 
 
 So did Tom apparently. He raised his head, and 
 his wide, melancholy eyes suddenly melted into a shy, 
 almost affectionate smile. 
 
 " Oh, thank you," he said gratefully, and then re- 
 lapsed instantly into stolidity again; but as Ethel put 
 the little packet into his hand, she saw a clear, crimson 
 color creep up under his pale, fine-grained skin, and 
 show in his thin boy's cheeks. 
 
 " What a charming fellow ! " she thought to her- 
 self as she went away. " Perhaps I ought not to have 
 sent them that way. But I am sure he is perfectly to 
 be trusted, and I don't believe Kitty wants to be both- 
 ered by seeing me this evening." 
 
 Tom went back hastily into the house, swung him- 
 self up the shallow stairs two at a time, and in another 
 moment stood before his mother's closed door. He 
 knocked. At first there was no answer. 
 
 " It is I Tom," he said in the uncertain bass of 
 his boyish voice. 
 
 " Mother, may I speak to you just a moment, at 
 the door? It's it's important." 
 
 There was a soft movement inside, a slipping of a 
 bolt back from its place. In another moment his 
 mother stood before him. He heard her voice speaking 
 quite as usual : 
 
 " What do you want of me, Tom dear ? " But 
 he saw only the edge of her white gown on the floor
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 197 
 
 at his feet, for he kept his head down low on his breast 
 as he extended the little package for her acceptance. 
 
 "Mother, this is yours; Miss Porter left it," he 
 said gruffly, and fled downstairs again, hardly knowing 
 how she had taken it, or if she had taken it, except that 
 he felt his hands empty again.
 
 XXI 
 
 THE college year was so near its close that there 
 had come to be a note of finality in the smallest 
 details of its routine, lending them a significance and 
 sadness which did not properly belong to them. There 
 were the last baseball games on the athletic field, where 
 the smell of the crushed grass mingled with the scent 
 of the small, sweet cigarettes usually affected by the 
 college lads, and when the air was filled with the shouts 
 and clamor of young boys' voices, and the higher notes 
 from the crowds of young girls come to see their side 
 win. There were the last senior recitations, the Dean's 
 reception to the graduating class. The college woods 
 were vocal with anxious aspirants for honors on the 
 Commencement stage, practising their speeches alone 
 among the trees. And there was a feeling of senti- 
 mental regret, growing stronger and stronger among 
 the seniors as they saw the last moments of four col- 
 lege years dropping away from them. They went 
 about wistfully among their familiar places, which 
 would so soon learn to do without them, believing, in 
 their simplicity, that others felt as they did, that no 
 other class could exactly take their place on the college 
 campus, or even in the recitation-room. 
 
 A senior song, without much poetry but with a 
 minor note in its refrain, chiefly consisting in varia- 
 
 198
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF HER FRIENDS 199 
 
 tions of the word " farewell," coupled with all the 
 places and persons, and even studies, they had loved or 
 hated during their college course, was always resusci- 
 tated during this last term, and sung to satiety by the 
 groups assembled in the twilight on the dormitory 
 steps: 
 
 " Farewell, fare you well, for we must leave you, 
 Farewell, fare you well, jolly old Dean," 
 
 sang the students as they passed the Dean's corner in 
 the warm June nights. For all the sentiment and 
 activity of the season was this year favored and en- 
 hanced by a period of beautiful weather. Day after 
 day rose from the east like a silver bubble, rolling its 
 way serenely over the sweet, green enclosures and gray 
 old buildings of the college, taking a thousand peacock 
 colors with the late afternoon, and vanishing in a sea 
 of glory across the low, blue hills where the sun set 
 at night; each day was a little warmer than the pre- 
 ceding one, but none showed any signs of a break in 
 the weather to mar their perfect sequence. 
 
 " What luck ! " said the seniors to one another. 
 " If it only lasts through the garden party, it can do 
 what it wants on alumni day." 
 
 It was the characteristic attitude of the undergrad- 
 uate. The garden party was their own affair, a recep- 
 tion to the faculty and the people of the town who had 
 entertained them. How much more important, how 
 much more truly a college event, than the mere return 
 of its alumni to prowl for a day among its halls and
 
 200 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 cloisters and partake of a banquet in the college gym- 
 nasium ! 
 
 The day was lovely, the upper terrace of the Botani- 
 cal Garden was crowded with ladies in festive array, 
 the strains of the little band of stringed instruments, 
 hired for the occasion, sounded gayly from its hiding- 
 place in the shrubbery. But the Dean was late, and 
 Mrs. Lawrence with him, at which latter fact, espe- 
 cially, Littelton society felt itself aggrieved. For it 
 had not by any means got over a thrill of excitement 
 at Katherine's every new appearance among them since 
 the discovery of her letters. 
 
 It was not a very great secret, but neither was Lit- 
 telton a very great place, and its people had come into 
 their possession in a way peculiarly stimulating to their 
 interest, peculiarly romantic, as they themselves judged 
 romance. 
 
 Mrs. Lawrence had always been something of an 
 enigma to them. They had never quite liked her, or 
 got over being annoyed at her unexpected deviations 
 from obvious rules of conduct. When she ought to 
 have wept, she remained impassive; when they wanted 
 her to be amused, even her careful civility could not 
 always conceal her pained surprise ; and now, when, by 
 her age and position as a mother of grown children, 
 they had exempted her from the mere possibility of 
 sentiment, they had suddenly discovered that she still 
 had a heart capable of passionate feeling. But when 
 they looked for her to be crushed, overcome by the 
 death of the man she had been in love with ; when they 
 scanned her face for signs of grief, tears, even, they
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 201 
 
 found nothing but a kind of strained serenity which 
 told them nothing they could understand, not even as 
 much as they knew already. They would not have 
 been surprised if she had hid herself to nurse her sor- 
 row in secret. But she went everywhere just as usual. 
 And after all, as the more reasonable were quick to 
 point out, it would have been somewhat ridiculous for 
 her to stay at home in mourning for another woman's 
 husband, even after the other woman, wrapped in her 
 ill-made widow's weeds, had removed herself from 
 among them and returned to the unknown places which 
 had brought her forth. And then there was the doubt 
 which checked their sympathy for her in the tragedy 
 of his loss and death ; there was always a chance that, 
 while they were pitying her, she was congratulating 
 herself on her escape from an ignominious fate, made 
 visible to her through the years of her lover's marriage 
 to another woman. Still, they could not be sure, and 
 there was not even an inner circle of initiated who was 
 any surer, who could have satisfied general curiosity 
 if they had cared to do so, for Katherine had made no 
 exceptions in the deep reserve behind which she hid 
 herself from friends and foes alike. 
 
 What every one knew already she could not take 
 from them; but she held her face up steadily for their 
 inspection, as if defying them to find there any further 
 betrayal of what was going on under the surface, shirk- 
 ing no occasion of going among them, which the season 
 and Sylvia's new requirements demanded. 
 
 But now she was late. Her absence gave food at 
 once for new conjecture. " Maybe she is sick," said
 
 202 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 Miss Mix, whose deep-purple silk and flowery bon- 
 net made its own effect among the softer colors of 
 nature. 
 
 " She was as white as death at the reception last 
 night," said little Miss Schuyler, in pale gray trimmed 
 with exquisite old lace. " My heart ached for her. I 
 was afraid once that she was going to faint." 
 
 " No here she comes," rejoined Miss Mix, almost 
 disappointed, " dressed like a girl, as usual, though we 
 all know she might be a widow twice over at this very 
 minute if all had gone well." 
 
 Katherine came by with her father-in-law, who 
 kept his heavy old hand on her arm as he stopped and 
 spoke to the little group of ladies, even Mrs. Brauer, 
 who half-turned aside, and answered with a sort of 
 nasal discourtesy born equally of dislike and embar- 
 rassment. Then they passed on, and with the best in- 
 tentions in the world, those Katherine left behind could 
 not even find it to say about her that she looked es- 
 pecially pale. 
 
 There was yet another little group who had noticed 
 the late arrival with imperfect friendliness. Just at 
 the head of the steps, a little to one side, near the bal- 
 ustrade, there was an empty, gravelled place which 
 commanded a view of both terraces, where there had 
 been placed an iron table and several garden chairs. 
 Here, by a sort of natural attraction, had gravitated 
 certain members of the faculty who were by preference 
 not attuned to ordinary social events, but who had 
 turned out on the present occasion with a view of 
 showing their good-will to the senior class, and em-
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 203 
 
 phasizing their absence from the Dean's reception the 
 night before. Merritt was there, his chair swung back 
 on two legs, or even one, as he hitched it here and there 
 with his shoulders in turning to one or another of the 
 little group which always surrounded him. There was 
 also Brauer, silent and massive, standing steadily on 
 both feet; tutor Wynans, with his complacent, spec- 
 tacled smile, and very shiny boots turned up at the toes ; 
 and Brownell, sitting on the edge of the balustrade, 
 swinging his legs violently, looking all about him, but 
 still finding time to throw in a word here and there 
 to what the others were saying. Brownell was a vic- 
 tim to dyspepsia, and when the fit was upon him, he 
 would sit among his fellows for hours, wrapped in de- 
 pressing, almost leaden gloom and silence. At other 
 times he was uplifted by a sort of voluble high spirits, 
 which emphasized the hard boyishness of his blond 
 coloring and flaxen hair, but which betrayed the dry- 
 ness of his imagination and the dulness of his ideas 
 more hopelessly than his silences. To-day his good 
 temper was finding its outlet in a kind of rough banter 
 which took its point from his colleagues' known weak- 
 nesses. 
 
 " Did you find out why Chandler didn't come to 
 the faculty meeting yesterday ? " said some one of the 
 little group. 
 
 Brownell broke out at once in his somewhat unin- 
 telligible gabbling tone : " I can tell you. I found 
 him afterward in the library reading the new maga- 
 zines. ' Why, professor, how's this ? how's this ? ' said 
 I. ' We have all been waiting for you over at the
 
 204 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 office building. Why weren't you with us ? ' He 
 pressed one finger delicately against his forehead 
 a moment, and then looked up with that gentle little 
 air of his. ' Faculty meeting, faculty meeting,' he 
 said. ' Strange, very strange. It quite slipped my 
 memory.' ' 
 
 It was a very bad imitation of the old gentleman's 
 quaint mannerisms, but good enough to make the 
 others grin, and Merritt burst into a short, angry 
 laugh. 
 
 "And that man draws a bigger salary than you 
 do, Wynans," he said, turning his chair toward the 
 spectacled tutor of history. " Is it any wonder that 
 the college is going to wreck and ruin ? " 
 
 " How about that protest to the trustees, Merritt ? " 
 said Brownell, breaking into noisy laughter. " Has 
 it made a good impression? I have heard nothing of 
 it myself, but you may have had some indirect com- 
 munication with that august body." He was not sur- 
 prised to see Merritt burst into a rage. 
 
 " Oh, the trustees ! I have my own opinion of the 
 trustees! Bribed to a man, bribed to the last man 
 that scoundrelly politician, Henry Dullas, with this 
 honorary degree that we are ordered to bestow upon 
 him a degree he is no more fit for than his young 
 jackanapes of a son is for the B.A. the college gives 
 him this Commencement. At least I suppose we do. 
 I see his name up on the board, though I never un- 
 derstood how he came out with that condition in 
 physics, Brauer. I thought you had decided to debar 
 him?"
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 205 
 
 That placid gentleman began to show signs of em- 
 barrassment. 
 
 " Such had been my intention. He was debarred. 
 His presence at the finals was entirely irregular; the 
 Dean has apologized to me for it. I had omitted his 
 name from the lists, but the Dean reentered it without 
 my knowledge. So he took his examinations with his 
 class, and did much better than I expected; passed so 
 well, in fact, that I had no excuse for holding the 
 former condition against him." 
 
 " But I don't understand," said Brownell, with 
 feigned innocence. " His name reentered on the lists, 
 you say? You didn't need to go by the lists. It 
 was your own recitation-room. All you had to do 
 when you saw him there was to tell him to clear 
 out." 
 
 " Well, ahem " said Mr. Brauer, rubbing his 
 short, square beard aside so as to let the air blow in 
 upon his neck above his low collar, " in fact I was not 
 able to hold my examinations that day. Young Perry 
 gave out the papers." 
 
 Brownell was enchanted, and the other began to 
 move his head rather pompously to and fro under the 
 raillery of his noisy laughter. 
 
 " I went to the Dean about it myself as soon as I 
 perceived it. As I say, I made him apologize. It 
 seems he had meant to see me about it earlier. He had 
 entered it, in fact, in his memoranda he went so far 
 as to show me the entry, but in some way the thing 
 had slipped his memory." Merritt burst into one of 
 his tirades of violent abuse.
 
 206 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 " Oh, he got round you as usual, I suppose, with 
 his rhetoric the old wind-bag ! Mere rhetoric, empty- 
 sounding words, with nothing behind them. That's 
 the whole secret of the Dean's influence on the trustees 
 and alumni. No doubt he would succeed better if he 
 could turn the financial statement into rhetoric, too; 
 but, unfortunately, the financial statement, being only 
 plain figures, can't lie, and that's the reason we all 
 know, to the very last assistant, that the college hasn't 
 met its expenses for the last five years, but is falling 
 steadily more and more behind, and that the next step 
 will be a cut in our salaries." 
 
 At the mention of salaries and financial statements, 
 a gloom seemed to descend upon the whole assembly, 
 even Brownell, whose highest spirits could hardly help 
 evaporating at the mere thought of meeting the butch- 
 er's bills for his wife and babies on any smaller sum 
 than that which bound him already. 
 
 " There is the Dean now," he said suddenly, from 
 his seat facing the entrance. " I was wondering why 
 he didn't put in an appearance. It's pretty late. Peo- 
 ple are beginning to go." 
 
 Merritt hitched himself round on his chair to look 
 behind him. Then he hitched back again. 
 
 " Faugh ! It makes me sick to see them all bowing 
 and scraping around him men who, if they said what 
 they thought, what they have said themselves in con- 
 fidence to me " He broke off in a disgust which was 
 evidently too deep for words. 
 
 " All the same, I think the old fellow looking very 
 badly," said Brownell, beginning to swing his legs
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 207 
 
 again. " I shouldn't be surprised if he didn't last out 
 the year." 
 
 This loosened their tongues again, for they all had 
 something to say about the effect the Dean's death 
 would have on the college, till Merritt, rearing his thin 
 length to its full height, rose from his chair and strolled 
 away toward the part of the grounds where his wife 
 was presiding over the refreshments. 
 
 The cohesion of his presence being removed, the 
 others drifted away one by one, till, when Franklin 
 Field came by a few moments afterward, there was no 
 one left but Wynans, standing solitary, leaning upon 
 the balustrade, gazing out through his spectacles upon 
 the gay scene below, his usually lethargic countenance 
 touched by an expression of mild sentimental melan- 
 choly. For even a man well informed in all the intri- 
 cacies of mediaeval history must feel a certain sadness, 
 on a beautiful June afternoon, looking out over many 
 lovely ladies of all ages and characters, and conscious 
 of no aptitude in his own learned soul by which he 
 could commend himself to any one of them. He 
 looked wistfully at Franklin, standing on the edge of 
 the steps, his limpid blue eyes wandering here and 
 there over the bright flower beds beneath him, evidently 
 looking for some one. 
 
 In another moment he had spied her out. Wynans 
 saw him descend the steps and take the shortest way 
 to the little artificial pond in the middle of the garden, 
 to join a lady in blue muslin, who stood beside a garden 
 bench talking to a tall gentleman. Both seemed glad 
 to see him. Wynans sighed again, for the lady was
 
 2o8 IN THE HOUSE OF HER FRIENDS 
 
 Ethel Porter, and he admired her dimly in his slow 
 soul, and was oppressed by the cold hostility with which 
 she regarded him, when she regarded him at all, mere- 
 ly as another unit in the sum of the " other side," as 
 she called that part of the faculty who were wavering 
 in their allegiance to the Dean.
 
 XXII 
 
 ETHEL turned from her cavalier as Franklin ap- 
 proached them. 
 
 "Has the Dean come?" 
 
 " Yes ; I left him with Mrs. Lawrence just now on 
 the upper terrace." 
 
 " I want to speak to him," said Ethel, " on im- 
 portant business." 
 
 Franklin stood by, smiling his little secret smile, 
 which made him seem so discreet that it was a long 
 time before any one realized that he always finally told 
 everything he knew. He felt pleasantly like a con- 
 spirator as he said to Miss Porter in an undertone : 
 
 " I have got last night's Statesburg Messenger 
 for you two copies." 
 
 " There, Chase, I said I would get one ! " cried 
 Ethel, turning triumphantly to her companion, who 
 shrugged his high shoulders and smiled, not disagree- 
 ably, though he had a narrow mouth, without quite 
 room in it for all his long, white teeth. He was a 
 slender, dark man, with a narrow face, a prominent, 
 crooked nose, large, dark eyes somewhat magnified by 
 his glasses, and a lisping, affected manner; but when 
 he talked he was more amusing than he looked. 
 
 Franklin already knew him as Mr. Chase Hether- 
 209
 
 210 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 ington, a rising lawyer of Statesburg, and Littelton 
 knew him as an old beau of Ethel's. 
 
 " I wish you joy of that scurrilous sheet," he said 
 rather contemptuously. 
 
 " But I want to see that letter about the Dean." 
 
 " Not even signed. Vulgar abuse. You had better 
 not look at it." 
 
 " Oh, you always were a lukewarm, cautious creat- 
 ure ! " she cried audaciously. " A man who really loved 
 the college would resent it." 
 
 " You will be sorry you abused me this way when 
 you read my name on the subscription list Dullas has 
 been carrying round among the Statesburg alumni for 
 the last three weeks. It is more than I can afford, so 
 I think it must be generous." 
 
 " O Chase, you are an angel ! I take back all I 
 said just now. Is it really true that those stingy 
 creatures in Statesburg are going to do something 
 for us?" 
 
 " Conditionally, only conditionally, my dear ; and 
 we, who have pledged ourselves, still cherish fears 
 that we won't succeed in raising the whole one hundred 
 thousand dollars in the required time. All or nothing, 
 you know." 
 
 " Oh, one hundred thousand dollars ! " cried Ethel. 
 " They never can raise that. Why did they propose 
 so much ? " 
 
 Hetherington replied demurely : " I believe I had 
 some such feeling myself when I subscribed in the first 
 place. The very size of the sum had a kind of pro- 
 tection in it. Lately I am becoming a little nervous.
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 211 
 
 I met Dullas in the street the other day, and he de- 
 clares he will have it all promised before next week." 
 
 " I believe one of the most important matters which 
 calls the Dean to Statesburg this evening is to address 
 your committee," remarked Franklin neatly. 
 
 The other man made a gesture of burlesque dismay. 
 
 " The last screw," he murmured. " Guaranteed to 
 draw water from a stone." 
 
 " I wish you wouldn't talk that way," said Ethel 
 crossly, " as if you didn't care. It sounds horrid. 
 But what makes the honorable Henry S. Dullas so 
 active in the matter? I thought he was a man who 
 was always on the make." 
 
 " Well, so he is. You know he hopes to go to 
 Washington next autumn. The college is going to 
 give him a degree; it adds to a man's importance, es- 
 pecially if he doesn't deserve it." 
 
 " Whether he deserves it or not, he has shown him- 
 self a more loyal son of Littel College than you, Chase," 
 said Ethel hotly. " He has sent his son here, and you 
 let your little brother go off to Yale." 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders and laughed apologet- 
 ically. 
 
 " I couldn't help it. The boy was set on it him- 
 self. We couldn't stop him. He wanted to play foot- 
 ball. And let me tell you, Miss Ethel, it is very well 
 to talk loud about loyalty to one's alma mater, and 
 all that, but a small college is not always the best place 
 for a man, even if his father did go there before him. 
 Take the case of Dullas, for instance. It would have 
 been a great deal better for that young cub if his father
 
 212 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 had let him go to one of the big universities, as he 
 wanted. It might have knocked some of the conceit 
 out of him." 
 
 " Oh, I am sure he is a very charming boy as it is ! " 
 cried Ethel. . But Chase went on without heeding her : 
 
 " Compare him with a man of his own kind at 
 Harvard and you will see what I mean. You agree 
 with me, don't you, Field ? " 
 
 " I am afraid I am only too ready to pronounce in 
 favor of my own university," said Franklin with polite 
 hesitation. But Ethel brushed away their arguments 
 as not worth consideration. 
 
 " I confess I do like loyalty," she reiterated, " even 
 if one has to make some sacrifices for it." 
 
 They had turned from the stagnant basin in the 
 middle of the lower garden, and were pacing one of the 
 narrower paths which led to the upper terrace, when, 
 in the thickest part of the shrubbery, emerging some- 
 what cautiously from a shady walk beside some beech- 
 trees, they came upon Sylvia. 
 
 " Well, you child," cried Ethel kindly, " what are 
 you doing here alone? Up to some mischief, I'm quite 
 sure. Come here. This is Mr. Hetherington, an old 
 Littel graduate, and a great friend of all your aunts." 
 
 The young girl came forward simply. She had 
 never seen Mr. Hetherington before, but she was quite 
 ready to adopt him among her acquaintances at Miss 
 Porter's bidding, and listened with shy amusement to 
 the talk full of innuendo, and reference to what she 
 could only half-understand, which had been begun by 
 the form of Ethel's introduction.
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 213 
 
 " I knew all your aunts," said the Littel graduate, 
 " and admired them equally I may say, adored them 
 all and so did every man in my class, at one time 
 or another. We were a very inflammable class, even 
 from freshmen. At the end we grew to take a certain 
 pride in it. I think it was a boast of our senior year 
 that there was not one man among us who had not 
 offered up his heart to some one at least once during 
 his college course. I may say, however, in spite of 
 a most profound admiration for your Aunt Sylvia, that 
 it was Miss Porter who turned me down the oftenest 
 in the four years I stayed here. She pretends she has 
 forgotten it now." 
 
 " You absurd creature ! " said Ethel, laughing. 
 " Don't judge him too severely, Sylvia. He can be 
 quite sensible on occasions." 
 
 Sylvia was silent, but her eyes were full of atten- 
 tion. Ethel went on, turning again to Chase: 
 
 "Do you remember that ridiculous Class Day? 
 We used to have it in the chapel, Sylvia, when I was 
 a girl, before they began to go downtown, as they do 
 now, to the city churches. It was much more fun. 
 More really a college affair. My brother Richard had 
 the valedictory, and we all went with our arms full of 
 flowers to throw to him afterward. And this wretch 
 here, instead of tossing them decorously, as we asked 
 him, stood and hurled them like baseballs from the 
 sixth row. Poor Richard was nearly annihilated. If 
 he hadn't dodged most of them, he would have been 
 knocked down." 
 
 " I nearly floored him, though, with one bunch of
 
 214 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 hard moss roses from the Loomis's garden. I could 
 get a sort of grip on that. It went through the air 
 like a catapult. Well, he got it harder when Mary 
 refused him the morning after the ball. He wasn't the 
 only one, however. The college woods were full of it 
 all that day. But I believe you were the only girl who 
 turned two men down the same morning." 
 
 Ethel laughed. " I hope you don't believe every- 
 thing people tell you, Sylvia," she said, putting her 
 hand on the young girl's arm and drawing her closer 
 when the narrowness of the path made the two men 
 fall behind or in front. Sylvia's eyes were full of 
 interest. 
 
 " I didn't know any man ever told when some one 
 refused to marry him," she said in a low tone of inno- 
 cent surprise to Ethel, when for a moment they were 
 almost alone together. " I thought even the girl ought 
 not to tell, for fear of hurting his feelings." 
 
 " No greater mistake in the world," answered 
 Ethel briskly. " After a certain age a man gets just 
 as much pleasure in boasting of a refusal as of any 
 other experience, and on just as little ground. In this 
 case, for instance, I never refused Mr. Hetherington, 
 for the excellent reason that I never had a chance ; but 
 for a long, time it has amused him to say so, and it is 
 not worth while to spoil his pleasure by contradicting 
 him." 
 
 " Was that after mamma had come to live here? " 
 asked Sylvia eagerly. 
 
 " No, my dear, those were in the dark ages, before 
 we even knew there was such a person as your mother.
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 215 
 
 But Sylvia, child, I have known you ever since you 
 were born," said Ethel more seriously, drawing back 
 so as to let the two men in front get a little farther 
 out of earshot. " I am older than your mother, so 
 you must not be vexed with me if I scold you a 
 little." 
 
 Sylvia looked at her seriously, with transparent, 
 elusive eyes. 
 
 " O Miss Ethel," she said, " you are very nice to 
 care enough about me to want to scold me." 
 
 "You little humbug!" answered Ethel. "Don't 
 you feel guilty, doesn't your conscience reproach you 
 for treating that poor, good-looking swain of yours as 
 you have been doing for the last few days ? " 
 
 "When?" asked Sylvia innocently. 
 
 " At the Chandler's dance on Tuesday night. In 
 your own house, at your grandfather's reception. I 
 have my eyes on you." 
 
 " I don't know what you mean," said Sylvia still 
 more innocently. " Stephen is not cross with me." 
 
 " Isn't he ? Well he ought to be. Do you know 
 what it is to play with a man, Sylvia ? " Sylvia 
 smiled shyly and shook her head. " Well you may not 
 know, but that's what you are doing. And now let 
 me give you some good advice, which may save you 
 trouble some day. It is never worth while to treat a 
 man very badly if there is any chance of your marry- 
 ing him afterward." 
 
 Sylvia looked interested. " You may say you are 
 not going to marry Stephen, but if you will listen to 
 me, you might do a much worse thing. They say a
 
 216 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 girl is never willing to accept her first proposal, but it 
 turns out more often than not that her first proposal 
 is the best chance she ever gets." 
 
 " Yes," said Sylvia seriously. " That is what is 
 meant by the fable about the crooked stick, I suppose." 
 
 Ethel paused and turned upon her one of her bright, 
 intent looks, but seeing nothing but innocent attention 
 in her expression, she returned to the charge. 
 
 " Now, Stephen, for instance, is good looking, he 
 has a good position, he will have plenty of money, and 
 he is a nice, sweet fellow." 
 
 " I know. Every one says that he has a very good 
 heart," assented Sylvia. Ethel looked at her again in 
 sudden suspicion, but nothing could have been more 
 transparent than her appearance. She was evidently 
 seriously trying to meet the older woman on her own 
 ground, even while holding her own reserves. Ethel 
 resumed with more heat : 
 
 " Oh, it is all very well to turn up one's nose at a 
 good heart ! Some day, when you are older, and have 
 tried other things, you will perhaps find just how rare 
 and precious it is to be sure of the good heart of an 
 honest man who loves you, and then " 
 
 " Yes," said Sylvia solemnly, " that is what people 
 always say; then it is too late." Ethel couldn't help 
 laughing. 
 
 " You absurd child ! I suppose I am only wasting 
 my words over you. It is only when you grow to be 
 as old as I am that you will recognize their wisdom." 
 
 " It seems so funny to hear you talk, as you do all 
 the time, as if you were very old," said Sylvia, so in-
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 217 
 
 genuously that Ethel was not even sure that she was 
 consciously turning the subject. " You know you 
 really seem as young as Marjorie and me, except for 
 knowing more things." 
 
 " Do you know how old I am ? " 
 
 " You say you are older than mamma," replied 
 Sylvia discreetly. 
 
 " And do you know how old she is ? " 
 
 " She always said she would tell me when she was 
 twice as old as I." 
 
 " You look absurdly young for your age, but I 
 fancy you are quite eighteen." 
 
 " Yes, last month," said Sylvia laughing. 
 
 " Do you think your mother looks much younger 
 than I do? " Ethel continued with curiosity, half-mis- 
 chievous, half-genuine. 
 
 " I don't know," said Sylvia, with a sudden change 
 of voice. " It is very hard to think of mamma exactly 
 like other people. There was a shadow on her face as 
 she finished, which didn't lighten as Ethel continued: 
 
 " I suppose you are very fond of her ? " 
 
 "Yes," answered Sylvia gravely; but she did not 
 speak again till a sharp turn in the path they had been 
 climbing brought them unexpectedly into the light and 
 movement of the upper terrace, where Franklin and 
 Hetherington were waiting for them. 
 
 A clamorous group of youths and maidens at once 
 made a descent on them, calling Sylvia in various keys. 
 
 " We have been looking for you everywhere ! " 
 
 " Where have you been? " cried Stephen, planting 
 himself at her side with a sort of bounce. Ethel,
 
 218 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 glancing sideways, saw that she submitted very docilely 
 to be carried off, though answering their questions 
 as to her disappearance with somewhat disingenuous 
 vagueness. 
 
 Hetherington drew out his watch. " If you want 
 to see the Dean before he goes " he began. 
 
 " I do," said Ethel, " and so do you. We must go 
 at once or he will have escaped me, and you won't get 
 a lift down to the station, or the opportunity of ad- 
 miring Mrs. Lawrence's eyes." 
 
 The Dean was delaying, the centre of a little crowd 
 of friends and admirers, his tall, slender figure and 
 gray head towering over most of them. He was in 
 very good spirits, taking gallant part in the talk and 
 banter going on about him, though his fine old face 
 seemed every now and then to fall into disarray, over- 
 powered by the enfeebling laughter of old age. 
 
 Near by, though remote from the life and gayety 
 of the other group, Katherine stood, talking intermit- 
 tently to an old lady or two from the boarding-house 
 and a shy student who seemed to find comfort for his 
 embarrassment in her gentleness. But her eye was on 
 the Dean, watching with suppressed impatience for his 
 first sign of departure, the increased effort in her po- 
 lite attention to what was being said to her betraying 
 her weariness and longing to be gone. But she greeted 
 Mrs. Chandler, who appeared at last, late, hurrying, 
 and a little distracted, with instant eagerness and cor- 
 diality. 
 
 " How late you are ! I wanted to speak to you 
 about this evening."
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 219 
 
 " Yes, I am late. I was afraid you would be gone." 
 They drew aside from the others to discuss their chil- 
 dren's requirements, in which conversation Ethel in- 
 terrupted them. 
 
 " Kitty, I want to ask you. Have you seen that 
 letter in the Statesburg paper ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Katherine drawing her reserve about 
 her. 
 
 "Has the Dean?" 
 
 " Yes," answered Katherine briefly. 
 
 " What does he think of it? " 
 
 Katherine looked down a moment, choosing her 
 words then answered with her usual expressionless 
 gentleness : 
 
 " I think he was hurt, but not so much by its criti- 
 cism as its evident unfriendliness." 
 
 " Does he know who wrote it ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Harriet Mix says the men think it was Merritt." 
 
 " He is not an alumnus." 
 
 " That wouldn't prevent his signing himself one." 
 
 Katherine raised her eyebrows. " Very likely." 
 
 " I want to tell the Dean." 
 
 " Oh, don't ! " said Katherine, almost involuntarily. 
 
 " Why not ? I think he ought to be shown up for 
 what he is. I think the Dean ought to be put on his 
 guard. There ought to be some way of getting rid 
 of such a man from the faculty." 
 
 She went on, more and more impatient of Kath- 
 erine's silence: 
 
 " O Kitty, you are no fun ! You haven't a trace
 
 220 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 of the fighter in you. Why, the Dean himself is not 
 above getting a certain fun out of the give and take 
 of a good struggle. You know he thoroughly enjoyed 
 that fizzle of a protest to the trustees. But you are 
 so desperately serious about it. One feels all the time 
 with you as if one were hitting against flesh and 
 blood." 
 
 " I am flesh and blood," said Katherine with a sort 
 of pathetic simplicity which made Ethel's eyes suddenly 
 fill with tears. She made an involuntary movement 
 toward her, but Katherine had already retired into her 
 shell again, and Hough appeared at the moment to 
 say that the carriage was waiting. 
 
 As the Dean with his little train began to move 
 toward the gate, Sylvia came up to her mother with 
 a rush, followed closely by Stephen. 
 
 " O mamma, are you going? " she exclaimed, and 
 the young man, too, cried out, almost blatant in his ef- 
 forts to resume his former easy and affectionate rela- 
 tions with her, but he soon stopped, silent and rebuffed 
 by the cold sweetness of his reception by her. Sylvia 
 sent him a swift, almost contemptuous glance from 
 between her long lashes. None knew better than she 
 the baffling quality in her mother's gentleness, yet none 
 the less did she despise him for being helpless before 
 it. She turned to her mother again : 
 
 " But won't you come back? What about me? " 
 
 " You are going to the class exercises with Mrs. 
 Chandler. I believe a lot of you are going to 
 walk down together. You have had enough sup- 
 per?"
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 221 
 
 " Yes," said Sylvia, downcast in her turn. " And 
 you, mamma ? " 
 
 " I am going to drive your grandfather to his train ; 
 and, oh, by the way, I forgot " she turned back sud- 
 denly " Nannie, of course you are going to the 
 Loomis's dance to-morrow night. Would you mind 
 taking Sylvia? I don't want to go." 
 
 " My dear child, certainly," cried Mrs. Chandler 
 with exaggerated readiness. " And any other time, 
 Kitty, now that so much is going on and you can't feel 
 up to it. You don't even need to let me know before- 
 hand. Just send her over." 
 
 Katherine visibly drew herself together, almost as 
 if she were trying to recover some balance which had 
 been suddenly and roughly disarranged. But after a 
 moment she went on exactly as if she hadn't heard : 
 
 *'* You see, Dr. Lawrence is not coming back from 
 Statesburg till to-morrow night, and I am afraid he 
 will be very tired. I don't want him to arrive and find 
 no one there to take care of him." 
 
 " Oh ! " said Mrs. Chandler a little flatly. Then 
 reviving again and resuming her kindly offices : " But 
 any other time " only to be put aside gently rather 
 than gratefully. 
 
 " Thank you. You are very good, but you know 
 I like to take Sylvia when I am able." She went away 
 with the Dean and Chase Hetherington to where the 
 carriage stood waiting. 
 
 Mrs. Chandler turned to Ethel, shoulders and eye- 
 brows raised in silent comment : 
 
 "Isn't Kitty amazing? Sometimes I don't know
 
 222 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 whether to think it's pure pluck or want of feeling. 
 I do suppose after all that has happened, his death came 
 as a sort of relief. No doubt she had got over most 
 of it before we knew anything about it. By this time 
 she may really have ceased to care." 
 
 " Not care ! " echoed Ethel. " In my opinion she 
 cares more than for anything that has ever happened 
 to her. Just watch her a moment and you will see. 
 She is only just able to keep a firm enough front to 
 hold us out of speaking distance. How she must be 
 hating us ! She would be perfectly happy never to see 
 any of us again." 
 
 " O Ethel ! " said Mrs. Chandler, relinquishing 
 the conversation unwillingly, to answer the soft, in- 
 sistent pulling at her arm by which her daughter was 
 trying to attract her attention. 
 
 " Yes, yes ; we are all going to walk down to- 
 gether." 
 
 " Is Miss Porter going too? " 
 
 " I don't know. Are you, Ethel ? " 
 
 " To the class exercises ? No, why should I ? " 
 
 " Oh, do come, Miss Ethel ! " cried Sylvia. " It is 
 so much nicer when you are there. Yes, indeed. You 
 needn't laugh; I really mean it. You have a way, 
 wherever you are, anywhere, of turning all the little 
 chattering things that have been going on before into 
 a well, a kind of social event." 
 
 " You absurd child ! " cried Ethel, laughing but 
 highly gratified. Franklin smiled his little fine appre- 
 ciative smile, but Stephen exclaimed with a clamor of 
 reproach and objection:
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 223 
 
 " Well, I like that ! I am glad I haven't any speecfi 
 to make at the exercises, or else it would be one on me. 
 Little chattering things!" and he broke into loud 
 laughter. 
 
 " I didn't mean that," said Sylvia, with displeased, 
 downcast eyes. His laughter lapsed suddenly into a 
 rather perfunctory " Ha ! ha ! " and he stood silent, 
 staring vacantly into space and pulling fiercely at his 
 little brown mustache, till she spoke to him again in 
 a lower tone: 
 
 " You never understand ! " 
 
 " Don't I understand ? I didn't mean it, I didn't 
 mean it, dear," he replied, also in an undertone, turn- 
 ing so as to conceal her a little from the rest of the 
 group. " I wouldn't vex you for anything. Can't you 
 believe that?" 
 
 " You may not mean to vex me, but you do," said 
 Sylvia with pitiless clearness. 
 
 " How do I vex you, dear? " said Stephen meekly. 
 " Only tell me, and I'll never do it again." He bent 
 over her, evidently with difficulty restraining himself 
 from some, even the smallest personal contact, from 
 catching her fingers, or touching even an end of her 
 ribbon. 
 
 She drew back as he became more imminent. 
 
 " Well, don't well, try not to look so big. " It 
 scares me." 
 
 He fell back, relieved by the first signs of softening, 
 and then furious to see Bradley beckoning from a dis- 
 tance. 
 
 " I hate to go ! If I wasn't grand marshal I would
 
 224 IN THE HOUSE OF HER FRIENDS 
 
 cut the whole thing and stay and go with you. Would 
 you let me? Would you let me come and sit with you 
 if I could?" 
 
 " Why can't you, if you really wish ? You know 
 you wouldn't give up the chance of carrying that stick 
 with the white ribbons for anything." 
 
 As soon as he saw that his anguish amused her, he 
 increased its expression a thousand-fold for her delecta- 
 tion. They parted at last on very good terms.
 
 XXIII 
 
 MARJORIE having at last obtained her mother's 
 attention was able to explain that her dress 
 needed some serious alteration, which would require 
 a return to the house before they could start for the 
 class speaking. 
 
 " You tiresome child ! " said Mrs. Chandler some- 
 what unreasonably. " Why didn't you tell me be- 
 fore?" 
 
 They were all turning back, even Ethel, but Sylvia 
 hesitated. 
 
 " Mr. Field wants me to stay with him, Mrs. 
 Chandler. We'll wait for you on the steps of the 
 laboratory." 
 
 Marjorie fixed her solemn, ruminating gaze on the 
 blue eyed tutor. She had been surprised more than 
 once lately by evidence of growing interest in the young 
 man's attitude to Sylvia, and felt that she must some- 
 time warn him about it. Sylvia was not at all the girl 
 he would really like as he grew to know her better. 
 Marjorie, who understood them both, was quite sure 
 that he was only wasting his time by having anything 
 to do with her. It was too late now to interfere, but 
 she went away regretfully with her mother and Miss 
 Ethel, through the damp, concealed paths in the shrub- 
 bery, which conducted at last to a back entrance of 
 the old Constable house, quite at the other end of the 
 
 225
 
 226 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 college grounds beyond the laboratory and the school 
 of engineering. The others went together out of the 
 ornamental front gate, into the green glory of the 
 campus drenched in the level light of the western sun. 
 
 The distance of the Alban Hills looked wonderfully 
 blue and transparent as it shone through the leafy 
 arches of the line of elms stretching across the sunset, 
 sending the long, slender shadows of their trunks far- 
 ther and farther along the grass. The shade had al- 
 ready climbed the gray front of the laboratory, though 
 its stone steps still retained a grateful warmth from 
 the hot June sun, when Sylvia and Franklin took their 
 places there to wait till the little group of their friends 
 appeared round the corner. 
 
 For a while they both sat silent, Sylvia with her 
 chin on her hand, her level eyes gazing out, rather past 
 the sunlit hills than at them, he stretched on the stone 
 at her feet, thinking that he had never seen her look so 
 lovely, so full of suggestion and delicate, tender charm. 
 
 " What are you thinking of? " he said very softly, 
 in his gentle, somewhat plaintive voice. Sylvia an- 
 swered without taking her eyes from the sunset. 
 
 " Those mountains," she said gravely. " See, they 
 go all around and shut in the whole horizon. They are 
 so very low, and yet there is no outlet anywhere.^ I 
 was thinking that it was like a prison." 
 
 " What a way you have of putting things into 
 words ! " cried Franklin sharply. " It is quite true. 
 They are the walls of a prison." 
 
 Sylvia turned and looked at him with a pathetic 
 recognition which was self betrayal.
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 227 
 
 " Do you feel that too ? Is it because you are un- 
 happy ? " 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders and raised his eyebrows 
 without speaking. 
 
 " Why are you unhappy ? " continued Sylvia, with 
 a kind of wistful interest in another person's experience 
 of this new thing which had come into her world, for 
 which she was so unprepared, of which she knew so 
 little. 
 
 He was touched, and answered almost as simply 
 as he had been addressed. 
 
 " I can't call it by so dignified a name as unhappi- 
 ness. Discontented rather, disappointed at finding my- 
 self in a place for which I am not fit, among people who 
 are uncongenial." 
 
 " You want to get out again into the world ? " said 
 Sylvia " your world ? " 
 
 " Yes," answered Franklin half involuntarily. 
 " But I can't. As you say, the hills are very low, but 
 they have no outlet." No sooner had he spoken than 
 he was startled at his own frankness, and tried to dis- 
 guise it, raising himself a little from his recumbent 
 position on the lower step, in his anxiety to be, or 
 rather not to be, apprehended. 
 
 " Don't misunderstand me. I don't want to seem 
 to be saying a word against the people here. It would 
 be too ungrateful after their endless kindness and in- 
 terest in my affairs." 
 
 " Oh, yes," said Sylvia indifferently, " they are 
 very kind." 
 
 " It is rather the smallness of the place than the
 
 228 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 people who make it up, that is to blame," continued 
 Franklin earnestly. " It takes, I suppose, practice to 
 live comfortably in a small town where the people have 
 really very little except one another to interest them." 
 
 " You will soon be going away again," said Sylvia. 
 " You don't belong here." 
 
 " I don't know about that," replied Franklin a little 
 bitterly. " Positions with salaries as small even as 
 mine, are not going begging in the world just now. 
 But why do you want to go away ? " he went on, with 
 his usual trained and timid instinct of turning the con- 
 versation back to the speaker whenever he found it too 
 interestingly involved in himself. " This is your home. 
 You have your friends ; all your old associations." 
 
 "Yes," said Sylvia. She hesitated a moment in 
 her effort to express herself. " Perhaps it is for that 
 very reason. The people all stand round me like the 
 hills, and tease me if I want to be anything I haven't 
 been before." 
 
 "And do you want to be something you haven't 
 been before ? " asked Franklin softly. 
 
 " I don't know," replied Sylvia a little drearily, 
 " but it is tiresome, because I laughed yesterday to have 
 to go on laughing to-day. I should like to go away 
 and never come back, except, perhaps, after years, as 
 Miss Porter is doing, to smile and wonder and pretend 
 I am sorry, but in my heart always to be rejoicing that 
 I had been able to make my escape." 
 
 " The time may be coming sooner than you think," 
 said Franklin seriously. " Don't make vows for it 
 that some day you may remember and regret."
 
 OF! HER FRIENDS 229 
 
 " No," said Sylvia. " There is no chance. I 
 shouldn't want to go without mamma, and she would 
 not go away from my grandfather and Tom." 
 
 He was hesitating how to reply when the others 
 appeared as suddenly as if they had not been expected, 
 calling to Sylvia and Franklin with the impatience of 
 those who have been keeping others waiting and don't 
 want to be late themselves. They went, all together 
 across the college campus. 
 
 " There is Kitty only just come back. The train 
 must have been late," exclaimed Ethel, as Mrs. Law- 
 rence's carriage stopped at the Dean's step to let out 
 its single occupant, and then was driven away again. 
 
 Franklin saw Sylvia look and look again, more 
 and more wistfully, as they approached the corner. 
 
 " I think I'd rather go home," she said suddenly. 
 
 "Why, Sylvia!" said Marjorie, and "Why, 
 dear?" asked Mrs. Chandler. "Do you think your 
 mother wants you ? " 
 
 " Oh, no," said Sylvia quickly, almost shrinkingly. 
 " It is not that. It's no reason. I just don't want to 
 go. I'm tired." 
 
 " But poor Mr. Dullas," murmured Marjorie with 
 intense reproach. 
 
 " Don't be a little goose ! " cried Ethel bluffly. " I 
 believe you are like those naughty babies at children's 
 parties, who only need a sight of their mother to make 
 them begin to cry to go to her." 
 
 But Sylvia would not be laughed out of her in- 
 tention. 
 
 She found Katherine in the parlor, evidently just
 
 230 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 as she had sunk down on first coming in, her hands in 
 her lap, every line of her attitude showing an extreme, 
 almost hopeless weariness. 
 
 But she drew herself together quickly the instant 
 she heard her daughter's step. 
 
 " Why should she do that ? Why should she have 
 to do that for me ? " thought Sylvia with inexpressible 
 bitterness, and she stopped abruptly in the doorway, 
 almost ready to go away again. But Katherine had 
 already regained her usual manner. 
 
 " Where did you come from ? I thought you had 
 gone down to the class exercises with the Chandlers." 
 
 " The rest have gone, I came across the campus 
 with them; but just at the last I thought I'd rather 
 not. I wanted to come back and be with you," she 
 concluded somewhat timidly. Katherine had risen to 
 her feet and gone to the long glass, where she began to 
 take off her hat, looking seriously at her image in the 
 glass a moment afterward, with the unconscious inter- 
 est a beautiful woman often takes in her own appear- 
 ance. 
 
 She turned at last to Sylvia, who had dropped upon 
 the window-seat, and answered her a little coldly : 
 
 " I'm sorry, dear, for I have a great deal of copy- 
 ing to do for your grandfather, which will keep me 
 busy in my room all the evening. I am afraid you will 
 be dull." 
 
 " I don't care," said Sylvia. " I'd rather be here. 
 I didn't want to go." Then after a moment she broke 
 out: 
 
 " Mamma, why did you give yourself all that
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 231 
 
 trouble about finding some one to take me to the 
 Loomis's ? Indeed, I don't care about it. I don't want 
 to go at all if you don't." 
 
 Katherine looked at her in some surprise. " My 
 dear, why not ? Are you afraid of not having a good 
 time? You have always had a good time so far, and 
 this is in a private house, so you are quite sure to be 
 looked after." 
 
 " It isn't that," said Sylvia faintly. 
 
 "Is it that you don't want to go without me?" 
 said her mother with cold gentleness. " It shan't hap- 
 pen again if I can help it, but you understand that I 
 can't leave your grandfather." 
 
 " No, no ! " cried Sylvia earnestly. " It isn't that. 
 I'd much rather you didn't go. I'd rather stay at home 
 from everything than have you go just to take me." 
 
 " But why else should I go, Sylvia, except to take 
 you ? " said her mother, more and more coldly. " What 
 do you mean ? " 
 
 " I don't know what I mean. I don't mean any- 
 thing," said Sylvia indistinctly, with difficulty swal- 
 lowing her tears. 
 
 Katherine looked at her a moment in silence, and 
 then began to move about the room, at first only to 
 collect her belongings preparatory to going upstairs, 
 then lingering to alter the position of a chair, changing 
 the order of the books, removing some bits of rubbish 
 that Molly had carefully inserted among the ornaments 
 during her morning dusting, paying no further atten- 
 tion to Sylvia, until the silent, forlorn young figure in 
 the window seemed at last to arouse some compassion.
 
 232 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 " Come upstairs," she said, holding out her hand 
 as she stood in the doorway, and speaking very kindly. 
 " Let us look at your dress for the Commencement 
 ball. Poor old Mrs. Wood has been working so hard 
 all day. It is quite finished and lying on the table in 
 the sewing-room." 
 
 Sylvia came without a word. 
 
 The sewing-room was the old nursery, a wide, low, 
 pleasant room, looking on the back. The daylight was 
 fading fast, leaving only a pale gray vision of empty 
 spaces, indistinct pieces of furniture, the wire figure for 
 holding dresses, the sewing machine, hidden by its 
 square cover, and Sylvia's first little empty bed, far 
 away in a distant corner. Outside, the crickets were 
 chirping so loud that the whole room was full of their 
 thin, endless rhythmic cadence. It was the same sound 
 which always had the power to throw the child into 
 agonies of melancholy long ago, as she lay in that very 
 little bed in the corner, whither she had been sent before 
 it was really dark, and where she had to stay wide 
 awake for what seemed to her hours and hours, with 
 nothing to do but listen to the crickets singing. 
 
 If ever in the past anything had made her unhappy, 
 if she had been naughty and her mother was angry with 
 her, then the crickets were sure to sing the loudest. 
 The same damp, dank smell of the wet grass in the 
 drying yard came through the windows then as now. 
 And now as she stood there, silent and passive in the 
 doorway, watching her mother pull up the shade to 
 let in all the light that was left, upon the big cutting 
 out table, she felt herself again overcome by the same
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 233 
 
 passionate melancholy of long ago, the weakness, the 
 helplessness, the folly of a little child that feels no 
 safety except in the arms of some one who loves it. 
 
 " How dark it is ! " cried Mrs. Lawrence. " I am 
 afraid we shall have to light the lamp. But it is lighter 
 here near the window. Look Sylvia ! Don't you think 
 that is pretty ? " with genuine interest, as she raised 
 the sheet from the softly tinted, fragile organdy, spread 
 out in all its bravery on the table. Sylvia looked and 
 tried to seem appreciative, but the crickets sounded 
 louder than her mother's voice. 
 
 " She is only doing it to please me. She doesn't 
 care herself. She can't really care. I wish she wouldn't 
 try to do things to please me. It would be much 
 easier." 
 
 But Katherine went on almost eagerly : 
 
 " See, the ribbons go this way, and this ruffle is 
 fastened here with the little pin your Aunt Ruth sent 
 you on your last birthday. I think it is going to be 
 very nice. Don't you want to try it on? We can go 
 afterward into my room, where there is a light and a 
 long glass, and see the effect." 
 
 " Oh, no, please ! " exclaimed Sylvia with a cry of 
 such childish, characteristic alarm at what was to her 
 always a most painful proceeding that Katherine was 
 surprised into natural laughter. But Sylvia had quick- 
 ly relapsed into her new learned meekness. 
 
 " I will if you like if you'd rather, mamma if 
 you don't think it would be time enough in the morn- 
 ing." 
 
 Katherine stopped laughing and began to cover up
 
 234 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 the dress again. " Of course it will do in the morning," 
 she said a little coldly. 
 
 But Sylvia was in an agony again. " Why couldn't 
 I have done that to please her," she asked herself. " I 
 would have, if I had thought she cared; but how can 
 she care for those little things ! " 
 
 She followed Katherine hesitatingly out of the 
 nursery into the sitting-room which opened out of her 
 mother's bedroom and looked through a square, vine 
 framed window over the college yards, lingering in 
 the doorway, while Katherine rang for a lamp and 
 began to arrange the papers on her desk. Sylvia was 
 very familiar with the sitting-room. Here she had sat 
 in her special chair and learned her lessons while her 
 mother wrote, or had lain at full length on the hard 
 wood floor in the draught between the door and win- 
 dow on hot August afternoons while Katherine read 
 aloud to both children. 
 
 Her own picture and Tom's at all ages had their 
 various places in the room and on the walls. On the 
 desk, in an ivory frame, there was a softly tinted photo- 
 graph of a charming boy, almost a child, in a short 
 jacket and a turned-down collar, who looked out, 
 frankly smiling at every one, with eyes like Sylvia's. 
 She had always known it was her father, but to-day 
 she saw another photograph of him, with which she 
 was not familiar, standing propped up without a 
 frame. 
 
 " Is that papa ? I have never seen it before," she 
 said with sudden interest. Katherine took it up and 
 regarded it a moment.
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 235 
 
 " Yes," she said, " I was looking at it this morn- 
 ing, and must have left it out by accident. I never 
 cared for it very much. That is probably the reason 
 you have never seen it before." 
 
 " How young it is ! " said Sylvia, wondering. The 
 very unaccustomedness of the photograph made the 
 face that looked out of it seem hardly older than Frank- 
 lin Field. 
 
 " Was that taken when he was a very young 
 man?" asked Sylvia wistfully. 
 
 " He was always a young man, my dear," said 
 Katherine a little sadly. " This was the last picture 
 he ever had taken." 
 
 His daughter was glad to see the photograph put 
 away in a drawer, out of sight, for the young, untried 
 face in it seemed to strike cruelly at the ideal of her 
 father which had kept pace in her mind unconsciously 
 with her growth. Then she turned to go away down- 
 stairs by herself, leaving her mother to her writing. 
 
 "Why don't you sit here?" said Katherine very 
 kindly. " I can turn the lamp so that it shines on your 
 book, and it is nice and cool with the air from the 
 window." 
 
 " No," said Sylvia, " I'm afraid I'd only be in your 
 way. It doesn't matter. I don't mind being alone." 
 
 Her mother looked at her for a moment with a kind 
 of impatient tenderness. " Poor little child. What is 
 there to make you so very much cast down ? You make 
 me feel as if I were cruel to you. Am I hounding you 
 to festivities to-morrow against your will? I shan't 
 mind if you don't go to the Loomis's."
 
 236 IN THE HOUSE OF HER FRIENDS 
 
 But Sylvia shook her head. " No ; I want to go 
 now. You don't understand what I meant; but it 
 doesn't matter." 
 
 She went away to her grandfather's empty study, 
 not even seeing her mother's tentative movement to call 
 her back. As soon as she was alone, Katherine let her 
 head drop a moment, hiding her face in her two hands 
 and leaning her elbows on the table. Almost instantly, 
 however, she uncovered her eyes, and with a deep, 
 short sigh took up her pen and began to write. She 
 was still writing when Sylvia passed her open door on 
 her way to bed.
 
 XXIV 
 
 SYLVIA had never admired her grandfather, the 
 less, perhaps, because she had always heard him 
 spoken of as a distinguished man. All through her 
 little girlhood he had stood as the reason for curtail- 
 ment of her pleasures, interference with her mother's 
 society. When he talked, and he talked a good deal, 
 she had been taught to be silent. And his attitude to 
 her, though more than kindly, had never been one to 
 excite peculiar affection. It had been too impersonal, 
 too didactic, and, as she grew older, she became more 
 and more alert to a certain quality in it which merged 
 her into his general philanthropic interest and affection 
 for the whole human race, or, at most, with his senti- 
 mental idea of his family as a unit. This her assertive 
 individualism resented and rejected. She did not love 
 him, turning on him her cool, childish, reasonable eyes 
 with an inexorable scrutiny, which found in him only 
 too many faults and weaknesses. Just now he seemed 
 to her especially tiresome, almost childish in refusing 
 to take care of himself as the doctor told him, though 
 it was the obvious and simple way of getting better. 
 She was almost vexed with her mother for her infinite 
 tenderness and patience with him in his greatest un- 
 reasonableness, watching over him, and, when she 
 
 237
 
 238 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 couldn't persuade him to his good, actually helping him 
 and making it easy for him to be imprudent. 
 
 " But, after all," Sylvia asked herself with pitiless 
 judgment, " what is the use of growing old if it 
 doesn't teach you to give up things you want when you 
 know they are going to do you harm. And can one be 
 really a great man if one hasn't learned to be philosoph- 
 ical about little things ? " 
 
 In her own heart she felt that even the loss of the 
 alumni banquet was not a matter to make much fuss 
 about. No doubt it would be a disappointment. But 
 didn't people ever get used to disappointments? she 
 asked herself; and wasn't it very selfish to go on in- 
 sisting he would be well enough, as her grandfather 
 did, evidently determined to go at all risks, quite re- 
 gardless of the fact that he was making every one 
 around him anxious and unhappy ? 
 
 She came with Tom into the study on the morning 
 of alumni day, flushed with exercise after two sets 
 of singles on the college tennis-courts, deserted, as 
 nearly all the undergraduates had left after the last 
 examinations. The study seemed cool and dark, and a 
 little sad in contrast to their youthful exuberance. 
 
 The Dean sat deep in his old arm-chair, drinking 
 a cup of coffee from a little tray on a table by his side. 
 He looked pallid and frail and shrunken, though he 
 greeted his two grandchildren with his usual gallant 
 spirits. Katherine stood beside him, grave and watch- 
 ful, smiling slightly, speaking very little whenever a 
 word from her could keep him from exciting himself. 
 
 " O Tom ! " she exclaimed, when she saw her son,
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 239 
 
 "I was hoping you would come back in time. Run 
 upstairs and dress. I shall want you to go over with 
 your grandfather to the dinner. He will drive, and 
 Professor Chandler is coming to take him; but I like 
 to think of your strong arm to help him out of the 
 carriage." 
 
 Tom vanished at once, but Sylvia lingered. He 
 was going then, in spite of everything, though he 
 must know it would do him harm. She watched him 
 a moment with her brilliant, critical eyes, noticing every 
 sign of the fumbling uncertainty which made the cup 
 shake in his weak old hands. 
 
 Then she walked away toward the window, too 
 annoyed with him to trust herself to look at him any 
 longer. She did not even turn round when she heard 
 Professor Chandler's hurried, soothing voice from the 
 doorway: " How are you, my dear old friend? I have 
 brought Dick Porter with me." But she heard her 
 mother exclaim, with a little cry of glad, frank relief : 
 " Richard ! How lucky ! You will take care of him 
 and see he doesn't get too tired." 
 
 Then in the midst of a kind of rumble of welcome 
 from the Dean, her indignation took wings in her curi- 
 osity to find out what Miss Porter's brother looked like. 
 She saw a rather undersized man of no particular age, 
 dressed in indistinct, light-gray clothes, which did not 
 give enough contrast to indistinct coloring, light gray 
 eyes and light lashes and eyebrows. But he had an 
 agreeable smile, and a very pleasant, well modulated 
 voice, and there was something about his manner which 
 made Sylvia decide at once that he was nice, in which
 
 240 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 opinion others of her sex had already agreed with her. 
 Her mother was speaking to him with confident, almost 
 affectionate familiarity. 
 
 " I thought I should see you after the trustee meet- 
 ing last night, but when I came into the study you were 
 gone. I expected you to wait and speak to me." 
 
 " So I should in the ordinary course of events, but 
 Dullas carried me off and I was afraid he was tired," 
 with a little gesture of his head toward the Dean, while 
 he still held the hand Katherine had extended to him. 
 
 " He was tired. He is not fit to go now," she 
 answered in a lower tone." 
 
 " You can trust him with me," replied Richard com- 
 fortably. " I'll take as good care of him as Tom 
 would." 
 
 Sylvia thought he meant her brother, and was quite 
 ready to agree with him. 
 
 " And is this Sylvia ? " continued Richard Porter, 
 looking with his pleasant smile at the young girl who 
 stood, glimmering, erect and slender in her white tennis 
 clothes among the shadows of the dark old room. 
 
 " Yes, this is Sylvia," said Katherine, and watched 
 her daughter come forward and smile and raise her 
 starry eyes to her mother's old friend, and then inter- 
 rupted what the young girl was beginning to say, with 
 a sort of eagerness unusual to her. 
 
 " She doesn't look like me! " she said. The ques- 
 tion in her eyes gave them a kind of strained sweet- 
 ness, as she awaited his reply. 
 
 Richard looked seriously a moment ; then he turned 
 to her and shook his head with a little half smile.
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 241 
 
 " Not one bit," he answered. 
 
 " It is Tom who looks like mamma," cried Sylvia, 
 with her usual rush of feeling. " It is too bad, for he 
 doesn't need it nearly as much as I do." 
 
 She surprised a kind of intimate amusement on the 
 faces of the other two, which puzzled her for a moment. 
 But then the Dean interrupted : 
 
 " Well, young people, I don't know about you, but 
 I am quite ready to be off." 
 
 His indomitable spirit was already beginning to 
 tear and drag at his heavy old body, raising it slowly, 
 painfully from the deep chair, with desperate clutching 
 at the arms, and an uncertain, lurching totter forward 
 which carried him rapidly several steps before Richard 
 could catch up with him. " Come along, come along," 
 he said briskly, moving more steadily as he felt the 
 support of the younger man's arm. " Kitty, say all 
 manner of pretty things to Mrs. Dullas and her party 
 at lunch. Express my regret at not being their host 
 in my own house. I leave you my vicar. It is only 
 I who suffer by my absence. And you will all be over 
 later for the speeches." 
 
 When Tom came down, shining and breathless 
 after a bath and a rapid toilet, his grandfather had 
 been gone some moments. 
 
 " But never mind, dear. You look very nice. I 
 shall be proud to see you in your grandfather's place 
 at table," said his mother consolingly. " And it is 
 really not much too early." 
 
 Sylvia was suddenly seized with alarm. 
 
 " O mamma, you are all dressed too ! Is it late ?
 
 242 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 Shall I have to finish without you? I can never tie 
 my sash alone ! " 
 
 She flew headlong upstairs, but in spite of all her 
 haste she only had her mother's services in the arrange- 
 ment of her hair. When she came into Katherine's 
 room a few minutes later with streaming ribbons, there 
 was no one to help her, and the sound of resonant 
 feminine voices and laughter coming through the open 
 door from the hall told that Mrs. Dullas and her com- 
 pany had already arrived, were even then upon the 
 stairs on their way to the guest chambers to refresh 
 their toilets after half an hour's journey in the dusty 
 train. 
 
 Sylvia did not remember ever having seen Ste- 
 phen's mother before, and when she came into the 
 parlor a little while afterward, more disturbed at the 
 thought of her mother's criticism than the strangers', 
 she was somewhat overwhelmed by the large, florid, 
 dressy lady who greeted her so kindly, in a loud, 
 friendly voice, making room for her on the window 
 seat beside her, and talking with embarrassing frank- 
 ness of Stephen and his desire that they should both 
 be friends. 
 
 There were several other ladies in the room, all 
 giving an impression of color and movement and very 
 good spirits, for they talked rapidly and laughed a 
 good deal, and seemed overwhelmingly pleased with all 
 they saw. 
 
 Sylvia grew excited, as she always did when sur- 
 rounded by people who seemed to be having a good 
 time. She put her critical faculties to sleep, and told
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 243 
 
 herself that this was indeed an occasion to be enjoyed, 
 especially after she had taken her place at the lunch 
 table and heard the voices lift themselves around her 
 again, after one breathless moment of silence when 
 everybody had rustled into their seats. There had been 
 many such occasions before, when she and Tom had 
 listened to the same roar of voices from the dining 
 room, though they had only partaken of the festival 
 by tasting the good things to eat after they had been 
 enjoyed by the honored guests. But now she looked 
 across at Tom himself, sitting in his grandfather's 
 chair at the head of the table, very shy and a little 
 melancholy in his efforts to be polite to Mrs. Dullas, 
 but looking so grown up and nice in his high white 
 collar and black coat that Sylvia quite admired him. 
 
 Katherine had what her daughter called her clear 
 look, no doubt in contrast to the faces round her, which 
 were rather overblown and flushed with the heat of the 
 day. Her voice was somewhat lower than the rest, 
 but she still could make herself heard ; she talked very 
 little, but then every one else was talking so much that 
 more seemed hardly necessary, and the little she did 
 say, rather added to than took away from the general 
 hilarity. 
 
 They had not nearly finished when they were in- 
 vaded by Mrs. Chandler, Marjorie, and Miss Porter, 
 on their way to hear the speeches after the alumni 
 dinner. 
 
 Ethel exclaimed when she saw them still at their 
 salad : 
 
 " You will be late ! You will miss the best ! Come
 
 244 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 along and leave this. Kitty won't mind. She wants 
 to go too." 
 
 " I think the best is here," said Mrs. Dullas, who 
 was evidently enjoying her lunch and did not mean to 
 be disturbed in it. 
 
 But Katherine exchanged glances of some intensity 
 with Ethel, who came and stood a moment beside her. 
 
 " It will be a shame if they keep you here," she 
 murmured, so that no one could hear but Sylvia, who 
 sat nearest. " Hurry them along. I want you es- 
 pecially to be there at the speech from the trustees." 
 
 " Yes," answered Katherine. " But if I am not, 
 I know what you mean about you and Richard and 
 your father's legacy." 
 
 " Richard more than me," corrected Ethel, with 
 unusual humility. " We never could have done it at 
 all except for him." 
 
 Katherine shook her head. 
 
 " No, you more than Richard. You never could 
 forget how much you cared." 
 
 Ethel's face was suddenly shaken with unusual 
 emotion. 
 
 " Yes, I always cared. It never ceased to be a 
 grief to me." 
 
 " I am very glad," said Katherine, looking at her 
 with grave, affectionate eyes. 
 
 She quickly recovered herself, turning again to 
 Mrs. Dullas. 
 
 " You are a disloyal wife, sitting here enjoying 
 yourself instead of rushing with the rest of us to hear 
 your husband speak."
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 245 
 
 " Oh, I hear Henry every day at home," said that 
 lady calmly, making them all laugh. 
 
 " Well, we can't waste any more time over you. 
 Come, Nannie, let's leave them to their lunches, if that's 
 what they like best." 
 
 " Oh, may I go too ? " cried Sylvia. 
 
 Tom, too, caught his mother's eye with silent peti- 
 tion, and a sandy-haired, pleasant-looking girl with a 
 long nose also showed a desire to see what was to be 
 seen and hear what was to be heard. 
 
 The others settled back into their seats and went 
 on eating their salad with leisurely enjoyment.
 
 XXV 
 
 MARJORIE'S observant eyes had seen the little 
 intimate interview between Mrs. Lawrence 
 and Miss Porter. Now, as she walked along, clinging 
 to Sylvia's arm and holding her back behind the others, 
 she remarked upon it in her own way. 
 
 " Do you suppose your mother is very fond of Miss 
 Ethel?" 
 
 " I don't know, I am sure," answered Sylvia. " I 
 never thought about it." 
 
 "Isn't it queer," continued the other, "to think 
 that she might have been your aunt ? " 
 
 "My aunt! How?" 
 
 " Why, didn't you know ? She was engaged once, 
 long ago, to your Uncle John." 
 
 " But Uncle John is married to Aunt Amy," said 
 Sylvia. 
 
 " Oh, yes, but that was much later. They were 
 engaged and going to be married when Judge Porter 
 died. Every one had thought he was very rich, you 
 know, but it turned out that he had lost all his money, 
 so she was poor, and she wouldn't marry your Uncle 
 John, who was poor, too, and she wouldn't promise 
 to wait for him, so he was angry and went away to 
 Chicago, and she had to go and live with a horrid, 
 cross aunt. But the aunt is dead now, and has left her 
 
 246
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF HER FRIENDS 247 
 
 some of her money, so she is quite rich again. I won- 
 der whether the reason she never married is because she 
 never could meet any one she cared for as much as 
 your uncle. Didn't you know about it, Sylvia ? Every 
 one knows. How funny your mother never told you ! " 
 
 " Mamma never tells me anything," said Sylvia 
 under her breath, with bitterness which had for some 
 time been growing in her at each new evidence of her 
 own ignorance of the real interests of her mother's life. 
 
 The alumni dinner was always held in the college 
 gymnasium, an ugly, oblong building in a grove of 
 locusts behind the library, near the running-track and 
 the tennis-courts. The dinner was spread on separate 
 tables, for the trustees, faculty, and the different classes, 
 in the main room of the gymnasium, at one end of 
 which there was a gallery for spectators of drills or 
 exercises. 
 
 It was here that Sylvia found herself, having to 
 make polite speeches to Mrs. Judge Daly and the other 
 ladies already assembled there, when she wanted to 
 look down and find out the reason for all the noise and 
 clapping which was going on beneath her. 
 
 " Come, Sylvia," said Tom, as soon as she was at 
 liberty, " here's a seat. Look over here and you can 
 see finely." 
 
 He perched beside her on the precarious wooden 
 railing, and they were soon equally absorbed in pick- 
 ing out the faces of their acquaintances in the crowd 
 below. 
 
 " Oh, there are the Seniors ! " cried Sylvia in much 
 excitement. " How solemn they look ! See, they are
 
 248 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 beginning to smoke their little cigarettes! I suppose 
 it wouldn't be proper for them to take big cigars like 
 the rest. But where is Stephen ? " 
 
 " He's gone over to sit with his own class," an- 
 swered Tom. " There he is, by Jack Marston. Do 
 you see Jack ? " 
 
 Sylvia leaned far forward in her eagerness. 
 
 " Yes, I do. How pleased he must feel ! But he 
 looks solemn too. No, there he is laughing; I can 
 hear it up here. And see, he is looking up. He sees 
 us!" She nodded and smiled with exquisite enjoy- 
 ment, and Stephen continued to gaze up at her even 
 after the gayety had left his face and given place to a 
 sort of earnestness and intensity which changed him 
 from himself. 
 
 " He does look very solemn," said Sylvia again. 
 " I must ask him why when I see him. And who's that 
 round-headed man with popping eyes and a very short 
 neck, sitting by grandfather? " 
 
 " Oh," said Tom, scandalized at this rather un- 
 flattering resume of a great personage, " that is Henry 
 Dullas. He's a corker. Just wait till you hear him 
 speak. He's better than all the rest put together. I've 
 heard him before. He is one of us, you know, an Adel- 
 phic. You ought to have been at the house last night. 
 He kept all the fraternity in a roar." 
 
 " He doesn't look like Stephen at all," said Sylvia, 
 regarding him with some distaste in spite of Tom's 
 commendation. 
 
 Just then the great man rose, as master of cere- 
 monies, to propose the customary toast to the trustees.
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 249 
 
 It was a somewhat delicate position, since he was one 
 of the body to be toasted, but he extricated himself from 
 his difficulties with the kind of humor which goes most 
 easily to the American heart. 
 
 It was a pity that Judge Daly, who rose to reply, 
 was almost inaudible to most of the assemblage, though 
 he did his best with his thin, precise little voice in the 
 echoing, high-roofed, noisy room. And after all, every 
 one knew already exactly what he was saying. The 
 one hundred thousand dollars pledged by the alumni, 
 and other behests here Judge Daly's voice did for a 
 moment become audible notably the legacy left the 
 college by his lamented friend and colleague on the 
 Supreme Bench, Judge Porter, of the Supreme Court 
 of the State, now paid by his heirs. 
 
 Sylvia saw Mrs. Chandler turn toward Ethel with 
 sudden, disappointed surprise : " Is that all ? " And 
 Ethel's reply : " That is all," though she held her spir- 
 ited head a little higher. 
 
 And the young girl felt vaguely thrilled and excited, 
 as if in the presence of a great thing, though it was 
 treated like a little one. And the tones of Ethel's voice 
 as she gave her answer went echoing on for some time 
 in her mind, as if they had struck a chord which re- 
 sponded to them. 
 
 There was a mad burst of applause from all the 
 tables, echoed valiantly by the ladies' gallery. 
 
 Only one man sat grimly silent. The table for the 
 faculty was nearly deserted. All the alumni had drifted 
 away after the dinner to sit with those of their own 
 classes who had returned. Only Merritt and Frank-
 
 250 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 lin Field were left together, almost side by side. The 
 older man sat with drooping head, leaning over the 
 table, playing with his knife, a long lock of his straight, 
 reddish hair falling over his forehead. He was so 
 frankly depressed that young Field found it in his heart 
 to pity him, even to express a certain kindness in a few 
 empty words, but the other rejected them roughly. 
 
 " Oh, don't mind me. I'm all right. I'm learn- 
 ing." He relapsed into gloomy silence, while Franklin 
 turned his attention to the little train of Statesburg 
 ladies, who, with Mrs. Lawrence, appeared at last out 
 of the crowd of waiters and hangers on at the entrance. 
 
 He would have liked to go to meet them as Richard 
 Porter did, for he knew several of them, and wished 
 to commend himself to them, but a strange weakness 
 of sympathy and pity kept him near the despondent 
 Merritt. He contented himself with watching their 
 progress, Mrs. Dullas and the other ladies with an un- 
 disturbed front of calm self consciousness, Katherine 
 with the poise and presence taught by necessity, which, 
 however, never quite concealed her innate shyness and 
 shrinking from the eyes and noise through which she 
 must pass to reach the spectators' gallery. There she 
 could be seen a moment after, standing looking down, 
 her hand on the railing in front of her. 
 
 " She is a nice woman," said Merritt unexpectedly. 
 " My wife likes her." 
 
 " It is a pity they should be so late," Franklin re- 
 plied, concealing his amused surprise. " They have 
 lost everything really worth having." 
 
 The classes were being toasted now, beginning with
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 251 
 
 the graduating Seniors. Merritt began again in the 
 midst of the perfunctory applause for the careful 
 schoolboy eloquence of the valedictorian, ending in a 
 stilted tribute to the Dean. 
 
 " Those boys, now. There's no denying it. They 
 go out from here with a rotten bad education." 
 
 " What, even in your department? " said Franklin 
 softly. But he never got much fun from innuendo with 
 Merritt. The man was too frank, too absorbed by the 
 truth in its one aspect. 
 
 " Well, perhaps not there so much," he answered 
 simply. " Though even that. One man alone can't do 
 much against a whole system favoritism, slip-shod 
 management, and the boys sent through over your head 
 quite regardless of fitness." He shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 Franklin made no reply, and the silence was un- 
 broken between them, while the speeches went on, one 
 class after the other, till a man arose from the late '6o's. 
 
 He came from the South, and had the gift of flowery 
 eloquence. There was something innately pleasing in 
 his graceful sentiment, which touched even Franklin, 
 a little bored by all this incense to gods he did not 
 recognize. He spoke prettily of the undergraduate 
 who thought he was the college, and openly showed his 
 contempt of the old fellows who came back to the re- 
 unions, and then when he in his turn joined the army 
 of back numbers, how his point of view changed, how 
 he got to feel, and rightly, too, that the true spirit, the 
 true life, the real ideals of a college were preserved by 
 its alumni. 
 
 Here he was interrupted by loud cheers, and when
 
 252 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 he was heard again he was speaking of the faculty 
 how from enemies, persecutors, obstructers of innocent 
 pleasures, they became the friends, the few stable figures 
 in a world of change, whose word of welcome and 
 recognition was received with joy by men who had once 
 themselves thought they owned the college, but whom 
 the new generation did not even know by name. 
 
 From the faculty as a whole he dropped suddenly 
 to individuals, and at last, in a breathless moment, 
 every one found that he was paying his tribute to Wil- 
 fred Cochran. " He doesn't know," they whispered to 
 each other, and listened in spite of themselves; for as 
 the man talked, who had been in Wilfred's class, who 
 knew only of his early promise and first fulfilment, the 
 dark clouds which had obscured his end seemed sud- 
 denly rolled away, and to the few who had loved him, 
 and all who had given him a grudging, unwilling ad- 
 miration for his unquestionable gifts, the man himself 
 came back for a moment, almost as if he had appeared 
 in the doorway and taken his place among them his 
 tall, lithe figure, which never ceased to show the sol- 
 dier through the civilian, his cloudy good looks light- 
 ened by his sudden, almost boyish smile. 
 
 " But he is dead," concluded his fellow-classmate, 
 " and the college is just so much poorer by the loss of 
 that keen mind, that generous heart, and loyal devotion 
 to those he loved." 
 
 There was applause, faint at first, but growing 
 louder, and always enough to cover the murmur of half 
 contemptuous, half embarrassed laughter which sprang 
 up also. But a number of people in the body of the
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 253 
 
 room, and more in the spectators' gallery, caught their 
 breath and cast glances, more or less stealthy but 
 sharply curious, to where Katherine stood, quite still, 
 after her first involuntary movement of withdrawal, 
 her hand on the railing, her head a little bent toward 
 the faces below. And, having once seen, those who 
 loved her looked away, as if they had no right to what 
 they had surprised in the rigid stillness of her face. 
 
 Others turned to one another for corroboration. 
 " You say she cared for him ? " " Oh ! passionately, my 
 dear. I have seen her letters to him." " You see no 
 signs of it? Oh, but that cold, regular kind of beauty 
 is so deceptive. They say she is broken-hearted ! " 
 
 Mrs. Loomis, saved from indiscretion by her dis- 
 tance, being seated at quite the other end of the gallery, 
 leaned forward and began to hold Mrs. Judge Daly 
 and Mrs. Dullas in a long, whispered conversation, 
 which they seemed to find much more interesting than 
 the next few speeches. 
 
 After a moment Katherine sat down in the chair 
 behind her and leaned back out of the sight of those 
 below. 
 
 At last the Dean arose, sole survivor, to reply to the 
 toast of the class of '23. Every one in the gallery and 
 in the room became suddenly very silent. He was used 
 to such moments of tense attention when he arose to 
 address an audience ; he was used, after a moment's al- 
 most dramatic pause, to fill that silence at once with 
 the full, thrilling tones of his beautiful voice. But to- 
 day his first words were so feeble and faltering as to be 
 quite inaudible. He coughed slightly, and some one
 
 254 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 gave him a glass of water. All at once his flagging 
 forces seemed to rally to a demand never before made 
 in vain. His voice gradually cleared and strengthened, 
 its tones at last quite filled the hall, so that every one 
 could hear, every one admire. 
 
 It was only a graceful little speech of thanks and 
 acknowledgment for the many tributes of affectionate 
 confidence and regard which had been heaped upon him, 
 but its dignity, its perfect good taste, its charm of elo- 
 quence, still showed with what right he was considered 
 one of the best after dinner speakers of his time. He 
 touched very slightly on the period of distress through 
 which the college had been passing had passed, he 
 hoped, owing to the generous help of its many friends. 
 His voice thrilled when he spoke of this crowning ser- 
 vice, a service whose forty-eight years had seemed to 
 him but a few days, by reason of the love he had for 
 his alma mater love which, while it had bidden him 
 in the past put all his energies at her command, now 
 made him ready, glad even, to withdraw himself, to 
 give up his place to others as soon as he had outserved 
 his usefulness, and his college needed him no more. 
 
 Ethel sat with the tears running down her cheeks, 
 and made no effort to wipe them away; Katherine 
 leaned back out of sight and covered her eyes with her 
 hand. Every one else applauded wildly, and Sylvia 
 herself had a flash of illumination which showed her 
 in a new light the old Dean's almost childish obstinacy 
 and desire for this last Commencement. She had never 
 loved him before, but now she felt she understood. 
 She sympathized and suffered in the thought of dis-
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 255 
 
 appointments and relinquishments whose very bitter- 
 ness lay in the thought that they were among the last 
 which would ever be demanded of him. She wanted 
 to go to him, to touch him, to stand close beside him, 
 to make him feel in some way her tenderness and re- 
 pentance. She came upon him at last, standing in a 
 little group of his boys on the grass under the locust 
 trees. 
 
 He saw her at once, and addressed her, stammer- 
 ing somewhat over her name, for he was growing more 
 and more inclined to confound her with all that group 
 of slender, white robed, fair haired girls his sisters, 
 his wife, who was his cousin, his daughters, who had 
 fluttered about him and stood by his side, through so 
 many past Commencement seasons. 
 
 But Sylvia drew back with something like a return 
 of her old resentment. The slip in her name had of- 
 fended her; she felt the gulf of years lying between 
 them too wide, her love failed again when she tried 
 to span it. She turned away to Stephen and Jack 
 Marston, who had hurried to join her, and did not 
 make a part of the group who still surrounded her 
 grandfather as he walked slowly homeward. 
 
 It was only a little way; down the smooth white 
 path between the short, soft clover, past the offices and 
 Professor Cochran's house, silent and deserted, with 
 closed and shuttered windows, then beside the long, 
 white line of the chapel, till he reached his own door, 
 where Ethel and Katherine and her guests were waiting 
 for him. But even here he would not go in. He stood 
 on the low steps greeting the old alumni as they
 
 256 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 streamed past him, calling the old fellows by their 
 names, asking intimate questions which showed that 
 he remembered. The younger men, those of the last 
 ten years, came back to his memory more slowly. Here 
 Katherine, standing by his side, had often to remind 
 him, to supply the missing name, but he could have 
 covered even greater lapses with his charming tact and 
 cordial manner. 
 
 All at once some one on the edge of the crowd sang 
 a note of the Senior song " Farewell, fare thee well, 
 jolly old Dean." They caught it up one after another, 
 till at last they all were singing it Ethel's clear so- 
 prano sustained by Franklin's sweet, high tenor pierc- 
 ing through and rising above the men's rougher voices, 
 the Dean standing among them, his tall figure drawn to 
 its full height, his bared head thrown back, too simply, 
 charmingly pleased to care to conceal it. 
 
 Sylvia was at first pleased and excited and joined 
 eagerly in the singing. Then as she saw the afternoon 
 of another beautiful day beginning to die in the valley, 
 as she felt the plaintive sadness of the recurrent minor 
 note in the refrain, she became all at once desperately 
 melancholy, and wished they all would stop and go 
 away, or sing something else. She didn't want to be 
 sad. She wanted to go on laughing and having a good 
 time with Stephen and her cousin, Jack Marston. 
 
 " Where's Kitty ? " cried Ethel at last, for the crowd 
 was beginning to show signs of breaking up. " Gone, 
 of course. I might have expected it. When did she 
 ever let herself have a good time ? Kitty ! Mrs. Dullas 
 is going."
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 257 
 
 Katherine appeared at once in the doorway, whiter 
 than ever, but smiling till she saw how they still lin- 
 gered, talking everything over, renewing their con- 
 gratulations to the Dean. Then she turned to Richard 
 with tears in her voice: 
 
 " If I could only get him away ! He is so tired, and 
 he needs to rest." 
 
 " Nonsense, Kitty," replied Ethel. " He is all right. 
 This kind of thing isn't going to hurt him. It will do 
 him good." 
 
 " Do you think so ? " said Katherine almost plain- 
 tively. Her eyes were fixed on the old Dean's face, 
 flushed and tremulous with excitement. 
 
 At last Mr. Dullas stepped in and saved the situa- 
 tion by making it humorous. Every one broke into 
 laughter and joking. 
 
 " We must go, we shall miss the train," cried the 
 Statesburg contingent. 
 
 " Henry, call that hack ! " commanded Mrs. Dullas 
 in her loud, full voice. 
 
 Her husband gave a lordly summons to the large 
 barouche with its two white horses, whose driver had 
 been lingering at a little distance, on the lookout for 
 fares, and now hastened to drive up to the door. Mrs. 
 Dullas then turned to her hostess, who stood inattentive, 
 still trembling and thrilling with restrained excitement. 
 
 " You have been so good. It has been such a pleas- 
 ure. And I can't help telling you I do sympathize 
 with you I do feel with you so brave ! " 
 
 Whatever she meant, her words struck Katherine 
 breathless and silent. She looked and tried to speak,
 
 258 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 and her manner answered the purposes of mechanical 
 courtesy, but the expression of her eyes had sharpened 
 to a sort of anguish, of which her face was only a trem- 
 bling mark. 
 
 Mrs. Dullas did not wait to notice the effect she 
 had produced. She and the little crowd of ladies who 
 had come with her began to invade the hack and strain 
 its ample capacity to bursting. The honorable Dullas 
 himself got up beside the driver. Then they all leaned 
 out and began to make fun of Stephen, who was refus- 
 ing their pressing invitations to come too. " What are 
 you staying for? There is nothing to keep you here 
 any longer." But Stephen had on his perfunctory man- 
 ner and laughed dully, very much relieved when the 
 hack at last rolled off round the comer. 
 
 Katherine had already gone into the house with the 
 Dean. Sylvia seemed hesitating, doubtful. She looked 
 after her mother and then at Stephen, and then at 
 the mellowing beauty of the afternoon, and the shad- 
 1 ows of the distant woods. At last she seemed to 
 ' make up her mind and sauntered off up the lane, with 
 Stephen triumphant by her side. The rest had all 
 strolled off in different directions. Mrs. Chandler and 
 Marjorie, with Franklin Field beside her, could still be 
 seen pacing under the elms of the Promenade on their 
 way home. Ethel and Richard Porter turned together 
 toward the South Gate. 
 
 Ethel caught her brother's arm and clung to it, for 
 she was trembling still, almost sobbing with excitement. 
 
 " I can't bear it ! " she said. " I'll never come again, 
 never, never! It is too painful, the end of everything,
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 259 
 
 youth, happiness the best happiness I ever had. And 
 I had thought of coming back here to live ! As if that 
 was possible ! I never want to see it again after he is 
 gone, though it is the only place in the world I love. 
 No, there is nothing left for me now but to go away 
 and wander about the world, like those battered waifs 
 with no home, nothing that belongs to them " She 
 broke off, not trying to conceal her agitation. 
 
 " Poor old Ethel ! " said her brother soothingly. 
 " Why don't you come and live with me? " 
 
 But she had already recovered herself enough to 
 answer him with friendly derision. " How long? Till 
 you marry ? No, indeed. Don't think I am going to 
 send my roots into any such precarious soil as that! 
 I am better able to make something out of it now than 
 if I were turned out in the cold again after a few pleas- 
 ant years with you. After all, I am luckier than many 
 people. I can go where I want, and do what I want. 
 I think I shall travel round the wofld. But oh, why 
 can't people live forever! Why does everything have 
 to grow old and change and go away ? " she cried again. 
 " I can't bear the Dean to die." 
 
 " T!iere will be no one to take his place," said Rich- 
 ard gravely. 
 
 "Oh, for the college, no!" 
 
 " For the college yes." 
 
 His sister cried out indignantly. 
 
 " I don't mean a greater. Probably when the time 
 comes they will have to be contented with a much 
 smaller man. But whether it won't be better for the 
 college to tumble discreetly and take its place humbly
 
 260 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 among the thousand and one second rate institutions 
 that fill the land, instead of being forced beyond its class 
 by a bigger man than it is." 
 
 " Richard ! " cried his sister. " How can you ! The 
 place your father loved and spent his life in serving ! " 
 
 Richard shrugged his shoulders. " The day of 
 small colleges is over for the present," he remarked; 
 " at least the kind you and the Dean believe in. Not 
 that a small college doesn't still have its use in the 
 world, but a use that can be better fulfilled by little men 
 by people like Merritt, for instance." 
 
 " Oh, well," said Ethel, assenting with renewed bit- 
 terness, " why need I care what happens now ? What 
 does it matter ? At any rate, you and I have paid our 
 obligations to it. And I shall see none of the changes 
 for I shall never come here again." 
 
 " And I care enough about it still," said Richard, 
 " to be glad that it has got this boost financially to keep 
 it going till its real estate in the valley begins to bring 
 in something. It looks now, Ethel, as if my father was 
 not quite so mistaken as he has been considered in ad- 
 vising that investment. If those men from the Grenada 
 Steel Works buy as they are talking of doing, across the 
 river, there will be a boom in Littelton properties, and 
 you may be a very rich woman before you die." 
 
 Ethel shrugged her shoulders. " I am glad the col- 
 lege got the money now, while the Dean is here to 
 enjoy it," she said almost indifferently. " Afterward I 
 am going to stop caring any more for anything." 
 
 " It never would have been raised without Dullas." 
 
 " No, I suppose not. I never felt so kindly to the
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 261 
 
 Honorable Henry S. before," she answered with a cer- 
 tain relief at turning to lighter things. " And did you 
 see Mrs. Dullas? Hasn't she become a dressy lady? 
 It is amusing to watch Kitty being polite to all those 
 people. She tries so hard, and she is so bored by them." 
 
 " Did my eyes deceive me, or did I see that pretty 
 child of hers strolling off into the distance with the 
 boy just now ? " 
 
 " You did indeed. He is openly devoted to her, 
 and papa and mamma Dullas are openly pleased." 
 
 " What, Tom's little daughter and one of those ! 
 Does she like him ? " 
 
 " I don't know. Sylvia is a hard little thing. As 
 for heart, I don't believe it has even begun to grow. 
 But that is partly the way she has been brought up. 
 Kitty is so intensely reserved about herself, and has 
 such strained notions about the sanctity of other peo- 
 ple's affairs, that the child herself has never had any 
 call made upon her sympathies and intelligence for what 
 is going on around her. Don't laugh when I tell you 
 that a certain harmless, kindly gossip is not a bad in- 
 fluence in maturing and softening a child. But Sylvia 
 is a mixture of hard precocity and extraordinary ig- 
 norance! Though she is a charming creature, and so 
 like her father, not only in looks but in everything! 
 She has little ways that catch at my heart, they remind 
 me so of him." 
 
 " I don't think Tom would have liked his daughter 
 to marry one of the Dullases," said Richard crossly. 
 
 " My dear Richard, no one knows what Tom would 
 have liked by this time. Think what a boy he was
 
 262 IN THE HOUSE OF HER FRIENDS 
 
 when he died. That seems to me one of the hardest 
 things about it for Kitty. She hasn't even the thought 
 of him to turn to any more. Besides the Dullases 
 you needn't turn up your nose at the Dullases. They 
 say Henry will be governor of the State some day. 
 And they come of good stock, originally. As their 
 position gets better they can revert more and more to 
 their colonial ancestors and leave the middle distance, 
 as it were, discreetly in the shade. And Stephen is 
 really a nice fellow, a dear, sweet boy. Any girl might 
 be glad to have him." 
 
 " I can't imagine Kitty liking it very much," said 
 Richard, still obstinate. 
 
 " Yes, she does. She likes Stephen exceedingly. 
 Do you call her Kitty, Richard ? " concluded his sister 
 with her usual calm indiscretion. 
 
 They had reached Miss Mix's gate as she spoke. 
 He opened it for her and then closed it without coming 
 in, though he leaned his arms on the top, looking across 
 at her with a sort of whimsical amusement. 
 
 "Do I call her Kitty? That little, tender name 
 telling of a past of petting somewhere ! " 
 
 " She never got it from the Lawrences," cried Ethel 
 sharply. " They may adore their women, but they 
 never pet them." 
 
 " From her mother, then. Poor baby ! How she 
 must have missed her ! " 
 
 " Are you coming in ? " asked his sister. 
 
 " No; I am going for a walk." 
 
 " Give Kitty my love," she persisted, still teasingly. 
 
 He smiled and shook his head as he turned away.
 
 XXVI 
 
 DR. LAWRENCE died on the very morning of 
 the day that was to have been Commencement. 
 There was no attempt at ceremony in the conferring 
 of degrees. The graduating class got their diplomas 
 when they called for them at the college office, and a 
 number of them went away immediately afterward, 
 for, of course, the Commencement ball had to be given 
 up. But a good many stayed over to go to the funeral, 
 which the Dean's wide connections and reputation, even 
 more than his position as president of Littel College, 
 made something in the nature of a public event. 
 
 Some of the more busy men among the trustees went 
 away and came back again, like Richard Porter. 
 
 He found his sister still at Miss Mix's, lying full 
 length in the breathless heat, for the weather had sud- 
 denly turned very warm, in the thinnest of tea-gowns, 
 on the wide, linen-covered sofa in her room. She 
 greeted him with enthusiasm. 
 
 " You back ! How nice ! Sit down in that chair 
 by the window and I'll ring for some ice and fizzy water. 
 I have my flask here, and I'll make you a drink." 
 
 " Not at the risk of bringing up that daughter of 
 Belial," said Richard in his pleasant voice. " It was 
 only by the greatest agility that I escaped her just now 
 in the hall" 
 
 263
 
 264 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 " Poor Harriet ! " said Ethel, who shared the amaz- 
 ing tolerance all the world of Littelton showed to the 
 rotund Miss Mix. " It is your own fault if you are 
 thirsty. I wouldn't let her stay." 
 
 Richard shook his head. 
 
 " I'll smoke if you like, but I'll not drink on those 
 risks." 
 
 He sat down in a comfortable chintz arm chair near 
 the window, where the light drifting to and fro of 
 white curtains seemed to promise a breeze. 
 
 " Now, tell me all about it," he said making him- 
 self comfortable. " What's going on ? Have the John 
 Lawrences come ? " 
 
 " Not till this evening. But Mrs. Bishop Pringle 
 arrived yesterday, and Sylvia Marston this morning. 
 Kitty wrote and asked me to meet her, so I did. She 
 has grown so old, Richard. I rushed to the looking- 
 glass in positive alarm as soon as I came home again. 
 It was a little reassuring. But I wonder what she is 
 saying about me." 
 
 " Then of course you have seen Mrs. Lawrence? " 
 
 " Only a moment, when I went there with Sylvia 
 Marston. You know she is frightfully busy. Every- 
 thing has fallen on her to do, for John doesn't even 
 arrive till this evening, and young Tom is nothing but 
 a boy. She would have liked it to be very simple, but 
 that is quite impossible. He was connected with so 
 many things that wish to be represented, besides the 
 college. And the letters that have to be written! I 
 have helped her a little in that, and of course there are 
 plenty of people more than ready to do anything for her.
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 265 
 
 She makes use of us all to a certain extent, but at a dis- 
 tance. No one is really let in. She sees no one, not 
 even Nannie or me, except for a moment in the most 
 formal way. It hurts my feelings a little, I confess. 
 She is so sweet and cordial and affectionate on ordi- 
 nary occasions that one is deceived into thinking she 
 really cares for one. Then comes an emergency like 
 this, which makes her betray how perfectly she can do 
 without any of us. Yet she tries so hard to be nice, 
 and has the most punctilious care of everybody's feel- 
 ings. Albion, for instance, gets a long list of instruc- 
 tions about the treatment of the faculty at the funeral, 
 every one remembered, every one's prejudices and vani- 
 ties and precedents considered and propitiated. You 
 remember how the dear old Dean was always getting 
 himself into trouble that way, the blood-curdling things 
 that happened from his forgetting somebody altogether, 
 or putting some one else in the wrong place whenever 
 he had anything to do on occasions of ceremony ? But 
 who ever cared really? And she could have trampled 
 on all their prejudices and set them all by the ears, and 
 they wouldn't have minded it half as much as they do 
 her entire independence of them, her perfect aloofness. 
 It isn't the custom here, where every one knows every- 
 thing about everybody. But that has been Kitty's way 
 always. I wouldn't say it to any one except you, but 
 it is little things like this in the past which have made 
 people unfriendly to her people to whom she has been 
 uniformly kind only too glad to do her a bad turn 
 when it fell in their way. Like Harriet and those letters 
 of hers, for instance. Oh, I forgot ! Don't you know ?
 
 266 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 I didn't mean to tell you. But it doesn't matter really 
 besides, it's public property. Richard, did you ever 
 imagine there was anything between her and Wilfred 
 Cochran?" 
 
 Richard hesitated. 
 
 " When I was here last, some time ago, you remem- 
 ber, it was very easy to see at least I thought then that 
 he in short I felt rather sorry for him." 
 
 " Oh, you needn't have fejt sorry for him ; at least 
 not for that. Evidently you never seriously considered 
 the possibility of her growing to care for him." 
 
 " To care ! " echoed Richard. " There are a great 
 many ways of caring. She was always very good to 
 him, very much interested in him, very fond of him, 
 if you will." 
 
 " Nonsense. You know what I mean," said Ethel 
 impatiently. " She was in love with him." 
 
 " This is gossip, I suppose? " 
 
 " No ; I saw her letters to him, written before his 
 marriage." 
 
 "What?" said Richard. 
 
 " He had kept them, you see. His wife found them 
 afterward among his papers and gave them to Harriet 
 Mix. Every one has seen them." 
 
 " Cad ! " said Richard through his cigar. 
 
 " No, that isn't fair. I might have said so myself 
 if I hadn't seen. But they were read to tatters. I felt 
 very sorry for him. He couldn't help it." 
 
 " What's become of them ? " said Richard sharply. 
 
 " Oh, they came to me in the course of time, as you 
 might imagine, and I made her give them up at once,
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 267 
 
 which she did the more readily as she was frightened 
 out of her wits at the temper I showed. You see she 
 rather betrayed me, surprised me into hearing parts of 
 them. At first I didn't know at all whose they were. 
 I was told to guess fancy, to guess and then there 
 came little turns of expression, so simple, so touch- 
 ing, and yet so characteristic I wanted my own eyes 
 to assure me. I sent them back to Kitty that same 
 evening." 
 
 "And then?" 
 
 " I got a little note from her the next day, a grateful, 
 colorless little note acknowledging them, thanking me 
 for the trouble I took in getting them. Nothing more. 
 Not one word, not one look. Not once since has she 
 made the slightest allusion to it, though I have seen 
 her every day. Oh, yes, once! Nannie exclaimed in 
 that blundering way of hers when Harriet turned up 
 as usual at the Dean's reception and Kitty was civil to 
 her : ' I don't see how you can notice her, after the 
 harm she's done you.' And Kitty caught her up. ' Oh, 
 hardly harm, I think ! Besides, she may have forgotten 
 it when she spoke to me, and you would hardly expect 
 me to remind her.' ' 
 
 Richard gave a short laugh. His sister went on. 
 
 " You can imagine what gall and wormwood it 
 would all be to her I mean the publicity. How much 
 she still really cares for him I haven't an idea. I should 
 have thought it had been pretty well knocked out of her 
 in the last two or three years. Any one else would be 
 feeling it a lucky escape. He went all to pieces before 
 he died, you know. But Kitty is different from any-
 
 268 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 body else. There is something quite exquisite in the 
 expression of those long blue eyes of hers nowadays 
 a look almost like an illumination, which comes some- 
 times with suffering. I am very sorry for her, though 
 I shouldn't dare to tell her so. Poor Kitty! She 
 doesn't care a bit for me, but she was very good to me 
 once when I was down on my luck. No one else could 
 have been quite so appreciative, quite so comforting. 
 I shan't forget it. She is very sweet but very cold. I 
 sometimes wonder whether she ever really cared even 
 for Cochran more than to play fast and loose with him 
 in that little way of hers, as if she couldn't help it. I 
 have no doubt it was that as much as anything else that 
 sent him off again. If she had gone straight ahead and 
 married him, as he wanted her to do, I believe he would 
 have been alive and happy at this moment." 
 
 " Well, all that is beyond my ken," said Richard 
 easily. " I can only quote my father's monumental 
 saying : ' I have no personal experience in the matter. 
 To repeat what I have heard from outsiders would be 
 gossip ; to repeat what my friends themselves have con- 
 fided in me would be a betrayal of trust. I must there- 
 fore beg to be excused from expressing any opinion 
 whatever.' ' 
 
 Ethel laughed. 
 
 " Are you going down with me to-morrow ? " he 
 continued. " I have to take the 12.40 to connect with 
 the express at Statesburg." 
 
 " No ; I shall stay on a day or two longer I want 
 to say good-by to Kitty I don't know when I shall 
 see her again. They may go abroad. You won't see
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 269 
 
 her at all if you dash off like that immediately after the 
 funeral." 
 
 " I thought I would go over this afternoon. Do 
 you think she would let me in ? " 
 
 " I am sure I don't know. You might go and send 
 in your card ; that will give her a chance, if she wants 
 to see you." 
 
 But he could not flatter himself that he was let in by 
 anything but accident when he was ushered directly into 
 her presence in the dark, shuttered parlor where she was 
 standing talking to a bland faced, black coated person 
 whose business was only too painfully evident. He saw 
 her start of dismay as she felt herself caught unawares, 
 and said in a great hurry : " I am going. I didn't mean 
 to get in. I didn't expect to find you. Don't see me 
 unless you wish." 
 
 But as soon as she recognized him, she caught at 
 his hand and held it a moment, half unconsciously, in 
 her desire to restrain him as he was turning away. 
 
 " Don't go, don't go, Richard," she said almost 
 plaintively. " I want to see you." 
 
 " But you are busy," he objected. 
 
 " Only a minute." She still kept her fingers on his 
 arm while she finished the directions she was giving, 
 and dismissed the undertaker's man. 
 
 " I shan't stay if you don't want me," Richard as- 
 sured her anxiously. 
 
 " But I do want you. I want to talk to you," she 
 reiterated with pathetic earnestness. 
 
 It was the cry which is finally wrung from every 
 human soul, however solitary, however unexpressive,
 
 270 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 the anguish, the craving to be heard, to be understood, 
 to be comforted. And Katherine turned in her extrem- 
 ity not to a woman, for she feared instinctively the more 
 than understanding of the most discreet woman, her 
 intrusions of tenderness, the keen seeing vision which 
 never overlooks one little humiliating detail of the dis- 
 integrating effects of suffering, but traces it back to 
 its reason, and gives it more than its meaning, the swift 
 interpretation which takes more than is given, and 
 breaks down the last remnant of self control when it 
 has staggered in the agony of self revelation, yet is 
 still struggling to regain itself. 
 
 She turned to Richard because she knew him of old 
 and he had never disappointed her, and she trusted 
 his sentiment for her, feeling instinctively that his 
 tenderness, his reverence, would protect her in 
 his very thought when she could no longer protect 
 herself. 
 
 So he came and sat down on a little chair, while 
 she took her place opposite against the cushions of the 
 high backed sofa. 
 
 But for a few moments they talked of very simple 
 things her plans, which still depended a little on 
 Tom's success with the West Point examinations. 
 
 " But I don't think there is much danger of his 
 failing. Poor fellow ! It has been his desire from the 
 time he was a very little fellow, though of course it 
 was out of the question while his grandfather wanted 
 him here." 
 
 Then they spoke of the Dean. " Oh, I can't tell 
 you how glad I am it ended this way ! " cried Kather-
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 271 
 
 ine, almost passionately. " It is so much better than 
 what I have been fearing day after day for so long. He 
 wore himself out to the end, and when the time came for 
 him to rest, to spare himself, he died, for he didn't know 
 how. But to linger for years as his uncle did after his 
 usefulness was over! That would have been too hor- 
 rible for him and for me," she added in a lower voice. 
 " So for him I feel nothing but a sort of triumph that 
 he has escaped from his enemies. For myself oh, for 
 myself," she added simply, " I am breaking my heart 
 already with missing him." 
 
 Richard murmured : " He was a fine old fellow. 
 Every one will miss him." 
 
 " Who do they put in his place ? " asked Katherine, 
 suddenly looking straight at him. 
 
 He turned his eyes away with a sort of embarrass- 
 ment. " You wouldn't like to know. Don't ask me to 
 tell you." 
 
 " Yes, I want to know. I'll have to know, Rich- 
 ard," she added plaintively. " Why should I mind ? 
 Who is it?" 
 
 " It is only a temporary appointment," he said at 
 last, almost apologetically. " You see, we were in a fix. 
 It is so hard to get one who can step right in and go 
 to work." 
 
 "I see. Who is it?" 
 
 " Well, Judge Daly is made president pro tem. 
 the official head, as it were, with it is only a tem- 
 porary appointment, till they see how it works, but they 
 have put in Merritt as acting dean." 
 
 Katherine was silent, but her face changed and stif-
 
 272 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 fened in her effort to control her painful surprise. Then 
 she drew a short breath and raised her eyebrows. 
 
 " After all, why should I care ? Perhaps he is what 
 they need. No doubt the trustees could find no one 
 more suitable." 
 
 Richard laughed a little. " You are too proud even 
 to hate your enemies," he said with amused admiration ; 
 but she answered with sudden bitterness, as if he had 
 touched something that hurt her : 
 
 " Proud, you call me proud ! " and sat a moment 
 silent, looking out in front of her with strained, melan- 
 choly eyes. Then she began : 
 
 " You may have heard. People have been very 
 much interested in my affairs lately. I have been 
 very much pitied, I believe, by my friends and neigh- 
 bors " 
 
 " Don't say anything more about it," said Richard 
 hastily. " It is nobody's business but your own." 
 
 " But I want to talk to you about it," said Kath- 
 erine wistfully. " I want to tell you, Richard. I 
 thought, oh, I was very sure, for I hadn't wanted to 
 believe it, and the assurance came at last with a sort 
 of agony but I thought I loved him; and through 
 it all I thought that, oh, nearly to the end, but 
 the last seems to have burned it away. And that 
 is the worst of all that I wasn't able to bear it to 
 the end. It was of too poor stuff to last through 
 adversity." 
 
 " It isn't so. You misjudge yourself," said Rich- 
 ard in a great hurry. " All love can't be put to the 
 same usage. You aren't made for brutal usage or hu-
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 273 
 
 miliation or any of the other results of degrading vices. 
 It would kill you, that's all." 
 
 She looked at him wistfully. " But other women 
 have stood those tests." 
 
 " Don't talk to me about other women," he ex- 
 claimed in sudden rage. " You don't know anything 
 about them. It is you we are thinking about, and you 
 have every right to resent what you have been made 
 to suffer. You are too fine for it. Do you under- 
 stand?" 
 
 " And do you think that makes me more valuable ? " 
 she asked with a little, sad smile ; then continued, with 
 a sudden rush of feeling : " But, Richard, I did under- 
 stand. I did care, I did forgive him. I was deeply 
 pitiful more it made me hardly feel the need of 
 excuses for him for everything but this last. But, 
 Richard, knowing her, knowing himself, knowing all 
 I might have been exposed to, how could he, how could 
 he go away and not destroy those letters ! " 
 
 Richard looked fixedly at the end of his boots. " I 
 don't know," he answered rather feebly. 
 
 But she went on, hardly conscious of him, follow- 
 ing the train of her own thoughts. 
 
 " It was never easy. I never got over the feeling 
 that it was an outrage for me to care again. But I 
 know my own weaknesses. I have an unfortunate re- 
 serve. It isn't quite voluntary, but it keeps the people 
 I love best from ever knowing how much I care for 
 them. Such things add unnecessary bitterness to 
 death," she added in a lower tone. " I thought I had 
 learned that. So I said more not more than I felt "
 
 274 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 she trembled a little in the bare truth of her revelation 
 " but more than I wished, more than I ever thought 
 I could. And he was very good to me, very generous, 
 and infinitely patient, so that when I knew, myself, it 
 seemed only fair to him. And my father-in-law was 
 so fond of him, so dependent on him. There seemed 
 so much to recommend it." But in a moment she added 
 almost fiercely : " No, there was nothing to recommend 
 it! Nothing but danger in it! For me that didn't 
 matter but for every one connected with me. I had 
 no right. It was not my own risk. I was mistaken 
 I was but you, Richard, you find excuses for me. 
 Can you tell me why I should be punished so unmerci- 
 fully?" 
 
 She looked at him with a sort of anguished ques- 
 tion in her beautiful, shrinking eyes, but he was star- 
 ing the other way, frowning a little, and veiling his light 
 eyes behind his lighter eyelashes. She fell back into 
 her old attitude, her chin in her hand, looking widely 
 out before her, speaking half to herself. 
 
 " Nothing has been spared me to make it intolerable, 
 all my weaknesses, the little things on which I prided 
 myself. And now my letters. You may say why 
 should I mind? I have done nothing to be ashamed 
 of. But I do mind, Richard; I am not without forti- 
 tude, I can bear a good deal. I have borne things in 
 the past, you know, without complaining." 
 
 Richard gave a little inarticulate murmur of assent. 
 
 " But this I cannot bear ! No, I cannot bear it ! If 
 I had had to go on living here I should have become 
 one of those strange creatures who hide themselves
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 275 
 
 between four walls, shrinking from the light and the 
 sight of their fellow creatures." 
 
 She covered her eyes with her hand, clasping her 
 fingers across her brows and holding them there while 
 she went on talking. 
 
 " At any minute, when I might be least expecting 
 it, there always can come that look, that pitying, pry- 
 ing look, to remind me that they think they hold the 
 key. I never used to care much, though their gossip- 
 ing, slanderous tongues often did their best to hurt us. 
 But now, somehow, I feel myself at their mercy. 
 Every one, my own servants, Sylvia " 
 
 " Oh," said Richard, " how could she know ? " 
 
 Katherine looked up with restrained bitterness. 
 
 " What scruple of delicacy do you think there may 
 be among my my neighbors to keep them from telling 
 Sylvia all she chooses to listen to about her mother? 
 Oh, no! It is not my imagination. Sylvia knows 
 enough I can never go into explanations with her, so 
 I shall never know exactly what form the the story 
 took for her ears and Tom, of course. It was Tom, 
 in fact, who was chosen to bring me back my letters." 
 
 " Damn their stupidity ! " said Richard under his 
 breath. 
 
 " Oh, no ! It does not really matter I should have 
 imagined it if I had not known it. Besides, he scarcely 
 ever thinks of it. But I see it in Sylvia's eyes every 
 time she looks at me. No doubt I deserve it. I had 
 no right to the feeling they both had for me." 
 
 " What nonsense," said Richard almost roughly. 
 " You have a right to everything most perfect and de-
 
 276 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 voted, and if your daughter doesn't adore you she is 
 not worthy of of her father," he concluded rather 
 abruptly. 
 
 Katherine put her hand over her eyes again. 
 
 " I know. I am probably exaggerating it all," she 
 said under her breath. " I always feel that possibility 
 in myself. But you are right in saying there are some 
 things killed of hard usage. There are things in my- 
 self that are being killed good things. For instance, 
 I am cruel to Sylvia." 
 
 " Oh, no," said Richard. 
 
 " Yes ; but I cannot help it. She is always trying 
 to come too near, and it hurts me no doubt she has 
 a right to demand explanations from me. I ought not 
 to mind giving them. It is nothing I am ashamed of. 
 But I cannot no, that is one thing I can never discuss 
 with her. It would be too insulting to us both," she 
 added with restrained vehemence. 
 
 " I don't believe she wants explanations," said 
 Richard easily. Then he drew a long breath, moved 
 a little on his chair and changed his tone. 
 
 " And speaking of Sylvia, what is this I hear about 
 her and that long legged young jackanapes, Henry Dul- 
 las's son ? " 
 
 " Oh," said Katherine with a sudden return of nat- 
 ural interest. " Yes, I believe people have been con- 
 necting their names together. It is more serious than 
 most student attachments, because, young as he is, he 
 is in a position to marry. But they are both such chil- 
 dren. How can they know their own minds ? " 
 
 " Such children, are they? " Richard looked at her,
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 277 
 
 a smile and a tone in his slow, pleasant voice that made 
 her draw her brows together, half in amusement, half 
 in annoyance. 
 
 " At any rate it has come to nothing yet." 
 
 " Nothing," echoed Richard. " Then that is your 
 daughter's fault rather than the young man's. I my- 
 self was an involuntary onlooker on that interesting 
 occasion." 
 
 " Richard, you are joking! When did you see Syl- 
 via with Stephen and without me ? " 
 
 " The afternoon of the dinner, in the woods behind 
 the college pasturage, in a certain little winding path 
 by the brook, which leads to a certain seat under a stone 
 bridge. I think you know them both well." 
 
 He wouldn't go on till she had acknowledged him 
 with a little, painful smile, though the things his words 
 were meant to recall had in themselves nothing painful. 
 
 But she returned quickly to the subject of her 
 anxiety. 
 
 " Oh, that afternoon ! I don't remember. It might 
 very well have been. Tell me about it." 
 
 " I had been wandering off by myself, revisiting 
 some of my old haunts, and I was sitting just in the 
 same place and the same way I sat, oh, too many years 
 ago, and looked down the path and saw you and Tom 
 coming along together the first time I ever met you. 
 Well, now it was Sylvia and young Dullas. You know 
 where the bars come that lead into the pasture ? " 
 
 Katherine nodded silently. 
 
 " Well, they stopped there. I could see them 
 plainly, though of course I couldn't hear it was not
 
 278 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 necessary, I didn't even have to imagine it. I could 
 supply it all from my own experience. He is a good 
 looking fellow enough. At first he seemed inclined to 
 bluster I don't believe he has received many rebuffs 
 in his life. But she was evidently quite merciless. She 
 is still too young to feel much compunction for the 
 wounds she makes, and for that reason she is probably 
 the less dangerous." 
 
 He paused again till he made Katherine look at him 
 and smile a little. 
 
 " At the end he was quite pathetically cast down ; 
 I really found it in my heart to pity him, as he went 
 striding off through the deep grass of the pasture, leav- 
 ing her looking out after him, with her elbows on the 
 bars. After a decent time I joined her, and we walked 
 home together, making no reference whatever, either of 
 us, to what we both were thinking about." 
 
 " Oh," said Katherine, with a certain relief in her 
 tone, " that is what Stephen must mean by the note I 
 got from him. He begs me to forgive him and wants 
 to see me. He has broken his promise not to speak to 
 Sylvia without telling me beforehand. Poor boy ! He 
 asks to come this afternoon." 
 
 " Well, I call that indecent of him," said Richard 
 crossly. 
 
 " Oh, no ! It is Stephen. He is very self absorbed, 
 very much set on his own desires. He is apt to over- 
 look other things. But he is a dear boy. It is hard 
 to tell exactly how he will turn out, but he has quali- 
 ties which would make a woman very happy if she was 
 a little merciful to him."
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 279 
 
 " I believe you are sorry for him. You would help 
 him if you can. You are a match maker, like the rest of 
 them. You would like your daughter to marry him." 
 
 He spoke half in fun, but she turned upon him 
 almost fiercely. 
 
 " Richard, how can you say such things even in 
 joke ! I want Sylvia to marry anybody ! Is there any 
 one else left now in the world for me but her? But 
 of course that wouldn't make any difference if they 
 loved one another. They will be separated now for a 
 little while," she went on more gently, " but if he 
 chooses to wait and if she cares, what can I do but 
 help them ? " 
 
 " You must be glad to get away," he said. 
 
 She sat a moment silent, but answered at last, 
 sighing. 
 
 " Yes, I don't think I could bear to go on living 
 here. As one grows older every new loss must have 
 some of its roots in the old, but this seems to bring it 
 back again from the very beginning. I miss Tom, for 
 instance, everywhere, almost as I did at first. I shall 
 be glad to leave this house." 
 
 " And go back to your own people and your own 
 places," said Richard comfortably. " You will be glad 
 to see them all." 
 
 She responded with almost pathetic eagerness: 
 " Oh, yes ! Ruth has cabled that she won't leave Paris 
 till we join her. It seems almost like a dream to think 
 of being there again. There has never been a spring 
 that I haven't been homesick to see it again, its foun- 
 tains and lilacs in the flower-market by the Madeleine,
 
 280 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 and the soft little breeze, full of the perfume of the 
 lime trees in the Faubourg gardens and fresh with the 
 wet wood pavement." 
 
 " You have never got over anything," said Richard 
 in a sort of amazement. 
 
 She answered with a sad, half scornful smile. 
 
 " You think so ? I seem to myself to have been a 
 very poor thing for constancy." Then as he rose to 
 go : " Give my love to Ethel. I never can thank her 
 for what she did for me. But perhaps she understands. 
 I am very fond of Ethel." 
 
 " She hopes to see you again before she goes." 
 
 " Yes, oh yes. But not you ? " 
 
 " No; I leave to-morrow at noon." 
 
 She rose at last and held out her hand to him. 
 
 " You have been very good to me. I can't be grate- 
 ful enough. Life had got to be a kind of anguish 
 almost intolerable, and you have made it possible again. 
 You have restored its values to me. No one need tell 
 me that I make a great part of my own suffering. I 
 know it too well already. It is a weakness to be hurt 
 all the time as I am, by by instinct, as it were," she 
 concluded with a melancholy little laugh. " But I do 
 try to live simply and normally, to keep things in their 
 proper proportions, even when I fail. I am not made 
 to find life very easy." 
 
 He took both her hands and bent over them, say- 
 ing with a kind of extravagant tenderness : " It is not 
 your fault. You have never found anything in life 
 good enough for you. There is no one in the world 
 worthy even to tie your shoe."
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 281 
 
 She received his leave taking with affectionate 
 amusement. 
 
 " You are always so good to me, Richard. I have 
 ceased to wonder why." 
 
 In the hall they found Stephen, pale and anxious, 
 speaking solemnly to Molly. 
 
 " May I see you ? May I see you just a moment ? " 
 he said, starting toward Katherine as soon as she ap- 
 peared at the parlor door. 
 
 She received him kindly, even while sending across 
 his shoulder a little deprecating smile at Richard tak- 
 ing his departure.
 
 XXVII 
 
 I HAVE no right. I oughtn't to come, but I can't 
 stay away and have you think things about me 
 without trying to make you understand," cried the 
 young man clamorously, as he found himself alone 
 with her in the darkened parlor. 
 
 " What things, Stephen ? Sit down and tell me 
 quietly. I have been thinking nothing disagreeable 
 about you." 
 
 " Hasn't Sylvia told you? " 
 
 Katherine smiled and shook her head. 
 
 He dropped down on the sofa and buried his face 
 on the high cushioned arm. 
 
 " She doesn't care for me she doesn't care for me 
 at all. And she says she never will," he groaned de- 
 spairingly. " Don't be angry with me for breaking 
 my promise. I didn't mean to, but a man can't always 
 help himself." 
 
 " I know, poor boy," answered Katherine, with the 
 facile feminine forgiveness which is not so much mer- 
 ciful to weakness as recognizant of strength. " I am 
 very sorry for you. I wish I could do anything to 
 comfort you." 
 
 He raised his pallid, boyish face, still pitiful in the 
 pained surprise of his first defeat. 
 
 " But aren't you going to help me ? " 
 282
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF HER FRIENDS 283 
 
 Katherine could hardly keep from smiling at the 
 very simplicity of his appeal. 
 
 " How can I help you, dear boy ? " she asked, almost 
 amused. 
 
 " You have so much influence over her. I am sure 
 if you talked to her you could make her see it a little 
 differently. You might persuade her to give me an- 
 other chance." 
 
 Katherine was sitting in Richard's low chair, her 
 elbow on the back, her head leaning back against her 
 hand. 
 
 " Dear Stephen, is that the way you want to win 
 a woman ? " she said almost reproachfully. " I thought 
 you had better stuff in you." 
 
 " Well, what shall I do then ? " he said, moving for- 
 ward to the edge of the sofa that he might be as near 
 as possible, his head hung down, his elbows on his 
 knees, while his fingers reached for and obtained a fold 
 of her dress, which he held through the conversation 
 as if he found comfort in that small contact. 
 
 " Are you sure you care so much for her that you 
 won't get over it after a little while, when you don't see 
 her any longer ? Remember, she is not the first person 
 you have thought you were in love with." 
 
 " She is the first person I ever really was in love 
 with the first person I ever wanted to marry and the 
 last. If I don't get Sylvia I will never marry any 
 one else." Then, seeing her smile not quite concealed : 
 " There have been men who have only loved one woman 
 in their lives." 
 
 " A few, perhaps," she replied politely.
 
 284 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 " You have no reason for thinking I may be one 
 of them," he concluded triumphantly. But his voice 
 dropped quickly to despair again. " I can't give her 
 up. It would break my heart never to see her again. 
 And you are going to take her away, and she will forget 
 all about me. I know I could make her love me if I 
 had another chance." 
 
 " Dear Stephen, you still have as much chance as 
 other men," said Katherine gently. " She is very 
 young, and very cold. She is not likely to care for any 
 one for some time. If you are willing to wait, if you 
 still have the same mind when you are both a little 
 older, there is no reason why you shouldn't try again 
 with more success." 
 
 " She's so pretty ; no one else can help falling in 
 love with her as soon as they see her. Some one will 
 be sure to cut me out." 
 
 There was a moment's silence which he broke. 
 
 " Say they won't. Say you won't let them. Say 
 I may come this summer and see you if I go to Europe." 
 
 He hitched himself forward on the sofa till his head 
 nearly lay against her arm. 
 
 But she sent him back to his place with friendly 
 firmness. He obeyed, half laughing, then grew serious, 
 more deeply, gravely serious than he had ever been 
 before. 
 
 " I know I behave like a goose," he began in quite 
 a different tone. " I am always making a fool of my- 
 self, only fit to be laughed at. But now I mean what 
 I say. I am not worthy of her. I am glad she turned 
 me down. But I shall be I shall make myself so, and
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 285 
 
 I'll never give her up, never, not even if she marries 
 another man. I never knew what it was to care for 
 anything before. It makes me feel as if there was 
 something inside me coiled up like a spring. I don't 
 know what it is, but it is too strong to be beaten." 
 
 Katherine looked at him with a certain respect as 
 she watched this new initiation of his natural, petted, 
 clamorous inclination into masculine persistency, and 
 she fitted her manner at once to his new dignity. 
 
 He stayed some time longer, for Stephen was not 
 one of those persons satisfied with the first saying of 
 a thing. But he went at last, having obtained certain 
 promises and concessions. His voice broke as he said 
 good by. 
 
 " You are the best, the kindest, the dearest and 
 I a brute, a pig. I'd like to kick myself for the way 
 I have behaved to you." 
 
 But Katherine checked him almost sharply. " I 
 thought we had decided, Stephen, that you have not 
 behaved so very badly." He stood silent, realizing 
 half shyly that there are some things for which one 
 must never ask forgiveness. Then very humbly he 
 kissed her hand as he went away, not ceremoniously, 
 but as if it was the only way he knew by which he could 
 confess his deep affection and contrition.
 
 XXVIII 
 
 SYLVIA'S reserves with Stephen's secret had not 
 been entirely voluntary. For a little while, in- 
 deed, shaken, almost frightened by the seriousness of 
 their interview, which had left her with a vague, child- 
 ish feeling of guilt and fear of blame, she had wished 
 to be silent, and when she was ready to turn to her 
 mother, that very day, Katherine could not listen to 
 her, for that very day, in strange conclusion to its many 
 incidents, her grandfather died. Since then the greater 
 had swallowed up the less not for her, however. Per- 
 sonally she had little sense of loss in her grandfather's 
 death, and for that very reason the weariness, the 
 tedium, the inaction of mourning shut her in more 
 painfully to her own perplexities. As time passed she 
 found herself growing gradually starved with longing 
 to speak, to hear counsel, to confide her own growing 
 unhappiness to the person who had never before been 
 so inattentive to the least little crisis of her life. 
 
 But Katherine sat all day apparently unconscious 
 of her need, writing at her little table, or she was clos- 
 eted for hours with people on business, and very soon 
 Sylvia's unknown, black clothed relations began to fill 
 the house, taking Katherine's place at table, encroach- 
 ing upon her time at meals or in the evening. 
 
 " My dear Katherine," said John somewhat pom- 
 286
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF HER FRIENDS 287 
 
 pously on the first evening of his arrival, " can you 
 spare me some time after tea? You know more than 
 any one else about my father's papers. There are some 
 things I must consult you about before I see his law- 
 yer to-morrow." 
 
 Her sisters-in-law broke out in chorus against him. 
 
 " Don't let him tire you, Kitty. You look perfectly 
 exhausted already. There is no reason why you should 
 be worried with all this business in addition to every- 
 thing else." 
 
 But she put aside their objections. 
 
 " I am not tired at all. Let us go up into my 
 sitting room, John." 
 
 Sylvia, used to the restraints of demonstration 
 Katherine usually imposed on those about her, never 
 got over her surprise at the docility with which she 
 now submitted to causeless embraces. 
 
 " Good-night, you dear child," they all exclaimed, 
 with kisses, as they saw her go from among them. 
 
 Then by common consent avoiding the parlor as 
 too near the closed door of the Dean's study, they all 
 drifted off to their own rooms. 
 
 Tom had already slipped away as soon as he could, 
 after tea, followed by Sylvia's regretful eyes. He was 
 still permitted to go out and mingle with the world 
 and shake off for a moment, at least, the incubus that 
 vicarious grief was imposing on them both. " But 
 everything is made easier for boys," said Sylvia to 
 herself bitterly. 
 
 Her Aunt Christine, the oldest of the family, car- 
 ried her away with her into her own room. She was
 
 288 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 the widow of a Western bishop, a tall, slender, fair 
 woman with yellow hair not yet gray, and only partly 
 covered by the little triangular piece of muslin which 
 she wore as a widow's cap. They sat a long time to- 
 gether in the dark because it was cooler without a 
 lamp. Sylvia could see her aunt's figure dimly evident 
 through the obscurity, in her chair by the window, and 
 listened intermittently to the soft murmur of her voice, 
 which came to her dimly, half escaping through the 
 window beside her, penetrated by the rhythmic creak- 
 ing of her feather fan and the noise a great brown 
 beetle was making round the light in the hall. She was 
 telling of Sylvia's father. 
 
 " Dear child, you make my heart ache, you remind 
 me so of him, far more than your brother. Tom was 
 the youngest of us all, and my mother was so glad it 
 was a boy, that he could have the family name. You 
 know there had been a Thomas the eldest who died 
 of scarlet-fever, and we none of us could make enough 
 of the last baby. He would have been spoiled among us 
 if he hadn't had such a lovely nature. As it was, the 
 petting he got only gave more confidence to his charm- 
 ing, merry ways. I can never forget the peculiar crash 
 he used to give the front door when he came home, 
 even from the shortest absences, and his gay voice 
 sounding through the house from the bottom of the 
 stair. He always took that way of finding where we 
 were before he went in search of us, always so eager 
 to tell his adventures, so sure of our interest. Your 
 mother never quite got used to his almost boyishly 
 demonstrative manner. We used to laugh at her for
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 289 
 
 being so shy with him before us all. His death nearly 
 broke my heart. None of the others could take the 
 same place with me. 
 
 " Your Uncle John is, of course, a man of parts. 
 He was always more distinguished looking than Tom, 
 more generally agreeable, one might say. He is still 
 a very handsome man, though it is a pity he is grow- 
 ing so bald. But his wife spoils him. He has become 
 very tiresome and long winded. It is not good for the 
 men of our family to be too much given way to. They 
 are better for being taken down, their vanity kept in 
 check. It would have been far better for John if he 
 had stayed in the East and married dear Ethel Porter, 
 as we all wished." 
 
 " But I thought it was she who wouldn't marry 
 him," said Sylvia a little shyly. 
 
 " Hm," said her Aunt Christine. " Poor Ethel has 
 her weaknesses, and one of them is a great deal of 
 silly, stubborn pride, which no doubt was rather an 
 obstacle at one time; but there is no doubt that she 
 was deeply attached to him, and if he had had a little 
 more pertinacity her obstinacy hurt his vanity, and 
 that was a thing he could never forgive." 
 
 Her mother and uncle were still talking in Kath- 
 erine's sitting room when Sylvia went by on her way 
 to bed. She stopped a moment at the door and looked 
 in upon them. Katherine was sitting in a characteris- 
 tic attitude, one elbow resting on her desk front, her 
 head tilted back and sideways against her hand, the 
 other hand stretched out and resting on the arm of her 
 chair. The light of the lamp behind her outlined one
 
 290 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 cheek and part of her profile, and made a dim bright- 
 ness of her hair. John's face showed more directly in 
 the circle of illumination, high colored and handsome, 
 with its fine, blue eyes and well-arched brows, and 
 brown hair running back from the temples. He was 
 talking earnestly in the fine, rolling voice which was 
 so like his father's. 
 
 " Good night," said Sylvia rather drearily, and 
 made them both look up. 
 
 Her uncle interrupted himself to answer with forced 
 amiability, " Good night, my dear," evidently impatient 
 to have her gone again ; but Katherine held her a mo- 
 ment. 
 
 "Are you going so soon? Isn't it still very 
 early?" 
 
 " I have a headache," answered Sylvia a little 
 shamefacedly. 
 
 " The heat, I suppose," said her uncle. " A good 
 night's rest will cure it. Then you would have me 
 understand, my dear Katherine " He returned to his 
 subject, drawing his sister-in-law with him. 
 
 And Sylvia went away slowly to her own room; 
 but she couldn't sleep. After what seemed to her a 
 long time she heard Katherine come into the next room, 
 which was her bedroom, and close the door between 
 them. Sylvia listened in breathless suspense, listened 
 and waited, hoping against hope that when her mother 
 was ready for bed the door would be opened again, 
 and that Katherine, finding her now awake, as often 
 before through her excitable little girlhood, would 
 come in and talk to her and find the reason of her
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 291 
 
 sleeplessness, and bring her comfort by the mere con- 
 tact of soft hands upon her burning temples. 
 
 At last the fine thread of light filtering under the 
 sill went out suddenly ; the lamp had been extinguished 
 on the other side, but there was no corresponding move- 
 ment toward the door. On the contrary, all remained 
 dark and still. She flung herself back on her pillows 
 in a passion of stifled weeping. 
 
 Then the door opened at last. She heard her 
 mother speak to her. 
 
 " Sylvia, are you awake? " 
 
 She gave a gasping assent. 
 
 "Are you crying, my dearest?" said Katherine 
 then, in sudden anxiety. In another moment she was 
 close beside her, leaning toward her in the darkness. 
 " Jell me what is the matter ? " 
 
 " My head aches," said Sylvia in stifled tones. 
 
 "Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you call 
 me?" 
 
 " The door was shut," said Sylvia with a great sob. 
 " I thought you couldn't hear." 
 
 " Let me get something to help the pain." 
 
 But Sylvia caught her hand and held her fast. 
 " Oh, no, don't go. I only want you." She put up 
 her arms and drew herself back into her old, childish 
 attitude, her head on her mother's shoulder, her lips 
 pressed against the sweet, white curves of her throat. 
 
 "Was it the pain that made you cry?" asked 
 Katherine with infinite tenderness. 
 
 " No, no. It was because I was so unhappy. I 
 wanted you so much, and there was always somebody
 
 292 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 else, and I don't see how it will ever be different. When 
 we go away there will be Aunt Ruth and a lot of people 
 you care for. We shall never be together, just you 
 and I, again." 
 
 " Oh, yes, dear, many, many times together, just 
 you and I." 
 
 Sylvia sighed. " It will never be the same again," 
 she whispered. 
 
 " Why not ? Are you sorry to go away from 
 here?" 
 
 " Oh, no ! oh, no ! It is worse here than anywhere 
 else. You won't let me tell you," said Sylvia under 
 her breath. 
 
 She was so near, her head lay so close to her moth- 
 er's heart, that she could feel the thrill and shiver of 
 half involuntary withdrawal, and caught at her with 
 a sort of desperation. 
 
 " O mamma, don't go away ! Don't be angry. I 
 won't I won't say anything. I'll never speak to you 
 about anything you would rather not." 
 
 " Poor baby," said her mother, almost laughing, 
 " I'm not angry. I'm not going away. See, I am close 
 here, holding you fast. Don't be afraid to talk to me 
 of anything you want, if it will make you happier." 
 
 But the graciousness of her tone failed her before 
 the end, and Sylvia, from her soft place, could feel the 
 barriers lying like iron between them. She moved a 
 little restlessly in the silence that followed, then with 
 childish instinct flung herself against the weak place 
 in her mother's fortifications. 
 
 " I was so wretched," she said at last, very low.
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 293 
 
 " But why, Sylvia ? " asked Katherine somewhat 
 coldly. " I have often wanted to ask you. There is 
 nothing to make you wretched now." 
 
 " Yes, there is," said Sylvia innocently. " Why 
 not, when it is you and the way you feel ? " 
 
 " I," said Katherine faintly. 
 
 " Yes ; I can't bear to think you are unhappy." 
 
 Katherine drew a sigh of desperate patience before 
 she answered slowly : " I am not so very unhappy, dear ; 
 not at all so that it leaves nothing else. When you 
 grow older you will learn how quickly the little joys 
 of life reassert themselves. You must never think of 
 me as perfectly miserable." 
 
 " Yes ? " said Sylvia wistfully. Then with a sudden 
 movement to draw herself away from her mother's 
 arms, she added with passionate bitterness : " After all, 
 I suppose the real thing that makes me wretched is 
 knowing that you don't need me or care for me very 
 much, and nothing can cure that." 
 
 " What do you mean, Sylvia," said her mother 
 sternly. 
 
 She hid her face. 
 
 " Oh, I don't suppose you will understand," she 
 said, hesitating; " I can't make you. It is not the rea- 
 son you think at least, that only showed me what had 
 been all the time, only I didn't know it. I don't mean 
 that I minded your caring for " Sylvia hesitated, 
 and then hurried, stammering, on through Katherine's 
 dead silence " for somebody else. But, you see, all 
 the time I didn't know I thought I was so close to you, 
 and as soon as I found out and might have comforted
 
 294 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 you you put me far away out in the cold with all the 
 others. If you had cared for me you would have 
 wanted me a little, wouldn't you ? " She stopped, al- 
 most frightened at the effect of her words on her 
 mother's intrenched composure. 
 
 " Not care, not want you ? " cried Katherine breath- 
 lessly. The shock of her surprise betrayed her sud- 
 denly into passionate sobbing. 
 
 " Please don't, mamma," said Sylvia much dis- 
 tressed. " I wouldn't have told you if I had thought 
 you would mind so much." 
 
 " But why did you think that ? How could you 
 think that ? " Katherine reiterated, still struggling with 
 her sobs. " It is unjust, unkind, I I didn't deserve 
 that." 
 
 " Oh, dear mamma ! I never thought you didn't 
 care for me really, as your child. It was something 
 more I meant, like friends, you know. I can't explain 
 and it doesn't matter," she added hastily, as she felt 
 Katherine catch her breath again. " I am quite content 
 to be your child when you are good to me, as you 
 are now." 
 
 " Good to you ! " echoed Katherine very low, still 
 holding Sylvia close in her arms. " My little friend," 
 she added after a moment in a sort of passionate hu- 
 mility : " It was not you who were silly, but I who 
 was stupid and blind and cruel. You must forgive me, 
 and I will try to be more worthy of your friendship 
 in future, but you will have to be patient with me, 
 for, as you come to know me better, you will find me 
 a very poor thing in almost all relations."
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 295 
 
 Sylvia clung to her desperately. " Please don't. 
 Please don't say horrid things about yourself. If being 
 friends means that, I'd rather not. I want you just 
 to be perfect, as you always were. I'll try to be good, 
 I'll try to be a comfort to you." 
 
 " Don't be too good to me, dear," said Katherine 
 a little faintly. " Don't learn to spare me too quickly. 
 I am afraid I like the other way best. And now," with 
 a sudden change of tone, " suppose we don't talk about 
 me any more just now. Do you know when I first 
 came in I had an idea that you were going to tell me 
 about something quite different. Stephen came to see 
 me this afternoon while you were in the garden with 
 Marjorie." 
 
 " Oh, did he, and did he tell you ? Do you think 
 I was very heartless, mamma ? " 
 
 " Heartless, dear! Weren't you kind to him? " 
 
 " Oh, yes ! At first I laughed a little because I 
 thought he was half in fun. But it was horrid as soon 
 as I saw he really cared. He minded, dear mamma 
 he cried he minded so much," said Sylvia with a sort 
 of awe. 
 
 " And so you said no, Sylvia," said her mother 
 gravely. " Why did you say no ? " 
 
 " Oh, because I don't care for him now," said 
 Sylvia simply. " It is funny, because at first, a 
 long time ago, I cared for him a great deal. He 
 made that queer little feeling come in my heart 
 when I thought I was going to see him. You know 
 that feeling! It comes when you like a person very 
 much."
 
 296 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 But Katherine sat silent, with her cheek on Sylvia's 
 hair, waiting for her to go on. 
 
 " And I felt dreadfully once, for quite a while, 
 when some one said he was in love with that Miss 
 Winston in Statesburg. And though it hasn't been 
 so exciting since I got to know him so well and saw 
 him all the time, still I did think I cared for him very 
 much, and I often used to imagine what fun it would 
 be when we were engaged." 
 
 " You did, Sylvia, and you never told me ! " said 
 her mother in amazement. 
 
 " O mamma, one can't tell those things. They 
 would sound ridiculous. And then I thought it would 
 be such fun to be married very soon. You see I al- 
 ways wanted to be as much like you as possible." 
 
 " You wanted to be like me ! " echoed Katherine 
 with a sort of pathetic wonder. 
 
 " Yes. It was silly of me, for I know I could 
 never be half so beloved." 
 
 Katherine drew her closer with a little cry of des- 
 perate amusement. 
 
 " Then what made you change your mind so that 
 you said no when the time came ? " 
 
 " Oh, I don't know ! " said Sylvia a little restlessly. 
 " I don't think I really care for any one but you, and 
 yet I am not sure. I wish he hadn't been so very 
 unhappy! When he when he cried, I felt I couldn't 
 bear it. I can't bear to think of it now. Do you think 
 he will ever get over it ? " 
 
 "Do you want him to get over it?" asked her 
 mother.
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 297 
 
 Sylvia hesitated. " I suppose he will," she said 
 reluctantly. " People do get over things, don't they- 
 almost everything, if they only go on living long 
 enough ? " 
 
 " Not always," said Katherine under her breath, 
 while Sylvia continued in a tone of forced cheerful- 
 ness : " Yes, I can't imagine Stephen unhappy very 
 long." 
 
 " Do you want him to come and see you this sum- 
 mer if he goes abroad and Aunt Ruth asks him ? " 
 
 " Shan't I see him before? " said Sylvia in innocent 
 dismay. 
 
 Her mother laughed a little. " I thought you had 
 sent him away." 
 
 " Yes," said Sylvia doubtfully, adding after a mo- 
 ment, " if he only were a little different. If only peo- 
 ple didn't laugh at him, and call him * poor Stephen,' 
 and say he has a good heart. I don't want only a good 
 heart at my age, mamma." 
 
 Katherine gave a little sigh of laughter. " Perhaps 
 some day he will have more, perhaps you will want 
 less. In the mean time we won't send him quite away, 
 shall we, dear? We will ask him to come and say 
 good-by before we go." 
 
 " Yes," said Sylvia with a long sigh. Then with 
 her arms close about her mother's neck, her cheek 
 pressed against her shoulder : " But I don't believe I 
 shall ever love any other person in the world quite as 
 much as I do you." 
 
 Katherine sat a long time in the darkness even after 
 Sylvia had ceased to talk, even after her soft, regular
 
 298 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 breathing as she lay against her mother's shoulder told 
 that she had fallen asleep. At last she disengaged her- 
 self, letting her little daughter sink softly back among 
 the pillows. Even then Sylvia only half awoke to say 
 good night in sleepy tones, with half opening eyes. 
 
 Katherine returned to her own room, though not 
 just yet to sleep, but went and sat by the window, lean- 
 ing her arms on the cool stone sill and looking out 
 across the soft darkness of grass on the athletic field 
 to the gray building of the engineering school, the 
 blank glass of whose shutterless windows was send- 
 ing but dim reflections into the night. She watched, 
 as she had done a hundred times before in hours of 
 sleepless despair, the moon rising higher and higher 
 above the squat library tower into the airy zenith, dark- 
 ening the long line of the Alban Hills which glimmered 
 through the arches of the classic elms. And the past, 
 so often bitter, did not make the thought less sad that 
 the time was coming when she would look out on these 
 familiar precincts no more. Places one has learned to 
 know through tears have their own beauty, bring their 
 own nostalgia, often more far reaching and poignant 
 than those associated only with joy. 
 
 But as she gazed, at the other end of the campus 
 round the school of engineering there emerged on the 
 whiteness of the Promenade certain dark, batlike fig- 
 ures, to flutter awhile among the loops of the elms 
 before they disappeared again among the gray build- 
 ings. Their voices came harshly through the night, 
 with greater distinctness as they approached the Dean's 
 corner. Here they paused, turned and walked along
 
 OF HER FRIENDS 299 
 
 the path which led under Katherine's window, past the 
 long line of the chapel, to the empty house beyond. 
 There they stood, darkly in the moonlight, looking up 
 and at each other with pointing, curious gestures. It 
 was Mr. and Mrs. Brauer, who were walking to the 
 South Gate with Miss Mix, and the new professor of 
 engineering and his wife, whom they had been enter- 
 taining at their evening meal. They had all turned a 
 little from their path in order to show the new mem- 
 bers of the faculty the house which had belonged to his 
 predecessor and was now his. 
 
 Katherine drew back softly and closed the blind, 
 shutting it all away, the silvering walls, the straight 
 enclosures, the distance of the Alban Hills, and the 
 great white moon riding high in the June heaven 
 the frame of her life, happy and sorrowful, for more 
 than nineteen years. But she could not quite exclude 
 the sound of the voices as they passed again beneath 
 her windows, and it was a long time before their echoes 
 let her sleep.