: 
 
 . 
 
 .
 
 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 a IHovel 
 
 LILIAN BELL 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF AN OLD MAID" 
 " A LITTLE SISTER TO THE WILDERNESS " ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 
 1896
 
 THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF AN OLD MAID By 
 LILIAN BELL. ,6n,o, Cloth, Ornamental, Uncut 
 i-dges and Gilt Top, $i 25. 
 From it. bright "Dedication" to its sweet and jjracious close 
 
 .s spmt ,s wholesome, full of happy H Kht . and on * lm /e s over 
 
 "ice. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. 
 
 Copyright, 1896, by LILIAN BELL. 
 Copyright, 1896, by HARPER & BROTHERS.
 
 THIS BOOK 
 
 1Ts XovinglE 2>e&fcateD to 
 
 MY SISTER 
 CLARA BELL LESSIG 
 
 WHO IS THE VERY PULSE OK MY HEART
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. THE MOTHER OF ALICE I 
 
 II. A SMALL TOWN 13 
 
 III. ALICE GOES TO WEST POINT 28 
 
 IV. ALICE AND KATE VANDEVOORT 38 
 
 V. BREAKFAST AT COZZENS S 53 
 
 VI. GUARD-MOUNTING 62 
 
 VII. DOWN FLIRTATION WALK 83 
 
 VIII. COUNTER-IRRITANTS 103 
 
 IX. THE CHILD PROBLEM 121 
 
 X. ON THE BOAT-HOUSE STEPS 136 
 
 XI. THE BATTLE OF STOCKBRIDGE iCo 
 
 XII. THE COPELAND TERRACE 176 
 
 XIII. ALICE S WEDDING-DAY 189 
 
 XIV. AT FORT HAMILTON 200 
 
 XV. THE FORK IN THE ROAD 216 
 
 XVI. INTO SILENCE 230
 
 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 THE MOTHER OF ALICE 
 
 IT was written in the outlines of Mrs. Copeland s 
 nose that she was a Code of Public Morals, which 
 you would do well to investigate and live by. So 
 remarkable was this eloquent feature that no de 
 scription could bring it before you, no portrait do 
 it full justice, because it shifted its position, not 
 upon her face pray do not misunderstand but 
 in its attitude towards the world. It needed not 
 the cold grayness of her near-set eyes to accentu 
 ate its standard of Self, for if you could put your 
 hand over her eyes, still you never would think of 
 asking that nose for anything. No ill-clad, des 
 perate man would beg her to visit his sick wife ; no 
 lost child ask her the way home. Had she been a 
 man it would have been the nose of a money-get 
 ter, a money-lender, a usurer.
 
 2 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 The peculiar thing about it was that it had no 
 salient points by which to describe it. You could 
 not recall her to a friend by referring to her nose, 
 for it was neither hooked nor retrousse, but once 
 you saw it you never forgot it. It meant so much 
 of what had happened, and presaged so clearly 
 what would happen. It was neither large nor thin 
 nor high, and yet it was all three, but so cunningly 
 were these attributes combined that you noticed 
 without speaking of it. The nostrils were not 
 thin to show sensitiveness. They were not thick. 
 They were shapeless. And in a nose plainly in 
 tended by Nature to be pointed, there was an un 
 expected broadness in the end, which meant suf 
 ficiency unto itself, and a determined belief in the 
 supremacy of her Ego over the Egoes of everybody 
 else in the world. Her nose challenged your pedi 
 gree on the spot. 
 
 If you had your own life to live, and your own 
 view of how to live it, Mrs. Copeland s nose be 
 came most annoying. There is a virtue so blatant 
 that it becomes a vice. Hers was of that order. 
 You felt that you ought to adopt it and that she 
 thought so too, and that if you were in her family 
 she would make you. 
 
 After one critical look at her nose you knew why 
 George Copeland went to West Point when his 
 father hoped he would be a lawyer. You knew
 
 THE MOTHER OF ALICE 3 
 
 why Alice Copeland, having been brought up by 
 her mother, loved her father the best. You knew 
 why the poor sometimes refused to accept blankets 
 from her, which entitled her to order their whole 
 future lives to suit herself. You knew why beggars 
 occasionally threw her bread back in her face. 
 You knew why she never gave generously, palms 
 outward, but always with her hands turned in. 
 You knew why, when she sent a sick friend a 
 potted plant, she asked her to return the pot; or if 
 she sent her jelly, she asked her to return the 
 glass. You knew why she always walked to church 
 on Sundays, rain or shine, with her black kid 
 hands crossed over one another, her whole attitude 
 that of an unrecognized martyr, her stiff skirts 
 breathing the Pharisee s prayer. And if you were 
 a weak-minded person, and Mrs. Copeland s way 
 on a rainy Sunday lay by your house, you knew 
 why you altered your feeble intention of staying at 
 home, and why you went to church too. 
 
 Yet nobody ever discovered all this except Kate 
 Vandevoort, who gave this description to Mollie 
 Overshine after her first interview. But then Kate 
 was frivolous. Everybody who did not know her 
 said so. 
 
 This morning all that you could see of Judge 
 Copeland across the breakfast-table was the Phila 
 delphia Press. Undoubtedly he was behind it, for
 
 4 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 no paper, no matter how stiff its policy, could have 
 sat up there alone. Besides, on either side of its 
 outstretched pages you could see the judge s fin 
 gers, one of which wore an amethyst ring, with the 
 crest of the Copelands embedded in it in tiny dia 
 monds. 
 
 Mrs. Copeland sat opposite, behind the fat sil 
 ver coffee urn, whose polished convex sides trans 
 formed her narrow, aristocratic countenance into 
 an impertinent cartoon. It turned her long nose 
 into the squat feature of a South African, and broad 
 ened her dignified mouth daringly. If that urn 
 had not belonged to the Copelands for generations, 
 Mrs. Copeland never would have tolerated the im 
 pudence of the caricature. As it was, she never 
 permitted the butler to stand where he could ob 
 tain this view of her. She had been known to dis 
 miss a maid without a moment s warning because 
 upon first catching this glimpse of her new mis 
 tress in the coffee-urn she had burst out laughing, 
 and, flinging her apron over her head, had rushed 
 from the room in confusion. If Mrs. Copeland 
 had possessed a sense of humor she might have 
 forgiven the unfortunate creature. But the out 
 rage to her sacred dignity was so great that it was 
 only partially wiped out by ordering the poor 
 maid s trunk set outside the gate in a pouring rain. 
 She never knew that the judge quietly paid for the
 
 THE MOTHER OF ALICE 5 
 
 ruined clothes and a month s wages besides. And 
 it was better so. 
 
 On one side of the table sat Alice Copeland. 
 You would not consider her face unusual until you 
 knew her. Then you wondered how she came to 
 be so pretty. Her mother never realized how she 
 absorbed Alice s personality. She still regarded 
 her as a child. 
 
 Opposite to her, on the other side of the table, 
 her younger brother squirmed. Gifford s years 
 are of no importance. He was at the age when 
 boys wriggle. George, the older boy, was at West 
 Point, and breakfast was half over before little 
 Elsie, long-legged, thin, and sallow, came in, with a 
 martyred expression, and sat down without greet 
 ing any one. Mrs. Copeland permitted her to do 
 this because she was shy. As a result, her man 
 ners were always atrocious. 
 
 " I see by the paper," said the judge, cheerfully, 
 looking over the top of it, "that I have been ap 
 pointed on the Board of Visitors to West Point." 
 
 The look of quiet pleasure faded from his face 
 at his wife s distinct silence, and an anxious shade 
 crossed it. 
 
 "That will be pleasant, I think, for then I can 
 see George." He put forth this remark as one who 
 was accustomed to apologize, not only for himself, 
 but for existing circumstances.
 
 6 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 Still no reply. Mrs. Copeland s knife grated 
 harshly through her toast, then slipped and struck 
 her plate. A faint flush suffused her face, the un 
 mistakable flush of displeasure. 
 
 " Are you pleased, Mary ?" 
 
 "I do not like to be informed of your move 
 ments through the columns of the newspapers," 
 she said, icily. 
 
 "But that was only my way of telling you, 
 dear. I thought it would be a little surprise." 
 
 " I do not like surprises." 
 
 " But I only did it for a jest." 
 
 " I do not like jests." 
 
 The judge s fine ruddy countenance paled a lit 
 tle. He stirred his coffee, eying it absently. " I 
 would have told you if I myself had known it 
 sooner," he said, looking up with a smile meant 
 to propitiate her. 
 
 " This cannot be the first you have heard of it," 
 she said, refusing his glance. 
 
 " No, but it is the first I knew of the appoint 
 ment. I only knew that my name had been 
 suggested." 
 
 " I think I might have been trusted with so im 
 portant a piece of news." 
 
 The judge colored at her sarcastic emphasis. 
 
 " I know it is not much of an honor, dear, but 
 you know I only accept these things on your ac-
 
 THE MOTHER OF ALICE 7 
 
 count. I don t care for them myself. I would 
 much rather attend to my flowers and stay quietly 
 at home with you. You are my greatest attrac 
 tion." 
 
 " That is right ! Make me feel how much of 
 your comfort you sacrifice for me," she said, ig 
 noring the little compliment which many a woman 
 would have hugged to her heart all day. 
 
 " Oh, my dear wife, I did not mean it that way. 
 Pray pardon me. You surely could not think me 
 so rude as to insinuate that anything I do for your 
 pleasure is a sacrifice." 
 
 She compressed her thin lips without replying. 
 
 " Who makes these appointments, father?" asked 
 Alice. 
 
 " The President appoints the visitors at large, 
 and the Senate and House each appoints some of 
 its members." 
 
 " It is very nice, I think, to be selected by the 
 President, to have him reach down into private 
 life in that way, and let you put a ringer in the 
 government pie. It makes you feel so American." 
 
 "And how else could one possibly feel when one 
 is an American ?" asked Mrs. Copeland, who was 
 of Scotch descent. 
 
 " One can feel any nationality here in America, 
 when everybody has more liberty than native-born 
 Americans," said Alice.
 
 8 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 Mrs. Copeland frowned, and Alice and her fa 
 ther exchanged sympathetic glances. 
 
 " I thought of taking you with me," he said to 
 his daughter, with all a man s unwisdom as to when 
 to broach a subject. 
 
 "Alice cannot go," said her mother. 
 
 The girl s face flashed and drooped in silence 
 under these two sentences. She knew better than 
 to urge or coax. 
 
 " I thought perhaps she might like it," said the 
 judge, dubiously. 
 
 " It makes no difference whether she would like 
 it if I think it unwise for her to go." 
 
 " But I thought it was time she began to see a 
 little of the world," pursued the judge, anxious to 
 vindicate his wisdom in the eyes of his wife. " She 
 is eighteen. You were married at that age." 
 
 " I think it hardly chivalrous of you to remind 
 me that I have a daughter as old as I was when I 
 was married," said Mrs. Copeland, biting her words 
 off with great distinctness. " You have an excel 
 lent way of reminding me that I am getting old. 
 My mirror, however, anticipates the courtesy of my 
 husband." 
 
 " Oh, my dear love, you misunderstood me. To 
 me you are just as young and lovely as on our 
 wedding-day, and Alice here is a surprise, a curious 
 jest of Time. Alice, you must shorten your frocks.
 
 THE MOTHER OF ALICE 9 
 
 It certainly is a mistake for me to have a grown 
 daughter and a wife who looks even younger." 
 
 " You will see George in his uniform, Alice, if 
 father takes you to West Point, and they have 
 dress parade every afternoon, and all the cadets 
 carry guns, and their mothers aren t there to ask 
 em if they are loaded," put in Gifford, with a mu 
 tinous look at his mother. She smiled at this, for 
 he was her idol, but she would not trust him even 
 with the picture of a gun, much to his disgust. 
 
 " Alice is not going to West Point," she said. 
 But it was a gentler tone, and every one s counte 
 nance brightened. Even the butler stepped more 
 briskly. He was used to this sort of thing, how 
 ever. He had been with the Copelands twelve 
 years. 
 
 The judge, although scrupulously careful about 
 his diet, had dyspepsia. Perhaps this was because 
 he went through with a good deal at his meals be 
 sides eating, particularly at breakfast, which was 
 a pity. Breakfast is bad enough in itself, without 
 any one selecting that unfortunate time to be par 
 ticularly disagreeable. 
 
 " Oh, let her go, mother ! Let them both go, 
 and we will stay at home together. Or, no you 
 take me to Philadelphia. You promised, because 
 I had the measles. Now do !" cried the real diplo 
 mat of the family, scrambling from his chair and
 
 10 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 rushing up to her. He trod upon her dress, but 
 she did not push him away. 
 
 " I ll see about it," she said. 
 
 "That means that you can go, Alice," he cried. 
 "It always means that, when she says she will see 
 about it." 
 
 Alice smiled without speaking. 
 
 "I ll go to Philadelphia, too," said little Elsie, 
 suddenly. 
 
 Gifford s face clouded. Alice shook her head 
 at him imperceptibly, and although he knew that 
 Elsie s going would spoil everything for him, he 
 smiled at her bravely. 
 
 "You are not well enough, Elsie," said Mrs. 
 Copeland. " You look sallow. I think you ought 
 not to have got up this morning." 
 
 Elsie stopped eating, and refused her third waf 
 fle. She was the sort of child whom you could 
 make ill by telling her she looked so. 
 
 " I am ill, but I want to go," she whimpered. 
 
 Everybody looked up anxiously. 
 
 "Let her go, mother," said Gifford. "She ll 
 have hysterics if you don t." 
 
 " Very well. You can go, Elsie. The poor child 
 is able to take so few pleasures !" sighed Mrs. Cope- 
 land. Elsie s face, which had brightened at the 
 prospect of Philadelphia, drew down to a proper 
 degree of martyrdom at her mother s last words.
 
 THE MOTHER OF ALICE II 
 
 She had everything in the world she wanted, yet 
 she was always referred to as "poor little Elsie 
 Copeland." Alas, to waste the heavenly gift of 
 pity upon the carefully suffering rich ! 
 
 " I am afraid the noise and crowd of the city 
 will frighten my little bird/ said Mrs. Copeland, 
 " and make her cry." 
 
 " No, it won t," said Elsie. 
 
 Perhaps it will not be anticipating too much to 
 chronicle at this point that Elsie went with them, 
 and began to cry in the train, so that by the time 
 they were to begin the excursion which was Gif- 
 ford s reward, Elsie was in strong hysterics, and 
 had to be put to bed. Gifford spent the day with 
 his little nose flattened against the hotel window, 
 gazing into the street and winking back his tears. 
 But he was growing used to it. Elsie always spoiled 
 things for everybody wherever she went. 
 
 When Gifford and Alice were alone, after break 
 fast, Gifford seized her hand, saying in an under 
 tone : 
 
 " I ll make her let you go to West Point, because 
 you never told her that I went in swimming on Sat 
 urday. You said you were going to, but you didn t. 
 That s just like a girl. And I ll make her let you 
 and father both go." 
 
 " Perhaps you can t," said Alice, in a spiritless 
 voice. " I couldn t."
 
 12 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 " Ho ! don t you know I can make her do any 
 thing ? That is, anything except let me have any 
 fun with guns and things. If I were father, I d 
 make her let me have a gun. He says I am old 
 enough." 
 
 "Make her!" said Alice, aghast. "Nobody 
 ever makes mother do anything. You oughtn t to 
 speak so." 
 
 " Ho ! you re only a girl," said Gifford, scorn 
 fully, which incontestable fact Alice did not at 
 tempt to disprove.
 
 II 
 
 A SMALL TOWN 
 
 STOCKBRIDGE, Pennsylvania, is situated on the 
 Delaware River. It was an old town even on the 
 day when Alice Copeland was declared old enough 
 to see a little of the world outside its narrow 
 limits, and that was soon after the war, whose 
 echoes were still reverberating in women s ears, 
 and whose ragged wounds were still bleeding in 
 women s hearts. In church the black-robed figures 
 in mourning were silent witnesses of the grief and 
 losses which Time had not yet wiped out. The 
 quiet of the girl s life in conservative old Stock- 
 bridge had been rendered even more absolute for 
 this reason, and her education had gone on with 
 out a break caused by anything more exciting 
 than a game of croquet in the morning or a game 
 of whist in the evening. 
 
 A small town in the East is as different from a 
 small town in these later days in the West as 
 black is from white. Their chief point of resem-
 
 14 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 blance is that everybody knows everybody s else 
 affairs. Otherwise let no one confuse the two. 
 
 In the West the broad open streets given by 
 the generosity of the never-ending prairies, are 
 symbolic of the town s radical hospitality. In the 
 East the narrow, thrifty streets, jammed in between 
 the hills and the sea, indicate the town s con 
 servative selection of guests. In the West every 
 thing is new, nobody was born there, and the 
 graveyards are fresh and small and bustling. In 
 the East everybody was born there, everything is 
 old, and the graveyards are large and stately and 
 silent. In the West there is freshly turned sod 
 and there are miles of barbed- wire fences. In 
 the East there are stone walls and ivy and green 
 mould and lichens. 
 
 In the West nobody knows who your grandfather 
 was. In the East everybody knew your great grand 
 father. In the West to hustle is to be great. In 
 the East everybody has time to be slow, and haste 
 is inelegant. The provincialism of the West is 
 uncouth and broad. The provincialism of the 
 East is maddeningly narrow. The innate feeling 
 of a young man from a small Western town that 
 he is only one of a tremendous mass of humanity 
 and that in order to be individualized he must 
 boisterously assert himself, that because his family 
 name is unknown in the great city he must shout
 
 A SMALL TOWN 15 
 
 it in your ear and begin each argument with the 
 premise that he is just as good as anybody, springs 
 from the nature of the new West. This newness 
 largely consists of a broad, democratic brother 
 hood, which evidences itself in servants insisting 
 upon being called " help " and upon dining with the 
 family. In a town of the same size in the East, 
 caste is recognized from the ancient order of things. 
 The banker s son who goes to New York states his 
 name modestly and expects it to be known. Very 
 likely it is. If not, he is neither hurt nor offended. 
 His place in the economy of the universe is secure 
 even if a few do not know him. He goes on about 
 his business quietly. It never would occur to him 
 to insist that he was "as good as you are" prob 
 ably because, in his secret heart, very quietly and 
 elegantly, he thinks himself much better! Both 
 young fellows, being Americans, are at heart 
 gentlemen. Their manners alone betray the dif 
 ference in their environment, and neither is to 
 blame. Both are creatures of circumstance and 
 the natural product of their respective civiliza 
 tions. 
 
 Because Alice Copeland had lived in the small 
 town of Stockbriclge all her life was no reason 
 why she was provincial in the Western acceptation 
 of the term. Her provincialism she inherited 
 quite naturally from her mother, and it only took
 
 l6 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 the mild form of a feeling of indifference to all 
 the world except Stockbridge and Philadelphia. 
 The names of the two towns may differ in various 
 Eastern States, but their tolerance rarely gets be 
 yond two, and when it does, it skips over to Lon 
 don and Paris. It never, for instance, comes to 
 include three their own, New York, and Boston, 
 or their own, Philadelphia, and New York. For 
 most Eastern people the trinity does not exist. 
 They have fallen into a certain geographical uni- 
 tarianism. 
 
 If Alice was narrow, it was a very gentle narrow 
 ness, neither obstinate nor froward. She was a 
 Scotch Presbyterian because her mother was. 
 Everybody knows that the Giffords of Philadelphia 
 have always been Scotch Presbyterians. Alice 
 never discussed the matter, but she believed in 
 election and predestination, and honestly thought 
 that no man could be saved unless he were equally 
 firm in that faith, and safe within the fold of the 
 Presbyterian church, with his name written upon 
 the church-books in ink. Such simple, iron con 
 viction admitted of no discussion. 
 
 Stockbridge had reason to be proud of one or two 
 of its distinctions, which set it apart from its fellows. 
 It boasted no theatre, but it had nine churches. 
 Of course the Scotch Presbyterian was the most 
 prosperous, because the Copelands belonged there.
 
 A SMALL TOWN 17 
 
 Unsaved Baptists and Methodists, with their less 
 handsome edifices, sometimes shook their heads 
 over the luxuries of the Presbyterians, and smiled 
 to think what old John Knox would have said to 
 their cushions and velvet hangings and choir. But 
 they never mentioned these things to Mrs. Cope- 
 land. Somehow Mrs. Copeland s nose did not in 
 vite impertinent home thrusts like these. But the 
 truth of it was that this unusual spectacle of a 
 rich church in those times was grounded in the 
 same fundamental reasons which made the Cope- 
 land family unusual in other respects. Mrs. Cope- 
 land s Scotch blood made her give steadily to her 
 church, and the judge s French blood caused him, 
 if he gave at all, to give lavishly. 
 
 But there were counteracting influences which 
 kept down the pride of the people in the godli 
 ness and chastity of their institutions, one of 
 which was the constant illness of the inhabitants. 
 These ailments seldom ended fatally. Indeed peo 
 ple died quite as often of old age or railroad acci 
 dents in Stockbridge as anywhere else, but surely 
 no town could boast such varied chronic complaints, 
 which just gently stirred people s sympathy to a 
 healthy activity and gave them an excuse for vis 
 iting, as Stockbridge. Nearly everybody who was 
 full-grown, and there were also quite a goodly num 
 ber of non-dangerous infantile disorders, had his
 
 l8 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 own private malady, which was as distinctive and 
 peculiarly his own, and as unavailable to others, as 
 his silver door-plate. Indeed, for one family to lap 
 over into another family s complaint without add 
 ing a complication which made it individual would 
 have been regarded as impertinent a trespass upon 
 sacred privacy as for a man to copy his neighbor s 
 grave decoration in the church-yard. 
 
 On the evening of the day when Alice s visit to 
 West Point was trembling in the balance a small 
 excitement took place in the visit of Colonel and 
 Mrs. Christopher Overshine. 
 
 The Overshines were next in importance to the 
 Copelands, but just now the Overshines were in a 
 position to cast a lustre by their presence upon 
 even the Copelands. Mrs. Overshine, knowing the 
 importance of having a piece of news like a divorce 
 almost in their immediate family, for John Vancle- 
 voort was her own second cousin, had held aloof 
 from everybody, even from Mrs. Copeland, to whom 
 her friends always told everything first, as became 
 her station, for something like ten days, much to 
 Mrs. Copeland s secret annoyance. Outside gossip 
 was scarce, of course, in a town like Stockbridge, 
 where nothing ever happened. Still Mrs. Copeland 
 thought there was no sense in Mrs. Overshine s 
 acting as if she were the ark of the covenant just 
 because she was in the inner circle of a celebrated
 
 A SMALL TOWN 19 
 
 New York divorce case. And when on Sunday 
 Mrs. Overshine went so far as to keep her veil 
 down all during the sermon, as if being related 
 to the Vandevoorts made her sacred, and after 
 wards made her way out of church to her carriage 
 with her head down, speaking to nobody, Mrs. 
 Copeland s grenadier spirit actually chafed under 
 the restraint which Christianity imposed. 
 
 Now, however, the Overshines were coming up 
 the walk. Mrs. Copeland, knowing, of course, that 
 this was Mrs. Overshine s first visit since the details 
 of the divorce came, forgave her impertinence of 
 Sunday, and even felt a sort of respect for the 
 coup d etat which had made the presence of Mrs. 
 Overshine of more importance than that of any 
 other woman in Stockbridge. 
 
 It was a pleasure to see Judge Copeland greet 
 his guests. After you had taken the colorless fin 
 gers of Mrs. Copeland, it was like floating out into 
 the Gulf Stream to look into his keen blue eyes and 
 to see him bend over your hand and to hear his 
 courtly, " Good-day, madam." 
 
 The Copeland house was colonial, and set well 
 back on a handsome terrace fronting the river. 
 From all the windows you could look down upon 
 the sinuous and tricky Delaware winding its indo 
 lent way to the sea. Indeed, as if to accommodate so 
 influential a family as the Copelands, it even made
 
 20 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 a gracious bend, and wandered past the dining- 
 room windows, so that from all over the house 
 you had the loveliest view of its friendly ways. 
 
 Colonel Overshine limped to the window. 
 
 " The old Delaware is quite high just now, Judge. 
 It doesn t look as though it would ever get so low 
 that the dust would blow off it." 
 
 " No, no ; it does not. It looks to me as though 
 it were deep enough to float the Kennebunk. It is 
 a great pity our river is not navigable up here." 
 
 " You are right. It would straighten out a good 
 deal of that snarl about freight rates if the river 
 would step in and say, Here, use me. " 
 
 "It would so. How is your knee, Colonel? 
 This damp weather give you an extra twinge now 
 and then ?" 
 
 " Oh yes. But I am getting used to it. You 
 can get used to anything, you know, Judge. A man 
 could get used to hanging if he were hanged every 
 day." 
 
 " Bad place to have a ball, Colonel. Never fails 
 to leave a stiff knee. John Feversham you know 
 Feversham who was colonel of the Thirteenth Rhode 
 Island and is now captain in the regular army ? 
 he had a stiff knee for two years, but he got rid of 
 it in some way. He s all right now." 
 
 "Gad, I wish I knew how he did it," said Colo 
 nel Overshine, sitting down, his lame leg stretched
 
 A SMALL TOWN 21 
 
 out stiffly before him. " I hear about these mar 
 vellous cures, but I never see them. Every once in 
 a while me wife discovers a sure cure for a bald 
 head. But look at mine. Me two complaints are 
 a bald head and a lame leg, and I expect to die in 
 full possession of both of them." 
 
 The maid entered with a tray. Mrs. Copeland, 
 being a total abstainer, never served wine to her 
 guests, but there was sure to be lemonade and co- 
 coanut cake in abundance. 
 
 " And she began to behave badly soon after 
 they were married," Mrs. Overshine was saying. 
 
 Both men forgot what they were talking about 
 and listened. 
 
 " Me wife s cousin, John Vandevoort," murmured 
 Colonel Overshine. 
 
 " I have no patience with John that he did not 
 take her in hand at once," said Mrs. Copeland, 
 who loved to direct other people s families. 
 
 " Yes ; but you .know John. He is too gentle and 
 lovely to take a fly in hand, let alone that woman, 
 who, as you know, is a wonderfully attractive creat 
 ure when she wants to be ; accomplished, clever, 
 sings well, and they say she has written a book." 
 
 Mrs. Copeland threw up both hands. " Poor 
 John !" she said. " Is it published ?" 
 
 " No ; and it may never be, now." 
 
 Mrs. Copeland gave a sigh of relief. Things
 
 22 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 were very bad indeed with poor John Vandevoort, 
 but not as bad as they might be. 
 
 " She is perfectly well and strong, I believe," 
 said Mrs. Copeland, " so John has not had illness 
 to contend with." 
 
 " Oh no ; she has some trouble which causes her 
 to go into hysterics every time she loses her temper. 
 She gets violent at times. John says he thinks her 
 mind is affected." 
 
 "Mind!" said Mrs. Copeland. "Temper! I 
 know her. I saw her when I went to New York 
 to hear Sontag. She weighed nearly two hundred 
 pounds last winter, if I am any judge of weight 
 from seeing a woman in so shameless an evening 
 dress as she wore." 
 
 " I think so too. If John only had made a stand 
 when they were first married ! He says he couldn t. 
 When he told me of some of her tantrums I said 
 to him, John, a good shaking would do her good. 
 And he said, Cousin Mollie, she is the mother of 
 my children. Now you know I couldn t say a 
 word after that." 
 
 " Children ? I thought there was only one." 
 
 " No, two ; Frances and Margaret Peggy, they 
 call her." 
 
 " What will be done with them ?" 
 
 " John says I am to have them for a time." 
 
 " And bring them here ?"
 
 A SMAL1 TOWN 23 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 Mrs. Copeland cleared her throat in a pleased 
 way. She was glad she was going to see some of 
 this trying and sad affair. 
 
 "Where is Alice?" asked Mrs. Overshine. 
 
 Mrs. Copeland eyed her sharply, knowing that 
 Mrs. Overshine knew and was overjoyed at the 
 knowledge that Alice was out with Frank Over- 
 shine. Mrs. Overshine only wanted to make Mrs. 
 Copeland admit it. 
 
 " She went to the archery meeting, I believe." 
 
 " No, the Archery Club meets on Friday. This 
 is only Tuesday." 
 
 " Oh, then it must have been the Canoe Club." 
 
 " Did she go alone ?" 
 
 " No, Ellen St. Francis went with her." 
 
 " And did those two girls go alone ?" 
 
 " No, one of the young boys in the neighborhood 
 went with them." 
 
 Mrs. Overshine retired from the field, and rocked 
 her chair in exasperated silence. 
 
 " That is a handsome ring you have on, Judge," 
 said Colonel Overshine. " Have I ever seen it 
 before?" 
 
 " I think not. My wife gave it to me on my last 
 birthday," said the judge, taking it off and handing 
 it to him. 
 
 " Very fine stone. What is the design ?"
 
 24 THE UNDER MDE OF THINGS 
 
 Judge Copeland leaned back in his chair, set his 
 finger tips together, and looked at the ceiling. Mrs. 
 Copeland laid down her fancy work. She was 
 never without either her fancy work or her Bible. 
 If laid out in a straight line, she must have done 
 miles of fancy work. If read in a straight line, she 
 must have read miles in her Bible. 
 
 She rested her long slim hands, glittering with 
 rings, upon her crewel-work which in after-years 
 passed through the various stages of fashionable 
 fancy work, through silk knitting, tatting,card-board 
 embroidery, and from that into centrepieces and 
 drawn-work and Colonel Overshine looked towards 
 her. Mrs. Overshine went on rocking rather aggres 
 sively. She knew exactly what Mrs. Copeland was 
 about to tell. She had heard it before, dozens of 
 times. She knew just how she would tell it, how 
 deprecating she would look at the mention of the 
 count s name, as who should say, " Of course we are 
 not to blame for having a count among our ances 
 tors," and she knew how she would pause and lower 
 her voice before mentioning the duke s name, for 
 here the narrative grew really sacred. She knew it 
 all, and followed it word by word as Mrs. Copeland 
 began. 
 
 "That ring, Colonel, contains the crest of the 
 Copeland family. Copeland is French, you know, 
 and was originally Copelin. The descent of the
 
 A SMALL TOWN 25 
 
 judge s branch of the family is very direct through 
 the Comte de Copelin, clear back to the Due de 
 Copelin, his most famous ancestor." 
 
 Mrs. Copeland never went further back than the 
 Due de Copelin, for if she had done so she must 
 inevitably have soiled her clean Presbyterian lips 
 by the admission that the famous duke s mother 
 had been a court favorite under Louis XIV., who 
 had created her Duchesse de Copelin, and laid the 
 foundation of the Copeland fortune by the presenta 
 tion of the estates, which had since, however, passed 
 into other hands and bear another name. 
 
 She could not be expected to admit that the 
 Copeland family crest, embroidered by her own 
 fingers upon every piece of linen in the house, from 
 sheets and table-cloths down to doilies and hand 
 kerchiefs, had had its origin in such a blot upon 
 the family honor. 
 
 " Very fine," said Colonel Overshine. 
 
 "We have records," proceeded Mrs. Copeland, 
 with dignity, " of the military exploits of these 
 famous men, especially those of the Due de Cope 
 lin." 
 
 " Me wife has all the ancestors in our family," 
 said Colonel Overshine, with ill-placed jocularity ; 
 " all I know of mine is that me grandfather was 
 hanged for being a pirate." 
 
 It is an old joke, but one very dear to the heart
 
 26 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 of the American man whose wife is interested in 
 family trees. 
 
 Mrs. Copeland colored with displeasure. Mrs. 
 Overshine smiled. The colonel s grandfather had 
 been governor of Rhode Island. Judge Copeland, 
 although relieved to have the oft-repeated narrative 
 broken off, looked anxiously at his wife, but she 
 had taken up her fancy work again, and had retired 
 from the conversation. She turned her attention 
 back to Mrs. Overshine. 
 
 " What will become of Emily after she gets her 
 divorce ?" 
 
 " I am sure I don t know." 
 
 " How distressing that she left him and now sues 
 on the ground of desertion." 
 
 "Very." 
 
 " Will he contest it ?" 
 
 " I think not." 
 
 "He could, though," put in Colonel Overshine. 
 " He has plenty of grounds against her, but he will 
 not. He says he did not marry her to take advan 
 tage of a woman s weakness. It is exasperating to 
 hear him talk. All he wants is to have the custody 
 of the children. She is capricious and utterly irre 
 sponsible. One week she loves them to death, and 
 the next week they never see her. They are the 
 sweetest, cleverest, worst children I ever saw ; keen 
 as razors, honest as the day just like John own
 
 A SMALL TOWN 27 
 
 up to anything they have done, and the older one, 
 Frances, is as pretty as a picture." 
 
 Just then Gifford Copeland burst into the room. 
 
 " Softly, my son," said the judge. 
 
 " Good-evening, Mrs. Overshine. There are two 
 children and a lady at your house. They have just 
 come in on the train. And they want to see you 
 immediately!" 
 
 Mrs. Overshine rose hastily. 
 
 " I wonder if it can be Emily ?" said Mrs. Cope- 
 land. 
 
 " It would be just like her to come into our house 
 with her family, and fight our cousin, her husband, 
 from under our roof," growled Colonel Overshine. 
 
 " Let me know if it is Emily," said Mrs. Cope- 
 land, at the door. 
 
 " Very well. Perhaps I ll send you word by one 
 of the young boys in the neighborhood, " said Mrs. 
 Overshine, sweetly. 
 
 Mrs. Copeland smiled. She always smiled when 
 another woman showed temper.
 
 Ill 
 
 ALICE GOES TO WEST POINT 
 
 IN some way, Gifford had managed it as he said 
 he would, and Alice was going to West Point. 
 
 Gifford and his sister were on more friendly 
 terms than many small boys and their older sisters. 
 There was an open-hearted, chivalrous generosity 
 about Gifford which would make his way through life 
 quite easy, and there was a gentleness about Alice 
 which appealed to the native manliness in Gifford, 
 and made him want to "look out for Alice." He 
 considered her just the kind of a girl to be imposed 
 upon, and, young as he was, he already had begun 
 to stand between her and her mother, who was the 
 one who profited most acutely by Alice s sweetness. 
 
 Gifford came out to the carriage-step to see them 
 off. Mrs. Copeland was up-stairs with a headache, 
 a dark room, and smelling-salts. 
 
 It was so early in the morning the horses tossed 
 their heads impatiently and stamped their slim 
 hoofs, for it was a glorious day.
 
 ALICE GOES TO WEST POINT 2g 
 
 " Are you all right, sis ?" asked Gifford, helping 
 her in. 
 
 " Yes, thank you, dear. Don t be disappointed 
 that mother is too ill to take you to Philadelphia." 
 
 " Ho, we ll go before you get back. Don t you 
 worry about that. Good-bye, good-bye. Have a 
 good time, and don t you come home until you 
 want to, Alice. I ll take care of mother for you. 
 Good-bye !" 
 
 He kept shouting after the carriage until it was 
 lost to view around a bend. 
 
 The river road to the station is so beautiful that 
 it hurts you. It makes your throat ache and your 
 eyes smart, and you have to swallow hard and 
 often, for the beauty of it goes to your heart. 
 
 The Delaware was at her best, high and proud, 
 yet full of a tender humility under the caresses of 
 the morning, like a proud woman conscious of her 
 own beauty, yet willing to bend her pride to gen 
 tleness under the influence of love. 
 
 Father and daughter drove nearly all the way in 
 silence, conscious of each other s fulness of heart, 
 and unwilling to break the spell by trivialities. 
 Sometimes they looked at each other and smiled, 
 and once, when they made a sudden turn which 
 flashed into view a long, narrow island almost cov 
 ered with green grass, like a great emerald marquise 
 ring set in the centre of the river, Alice slipped
 
 30 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 her little gloved hand into her father s with sympa 
 thetic understanding. 
 
 Pacing up and down the station platform, wait 
 ing for the same train they were to take, Alice saw 
 a tall young woman, whose black veil, dropping 
 from her little round hat, concealed her features, 
 and only revealed at the back a wealth of auburn 
 hair, dressed in the prevailing fashion, resembling 
 a peck measure. Her waist was the smallest, her 
 crinoline the largest, her skirts the most volumi 
 nous that Alice ever had seen. Her whole costume 
 had "New York" stamped as unmistakably upon 
 it as were the modest folds of Alice Copeland s 
 labelled " Stockbridge, Pennsylvania." She was tall 
 and sweeping, and Alice thought she never had 
 seen anything so graceful as the way she walked 
 and managed her skirts. Alice watched her all the 
 way to New York, for without being nervous or 
 vivacious, she was always moving always doing 
 something worth looking at. Everybody else was 
 looking at her too, for although her veil was still 
 down, she had the assured manners of a beauty, 
 and she seemed to exercise a certain fascination 
 upon every one in the car who sat within range of 
 her. 
 
 Her own carriage was waiting for her, and she 
 gave no directions, only nodded to the footman in 
 answer to his salute, stepped in ; the door slammed,
 
 ALICE GOES TO WEST POINT 31 
 
 the man sprang upon the box, folded his arms 
 and they were off. 
 
 Alice actually sighed as she disappeared. She 
 was foolish and young and still had her ideals. Oh, 
 lovely age, no matter when it comes, when we can 
 watch a fellow-traveller under a veil and fancy her 
 beautiful enough to love and believe her good 
 enough to follow to the ends of the earth ! 
 
 Keep it, Alice Copelancl, as long as you can. It 
 means much more than an idle infatuation. It 
 means youth, and innocence, and unshattered ideals, 
 and the song of birds and eternal spring-time in 
 one s life. Be foolish and unwise while you can. 
 Once you lose the capacity, it never comes again. 
 Once you begin to know, you begin to hate. What 
 need have butterflies and lambs and song-birds 
 and young girls of wisdom ? 
 
 " Venus went to Minerva, and said, Teach me 
 wisdom. If I do, said Minerva, you never again 
 can be the Goddess of Love. " 
 
 Judge Copeland always went to the Astor House 
 when in New York. He had been going to the Astor 
 House for twenty-five years. He had seen it in its 
 jubilee days, before the war, when all the Southern 
 society girls spent their winters there, when it oc 
 cupied a proud position in the way of celebrated 
 beauties and aristocratic inmates. It was the ral 
 lying place for all the flower and wealth of the
 
 32 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 South, and it witnessed such scenes of gayety 
 among. first families as now only occur in country- 
 houses during the season. No hotel has ever been 
 in this respect what the Astor House was before 
 the war. It was like a great house party, with all 
 the privacy of one s own apartments, or all the 
 friendliness one chose to bestow. 
 
 Although much of its glory had departed, Alice 
 enjoyed any large hotel too much to be a captious 
 critic, nor was she one to seek after strange gods. 
 The old, the established order of things suited her 
 simple tastes better than the fashionable and newer 
 hotels to which most girls would have inclined. 
 
 After dinner they went to see Charlotte Gush- 
 man as Meg Merrilies. 
 
 Alice never forgot that night. She sat in a box 
 for the first time in her life, and lost herself so com 
 pletely in the play, and the dazzling rows of lights, 
 and the music, and the sense of being removed from 
 the people and of being in some way different from 
 all that she ever had been before, that she paid little 
 heed to the gentleman in their box a certain Sena 
 tor Cobb, from Ohio, one of their party on the 
 Board of Visitors. After one glance Alice hardly 
 looked at him. She was no judge of art ; for in 
 that one glance she decided that he might be a 
 youngish man who looked old, or an oldish man 
 who looked young.
 
 ALICE GOES TO WEST POINT 33 
 
 But Senator Cobb, so far from feeling hurt by 
 her indifference, was piqued into more acute inter 
 est in her than perhaps otherwise he might have 
 felt. The few years which had elapsed since 
 his accession to the Senate and his wife s death 
 had been filled so full of attentions from ladies pos 
 sessing three eyes their own and a weather eye, for 
 the senator s fortune was so large it was nebulous 
 that it seemed to him he always had been an 
 eligible and the recipient of this manifest interest. 
 It is so easy for one s Ego to grow accustomed to 
 spelling itself with a capital, and to forget that one s 
 old friends had hitherto always spelled it with a 
 small letter. 
 
 The truth of it was that the Cobbs, of Phoenix, 
 Ohio, were plain and simple folk. The first year in 
 Washington had killed the faithful little woman 
 who had stood shoulder to shoulder with her hus 
 band through all their unfortunate years, slaving at 
 work much too hard for her, and keeping up his 
 spirit until coal was discovered right under the very 
 mortgage, you might say, which they were trying to 
 lift. It proved to have such power of raising things 
 that it blew not only the mortgage from overhead, 
 but it lifted the Cobbs into social and political pow 
 er in Phoenix with such force that it finally landed 
 them in Washington. 
 
 Perhaps it is hardly fair, for the honor of our na-
 
 34 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 tional politics, to ascribe all this to coal for the 
 senator possessed undoubted ability, and made a 
 very good senator as senators go. But it is safe to 
 say that except for the coal Joel Cobb s abilities 
 would never have been discovered by the enthusias 
 tic citizens of Phoenix. And yet, when all is said, 
 it does not require either coal or enthusiasm or 
 ability to make of a candidate a dark horse." And 
 it was as the " dark horse " that Joel Cobb found 
 himself in the Senate. 
 
 Once in Washington, however, the coal was of 
 inestimable benefit except that the social swim 
 into which it floated them sucked down his poor 
 little adoring wife and left him a widower. 
 
 But he was not an unusual man on certain lines, 
 consequently he never knew that anything except 
 Washington life had killed her. Neither did he 
 know that she had worked too hard. Neither did 
 he know that it was her indomitable pluck and en 
 couragement that had kept a roof over their heads 
 until coal could be discovered. It was as if her grip 
 on affairs had only lasted until some one else would 
 take the helm. For when she began to rest it was 
 the beginning of the long rest. Her resting -time 
 came too late. 
 
 The senator did not know this, nor would he be 
 lieve it if he could read this veracious history, for 
 it would be a difficult as well as an unkind thing to
 
 ALICE GOES TO WEST POINT 35 
 
 dislodge the idea of his own importance, seeing that 
 he derived his chief happiness in life from fostering 
 that harmless fallacy. It would have upset his dig 
 nity and hurt his vanity to give any credit for his 
 career to the exhausted little woman who slept in 
 the graveyard at Phoenix beside her crippled boy. 
 Indeed, his most famous campaign speech contained 
 these stirring lines : 
 
 " Single-handed and alone, from a poor, unknown 
 boy following the plough day after day, season after 
 season, with no encouragement from man, woman, 
 or child, with not one hand held out to offer the 
 help I so sorely needed, poor, ignored, uncared 
 for, I, a simple farmer s lad, with only my country s 
 good at heart, dreamed great dreams of this hour, 
 and hewed my unaided way to success. (Loud 
 applause.) 
 
 " Single-handed and alone have I risen step by 
 step, with only brain and brawn to aid me. But, 
 buoyed up by the noble motto Pro bono publico, 
 I come before you at this time to lay whatever 
 wealth I may have built up, my highest powers of 
 heart and head, at my country s feet, and to serve 
 her to the best of my ability in any capacity to 
 which she may see fit to call me." (Prolonged ap 
 plause.) 
 
 It was a great speech, although, of course, this is 
 only a sample, and, perhaps, an unfair one. It was
 
 36 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 much more impressive and stirring to hear him de 
 liver it ; for there he stood before them, a living 
 example to all other poor boys who, like him, single- 
 handed and alone have hewed or are hewing their 
 way to fame and fortune with no assistance from 
 their toiling, moiling wives, if they happen to have 
 such a bit of machinery in the house. 
 
 Senator Cobb, however, possessed many of the 
 qualifications of the successful politician, one of 
 which he displayed in the tact he employed with 
 Alice Copeland on that night when lie first met 
 her. For, during the play, seeing that she was 
 absorbed, he contented himself with looking at 
 her. But at the little supper afterwards, whither 
 they betook themselves, he made himself exceed 
 ingly agreeable for an old gentleman Alice had 
 a better light on him then and she was grateful 
 to him for taking such an interest in her and her 
 simple affairs. 
 
 Had Alice been less modest or more self-con 
 scious, she might have seen that several, other than 
 Senator Cobb, fixed their eyes on the fresh-com- 
 plexioned girl in the front of the box who sat so 
 still and followed the play with such breathless in 
 terest, among them the same tall young woman 
 with auburn hair who had travelled with her from 
 Stockbridge. She watched Alice through her op 
 era-glasses, and seemed bored by her companions,
 
 ALICE GOES TO WEST POINT 37 
 
 but Alice was too far off and too much absorbed 
 to recognize her. 
 
 The next morning, just as they were leaving for 
 the boat, a great box from the florist s was sent to 
 Alice with Senator Cobb s card in it. She gave a 
 little cry of delight when she opened it. Instead 
 of roses, it was filled with spring flowers crocus 
 es, jonquils, hyacinths, lilies- of - the -valley, helio 
 trope, and mignonette. The very breath of spring 
 came with it, and rose and floated out through the 
 room. 
 
 "What a nice old gentleman!" she said to her 
 father, who was bending over the flowers scarcely 
 less enchanted than she. " But what shall I do 
 with them ?" 
 
 " Oh, we must take them with us. See how they 
 seem to watch us out of their little faces. Flow 
 ers are almost human, Alice, especially these baby 
 spring flowers. Of course we must take them." 
 
 So their way to the boat was traced by a very 
 small black man bearing a very large white box, 
 which was deposited with more care and far more 
 minute instructions than they bestowed upon their 
 luggage. Then they went on deck and leaned 
 over the railing, watching the boat put off from 
 her pier, and steam her slow way between all the 
 other craft, in the first stage of her beautiful jour 
 ney up the Hudson.
 
 IV 
 ALICE AND KATE VANDEVOORT 
 
 ELDERLY admirers with unctuous manners and 
 an oily skin can make themselves very revolting to 
 sensitive young ladies with romantic tendencies. 
 It was on this journey that the mentally dwarfing 
 fact was forced even upon Alice Copeland s unsus 
 picious nature that Senator Cobb her "nice old 
 gentleman" had sent her those flowers in the 
 guise of a suitor. This startling discovery so up 
 set Alice s usually gentle equilibrium that the love 
 ly journey was completely spoiled for her in point 
 of fact, she hardly saw it. 
 
 No one knows what the senator said to her. 
 The only evidences of her discomfort to be seen 
 were the scarlet cheeks and downcast eyes of the 
 girl while Senator Cobb was talking to her. He 
 must have given her quite plainly to understand 
 his intentions concerning her, as elderly admirers 
 with large fortunes have a little way of doing, for 
 the moment she could escape from him she hurried
 
 ALICE AND KATE VANDEVOORT 39 
 
 to his box of flowers, and, watching for a favorable 
 moment, she nerved herself to the ordeal of throw 
 ing the whole thing overboard in the wake of the 
 steamer. 
 
 Alice thought no one had seen her, for it was 
 near dusk, but a tall young woman with auburn 
 hair was sitting in the shadow and watching her 
 with amused eyes. Evidently she was clever at un 
 derstanding situations, for she clapped her gloved 
 hands softly together, and whispered " Good " under 
 her breath, and half rose as if to go to the girl, then 
 sank back in her place, shaking her head as if at 
 her own folly. 
 
 Alice Copeland was an odd girl. She could nerve 
 herself to a display of spirit like the flinging of that 
 box of flowers away, but she could not bring her 
 self to tell her father why. When he discovered 
 their loss and asked after them in much the same 
 tone of anxiety he would have used if Gifford had 
 disappeared, Alice admitted that she had thrown 
 them overboard. 
 
 " Thrown them overboard ? Why, Alice, child, 
 what is the matter with you ? Are you ill ? To 
 throw flowers overboard ! Why didn t you give 
 them to some one? Why didn t you tell me? I 
 would have removed them." 
 
 " They smelled too sweet," said Alice, with a 
 show of petulance quite foreign to her.
 
 4O THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 She looked suspiciously at her father to see if he 
 knew of any cause, but he, being a man, had seen 
 nothing. He regarded her anxiously, however, and 
 felt her hands to see if she were feverish. 
 
 Their arrival at West Point was likewise marred 
 for Alice in that George did not prove the haven 
 of refuge that she had hoped, but both he and his 
 father seemed pleased to allow Senator Cobb to 
 look after her wraps and to constitute himself her 
 escort. This willing acquiescence on their part so 
 wrought upon Alice, together with the fatuous at 
 tentions of the senator, that she lost what little self- 
 control she ordinarily possessed, and allowed her 
 anxiety to be seen plainly in her face. 
 
 That evening, when the commandant and many 
 of the cadets flocked to Cozzens s to call upon the 
 visitors, Alice was handed about from one to an 
 other of her father s friends, meeting them me 
 chanically, bowing to them like an automaton, and 
 all the time wishing herself well back in Stock- 
 bridge. She felt that she could even endure the 
 obnoxious attentions of Frank Overshine, who 
 would wear hats so large for him that they touched 
 his ears. She thought indulgently of his wide 
 mouth the kind of a mouth which always goes 
 with a frank, open countenance and that sort of a 
 hat when she compared his capabilities of being 
 snubbed into faint-heartedness with the confident
 
 ALICE AND KATE VANDEVOORT 41 
 
 smile of Senator Cobb and his deadly habit of 
 "washing his hands in invisible soap," which so 
 held Alice s eyes that she could not leave off look 
 ing at them. 
 
 She had been cornered by the senator all that 
 first evening. She had seen the gray-coated cadets 
 pass to and fro. She had met a number of her 
 brother s friends. She had answered fully fifty 
 times the question as to what kind of a journey 
 she had, with a mechanical " Very pleasant, thank 
 you," and had said "yes" to another fifty who want 
 ed to know if this was her first visit to West Point. 
 She remembered none of their names. The cadets 
 all looked alike to her. It seemed to her as though 
 there were hundreds of white duck trousers and 
 gray coats with brass buttons. She said over and 
 over that she had seen nothing of West Point, but 
 she thought she should like it very much. And the 
 young fellows who asked her these intelligent ques 
 tions were somewhat puzzled by her pleading blue 
 eyes, and it almost stirred one or two of them to 
 promise to do anything for her if she would only 
 speak out and tell them what she wanted. And 
 all the time her father and George were near by 
 and saw nothing of her distress, and all the time 
 Senator Cobb stood guard at her elbow and allowed 
 no one to displace him, until suddenly into the 
 room walked a tall young woman in a white dress
 
 42 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 with yellow roses at her belt and one against her 
 bronze hair. She seemed to know everybody, bow 
 ing and smiling with perfect ease and unconcern 
 to those who thronged around her, but moving 
 slowly yet surely to where Alice Copeland sat with 
 her wistful eyes drinking in the beauty of the new 
 comer, who finally paused just in front of her, look 
 ing down and smiling in such a frank and friendly 
 way that Alice flushed and rose to her feet and 
 smiled back at her quite as if she had known her 
 always. 
 
 Senator Cobb rose also, and stood with his hands 
 under his coat-tails and a nervous smile on his face. 
 
 " The senator will not introduce us, you see, Miss 
 Copeland, because he knows that I have come to 
 usurp his place and to talk to you myself ; but on 
 the whole, he shall be punished for monopolizing 
 you, and shall be obliged to be the means of his 
 own discomfiture, as my old black mammy used to 
 make her little children go and cut the switches 
 they presently were to be whipped with. Pray 
 present us, Mr. Senator." 
 
 She paused and looked down at Senator Cobb 
 from her greater height, and smiled brilliantly while 
 waiting with her head rather haughtily poised. 
 
 The senator recognized her attitude and flushed 
 as he said : " Delighted, I m sure. Miss Copeland, 
 allow me to present Miss Vandevoort."
 
 ALICE AND KATE VANDEVOORT 43 
 
 Miss Vandevoort took both of Alice s hands in 
 hers, and sat down beside her in the senator s chair. 
 
 " Thank you, dear Senator Cobb," she said, 
 sweetly. " Now will you go and talk to Mrs. 
 Verry and let me tell Miss Copeland who I am ?" 
 
 She looked after his retreating figure, and laughed 
 mischievously as she saw Alice s bewildered face. 
 
 " My dear," she said, leaning towards her with an 
 engaging air, " you should be a little older to under 
 stand just how deliciously malicious we two have 
 been to each other." 
 
 " Malicious ?" said Alice. " How?" 
 
 " Should you really care to know? Wouldn t it 
 be better for you to go on having life present itself 
 pictorially, or do you care for the seamy side of the 
 canvas ?" 
 
 Miss Vandevoort was watching her narrowly. She 
 knew just how much of a risk was involved in try 
 ing the intelligence of a Madonna-faced girl like 
 Alice Copeland. Too often she had drawn a blank. 
 
 But a flash of comprehension swept over Alice s 
 countenance as she said, " I want the seamy side." 
 
 " It is not beautiful, nor so innocent as the pict 
 ure side." 
 
 "But it is more interesting. It is better to know 
 it," answered Alice. 
 
 " More interesting, certainly; and better to know 
 it at my age ; hardly at yours."
 
 44 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 " But let me begin with this, anyway. Tell me 
 just how there was anything malicious in what I 
 saw," urged Alice, not quite understanding how she 
 dared to talk so freely, yet confident that her fret- 
 dom was welcome to Miss Vandevoort. 
 "You could not see below the surface?" 
 " Not at all. I am very stupid, I suppose." 
 " No, not stupid , for this was very subtle and 
 very trivial not worth a sentence of this talk ; but 
 I ll tell you if you care to know. In the first place 
 Senator Cobb had monopolized you to an extent 
 not permissible in polite society, and, in spite of 
 coming from a small town in Ohio, he was conscious 
 that he had brazened out the well-bred efforts of 
 three or four people who saw your flag of distress 
 and tried to dislodge him. Then when I came and 
 insisted, as only a woman can, and he saw defeat 
 staring him in the face, he introduced me to you, 
 instead of you to me which, as I said before, is a 
 mere bagatelle but I spiked his guns again by say 
 ing that if he would leave us I would tell you who 
 I was. Then to add insult to injury, I sent him to 
 Mrs. Verry, who paid him such marked attention 
 all last winter that people in Washington were 
 driven to wondering if her intentions were honor 
 able." 
 
 " Driven to wondering what ?" 
 
 " Oh, driven to wondering if anything would come
 
 ALICE AND KATE VANDEVOORT 45 
 
 of it. You see she is quite prononcee, and the 
 affections of such a woman as that are not to be 
 trifled with with impunity." 
 
 Alice relaxed and laughed. There was something 
 very alluring about Miss Vandevoort s daring words, 
 contrasted with her voice and manner. She seemed 
 to be amused at everything. She reviewed every 
 body in the room for Alice s benefit, telling her who 
 and what they were. Suddenly she turned to the 
 girl, whose reserve seemed completely to have van 
 ished under her raillery, and said, " Frank Over- 
 shine would have bored me to death talking of you 
 if what he said had not interested me." 
 
 "Frank Overshine?" said Alice, coloring and 
 drawing off. 
 
 " Yes. You see I know more about you than 
 you do about me. I have been in Stockbridge for 
 three days. I went clown on a queer errand. I 
 captured my brother John s children and took them 
 down to Cousin Mollie Overshine s. You know Em 
 ily is getting a divorce from John, for which Heav 
 en be praised. She had the children. John want 
 ed them. Couldn t get them. Lawyers couldn t 
 get them. Court couldn t get them. Emily is 
 sharper than a dozen of John s lawyers. I said 
 nothing, but I watched my chance, and when Emily 
 went out one day I picked up the little tots and 
 whisked them down to Stockbridge before anybody
 
 46 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 could wink. There was nobody else to do it, so I 
 did it. I always have to do things that nobody else 
 will do. The children were delighted to go with me. 
 I could have taken them to Africa they would 
 have gone. I had to send to your house to get 
 Cousin Mollie the evening I arrived, do you re 
 member?" 
 
 " I remember the evening Mrs. Overshine was at 
 our house and was sent for, but I was not there." 
 
 " True. I remember now Frank told me that he 
 had you that evening." 
 
 " But another girl was with us," said Alice, eager 
 ly, trying to disclaim young Overshine s owner 
 ship. 
 
 " So Frank said," answered Miss Vandevoort in 
 a tone so droll that Alice was obliged to smile 
 rather against her will. She disliked to make a 
 jest of anything so serious as a love affair. She 
 was very young. 
 
 " Poor Frank," sighed Miss Vandevoort in mock 
 sympathy. " He is in a very bad way. His symp 
 toms are quite aggravated. But it is a first attack." 
 
 Alice was silent with embarrassment and dis 
 pleasure. She wondered how so radiant a creature 
 as Miss Vandevoort could could talk in this 
 flippant way. It seemed to her Stockbridge sen 
 sibility almost indelicate. 
 
 " He is so hopeless about you too. How can you
 
 ALICE AND KATE VANDEVOORT 47 
 
 bring yourself to flirt with him if you mean to take 
 him in the end ?" 
 
 "Take him ?" cried Alice, hotly. " I never thought 
 of such a thing !" 
 
 " Ah, that was what I wanted to know," answered 
 Miss Vanclevoort, calmly. " I wondered if it were a 
 preferred suitor which made you treat poor Senator 
 Cobb so cavalierly." 
 
 Alice was almost ready to cry with vexation. She 
 felt as powerless to help herself with Miss Vande- 
 voort as she had with the senator. 
 
 " You are flying another signal of distress," said 
 Miss Vandevoort. " If the senator sees it he will 
 come and dislodge me." 
 
 Alice s hands flew to her scarlet cheeks in sud 
 den fear, and she stole a look around the room as 
 if to locate the senator and the nearest door. 
 
 " Look here, my dear," said Miss Vandevoort, 
 sitting up very straight and closing her fan. " Don t 
 look so wretched. Don t allow situations to over 
 power you so. You are here, and unless you rise to 
 the occasion you are going to miss all the pleasure 
 your father has tried to give you, and you are going 
 to allow these other girls to wrest the victory from 
 you which you may have if you will. Now I have 
 only been jesting with you, to try your mettle and 
 to get my own bearings. Pull yourself together and 
 get command of the situation, and I will give you
 
 48 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 the best time you ever had in your life. You will 
 have so many beaux that you won t be able to 
 manage them." 
 
 "I don t want them," said Alice, quickly. "I 
 shouldn t know what to do with them. It would 
 make me most unhappy." 
 
 " Is it so ?" said Miss Vandevoort, slowly. " Well, 
 I never thought of that possibility. I wonder what 
 would have become of me if I had been brought 
 up in Stockbridge." 
 
 " I do not like young men, said Alice. " They 
 are so so foolish. I would much rather talk to 
 you occasionally, and let the other girls triumph 
 over me if they want such a small victory as that 
 would be." 
 
 Miss Vandevoort sat looking at her fan, and only 
 nodded her head slowly in reply. Alice went on. 
 
 " Let Mrs. Verry have Senator Cobb, and let the 
 other girls have the cadets they all look bewil- 
 deringly alike to me and whenever you want me 
 to enjoy myself you come and talk to me. It is a 
 good deal to ask, but you are so kind as to say 
 that you want me to have a good time, and that is 
 what I should like best." 
 
 Miss Vandevoort looked at Alice Copeland with 
 interest. Yes, without doubt, she was the prettiest 
 girl in the room, and she had about her a little 
 well-bred air, which just missed being Quakerish
 
 ALICE AND KATE VANDEVOORT 49 
 
 by the spirited lift of her head, and just missed be 
 ing vivacious by the subduing effects of Presbyte- 
 rianism and Stockbridge, Pennsylvania. People 
 often said of this quite satisfactory combination, 
 " What a little lady Alice Copeland is." 
 
 " But you must dance to - morrow night at the 
 hop," said Miss Vandevoort. 
 
 "What hop?" 
 
 "What hop? Oh, shades of my Puritan ancestors! 
 What a bit of rural verdure it is ! Why, the graduates 
 hop the hop of the year the hop all these Balti 
 more and Washington and New York girls have come 
 up for and the hop they all think you came for." 
 
 " Well, if I go I suppose that George will dance 
 with me once or twice, and my father will take me 
 in to supper, so that is all that is necessary it is 
 all I care for," said Alice. 
 
 " But your first hop at West Point ? Why, child, 
 some girls would give their two eyes and their two 
 ears to be in your shoes." 
 
 "Would they? And do you care so much for 
 such things ? Why do you come ?" 
 
 " I ? Oh, I I come because I come because 
 because I like the army. I like to see the young 
 fellows," said Miss Vandevoort, coloring and mov 
 ing her head restlessly. 
 
 " Then you must know nearly everybody here," 
 said Alice.
 
 50 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 " I do. I know them all, I think." 
 
 "Well, are they all as much alike as they look ?" 
 
 Alice s confidential tone amused Miss Vande- 
 voort, and she laughed. 
 
 " No, indeed. Some are quite different. Some 
 are really charming. There is one whom I am es 
 pecially fond of." 
 
 Miss Vandevoort s frankness did not shock Alice 
 this time. She looked more like a goddess to the 
 girl than a woman, anyway. Alice only wondered 
 who the fortunate young fellow could be, whom 
 Miss Vandevoort would distinguish by so great a 
 compliment as to declare herself fond of him. It 
 was not that she seemed so much older either, 
 which made her speech sound perfectly proper. 
 It was more that she seemed a degree removed 
 from all the rest, and in some way privileged. She 
 had the confidence, in her daring, of an acknowl 
 edged belle, which in itself is a charm unless al 
 lowed to be stupidly prominent. Miss Vandevoort 
 seemed to have the natural art of only delicately 
 suggesting this, by the nice way in which she ap 
 peared to impart it to each one as an appeal to 
 the subtlety of his intelligence, which invited him 
 to catch this clue that she threw out and to make 
 the most of it. 
 
 " Is he here to-night ?" asked Alice, with more 
 curiosity than she yet had shown about anybody.
 
 ALICE AND KATE VANDEVOORT 51 
 
 Just then Miss Vandevoort looked up and bowed 
 to him. 
 
 " No," she said, frankly doctoring the truth for 
 the sake of the future. She held Alice s eyes with 
 hers while she made an imperceptible movement 
 of her fan, which the young man promptly obeyed. 
 As he made his way slowly towards them Miss 
 Vandevoort said to Alice : 
 
 " Now I wonder if you will prove equal to this 
 situation. Senator Cobb is becoming restless 
 under the caressing glances of the brilliant Verry, 
 and he contemplates returning to the charge here. 
 I have defended you all I can, but I will introduce 
 one of the dearest fellows on earth to you, and if 
 you are not clever enough to hold him here, Sen 
 ator Cobb will get you again, and if you let him, I 
 wash my hands of you. The best way to recom 
 mend this young man to so difficile a person as 
 yourself is to guarantee that he is different. He 
 graduates third from the head of his class and he 
 is first captain of the corps of cadets. No such colos 
 sal glory as the latter will ever come to him in after 
 years should he even become President. Ah, here 
 you are ! Captain Counselman, allow me to pre 
 sent you to Miss Copeland, the daughter of that 
 most charming man, Judge Copeland, and the 
 sister of your classmate. Probably you will not 
 be allowed to remain unmolested long, as I have
 
 52 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 had daggers driven into me by the black eyes of 
 Mr. Drake for the last ten minutes. He is even 
 now glaring at me from the doorway, so hold the 
 fort while you may, for there is no telling when 
 you may be routed by the enemy." 
 
 When Alice ventured to raise her eyes above 
 the brass buttons on his coat, he was half smiling 
 at Miss Vandevoort and half frowning at Drake. 
 Then he turned and looked down at her. 
 
 She afterwards wondered if it were that he really 
 did stand straighter than all the others, or that he 
 was taller, or that there was that look from his gray 
 eyes under their level brows, or what it was that 
 made her forget George, and her father, and Sen 
 ator Cobb and Drake, and even Miss Vandevoort, 
 and only remember that a face had come into her 
 life which would remain with her, sleeping or wak 
 ing, wherever she went, crowding everything in the 
 world into a background for just this one face 
 the face of " the dearest fellow on earth," and one 
 who was "different."
 
 V 
 BREAKFAST AT COZZENS S 
 
 MUCH to Alice s bewilderment the next morn 
 ing, as she and her father walked into breakfast, 
 she saw people bowing to her whom she had no 
 recollection of meeting and whose names were a 
 sealed book. Their table was the one farthest 
 from the door, and to reach it they had to run 
 the gantlet of the whole dining-room. 
 
 Mrs. Verry, in a brilliant scarlet dress, had the 
 first table, which commanded a fine view of the 
 door, and gave her an excellent opportunity to 
 waylay any whom she chose to entice. Beside her 
 plate lay a small bunch of red carnations. Every 
 thing about her was so intense that it almost made 
 you wink. 
 
 "Who was that impossible person who bowed 
 to us, daughter? asked her father. 
 
 " A Mrs. Verry," answered Alice. 
 
 " An excellent name ; quite a hit indeed." 
 
 Hardly were they seated before they saw Miss
 
 54 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 Vandevoort appear at the door, and stop to speak 
 to the head waiter, who pointed to three or four 
 tables ; but Miss Vandevoort shook her head. She 
 nodded carelessly to Mrs. Verry, and bowed more 
 cordially to one or two others, but it was quite 
 evident that she was searching for some one. It 
 was also evident from the way her face lighted up, 
 and a smile of recognition flashed over it, that it 
 was Alice Copeland whom she was seeking, be 
 cause she motioned to the head waiter, who bent 
 himself double and preceded her, snapping his fin 
 gers at the other waiters, much as a ring-master 
 cracks his whip at a horse which is doing the best 
 it can already, for no especial reason except to 
 call attention to his authority. 
 
 Arrived at the Copelands table, she calmly 
 seated herself next Alice in the chair reserved 
 for Senator Cobb, giving the waiter to understand, 
 in more ways than one, that it would be worth 
 his while to obey her and to hold his tongue. 
 
 "If I were an artist I should paint you as Au 
 rora, mademoiselle," said Judge Copeland. " Isn t 
 she the radiant morning personified, daughter?" 
 
 " Oh, fie, Judge ! You mustn t turn my head 
 with your flattery." 
 
 " If I can only succeed in turning it in my direc 
 tion, you place a premium on what you term flat 
 tery," answered the judge, gallantly.
 
 BREAKFAST AT COZZENS S 55 
 
 Miss Vandevoort clapped her hands softly. 
 
 "How lovely!" she cried. "Judge Copeland, 
 you put some of these unattached men to shame 
 with the grace of your pretty speeches. Alice will 
 have to go home and tell her mother that she saw 
 Kate Vandevoort fall an easy victim to your blan 
 dishments." 
 
 Alice looked from one to the other. Such 
 meaningless words, yet how different they seemed 
 from other breakfast-table talk she could think 
 of, and how excellently they raised everybody s 
 spirits ! 
 
 " How is your mother feeling on this fine day?" 
 
 Kate s brilliant face clouded over. 
 
 " Poor little Mamma ! She is not well this morn 
 ing, and I made her promise to lie still, and let me 
 serve her breakfast later. She never eats the Amer 
 ican breakfast, you know. And I like to carry her 
 rolls and coffee to her myself. When she is ill, I 
 am conceited enough to think that she likes it bet 
 ter if she takes it from me. There are only two of 
 us left, you know, Judge, with John married, and 
 the girls in Europe, and we have a little way of 
 flattering each other by a great deal of petting, 
 which, if we were all at home, would have to be 
 scattered over the whole family. As it is, we con 
 centrate it all on two. It is a sort of Liebig s Extract 
 of Affection that we live on."
 
 56 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 Waves of color came into her face as she talked 
 of her mother, and softened it and made it even 
 more lovely. 
 
 Alice was enchanted. She had been dazzled by 
 Miss Vandevoort s brilliancy, but that one speech 
 made it seem possible for her adoration to change 
 into personal love, a much friendlier and more com 
 fortable affair, as everybody knows who has tried 
 both. 
 
 " Dear me, Alice, quickly ! Watch the flamingo!" 
 " Flamingo !" said Alice. " Where is it ? 
 "I mean Mrs. Verry, my dear. There comes 
 Senator Cobb, and he wants to come to this table, 
 but she wants him there ; that s why she took that 
 table. I wonder if she will get him. Yes, she s 
 landed him this time. No, he only stopped to 
 speak. See how annoyed she looks. Oh, fie, Mrs. 
 Verry, your natural color, when you are angry, does 
 not harmonize with that you have put on out of your 
 little box. Don t watch her so, my dear. It flat 
 ters her. Look into your plate and watch her 
 through your eyelashes. Dear, dear, isn t she fu 
 rious, and doesn t she hate us! Ah, good-morn 
 ing, my dear Senator. Are you coming to our ta 
 ble ? How very nice ! See, you shall have this 
 seat next to me, and I shall have the pleasure of 
 handing you the fruit myself. How well you look 
 this mornin. Late hours do not seem to affect
 
 BREAKFAST AT COZZENS S 57 
 
 you in the least. Your freshness quite puts the 
 rest of us to the blush." 
 
 The senator looked a little bewildered, but hap 
 py. He was at the age when, while he might have 
 his preferences, flattery from any young woman 
 upset him completely. 
 
 Miss Vandevoort s attentions to him during 
 breakfast were really beautiful. She quite mo 
 nopolized him, and pouted so frankly when he 
 tried to talk across her to Alice that he was re 
 duced to a powder of delight. 
 
 " Who is that beautiful woman ?" asked Judge 
 Copeland, as Miss Vandevoort bowed and kissed 
 her fingers to a lady seating herself at the next ta 
 ble and facing them. She had snow-white hair, 
 blue eyes, and the fresh, pink complexion of Alice 
 herself. 
 
 "That is Mrs. Counselman," answered Kate, 
 still smiling at her. 
 
 Alice s heart leaped, and she listened breath 
 lessly for the next words. 
 
 "And that is her husband with her. Are they 
 not a distinguished pair? Their son graduates this 
 year, and a finer fellow never breathed. Mark my 
 words, young Counselman will be heard from. I 
 don t know why I say this, but I feel, whenever I am 
 near him, that I am with the heart of a hero. His 
 face follows me like the faces of some pictures in
 
 58 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 the Luxembourg. There is a haunting quality in it, 
 which gives me a feeling that Destiny has already 
 laid her hand upon his brow. It is foolish to allow 
 one s thoughts to wander in that way, but I am glad 
 the war is over. If it were not, he would lay down 
 his life for some one, and perhaps nobody would 
 ever hear of it. He might be shot carrying some 
 wounded comrade from the field when the battle 
 was all over. The heroism would be his, but not 
 the glory." 
 
 Alice bit her lip and clenched her hands in her 
 lap. She was afraid that she was going to cry be 
 fore them all. What could Miss Vandevoort mean ? 
 
 " His father is a most charming man. He got 
 that sabre-cut at Gettysburg. He is a man of 
 scholarly tastes and writes exquisite verse. To go 
 into his library is to go into his life. But the Coun- 
 selmans are a race of soldiers. His great-grand 
 father fought in the Revolution, and was killed at 
 the battle of Brandywine. I shall say nothing of 
 Mrs. Counselman. Her lovely face is her introduc 
 tion to a man like yourself, Judge." 
 
 " Thank you, my dear. Will you do me the honor 
 to present me to them after breakfast ?" 
 
 " With much pleasure. Oh, what exquisite roses ! 
 Look, Alice." 
 
 Senator Cobb leaned back in his chair with a 
 satisfied smile upon his face, as everybody turned
 
 BREAKFAST AT COZZENS S 59 
 
 to watch the head waiter coming down the room 
 bearing a glorious bouquet of roses, which almost 
 concealed him from view. 
 
 " They are for Miss Copeland," said the senator, 
 rubbing his hands together. 
 
 Alice half rose from her chair in childish but in 
 dignant protest. 
 
 " Sit down," whispered Miss Vandevoort, twitch 
 ing her dress under the table. But Kate frowned 
 a trifle as she realized that there sat Mrs. Counsel- 
 man, the mother of Gordon Counselman,who would 
 see Alice receive so marked an attention from an 
 other. Kate s prehensile brain realized the subtle 
 ty of the situation. She knew that there was noth 
 ing like nipping these things in the bud. 
 
 " Oh, Senator Cobb !" she said, raising her voice a 
 trifle. She reached out for the roses and they were 
 placed in her hands. " Do let me give them to her," 
 she murmured in the senator s ear. 
 
 " Certainly," he said, pleased at the sensation he 
 had created, and delighted to see everybody cran 
 ing their necks to watch Miss Vandevoort, with 
 her face buried in the flowers, smiling and nodding 
 at Senator Cobb, and apparently thanking him. 
 
 " Aren t they beautiful, Alice ? And isn t the 
 senator too kind and thoughtful for any use ? But 
 I feel dreadfully left out in the cold." She pre 
 tended to shiver, and looked reproachfully at the
 
 60 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 senator, who was so delighted at her raillery that 
 he couldn t wash his hands fast enough. He stopped 
 gurgling long enough to say, 
 
 "But, my dear young lady, just wait until din 
 ner, and see what you will receive. You never 
 know what a day may bring forth." 
 
 " With you around, that is quite true. You are 
 like a fairy godfather, ahvays dropping sugar-plums 
 to your friends. But mind it is larger than this," 
 she whispered, " or I shall be dreadfully jealous." 
 
 He nodded and chuckled and churned himself 
 almost into hysteria with the intoxication of Miss 
 Vandevoort s manner. It takes moral courage in 
 a man to be true to one woman, if another woman 
 has pitted her charms against him. 
 
 " These are yours, Alice dear. What shall I do 
 with them ?" said Miss Vandevoort, holding them 
 towards her, but not offering to relinquish them. 
 Alice drew back as if their odor sickened her. 
 
 " Oh, don t." she implored. " Keep them. Throw 
 them away. Or no, wait a moment. Senator Cobb, 
 are these flowers mine to do as I please with?" 
 
 " Certainly, my dear young lady. Certainly. 
 Throw them away throw them into the Hud- 
 .son River, if you wish !" He chuckled again at this 
 absurdity, and Miss Vandevoort coughed gently. 
 
 ; Then I think I will send a few of them to your 
 mother, Miss Vandevoort, if you think she would
 
 BREAKFAST AT COZZENS s 6 1 
 
 care for them. Mrs. Vandevoort is ill this morn 
 ing, Senator Cobb." 
 
 Tears came into the senator s eyes at this exhi 
 bition of his lady-love s exquisite thoughtfulness. 
 How little some men know the signs ! If some one 
 else had sent those roses, Mrs. Vandevoort might 
 have had flowers sent to her, but they would not 
 have been these. 
 
 In some way Kate Vandevoort walked out of the 
 dining-room, at Senator Cobb s side, carrying Alice 
 Copeland s flowers in her arms. And when pres 
 ently she gave up guard -mounting, against the 
 clamoring of a dozen importunate friends, in order 
 to be with her mother at breakfast, she still had 
 those flowers, all of which Alice had thrust upon 
 her in a frenzy of gratitude.
 
 VI 
 GUARD-MOUNTING 
 
 MANY people, of wide experience in other matters, 
 absolutely deny the existence of love at first sight. 
 They lay great stress upon the impossibility of such 
 an occurrence, and point with pride to the fact that 
 they are bank presidents, or treasurers of orphan asy 
 lums, or aldermen, to give weight to their opinions. 
 
 These facts silence, but do not convince. Men 
 have been known to deny the possibility of a new 
 world, and even while they were denying it most 
 stridently some one who believed sailed away and 
 found it, thus proving it beyond a peradventure. 
 Just as, in the midst of these discussions, men 
 and women are sailing away and discovering new 
 worlds in each other s eyes, leaving those of us 
 who are slow of heart to shut out the sight, if we 
 are provincial, and loudly to declare that we do 
 not believe in this new world because we have not 
 sailed, and because we have not found it. 
 
 Be that as it may, Gordon Counselman, on that
 
 GUARD-MOUNTING 63 
 
 eventful night when he looked down into Alice 
 Copeland s blue eyes, felt his heart give an unmis 
 takable leap under his tight gray coat, and some 
 thing in his throat rose up and choked him and he 
 could not speak for a moment, but stood looking 
 down at her, alone with her for aught he saw or 
 heard of others, and feeling that a girl who could 
 look up at a fellow like that was enough to turn 
 West Point back to the starting-place for all the 
 world the Garden of Eden so called, perhaps, be 
 cause two lovers were there alone with nobody to 
 bother them or ask them to make up a set. 
 
 Young Counselman was no philosopher. He was 
 simply a clean-minded fellow who fell in love as 
 naturally and as gladly as only a chivalrous nature 
 can, and who experienced as many pangs of un- 
 happiness and doubt as always assail one in a first 
 passion, but never with quite the same vernal poig 
 nancy as when it happens to come in one s youth, 
 before one has had much time to note or discuss 
 the symptoms in others. And not being a philos 
 opher, he lived through these glories, frankly and 
 unsuspiciously doing and saying the same things 
 which millions of human beings had done before 
 him, ingenuously believing that he was the first to 
 discover just this delirious quality in the joy of 
 love, betraying himself in a hundred little ways to 
 any observant eyes, but utterly untormented by pa-
 
 64 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 gan doubts as to the genuineness or duration of 
 this delightful state, such as occasionally will in 
 trude themselves upon more experienced minds. 
 
 To those who are addicted to the unfortunate 
 habit of analyzing, perhaps it is as sincere a test as 
 any of the reality of a passion that one does believe 
 one s self to be a pioneer in this line. And the fatu 
 ous questions lovers ask each other whether any 
 two people were ever so happy before, or if anybody 
 ever loved with just the same largesse, or thought 
 the same things, or felt such generous spasms of self- 
 denial raging to be tested prove even to the an 
 alytical that they are sailing over hitherto unknown 
 waters towards the new world, which may not be 
 just as their fancy painted it, but which is unmis 
 takably strange and different, and at least brings 
 the joy, at which even philosophers dare not cavil, 
 of being the waking reality of all their inarticulate 
 and half-formed dreams. 
 
 Of course Gordon Counselman did not discover 
 all his capabilities in this direction during that first 
 sleepless night when he thrashed around, wakeful, 
 and confidently happy, ready to declare in the morn 
 ing that he had not slept a wink, yet bearing in his 
 radiant face the manifest signs of having been re 
 freshed by what few lapses into unconsciousness he 
 had been unable to take account of. 
 
 Twelve hours of being violently in love will teach
 
 GUARD-MOUNTING 65 
 
 a man more of the subject than all the novels he 
 ever read. And from being as heart-whole the even 
 ing before as ever a youth was, barring a few pangs 
 laid to the account of Miss Kate Vandevoort, who 
 had constantly to switch the attentions of the cadets 
 from herself to younger girls, Gordon Counselman 
 emerged from his quarters the next morning honest 
 ly feeling a year older and confident that he had run 
 the whole gamut of human emotion from the lowest 
 depth of bass despair to the highest treble of hope 
 and faith. Cold gray daylight found him at neither 
 extreme, but somewhere in the middle, with some un 
 easiness, some hope, and a great deal of determina 
 tion. It is queer what a curious effect daylight has 
 on love, and odd how many of the kinks the moon 
 puts in that the sun takes out. 
 
 He was in such exuberant spirits, however, just 
 to realize that she was here at West Point, breath 
 ing the same air, looking at the same river, treading 
 the same ground, and that in an hour, perhaps half 
 an hour, at almost any moment he might see her, 
 that when he met Pratt, even though he knew Pratt 
 wanted to borrow money, he hailed him with an en 
 thusiasm of which Pratt was not slow to avail him 
 self. 
 
 Gordon even allowed himself to be drawn into 
 talk about it, although he had not a cent to lend, 
 and really, except that his credit was good, was one 
 
 5
 
 66 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 of the most useless persons for Pratt to attempt. 
 Gordon s kind heart, however, smote him for with 
 holding his sympathy from so harassed a fellow as 
 Pratt looked, and he thought perhaps if it were 
 only a trifling scrape that he might see some way 
 out of it. 
 
 Pratt realized the value of having at last got Coun- 
 selman s ear, into which, to his honor be it said, no 
 woes were ever poured in vain. 
 
 It was but a small thing in itself, only a question 
 of a few hundred dollars ; but to a cadet with no 
 income of his own it was like the national debt 
 would seem to a private citizen. 
 
 " But Pratt, old fellow, tell me how it came to be 
 so much ?" said Gordon, anxiously. 
 
 Pratt wriggled and colored, but finally, after one 
 long look into Gordon s eyes, which had a trust 
 worthiness in them which no one could mistake, 
 thrust his hands between his knees and said with 
 dogged determination : 
 
 " I ll tell you the whole thing, Counselman. I 
 wasn t going to, but you ve had the decency not to 
 kick a fellow when he is down, and Til just tell you. 
 I got into debt over a woman flowers and candy and 
 truck. I m in love with her. You needn t grin. 
 You don t know what it is. But just you wait till 
 some girl gets you in her clutches, and you ll be 
 ready to sell your chevrons to get her a piece of the
 
 GUARD-MOUNTING 67 
 
 moon if she wants it. Mine is that kind. Other 
 fellows give her the most expensive things and I ve 
 had to, or be left out of the race. I couldn t stand 
 that, so I kept on till my credit was gone, and the 
 governor shut down on me besides. Then I was 
 in a hole. I ve only been able to borrow small 
 amounts of the other fellows, because I couldn t tell 
 them this that I m telling you, and when I paid some, 
 of course they let me run those cursed bills a little 
 higher. But long ago they stopped that and began 
 hounding me besides. Now they are threatening 
 to send them to the commandant. If they do, you 
 know it s all up with me, and, by Jove ! it will be the 
 end of me too. I promise you that." 
 
 " What ! Do you mean that you d be such a cow 
 ard as to wear a wooden overcoat if you don t grad 
 uate ?" 
 
 " It isn t that!" cried Pratt, raising his head from 
 his hands. " I d lose the girl!" 
 
 " Oh," said Gordon. Then, "/ haven t got any 
 money." 
 
 " No," said Pratt, eagerly, " but you ve got credit, 
 and I have made all the arrangements. If you will 
 just indorse my note they will take it, and I can 
 take care of the interest." 
 
 " Why will they take my name instead of trusting 
 you?" 
 
 "Why, you have kept your credit good and mine
 
 68 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 is all knocked into smithereens. Anyhow, I asked 
 them, and they said your name would be all right 
 if you d give it to me." 
 
 "Well, I ll do that, certainly, and be glad to. Of 
 course it s only a guarantee that you will do your 
 part, and I am not afraid that you won t." 
 
 " Counselman, you you re the best fellow that I 
 know, by Jove! And I ll never forget this as long 
 as I live. You don t know what a load you have 
 taken off my mind. I declare I could hardly breathe 
 before. Now I can begin to enjoy her being here." 
 
 He wrung Gordon s hand twice. 
 
 " I m going to marry her, Counselman, and I d 
 like you for best man. Will you?" 
 
 " Why, has it gone as far as that?" laughed Gordon. 
 
 "We are not engaged yet," admitted Pratt. " But 
 she has given me to understand that she will marry 
 me as soon as I graduate." 
 
 "I hope she won t miss the flowers." 
 
 "Oh, I can t stop sending them now! I ve got 
 to keep it up a little longer." 
 
 " Why, old man, are you in earnest ? If you are 
 thinking of marrying her, surely you are not going 
 to add to your debts for your dowry." 
 
 " I ve got to, if I keep in with her." 
 
 " Nonsense, old fellow. Just tell her you can t 
 afford it. She will respect you for it, if she really 
 cares for you."
 
 GUARD-MOUNTING 69 
 
 " Well, you might be able to tell your girl if you 
 had one, and it would go, but it s different with me, 
 and different with Mrs. Verry." 
 
 "Mrs. Verry!" exclaimed Gordon. 
 
 " Certainly. What s the matter ? Didn t you 
 know who it was ? I suppose you think it is queer 
 that such a brilliant woman would condescend to 
 marry a fellow like me. But she says she loves me, 
 Counselman." 
 
 " Mrs. Verry !" repeated Gordon, as if unable to 
 get it through his head. He wanted to say a dozen 
 things, but it is rather difficult to look a fellow in 
 the face and say that the woman he loves is years 
 older than himself and that he believes her to be 
 the worst kind of a flirt besides. 
 
 "It is not to be mentioned at present, Counsel 
 man. I have only told you." 
 
 " All right, old fellow. I I m really too sur 
 prised to say anything." 
 
 " I don t wonder," said Pratt, with unwonted hu 
 mility. 
 
 When he was alone Gordon drew a long breath 
 and shook his head. Then he put the matter out 
 of his mind and went to hunt up George Copeland. 
 He and George had been great friends, much to 
 every one s surprise, but Gordon wanted to view him 
 now in the new light of being Alice Copeland s 
 brother. He sighed to think that if he had only
 
 70 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 known Alice sooner, what hours he could have spent 
 asking George questions about her. He forgot that 
 George probably would not have answered them. 
 Brothers seldom are willing to sacrifice themselves 
 to that extent, and George Copeland was unusually 
 taciturn. Indeed, it was one of the problems of 
 West Point why the most popular cadet there should 
 have selected so cross-grained and quick-tempered 
 a man for his best friend as George Copeland. 
 
 They really had not selected each other. It was 
 one of those inevitable friendships among men 
 which women never can understand. 
 
 Counselman was known to be set against fight 
 ing, and was a much respected arbitrator in many 
 a subaltern disagreement. Added to this was the 
 kindest heart in the world, which sometimes got him 
 into trouble. He knew that his classmate Copeland s 
 greatest fault, and an unforgivable fault at West 
 Point, lay in attempting to take forty winks in the 
 morning after the bugle sounded. Copeland had 
 been reprimanded several times for being late, or for 
 having something wrong with his attire for what 
 man can dress properly on a mad run ? Counselman, 
 not knowing George s surly temper, out of pure hu 
 manity once thrust his head in at the door of Cope- 
 land s quarters and roared out a warning, whereat 
 George is said to have hurled a boot at Gordon s 
 head. That is where he made a mistake, for in less
 
 GUARD-MOUNTING 71 
 
 time than one could wink, Gordon Counselman, the 
 well-known peacemaker, had hauled George Cope- 
 land out of bed and was thrashing him roundly ; and 
 when he had all but knocked the breath out of 
 George s astonished body, he politely invited him 
 to dress and take the rest of what he had in for him. 
 
 But George, being wide awake by that time, cord 
 ially refused, and even apologized handsomely 
 partly for being thrashed and partly for so unamia- 
 bly rewarding Gordon s brotherly act after which, 
 of course, they were the best of friends, and Gor 
 don s authority as a peace-maker became more re 
 spected than ever. 
 
 But on this particular morning Gordon was not 
 thinking of this incident, nor of the fact that George 
 only showed his sullen temper nowadays after re 
 ceiving a letter from his mother. If he had thought 
 of them he would have dismissed all such unpleas 
 ant intruders for Gordon s views of life were per 
 sistently rose-colored. 
 
 He could not find George, however, who was en 
 gaged in guard-mounting, but some girls found him 
 and held him a prisoner for an anxious half-hour 
 which he had meant to spend with Alice Copeland. 
 
 It really would be a delightful, as well as a most 
 instructive thing, if a man occasionally could ex 
 change places with the woman he loves and view 
 his actions through her eyes. Perhaps he might
 
 72 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 better understand her causeless jealousies, her un 
 reasonable way of holding him to account for quite 
 harmless diversions. He might see how the mo 
 ments he spends with other girls seem to lengthen 
 into the basis of a quarrel so different are men s 
 eyes from women s. It would benefit them in the 
 same degree that a year s travel benefits a provin 
 cial youth. He learns a new point of view. 
 
 Most men are provincial when they make love, 
 but it is the provincialism of those who give the 
 matter no thought, and not of bigotry. 
 
 When Miss Vandevoort took her radiant face 
 and her brilliant flowers and her sweeping skirts 
 from Alice s clinging view, the poor girl felt bereft. 
 Nevertheless she crept close to her father and Mrs. 
 Sheldon, the commandant s wife, and went with 
 them to witness guard -mounting with a beating 
 heart. 
 
 The martial spirit in her leaped out to meet the 
 boys in gray as they marched towards her, every 
 eye to the front, every step taken with such clock- 
 like precision that it made her dizzy to watch them. 
 In vain she looked for Gordon Counselman. The 
 brown faces under their shakoes all looked alike to 
 her, and she was sure if he had been among them 
 he would have looked different. The adjutant, 
 covered with gold lace, made a brave showing; but 
 still he was not the one she sought. Nevertheless
 
 GUARD-MOUNTING 73 
 
 there were moments when the impressive spectacle 
 before her drew her thoughts from him, and left no 
 room for anything except the majesty of the mili 
 tary ; for when, at the last, the old Officer of the 
 Day turns the detail over to the new Officer of the 
 Day, and, making the salute the most stately, the 
 most impressive of all by removing his helmet and 
 holding it with matchless dignity to his left shoul 
 der, so stands with bared head while he passes out 
 of office, Alice felt that it was worth while being 
 Officer of the Day just for the majestic manner in 
 which he was permitted to resign the office. 
 
 Hardly, however, had the band struck up " The 
 Girl I Left Behind Me," and the detail marched 
 away, when she saw Gordon Counselman in a group 
 of girls who seemed to be literally besieging him. 
 
 It is one of the unanswered conundrums of life 
 why the anger of a lover rises to a white-heat at a 
 similar display of his own mild insanity in any one 
 else. Alice instantly set those girls down as bold 
 and forward and unladylike ; and many more such 
 adjectives did she heap upon them in the secret re 
 cesses of a heart which never before had known a 
 pang of jealousy in all its gentle existence. She 
 was partly consoled, however, by the unmistak 
 able way in which his brown face flushed when 
 he saw her. She even gave him credit for an 
 effort to detach himself from the tenacious girls
 
 74 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 who surrounded him, for she distinctly saw him 
 bow and endeavor to withdraw ; but they made 
 such a little laughing clamor over him, and coaxed 
 him so prettily, and he was so evidently their hero 
 as well as hers, that a little sick thrill ran through 
 her, and a film came over the beauty of the scene, 
 and she turned to look for her father, and wanted 
 to go back to Stockbridge where she couldn t see 
 him, or, at least, where she couldn t see him with 
 other girls. 
 
 But her father was not there and Senator Cobb 
 was. He was making for her too. But bearing 
 down upon him like a revenue cutter was Mrs. 
 Verry. Alice smiled a wintry little smile of amuse 
 ment. Thanks to Miss Vandevoort s tutelage she 
 was beginning to see below the surface, and it looked 
 to her like a human game of hare and hounds. 
 
 She never knew the load of unhappiness that set 
 tled down upon Gordon Counselman as he saw the 
 rich senator from Ohio so palpably appropriating 
 Alice, and dampening the ardor which had been 
 surging up in his heart at the sight of her to the 
 verge of bursting off some of his shining buttons, as 
 Peggotty was wont to shed hers under sudden effer 
 vescence of affection. 
 
 So those two foolish young people looked across 
 at each other and allowed the wrong people to 
 monopolize them, and were frankly and honestly
 
 GUARD-MOUNTING 75 
 
 miserable over the perversity of fate or their own 
 stupidity in not rising to the occasion. When, final 
 ly, young Counselman made a dash for liberty, and 
 asked her to walk down old Flirtation with him in 
 his only hour of leisure, Alice said to him : 
 
 " I ve promised to go with Senator Cobb," in 
 such a woebegone tone, and with such a glance of 
 aversion at the poor senator, that Gordon was com 
 forted a little in spite of his bitter disappointment. 
 
 " Stay and talk to me just a moment," he urged, 
 frankly turning his back on the senator and his 
 claims. 
 
 She colored so prettily with pleasure that Gordon 
 was sure she would; but just then her father said : 
 
 " Come, daughter, Mrs. Sheldon wishes to go ;" 
 and with only one backward glance full of acquies 
 cence and longing to accept, Alice was sandwiched 
 between the unsuspicious Mrs. Sheldon and her 
 father, and taken back to the hotel, where, waiting 
 for them, she found Kate Vandevoort. 
 
 Alice mentally flung herself upon Miss Vande- 
 voort s mercy and into her arms, telling her secret 
 quite unsuspiciously with the desperate words : 
 
 " I promised to go to walk with Senator Cobb, 
 and just afterwards, when it was too late, Mr. 
 Counselman asked me." 
 
 Miss Vandevoort wrinkled her smooth brow in 
 vexation for a moment, then she threw back her
 
 76 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 head and laughed her old laugh of amusement at 
 the ways of people. 
 
 " Why do you laugh ? asked Alice. 
 
 "Because if I didn t, I should weep. Laughing 
 keeps me on the surface. But don t look so wretch 
 ed, my dear." She took Alice s flushed cheeks 
 between her thumb and forefinger very daintily. 
 " Let me see if we cannot think of an antidote." 
 
 " How good you are," murmured Alice. " I 
 thought you would be vexed at my stupidity. I m 
 such a little fool," she ended, with vicious emphasis. 
 
 " I am glad you are beginning to realize it," said 
 Miss Vandevoort, with amazing coolness. " It is 
 the first step towards reform. What made you 
 promise to go with Senator Cobb ?" 
 
 " It came so suddenly. I had no excuse ready." 
 
 "Why didn t you say you had an engagement?" 
 
 " Because it wouldn t have been the truth," said 
 Alice, with the unconscious rudeness of conscious 
 virtue. 
 
 " del!" said Miss Vandevoort under her breath. 
 " What a long way Stockbridge is from New York. 
 Millions and millions of miles. Don t look so 
 mystified, child. Whenever you are puzzled, nod 
 your head with an air of intelligence calculated to 
 deceive even the elect. Then keep your ears open 
 and the gullible elect will straightway tell you all 
 there is to know about it. When you are unhappy,
 
 GUARD-MOUNTING 77 
 
 laugh. Laugh out loud, show all your teeth you 
 have very pretty teeth and you can afford to laugh 
 even at poor jests. When you are with your sweet 
 heart, don t smile and look contented and happy. 
 If you do, some jealous girl will get him away 
 from you. Look droopy and bored, so that people 
 will not envy you. You are a shining mark, my 
 dear, with that face of yours such a map of your 
 emotions. If you can t do anything else, look stu 
 pid. I wonder if you could with those eyes ? It 
 is invaluable to be able to look stupid. It disarms 
 everybody. I always am so sorry for people with 
 really intellectual faces people with long, scholar 
 ly features, who can only control their expression. 
 They always are obliged to take the credit for what 
 they know, and they are doomed to be feared by 
 the very ones they care most to attract. Now I 
 am different. Let me tell you a secret. My face 
 is my fortune because it does not betray me. I 
 can look like a perfect fool, a puppet, the tool of 
 any designing man or woman. Look at me now. 
 Do I look as if I could spell necessary and sep 
 arate ? Shouldn t you think that I would spell be 
 lieve and receive alike, and that I should much 
 prefer to take my views on life from my husband ? 
 That is why I have such a good time. I am clever 
 and nobody knows it. Promise not to betray my 
 secret."
 
 78 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 Miss Vandevoort said this with such an engag 
 ing air, and with so whimsical an expression, that 
 Alice was ready tr declare that she was the funni 
 est as well as the Jnost fascinating woman she ever 
 had met, which, considering her narrow experi 
 ence, was hardly as great a compliment as she 
 meant it to be. 
 
 " But to return to Senator Cobb. Much as I 
 should dislike to be the first one to set your feet in 
 the downward path, I wish I could teach you not 
 to be quite so hopelessly truthful. \Vhy, what s 
 the matter ? I only mean that it is not necessary 
 to tell all you think in order to believe yourself 
 honest. Tactlessness is not a virtue even if the 
 ignorant do dub it honesty. It is a downright 
 crime. I wish I could teach you to veil the truth 
 with illusion pure white illusion because the na 
 ked truth is shocking to the scrupulously modest. 
 Now, I am clever enough to know that I never can 
 teach you to do this well, and unless you can do it 
 well it is much better to leave it alone and just vul 
 garly to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing 
 but the truth, and let people hate you, as they sure 
 ly will. Nobody wants undiluted honesty, least of 
 all, men. But the mistake women make is in col 
 oring the truth. They make it gray, and gray is 
 dull and unbecoming. Now when / color the 
 truth I make it red. Most men love red. It warms
 
 GUARD-MOUNTING 7Q 
 
 and cheers, and my little pink and rose colored lies 
 are among my greatest charms. Why, my dear 
 Alice, if I had told the brutal truth to unattractive 
 men all my life, I should be literally nowhere. I 
 should have been laid on the shelf long ago." 
 
 " Yes, but," said Alice, flushing and laughing, 
 " there was nothing to do about Senator Cobb ex 
 cept to say, I don t want to go with you, and 
 have it really true." 
 
 "Well, why didn t you say that?" 
 "Because it would have hurt his feelings." 
 " Precisely. I am glad to see that you do not 
 want to hurt even Senator Cobb s feelings. From 
 the way you started to walk right across the break 
 fast-table this morning in order to get rid of him, I 
 was afraid you were capable of anything. Never hurt 
 any man s feelings. He never forgets it. You took 
 the other horn of the dilemma and made yourself 
 wretched. I have always thought of the Dilemma 
 as a horned sphinx. Now I am too selfish to im 
 pale myself on either horn. I avoid both and seat 
 myself calmly between them on her brow, where I 
 remain like a diadem. All my life I have been 
 dodging bores and landing clever men and floating 
 in to shore on the high tide of success without 
 letting anybody catch me at my harmless little 
 tricks except other women. I wouldn t let them if 
 I could have helped myself. But other women are
 
 8o THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 sometimes too much for me. I never wound a 
 man s vanity. Believe me, Alice, it is the best, the 
 only safe way. Now make a bona fide engagement 
 with me to spend every spare moment with me 
 which you do not care to spend elsewhere. Do you 
 promise ? Well, now you can truthfully say, I have 
 another engagement. " 
 
 As Miss Vandevoort ceased speaking she watched 
 Alice wistfully, as though the absolute truthfulness 
 of the girl appealed to her in a very tender way, 
 yet she mentally stamped it impossible. Miss Van- 
 devoort s heart and intellect generally warred in 
 this way. 
 
 " But you haven t told me what to do," said Alice. 
 
 " Oh no. Well, let me think." 
 
 She laid a finger on her lips, and, leaning for 
 ward, stood looking at the toe of her little shoe 
 with serious attention; and unconsciously Alice, as 
 most absorbed persons do, followed her example, 
 looking down and regarding it with equal heed. 
 Presently a light broke over Miss Vandevoort s 
 face and she threw back her head. 
 
 " I have it," she said. "Ask no questions, but put 
 on your prettiest frock, the one which fits the best 
 in the back. All your gowns should fit best in the 
 back, for your back is at the mercy of the observ 
 er. You can defend the front in fifty ways, but 
 how do you know what is going on behind you ?
 
 GUARD-MOUNTING 8 1 
 
 A woman of genius has the backs of her gowns 
 faultless. Mine are ! The fronts of mine are 
 plain. You never notice them, because I myself 
 am the front of a gown. Now listen. Wear your 
 prettiest and go with him. Keep your wits about 
 you and trust the rest to me." 
 
 " I will, I truly will !" said Alice, impetuously. 
 She stood looking up into Miss Vandevoort s smil 
 ing, whimsical, magnetic face with the dilated gaze 
 of a fascinated child. Miss Vandevoort had capt 
 ured her imagination, and opened vistas in her 
 own life, down which she looked with a breathless 
 thrill. The possibilities seemed so great. Per 
 haps it was only one way Miss Vandevoort had of 
 exercising her cleverness, so lightly to talk with 
 Alice as to banish her depression and nerve her 
 for her difficult talk. In this she had succeeded at 
 any rate. Alice s eyes of faith made her own al 
 most wistful again. 
 
 " I believe," breathed Alice fervently, in a swift, 
 exultant comprehension of her changed spirits, 
 " that you could almost raise the dead, you are so 
 wonderful and so much alive !" 
 
 It was but an idte form of speech, a childish 
 exaggeration ; but her smile froze as she saw the 
 horror in Miss Vandevoort s face. Even her brill 
 iant scarlet lips grew pale under Alice s stricken 
 gaze.
 
 52 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 " Oh, what have I said ?" cried Alice, springing 
 towards her and seizing her hand. 
 
 " Nothing. It is nothing. Only my heart. It 
 troubles me at times," gasped Miss Vandevoort, 
 recovering herself with a visible effort. She rubbed 
 her cheeks with both hands as if she realized their 
 whiteness. 
 
 Alice watched the color creep back into her face, 
 and Miss Vandevoort bore her anxious gaze un 
 flinchingly and smiled bravely. And it was only 
 after Alice, entirely reassured, had left her, that 
 Kate Vandevoort turned away, out of the sight of 
 everybody, and covered her trembling lips with her 
 hands to keep down a bitter cry, murmuring bro 
 kenly, 
 
 " Raise the dead, did she say ? O God, dear 
 God, if I only could !"
 
 VII 
 
 DOWN FLIRTATION WALK 
 
 " I WONDER," said Miss Vandevoort to herself as 
 she came out of the hotel on the veranda and began 
 idly to pace its length, apparently absorbed in put 
 ting on her gloves, but in reality doing sentry duty, 
 " if it can be possible that these two young creatures 
 are going to care for each other, or am I deceived 
 in the signs ? If they were like other people if 
 Gordon were as selfish as other young fellows or 
 if Alice were as frivolous as other girls, I might 
 think this were only a passing attraction ; but they 
 are both so true. Heavens, how it brings it all 
 back ! How will it end with them ? They are both 
 so young and so unworldly. How hard it will go 
 with either, if the other is not seriously interested. 
 I could easily bring myself to believe in both of 
 them if it did not seem too good to be true and 
 good things of the heart come so seldom in this 
 world. Gordon is too popular. If it is possible to 
 spoil him these girls will do it. Ah, bless the boy !
 
 84 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 I can t blame them. He is the delight of my eyes. 
 But if I let him know it, I shall be just as unwise 
 as they. I really pity these wonderfully attrac 
 tive men, with such a natural, irresistible charm as 
 Gordon has. The poor fellows have no chance 
 to be modest and chivalrous. It is all our fault. 
 Dear me, I wonder if that difficult young person 
 Miss Alice Copeland, who dislikes young men has 
 any idea of what a dear fellow Gordon is. Well, I 
 must see what I can do to stir things up. I can be 
 very annoying when I try. How do you do, Mr. 
 Counselman ? Am I not a wonder to be ready 
 ahead of time and actually waiting for so punctual 
 a person as yourself?" 
 
 " How lovely you look, Miss Vandevoort !" ex 
 claimed the boy, looking at her out of his smiling 
 eyes with such frank admiration that she colored. 
 
 "Oh, Gordon, you are impossible. There is no 
 use trying to reform you. Your honesty is so be 
 lievable, and that is dangerous, even to a case-hard 
 ened person like myself. I really catch myself 
 trying to look well for you ! Now isn t that a dread 
 ful admission, when I had just determined never to 
 say another thing to spoil you ?" 
 
 Gordon pulled off his shako and laughed such 
 a boyish, hearty laugh that two old ladies turned 
 their heads and smiled at him. Alice Copeland 
 heard it, coming out of the parlor with Senator
 
 DOWN FLIRTATION WALK 85 
 
 Cobb, and she took an involuntary step forward, 
 thereby losing what the senator was saying, and 
 having to listen to it all over again. 
 
 What girl at a summer resort has not felt the mis 
 ery of coming out on the veranda with the wrong 
 man, only to see the right man with another girl ? 
 And if the other girl was having her glove buttoned 
 at just that particular moment, as Kate was, and 
 your own soul s property was bending over her hand 
 actually holding it, as everybody knows a man 
 has to do when he buttons a glove -and if the other 
 girl was so absorbed in the interesting process that 
 she did not look up to bow, or give him a chance 
 to bow, and you had to go on down the steps, chat 
 tering to this other man, who suddenly has become 
 so hateful to you that you almost wished he would 
 trip on the steps and land on his head then you 
 can truthfully say that you know what real mis 
 ery is. 
 
 Kate felt a pang of sympathy for Alice as she 
 caught her imploring look and steadfastly "for the 
 sake of the future" refused to answer it. And she 
 saw with genuine admiration the plucky way that 
 Alice gathered herself together and held her head 
 high and chatted with the senator. 
 
 " Ah, there goes Alice Copeland," said Kate, 
 calmly. 
 
 "Where, where?" asked Gordon, dropping her
 
 86 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 hand and looking in all directions except the right 
 one. 
 
 " Why, down there. See ?" 
 
 " Then come on," said Gordon, eagerly, picking 
 up his helmet and straightening himself. 
 
 " Come where ?" asked Miss Vandevoort, inno 
 cently. " Are you going to follow them ?" 
 
 "Why no, of course not," he answered, awkward 
 ly. " Only you said 
 
 "I said that /would walk with you if you liked. 
 Alice has an escort. Look how well she carries 
 herself. Dear me, how devoted the senator seems. 
 I wonder if she would marry him. Her mother 
 would favor it heart, soul, influence, and will power. 
 To see her child a social power in Washington. 
 Dear, dear, how well she would like it. Did you 
 ever see Mrs. Copeland, Gordon ?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 "Ever see a picture of her ?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Well, if you ever see her, look at her nose. The 
 history of the Copeland family is written in the 
 shape of Mrs. Copeland s nose. My dear boy, if 
 Napoleon could have seen it, he would have made 
 her a field-marshal." 
 
 " Isn t Senator Cobb very rich ?" asked Gordon, 
 presently, with his brows drawn into a straight line. 
 
 " I believe so. But the Copelands are richer."
 
 DOWN FLIRTATION WALK 87 
 
 " Then perhaps Mrs. Copeland would not favor 
 him as a suitor on that ground." 
 
 " It is power she covets, not wealth. Stern blue 
 Presbyterian that she is, she hankers after the flesh- 
 pots of Egypt. She would like to have the judge 
 in the Cabinet, only he will not enter politics grand 
 old gentleman that he is and how she would revel 
 in the social despotism that would be hers." 
 
 Kate watched him narrowly as she said these 
 things. He looked after Alice s retreating figure 
 wistfully a moment, then squared his shoulders, 
 and the sunny look came back into his eyes, as he 
 said : 
 
 " If Alice Copeland is the girl I take her to be, 
 she will marry the man she loves" 
 
 " Come on," said Kate, gayly. " I am ready now. 
 Suppose we walk down old Flirtation." 
 
 " Why, we must have walked faster than they, for 
 here we are almost upon them," she said in her 
 most guileless manner, ten minutes later. 
 
 Gordon looked down at her quizzically, but she 
 looked back at him with such innocence that he 
 laughed aloud, and Alice turned around and smiled 
 at them. 
 
 " Wait for us !" cried Kate, swinging her parasol 
 at them. 
 
 " What a darling you are !" whispered Gordon, 
 audaciously.
 
 88 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 " How disrespectful of you," said Kate. " What 
 do you mean?" 
 
 She looked so surprised that Gordon was abashed. 
 He was so honest himself that Miss Vandevoort s 
 brilliant changes of base always nonplussed him. 
 But that astute young woman had no intention of 
 openly championing his cause until she felt her 
 ground secure beneath her feet. 
 
 " Senator Cobb," she said, when they all four 
 stopped to speak, " do you remember what I was 
 telling you in Washington last month about Mrs. 
 Frederick s flirtation with Captain Connor of the 
 navy ?" 
 
 "Yes, yes, I remember," said the senator, eager 
 ly, who dearly loved a bit of gossip. 
 
 " Well, I know the rest of it now. Some time 
 I ll tell you, if you promise solemnly not to repeat 
 it. But I wonder if I can trust you ?" 
 
 "Oh, indeed you can, my dear lady. I never 
 speak of such things. Was it as we thought?" 
 
 " Never mind now. I must not intrude upon 
 your walk with Miss Copeland. I ll tell you some 
 time when you come up to New York." 
 
 " Oh, I never can wait that long. Tell me now. 
 Perhaps Miss Copeland will walk with Mr. Coun- 
 selman for a minute or two." 
 
 "Well, come on, then. Leave them to follow. 
 But mind you never breathe this."
 
 DOWN FLIRTATION WALK 89 
 
 And so for a blissful thirty minutes Gordon 
 Counselman and Alice followed in the wake of a 
 bald head and a bronze head which were so close 
 together that when they met Mrs. Verry and Pratt, 
 Mrs. Verry was guilty of the indiscretion of turning 
 to look after them. 
 
 Miss Vandevoort made such good use of her 
 time with the senator from Ohio that he walked all 
 the way back with her, and Alice only joined them 
 when Gordon dashed away to take part in dress- 
 parade. 
 
 Seldom does the parade-ground present so brill 
 iant a sight as during graduation week, when hosts 
 of visitors and pretty girls and proud relatives are 
 gathered there to do homage to the most beautiful 
 sight in the world a perfectly trained battalion on 
 a perfect parade-ground. 
 
 The Board of Visitors was unusually imposing 
 this year, and the array of beautiful girls unusually 
 attractive ; but Alice, from the moment she saw that 
 parade form, forgot everything except that all those 
 men, with their apparently perfect uniforms and 
 shining equipments and faultless appearance, were 
 not so perfect or so faultless as Gordon, for he, her 
 hero, was first captain of them all. 
 
 It was an impressive sight. The visitors made a 
 bright spot of color in front of the officers quar 
 ters, with the old gray academy buildings looming up
 
 go THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 on one side, while away off at the other the grim 
 barracks were aligned, in front of which the com 
 panies were forming. The lovely Hudson flowed 
 softly beneath the bluff, visible beyond the Point 
 like a curving band of silver. The sunlight slanted 
 across the smooth parade-ground, glimmering on 
 company after company of cadets in full-dress uni 
 forms, being marched up from their quarters by 
 proud cadet officers, who endeavored to look as if 
 all this fuss-and-feathers was a good deal of a bore 
 to full-grown men, and never knowing that their in 
 genuous young countenances hopelessly betrayed 
 the fact that they loved every unnecessary inch of 
 red tape, and that they wouldn t have exchanged 
 places with civilians in dun-colored tweeds for all 
 that this world had to offer. 
 
 The advancing column halted at a word, as mo 
 tionless as statues. Alice could see Gordon in the 
 post of honor at the extreme right. He was the 
 first to step forward with a command to his com 
 pany. All the other cadet captains had to follow 
 him. Then the band marched out, as if to show 
 //z^;;zselves, and paraded down the front of the col 
 umn and back again, as much as to say, " Now, 
 boys, watch us. This is the way you want to 
 march." How the girls loved that band ! They 
 never could make up their minds which to prefer, 
 the bearskin of the drum-major or the gold-lace of
 
 DOWN FLIRTATION WALK 91 
 
 the adjutant, who, just as soon as the band got 
 back to their places, gave a hoarse command, which 
 nobody understood, because that would have been 
 un military. Everybody obeyed it, however, because 
 the ranks opened and all the officers marched for 
 ward in front of their companies and halted. 
 
 Again the adjutant gave a hoarse cough, and all 
 the long column presented arms as if pulled by one 
 string, while the officers saluted. Then came the 
 adjutant s turn to subside for a while. Having done 
 all that could reasonably be expected of one man, 
 he wheeled, saluted the commandant, and said, in 
 a more conversational tone, " Sir, the parade is 
 formed." At least the girls heard that. Two or 
 three of the liveliest mimicked his salute and touch 
 ed their big leghorn hats with their hands. It 
 annoyed Alice. She thought it disrespectful, not 
 to say sacrilegious. She wished Gordon had been 
 nearer, so that she could see his face. 
 
 The adjutant was at his post, and the comman 
 dant was putting the men through a drill all too short 
 to satisfy the voracious admiration of the girls, who 
 wished he had left them there indefinitely. The 
 stupid part of dress-parade to women is where they 
 receive reports and instructions. Everybody talks 
 during this time. But when the order came " Pa 
 rade is dismissed," and the adjutant took his place 
 in the centre of the line of officers, who closed in
 
 92 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 upon him in front of the battalion, forming a small 
 and exclusive column, Gordon, as first captain, still 
 at the right, a sharp word of command came from 
 the adjutant himself, and then, oh, then the col 
 umn of officers, with the band blowing itself red in 
 the face, marched up, up, up, like beautiful, live, hu 
 man machines, towards the commandant, standing 
 in rigid and solitary dignity, and towards the visitors, 
 who applauded them mightily, and towards the girls, 
 who leaned forward with eyes blazing with excite 
 ment and cheeks aflame with delight. Alice felt 
 her heart almost turn over with pride and gratitude 
 and love, and even Kate Vandevoort s eyes swam 
 in tears of sympathy as she squeezed the hand 
 Alice had impetuously thrust into hers. 
 
 Ah, it was a brave sight, and all too soon over. 
 It was beautiful to see how carelessly the cadet 
 officers strolled up afterwards to mingle with the 
 visitors and to parry the enthusiasm of fond moth 
 ers and lively girls, with a fine disregard of their 
 eager compliments, but an ear greedy for more of 
 the same thing. 
 
 George Copeland began to open his eyes when 
 he saw what a centre of attraction his sister had be 
 come. He was bored to death by cadets begging 
 to be introduced, and to his disgust he found that 
 whenever he wanted Counselman, it would be bet 
 ter and simpler just to look for Alice. He never
 
 DOWN FLIRTATION WALK 93 
 
 had thought her pretty in Stockbriclge. In fact, he 
 never had thought of her at all, except when he 
 wanted her to wait on him, for her willing feet flew 
 on his errands as ungrudgingly as on her mother s. 
 But here she was so pretty that he was surprised. 
 
 He went up to his father and handed him a let 
 ter. 
 
 " Here is a letter for sister, sir, which came in 
 one of mine," he said. 
 
 " From whom, son ?" 
 
 " From mother," he answered, his face darken 
 ing involuntarily. 
 
 "What did she have to say? How is she?" 
 
 " Here it is. I haven t read it, sir. I I haven t 
 had time," he stammered, in answer to his father s 
 quick glance. 
 
 "Thank you, son," said Judge Copeland, putting 
 the letter in his pocket. He fingered the one ad 
 dressed to Alice uncertainly, and looked affection 
 ately at her bright face, where the color was flutter 
 ing as he never had seen it before. He looked down 
 at the letter again, then sighed and put it with the 
 other. He did not realize that George was watch 
 ing him. 
 
 " That s right," muttered George, turning away. 
 " No use in spoiling the child s pleasure now. I ll 
 bet the governor doesn t read mine in a hurry for 
 all he s so polite about it." He scowled as he
 
 94 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 thought of the pile in his quarters, unopened and 
 unanswered, into which his mother had poured a 
 great deal of mother love in spite of being so mixed 
 up with the bulletins of the sick in Stockbriclge, 
 and advice about his own health that no one but 
 Job or a woman could have stood it to read them. 
 Gordon was one of the managers of the hop, and 
 had to tear himself away early, leaving Alice an op 
 portunity to be very quiet as she walked back to the 
 hotel with Miss Vandevoort and Senator Cobb. 
 
 The only thing she remembered about dinner was 
 being very much amused at an enormous bouquet 
 of yellow roses that Senator Cobb had caused to be 
 sent to Miss Vandevoort, as a result of that charm 
 ing young lady s coquetry of the morning. Then 
 there was a breathless hour in which she dressed 
 herself for the hop eager, nay, anxious almost to 
 the verge of tears, to be lovely just that one night for 
 Gordon Counselman s sake. No need for Kate Van 
 devoort to advise her to wear her very prettiest frock 
 or to look more animated, Her nervousness flushed 
 her cheeks and made her great eyes black, so that 
 when Miss Vandevoort rapped smartly on Alice s 
 door and came in to inspect her costume and to 
 urge her to take herself well in hand, instead of 
 the shy, timid little maid from Stockbridge she had 
 expected to see, she was confronted by a radiant 
 creature with eyes like stars, who held her head
 
 DOWN FLIRTATION WALK 95 
 
 high and challenged your best admiration on the 
 spot. 
 
 " Man Dieu /" cried Miss Vandevoort. " Where 
 is the little Alice Copeland I came to see ? I am 
 looking fora little mouse of a girl, whose hair I was 
 to tidy and whose tucker I was to smooth, and who 
 was going to creep into my pocket and only poke 
 her head out for George to dance with twice and 
 for her father to take into supper. Where is she ?" 
 
 " Oh," laughed Alice, clasping her hands together 
 in delight, " am I so different? I feel different, 
 Miss Vandevoort. I never felt this way before. I 
 have always hated to dance, but to-night I hope 
 that I shall be asked often. I can hardly wait to 
 begin." 
 
 Miss Vandevoort reached out for support in a 
 surprise which was not feigned. 
 
 "Alice," she said, weakly, "you ll be the death 
 of me. Your Quaker attitude of yesterday con 
 trasted with youry de siech attitude of to-day is too 
 much for my feeble brain to grasp. I never realized 
 the magic of old Flirtation before." 
 
 " It wasn t that " began Alice, hastily. But 
 Kate held up her hand. 
 
 " Uoii t add the sin of falsehood to your other 
 crimes, Alice," she said, solemnly. 
 
 " What other crimes ?" asked Alice. 
 
 " The crime of deceiving me. I thought you were
 
 96 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 a little brown wren. I find you a bird-of-paradise. 
 Come on ! I hear the band. We mustn t miss a 
 moment to-night ! As a rule I make a triumphant 
 entry late, looking cool and fresh when the other 
 girls are warm and a trifle dishevelled from a waltz ; 
 but to-night I want to be early and sit in the bald- 
 headed row and see the curtain go up. Here is 
 your fan. Tuck your handkerchief in there. Where 
 are your hair-pins? I want just one to fasten this 
 curl. Now, I think you are perfect. Who sent 
 these flowers Senator Cobb ?" 
 
 "No. Mr. Mr. C Counselman sent them," 
 stammered Alice with flaming cheeks. 
 
 Miss Vandevoort turned her head away and bit 
 her lips. Not for worlds would she have had Alice 
 see her smile. 
 
 They are very handsome," she said. "That 
 looks like a bouquet that Gordon Counselman would 
 send. Pink roses and lilies-of-the-valley. I really 
 think that is the most beautiful and appropriate bou 
 quet I ever saw." 
 
 "Do you, really?" cried Alice. "I thought so, 
 but I didn t expect everybody to agree with me." 
 
 "I do, at any rate, and I am a judge. You can 
 tell quite a good deal about a man by the kind of 
 flowers he sends you." 
 
 " Then Senator Cobb must be very artistic," said 
 Alice, laughing.
 
 DOWN FLIRTATION WALK 97 
 
 " Senator Cobb has an artistic florist. He never 
 designates what kind of flowers shall be sent. Gor 
 don does. Now hold your dress up on both sides 
 a little more on the left and come with me." 
 
 Judge Copeland, Senator Cobb, and George Cope- 
 land were waiting for them, and as soon as they ap 
 peared at the door of the hop-room, Gordon Coun- 
 selinan was with them instantly, looking past all the 
 other girls past even lovely Kate Vandevoort her 
 self to Alice, who never looked so pretty nor so 
 sweet as when she laid her hand shyly on Gordon s 
 arm and paused to look at the decorations, all of 
 which, though he would not say so, were his taste. 
 
 No one could deny that the room was beautiful, 
 for the military lends itself readily to decorations. 
 From crossed sabres and stacked arms up to small 
 cannon, everywhere were the signs of the peaceful 
 side of war ; and over and under and above, in all 
 kinds of soft draperies and flowing festoons, the 
 flag the dear, dear flag that flag which taste and 
 love and patriotism all combine to make us think 
 the most beautiful in the world ; the flag which 
 pulls at your heartstrings like a human thing when 
 you see it floating anywhere ; which makes you want 
 to put your hand on it and love it if you see pict 
 ures of it with hosts of others ; which, when you ac 
 cidentally run across it in Europe, makes you want 
 to kiss and hug and cry over it, if you are a woman, 
 
 7
 
 g8 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 and stand up and take your hat off to it, if you are a 
 man. 
 
 Gordon watched Alice as her eyes fell upon these 
 flags. She looked up at him without speaking, and 
 he pressed the hand which lay on his arm against 
 his tight gray coat, and, perhaps, she closed her 
 fingers a little more closely on his sleeve ; but of 
 that no one can be sure. At any rate, they under 
 stood each other without words, as we are told lov 
 ers have a little way of doing, so that when Gordon 
 said " I love it," Alice said " So do I," and each 
 knew that the other meant the flag. 
 
 Who shall describe a girl s first ball, with plenty 
 of partners and her dress satisfactory and the floor 
 good and the band military, and the man of her 
 heart the superb dancer that Gordon Counselman 
 was ? 
 
 Gordon danced with just the same generous 
 enthusiasm and out-of-door swing that he put into 
 his riding and his swimming. It was whole-hearted 
 and athletic and elastic, and people always watched 
 him and felt the younger for it, and asked who he 
 was. 
 
 George came up after Alice s card was filled and 
 asked to see it. He hated to dance, but it was 
 something to step into a ring of the other fellows " 
 crowding around a girl, and to call her by her Chris 
 tian name, and to pat her hand with an air of pro-
 
 DOWN FLIRTATION WALK 99 
 
 prietorship which made " the other fellows " greet 
 with envy. 
 
 " Why, your card is all filled," he said, in a tone 
 of disappointment. Alice was so surprised that he 
 really showed some feeling, and so grateful and so 
 touched, that she almost stammered in her eager 
 ness to explain. 
 
 " No, George, I saved one for you. This one 
 with the cross over it. That is for you. I saved it. 
 I thought perhaps you would be late asking me." 
 
 There was no reproach in her honest little soft 
 voice, and it was sisterly affection and gratitude for 
 his notice which flushed her cheeks in such a be 
 witching manner that Gordon Counselman was 
 obliged to turn away for fear " the other fellows " 
 would see how he felt about her. " The other 
 fellows " are both the Mrs. Grundy and the Sir 
 Hubert of West Point. 
 
 Alice Copeland s evening, if one might judge by 
 her radiant face, possessed no drawbacks, even in 
 spite of Gordon s undoubted popularity with buds, 
 young ladies, and even old ladies, who would stop 
 him, to pat his arm and ask how he was enjoying 
 himself, when he was dashing from one partner to 
 another. 
 
 Perhaps his unfortunate experience of the morn 
 ing had taught him a lesson in the despatch neces 
 sary to exercise with a popular girl, for in that
 
 IOO THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 walk clown old Flirtation, he had mapped out the 
 dances he wanted with Alice, and she had given 
 them to him with such shy, happy eyes that the 
 impetuous young cadet wanted to tell her right then 
 and there that he loved her with all his boyish 
 heart and soul, and perhaps Alice wouldn t have 
 been so very angry if he had. 
 
 Miss Vandevoort stopped in at Alice s room, after 
 it was over, to talk about it. 
 
 " Did you have a good time, dearie ?" 
 
 "Oh, so good !" cried Alice, clasping her hands. 
 " I do believe I am the happiest girl in the world. 
 Everything is so beautiful, isn t it ?" 
 
 "Yes, everything. And I have the most beauti 
 ful news of all to tell you now." 
 
 " Oh, what is it ? How could anything be lovelier 
 than to-night has been ?" 
 
 "Well, your brother has invited Gordon Counsel- 
 man to spend part of his leave at your house, and 
 perhaps Mollie Overshine will ask me down to 
 Stockbridge for the same time." 
 
 "Oh, dear Miss Vandevoort!" 
 
 Alice could say no more. She wanted to say so 
 much, but something came up in her throat and 
 choked her. Perhaps it was her own great happi 
 ness. Perhaps it was a something in Kate Van- 
 devoort s wistful, smiling eyes. But whatever it 
 was, when Kate made a little impetuous movement
 
 DOWN FLIRTATION WALK IOI 
 
 of her arms as if to open them, Alice sprang forward 
 and flung herself into them, hiding her face in the 
 laces on Kate s breast, and clinging to her dumbly 
 as if knowing that she understood because she was 
 a woman. And while they stood thus, a voice from 
 below, which they both recognized as Gordon Coun- 
 selman s, began to sing the first verse of that dear 
 old song, "Benny Havens, O," and instantly voice 
 after voice caught it up, until the cadets were ser 
 enading the girls at the hotel with, save and except 
 ing "Fair Harvard," the most musical, the most 
 pathetic, the most haunting college melody ever 
 sung by human throats : 
 
 "Fill up your glasses, fellows, 
 
 And stand up in a row, 
 To sentimental drinking we 
 
 Are going for to go. 
 In the army of sobriety, 
 
 Promotion s rather slow, 
 We ll sigh o er reminiscences 
 
 Of Benny Havens, O ! " 
 
 As these words rang clearly out upon the quiet 
 ni-ht, Alice felt the sudden clutch of Kate s arms 
 
 o 7 
 
 around her, and Kate bent her tall head and laid 
 her cheek on Alice s soft hair a moment, and a sob 
 rose in her throat that Alice could not help but 
 hear oh, the memories of old songs! then she 
 put the girl gently away from her and went out,
 
 102 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 still without speaking. Perhaps she could not bear 
 to have Alice see her face. 
 
 When she had gone, Alice went and knelt down 
 by the open window and listened to the fresh young 
 voices which floated the music up to her as if on 
 wings, and it all seemed so beautiful and so sad, 
 and she was young and so much in love that she 
 began to cry very softly, as if she, too, had memories 
 which the dear song waked to life only she hadn t. 
 But it never does women any harm to weep and sob 
 and cry their hearts out over tender, old-fashioned 
 music. And if they were not just that gentle and 
 sentimental and soft-hearted, the men would never 
 love them as they do.
 
 VIII 
 COUNTER-IRRITANTS 
 
 MRS. COPELAND so seldom indorsed anybody 
 whom the family liked that it was quite a pleasant 
 surprise to them when she metaphorically took 
 Kate Vandevoort to her bosom and made it evi 
 dent by her thawed manner that the Vandevoorts 
 ancestry equalled the Copelands . Furthermore, 
 and in addition to this fundamental fact, Kate 
 was a stupendous social success, the belle of three 
 cities. This, too, had its weight. 
 
 An idol of the people is on so insecure a footing 
 that it behooves one who aspires to that slippery 
 elevation to look well to what sort of a cushion is 
 beneath him, unless he likewise aspires to broken 
 bones and bruised feelings, for, by a single "Thumbs 
 down," he is apt to find himself shaken up, out of 
 breath and dizzy from his fall. 
 
 A social idol, a belle, is perhaps in the most pre 
 carious situation of all, and this made the trium 
 phal march of Miss Vandevoort all the more surpris-
 
 104 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 ing, inasmuch as she conquered everything and 
 everybody, wherever she chose, and did it apparent 
 ly without effort. It was not that she was so 
 beautiful hosts of buds came on the scene of ac 
 tion whose features were more regular than hers. 
 It was not because she had family and great wealth 
 at her back ; many girls have failed to become 
 belles who have had both. Nor could it be laid 
 entirely to her personal magnetism, although it 
 could not fail of being a somewhat potent factor 
 when it was sufficient to win over and hold some 
 who openly avowed enmity before coming in range 
 of her electricity. Perhaps more than all, but in 
 conjunction with these necessary attractions, it was 
 her absolutely sincere interest in the lives of other 
 people, which never fails to fascinate, and her sense 
 of humor, that gift of the gods, who show how lit 
 tle they value women by their niggardliness tow 
 ards them with this celestial gift. We women have 
 a right to question the wisdom of Olympus, when 
 we, who must of necessity cope with the petty, nar 
 row, hateful woman-worries of life, are only given 
 the shield of Patience and are denied the buckler 
 of Humor, when we might just as well have had 
 both and been invulnerable, all but the heel. 
 
 Tito Melema maintained his popularity by pre 
 tending to give the honor to another, always an 
 other, and apparently keeping himself in the back-
 
 COUNTER-IRRITANTS 105 
 
 ground, which cunning policy served to keep him 
 the idol of the people until they discovered that 
 they were being tricked. 
 
 Although Miss Vandevoort was just the one to 
 appreciate the cleverness of Tito, she was far too 
 impatient of the restrictions which any set policy 
 imposed to bind herself to anything which threat 
 ened to fetter her freedom to be individual and 
 natural. The whimsical theories which she ex 
 pounded to Alice Copeland she lived up to truly, 
 yet only because her nature, in spite of her free 
 speech, was of the kindliest, and because it was 
 natural to her to wish to please. 
 
 Thus, when she turned her amused eyes on one 
 who mentioned her popularity in her presence, he 
 at once felt that she, too, was but an interested 
 spectator at the show, and that she held it at its 
 proper value, even scorning what might so easily 
 be lost. She mocked and laughed at the idea that 
 people seriously discussed the fact that she was a 
 belle, and held them and herself and all such up to 
 such sincere ridicule that they were compelled, 
 much against their will, half-way to believe her. In 
 consequence they, too, turned around and gave her 
 the homage which she seemed to value so lightly, 
 and which, with the true amiability of human nat 
 ure, they so gladly would have withheld had they 
 felt that she depended upon it.
 
 106 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 Mrs. Gopeland reverenced Power ; perhaps be 
 cause circumstances, Fate, Destiny, what you will, 
 had denied her the exercise of it, save in a small 
 way, she reverenced Social Power more than all. 
 
 Not through the Overshines alone, but in count 
 less ways through travellers who had met her 
 abroad, through the vulgar channels of the daily 
 newspapers, which Mrs. Copeland openly de 
 nounced, and read in private, and through her 
 hosts of friends in Philadelphia and New York 
 who knew Kate did Mrs. Copeland become con 
 versant with her social successes. So when this 
 young goddess signified her willingness not only to 
 pay her cousin Mollie Overshine a visit, but to 
 meet and mingle with Stockbridge society, a thing 
 which she never had done before, the secret delight 
 of several first families almost burst their good 
 Quaker bounds. However much the people living 
 there might discuss their chronic ill -health and 
 deprecate the unbroken quiet of Stockbridge, they 
 sincerely objected to having a New York belle 
 frankly declare that hitherto she had used their 
 town simply as a sanitarium. 
 
 When she arrived Mrs. Copeland at once called 
 upon her, and invited the Overshines and Miss Van- 
 devoort to dine, changing her dinner-hour, as she 
 did upon state occasions, from noon to seven o clock, 
 for the accommodation of their honored guest.
 
 COUNTER-IRRITANTS 1 07 
 
 Kate arrayed herself with unusual care for that 
 dinner at the Copelands, and she was quite thought 
 ful for several hours beforehand. Her casual ac 
 quaintance with Mrs. Copeland, supplemented by 
 Mollie Overshine s shrewd anecdotes, had taught 
 her that here was a foeman worthy of her steel a 
 woman who would unflinchingly sacrifice her daugh 
 ter s happiness to her own ambition. In meeting 
 her again, she felt that peculiar antagonized feeling 
 to which impressionable natures are so sensitive. 
 You can only explain this to one who is in the 
 habit of experiencing it. Mrs. Copeland never 
 would have understood it. She had no intuitions, 
 and she often thanked Heaven that she was not 
 sensitive. 
 
 As Kate swept into the Copeland drawing-room 
 in an evening dress so extreme that it looked as if 
 it were slipping from her polished shoulders, Mrs. 
 Copeland simply closed her eyes. But she opened 
 them again when she remembered that it was Miss 
 Vandevoort who wore it. 
 
 Kate possessed an electrical nature which groped 
 after hidden elements of discomfort and pleasure, 
 and repelled the foreign or appropriated her own 
 whenever she found either. She could enter a 
 room full of strangers and select those whom she 
 would like and who would like her before speaking 
 to any of them.
 
 108 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 In this instance she knew that there was a dis 
 turbing element present. She wondered what it 
 was. She set herself quietly to observe and to 
 wrest the true cause from some one unaware. 
 
 Alice was quiet and subdued no longer the 
 Alice of West Point. The judge too had lost some 
 of the assured charm of manner which comes from 
 a sensitive nature feeling itself constantly approved 
 of. Kate smiled to realize that even she felt in a 
 measure quieted, for Mrs. Copeland had a digni 
 fied way of making her guests feel the honor of 
 being beneath her distinguished roof. 
 
 Miss Vandevoort, who loved children, suddenly 
 spied Elsie, lean, sallow, and unlovely, and moved 
 by pity for so forlorn a specimen of petted child 
 hood, turned and greeted her kindly. But to her 
 unspeakable dismay Elsie immediately burst into 
 tears and thrust herself behind her mother. 
 
 "Oh, Miss Vandevoort, I neglected to tell you," 
 said Mrs. Copeland, " that we never speak sud 
 denly to Elsie like that. My child is very timid, 
 and I have been three days persuading her to come 
 into the drawing-room at all to-night. She suffers 
 so from hysteria. We approach her very cau 
 tiously." 
 
 The corners of Kate s mouth twitched. When 
 she found it was hysteria, and not that the child 
 had cut her hand off or burst a blood-vessel, it
 
 COUNTER-IRRITANTS 109 
 
 was with difficulty that Kate kept herself from 
 jumping at Elsie and giving her something to cry 
 for. 
 
 " How sadly the child is afflicted," sighed Mrs. 
 Overshine. 
 
 Kate suddenly remembered that everybody in 
 Stockbridge had a chronic ailment, and this incident 
 revealed in a flash how they were acquired. Real 
 izing a neglected duty, she said, with well simulated 
 sympathy, " Do tell me, dear Mrs. Copeland, how 
 is your poor head ?" 
 
 " It is very bad, thank you, Miss Vandevoort. 
 Some days I am truly wretched with it. Oh, no 
 one knows my sufferings." 
 
 " What a pity ! And you look so well, too. No 
 one would believe you were such a martyr if he did 
 not hear the statement from your own lips. And 
 the judge, is his his dyspepsia better ?" 
 
 " Well, not very much. He spent a sleepless 
 night, and, as you see, looks pale this evening." 
 
 " And Gifford, is he quite well ?" 
 
 "No, Gifford cut his wrist with a penknife yes 
 terday, and I persuaded him to have the doctor 
 see it. He said if it had been two inches higher 
 it might have been serious." 
 
 " How fortunate those two inches are ! And 
 George, has he arrived ?" 
 
 " No, he is still in New York, and I am afraid
 
 110 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 he is ill. I wrote him a ten-page letter, filled with 
 advice about his health, and telling him all the pri 
 mary symptoms of several diseases that I hear are 
 prevailing there, and pleading with him as only a 
 mother can, to sit down and think if he felt any of 
 them, and if so, to telegraph which and to see a 
 doctor at once. But I have had no reply." 
 
 " How anxious you must be," said Kate, ear 
 nestly. " And Alice, here ; it seems to me that 
 she looks too quiet and sad to be quite well." 
 
 " Yes, Alice practises too much. She has a 
 weak back, I think." 
 
 " Mamma, I am perfectly well," said Alice. 
 
 " 1 know you think so, dear, but your eyes look 
 heavy. Oh, Alice is far from well. We are none 
 of us strong." 
 
 " Indeed, Mrs. Copeland, I can see that you are 
 not. If asked my opinion, I should be obliged to 
 admit that you enjoyed poor health." 
 
 Alice regarded Kate gravely. She never coun 
 tenanced a word either in fun or in earnest which 
 held her mother up to ridicule. But Miss Vande- 
 voort apparently saw nothing amusing in what she 
 had said, and Mrs. Copeland was Scotch. 
 
 Kate immediately repented her impertinent little 
 speech, which nobody except Colonel Overshine 
 had recognized. She turned away from the spec 
 tacle of his red face, and said to the judge :
 
 COUNTER-IRRITANTS III 
 
 " It was beautiful of you, Judge Copeland, to 
 make such a noble gift to Stockbridge as that fine 
 Public Library. Mollie and I have been all over it 
 to-day, and although I tried with all the ingenuity 
 at my command, I could find not the slightest flaw 
 in it." 
 
 "And would you have been so happy to find it 
 imperfect, Miss Vandevoort ?" said Mrs. Copeland, 
 in a colorless voice, which sent little shivers of 
 aversion shuddering all the way to Kate s finger 
 tips. 
 
 Judge Copeland smiled at her benignantly, and 
 Mrs. Overshine hastened to say : 
 
 " Kate was so enthusiastic over it that I could 
 hardly drag her away. She always acts as if books 
 were human and understood her when she tells 
 each one why she loves it. We had the children 
 with us, and that very thing showed the difference be 
 tween them. Frances clung to Kate s hand, shriek 
 ing in delight at Kate s fantastic speeches to her pet 
 books, speeches which Frances did not entirely com 
 prehend, but she caught at the meaning sufficiently 
 to grasp the fun of the situation. But Peggy, togeth 
 er with two or three old ladies standing near Mrs. 
 Troutman and Mrs. Frazer, Chris looked at her 
 as if they thought her simply a harmless lunatic." 
 
 " Oh, is Mrs. Frazer well enough to be out ?" 
 said Mrs. Copeland. "I heard that this new treat-
 
 112 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 ment was helping her. She has had nervous prostra 
 tion for fourteen years, and her mother died of 
 heart disease. There is consumption in the family, 
 too. It is a marvel to me that she is alive to-day. 
 I think she shows a wonderful vitality." 
 
 " Yes, she was out to-day, and looking quite well 
 for her," answered Mrs. Overshine. 
 
 " I notice that she always gets well enough to be 
 out when there is anything going on," observed 
 Colonel Overshine, with a twinkle in his eye. " She 
 hadn t seen the new Library, so she partially re 
 covered again." 
 
 Mrs. Overshine cleared her throat at him as a 
 warning. 
 
 " Her wonderful vitality evidences itself in quite 
 marvellous partial recoveries, Kate," he continued, 
 disregarding his wife s signals of distress, which 
 nevertheless he saw perfectly. 
 
 Kate raised her lace handkerchief to her lips, 
 and felt, rather than saw, the sudden stiffening of 
 the backbone of her hostess. 
 
 Mrs. Overshine shook her head imploringly at her 
 husband. 
 
 " She will go to bed again to-morrow," pursued 
 Colonel Overshine, ruthlessly, "until another small 
 excitement occurs. Then she will be able to be 
 out once more." 
 
 " She is perfectly honest in her illness, Colonel
 
 COUNTER-IRRITANTS 113 
 
 Overshine," said Mrs. Copeland, coldly. " There is a 
 great deal of suffering in Stockbridge. I wanted the 
 judge to build a hospital instead of a library, but 
 he had his own way about it, as usual." 
 
 " Oh, my dear wife, there was no controversy 
 about it. Pray assure our friends of that." 
 
 " No, because I gave up my way at once. I 
 always do." 
 
 " Why, I thought you were quite pleased with the 
 idea of the library," said the judge, with a note of 
 anxiety in his voice. 
 
 It seems as if some men never would see the 
 justice of the way a woman who has been affronted 
 by somebody else takes it out on her husband, or 
 whoever happens to be handy. 
 
 "You know perfectly well that I should have 
 preferred a hospital." 
 
 " I suppose, dear Mrs. Copeland," put in Colonel 
 Overshine, repenting too late for the turn he had 
 given the conversation, " that the judge thought 
 Stockbridge was more in need of encouragement 
 along the line of the library. In this town sickness 
 reaches perfection through its own impetus." 
 
 Mrs. Copeland drew back her chin in silent dis 
 pleasure. Mrs. Overshine mentally washed her 
 hands of her husband, who then looked at his ally, 
 Kate, for the approval which the honest gentleman 
 really expected to follow this well-meant jocularity.
 
 114 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 But Kate, in response to a telegram from Mollie, 
 had turned her back on him. They meant to make 
 him feel his disgrace. 
 
 When dinner was announced, Elsie refused to 
 move, so after politely hanging back and wondering 
 what was going to happen next, all except Mrs. 
 Copeland proceeded to the dining-room, where 
 presently Mrs. Copeland appeared, with Elsie hiding 
 her face in her mother s skirts and half walking on 
 her train. 
 
 " If you don t look at her or notice her," whis 
 pered Mrs. Copeland, "perhaps she will be all 
 right." 
 
 Accordingly they began an animated discussion 
 about nothing at all, while Mrs. Copeland coaxed 
 Elsie, who still hid her face and occasionally wept. 
 Judge Copeland watched the contest thoughtfully, 
 but said nothing. Alice s face flushed uncomforta 
 bly, but she never thought of interfering. Colonel 
 and Mrs. Overshine were used to it, but Kate s 
 fingers fairly twitched to jerk Elsie into her chair in 
 short order, and have done with such nonsense. 
 How civilization steps in in such a crisis ! Kate 
 merely sighed, and murmured, " Poor child !" 
 
 Before the soup was removed, however, Elsie 
 consented to get into her chair, provided it were 
 changed from her mother s left to her right. Colonel 
 Overshine accordingly offered to move, and Elsie
 
 COUNTER-IRRITANTS 115 
 
 sat in the vacated chair with her hair pulled over 
 her eyes. 
 
 Frank Overshine, with his kind, wide smile and 
 genuine simplicity, was told off to Alice, who made 
 spasmodic efforts to entertain him while she tried 
 to listen to every word that Kate uttered. 
 
 The dinner was exquisitely appointed and served, 
 but Elsie cried twice, and finally Mrs. Copeland 
 took her from the table. 
 
 "The dear child," she murmured, as she returned. 
 
 Everybody gurgled something in reply, and then 
 Mrs. Overshine said, 
 
 " I hear that George and his friend, Mr. Counsel- 
 man, will soon be here." 
 
 " George will come next week, but as we ex 
 pect another guest, Mr. Counselman is not com 
 ing." 
 
 "Ah, ha," thought Miss Vandervoort. "The 
 other guest means, I think, my friend Senator Cobb. 
 Poor Alice. How can they ? How can they ?" 
 
 " Oh, I am so sorry Gordon Counselman isn t 
 coming," she said. " He is such a lovely fellow, and 
 so clever. Colonel Sheldon told me that he had 
 done more towards the suppression of hazing at 
 West Point than any other cadet who ever entered 
 there. He is such a strong character that he could 
 not fail of influencing any one with whom he came 
 in contact. He is a great friend of George s, Mrs.
 
 Il6 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 Copeland. I am glad your son had the good f.aste 
 to like him." 
 
 " Kate, was he the one I overheard you telling 
 Mollie about the one who was in the toils of poor 
 Jim Verry s gay widow ?" asked Col. Overshine. 
 
 "Oh, no indeed. That was Mr. Pratt. Mrs. 
 Verry paid attention to Gordon last year she is 
 the boldest thing but Gordon confided to me, in 
 his frank, boyish way, which gets such a hold on my 
 heartstrings, that he really thought Mrs. Verry was 
 hardly as modest and ladylike as he liked to see 
 women. I could scarcely keep my face straight, 
 for she had toned herself down many shades in 
 order to captivate Gordon s well-known taste. I 
 wonder what the boy would have said of her if he 
 could see her with her usual racing colors on." 
 
 " By Jove, I d like to have been at West Point 
 with you, Kate. You see so much." 
 
 " Well, I don t go to sleep, Chris, if you mean 
 that. I keep my eyes open. But, dear me, there 
 is so much to see." 
 
 " What is Mrs. Verry doing now ?" asked Colo 
 nel Overshine. 
 
 " Why, she spends most of her time "hating me, 
 because, for some unaccountable reason, she thinks 
 I interfere with her Senator Cobb." 
 
 Her Senator Cobb!" repeated Mrs. Copeland, 
 regarding Kate gravely, then looking pointedly at
 
 COUNTER-IRRITANTS 117 
 
 the judge and then at Alice, as if to say " How do 
 you explain that ?" 
 
 "Yes, indeed," answered Kate, with what Alice 
 recognized as her innocent look. " Hers, dear 
 Mrs. Copeland. Not mine, nor yours, nor anybody s 
 except Mrs. Verry s so she thinks. I don t know 
 why she should be jealous of me. To be sure, 
 he sent me flowers once Alice, you remember 
 but, if she only knew it, she need not dread me." 
 
 " Why, what s the matter with him? He must 
 be queer if you won t have anything to do with him." 
 
 " Now, Cousin Mollie, isn t he unkind to me ? 
 Why, Chris, all that s the matter with him only adds 
 to his dignity. It is his age. Senator Cobb is 
 mediaeval, and I don t go in for the antique." 
 
 " Gray hairs are honorable, Miss Vandevoort," 
 said Mrs. Copeland, who labored under the delusion 
 that it was proper to reprove a guest under her roof 
 for anything she saw amiss in her. 
 
 Like many other good women, with excellent 
 Stockbridge intentions and high ideals in tatting, 
 Mrs. Copeland was her brother s keeper to such a 
 rigorous extent that her spiritual brother often 
 longed to go from her presence straight to the 
 broad way which leadeth to destruction, just for a 
 relish. Not only did she look after her son and her 
 daughter and her man servant and her maid ser 
 vant and her ox and her ass, but she also found
 
 Il8 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 time to attend to the moral well-being of every 
 other ox and ass in all Stockbridge. 
 
 "Yes, but, dear Mrs. Copeland," said Kate, 
 sweetly, " his are not gray. If they were, and there 
 were more of them, they might inspire your respect. 
 But his hair is so thin, and he wears it long, so that 
 a strong draught lifts it now and then and exhibits 
 its thinness cruelly. He is lean, too, and he wears 
 side-whiskers (I might forgive the first, but not the 
 second), and they are not all the same length or 
 the same color, so that he reminds you of a piece 
 of moth-eaten fur. He is a pale, straw-colored man 
 all through. If he were a horse, you would call him 
 a clay-bank. 
 
 " And furthermore, dear Mrs. Copeland, if you 
 ever happen to meet him, for my sake, notice his 
 peculiar smile; and I know why it is so. He has the 
 expansive smile of a man when he first wears false 
 teeth after having had much trouble with his old 
 ones. He used to have to hold his upper lip clown 
 when he laughed, but it is such a relief to him to 
 feel now that he can smile, grin, even roar, if he 
 chooses, that in an excess of ease and relief he 
 relaxes his vigilance to the extent of showing where 
 his teeth join, and sometimes, if the jest is an ex 
 cellent one, even giving a good idea of the plate 
 itself. Of course there is no harm in this," added 
 Miss Vandevoort, genially, looking around to include
 
 COUNTER-IRRITANTS I 19 
 
 everybody, " only it is a little trying on the person 
 opposite. If he were wretchedly poor, he would be a 
 pathetic figure, and you would want to send him a 
 red flannel nightcap for his poor old head, and a 
 warm wadded dressing-gown for his poor thin legs. 
 As a grandfather in a chimney-corner he would be a 
 great success. But as it is, he is so rich that he is 
 simply nauseating, aud so abundantly satisfied with 
 himself and so complacent that his smiles are an 
 irritation and his whiskers an insult." 
 
 Alice s radiant face was a reward which even the 
 grim expression on Mrs. Copeland s failed to spoil. 
 Kate was sure, from the uneasy manner in which 
 the judge watched his wife and Alice, during her 
 wicked speech, that affairs had come to a crisis 
 with Senator Cobb, and that poor Gordon s chances 
 looked dubious indeed. 
 
 When she got home that night she shook her fist 
 at herself in the glass. 
 
 " I hate you, Kate Vandevoort, when you ridicule 
 a man s physical imperfections. You think your 
 self so clever. Why couldn t you have thought up 
 a better way to help that poor girl than so to 
 degrade yourself in your own sight. Oh, poor 
 Kate ! You do try so hard to be good, but it is 
 such desperately weary work, and there is nothing, 
 absolutely nothing, in all this beautiful world for 
 you to look forward to, except to be of use to those
 
 120 THE UNDER SIDE OiC THINGS 
 
 who are weaker than you. No love, no home, no 
 fireside of your own. Just always to be an on-looker 
 at the feast of others ; to feel the warmth of others 
 fires and to go shivering yourself. Oh, the pity of it ! 
 The horrible pity of life! Can I see Alice wreck 
 hers as mine has been wrecked ? See her eat her 
 heart out in the utter hopelessness of her just meed 
 of joy? No, no" her voice sank to a whisper 
 "no matter how hard it is, I must go on with it as 
 he would have had me."
 
 IX 
 
 DULL people, or those who have only stupid 
 children, may well be excused for declaring that 
 the bewildering precocity of the John Vandevoort 
 children was unnatural and wellnigh impossible. 
 Kate herself, although an eye and ear witness of it, 
 often went away from them with an uncanny sense 
 of the supernatural. Their sense of humor was so 
 adult, their cynicism so unsteadying. It can only 
 be accounted for in the facts that they had been 
 parties from their babyhood to the marital unhap- 
 piness of their father and mother, and the constant 
 companions of clever but unwise grown people, who 
 openly discussed social problems before them in a 
 manner which could not fail of impressing the dull 
 est intellects. Falling as it did upon snapping 
 little brains, alert to hear and learn, it turned the 
 Vandevoort children into amateur philosophers, 
 whose sayings were a real terror to those who held 
 their precious little souls dear.
 
 122 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 That they adored their aunt Kate it is needless 
 to say. She was just picturesque enough to appeal 
 to their quick imaginations, and in return she made 
 wild efforts to understand them. She succeeded 
 to the extent that they confided in her in prefer 
 ence to their mother, and often said if Aunt Kate 
 could only have been their mother, their parents 
 would have been perfect. 
 
 The unhappy example of the supreme selfishness 
 of their mother, whose beauty they admired, but 
 for whom they had very little affection, drove Kate 
 to seek out every possible opportunity to let them, 
 in the same manner, share the lovelier traits of 
 humanity. Otherwise she dared not face their 
 future. The poor little things, with all that culture 
 and wealth and travel could give, had been given 
 no chance to learn the weightier matters of the 
 law, justice, mercy, and truth. 
 
 Colonel Overshine was their obedient slave from 
 the moment they entered his house. He vowed 
 that Frances was more entertaining than all the 
 grown-up people in Stockbridge put together, and 
 that round-eyed Peggy could wheedle the nose off 
 his face, if she set her mind to do it. Kate arranged 
 their studies for them. They already chattered in 
 French and German as fluently as she herself, so 
 she gave them drawing and music, on condition 
 that they should learn spelling and arithmetic.
 
 THE CHILD PROBLEM 123 
 
 Their manners in public would have put Beau 
 Brummell to the blush, but in private Frances was 
 a little demon, and Peggy would fight as quietly 
 but as long as a bull-dog. Frances flew into a pas 
 sion a dozen times a day, but was ready to kiss and 
 apologize in two minutes. Peggy would stand al 
 most anything, but when once her anger against 
 her sister began to burn with a slow white heat, she 
 had to be peeled off of Frances like a plaster. She 
 stuck to her in absolute silence, no matter what her 
 own injuries, with never a sound except Frances s 
 yells and screams. Only Kate could silence them. 
 They obeyed her because they adored yet feared 
 her. They walked over their father s authority be 
 cause they knew that they could. 
 
 They had been in Stockbridge about two months 
 when Miss Vandevoort came down from New York 
 to pay this promised visit to Cousin Mollie Over- 
 shine. She had been down several times during 
 July, stopping over for a day in flitting from moun 
 tains to sea-shore ; but this time her stay was to be 
 longer, and the children cast themselves upon her 
 in rapturous delight. 
 
 Kate sympathized with Frances the most, because 
 everybody preferred stupid little Peggy s sweetness 
 to her older sister s too clever intelligence. 
 
 Nobody could take any comfort with as sharp a 
 child as Frances, and people made no secret of
 
 124 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 their preference for the soothing companionship of 
 her fat little sister. Most people prefer a pin 
 cushion to an emery for daily use. 
 
 One morning as Kate came out of the house 
 with a telegram in her hand, she found Frances on 
 the veranda with her spelling-book. 
 
 " What are you doing, lamb ?" 
 
 "Learning to spell, Aunt Kate, so that I can 
 write letters to you that you won t be ashamed of." 
 
 " How nice that will be, and how proud I shall 
 be of them. But do you want to stop now and give 
 a great deal of pleasure to somebody ?" 
 
 " Oh, I should like to well enough, if I were not 
 doing something more important." 
 
 "Is there anything more important than delib 
 erately to put a pleasure into somebody s life?" 
 
 " Oh, I think so. It is more important to speak 
 French. It is more important to play on the piano. 
 It is more important to sing well, so that when I 
 enter society I can be as much admired and have 
 as many lovers as you have." 
 
 " Who told you anything about my lovers ?" asked 
 Kate, sternly. 
 
 " Mamma. She often talked to us about them. 
 She said you were an awful fool not to marry Sir 
 James Whitehall. She said she thought your suc 
 cess had turned your head, because you kept re 
 fusing such fine offers, and that you would pick
 
 THE CHILD PROBLEM 125 
 
 up a crooked stick after all. I asked her what a 
 crooked stick meant, and she said papa was one. 
 I told her I hoped you would marry a crooked stick 
 then, and she slapped me." 
 
 "Good heavens!" said Kate, sitting down in a 
 big wicker rocking-chair and drawing Frances into 
 her lap, regardless of her fresh muslin dress that 
 the child crushed. 
 
 "I am afraid I ll spoil your dress if I lean my 
 head against your shoulder," said Frances. 
 
 " Never mind if you do. I like the feel of your 
 little head, just to make sure that you are a little 
 child, and not a misshapen, grown-up, warped soul 
 with a dwarf s body. Poor little dear ! You ve 
 never had half a chance. I ought not to be angry 
 with you, my lamb ; but it nearly kills me to hear 
 you talk in that manner." 
 
 " Oh, Auntie Kate, don t look that way ! I won t 
 speak all day. I ll do anything for you, if you will 
 just tell me. /didn t know I was saying anything 
 to make you sorry. Perhaps you are sorry because 
 Mamma slapped me ? Pooh ! that wasn t anything. 
 She slapped us whenever anything went wrong, 
 whether we did it or not. But the time she slapped 
 and shook us till our heads most fell off she s 
 awful strong was when she used to get hysterics 
 and scream, and Peggy and I would screech and 
 yell just like her, to see who could yell the loudest.
 
 126 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 My, but she gave it to us then ! Horter.se pretended 
 to help her, but she got us away from her and 
 locked us in the nursery till Mamma cooled down. 
 Then she let us out, and we went to drive in the 
 victoria, and lots of people looked at us and said, 
 What lovely children ! just as if they wished 
 theirs were like us. I felt like saying, Well, you 
 wouldn t, if you knew the inside of us. " 
 
 Kate only went on rocking her in silence. For 
 once she had nothing to say. 
 
 " I wish you were my mother," said Frances, 
 suddenly. " Lieber Katechen ! You would make 
 an awfully nice mother. You know how to treat 
 children. Mamma doesn t. Mamma ought to have 
 stayed a bachelor. What are you laughing at ? 
 Isn t that the right word ? I told that to Cousin 
 Chris, and he laughed so, he most shook me off his 
 lap. Cousin Mollie said I meant spinster, but 
 Cousin Chris said, No, leave it bachelor. That 
 word describes Emily Vandevoort to aT. Mamma 
 does not approve of marriage for anybody. When 
 she meets a young lady in society, she takes her 
 hand, like this, and she says, Miss Gilbert, allow 
 me to congratulate you that it is not as Mrs. Some 
 body that I must address you. " 
 
 " Good heavens !" cried Kate, setting Frances 
 up in her lap and holding her two arms down 
 tightly, " what an awful thing to hear the cynicism
 
 THE CHILD PROBLEM 127 
 
 of the world brought home by such baby lips as 
 yours ! Stop thinking about such things. Come, 
 don t you want to go with me to see Miss Alice 
 Copeland? I have a telegram in my hand which 
 will make her eyes shine so that you could see 
 them in the dark." 
 
 " Like a cat under the bed," said Frances, who 
 was nothing if not a believer in applied science. 
 
 u Well, that is hardly as poetical as to liken them 
 to stars in heaven, but it does very well, and cer 
 tainly no one could misunderstand you." 
 
 Frances laughed shrilly. 
 
 "You are making fun," she declared. "I love 
 to hear people make fun. Nobody ever does it at 
 our house any more. But whenever I go out, I 
 always laugh every chance I get." 
 
 She darted away to get ready, and came back 
 swinging her hat by one of the ribbons. 
 
 " Don t make me put it on," she begged a< they 
 started. "I always have to be so prim when I 
 walk in New York with Hortense, with her eternal 
 Prenez-garde, ma chere, and her always clawing 
 our skirts down and our hair back. That s why I 
 just love Stockbridge. It is so still, and the trees 
 rustle so, and the grass is so soft and green, and 
 I haven t seen a single sign Keep off the grass 
 since we have been here. In India once a man 
 asked Papa what our national motto was, and he
 
 128 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 said the only national motto that we enforced was 
 4 Keep off the grass, and everybody laughed except 
 the Englishman who asked him. He believed it, 
 Papa said." 
 
 " Your father also told a man in London that our 
 national dish was pie." 
 
 " Pie ? And he believed it, didn t he ? That s 
 what Papa said is the funny part." 
 
 "Yes, he believed it." 
 
 "What makes people fool Englishmen so?" 
 
 4 Oh, because they never know anything about 
 America. It s so lovely to see what impossible 
 statements they will believe." 
 
 " Why don t they know about America ?" 
 
 44 Because they don t want to. I suppose they 
 like to be provincial." 
 
 41 Provincial ? What s provincial ?" 
 
 " Let me see. Why, provincial means liking 
 your own little hole in the world so much that you 
 never stick your head outside of it to see if there 
 is anything else." 
 
 " Don t English people know about anything 
 but England ?" 
 
 "Two or three of them do." 
 
 "Well, we know about them." 
 
 "Oh yes; that s fashionable." 
 
 " But isn t it fashionable for them to know about 
 us ?"
 
 THE CHILD PROBLEM 129 
 
 " No, it is fashionable for them not to know 
 about us." 
 
 "Is that what makes Englishmen so funny?" 
 
 " Yes," said Kate, laughing. " That is exactly 
 what makes Englishmen so funny." 
 
 " Just look at this lovely grass," sighed the child, 
 running her eyes hungrily over the meadows and 
 lawns. 
 
 " If you love grass so much, you should see the 
 prairies out West," said Kate. 
 
 " Out West ?" repeated Frances. " I don t think 
 I should care to go out West. Mamma says that 
 New York is all of America that I need to see." 
 
 "Take care, little Miss Provincial! Won t you 
 stick your head out of your little hole and take a 
 look at the beautiful world beyond ? Or do you want 
 to be as funny as an Englishman ?" 
 
 " Can you be provincial in America ?" asked 
 Frances, opening her eyes. 
 
 " Certainly. The worst kind of provincialism is 
 the American, because that is all put on, and the 
 English is real. They were born that way." 
 
 " Oh, I hate anybody who puts on. " 
 
 " Then don t turn up that nose of yours at Amer 
 ica, because you haven t seen any of it yet." 
 
 " Stockbridge is nice," said Frances. " I like it 
 because I can play with the coachman s children. 
 Mamma never lets me in New York. But I don t 
 
 9
 
 130 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 see why. Sometimes I want to play with them 
 worse than anything else in the world. My geog 
 raphy says that people don t all belong to the same 
 race. The Chinese are Mongolians, and we are 
 Caucasians. Now, the coachman s children belong 
 to the barn race, and I belong to the house race. 
 That s all the difference. And sometimes I think 
 the barn race has the best time." 
 
 Kate was immensely amused, and yet a little ter 
 rified. She found herself telling the child things as 
 she would to a grown person. It was impossible not 
 to respect such intelligence, no matter how child 
 ish the body. But then Kate Vandevoort - as so 
 queer. She actually respected childhood, and saw 
 wonderful possibilities of individualism in little 
 souls which other people, older and wiser than she, 
 were sorting into batches and labelling alike. She 
 wondered what kind of a woman Frances would 
 make. Either a very bad one or a very good one. 
 By her daily life she would either teach the way 
 upward or set a fearful example of what to avoid. 
 But, at any rate, interesting interesting! And 
 that is half the battle. Interesting to old and 
 young, to high and low alike. Even as a child, 
 Kate felt that Frances had the gift of feeling the 
 heart of humanity. 
 
 "There is where Miss Copeland lives," said 
 Kate.
 
 THE CHILD PROBLEM 13! 
 
 "Is it? That great house on the terrace, with 
 white pillars like the Parthenon ?" 
 
 Kate looked down at her, seized with a physical 
 weakness. She doubted if she herself should have 
 associated Corinthian columns with anything more 
 elevated than the White House. 
 
 " What do you remember about the Parthenon, 
 you baby ?" 
 
 " Why, didn t I ever tell you ? Mamma and Papa 
 had an awful quarrel there. Papa wanted to go to 
 see it again by moonlight, but she wouldn t. She 
 said once was enough, and she called him an awful 
 fool for wanting to go. So he came into our room 
 with his lips set together like this, and had Hor- 
 tense take me up and dress me; and he carried me 
 there and told me to look at it and remember it. 
 And I did. And it was the most beautiful thing I 
 ever saw in all my life, but so lonesome. And he 
 kissed me most a hundred times when I s?id so, 
 and he said I belonged to him. But he left a tear 
 on my cheek, and it scared me so I ve never for 
 gotten it." 
 
 She paused at the gate. 
 
 " There are Peggy and Hortense !" she declared. 
 Don t call them over. Leave them, and let s go 
 in alone." 
 
 " Come, come, none of that, Miss Piggy Selfish 
 ness. Suppose you go home and leave me to go
 
 132 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 in alone. Haven t we come to be generous with 
 Miss Copeland about the telegram ?" 
 
 " Yes, but it s so much easier to be generous with 
 other people than with your sister." 
 
 " Then all the more credit to you when you share 
 with Peggy. It is only people like you and me, 
 who would much rather be bad, who deserve any 
 credit for being good." 
 
 "You are good naturally, lieber Katechen." 
 
 " Not a bit of it. There are times when I want 
 to tear things wide open, and scream, -r.d bn,ak 
 things, just the way you do." 
 
 " But you never do //," said Frances, aghast at the 
 picture. 
 
 " Certainly not. I won t allow myself to. I 
 always think how silly it must look to good people 
 who never lose their temper." 
 
 Frances colored. 
 
 " And to the angels," she said, softly. 
 
 Kate squeezed her hand with sudden feeling. 
 
 " Shall we be bad now, and not let Peggy come, 
 or shall we be good ?" 
 
 " Will you do just as I say ?" asked Frances, 
 curiously. 
 
 " Yes ; but remember, if you lead me into tempta 
 tion, it will be a double sin for you." 
 
 " But if I say to send Peggy back home, will you 
 do it, and take me in alone ?" she insisted.
 
 THE CHILD PROBLEM 133 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Then call Peggy. Or, no, let me call her. 
 Allons, Peggy ! Hortense ! Venez ici. Venez 
 avec nous. Nous aliens faire une visite a Made 
 moiselle Copeland. Voudriez-vous venir?" 
 
 " Oh, ja, ja !" cried Peggy, who was so Dutch, 
 with her fat legs and Gretchen braids, that she 
 spoke her German from preference. 
 
 " Parlez franc.ais, mademoiselle," said Hortense, 
 angrily, with a sharp pull at the child s hand. 
 
 " Hortense," said Miss Vandevoort, quietly. 
 
 " Je vous demande pardon, mademoiselle." 
 
 " Parlez avec plus de douceur, je vous prie. 
 Laissez les enfants parler allemand quand ils veu- 
 lent." 
 
 "Je vous demande pardon, mademoiselle, mais 
 je deteste rallemand." 
 
 " Oui, je le sais, mais je le veux." 
 
 " C est assez, mademoiselle," said Hortense, with 
 a smile. 
 
 Servants always adored Kate, and Hortense 
 had been such a faithful creature and so discreet 
 through all the family trouble that Kate was par 
 ticularly fond of her. Her chief fault was that she 
 waged a perpetual war with the German governess. 
 
 When Frances was good, she was very, very 
 good, and also, like the little girl with the immortal 
 curl in the middle of her immortal forehead, "when
 
 134 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 she was bad, she was horrid." However, it was al 
 most worth a tantrum to put her into the celestial 
 state of mind which always followed an outburst, 
 and to which she now had attained through her 
 forbearance towards Peggy, whose fat legs were 
 toiling up the steps of the terrace just ahead of 
 her. Peggy reached the top with scarlet cheeks 
 and the breath almost pumped from her short 
 body. But the little, thin, nervous face of Frances 
 was ethereally beautiful. Her coal-black curls, 
 loose almost to straightness, hung around her pale 
 cheeks like a frame, and her great velvet eyes never 
 left Kate s face, as she humbly clung to her hand, 
 like a tamed spirit of the air. 
 
 Never was there anything prettier or more lady 
 like than the way in which she greeted Mrs. Cope- 
 land, whom they found upon the terrace, going up 
 to her to be presented with the quiet self-posses 
 sion of a woman of the world. She looked with 
 amazement upon Elsie, who refused to look up or 
 speak to Miss Vandevoort, and who, when she 
 lifted her head from her mother s lap, only stared 
 at Peggy and Frances in shy, stubborn silence. 
 
 Frances instinctively held aloof from Mrs. Cope- 
 land, recognizing the coldness in her face, although 
 much more interested in her than Elsie. But, as 
 usual, Peggy, the little round diplomat, who would 
 not have given a crumb where Frances would have
 
 THE CHILD PROBLEM 135 
 
 given her last crust or the whole loaf, engagingly 
 climbed upon Mrs. Copeland s black satin knee, 
 and artfully coiled herself in the iron receptacle 
 which served that austere woman for a heart. 
 
 Mrs. Copeland was graciously pleased to invite 
 the children to lunch with Elsie. Peggy accepted 
 joyfully, scrambling down from Mrs. Copeland s 
 lap and trotting up to the house without a back 
 ward glance. Frances, who much preferred the 
 society of grown people, hung back until Kate sent 
 her after the rest. 
 
 Kate afterwards remembered the beautiful ex 
 pression of her face, and she knew what a genius 
 for irritation Mrs. Copeland must possess, in order 
 to stir up the storm in which that unhappy luncheon 
 or dinner ended.
 
 X 
 
 ON THE BOAT-HOUSE STEPS 
 
 WHEN Mrs. Copeland drew from her pocket her 
 fancy work, and settled back in the rustic seat where 
 they had found her, Alice, in obedience to a gesture 
 from Kate, proposed that they should go down to 
 the boat-house. 
 
 " What is the matter with you, Alice ?" said Kate, 
 when they were alone. 
 
 "Oh, nothing. What makes you ask?" 
 
 "Oh, nothing." 
 
 Kate laughed roguishly. 
 
 " Aren t you going to tell me ?" 
 
 " There s nothing to tell." 
 
 "When is Senator Cobb coming to propose to 
 you ?" 
 
 "How did you know he was going to?" asked 
 Alice, startled. 
 
 " I didn t. I only wanted to know. Are you going 
 to accept him ?" 
 
 " I don t know. They "
 
 ON THE BOAT-HOUSE STEPS 137 
 
 " You don t know ! They !" cried Kate, with 
 a shake of Alice s shoulder that made her bite her 
 tongue. " How dare you hint at such a thing ? 
 Do you mean to tell me that you love that awful 
 old man ?" 
 
 " No, no," cried Alice, covering her face with her 
 hands. 
 
 " Then has that precious mother of yours urged 
 you into it ?" 
 
 " Urged ? Urged ? I never hear anything else. 
 She is going to make me ! I don t dare to refuse." 
 
 " You little coward !" 
 
 "Yes, but you don t know my mother. You 
 don t know her. You don t know her." 
 
 Alice evidently could not gain her own consent 
 to say more. 
 
 " What does your father say ?" 
 
 " He says for me to do as I will. He never 
 even said that much before when anything went 
 against mother s wishes. He always wants me to 
 do as she says." 
 
 "Wouldn t your father befriend you if you re 
 fused in this case ?" 
 
 " I don t know. He would stand between us, I 
 think, if I could only tell him." 
 
 "Why don t you tell him?" 
 
 " Oh, I couldn t. It seems so so indeli 
 cate."
 
 138 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 " Alice Copelancl, I hope there is nobody else in 
 the world exactly like you." 
 
 " Why, / think that is a sign of refinement," said 
 Alice, primly. 
 
 " I know you do, my dear. And if you don t be 
 ware, you will approve of your own refinement to 
 such an extent that you will turn out an uncon 
 scionable little prig. You don t seem to mind 
 dealing me a rap into the bargain, but I do not 
 care particularly, for it is only the result of Stock- 
 bridge and Presbyterianism and the pharisaic at 
 mosphere you breathe. Your bad manners do not 
 come from an unkind heart. Consequently you 
 only lack tact. But for the sake of your friend 
 myself, I pray Heaven you may acquire that soon." 
 
 " I have hurt your feelings," said Alice, remorse 
 fully. 
 
 " Yes, you have hurt my feelings, because I am 
 only a publican and a sinner, and because I live 
 in a wicked city where publicans are liked and ap 
 proved of, and where we seldom get a rap over the 
 nose such as you just dealt to me." 
 
 " Oh, I am so sorry." 
 
 " I don t lay it up against you, because I hard 
 ly see how you could be anything else with the 
 exam ahem! with such surroundings. Good 
 heavens, Alice! You ought to go around the 
 world, and get a point of view."
 
 ON THE BOAT-HOUSE STEPS 139 
 
 Alice looked up, startled by Miss Vandevoort s 
 vehemence. "A point of view?" she repeated, 
 doubtfully. 
 
 " Yes, yes ; a point of view ! Is anything more 
 maddening than to go ambling peacefully along in 
 life, smiling at the world and harming nobody, and 
 suddenly to dash your head against the stone wall of 
 provincial virtue, and lie on your back for a while, 
 seeing red and green stars ? I really think there is 
 an element of viciousness in the virtue of a small 
 town which is worse than loose-slippered liberality. 
 I think narrowness, whenever and wherever you 
 meet it, is the most irritating of all the vices. 
 Of course, I am a woman, and I can only talk and 
 rage about these things in a perfectly ladylike and 
 refined way ; but they make me desperate." 
 
 " Do /make you feel like that ?" asked Alice. 
 
 " Oh, no, not quite yet," said Miss Vandevoort, 
 rumpling her hair with whimsical fretfulness. " But 
 I am afraid of what you are going to be. You have 
 set your feet on the slippery downward path of 
 Perfection, and I only wish you could see how 
 stupidly conceited you appear to a pagan outsider, 
 because you believe so absolutely that you are right 
 and that I am wrong. Now I don t agree with you. 
 I am wrong enough, Heaven knows, only you are 
 more wrong than I. It is but a question of degree. 
 You can t see it, and you are not believing me right
 
 140 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 now, because you are looking at me from the point 
 of view of Stockbridge, Potts County, Pennsylvania. 
 You are a different creature here froiTi ^he girl I 
 knew at West Point. Do you remember the night 
 of the hop?" 
 
 Alice turned her head away and made no reply 
 at first. They were sitting at the foot of the ter 
 race, on the steps leading up from the boat-house. 
 The summer had been very hot and dry so far, and 
 the Delaware was sinking rapidly. Kate sat watch 
 ing the shadows on the river, and wondering how 
 to broach the subject of the telegram, when she was 
 startled by Alice s voice, with a little ring of hard 
 ness in it, saying, 
 
 "After all, why not m- marry him? I don t 
 want to live in Stockbridge forever and be narrow 
 and provincial." 
 
 " Well, dear me, is there no one else except Sena 
 tor Cobb ? What has become of all the other men 
 in the world since we have been sitting here? 
 Has a pestilence swept them from the face of the 
 earth ?" 
 
 " There is no one else who cares for me," said 
 Alice, bitterly. 
 
 " How do you know ?" 
 
 " Mother says so." 
 
 "Urn. Does she?" 
 
 " Yes, she does. And I know that it is true."
 
 ON THE BOAT-HOUSE STEPS 141 
 
 " Do you ! You are very wise." 
 
 If Kate expected to sting Alice by her tone into 
 either question or explanation, she was disappointed, 
 for Kate was finally obliged to say, " How about 
 Gordon Counsehnan ?" 
 
 Alice turned and faced her vehemently. " There 
 is nothing about him !" she declared. 
 
 " How do you know ? Don t you, in your secret 
 heart, believe that he loves you ?" 
 
 Kate was not sure that Alice would not plunge 
 headlong into the river at the open mention of such 
 an indelicate fact. But to her surprise she found 
 that Alice, like most reticent persons, occasionally 
 fairly revelled in the opening up of a closed subject. 
 
 "No, I don t." 
 
 " Why ?" 
 
 " Why ? Because I have not had a letter from 
 him for a month. Why did he stop writing ? Why 
 did he promise to come home with George and 
 then suddenly withdraw his acceptance without any 
 reason or any explanation ?" 
 
 " Why ?" repeated Kate, excitedly. " Because 
 your mother wrote to him and withdrew her son s in 
 vitation in such a way that Gordon could not explain 
 even to George, and there is a coolness between 
 them now, because George is too proud to ask why, 
 and Gordon too much of a gentleman to show a 
 fellow s mother up to him in an unfavorable light.
 
 142 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 And most of all, because Mrs. Copeland gave Gor 
 don to understand that you were engaged to Sena 
 tor Cobb. That is why Gordon does not write. 
 Your mother intimated that she wrote in your be 
 half to break the news to him." 
 
 Alice reached out for Kate s hand to steady her 
 self. 
 
 " My mother did that ? My mother ?" 
 
 She kept repeating it, as if she could not take it 
 in, and she looked so dazed that Kate hurriedly 
 put the telegram into her hand. 
 
 " Read that. Mollie has invited him to our 
 house, and he is coming to-morrow. To-morrow, 
 do you hear ?" 
 
 Alice read the telegram twice, and laughed hys 
 terically. 
 
 " And Senator Cobb is coming to-night and I 
 shall be engaged by to-morrow. Don t you see 
 that I can t help myself ? Don t you know that 
 my mother has succeeded in everything she ever 
 undertook in her life? Don t you know that she 
 will marry me to the senator if it kills me? I 
 didn t know before how determined she was. But 
 if she has done all this, I might as well give up at 
 once." 
 
 "Poor Gordon," said Kate, softly. 
 
 Alice clutched her hand. 
 
 " Do you think he cares ?"
 
 ON THE BOAT-HOUSE STEPS 143 
 
 " I know that he cares. I only wish you had 
 been noble enough to have faith in him such 
 faith as he would have had in you." 
 
 Alice shook her head. " I am not noble. I have 
 no faith." 
 
 "You have no courage, and no hope, either," said 
 Kate, in a vexed tone. 
 
 Alice looked up at her humbly. 
 
 "I know I know," said Kate, hastily. "Per 
 haps I shouldn t have, either, in your place. But 
 are you going to give up like that ? Aren t you 
 going to nerve yourself ?" 
 
 " What is the use ? Don t you know that I am 
 bound hand and foot? Have you ever contended 
 with my mother ? Do you know how futile it is ?" 
 
 " It wouldn t be for me !" cried Kate, wickedly. 
 " I d just lore to pit my will against hers !" 
 
 "Yours!" said Alice. "Why, her will would 
 grind yours to powder. Yours makes more noise, 
 but hers is as quiet and deadly as as the grave. 
 I should as soon think of contending with Death." 
 
 " Well, I believe that there is such a thing as 
 contesting the field with Death," began Kate, bold 
 ly. Then she covered her face with her hands, and 
 a groan burst from her lips. " Oh, God, forgive me 
 for saying that !" she murmured. "Once I did con 
 test the field with Death, and Death won." 
 
 " Oh, dear Miss Vandevoort," cried Alice, put-
 
 144 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 ting her arms around Kate, and forgetting herself 
 in a moment, as she always did in the face of an 
 other s trouble. 
 
 Kate sat up suddenly and took both of Alice s 
 hands in hers, and looked into her eyes with a look 
 which went clear through the world s ways, uc""n, 
 down into the girl s soul. 
 
 " Once how long ago it seems, measured by 
 everything but years ! I stood just where you are 
 standing now, with the privilege of choosing my 
 life s happiness or its misery. It was even more in 
 my power to choose freely than it is in yours. 
 Alice, if I did not love you I could not tell you 
 this. You don t know why I love you, do you ? 
 It is because you remind me of myself. Once I 
 was as single-hearted as you. My environments 
 were not like yours, but they fettered me quite as 
 much, and in the writhing of my spirit to free my 
 self they turned me into the complex creature I am 
 to-day, with so much of good and ill warring in my 
 soul that sometimes it frightens me even now, cool- 
 headed as I love to believe myself. Alice, I was 
 meant to be a true woman. I feel it, but I couldn t 
 help being influenced, I couldn t help being drag 
 ged down. I couldn t keep my ideals high and 
 clean when every passer-by dashed them down. 
 So I lowered them inch by inch myself, until they 
 were on a level with my eyes and I no longer had
 
 ON THE BOAT-HOUSE STEPS 145 
 
 to look up to see them. Then they were not ideals 
 any more. They were my familiars. But I could 
 not bear their reproachful faces. So I wrapped 
 them in sophistry and put them further away. I 
 knew they were within reach. I did not wish to 
 destroy them, but they were only dim, shadowy 
 shapes, and I tried to forget them, for it hurt me to 
 think of them. 
 
 " I was not happy even then, but I rilled every 
 hour so full that I could not think. I was reckless 
 in those days, afraid to stop and see where I was. 
 Everybody envied me. I was supposed to be per 
 fectly happy. I said I was. I tried to believe it. 
 But I never succeeded. In my heart I hated the 
 ways of society, and loathed myself for conforming 
 to them. 
 
 " Then I met for the second time a man I once 
 had known and forgotten. From the moment I 
 knew him I felt how I must appear to him how 
 shallow, heartless, worldly. He made me see my 
 self, and oh, how I suffered ! He was so different 
 from the other men I knew, and I was so proud be 
 cause he seemed attracted to me. He was a cadet 
 at West Point, and I had gone up there with my 
 father and mother to spend the summer. 
 
 " Max never cared for other girls, and I was flat 
 tered that I had won the attentions of the most 
 difficult man at West Point. But it was only an
 
 146 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 outward victory, for although he was always with 
 me, yet he held himself, his real self, aloof from me. 
 I felt that it was because he did not approve of me, 
 perhaps because he could not respect me. Love 
 makes a women either proud or humble, Alice. It 
 humbled me, and this new thought stung me to the 
 quick. I resolved to make myself different to be 
 so good that he would love me. I wanted him to 
 love me. And although I spent the days and 
 nights in anxiety, I look back on that summer as 
 the happiest of my life, for no matter how hard 
 the struggle, there is nothing so sweet as to try 
 of your own accord to make yourself better for 
 the one you love, when it is all your own secret. 
 I should hate a man who wanted me to be bet 
 ter ! 
 
 " Most unfortunately for us, Max was poor and I 
 was rich. I really think that I myself never should 
 have thought of this. But my father " and Kate s 
 face flushed at the recollection of it " my father 
 said that a gentleman should never feel the lack of 
 money. Absurd as it sounds to me now, knowing 
 as I do that according to that theory there are very 
 few gentleman in the world, nevertheless when one 
 is younger one feels such things much more keenly. 
 I was sensitive and foolish and young three most 
 unfortunate things according to my way of thinking 
 now and I felt on raw nerves every one of the
 
 ON THE BOAT-HOUSE STEPS 147 
 
 stings which his keen sarcastic wit was capable of 
 making at Max s expense. 
 
 " This is not a very noble love story I am telling 
 you, is it Alice ? Make excuses for me, if you can. 
 Not that I excuse myself, but I have suffered 
 enough since to wipe out every sin I ever com 
 mitted with drops of my heart s blood. 
 
 " Max felt the difference in our positions even 
 more than my father did, although I did not know 
 it, and I was not noble enough, when I began to 
 love him, to ascribe any virtues to him which I had 
 not seen in other men. I loved him simply because 
 I could not help myself. I was walking by sight 
 and not by faith, and just at that time my sight was 
 not very lofty. I had a contempt for most men. 
 Such hosts of them had made love to me. Some 
 were too stupid to conceal that my fortune would 
 be no drawback. Some were too eager, simply be 
 cause I had pleased their eye, to deceive even a 
 young girl as to their real selves. Some were too 
 business-like to satisfy the sentimental side of my na 
 ture. Some were too young for me not to know that 
 I overtopped them mentally ; some too old ever to 
 learn anything new ; but most of them too gross not 
 to repel as sensitive a creature as I, and I loathed 
 them all for daring to call themselves in love with 
 me. I suppose they thought they were. I suppose 
 they believed in themselves. But, to my mind, they
 
 148 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 never knew the meaning of the word. And so, in 
 spite of lofty ideals, and wanting to believe ir. men, the 
 very men themselves dragged their sex down for me, 
 and lowered my standard of men, and drove me fur 
 ther and further toward the material side of humanity. 
 " So when I would have believed in Max, my 
 worldly wisdom stepped in and held me back, and 
 made me misjudge him. Then when still he held 
 off from me in words, while letting me read in every 
 other way, as a man will, even when he doesn t mean 
 to, that he loved me, my ease-loving, pleasure- 
 choosing nature revolted against the cruelty and 
 hardship of loving a man with all my heart who 
 didn t or wouldn t love me, and I grew angry and 
 suspicious. A man once said to me, when he was 
 asking me to marry him, There was a time when 
 I hated you because so many other men loved you, 
 and because you made so many men suffer. I hated 
 you the more because I knew that, if I came near you, 
 I should love you too, just as blindly and irresistibly 
 as they did. I made up my mind that I would steel 
 myself against you, and make you love me, just as 
 hopelessly as men have loved you, and then, when 
 I was ready, I would turn my back on you as heart 
 lessly as you appeared to turn yours on them. But 
 your simplicity, where I had expected to find arts 
 and wiles, disarmed me too completely, and this is 
 the result.
 
 ON THE BOAT-HOUSE STEPS 149 
 
 " That gave me a new point of view ; but, Alice, 
 I never had anything to terrify me so much in all 
 my life. To think that a man, a great, strong, 
 grown man, who had nothing against me but the 
 fancied wrongs of other men, should have planned 
 in cold blood the wrecking of my life for if he 
 had succeeded I should have gone straight to the 
 devil, nothing could have saved me fairly froze 
 my blood with fear. I felt that instead of expect 
 ing any man to be my friend, I must regard every 
 stranger as a possible foe. And this thing crept 
 into my mind when Max acted so curiously. Oh, 
 it shames me unspeakably to think that I ever could 
 have allowed it to enter a heart which pretended to 
 love such a man as Max ! 
 
 " But the trail of the serpent was even there, and 
 I looked at it until it grew familiar, and then I acted 
 on the suggestion. I grew revengeful. I vowed 
 that if he did not already love me, he should come 
 to it ; and if he did love me, he should tell me so. 
 
 " 1 put my own feelings entirely out of sight. And 
 I made myself just as attractive to him as I possibly 
 could. I grew reckless, and encouraged him and 
 lured him on, because it was exciting and different 
 from anything I ever had encountered before, and 
 because I didn t care what the consequences might 
 be. I let the future take care of itself. 
 
 " I could see that he was puzzled and surprised,
 
 150 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 but attracted. Wherever I led, he followed, but in 
 silence. His resistance made m^ c T ^n more de 
 termined, more eager, until one day I wrung the 
 truth from him, and he asked me to be his wife. 
 He said he never had meant to tell me, but I knew 
 that I had made him, and when he told me how he 
 loved me, and that he had loved me from the very 
 beginning, I grew ashamed and frightened at 
 discovering for the first time what it was to be 
 loved by a man, a real man, not a make-believe 
 or a beast ; a man who never had loved anybody 
 but me, who was no gallant to sigh at the feet of 
 every girl, but who loved me in the old-fashioned 
 way, which, if I were not such a worldling that I have 
 grown ashamed to regard love as sacred that s 
 what the world does for one, Alice I should say had 
 something holy about it. 
 
 " I thank Heaven, as I look back, that I had enough 
 of the eternal in me to reverence it and accept it and 
 to return it in a degree, although I was not able to 
 return it in kind, because I had had too many affairs 
 before. I only wish now that I had been enough of 
 a woman to be honest with him, and to give him the 
 comfort of letting him know how I did love him. But 
 I had the coquette s idea of keeping a man s love 
 by withholding the full expression of it of never 
 saying that which he most wanted to hear. And 
 although Max poured his whole honest, faithful
 
 ON THE BOAT-HOUSE STEPS 151 
 
 soul out at my feet, he never knew how dearly I 
 loved him. He knows it now. 
 
 " Once you asked me why I loved West Point. 
 It was because I fell in love with Max there. He 
 wore the cadet gray. He walked with me down 
 Flirtation. He danced with me at the hops, and 
 once they serenaded me with Benny Havens, just 
 as they did you. 
 
 " I think I am foolish for going year after year 
 to a place which harrows me up and nearly kills me 
 with its memories, but every inch of the ground is dear 
 to me. I love every bugle-call, which used to mean 
 so much to us. As I look back, Alice, it seems that 
 I have lived and died by bugle-calls, for they sig 
 nalled all our little engagements with each other, 
 which were so short but so clear to both of us, held 
 sometimes at the most inconvenient hours ; and it 
 was the bugle which said whether we could be to 
 gether five minutes or an hour ; and I loved it until 
 once it played taps, out your lights, for the last 
 time over Max s grave. The lights went out for me 
 then and forever. 
 
 " I wish I could remember where I first met him. 
 I am so jealous of every memory, now that he is 
 dead, that I would give anything if I could remem 
 ber every idle word, and all the jests, and little half- 
 quarrels, and the joy of making up in those days, 
 before we knew that we loved each other. He is
 
 152 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 so much to me now that it seems> is if I ought to 
 have felt him coming, and known him out of all the 
 world. You know where you met Gordon. You 
 remember the first time you touched his hand, the 
 first look he gave you. Whatever else you lose, 
 you will always have that memory. Do you know 
 these lines ? 
 
 " I wish I could remember that first day, 
 
 First hour, first moment of your meeting me, 
 
 If bright or dim the season, it might be 
 
 Summer or winter for aught that I can say, 
 
 So unrecorded did it slip away ; 
 
 So blind was I to see and to foresee, 
 
 So dull to mark the budding of my tree, 
 
 That would not blossom yet for many a May. 
 
 If only I could recollect it such 
 
 A day of days ! I let it come and go 
 
 As traceless as a thaw of by-gone snow, 
 
 It seemed to mean so little, meant so much. 
 
 If only now I could recall that touch, 
 
 First touch of hand in hand did one but know ! 
 
 " When you take up a book of poetry with such 
 verse as that in it, Alice, you only half read it, no 
 matter how carefully you look at each word. But 
 when you trip over it by accident, and you have 
 lived it all out in your heart beforehand, and the poet 
 has only put your soul into words, then you not only 
 are reading it you are living it.
 
 ON THE BOAT-HOUSE STEPS 153 
 
 " Max was not brilliant, but I was desperately am 
 bitious for him, as I am for myself and for you and 
 for every one I love ambitious to make the most 
 of every opportunity, and to wrest from life all that 
 it has to offer. So you can imagine my disappoint 
 ment when he suddenly resigned from West Point to 
 obtain a business position. For a long time I did 
 not know why. Then I discovered that it was to 
 enable him to offer me more. He never told me. 
 I accidentally discovered it from something he said, 
 and I never let him know that I knew, for, while I 
 was touched beyond words to express, my disap 
 pointment was so bitter at his not understanding 
 me better that I dared not trust myself to speak of 
 it to him. 
 
 "Quiet men, men who are not brilliant them 
 selves, always love women like me, and while doing 
 their plodding best, sometimes misunderstand us 
 lamentably. He never knew that distinction would 
 be infinitely more to me than wealth. I cared 
 nothing for what I was born into. My ambition 
 reached out towards the unattainable. But when 
 he made the sacrifice, mistaken though it was, and 
 made it so gladly because it was for me, how could 
 I explain it to him? I did not understand his 
 heroism even then. I had to have a harder lesson 
 to teach me to have faith in humanity. He always 
 comforted himself by his belief that his younger
 
 154 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 brother would distinguish himself in his stead and 
 win a higher place than Max could ever have won. 
 His brother was the clever o^, and Max idolized 
 brilliancy, as most silent men do. 
 
 " But Max in a dull, commonplace business was 
 quite different, in the eyes of the world, from Max 
 in the army. The world said I ought to do better. 
 The dear, kind, friendly world, which had done so 
 much for me already, which had transformed me 
 from an impetuous, hopeful, believing girl into a 
 suspicious, calculating, worldly woman, stepped in 
 and said it had predicted a brilliant match for me, 
 and shook its head with a smile the hateful, patron 
 izing, sneering smile of the world at the rural idea 
 of any genuine emotion over Max s pretensions 
 to my hand. My hand ! Alice, I am telling you 
 honestly, and you know humility is not one of my 
 virtues, when I say that, to compare the cleanness 
 of my hand with his, in the horrible clear light of 
 Absolute Truth, I was not worthy to be his wife. 
 I was frivolous, selfish, a flirt; and if I am anything 
 else to-day it is because I have lived since by his 
 life. Whatever I am, I owe to him. 
 
 "I said a moment ago that the world said I 
 ought to do better. It was the world, largely in 
 the person of my father. I will speak no harm of 
 the dead. The best I can say of him, and I believe 
 this is the truth, is that he did not know how gen-
 
 ON THE BOAT-HOUSE STEPS 155 
 
 uinely Max loved me, and I was too proud too 
 wicked, I call it now to let any one, even Max 
 himself, know how much I loved him. Oh, what a 
 mistake coquettes make ! If only I could have him 
 back for just one hour, I would trample my pride 
 and my vanity and my worldliness under my feet, 
 and I would give him, to his heart s content, the 
 comfort I never once gave him then, of letting him 
 know that I loved him with all my soul, as I love 
 him now, and as I shall love him till I die. 
 
 " My father couldn t have known this, could he, 
 Alice ? No man could have been cruel enough to 
 ridicule what we felt for each other, could he? But, 
 oh, he said so much, and he was so clever with it 
 all ! I was proud and sensitive, and I pretended 
 not to care. But his words cut, cut down into the 
 quick of my foolish vanity, until I shiver and shrink 
 even yet at the memory of certain phrases he used. 
 He did not know what he was doing. Oh, he could 
 not have known ! 
 
 "But I was almost desperate, driven to bay; and 
 when the war broke out, and Max raised a com 
 pany, I was actually glad, for I thought that here 
 was an opportunity for him to distinguish himself, 
 as I was sure he would. 
 
 " Max gave up his business as cheerfully as if he 
 already had not sacrificed one of the desires of his 
 life to attain it. Duties never conflict, he used to
 
 156 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 say to me when I rebelled at hard things. Ah, but 
 he was a hero ! 
 
 "He wanted me to rr.r-ry him before he went. 
 There was where the fine simplicity of his nature 
 came in, which I was too poor in spirit to respond 
 to. When once I had persuaded him that the ob 
 stacles which had kept him from speaking had been 
 removed, he believed so utterly in my truth that he 
 never gave them another thought. He took me at 
 my word, and believed my nature to be as elemen 
 tary as his own. It was not all my fault, Alice. 
 Most men are unworldly naturally, and Max was 
 the most unworldly of them all. But, oh ! the world 
 is a power which women feel in the most deadly 
 way. We are complex enough to recognize its in 
 fluence, but we never can make our position under 
 stood to a man. He frankly turns his back on it 
 and says to a woman, I want you, and that s all 
 there is to it. But it isn t. Oh, but I m sick of 
 these distinctions ! I am sick of my woman nature. 
 I should love to be primitive, and broad, and daring, 
 as men are. I would use my liberty to better 
 advantage than they do. If I wore no fetters I 
 would show people that it was because I did not 
 need them. 
 
 " That was the sort of man Max was. But 
 I could not explain myself to him, and, Alice, my 
 hesitation was not all base. It was partly jeal-
 
 ON THE BOAT-HOUSE STEPS 157 
 
 ousy for him. I wanted him to win distinction, so 
 that the world would be obliged to say I had 
 done well. I wanted them to appreciate him to 
 see him with my eyes. That s what women like 
 me have to do for the quiet, unassuming men who 
 love us. 
 
 " So I held off, and promised to marry him when 
 he came home. I told him to do something great, 
 something to make me proud of him. I tried to 
 appeal to his ambition ; but it was pure patriotism 
 which made him go and fight for his country. Then 
 I tried to prick his vanity, but he had none. 
 
 " I never shall forget the way he looked at me. 
 He was so big and tall, and had that kind way of 
 looking down that most big men have the protec 
 tive look, brought out by a woman s smallness of 
 stature. Max was so tall that even I seemed little 
 beside him. 
 
 " I knew he was thinking of how I had encour 
 aged him to love me, and had myself broken down 
 all the barriers his pride had erected between us, 
 and that now I refused to give him his reward I 
 refused to live up to my noble sentiments, only he 
 wouldn t hurt me by saying so. He only squared 
 his shoulders and drew a deep breath and looked 
 over my head at the opposite wall, while I stam 
 mered and fluttered, not daring to speak out, and 
 let him despise me.
 
 158 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 " So he went away. He never reproached me. 
 He only turned at the door and looked back at 
 me, as Lohengrin looks at Elsa when he is leaving 
 her and says, Lebe wohl. He loved me, faults 
 and imperfections and worldliness and weakness, 
 too much to lay a feather s weight upon my hap 
 piness. But I have thought since that he believed 
 in me and forgave me in spite of appearances. 
 Max always did thai. When I used to make 
 speeches to people which were too daring or too 
 wicked for conventionality, and instinctively looked 
 at Max to see if he disapproved, he always forgave 
 me by a look before I could even ask, and al 
 ways put the best construction upon everything, 
 and said I didn t mean it, and believed the very 
 best of me always. Oh, Max ! 
 
 " So he went away. I never saw him again. He 
 was killed in his first battle, trying to rally his men. 
 They were in a panic and it was no use. But if he 
 had succeeded, it would have saved the day. They 
 told me that there never was a more desperately 
 heroic attempt made than his. He forgot himself. 
 He never thought of danger. He was like a lion 
 when he was roused, and he was killed trying to 
 make his men die like men. But they were mad 
 with fear and almost rode him down. 
 
 " He did nothing brilliant, Alice, dear. He nei 
 ther saved the day nor obtained any glory. He
 
 ON THE BOAT-HOUSE STEPS 159 
 
 simply gave up his life doing his duty as Max would 
 do, only regretting that he had not succeeded 
 better. 
 
 " He lay where he fell for hours, wounded fatally. 
 And when they finally came to carry him from the 
 field, he knew that there were scores of others who 
 could be saved, so he refused to go. He must have 
 lain there nearly all night, suffering alone. When 
 they came in the morning they found him there, 
 dead. And in his hand was a picture of me, but it 
 was held so tightly that they had to bury it with 
 him. I am glad they did. I am glad my face is 
 where my heart is. 
 
 " That was my hero, Alice. That was Max Coun- 
 selman, Gordon s brother." 
 
 As Kate ceased speaking, Alice gave a little cry 
 and leaned her cheek against Kate s flower-like 
 face in a silence too deep for words. So they held 
 each other closely and clung together as women do, 
 looking out over the river with unseeing eyes. 
 Then it was that Alice realized that perhaps in this 
 lay the message of her life, and that here and now 
 she had come to her soul s cross-roads.
 
 XI 
 
 THE BATTLE OF STOCKBRIDGE 
 
 STOCKBRIDGE society was quite stirred up over 
 the arrival in town of three noted personages, who 
 became, as was only proper and right, the personal 
 property of the Copelands and Overshines. One 
 was Senator Cobb, of Washington, whom the Stock- 
 bridge Conservative ineffectually tried to interview 
 on the approaching election as he stepped off the 
 train, but who expressly stated that he was here on 
 private business, in so embarrassed a manner that 
 the reporter, who was an astute young man, went 
 back to the office of the Conservative and wrote up 
 the senator s career, ending with the announcement 
 of his engagement to the lovely daughter of one of 
 our esteemed and leading citizens, leaving the name 
 blank, and then held it over to await developments. 
 
 The other two arrivals were John Vandevoort, of 
 New York, and Second Lieutenant Gordon Coun- 
 selman, of the Third Artillery, who were guests of 
 the Overshines.
 
 THE BATTLE OF STOCKBRIDGE l6l 
 
 Gordon arrived in the afternoon, and found Miss 
 Vandevoort waiting for him with such a radiant 
 face and in so bewitching a gown that Mollie Over- 
 shine, in spite of her vehement admiration for 
 Kate, strongly disapproved of the way Kate was 
 leading that poor young fellow on. She kept an 
 eye on Kate every minute. Not a vivacious move 
 ment of that brilliant young woman escaped her ; 
 not a tone of Gordon s voice, pleading with her for 
 something, which Kate was wickedly but laughingly 
 denying him. Mollie was really vexed with Kate. 
 " The girl has no heart," she thought. It was only 
 the judgment of the world upon appearances, and 
 no more severe and no more unjust than many 
 another verdict of society upon circumstantial evi 
 dence. It is only by knowing the under side of 
 things that we are able to judge brilliancy gently. 
 
 Miss Vandevoort was far too clever to allow Gor 
 don to rush to call upon the Copelands the moment 
 he arrived. She counselled patience both on ac 
 count of reason and diplomacy, and Gordon was 
 obliged to admit the correctness of her advice. 
 
 The lawn at the Overshines was deep and soft 
 and velvety. Kate had inaugurated really comfort 
 able rustic chairs, instead of the terrible back- 
 breaking combination of slats and knots with which 
 many excellent people strain the Christian forbear 
 ance of their guests. This simple cotip d etat trans-
 
 162 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 formed it for the delightful afternoon hours into an 
 out-of-door drawing-room. Mollie s tea-table and 
 Kate s work-stand, a foolish but attractive little 
 thing, just the kind of a three-legged affair that men 
 ridicule and secretly admire, and always tip over, 
 stood within easy reach, and here the children 
 adored to come and talk and be laughed at and 
 spoiled. 
 
 John Yandevoort, a taller, grander, gentler edition 
 of Kate, sat watching Peggy, toiling and perspiring 
 over her drawing. Peggy had few talents. She 
 had to dig and delve for the acquirements which 
 Frances fluttered over and knew without looking 
 at. Frances was all sentiment, imagination, and 
 superstition. Peggy was slow and practical and ut 
 terly reasonable. Her round eyes bulged out in 
 wonder at the caprices and mental flights of Fran 
 ces, who, much to her disgust, could never drag 
 Peggy upward, nor even inspire her with a desire 
 to soar. Metaphorically speaking, Frances always 
 wanted to take the middle of the road, with plenty 
 of elbow room, and Peggy admiringly stumbled 
 along some distance behind, bravely swallowing 
 her sister s dust. 
 
 " I wonder if all that grown people tell children 
 about dying is true," said Frances, pirouetting 
 about her father and Kate and the others, in a 
 smart frock and scarlet shoes.
 
 THE BATTLE OF STOCKBRIDGE 163 
 
 " I think so," said Colonel Overshine. " What, 
 for instance ?" 
 
 "Well, is it true that somebody is dying some 
 where in the world every minute of the day and 
 night ?" 
 
 "Yes, that s true." 
 
 " My ! Heaven must be an awfully big place. It 
 must be bigger than the world, or it couldn t hold 
 them all." 
 
 Peggy looked up from her drawing, and, pushing 
 the hair out of her eyes, said judicially, "Well, I 
 don t know, Frances. You must remember that 
 hell takes care of a good many." 
 
 Colonel Overshine exploded. "Orthodoxy for 
 ever!" he roared. 
 
 " Don t laugh at them," said Kate, biting her 
 lips to no avail; "it spoils them." 
 
 " Then why doesn t it spoil you, Aunt Kate, when 
 people laugh at everything that you say ?" asked 
 Frances. 
 
 " It does," answered Kate. " I am dreadfully 
 spoiled, Frances. I m perfectly horrid, I think." 
 
 " Vous etes une ange !" cried the child, impetu 
 ously casting herself into Kate s arms. 
 
 Peggy saw nothing in her remark to laugh at. 
 She got up from the grass and smeared her warm 
 red face with her dirty little hand. She looked at 
 her drawing critically, not with her head on one
 
 164 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 side as Frances would have done, but straight 
 ahead, with her round eyes glued to the picture. 
 Then she made her way slowly over to Colonel 
 Overshine, and sidling up to him, she said, po 
 litely: 
 
 "Cousin Chris, I ve drawn a picture of you. 
 The upper part is a very good likeness, I think, 
 specially the whiskers. But I had to put skirts on 
 you. I hope you ll excuse me, because I don t 
 come to trousers until my next lesson." 
 
 They all coughed. Peggy would have been 
 much hurt if they had laughed at her work. 
 
 " Hum, hum !" said Colonel Overshine, burying 
 his red face in his handkerchief. " Very good, in 
 deed, me dear. And as you say, the whiskers are 
 uncommonly like. But er put me into trousers 
 as soon as you can, me dear ; I feel more at home 
 in them." 
 
 " Oh, certainly. I forgot, when I began, that I 
 wouldn t know what to do about your legs. I just 
 happened to think of skirts when I saw Cousin 
 Mollie sit down by you. I should like to draw 
 Frank. He has been very kind to me. Do you 
 think he would mind not having any legs ?" 
 
 " Not at all, me dear. Frank being me own son, 
 I can speak freely, and say he is one of the most 
 accommodating boys I ever saw. If you have no 
 use for his legs, Peggy, let him go without. The
 
 THE BATTLE OF STOCKBRIDGE 165 
 
 young fellows of to-day have too many luxuries, 
 anyhow." 
 
 Frank Overshine was one of those amiable, well- 
 meaning boys who, with the best heart in the world, 
 always did everything wrong. He was slow, good, 
 and exasperating. He always lost trains, and lost 
 boats, and lost everything but his temper. Kate 
 made fun of him unmercifully, but he adored her 
 in spite of it. She called him "the late Frank 
 Overshine," at which he only smiled deprecatingly. 
 He was always planning reform. He was always 
 turning over a new leaf. But he lived in the land 
 of to-morrow. His intentions, however, were good, 
 only Kate said he spent the most of his time paving 
 hell. And that saying almost shocked several mem 
 bers of first families into untimely graves. Stock- 
 bridge never entirely approved of Miss Vandevoort 
 after that, which gives you a very good idea of 
 Stockbridge. 
 
 " I ve just been out to see the Copelands," he 
 announced, genially. But as he generally had just 
 been out to see the Copelands, this surprised no 
 one. Nevertheless, they all listened with more or 
 less interest. 
 
 " How are they all ?" asked Mr. Vandevoort. 
 " I thought of going out there this evening." 
 
 " Mrs. Copeland sent word that she hoped to see 
 you very soon. I told her that Mr. Counselman
 
 l66 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 was here, too, and she said she was sorry George 
 was not in town." 
 
 Kate smiled wickedly. 
 
 "Senator Cobl> ; s there, I believe?" she said. 
 
 " Yes, he is there now, but he is going on the 
 early train to-morrow. He wanted to go to-night, 
 but Mrs. Copeland wouldn t let him." 
 
 " Why, how sudden !" said Mrs. Overshine. " I 
 thought he meant to stay several days. I was 
 going to entertain him." 
 
 " He got a telegram," said Frank, innocently, 
 "calling him back at once." 
 
 " Then we ought to call to-night," said Colonel 
 Overshine. 
 
 " Suppose we all go," cried Kate. 
 
 " All right," agreed Frank, with unnecessary 
 promptness. 
 
 " How many times have you been there to-day al 
 ready?" asked Kate, mischievously. 
 
 "Only twice. But Mrs. Copeland sent word 
 last night that she wanted to see me." Frank in 
 voluntarily buttoned the top button of his coat and 
 sat up straighter with the importance of this an 
 nouncement. Mrs. Copeland generally treated 
 him with a silent contempt, which the poor fellow 
 never saw nor felt. But his mother saw it and felt 
 it and resented it. 
 
 "How is Alice?" she said, kindly, in order to
 
 THE BATTLE OF STOCKBRIDGE 167 
 
 give him an opportunity to speak of her. He was 
 her only son, and she could not help wanting to 
 lift him over the hard places. 
 
 " Why, mother, I don t know what is the matter 
 with Alice. I never saw her stirred up so," he 
 said, with more animation than he generally dis 
 played. "You know how gentle and sweet she is, 
 and how she never loses her temper ? Well, when 
 I was telling her what Cousin Kate had planned 
 for the week while John and Mr. Counselman were 
 here, and said, of course, she was to go everywhere 
 we went, and all that, she almost stamped her foot 
 at least I saw it move and she said her mother 
 wouldn t let her go, and that she had to dress ninety 
 dolls this week for that fair the Presbyterian church 
 is going to have." 
 
 "Ninety dolls!" cried Gordon Counselman. 
 
 " Ninety dolls !" exclaimed everybody else in a 
 breath. 
 
 " Oh, I wish they were all for me," said Frances, 
 modestly. 
 
 "Why, I thought Alice had the candy table," 
 said Kate. 
 
 " She has. This doll table is a new idea." 
 
 " It will be in her mother s name," murmured 
 Mrs. Overshine, " but, as usual, Alice will do the 
 work." 
 
 Kate frowned abstractedly for a moment ; then
 
 l68 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 she wandered aimlessly over to Frank, and under 
 cover of the general conversation she said, in a 
 low tone : " What did Mrs. Copeland want of you 
 this morning?" 
 
 " She said she sent for me to know if John Van- 
 devoort had come." 
 
 " Was that all she wanted ?" 
 
 "Yes, I think so. 1 
 
 " She didn t mention Mr. Counselman s name ?" 
 
 " Not that I remember." 
 
 " Did you ?" 
 
 "Oh yes; I told her he was coming this after 
 noon." 
 
 " Did you see Alice?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Did she say anything about the dolls then ?" 
 
 " No ; she seemed in unusually good spirits. It 
 was this afternoon she told me about them. Isn t 
 it too bad she can t go ?" 
 
 " Can t go ! Wait and see if she doesn t go. Is 
 Mrs. Copeland the Pope of Stockbridge ? I never 
 saw anything so undisputed as her sway," cried 
 Kate, indignantly. 
 
 " I never thought of it at all," said Frank, 
 honestly. 
 
 " Of course not. Therein lies the secret of her 
 power. It takes alien eyes to discover a despot so 
 skilled as Mrs. Copeland."
 
 THE BATTLE OF STOCKBRIDGE 169 
 
 " Don t let anybody hear you say that," begged 
 Frank. " It might get you into trouble. We have 
 to be so careful what we say." 
 
 " Thank Heaven I do not live in a small town !" 
 cried Kate, raising her arms above her head. 
 " Stockbridge would kill me in a year. I can t 
 breathe here. It may suit the children, and it 
 won t hurt them ; but, oh me ! the fetters on my 
 spirit !" 
 
 " Well, I don t know about the children. I 
 imagine that they misbehaved yesterday in fact, 
 had a regular scrimmage. Suppose you ask 
 Hortense." 
 
 Neither Frank nor any one else ever thought of 
 referring the children s discipline to their father. 
 He was quite helpless before them, and perhaps 
 none of the family realized this unfortunate fact 
 quite so poignantly as those astute young persons 
 themselves. They treated him like an adored 
 bachelor uncle, who was always giving them pres 
 ents, and in return got bullied, confided in, ig 
 nored, consulted, and tormented by turns, but never 
 minded. Everybody took a hand at managing 
 them except their father, or, rather, everybody 
 avenged his or her personal affront on them, and 
 the result of this go-as-you-please system was that 
 they were as they were. 
 
 Kate was the only one who had a conscience
 
 170 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 about them. She always treated them with respect 
 and confidence, and they returned the compliment 
 with the unstinted fervor of childhood. 
 
 "I prefer to ask them. They will tell. Frances 
 and Peggy, did you have a nice time yesterday with 
 Elsie Copeland ?" 
 
 " No, Aunt Kate, w<, had a horrid time," re 
 sponded Frances, with cheerial candor. " I con 
 sider Mrs. Copeland a most unpleasant old party." 
 
 Colonel Overshine shouted. 
 
 " You said so yourself, Cousin Chris," insisted 
 the child. " I heard you." 
 
 " Elsie is a very ign rant girl," observed Peggy, 
 gravely. " She is lots bigger than Frances, but she 
 has never been anywhere. Just think of it, Papa, 
 Elsie Copeland has never been anywhere except to 
 Philadelphia. She s never been to Europe even. 
 
 " And she isn t half as far in her arithmetic as I 
 am, and she didn t know what geography was." 
 
 " And when Frances laughed at her, Mrs. Cope- 
 land said Elsie never could study because she 
 was always sick. That was what started it," said 
 Peggy. 
 
 "Started what?" asked John Vandevoort, anx 
 iously. 
 
 "The row between Frances and Mrs. Copeland. 
 But I was in it, too," declared the child, honestly. 
 " Because Frances was so mad she couldn t see,
 
 THE BATTLE OF STOCKBRIDGE 171 
 
 and, of course, she was talking in French, and Mrs. 
 Copeland couldn t understand her." 
 
 " Frances Vandevoort," began Mrs. Overshine. 
 
 " Wait a moment, Mollie," said Kate. " Let us 
 see how it began. What was the very first of it, 
 dearest ? Tell Aunt Kate." 
 
 " Why, it was my accidentally laughing at Elsie 
 because she didn t know anything. I didn t mean 
 to be rude. But I was talking to them all at the 
 table. They have dinner in the middle of the day, 
 and let children come to the table. Oh, I think 
 Stockbridge is too queer and nice for anything!" 
 
 " Go on with the story," said Kate. 
 
 "Well, I was telling about Japan, and Judge 
 Copeland was listening just as politely as possible. 
 He is very nice, Aunt Kate. I like him. He said 
 he had never been there, but he asked questions, 
 and I was telling him about the jinrikishas, and I 
 said to Elsie it was lots funnier and nicer than the 
 geography says, and she didn t know what geog 
 raphy was. And I laughed. But I was sorry the 
 minute I did it, because it made the judge s face 
 get red. I suppose he didn t want us to see that 
 his child didn t know as much as we did, and she is 
 bigger than we are. I was just going to say I was 
 sorry I laughed, when Mrs. Copeland said, You are 
 a very rude little girl, Frances, and if you were not 
 a Vandevoort I would send you from the table. "
 
 172 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 "Ah-h!" breathed Kate. 
 
 "Go on," said Colonel Overshine. "Then 
 what ?" 
 
 " Nothing for a minute," put in Peggy, slowly. 
 " But you ought to have seen Frances. Her face 
 got as red as fire, and then it got as white as the 
 table-cloth. You know how she looks when she is 
 too mad to speak. She looked as though she was go 
 ing to cry, too. And that made me feel so bad 
 and so mad at Elsie s mother that when she said 
 that about Elsie being too delicate to study, I said 
 she wasn t sick at all. It was just thinking so. I 
 said she was as well as I was." 
 
 "Oh, Lord!" cried Colonel Overshine, burying 
 his face in his handkerchief and rocking himself 
 back and forth. "Those children will be the death 
 of me. Oh, why wasn t I there to see this thing. 
 Peggy, me dear, I m going to take you to the circus. 
 Mollie, I m going to give the children a party." 
 
 " Hush, Chris. Go on, Peggy. What happened 
 then ?" 
 
 " Then Mrs. Copeland turned on Peggy," broke 
 in Frances. " And she looked perfectly furious, 
 and she said, Who said that? I know you have 
 heard some one say that. Tell me who it was. But 
 it didn t scare Peggy a particle. She just looked 
 stupid, the way she does when she wants to, and I 
 hollered out, Don t tell, Peggy. And Mrs. Cope-
 
 THE BATTLE OF STOCKBRIDGE 173 
 
 land said we were the worst children she ever saw, 
 and that if we were hers, she would whip us." 
 
 " Then Frances got down from her chair and 
 threw her napkin on the floor and stamped on it, 
 and ordered Mrs. Copeland to call Hortense to 
 take us home. Only she didn t understand French. 
 Then Mrs. Copeland said to the judge, What an 
 awful child ! Emily Vandevoort s temper. I wonder 
 that poor John has not sued for a divorce instead 
 of Emily, and long ago, too. Then Frances was 
 raging. She said, Don t you dare speak of my 
 mother s temper, or of my father s getting a divorce. 
 Your husband ought to get one from you. You 
 wicked woman. You re worse than my mother. " 
 " In French ?" pleaded Colonel Overshine. 
 " Don t tell me she said that in French?" 
 
 " Yes, and it s a good thing, cause Mrs. Cope- 
 land looked as though she could kill her," drawled 
 Peggy. 
 
 " Oh, Frances, why don t you speak more Eng 
 lish ? Oh, Mollie, me dear, what a pity the old 
 lady didn t get that." 
 
 " Oh, but she was in a fury !" Peggy went on. " It 
 didn t show except in her eyes. But she started 
 for Frances, and I thought France would run, the 
 way she does from Mamma, but she never moved. 
 Just stood still and looked at Mrs. Copeland. And 
 she stopped and never touched her. Frances said,
 
 174 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 Ring the bell for Hortense. Mrs. Copeland under 
 stood that, because she pointed. And when Hor 
 tense came, we shook hands with the judge, and 
 said we had had a very nice time, and we kissed 
 Miss Alice, and only bowed to the others, and came 
 away without finishing dinner." 
 
 "We shook hands with Gifford too, Peggy," 
 added Frances, calmly. " He is such a pleasant 
 boy." 
 
 Mrs. Overshine never thought of referring the 
 trouble to their father, who was but an anxious on 
 looker at the scene. But she turned to Kate. 
 
 " I think you ought to punish them, Kate. They 
 have mortally insulted Mrs. Copeland. She will 
 never forgive me for this. You see if she does. I 
 really think you ought to take them in hand." 
 
 " What good would it do, with Chris going on 
 like a maniac over them? Look at him now with 
 Peggy. I tell you, Mollie, clever children have no 
 opportunity to be good and gentle and polite with 
 such an injudicious family as we are. Besides that, 
 to tell you the truth, in my secret soul I m glad 
 the Czar of Stockbridge got answered once in her 
 life for her impertinence." 
 
 "That is all right for you, Kate, because you 
 don t live here. But after you go, / ve got to keep 
 on living here. And don t forget for one moment 
 that Mrs. Copeland will take it all out on me."
 
 THE BATTLE OF STOCKBRIDGE 175 
 
 " Poor Mollie. Well, let us hope that she will 
 take into consideration that we are Vandevoorts," 
 said Kate, wickedly. 
 
 Mrs. Overshine had too keen a sense of humor 
 not to relax a little at Kate s irony. " Neverthe 
 less, for the children s sake, you ought to punish 
 them," she answered. 
 
 But Kate shook her head. She remembered the 
 child s face as she left her.
 
 XII 
 
 THE COPELAND TERRACE 
 
 IF Mrs. Overshine had been in Kate Vande- 
 voort s confidence she never would have permitted 
 her household to call en masse upon the Copelands, 
 for no sooner had the families fused than a polite 
 battle royal began between Miss Vandevoort and 
 Mrs. Copeland, which could not fail to give the 
 victory to Kate. 
 
 Miss Vandevoort had two ways of managing. 
 One was to make the path so clear that the most ob 
 tuse could not fail of seeing it. The other was so 
 openly to speak out and tell her plans that all the 
 men and a few of the women would disclaim any 
 idea of her being politic, and declare her the frank 
 est creature in the world. The rest of the women 
 raised their eyebrows. 
 
 If the latter were true, hers was the art which con 
 ceals art, for while Mrs. Copeland was monopoliz 
 ing Mr. Counselman with an affability which was 
 completely disarming the unsuspicious young fel-
 
 THE COPELAND TERRACE 177 
 
 low, and tempting him to think Miss Vandevoort 
 prejudiced in her sweeping denunciation of this 
 amiable lady, while he was thus effectually being 
 separated from Alice, with no signs of any change 
 being compassed, and Alice s face was growing 
 longer and more disappointed every moment, Miss 
 Vandevoort rose up from her chair and said : 
 
 " Mr. Counselman, have you seen that fine view 
 of the Delaware to be had from the side terrace? 
 But of course not. Judge Copeland, may I show 
 your precious view to our two strangers ? Ah, 
 thank you. Alice, dear, bring Senator Cobb, and 
 let us show them the most beautiful sight in the 
 world!" 
 
 Youth and innocence beamed from her guileless 
 countenance as she swept aside the ponderously ad 
 justed machinery of her antagonist, and detached 
 the helpless creatures who were powerless to help 
 themselves. The senator, with his head down and 
 his hands under his coat-tails, walking beside Alice, 
 whose face openly betrayed her discomfort, plainly 
 told to Miss Vandevoort the story of his rejec 
 tion, even if she had not known it already from 
 Frank Overshine s ingenuous recital. 
 
 In seating themselves on the boat-house steps, 
 Gordon had no difficulty in placing himself beside 
 Alice. He only needed half a chance; but no un 
 warned man is a suitable antagonist for a pre-
 
 178 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 determined woman. Besides that, it is said that 
 even Jove nods upon occasions; but if Venus ever 
 did, the record has been lost. 
 
 In the half-light of the setting sun, which chari 
 tably did its best to conceal the pitiful lowness of 
 the river, the tiny islands which had risen to view 
 as the river sank, and the smallnes? of the stream 
 which crept silently by where it once i id flowed 
 with a proud crest, no one would have taken in all 
 the defects of the Delaware, had not Miss Vancle- 
 voort, with the Hudson in her mind s eye, waved 
 her hand and said : 
 
 " Fine locality for a river, is it not, Gordon ?" 
 
 " The poor Delaware," said Alice, softly. " I feel 
 so sorry for her. She has done her best, but Fate 
 was against her. She has only succumbed because 
 she was obliged to." 
 
 "That is only why the most of us succumb," 
 said the senator, bitterly. " Fate is against us 
 all." 
 
 " I only wish some good heavy rains would stay 
 the hand of Fate in our lives as completely as it 
 would in the case of the river," said Gordon, cheer 
 fully. "But I don t believe in Fate. Do you, Miss 
 Vandevoort ?" 
 
 " I don t know," she answered slowly. " I be 
 lieve in something I think I call it destiny. It is 
 not quite so pagan."
 
 THE COPELAND TERRACE 179 
 
 " Oh, I wasn t speaking seriously," said Gordon. 
 " Of course we all know Who orders our lives." 
 
 Miss Vandevoort turned her head away abruptly. 
 How like Max to avow what he believed so fear 
 lessly. 
 
 " Look up there," she cried, pointing. " See the 
 red in the river, and the black shadows, and the 
 silver haze on the opposite shore, and the purplish 
 light on the trees. Isn t that a lovely picture ?" 
 
 " What a beautiful, misty look it has," said Gor 
 don. " It is like a Corot." 
 
 " Only in a Corot we call that haze atmosphere, 
 but in Pennsylvania we call it malaria," said Kate. 
 When she was deeply moved, Miss Vandevoort al 
 ways was most frivolous. 
 
 She rose as she spoke, and stood looking at the 
 river absently. Then she went farther down the steps 
 and paused. She knew they were watching her. 
 She knew they thought her absorbed in something 
 she saw. But the truth was, she was trying to leave 
 them alone so skilfully that they would not know 
 they had been left. Lovers are delicate objects to 
 handle. 
 
 Again she paused, and looked over her shoulder 
 at Senator Cobb. It made him think she wanted 
 him. He had no idea that Mr. Counselman was in 
 terested in Alice, or possibly he would not have 
 been so amiable. He merely thought, as Gordon
 
 l8o THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 was in the way and he could not see Miss Copeland 
 alone, that he might as well follow Miss Vande- 
 voort. She always amused him. That was one rea 
 son why most men were willing to follow her. She 
 always amused everybody. 
 
 " I love Miss Vandevoort," said Alice, impul 
 sively, as they watched her retreating figure. 
 
 " Do you ?" said Gordon, smiling. " I believe I 
 almost do myself. I owe her a gre->t deal. It was 
 she who obtained my appointment ai West Point. 
 I had no influence at Washington, but 1 was ap 
 pointed by the President. My brother Max hoped 
 to be able to manage it, because he was ambitious 
 for me. You know Max was engaged to Miss Van 
 devoort, and I think that is the reason she has 
 never married. She is a great belle, and always 
 has been. I have heard my mother say that Miss 
 Vandevoort could have occupied almost any posi 
 tion she wanted, so many really superior men have 
 been in love with her. I suppose it is true women 
 know so much more about those things than men. 
 I know the fellows at West Point go crazy about 
 her every time she comes there. She never has 
 been the same since my brother s death. I tell 
 you, Max was a fine fellow. The sweetest thing 
 about Miss Vandevoort is the way she has done so 
 many things that Max intended to do. Now she 
 knew Max wanted me in the army. And one day
 
 THE COPELAND TERRACE l8l 
 
 she said to me, Would you like to go to West 
 Point ? Before I thought, I said, I d rather go 
 there than to do anything else in the world. That 
 was all. She just smiled. We never spoke of it 
 again. But she was a great friend of the President s, 
 and visited at the White House every winter. The 
 next year I was appointed. That s the way she 
 does things." 
 
 " It is just like her," said Alice. 
 
 " Yes," said Gordon, " it is just like her. Do you 
 know, even yet I can t get used to thinking of Max 
 as dead. Whenever I see Miss Vandevoort I think 
 he ought to be there with her. She never talks 
 about him, but once, when we had a long conversa 
 tion after somebody had worried her with their gos 
 sip, she said, Knowing your brother has put other 
 men out of the question for me. I wish that he 
 could have lived for her sake. Still, I suppose it 
 isn t right to say such things." 
 
 He broke off abruptly and shook his head, as he 
 always did when anything bothered him. 
 
 There was a silence between them for a moment. 
 Then Gordon said : 
 
 " I never was so glad to see any one in all my life 
 as I was to see you this evening." 
 
 " Were you ? I hardly thought you would come 
 the first day you were in town." 
 
 Gordon laughed.
 
 l82 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 " I wanted to come this afternoon I should 
 have liked to come straight from the train, but 
 Miss Vandevoort wouldn t let me." 
 
 " I suppose she thought it wouldn t have been 
 proper." 
 
 " No, that wasn t the reason." 
 
 "What was it, then?" 
 
 " I am afraid to tell you." 
 
 " Perhaps I know already," said the gin, Hvshing. 
 " I have done you an injustice in my thoughts, but 
 it was not my fault." 
 
 " You couldn t help it," he declared. " I don t 
 blame you. But I couldn t write again." 
 
 " No," said Alice. " Certainly not. But" 
 
 "But what?" 
 
 " Nothing." 
 
 Gordon reached out timidly and took her hand. 
 Alice made a faint-hearted effort to withdraw it, 
 then left it there, and for a moment they sat there 
 in silence. Alice was frightened, but tremblingly 
 happy. She felt that her secret was slipping away 
 from her, and passing into the keeping of the one 
 from whom she would have hidden it the most care 
 fully; and yet she did not care. For the first time 
 in her life she was indulging in an emotion unre 
 stricted by anybody or anything. For the first time 
 she was letting herself go. It had all the intoxi 
 cation of a timorous daring to the little Quaker
 
 THE COPELAND TERRACE 183 
 
 maiden. And when Gordon said, " I love you, 
 Alice, dear," it sounded so natural, so exactly as if 
 he had been saying it forever, that she smiled at 
 him with all her heart in her eyes, and the gates of 
 Paradise swung open for another pair of pilgrims 
 from earth. 
 
 It was so delightful to go back to the very begin 
 ning and talk it all over, and to tell each other 
 everything they had not dared to mention at the 
 time. 
 
 " And you were the prettiest girl at the hop," 
 Gordon declared. " I think you are the prettiest 
 girl I ever saw." 
 
 " Oh, nobody ever called me pretty before," dis 
 claimed Alice. 
 
 " Then I don t see where their eyes have been." 
 
 " But I shouldn t have liked it if they had." 
 
 " Well, I shall say it as often as I please, and 
 you must listen, because I can t help myself. You 
 never looked as lovely as you do to-night." 
 
 " To-night ? In this old dress ?" cried Alice. 
 
 It was the first time she had worn it, but being 
 in love would breed coquetry in a vestal virgin. 
 
 " Nobody was ever so happy as we are, were 
 they ?" asked Gordon. 
 
 " I don t see how they could be. I never was 
 happy at all before, so I am no judge of it." 
 
 " You never were ? Why, I have been happy al-
 
 184 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 ways. Not, of course, like this. But I have found 
 the world beautiful and people good, and I ve al 
 ways had plenty to be thankful for." 
 
 " I have had all that," said Alice ; " yet somehow 
 I have always just missed happiness. The near 
 est I ever have come to it has been when my 
 father and I have been studying or talking together 
 alone." 
 
 " My dear little girl ! I will give ail *he rest of 
 my life to trying to make you happy. I hate to 
 think that you have missed it all this time." 
 
 " I don t know what there is in the future," said 
 Alice. " But I wish things would always stay just 
 as they are now." 
 
 "Oh," said Gordon, laughing, "we would get 
 tired of boat-house steps and summer evenings and 
 the river view, /want to think of a home of my 
 own, and you for my wife, and of your coining to the 
 door to tell me good-bye when I go away, and of 
 your meeting me there when I come back. I am 
 stationed at Fort Hamilton, and I know you will 
 like it there." 
 
 " I ?" cried Alice. " Oh, you don t mean soon ?" 
 
 " Why not ? My position is secure. I know 
 exactly what I have to offer you, and why need 
 we wait ?" 
 
 " My mother " began Alice. 
 
 Gordon squared his shoulders.
 
 THE COPELAND TERRACE 185 
 
 "Yes, I know," he said. "I suppose she will 
 want you to wait." 
 
 " I am afraid she won t " 
 
 " Won t what ?" 
 
 " Let me have you at all." Alice blushed vio 
 lently over the temerity of that speech, but the 
 darkness was friendly. 
 
 " Oh, but she must !" said Gordon, vehemently. 
 " You have promised me. And I believe you." 
 
 " You may believe me," cried Alice. " She must 
 not separate us." 
 
 Gordon smiled confidently. 
 
 Mrs. Copeland was not used to direct methods 
 in anything. She delved and circumnavigated so 
 much that frankness upset and hurry completely 
 finished her. 
 
 Gordon came to ask for Alice the next day the 
 very next morning, if you please and suggested 
 being married in the autumn. 
 
 He found the judge first, and made his avowal so 
 frankly, as if expecting him to understand why he 
 could not help loving Alice, and his youth and hon 
 esty were so appealing, that the judge forgot for one 
 moment his wife and the senator from Ohio, and gave 
 his consent before he realized what he was doing. 
 
 Armed with this, Gordon, with slower steps, 
 sought Mrs. Copeland. 
 
 She was sitting unsuspiciously in her morning-
 
 l86 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 room, with her fancy work. Her manner when 
 Gordon came in was almost cordial ; but when he 
 plunged at once into the heart of his subject, and 
 she discovered what had taken place, her anguish 
 and disappointment and hurt pride at being out 
 witted were so intense and so confusing that she 
 took refuge in such pleading with Gordon not to 
 marry Alice, not to rob her of her dearest, almost 
 now that she was about to lose her her only 
 child, that in an ordinary matter Gordon would 
 have yielded. But coining as he did from a 
 healthy-minded, normal family, it struck him as 
 such an impossible proposition that he was obliged 
 to make an effort to take her seriously. Mrs. Gope- 
 land watched his ingenuous face like a hawk from 
 behind her handkerchief, and inwardly chafed to 
 read in it only pity and kindness, but not a ray of 
 indecision. Her pleadings were so anguished, how 
 ever, that Gordon said : 
 
 " My dear Mrs. Gopeland, I am very sorry. I can 
 understand how you love Alice, because I love her 
 myself. But excuse me for saying so you could 
 not expect to keep her always." 
 
 " I do expect to keep her always. I want my 
 child s love." 
 
 " You have that, dear Mrs. Copeland. And you 
 always shall. I never saw a more devoted daugh 
 ter than Alice is to you."
 
 THE COPELAND TERRACE 187 
 
 " Ah, but I have been a devoted mother. Don t 
 forget that, Mr. Counselraan. I want my children 
 around me always." 
 
 " But George tells me that he is to live at home 
 here after he marries Miss St. Francis, so you will 
 gain a daughter for the one you lose." 
 
 " You are not a mother, Mr. Counselman " 
 
 Gordon threw his head back and laughed. 
 
 " No, Mrs. Copeland, I am not." 
 
 " How can you jest, sir, upon so serious a sub 
 ject." 
 
 " I didn t, Mrs. Copeland. It was you." 
 
 " I never jested in my life. Well, laugh away, 
 young people. The time will come soon enough 
 when you will weep." 
 
 " Then may I have Alice ?" 
 
 " It seems to me that you are taking her, anyway. 
 I have nothing to say about it." 
 
 Gordon looked a trifle hurt. 
 
 " I will do my best to make her happy," he said, 
 looking down. 
 
 " There is very little happiness in the world, 
 young man. If you look, you will see more heart 
 aches than smiles." 
 
 " I don t look for the heartaches," said Gordon, 
 honestly. " And I see the smiles without looking." 
 
 " Alice will not be happy with you long. The 
 tears will come and they will come on your ac-
 
 1 88 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 count. It is always so. The woman suffers ; the 
 man laughs." 
 
 " I hope not," said Gordon, vehemently. I am 
 going to be good to Alice always. I hope you 
 believe that. 
 
 " You mean it now," said Mrs. Copeland. 
 
 " May I see Alice ?" asked Gordon. 
 
 " I don t know where she is," she answered, 
 without looking up. 
 
 " Then I ll find her, if you will allow me." 
 
 She did not notice hib !ave-taking, or see his 
 proffered hand. He looked unusually tall and 
 broad-shouldered as he walked away. 
 
 He found Alice down by the boat-house, and 
 took her in his arms without a word. Alice read 
 his face and asked no questions. She knew that 
 he had conquered, and she guessed at what he had 
 undergone. 
 
 " Alice," he said at length, " I wish you knew 
 my mother."
 
 XIII 
 ALICE S WEDDING-DAY 
 
 FOR the dramatis persona;, a marriage engage 
 ment is an uncomfortable contrivance in many 
 ways. Like the misunderstood honeymoon, it is 
 easier for an outsider to weave romances about its 
 perfect bliss than it is for the courageous partici 
 pants, who are simply trying to live it down. 
 
 If you are engaged to a man of wealth and sta 
 tion, you have to fight to make people believe you 
 love him if you really do. If you are engaged to 
 a poor man, when your fond relatives had predicted 
 a brilliant match for you, you cannot even take the 
 comfort of throwing yourself heart and soul into 
 your trousseau, because you have to stop now and 
 then to dangle your love for your fiance before 
 their eyes, in order to assure them that it will stand 
 the stress of economy. So that there is no balm 
 in Gilead. 
 
 Mrs. Copeland made Alice s a period of mourn 
 ing. It so nearly shattered her always frail consti-
 
 190 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 tution that she never was a well woman afterwards. 
 All Stockbridge knew this, and marvelled in her 
 presence at the wonder and mystery of mother- 
 love. 
 
 There are traditions of women to whom their en 
 gagement was the period of bliss for which books 
 are the authority. But books are so misleading. 
 There are other women who would not live through 
 it again for anything even to acquire the husbands 
 whom its trials purchased. 
 
 Alice Copeland suffered an agony of apprehen 
 sion through every hour of hers. She never knew 
 at what moment the thread of her mother s patience 
 would snap. She never was certain that Mrs. Cope- 
 land would let her marry Gordon. So many things 
 conspired against her. Mrs. Copeland seemed to 
 have taken a violent dislike to the army, and daily 
 regretted that George was so unhappy as to be in 
 its infantry service. It shows the superb discipline 
 of her household that no one dared or even wished 
 to mention the fact that she had sent him there 
 against every one s wishes even his own. 
 
 The several unfortunate things which had be 
 fallen army officers during her lifetime were re 
 hearsed at breakfast every morning, Alice s only 
 defence being that, at least, none of them had oc 
 curred recently, or to any member of Gordon s 
 class.
 
 ALICES WEDDING-DAY 191 
 
 But in reality, since knowing Mr. Counselman 
 and discussing family trees with him, Mrs. Cope- 
 land had no more intention of breaking off the 
 match than Alice herself. But neither Gordon nor 
 Alice knew this. Gordon came to know the de 
 scent of the Giffords as well as he did that of the 
 Copelands, which is saying a great deal. He once 
 had been foolish enough, encouraged by a question 
 of kindly interest from the judge, to offer a few facts 
 concerning the Counselmans, and the not inglorious 
 part they had played in the making of America s 
 history. But he was met by such a roaring torrent 
 no, the mass was frozen and of majestic slow 
 ness such an iceberg of ancestral history, proving 
 the Giffords to have been descended directly from 
 protoplasm, and each the most peitect lady and 
 the most perfect gentleman of his time and kind, 
 that Gordon was more than convinced that Mrs. 
 Copeland was a lady. In fact, she admitted it 
 herself. 
 
 When the preparations for the wedding ceremony 
 were in progress, Alice was cheered in spite of 
 herself. She knew that her mother s pride would 
 allow nothing to interfere then. She even caught 
 herself singing once or twice ; but the reproachful 
 look in Mrs. Copeland s face was sufficient to make 
 her stop instantly, and to cling to her mother in 
 a real and somewhat remorseful affection, to think
 
 IQ2 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 that she could be willing to leave her for anybody 
 even for Gordon. 
 
 Two days before the wedding the papers were 
 full of the suicide of Giles Pratt, Second Lieutenant 
 of the One Hundred and Ninth Infantry. It was 
 said to be a very sad affair, and a second great 
 blow to the family, the first having been the failure 
 of Mr. Pratt s father some three months before. 
 The details of the unhappy affair were not made 
 public, but something quite mysterious was hinted 
 at. 
 
 Alice hardly breathed when she heard of it. 
 She even thought of the daring idea of defying her 
 mother, if Mrs. Copeland should pronounce this 
 an. impassable obstacle to her marriage. But Mrs. 
 Copeland was a woman capable of lofty surprises. 
 She glossed it over with a mental wave of her hand, 
 which almost made Alice sick with relief, the re 
 vulsion of feeling was so great. 
 
 Of course Kate Vandevoort came down for the 
 wedding. And so did her brother, because Frances 
 and Peggy were to be flower girls, and strew the 
 path of the bridal couple with the roses which Mrs. 
 Copeland openly predicted would soon turn to rue. 
 
 Many guests came down from New York, and all 
 the Giffords from Philadelphia came. Excellent 
 people they were, with sterling principles and large 
 bank accounts, and clothes four seasons behind
 
 ALICE S WEDDING-DAY 193 
 
 the times. That was the Scotch of it to buy good 
 firm material which wore like iron, and then to 
 wear it out. 
 
 There were people from Washington and Fortress 
 Monroe and Fort McHenry and Fort Hamilton, 
 where Gordon was stationed, and the first families 
 of Stockbridge were there in force. There never 
 was a prouder day for the Presbyterian church or 
 for the Stockbridge Conservative, whose veracious 
 chronicle of the brilliant affair is still preserved in 
 the scrap-books of several maiden aunts who were 
 there and who saw it all. 
 
 " Alice, my dear," cried Kate, who was maid of 
 honor for the but Kate declared she had lost 
 track of the number "fancy who is here?" 
 
 " Oh, I don t know. Tell me." 
 
 " Senator Cobb and his bride ! Now try to im 
 agine who his bride is. Mrs. Verry ! Yes, honestly. 
 I want to know if you ever in all your life heard of 
 anything so delicious !" 
 
 " I think it is pathetic," said Alice. 
 
 "I came to help you dress. Let me do that for 
 you. Are you nervous ? Alice, that woman is a 
 genius. The senator no more wanted to marry 
 her than he wanted to marry his grandmother. But 
 she made him think he did. Oh, but she is clever ! 
 I have always said that a man could marry any 
 woman he wanted to given equal conditions and
 
 IQ4 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 now I shall forever afterwards add that a woman 
 can marry any man she wants to. Oh, what a 
 dear, beautiful, funny old world this is !" 
 
 " I don t see how you can admire anything that 
 Mrs. Verry does. I think she is horrid." 
 
 "Admire her! I admire her just as I admire 
 Napoleon or Caesar or Alexander anybody who 
 worked against fearful odds and succeeded. I 
 may not admire everything about them, nor ap 
 prove of all their methods, but I reverence their 
 perseverance and their genius. Now, only I know 
 what odds Mrs. Verry worked against, for I have 
 heard Senator Cobb express his opinion of her, in 
 days gone by, in no very complimentary terms. I 
 am racking my brain to know what line of action 
 she could have employed to change him and do 
 everything up so speedily." 
 
 Kate paused a moment in deep thought. Alice 
 thought her serious interest in this affair but 
 another of Kate s whimseys. It was of no more 
 moment to Alice than as if she had never seen 
 Senator Cobb. But to Kate it was a problem 
 which must be grappled with and solved before she 
 could rest. 
 
 " You must admit that it is rather superb of her, 
 Alice." 
 
 " How superb ?" 
 
 " Why, to marry a man you discarded and show
 
 ALICE S WEDDING-DAY 195 
 
 him off at your wedding. It was a coup d etat. I 
 thought I would warn you before you saw them." 
 
 " I don t see any coup d etat in it, and I didn t 
 need any warning. I shouldn t care if all the men 
 I know had married all the women I know and 
 brought them all to my wedding. I shouldn t even 
 see them." 
 
 " Oh, Alice, you are so queer." 
 
 " Have you seen Gordon since you have been 
 here ?" 
 
 " Yes, I saw him yesterday. I think that she 
 touched his vanity. That is his weakest point." 
 
 "Whose? Gordon s?" 
 
 "No; Senator Cobb s." 
 
 " Oh ! Did he tell you about it ?" 
 
 " Did Senator Cobb tell me about it ? Mercy, 
 child, I haven t seen him." 
 
 " I meant Gordon." 
 
 " Oh no ; John told me. They are on their 
 wedding journey. They are going to Niagara. 
 Gordon will hardly allow me to speak of it. I 
 asked him yesterday if he had heard of it, and he 
 said it was infamous. Now, what made him show 
 so much feeling about it ? Do you think it pos 
 sible that Gordon was ever jealous of Senator 
 Cobb?" 
 
 " No. No, indeed. He knows that I disliked 
 him intensely."
 
 196 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 " Then I don t know what made Gordon look so 
 stern about it. There, dear, you look lovely." 
 
 " Thank you so much for coming to help me. I 
 did not like the idea of dressing alone on my wed 
 ding-day. Mrs. Overshine came to dress me, but 
 mother needed her the most, and I could get along 
 well enough with a maid." 
 
 "You are an unselfish little thing, Alice. Tell 
 me, have you got on 
 
 Something old and something new, 
 Something borrowed and something blue ? 
 
 That s for luck, you know. I always have to attend 
 to my bride s luck." 
 
 " No, I haven t," said Alice, uneasily. 
 
 " What ? Oh, you are reckless with your future, 
 Alice. We must remedy that instantly. I never 
 should dare to be married without." 
 
 " I chose Wednesday," said Alice. 
 
 " Of course. Wednesday is the only day for a 
 wedding." 
 
 Both girls were quite serious, Kate half laughing 
 at herself, yet conforming to the old rhyme. The 
 most sensible women are superstitious about love 
 affairs. 
 
 " Now, Alice, here is a pearl heart which Gor 
 don s mother sent with her best love and the hope 
 that you would wear it at your wedding. I know
 
 ALICE S WEDDING-DAY IQ7 
 
 you did not intend to wear any jewels, but will you 
 wear this ? 
 
 " Yes, indeed. From Gordon s mother ! Oh, 
 Miss Vandevoort, don t you think I am the most 
 fortunate girl in the world ?" 
 
 "Yes, dear, and I hope you and Gordon will be 
 as happy as you deserve to be." 
 
 Something in Miss Vandevoort s face as she was 
 fastening the pearl heart in its place made Alice 
 put her arms around her, in a sweet little way of 
 hers, and whisper : " Dear Miss Vandevoort, you 
 are so good to come to my wedding ! It must be 
 very hard for you." 
 
 Kate s lips quivered as she shook her head, say 
 ing : " Now, is there anything else I can do for 
 you ?" 
 
 " Nothing, except to leave me for a few minutes. 
 I want to be all alone just before I am married." 
 
 Kate took Alice in her arms and kissed her. 
 Then she went out and closed the door softly. 
 She knew that Alice was kneeling beside her lit 
 tle white bed in her wedding-dress. 
 
 It was a military wedding. All the ushers and 
 George Copeland, as best man, were in the full- 
 dress uniform of the United States army. The 
 bridesmaids were as pretty as newspapers always 
 declare them to be. The ceremony was fifteen 
 minutes late, as was perfectly proper a ceremony
 
 igS THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 on time looks like quite indecent haste. Frances 
 and Peggy, who insisted on walking backwards in 
 front of the bride, as they once had seen flower 
 children do at a wedding in New York, had prac 
 tised the difficult feat so successfully all their lives 
 that they performed their part with a self-posses 
 sion and savoir faire which made Elsie Copeland 
 thrust her head behind her mother in their front 
 pew in vicarious nervousness. 
 
 Alice rose to the occasion in a wonderful way. 
 She was paler than usual, but she seemed to have 
 forgotten her surroundings. Kate, from the altar, 
 watched her progress down the aisle on her father s 
 arm. She fixed her eyes upon Gordon and walked 
 towards him as if on wings, forgetting where she 
 was, forgetting that people were looking at her and 
 whispering about her, forgetting everything except 
 that this was the happiest hour of her life, because 
 she never again was to be anything but Gordon 
 Counselman s wife. 
 
 Kate never could have lost herself like that. 
 Miss Vandevoort could love more deeply than 
 Alice, but she always kept her head. She always 
 knew where the hem of her gown was, and how 
 her train was hanging, and that people were look 
 ing at her. It was a subconsciousness, entirely 
 beyond her control and in no way interfering with 
 the deep experiences of her life, yet because she
 
 ALICE S WEDDING-DAY 199 
 
 talked about it people called her frivolous. Frivol 
 ity in women like Miss Vandevoort is but the 
 casket enclosing jewels which only are shown to 
 those who deserve to see their value. 
 
 The pause came, and the great hush, and the 
 responses, and the shifting of figures around the 
 altar, and the ring given and received, and then a 
 burst of music, which announced that the wed 
 ding, the great event, was over, and Mr. and Mrs. 
 Gordon Counselman were coming down the other 
 aisle, with everybody turning and half rising to see 
 their faces as they passed.
 
 XIV 
 
 AT FORT HAMILTON 
 
 FORT HAMILTON faces the sea. From the offi 
 cers quarters you look across the immense parade- 
 ground, bounded on two sides by the harbor and 
 the ocean, and see the ships come sailing in, and 
 watch with eager interest the coming and going of 
 the little government steamers. 
 
 To Alice it was an enchanted land. She was 
 sufficiently her father s daughter to love the glori 
 ous stretch of water which makes Fort Hamilton a 
 blissful spot for those who love the sea, and Gordon 
 was prouder to have secured a seaport station, be 
 cause she seemed to love it so, than he was of his 
 West Point record which sent him into the artillery. 
 
 Alice found herself facing a responsibility for the 
 first time in her life. And though it was of the sim 
 plest description, she went on depending upon Gor 
 don and asking his advice about the veriest triflesjust 
 as she had been doing all her life with her mother. 
 
 Gordon knew quite as little as she, but he was
 
 AT FORT HAMILTON 2OI 
 
 adaptable and self-reliant, and so supplemented 
 Alice in quite a delightful and satisfactory way. 
 One shudders to think what might have occurred 
 had he been otherwise. 
 
 Except for all the other helpless women in the 
 world who marry and go to housekeeping pro 
 foundly versed in ignorance of practical affairs, 
 Alice would have been extraordinary in this line. 
 Not that she had been idle all her life. Far from it. 
 She had fetched and carried for her mother until it 
 was second nature for her to thrust pillows behind 
 people s backs and tuck footstools under their 
 feet. And many persons unaccustomed to these 
 gentle ministrations, who visited her in her new 
 home, were so touched by her thoughtfulness that 
 they cheerfully sat for hours with their knees too 
 high for comfort, rather than reject her little props. 
 
 She played sweetly upon the piano, and the 
 officers wives at Fort Hamilton were glad to avail 
 themselves of Gordon s voice and Alice s little tum- 
 ti-tum accompaniments, which were so gentle and 
 so seriously performed, and offered, as it were, 
 with such a spirit of devotion before the shrine of 
 her idol, that somehow it brought tears to your 
 eyes to hear them. Or, if it did not go that far, 
 perhaps it just made the bridge of your nose ache, 
 which is the only stopping-place this side of tears 
 for the pathos in the under side of things.
 
 202 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 Alice, too, understood certain brandies of cook 
 ery. She made delicious gruels and delicate cus 
 tards, and when Gordon made fun of them, and 
 expressed himself violently in favor of soups and 
 roasts, Alice almost sighed to think how well and 
 strong he was, so that she might never look 
 forward to cooking her dear little messes for an 
 invalid husband. 
 
 Mrs. Copeland sent Elsie down to visit Alice, 
 and then this precious gift of sick-room cookery 
 came so strongly into prominence that Gordon 
 himself got a leave at the end of two months and 
 took her home again. 
 
 " Mother does not like it because we did not 
 keep her all winter," sighed Alice. " She said she 
 thought the sea-air would be beneficial." 
 
 O 
 
 " So it would if either of you ever got any of it," 
 answered Gordon. " But you never left the house 
 for days at a time." 
 
 " I couldn t leave poor little Elsie." 
 
 " Then why didn t Elsie go out with you ?" 
 
 "Oh, she didn t want to." 
 
 Gordon made no reply. He only began to sing : 
 
 "Commentators tell us 
 
 That when from earth we go 
 We ll follow the same handicraft 
 \Ve followed here below.
 
 AT FORT HAMILTON 203 
 
 If this be true philosophy 
 
 (The parson he says no), 
 What days of dance and song we ll have 
 
 With Benny Havens, O!" 
 
 It was a whole year before Alice discovered that 
 Gordon sang " Benny Havens" as an outlet for all 
 the emotions that flesh is heir to. At first she 
 thought he sang it because he was musical. 
 
 Alice importuned Miss Vandevoort in every let 
 ter to come and see their new home, but Kate held 
 off on one pretext or another. "Wait until you get 
 well used to each other s ways," she wrote, " so 
 that you will not have to ask the bride-and-groom 
 questions at the table which are so embarrassing to 
 a person of my delicate sensibilities. At least, wait 
 until you get used to each other s tempers. That 
 will take a year. If you are not quarrelling at the 
 end of a year, I will come." 
 
 But at the end of a year she would not come. She 
 had spent most of the winter in Washington, and 
 Alice wrote her an enthusiastic letter telling her of 
 Gordon s promotion to be First Lieutenant, and 
 begging her to come and celebrate with them. 
 
 Kate telegraphed them from Denver. She was 
 with a party of her English friends in a private car, 
 en route for California. She would come when she 
 got back.
 
 204 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 But it was two months after her return before she 
 really came. 
 
 Alice was enchanted when she had Kate actually 
 in her own home. She showed her everything. 
 Kate could see that the house had been set in 
 order as if for a guest of honor, and Alice had even 
 robbed her own room to make Kate s more attrac 
 tive. 
 
 Nearly all the officers in the post called the 
 first evening she was there, and Alice never had 
 seen Kate as brilliant as she was that night. She 
 was almost too brilliant. She sang with Gordon 
 and played with Alice, but there was something 
 wrong with her wit. It sounded reckless to Alice. 
 She kept watching the clock, and suddenly broke 
 off what she was saying to Captain Fisher to dash 
 into a spirited march which drowned conversation 
 and set every one s feet to tapping with her marked 
 time. But in the midst of it the bugle sounded 
 "taps" "Out your lights," "Out your lights "- 
 and Kate s hands fell with a crash on the keys. 
 
 "Oh, don t stop !" they cried. 
 
 " She s forgotten the rest of it," said Alice, 
 nervously. " She always stops there. She doesn t 
 like the last part. I ll play for you." 
 
 " It is odd how so excellent a performer as Miss 
 Vandevoort should break down in the middle of a 
 thing like that," said Mrs. Fisher to Gordon. " It
 
 AT FORT HAMILTON 
 
 205 
 
 is her temperament, I think. She plays with a 
 nervous tension. One of the most sympathetic 
 and brilliant pianists I ever knew seldom managed 
 to play a piece through. She nearly always broke 
 down." 
 
 " Yes," said Gordon, watching Alice and Kate 
 and wondering what was up, " I have heard of 
 such things." 
 
 " Oh, they happen very frequently," declared Mrs. 
 Fisher, thinking that her husband had been talking 
 to that handsome Miss Vandevoort quite long 
 enough, and deciding to go home at once. 
 
 Kate stayed one day more, then she told Alice 
 she must go. 
 
 " I can t stay, Alice, dear. You know why." 
 
 Alice, who had been most importunate about her 
 coming, helped her to make ready to go. Gor 
 don was loud in his expressions of dissatisfac 
 tion. 
 
 " I thought you could put up with our little 
 makeshifts longer than two days," he said, mischiev 
 ously. " I am afraid you are what they call in 
 books a spoiled beauty. " . 
 
 "I am just that," laughed Miss Vandevoort. 
 Spoiled in the making." 
 
 " And it is because of your dear little makeshifts 
 that I can t stay. They are driving me away," she 
 whispered to Alice, as she kissed her good-bye.
 
 206 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 " I am going back to Paris. One can forget every 
 thing real in Paris." 
 
 " She said I was changed, Gordon," said Alice, 
 when Kate had gone. 
 
 " She meant improved. She told me so." 
 
 " She said lovely things about you, Gordon. 
 But I don t need to have outsiders tell me 
 how good and clever you are. I see it for my 
 self." 
 
 "Oh, Alice, you would spoil a fellow. But I 
 must say I would rather have my wife think me 
 good and clever than to have everybody else in the 
 world think so if she didn t." 
 
 Alice came and sat on the arm of his chair, and 
 he pulled her fancy work out of her hands, and 
 tossed it on the table. 
 
 " You don t like fancy work ?" said Alice. 
 
 " I don t like to see. you doing it. I woukl rather 
 see you with a book." 
 
 "But I never read so much in all my life as since 
 I have been married. And it has been lovely; 
 lovelier even than to read with father. You are so 
 interesting to talk with afterwards." 
 
 Gordon smiled at her derisively. 
 
 "No, now there is no danger of my spoiling 
 you," she insisted. " You would have been spoiled 
 long ago if flattery would do it. But you are so 
 busy doing things for other people, and making
 
 AT FORT HAMILTON 207 
 
 fun, that you never seem to have time to notice 
 what an attractive man you are." 
 
 " Am I an attractive man ?" asked Gordon, sol 
 emnly. 
 
 " Very!" laughed Alice. "All the women are pos 
 itively silly over you, only you never see it. You 
 could have plenty of flirtations if you wanted to." 
 
 " By Jove, Alice, you are changing with a ven 
 geance. I never heard you talk about flirtations 
 before. It sounds too much like your friend, Mrs. 
 Cobb." 
 
 "Not my friend, Gordon. Yours. She doesn t 
 care that for the senator. She wants other men 
 around her all the time." 
 
 "I don t see what people marry for, if they are 
 going to keep on wanting attentions from other 
 people. Why, the most wonderful woman in the 
 world is not as attractive to me as my own wife." 
 
 Alice bent over and kissed him. She had not 
 lost her old trick of blushing. 
 
 " How Miss Vandevoort would make fun of us if 
 she could hear how silly we are," she said. 
 
 "It isn t silly for a man to make love to his own 
 wife," said Gordon, stoutly. "This world would 
 be a better place if more men did it." 
 
 " Miss Vandevoort says it doesn t last. She 
 says it is the woman whom the man does not mar 
 ry that he often loves the best."
 
 208 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 " Miss Vandevoort s cynicism is the most amus 
 ing thing in the world when you know her. If ever 
 there was a girl capable of making the sweetest 
 wife in the world, except you, it is Miss Kate. But 
 that sounds just like her. She only does it to 
 cover how deeply she really feels. But she mixes 
 me all up, she is so sudden and so brilliant. She 
 addles my brain." 
 
 " Just as if anybody could do that," said Alice, 
 fondly. "Tell me; was there anybody else in 
 your case anybody you didn t marry ?" 
 
 "Anybody I didn t marry ? Oh, yes ; several. I 
 only married you. I left a lot of girls for the other 
 fellows." 
 
 " No, Gordon ; don t joke. You know what I 
 mean. Was there anybody you ever loved except 
 me anybody you ever think of when you sit and 
 smoke with your eyes shut ?" 
 
 Gordon flung his head back and laughed. 
 
 " Miss Vandevoort put that into your head," he 
 declared. 
 
 " No, she didn t. It was Mrs. Cobb." 
 
 "Well, it does sound too decadent for Miss 
 Kate. Her cynicism is more normal and healthy, 
 and is always funny. Mrs. Cobb s is more like the 
 trail of a serpent. I don t believe I care to have 
 you see much of her, Alice." 
 
 "You are evading me," said Alice. "I asked
 
 AT FORT HAMILTON 2OQ 
 
 you a question and you are trying to get my mind 
 off the subject." 
 
 " My dear wife, are you serious ?" 
 
 " Yes, I am. I want to know if you ever loved 
 any other woman except me ?" 
 
 " Yes. I love another now. But it s my mother, 
 I meant. Alice, child, how foolish of you to turn 
 pale." 
 
 "I told you I was in earnest." 
 
 " Well, then, I will answer you. There is no one 
 now, and there never was any other woman or girl 
 in the world I ever wanted for my wife but you. I 
 thought you knew that." 
 
 " Truly, Gordon ?" 
 
 " Truly, Alice. I never loved anybody but you." 
 
 "Oh, Gordon, you are such a dear!"" 
 
 "Now may I shut my eyes when I smoke?" 
 
 " Of course," said Alice, laughing, with ashamed 
 face. 
 
 As Kate Vandevoort said, the Counselmans were 
 so normal. 
 
 "Gordon, you are worried about something." 
 
 " How do you know, dear ?" 
 
 " You sigh, and you are getting an up-and-down 
 wrinkle between your eyebrows that only goes 
 away when I rub it like that, and you shake your 
 head this way." 
 
 " You have sharp eyes, little girl."
 
 210 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 " Tell me what it is." 
 
 " Oh, it s nothing much. Just those debts. I 
 hate to owe money." 
 
 "What debts, Gordon?" 
 
 "Those I told you about." 
 
 " Oh, yes. I remember. But you never told me 
 what they were for." 
 
 " I indorsed a fellow s note, and he failed to pay 
 it." 
 
 "Why couldn t he?" 
 
 "He died." 
 
 "Then it must have been Mr. Pratt. Tell me, 
 was it Mr. Pratt ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " I wonder what it was for? Mrs. Cobb told me 
 a wife ought never to question any debts her hus 
 band contracted before he married her." 
 
 "Mrs. Cobb " began Gordon, violently. 
 
 " Oh, Gordon, Gordon ! What is the matter ? 
 What makes you look so ?" 
 
 " Don t quote Mrs. Cobb to me, Alice. I I 
 think it would be better not to." 
 
 " Gordon, how you frightened me. Sometimes I 
 think you hate Mrs. Cobb. Why, even I only dis 
 like her. What makes you, dear ?" 
 
 " I think she is a wicked woman, and utterly 
 without principle. I I can t tell you what she 
 has done, or how I know it. 1 hope there are pal-
 
 AT FORT HAMILTON 211 
 
 Hating circumstances that I don t know of. Other 
 wise the injury she did a friend of mine I could 
 hardly forgive." 
 
 " Oh, Gordon dear. I will never refer to it 
 again. I did not know that you really had any 
 thing against her. Tell me about those debts. Do 
 you owe any more than just what you told me 
 about?" 
 
 "No, dear; that is all, but surely it is enough." 
 
 " But Gordon, only that little bit ? Why, I can 
 get you the money. My father will give it to me." 
 
 "Alice Counselman !" 
 
 " Well, he will lend it to me then, if you are so 
 proud." 
 
 " Look here, Alice, I wouldn t have told you if I 
 had thought you would suggest such a thing. You 
 knew you were marrying a poor man, who could 
 only offer you a soldier s pay." 
 
 " Well, have I ever regretted it or wanted any 
 thing different ?" 
 
 " No, dear love, you have not. You seem hap 
 pier here in this little house with nothing in it than 
 you ever did with all the lovely things in that big 
 house of your father s." 
 
 " Nothing in it ? When you are here the whole 
 world is in it for me." 
 
 " No furniture, I meant. I don t count myself 
 furniture."
 
 212 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 "Yet you furnish the house more than anything 
 else," laughed Alice. "A sorry looking place it 
 would be without you." 
 
 " Well, I come under the head of useless decora 
 tions, together with the parlor clock and your 
 hanging baskets." 
 
 "Don t you make fun of my little house. I 
 think it is prettier than any of the other officers . 
 And it cost so little." 
 
 " That s its chief beauty," laughed Gordon. 
 
 " It was your cleverness that did it. Would 
 anybody but you have thought of having that little, 
 old, crooked Japanese cabinet-maker make us a set 
 of parlor furniture out of bamboo, and the whole 
 thing costing less than one of the chairs in my 
 room at home ?" 
 
 "We don t mind if the sticks run into people s 
 backs so that our company only stay a few minutes, 
 or, if they come again, say they prefer to stand up ?" 
 
 " Oh, it isn t as bad as that. Of course they are 
 not the most comfortable things in the world ; but 
 who ever sits in a parlor, anyway ?" 
 
 " Nobody." 
 
 "And doesn t everybody think those hammocks 
 in the library are the most amusing and the queerest 
 conceit in the world, and doesn t it put everybody 
 at their ease immediately to sit in a hammock with 
 anybody?"
 
 AT FORT HAMILTON 213 
 
 "It does." 
 
 " Well, whose idea was that ?" demanded Alice. 
 
 "Mine." 
 
 "Well, then, aren t you clever and nice and lovely, 
 and am I not the happiest girl in the world?" 
 
 " You certainly are the most attractive to me. 
 But listen now. Wouldn t you really rather have 
 a nice set of black hair-cloth furniture for the 
 parlor, with this good, slippery kind of a sofa, that 
 you sort of skate around on without half trying, 
 and a marble centre-table with a red-plush album 
 on it to hold family photographs, and a case of wax 
 flowers on the mantel, and a motto, What is home 
 without a mother ? worked in green, to hang over 
 the door ?" 
 
 " Gordon, don t make fun of your brother officer! 
 Perhaps they are just as happy eating from a red 
 table-cloth, because it looks so cheerful, as we 
 are." 
 
 "Who is making fun now?" demanded Gordon. 
 
 " There, you sighed again. Are you really worried 
 about that money ?" 
 
 " It bothers me," answered Gordon, shaking his 
 head from side to side. 
 
 " How funny. Well, how are you going to pay 
 it ?" 
 
 " I don t know. I ll find a way. I have several 
 schemes in my head. I had thought of resigning."
 
 214 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 " Gordon ! You don t mean it ? Why, I wouldn t 
 have you for anything. Let s economize." 
 
 "You mouse! You don t know what economy 
 means!" 
 
 "Yes, I do. I ll go without things." 
 
 "You ll go without a veil for yourself and buy 
 something for me that costs ten dollars," said 
 Gordon, pinching her cheek. 
 
 " Oh, you don t want me to economize on you ?" 
 
 " I don t want you to economize on anything," 
 sighed Gordon. " I wish I had a million for you." 
 
 " I don t want it," declared Alice. " I only want 
 enough so that you won t worry." 
 
 " I have thought of applying for the professor 
 ship of Military Science in Colby University. How 
 should you like that ?" 
 
 "Oh, I should love it. And I am sure you would 
 get it." 
 
 "What faith you have in me, Alice." 
 
 " Because I know you," she insisted. " But 
 wouldn t it be some time before you could get it ?" 
 
 " Yes, a year, at least." 
 
 " And you would worry all that time ?" 
 
 "Well, I shall not be quite comfortable until I 
 pay what I owe." 
 
 " Gordon, dear, won t you please, please let me 
 get the money for you ?" 
 
 " Alice, if you know some just a few of the
 
 AT FORT HAMILTON 215 
 
 things your mother has said to me, you would know 
 how impossible it would be for me to accept the 
 smallest favor from her unless you were suffering." 
 
 "Oh, dearest, I did not know ! Please forgive 
 me. How good of you never to tell me before. 
 My poor boy. Well, we are not suffering, and we 
 will starve before we will ask them for anything. 
 Poor Gordon ! You have borne so much for me." 
 
 " I d bear a good deal more for such an angel as 
 you are. Never mind, dear. I ve never had money. 
 I shouldn t know what to do with it. But I ve got 
 you and you ve got me, and as long as God lets us 
 have each other, we will be happy. Don t fret now. 
 There goes tattoo. Be at the window for me 
 when I come back."
 
 XV 
 
 THE FORK IN THE ROAD 
 
 DURING the first years of their married life let 
 ters carne regularly from Mrs. Copeland imploring 
 Alice to come home and smooth her mother s path 
 to the grave. She knew that she had not long to 
 live, she wrote, and would Gordon have the heart 
 to separate them ? Of course Gordon would not, 
 so they both went down to Stockbridge, but Mrs. 
 Copeland showed no signs of dying, and Alice so 
 soon settled down into the little mouse she was 
 before she was married, that Gordon promptly took 
 her back to Fort Hamilton. 
 
 Three times were they summoned for this pur 
 pose and three times did Gordon quietly take her 
 home with him, undergoing in perfect silence Mrs. 
 Copeland s biting comments on his course of action. 
 Only once he left her there, and when he came 
 again, it was to see Alice and her little son no 
 longer the Alice he had known, but an Alice who 
 had begun to take a hold upon the deep things of 
 life.
 
 THE FORK IN THE ROAD 217 
 
 Mrs. Copeland insisted that the baby was deli 
 cate from the first; and, in spite of Gordon s stout 
 denials, Alice looked so frightened when her 
 mother came into the room and pulled the curtains 
 down and looked at the baby and shook her head, 
 that although Alice had meant to stay in Stock- 
 bridge for a while, she was obliged to admit that 
 Gordon was right when he insisted that she must 
 come home with him at once. 
 
 " But I am so afraid something will happen to 
 the baby without some one who knows more about 
 children than I do," pleaded Alice. " Can t we have 
 your mother to live with us ?" 
 
 " Write and ask her," said Gordon, laughing, 
 " and see what she says." 
 
 So Alice wrote a beautiful letter, in her neat, 
 little round hand, and Mrs. Counselman wrote back 
 that she would hold herself in readiness to come at 
 an hour s notice, but that no house was large enough 
 for two families. 
 
 " What did I tell you ?" cried Gordon. " She 
 knows." 
 
 " I suppose she is right," sighed Alice. " Every 
 time I see her I know why you are so good, and 
 when I see your father I know why you are so clever." 
 
 " I am deeply thankful that it can be explained 
 by heredity, and that, unlike Topsy, I have not 
 just growed. " laughed Gordon.
 
 2l8 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 "I hope Lloyd will be like you," said Alice, 
 fondly. " Mrs. Fisher says he looks just like you." 
 
 " Oh, I hope not ! I hope 1 don t look like that, 
 Alice. I m not conceited, but you know I am bet 
 ter looking than the baby." 
 
 " Now, Gordon, you can make fun of yourself, if 
 you like, and you can make fun of me, but you 
 shall not ridicule this precious child. Aren t you 
 ashamed of yourself?" 
 
 "Yes, I am." 
 
 " Just look at him ; he actually cries for you 
 when you go away. Isn t he pretty ?" 
 
 "Beautiful." 
 
 " And doesn t he look like you ?" 
 
 " Exactly. If you put my clothes on him, you 
 couldn t tell us apart." 
 
 Alice gave up in despair. Mrs. Fisher comforted 
 her. 
 
 "All men talk that way, my dear. Wait until 
 the baby is older, and then see what Gordon will 
 say." 
 
 "Why, he is just in fun," cried Alice, indignant 
 ly. " He fairly adores him when we are alone. 
 He likes to tease me, that s all." 
 
 No harm befell the child during his first year, 
 in spite of Alice s constant worry. Gordon kept 
 her away from Stockbridge, and gradually she came 
 to believe that the healthful, merry little fellow,
 
 THE FORK IN THE ROAD 219 
 
 who really was like Gordon, would live, if they 
 would simply allow him to breathe and sleep and 
 kick in his own sturdy little fashion. 
 
 So the summer wore away and their third win 
 ter came. The changelessness of army life suited 
 Alice perfectly, but its inertia preyed upon Gordon. 
 
 One day, when Alice stood at the window watch 
 ing for his return, she saw him wave his cap at her 
 from a group of officers standing in front of the 
 Mess, with their arms on each other s shoulders 
 and their heads together in a bunch, talking ex 
 citedly over something. They dispersed twice, 
 and twice came together again, talking, talking, 
 and gesticulating. 
 
 " What can it be ?" thought Alice, wonderingly. 
 "News from the War Department, I suppose. But 
 why doesn t Gordon come and tell me ?" 
 
 He broke away from them at last, gave his cap a 
 jerk over his eyes, buttoned the bottom frog of his 
 long overcoat, held the top together, and came up 
 the steps at one jump. 
 
 "Great news, Alice!" he cried as he opened the 
 door and caught her off her feet. 
 
 " Oh, what is it, Gordon ?" 
 
 " Regiment is ordered away. We are going to 
 move !" 
 
 "Oh," said Alice, her face falling. 
 
 " Oh, what a disappointed tone ! Why, it will be
 
 220 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 jolly. You don t know what fun it is to move. It 
 gives a fellow something to do." 
 
 "I should think it would," said Alice, ruefully. 
 
 " Our company is ordered to Fort Jefferson 
 Dry Tortugas." 
 
 " Where is that ?" asked Alice, with all a woman s 
 charming ignorance of geography. 
 
 " One of the Florida Keys off the southern 
 coast of Florida." 
 
 " South ? Florida ? Oh, how lovely ! I ve never 
 been South, and I ve always been crazy to go. Why, 
 to be ordered to Florida in winter is to have the 
 government treat us like millionaires." 
 
 " Won t it be fun ? We can wear thin clothes all 
 winter, and in the summer you will have to come 
 North." 
 
 " Well, I ll come home and visit, and you will 
 spend your leave with us and that will break the 
 summer for me. Then just as soon as it gets 
 cool in Stockbridge we will follow you to Fort 
 Jefferson." 
 
 " My goodness, how we shall want to see each 
 other by that time, when I want to tear down to 
 Stockbridge the day after I let you go," sighed 
 Gordon. 
 
 " Florida will be good for the baby," said Alice, 
 wisely. " Cold weather doesn t agree with him very 
 well."
 
 THE FORK IN THE ROAD 221 
 
 " Florida will be good for the bamboo furniture," 
 said Gordon. " It won t be necessary to have it 
 padded and steam-heated the way we do here." 
 
 "And the hammocks !" laughed Alice. "How 
 considerate Uncle Sam has been of the Counsel- 
 mans furniture !" 
 
 "We can live in hammocks the year round," said 
 Gordon. Then he began to sing : 
 
 "From the land of sun and flowers, 
 
 From Tampa s lovely shove, 
 There comes a wail of sadness up: 
 
 O Brien is no more. 
 The prince of all good fellows, 
 
 Ne er a better do we know, 
 May we meet him in that happy land 
 
 With Benny Havens, O !" 
 
 He insisted upon beginning to pack that night, 
 and by morning the whole post was upset. Alice 
 was not used to such topsy-turvy haste, and at 
 first it shocked her sense of the proprieties. But 
 the other officers wives were equally expeditious, 
 and so plainly made it appear the only thing to do 
 that Alice sensibly joined in, and soon was packing 
 as crazily as the rest. Gordon was so big and 
 strong and helpful, and made so merry over the 
 hard work, that Alice spent most of her time laugh 
 ing and following him around, holding the baby.
 
 222 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 The Counselmans were ready first, of course. 
 Gordon had rushed around to such an extent, and 
 they were young, and had so little to pack, that long 
 before marching orders came he found time hang 
 ing heavily on his hands. So he fell to helping the 
 ladies of the post to do their part of packing bric-a- 
 brac and clocks. 
 
 He did it so deftly and made such light work of 
 it that the officers declared that Counselman spoiled 
 their wives by too much waiting on them. But 
 Gordon never could bear to see a woman do any 
 thing which looked hard. He had such a merry 
 way of taking her work out of her hands, however, 
 that they never realized how much he helped ev 
 erybody. 
 
 ; Oh, dear, why will people give us onyx clocks 
 and bronze vases, when the government only allows 
 us seven hundred pounds of luggage!" sighed Mrs. 
 Fisher. 
 
 "Never mind. Pay the extra freight with a 
 smiling countenance. You won t have so much 
 next time. Three moves are equal to a fire, you 
 know," said Gordon, soothingly. 
 
 " Isn t he consoling ?" cried Mrs. Fisher. 
 
 Gordon insisted upon being paid by Welsh rare 
 bits made in the chafing-dish and eaten from tin 
 plates, with everybody sitting around on boxes, and 
 of winding up every evening with a " sing." Some-
 
 THE FORK IN THE ROAD 223 
 
 times voices broke and lips quivered over the dear 
 old songs which, perhaps, they might never sing 
 together again. 
 
 " I should be jealous of you, Counselman," said 
 Major Prescott, who never did anything he could 
 help doing, "if you took advantage of one-half my 
 wife says of you." 
 
 " Your wife, Major, is one of the most charitably 
 disposed women I know. She covers my short 
 comings with that which never faileth. " 
 
 " You think she suffereth long and is kind, do 
 you ?" laughed the major. 
 
 " I think she is using me as an example to 
 make you work," answered Gordon, confiden 
 tially. 
 
 The Third was to be very generally scattered 
 along the coast. The officers were pleased at the 
 prospect of a change which promised to be so 
 pleasant, but Gordon Counselman, the youngest 
 first lieutenant in the regiment, and the one as 
 signed to the most unpromising post, was so much 
 more pleased than all the others that he infected 
 the rest with his spirits, and made the last days of 
 the Third s stay at Fort Hamilton a jubilee that no 
 one who participated ever forgot. 
 
 The discontented and the fretful and the chronic 
 complainers were the ones he took especial pleas 
 ure in diverting, and the result was that, for so
 
 224 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 radical a move, it was the most harmonious the 
 regiment ever experienced. 
 
 Those ordered to Pensacola and Tortugas, he 
 claimed, were the most favored. He painted Florida 
 in glowing colors, and insisted that " Fort San Carlos 
 de Barancas," the name of the fort at Pensacola, 
 sounded so Spanish and so Mexican and so foreign 
 that to go there would be like a composite journey 
 around the world, with Uncle Sam for a letter of 
 credit. 
 
 He sent Alice and the baby down to Stockbridge 
 on Friday, and he was to spend Sunday with them 
 to say good-bye, bringing them back with him to 
 sail on Monday. 
 
 "Your mother will say that you are looking 
 pale, Alice," said Gordon, anxiously, bracing her 
 to resist the mental malaria of her mother, "but 
 you must tell her that the post surgeon says Flor 
 ida will set you up and be the best thing in 
 the world for you. And as to Lloyd, a warm cli 
 mate is exactly what he needs. Now, don t forget 
 this." 
 
 " I won t, dear. I will remember everything. 
 Button up your coat. You will catch your death 
 cold with it flying open that way." 
 
 Gordon obediently buttoned it. He thought it 
 charming to be looked after in this way by his 
 pretty little wife.
 
 THE FORK IN THE ROAD 225 
 
 " Now let the nurse hold the_baby. You needn t 
 be afraid people will think it is hers." 
 
 " Gordon !" 
 
 " Well, you are apt to overtax yourself, and I 
 must take care of you. You are looking a little 
 pale." 
 
 ; Why, Gordon, you are just like mother," said 
 Alice, innocently. She never saw her mother with 
 other people s eyes. 
 
 " Heaven forbid !" thought Gordon. But he did 
 not say so. 
 
 They watched each other out of sight, as if they 
 never expected to meet again. Nor did they sus 
 pect, that any one noticed them or thought them 
 either odd or foolish. But one or two women who 
 had outlived the expression of their husband s love 
 felt a queer little lump rise in their throats as they 
 turned away. 
 
 When Gordon arrived in Stockbridge and tried 
 to spring up the terrace steps as he did at home, 
 he felt his feet drag in the old, unmistakable way. 
 Although he never showed it, he disliked the house, 
 the grounds, the whole place as only a proud man 
 can where he has been insulted by a woman in 
 scrupulously polite tones. 
 
 He found Mrs. Copeland in a pious state of 
 resignation, and Alice with a face whiter than the 
 baby s dress.
 
 226 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 "What is the matter, dearest?" he said, taking 
 her into his arms. " What are they tormenting 
 you about now?" 
 
 " Mother says she is too delicate to be left alone, 
 and that she will die if I go to Fort Jefferson. Oh, 
 Gordon, Gordon, it will break my heart to be left 
 behind." 
 
 "You shall not be left! I won t leave you! 
 You are my wife more than you are your mother s 
 daughter, and you shall go where you want to go." 
 
 "Oh, that would be with you, darling. But I 
 really think I ought to stay. You can see for your 
 self that mother is failing." 
 
 "No, I cannot." 
 
 " Well, she is, and she needs me." 
 
 " Let George s wife take care of her. She is here 
 all the time." 
 
 "Yes, but mother wants me, and she says my 
 first duty is to her for the little time she will be on 
 earth. If I went and she should die, I could never 
 forgive myself." 
 
 " She won t die," said Gordon, gloomily. 
 
 " Poor mother. She is such a sufferer," sighed 
 Alice. " I know that I ought to stay." 
 
 "Alice, do you really feel it your duty to stay?" 
 
 " She thinks it is." 
 
 "Well, use your own conscience. What do you 
 think ?"
 
 THE FORK IN THE ROAD 227 
 
 " I think I ought to go with you. 
 
 "Then you shall go." 
 
 Alice clung to him in silence, with her face 
 buried in his coat, glad to have him decide for her, 
 and take the responsibility off her hands. 
 
 But it was a cheerless day. Alice stayed up-stairs 
 with her mother in a darkened room; the doctor 
 was called in, and Gordon and Judge Copeland 
 smoked in the library and talked fitfully of every 
 thing except that which lay uppermost in both 
 minds. 
 
 The Overshines came over in the afternoon to 
 say good-bye, but they hurried away again from a 
 house filled with such careful gloom. 
 
 When the doctor left, Gordon went to get Alice 
 and take her for a walk. 
 
 "Gordon," she said, when she saw him, " It is 
 no use. I must stay here. The doctor says Florida 
 might kill my baby." 
 
 " The post surgeon thinks differently." 
 
 " Yes, but mother says Dr. Jamison knows my 
 constitution, and the baby s, and that I will be run 
 ning the gravest risk if I take him. I have decided. 
 I must stay here." 
 
 Gordon said nothing. He was too bitterly dis 
 appointed to speak. He only took her in his arms, 
 and kissed her and petted her all the rest of the 
 time they were together, in a way which afterwards
 
 225 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 came back to her, as if, even then, he must have 
 known. 
 
 If he felt that Alice was wrong he never said so, 
 and she could not seem to feel intuitively that she 
 had failed at the supreme test. Men like Gordon 
 are braver than the Alices of this world ever know. 
 She thought it perfectly natural that he should 
 hover around her in an agony of love and tender 
 ness, but which was largely disappointment not in 
 her; he was too loyal for that. But a great bitter 
 ness of spirit surged up and overwhelmed him at 
 the cruelty of the unknown elements in her nature 
 which made it impossible for her to meet him on 
 his plane. Gordon was undergoing the mortal 
 agony of a soul sick, sick unto death, and without 
 the power of speech which might lead to healing. 
 
 Alice was sharing his unhappiness to the best of 
 her ability. One has no fault to find with the pur 
 ling river which runs into the mighty sea. Doubt 
 less the river would feel more natural in finding its 
 outlet in a lake. 
 
 She clung to him at parting with such soft, 
 womanly tenderness that Gordon forgot some of 
 the deep-searching pain he had undergone. But 
 his face, which always was so merry, took on such 
 a look of anguish when he held his baby son in his 
 arms for the last time that Judge Copeland turned 
 hastily away.
 
 THE FORK IN THE ROAD 229 
 
 Gordon tried to go twice, and twice came back 
 again, to undergo once more the sweet bitterness 
 of pressing his face against the soft baby cheeks 
 of the little fellow, who tried to understand what 
 Alice was saying to him about dear papa s going 
 away. 
 
 Gordon looked back from the gate, and Alice was 
 at the window waving Lloyd s baby hand for him. 
 Gordon was not ashamed of the tears which forced 
 themselves to his eyes at the sudden mighty ache 
 of his heart.
 
 XVI 
 
 INTO SILENCE 
 
 GORDON COUNSELMAN had all a soldier s idea of 
 duty. He followed his own conscience, and per 
 mitted everybody else, even his wife, to do the 
 same. Although he could not upon this occasion 
 quite agree with Alice in her point of view, still 
 he defended her against everyone who blamed her 
 for not going with her husband, as many people 
 dared to do. He admired Alice s devotion to a 
 forbidding duty, which she paid so unswervingly. 
 He doubted if, in her place, he could have done it 
 so promptly. A man with a conscience will sacri 
 fice his head and his bodily comfort to his ideal of 
 duty, but he clings tenaciously to his heart s desire, 
 and yields that last, if at all. A woman with a con 
 science often makes a burnt-offering of her heart, 
 from pure altruism. Men call such a woman either 
 a saint, or cold. 
 
 To Alice s grief, she discovered that nearly every 
 body in Stockbridge, and, later, that even Miss
 
 INTO SILENCE 231 
 
 Yanclevoort herself, thought her entirely wrong in 
 her course of action. Some gave her no quarter. 
 The kindest only said that her conception of duty 
 was ill considered. Her letters to Gordon s mother, 
 hitherto so affectionate, became constrained and 
 apologetic ; and Mrs. Counselman s silence upon 
 this one subject in her kind replies grieved Alice 
 beyond measure it was so eloquent a condemna 
 tion. 
 
 It was part of Alice s inheritance, that in spite of 
 all this she never thought of changing her mind 
 and following Gordon to Fort Jefferson. 
 
 When it became too much to bear, she over 
 flowed in her letters to Gordon, and he assured her 
 that no one was competent to judge so well as her 
 clear self, and he upheld her so courageously that she 
 believed he wholly approved her course so much 
 so that she began to think, and to say to others, 
 that in remaining in Stockbriclge she was following 
 her husband s advice. 
 
 When Kate, at Nice, received the first letter from 
 Alice, in which she put this into words, it did not 
 change her opinion in the slightest degree. She 
 knew just how Alice came to believe that. She 
 dropped the letter in her lap and sat looking out 
 over the blue waters of the Mediterranean as if her 
 eyes saw something from the long ago. 
 
 Little Lloyd was growing finely. He was one
 
 232 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 person to whom Alice could talk of Gordon by the 
 hour. She tried to make him an entity to the child. 
 She filled her rooms with pictures of him, and made 
 him the hero of all the wonderful tales she wove 
 for the sleepy hour. She read his letters aloud to 
 the little fellow, who listened with grave, intelligent 
 eyes, and guided the baby fist in the hieroglyphics 
 which went as replies from Lloyd to his papa. 
 Alice even sent Gordon the photograph of himself, 
 taken in his uniform, which Lloyd considered his. 
 It was all blistered from the moisty kisses his little 
 son had imprinted on the face in his bursts of af 
 fection for his soldier father, and Gordon laughed, 
 with tears in his eyes, when he saw it. 
 
 Perhaps they were very foolish, these two young 
 people. But they loved each other, and they went 
 blindly forward, hoping for the future, the dear 
 future which should bring them together. 
 
 The winter passed, spring came and went, and 
 summer was half over. It was time for Gordon to 
 have his leave. Alice was growing restlessly im 
 patient. It was very hot in Florida, and had been 
 summer with them when there was snow in Stock- 
 bridge. 
 
 Suddenly a letter came which almost repaid 
 Alice for her year of separation. The long-looked- 
 for detail as professor of Military Science at Colby 
 University had arrived, and with it Gordon s leave
 
 INTO SILENCE 233 
 
 of absence. That meant no more separations, no 
 more debts, no more worry, and Gordon with her 
 for at least four years. Alice almost ran to tell the 
 good news to her friends. Gordon had saved it to 
 surprise her. She talked to Lloyd until the child 
 was nearly crazy with delight. Gordon s letter 
 said that he might arrive at any time. Letters 
 were so often delayed coming from Tortugas. 
 " You may look for me at any hour," he wrote. 
 
 " Papa may come to-day, dear lamb," she cried 
 to Lloyd. "Perhaps he is here now. Perhaps he 
 is just getting off the train. Perhaps he is coming 
 down the street. Let s look out of the window and 
 see if we can see him. How big is he, darling?" 
 
 " Bigger dan g an papa," said the child. 
 
 " And what does he call my baby ?" 
 
 " Papa s p ecious little son." 
 
 " And what does my baby call him ?" 
 
 " My darlin foddy." 
 
 " And what are you going to do when you see 
 him ? 
 
 " I m don tiss m, n hug him much as I love 
 him." 
 
 " Oh, you little angel ! You remember it all. 
 Now, you won t forget when you see a great big 
 man, and I say, That s your foddy, will you?" 
 
 " No," said the child, solemnly. 
 
 " Come, let s sit at the window and watch for
 
 234 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 him. His letter said, At any hour. Here, sit in 
 mamma s lap, and let me brush your curls. Do 
 you remember how we sent one of these curls to 
 dear foddy, and he put it in the back of his watch, 
 and a little hair got into the wheels and stopped 
 them? Wasn t that funny? Oh, look! There 
 comes a messenger boy with a telegram. Perhaps 
 that is from papa, saying that he has arrived in 
 New York. Let mother run to get it." 
 
 She opened the telegram without a fear. It was 
 from the post surgeon at Fort Jefferson. 
 
 " Mrs. GORDON COUNSELMAN, Stockbridge, Pa.: 
 
 " Lieutenant Counselman died of yellow-fever on the nth 
 inst., at 5.30 P.M. G. H. CARSON, 
 
 " Post Surgeon." 
 
 Alice fell just where she stood, like a broken 
 lily. It was her father who found her, and with un 
 speakable tenderness carried her to her bed, where 
 she lay crushed and helpless. 
 
 The blow had fallen so suddenly and with such 
 mighty force that for weeks she remained in a 
 dazed, semi-conscious condition, shedding no tears 
 and making no outcry. 
 
 The doctor shook his head when day after day 
 passed with no change. But nothing aroused her 
 stunned intellect, nothing brought the healing tears, 
 not even the presence and pitiful wailing of her
 
 INTO SILENCE 235 
 
 boy, who could not understand why his caresses 
 were unnoticed and unreturned. 
 
 When she grew strong enough to creep out into 
 the light of day a letter came from Dr. Magnus, of 
 Key West, who had gone to Gordon s assistance 
 when the pestilence broke out at the fort. 
 
 She was sitting listlessly at the window, with her 
 boy in her arms, when this letter was put into her 
 hands to read : 
 
 " Mrs. GORDON COUNSELMAN : 
 
 "My (fear Madam, My telegram in answer to your in 
 quiry concerning Lieutenant Counselman doubtless has been 
 received. Some further particulars I now give by mail. 
 During the violence of the epidemic at Fort Jefferson I vol 
 unteered my services to assist the medical officers at that post 
 in the care of the sick. 
 
 " Upon my arrival I found the officers at the post, includ 
 ing Lieutenant Counselman, wellnigh exhausted with inces 
 sant watching and assiduous care of the victims. During my 
 stay of some ten days no one displayed a more exalted sympa 
 thy, more zeal and anxiety in the care of the sufferers, day and 
 night, than your husband, entirely forgetting and ignoring 
 self in the discharge of self-imposed duties to those committed 
 to his official care. The leave of the colonel of the regiment 
 had expired some few days before, and Lieutenant Counsel- 
 man s date for departure was therefore delayed. But al 
 though repeatedly urged to go, the nurses were too few for 
 him to permit himself to listen to their generous suggestions. 
 I remained with him until the epidemic began to abate, when 
 1 returned to Key West.
 
 236 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 "Two hours after my departure from the fort, on the 8th 
 inst., he was violently stricken down, and although a gun was 
 fired and the flag displayed nt half-mast, the vessel upon 
 which I left was too far out for the gun to be heard or the 
 signal of distress to be seen. He died after three days ill 
 ness, truly, sincerely, and deeply regretted by friends, ac 
 quaintances, and unusually so by his comrades. 
 
 During the epidemic it had been the custom for the colored 
 attaches of the post to bury the dead. But during the still 
 hours of the night, after his death in the late afternoon, those 
 of the soldiers who had volunteered their services as nurses 
 and attendants, desirous of paying the last sad tribute to their 
 beloved commander, whose last words were, I have stood by 
 you, secretly removed his remains, and buried him silently 
 and tearfully, with their own hands, in an adjoining key 
 some two miles distant. 
 
 " The surprise of the officers the next morning was great, but 
 appreciating this portrayal of affection on the part of his sol 
 diers, they were silent as to the breach of discipline, and pro 
 ceeded with the plan of interment. 
 
 "They were rowed over to the key, and with appropriate 
 services committed his body, dust to dust and ashes to ashes, 
 and his soul to God who gave it. 
 
 " The loss of such men as Lieutenant Counselman is truly 
 great, to home, country, and friends, and is a forcible exam 
 ple of self-sacrifice in devotion to duty. 
 
 " Hoping that this sad affliction to you and friends at home 
 may be somewhat softened by your knowledge of the circum 
 stances under which he was taken, 
 
 " I am, my dear madam, 
 
 " Very truly yours, 
 
 "JOSEPH MAGNUS."
 
 INTO SILENCE 237 
 
 When Alice finished she buried her face in her 
 baby s little white dress, and fell into the bitter, 
 bitter weeping which only the widowed know. 
 
 Then she took Lloyd in her arms and went and 
 stood before a large portrait of Gordon. The baby 
 looked wonderingly at her tears. 
 
 " Look there, my darling. There is a hero that 
 nobody will ever hear about. Only you and 
 mamma know that he gave up his life for other 
 people, and that we are proud, proud that we be 
 long to him and bear his name." 
 
 She took the letter down for her mother to read. 
 Mrs. Copeland had been prostrated ever since the 
 news arrived. Alice sat down by the window over 
 looking the Delaware and the boat-house steps 
 where Gordon had first told her he loved her. She 
 still held Lloyd in her arms. 
 
 Mrs. Copeland sobbed aloud over the reading of 
 it, but Alice only rocked the baby back and forth, 
 and looked out over the river. 
 
 " He was a hero, mother," she said, quietly. 
 " Pray do not exhaust yourself so. I only wish 
 that people knew how good he was. But they 
 would forget, if they did know. You and I, Lloyd, 
 will never forget. We will always remember him, 
 won t we, baby ?" 
 
 " Papa s p ecious little son," murmured the child, 
 sleepily.
 
 238 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 Alice kissed him and smiled. 
 
 " Is my foddy tummin to-day ?" he asked. 
 
 " Not to-day, darling. Perhaps to-morrow." 
 
 "My focldy s tummin to-morrow," he repeated, 
 leaning his curly head against Alice s shoulder in 
 sleepy content. 
 
 Judge Copeland came in and laid his hand 
 tenderly on Alice s soft hair. It was so exactly 
 Gordon s way and Gordon s touch, that she bowed 
 over her baby s head in helpless sobbing. 
 
 "Are you able to read this, dear daughter?" lie 
 said. He handed her a newspaper, pointing with 
 his finger to a column headed, "LIEUTENANT 
 GORDON COUNSELMAN." 
 
 Alice took it and read : 
 
 " Lieutenant Counselman, who died recently at Fort Jef 
 ferson, Fla. , lias left a name among his comrades and in his 
 regiment which any soldier might be proud to own. lie was 
 ordered to a Northern post, detailed as professor of Military 
 Science at Colby University. His successor had arrived at 
 Fort Jefferson with his detail, but his command needed him. 
 The dreadful epidemic of yellow-fever was taking offhis men. 
 He refused to go ; even refused to look at the order for his 
 detail, preferring death at his post to an easy berth, even 
 though that death was facing hLn in the awful form of pes 
 tilence. He chose to remain with his command, and in 1 the 
 words of Colonel Collins, his successor in command, stood by 
 while the dead were being carried out, and now lies with ten 
 of the men he tried so hard to save.
 
 INTO SILENCE 239 
 
 "Subjoined is an order issued by the Gulf Department, 
 an honor rarely paid to a subaltern officer: 
 
 " HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE GULF, 
 
 " HOLLY SPRINGS, MISSISSIPPI. 
 General Orders, No. 27. 
 
 It is with sincere regret that the Department Commander 
 announces the death at Fort Jefferson, Florida, of First Lieu 
 tenant Gordon Counselman of the Third Artillery. 
 
 " This young officer had already won the esteem of his as 
 sociates and the respect of his commanding officers by his high 
 soldierly qualities, and the circumstances attending his death 
 were such as to furnish a fitting close to his military career. 
 
 " The only officer at an isolated military post when it was 
 visited by a dangerous epidemic, he seemed to multiply him 
 self in his ever-present care and watchfulness for the men of 
 his command, and it is doubtless due to the exhaustion and 
 fatigue resulting from his anxious discharge of duty that he 
 finally fell a victim to the disease. 
 
 " With death on every side and staring him in the face he 
 never faltered in his lonely duty, and when relief finally came 
 he could only welcome it for his men. It came too late to 
 save their faithful commander. Then, and not till then, he 
 yielded to the attack of the destroyer, and on Thursday even 
 ing, the nth of September, died, on duty and at his post. 
 " I!y order of MAJOR-GENERAL CLARKE. 
 
 " E. R. Carpenter, Ass t. Adjt.-General. " 
 
 Alice handed the paper back to her father. 
 " It is cruel that you could not know these things 
 first, daughter," he said, kindly. 
 
 " No, father. It is just as well. I am glad other
 
 240 THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS 
 
 people know them, too. But they will forget. Only 
 / shall remember." 
 
 But when hosts of letters poured in upon her 
 from Gordon s brother officers and from his count 
 less friends, Alice began to realize, as she never had 
 clone before, how he had lived and how he had 
 died. Even she, his own wife, had not known him 
 as these people seemed to have done. For the first 
 time she was getting an outside point of view. 
 
 All through the autumn Alice comforted her 
 mother for Gordon s loss. Mrs. Copeland was 
 more bereaved than any one would have suspected. 
 Perhaps she regretted some things. Most people 
 never feel remorse until it is too late. 
 
 Gifford hung around Alice with his face grave 
 with sorrow. He filled her room with flowers, and 
 showed her in a thousand ways how his boyish 
 heart ached for her. Everybody said Alice bore up 
 bravely. They never knew how many nights she 
 spent kneeling beside her baby s little bed, her 
 whole soul going up in the anguished cry, " Dear 
 God, why must Thou always take the best?" 
 
 Who knows the night-time agony of those who 
 " bear up bravely ?" 
 
 Alice controlled herself for her mother s sake. 
 Mrs. Copeland could not bear the sight of any grief 
 except her own. Elsie, too, was easily upset. 
 
 Kate Vandevoort heard of it in Norway and
 
 INTO SILENCE 241 
 
 came straight home. But it was November before 
 she arrived. 
 
 " How will she bear it !" thought Kate. " If I 
 could only see whether she will live by Gordon s 
 life or Mrs. Copeland s." 
 
 Kate found Alice a pathetic little black-robed 
 figure sitting beside her mother, both of them en 
 grossed in fancy work. As Kate took Alice in her 
 arms, the ball of worsted rolled under the table and 
 the kitten played with it. 
 
 " My poor child," she murmured. 
 
 Little Lloyd crept up to Alice, and, pulling at her 
 skirts, said : 
 
 " Is my darlin focldy tummin home to-day ?" 
 
 Kate broke into wild weeping. 
 
 " Not to-day, dear. Perhaps to-morrow." 
 
 THE END
 
 MAKK TWAIN S JOAN OF AEG 
 
 PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF JOAN OF ARC. 
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 DATE DUE
 
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