Uncle Alf was seated with Dora on the terrace at Grote one afternoon
late in August. Dora herself was hatless and cloakless, for it was a day
of windless and summer heat, but Uncle Alf had an overcoat on, and a
very shabby old gray shawl in addition cast about his shoulders. His
face wore an expression of ludicrous malevolence.
“And I had to come out here, my dear, and take refuge with you,” he
said, “for Maria will drive me off my head with talk of that tumour of
hers. Why, she speaks as if nobody had ever had a tumour before. I said
to her, ‘Maria, if it had been cancer now, and you’d got over as you
have, it might have been something to make a tale of.’ But tumour, God
bless me! and benignant, so Sir Henry said, at that.”
Dora gave a little shriek of laughter.
“Uncle Alf, sometimes I think you’re the unkindest man in the whole
world,” she said, “and even when you’re most unkind I can’t help
laughing. I wonder if you are unkind really. I don’t expect so.”
Uncle Alf took no notice of this, and went on with his grievances.
“As for Eddie, I’m sure I don’t know what to make of him,” he said. “I
shouldn’t wonder if he’s going soft-headed, for he was always threatened
that way, to my thinking. He can talk of nothing but the brave and
beautiful Maria. Lord! my dear, it’s a wonder to me that you can stand
it. Doesn’t it get on your nerves? Doesn’t it make you feel sick and ill
to hear how they go on?”
Dora laughed again.
“No, Uncle Alf, it doesn’t, do you know? You see I was with them through
all those dreadful days in the summer after the operation, when they
still didn’t know what it was for certain, and had to make an
examination, and it made a tremendous impression on me. I always used to
think that they all, including Claude, were very ordinary people. Well,
they’re not. They were very wonderful. They were cheerful, even when
they were waiting for a verdict that might have been so terrible.”
“Bah!” said Uncle Alf.
“Yes, if you wish. They used to get on my nerves, that is quite true,
and you gave me a hint about it once which was very useful. You told me
to see the humorous side of Dad and Mother.”
“Lord, it’s Dad and Mother, is it?” said Alf, in a tone of acid disgust.
“Yes, Dad and Mother. Just as you are Uncle Alf, but I’ll call you Mr.
Osborne if you prefer. Very well, then, I took that hint, and sometimes
now I laugh at them, which I never did before. I often laugh at them
now, and let them see me laughing, and Dad says to Mother, ‘There’s Dora
at her jokes again. What have you said?’ They know how I love them.
Dear, don’t make such awful faces. They were so splendid, you know.”
“And Claude?” asked his uncle, after a pause.
“I didn’t do justice, or anything like it, to Claude till then,” she
said. “He used to get on my nerves, too, very badly indeed. I don’t mind
telling you, since I’ve told him, and we’ve laughed over that. But all
that time in July, combined with something very fine that I found out he
had done, made me see that what got on my nerves did not matter in the
least. What mattered was Claude himself, whom I didn’t know before.”
“I love that boy,” said Uncle Alf, with unusual tenderness, “and I’m
glad you do, my dear, because he deserves all the love you can give him.
But I am glad you laugh at him, too. There’s no sense in not seeing the
ridiculous side of people.”
“Oh yes, I laugh at him often,” said Dora. “I think he likes it. You
see, he’s so dreadfully fond of me that he likes all I do.”
Uncle Alf gave a contemptuous sniff.
“Yes, he’s off his head about you,” he said. “I thought he had more
sense. But there’s very little sense in anybody when you come to know
them.”
“I know: it’s foolish of him,” said Dora. “I tell him so. But then I’m
foolish about him. I expect if two people are foolish about each other,
they can stand a lot of the other’s folly, though I expect it isn’t
grammar. It is rather nice to be foolish about a man, if he happens to
be your husband.”
“It seems to me you married him first, and fell in love with him
afterward,” said Uncle Alf.
“That’s exactly what I did do,” said Dora softly.
“And what’s this fine thing Claude did?” asked the other. “Gave a cabman
a sovereign, I suppose, and told him to keep the change. Much he’d miss
it. And you thought that was devilish noble. Eh?”
“I can’t tell you what it was,” said she. “Nobody must know that.”
Uncle Alf was silent a minute: he wanted to say something ill-tempered
but could not think of anything.
“Well, I’m glad the boy’s done something to deserve you, my dear,” he
said, “though that sounds as if I was getting soft-headed, too, and
perhaps I am, joining like this in this chorus of praise, this--this
domestic symphony. But I can stand you and Claude: what I can’t stand is
Eddie and Maria. Lord! if they aren’t coming out here, when I thought I
had escaped. She in her bath chair, and he pushing it. A man of his age,
and as stout as that. He’ll be bursting himself one of these days, and
then we shall have Maria making us all sick with telling us how
beautifully he bore it, and nobody behaved so bravely over a burst as
her Eddie.”
Dora giggled hopelessly.
“Oh! you are such a darling,” she said. “I don’t mind what you say.”
The bath chair had approached, and Lady Osborne put down her sunshade as
they came into the strip of shadow where Dora and Uncle Alf sat. He
edged away from her as far as the angle of the house and the flower beds
would permit.
“Well, and if this isn’t pleasant,” she said. “Eddie, my dear, we’ll
stop here a bit and have a rest, if we’re not interrupting, and indeed
it’s near teatime, and I want my tea badly to-day, I do. But my
appetite’s been so good since my operation----”
Alf broke in.
“Maria, if I hear any more about you and your operation, I leave the
house,” he said.
“Well, and I’m sure that’s the last thing I want you to do,” said Lady
Osborne genially, “for I’m enjoying this little family party such as
never was. Why, all the time I was getting better in London I was
looking forward to it, and dreamed about it too. There now, Alf, don’t
be so tetchy, stopping your ears in that manner, as if you had the
neuralgia and was sitting in a draught. I was only going to say I’d been
looking forward to a week or two of quiet down here with you all, and
pleased I was to know that you would join us, instead of setting on
Richmond Hill with the motors and all buzzing round you and raising
clouds of dust with germs uncountable. Mr. O., my dear, you’re all of a
perspiration with pushing me, and thank you. Won’t you be wise to put a
wrap on, same as your brother does, when he sits out of doors,
especially with you in that heat?”
“No, my dear, I’m comfortable enough. I was only wondering whether Dora
was wise to sit here in that thin dress. It’ll strike chill before
sunset.”
Dora again burst out laughing.
“Dad, we shall drive Uncle Alf off his head if we all think so much
about each other,” she said. “He’s been making a formal complaint to me
about it. He finds us all very trying!”
“And where’s Claude and Jim?” asked Alf. “I hope they’re taking great
care of each other. Claude cut his finger this morning, and he bore it
wonderfully. Never a cry nor a sob. But I wonder at you, Maria, letting
them ride horses all about the country, without a doctor or a pair of
surgeons to follow them in case of accidents. They might fall off and be
hurt. A savage and dangerous beast is a horse, and more especially a
mare, such as Claude was riding.”
Lady Osborne entirely refused to notice the sarcastic intent of this.
“Well, to be sure, we’ve all got to take our risks,” she said. “There’d
be no sense in passing your life wrapped up in cotton-wool, and waiting
for the doctor!”
“Why, and you used to ride too, when you was a lad, Alf,” said her
husband. “You’re making Dora laugh at you. And I don’t wonder: I could
laugh myself!”
Alf got up from his chair.
“I think you’d both be the better for an operation, you and Maria,” he
said. “I should have a bit of humour put in, instead of a bit of tumour
taken out. Not but what it’s a far more serious affair. I doubt if
either of you would get over it.”
“Well, and it’s you who talked about my tumour this time,” said Lady
Osborne triumphantly.
This was too much for Alf: he walked shufflingly back to the house,
leaving his sister-in-law in possession of the field. But she used her
victory nobly, with pity for the conquered.
Lady Osborne looked round in a discreet and penetrating manner after he
had gone and was out of hearing.
“Dora, my dear, you mustn’t mind what Alf says,” she remarked with much
acuteness. “He gets a bit sour now and then, and I’m sure I don’t
wonder, with his lumbago, and no one to look after him. If only he had
found a nice girl to look after him when he was young! Poor old Alf! But
you can take it from me as knows him, he doesn’t really mean all he
says. It’s his joke, and I’m not one to quarrel with a joke, and bless
him, why shouldn’t he joke in his own way just as the rest of us do? And
if sometimes he seems a bit ill-humoured over his joke--well, you let
him get his bit of ill-humour off his mind, and he’ll be all the better
for it. I never take no notice and it don’t hurt me. ‘Alf and his joke,’
I say over to myself, and no harm done.”
“Rum old cove is Alf,” said her husband; “he seems sometimes to want to
quarrel with us all. But it takes two to make a quarrel, and he’ll have
hard work to find the second in this house, if I know who lives in it.
And he was just as anxious as he could be, Maria, when you was at your
worst in the summer, telephoning five and six times in the day, till I
said down the tube, ‘Maria’s love, and she’s asleep till morning.’ And
what it’ll be when Dora here----”
“Mr. O., you go too far,” said his wife in a shrill aside. “But as you
were saying about Alf, if there’s crust outside there’s crumb within.
It’s a soft heart like your own, Mr. O., though he don’t know it.”
“Dad, when last were you angry with anybody?” asked Dora. “Can you
remember?”
Lord Osborne considered this: it was a question that required research.
“Well, my dear, if you leave out things like my being angry with the
Mother for giving us all such a fright last July--there’s one for you,
Maria--I couldn’t rightly say. I had a dishonest foreman I remember at
the works whom I had to dismiss, summary, too, one Monday morning, but
I think I was more sorry for his wife and children than I was angry with
him. Nine children there was, and another expected, poor lamb! and
stillborn when it came, for I inquired.”
Dora saw Lady Osborne shoot out a furtive finger at him, and he
understood.
“Then I was angry with Claude one day,” he continued, “when he was a
little lad. I think the devil must have been in the boy, for what must
he do but rake out the fire from his mother’s drawing room grate, and
dump it all on the hearthrug. And yet I could scarce help laughing even
when I gave him his spanking. What was in the boy’s head that he should
think of a trick like that? Perhaps it was his joke, too, something that
looks mischievous at first, like old Alf’s jokes. I’ll take another cup
of tea, Mother, for here’s Claude coming with Jim, and such a tea-pot
drainer as Claude I never saw.”
“Yes, I doubt he’ll injure his stomach,” said Lady Osborne, “for I’m
told that tea tans the coats of it like so much leather. Sir Henry told
me so when we were having a chat one morning, after he’d dressed the
place for me.”
“Well, the less we know about our insides the better, to my way of
thinking,” said her husband, “until there’s some call to see what’s
going on. Eat your dinner and drink your wine and get your sleep of
nights, and you’ve done what you can to keep it contented.”
“And I’m sure none’s got a better right to tell us how to keep well than
you, my dear,” said Lady Osborne appreciatively, “for bar a bit of gout
now and then, as it isn’t reasonable you should be spared, there’s not
an hour’s anxiety your health’s given me since first we met, Mr. O., and
here’s the boys ready for their tea, I’ll be bound. Old Alf, and his
saying that he wondered at me allowing them to go horseback!”
* * * * *
All this, these quiet ordinary domestic conversations, as well as things
of far greater import, had entirely changed in character for Dora. But
it was for her only that they had changed; in themselves they were
exactly as they had been before there came those days which, so she put
it to herself, had opened her eyes and given sight to them. For she had
labelled them trivial or tiresome, according as her own mood had varied,
and though discussion on subjects of high artistic or spiritual import
was not rare but unknown among the Osbornes, she had now the sense to
see that the kindly utterances of simple people possibly illustrated
though they did not allude to qualities that were not at all trivial.
For she saw now the personalities that lay behind these details of their
life, the hearts out of which the mouths spoke. It was that which gave
its tone to what had become music: and if Lord Osborne lingered in his
cellar to find a bottle of wine that Sir Thomas appreciated, it was no
longer Sir Thomas’s undoubted greediness that concerned her, but his
host’s desire that his guest should enjoy himself. And she knew now that
the spirit which did not think it trivial to see that the dinner was
good, or that the wine was plentiful, was perfectly capable of rising to
higher levels than these. When there was a call for courage, courage of
a very wonderful sort had answered; when endurance was needed,
endurance was there; when charity, as in the case of Jim, the charity
that met the difficult and disgraceful situation was complete, and had
all the fineness and delicacy which only perfect simplicity can give.
How Claude had done it she did not know; there seemed no question of
finesse or of diplomatic behaviour. He had merely behaved without
difficulty, like Claude, and but a few weeks afterward there was Jim,
sensitive and highly strung as he always was, staying with them all, not
like a guest, but as one of the family, as Lady Osborne loved to think.
And it was not that he was lacking in the sense of shame that made his
friendship with Claude possible: it was that he, like Dora, had had his
eyes opened. A heart as kind as Claude’s counted for something after
all: they both, it must be supposed, had taken it for granted until it
was shown them. But the sight of it, the practical knowledge of it,
worked the miracle, worked it easily, as if there was no miracle about
it.
Dora had gone to her room shortly after tea to rest, on the diplomatic
prompting of her mother-in-law. With so many gentlemen present, Lady
Osborne would never have said, “Dora, the doctor told you to rest for a
couple of hours before dinner,” but she had reminded her that she had
several letters to write for the post. And Dora, secretly and kindly
smiling, had remembered at once, though (like the almug trees) there
were no such letters. And with her to her room she took up the parcel of
thought that has been indicated, for she wanted to examine its contents
a little more closely before Claude came up, as he always did, to read
to her for a while before she dressed. Right at the bottom of the
packet, she knew, there lay something very precious. She would look at
that by and by, with him perhaps.
But in spite of the preponderance that qualities of the heart had now
gained in her mind compared to what must be called qualities of the
surface, to which belonged such things as beauty and breeding, she found
that the latter had not at all lost their value. But she saw such things
differently. They had assumed, so it seemed to her, not a truer value,
but the true value. She loved Claude’s beauty more than even in those
enchanted days of honeymoon in Venice, not only now because it was
beauty, but because it was Claude’s, while such superficial failings as
were undoubtedly his she laughed at still, but now without bitterness or
irritation. They were funny: to say a “handsome lady” was still
ludicrous, but now, since it was Claude who said it, it could not help
being lovable. Indeed she and Jim had invented what they called “The
Claude Catechism,” which began, “Are you a handsome lady? No, but I am a
perfect gentleman.” And then Claude would throw whatever was handiest at
Jim’s head.
And how, like Pharaoh, had she at one time hardened her heart, refusing
to give admittance, so it seemed to her now, to that sunshine of
beautiful qualities that was always ready to stream in upon her. He had
never failed her, he had always been patient, waiting for the door to
open, for the closed windows to be unbarred. True, in the early days he
thought they had been unbarred, that he had full admittance, but in the
weeks that followed, when it was clear to him that ingress was given
him no longer, he had waited, waited without bitter thought of her. She
had made him, after their reconciliation, try to explain what he had
felt to her, and he had done it, unwillingly, but not failing to answer
her questions.
“You see it was like this, darling,” he had said. “I saw something was
wrong, and I tried to find out if I had done anything, or how I could
set things right. But it didn’t seem to me that I had altered at all--at
least I knew I hadn’t--toward you, from the time that you said you loved
me, and so the best thing I could do was just to keep on at that. I
thought of all sorts of things, tried to wonder at your reasons for not
being pleased with me. But that was no use: I’d always been myself to
you, and--and I thought you might care for me again later on. Of
course--I suppose it was in a selfish way--I was glad when poor old Jim
made such a mistake, because that gave me an opportunity, you see,
to--well, treat him decently. Not that I ever thought it would get to
your ears. However, it did: Jim was a trump over that, going and telling
you. I didn’t mean him to, but when it happened like that, I couldn’t
help being pleased. You had been a bit hard on me, you know: thank God
you were, for it makes it better now that you are not. Lord, what a
jaw!”
This was the outcome of her talk with him, but the “jaw” was punctuated
by questions of hers. It was another Claude catechism. But this one was
not funny, nor had Jim any part in it.
Yes: she had separated this man who loved her into packets: there was
her mistake. First she had loved his beauty, and then had taken that
for granted. Next she had felt growingly irritated with all in him that
did not correspond to the particular little tricks of conversation and
life in which she had been brought up. Then she had got accustomed to
those sterling qualities which she had taken for granted from the first.
And then had come “the little more,” and how much it was. He had but
shown, in practical demonstration, that he was kind and brave and
reliable, all that she had thought she had given him credit for at
first. But the effect was immense: she fell in love, at first real
sight, with his qualities.
That fused the whole: at last she was in love with the man, not with his
face, not with his character taken by itself, but with him as a whole.
That splendid body was his, his too were the greater splendours of
character, and if his also were the things dealt with in the public
Claude catechism, they were no longer rejected, they were no longer even
accepted, they were welcomed and hugged. The reason for this was plain:
it was Claude who said and did all that which was symbolized under the
title of “handsome lady,” and since it was Claude, it was a thing to be
kissed, though laughter came too. He was no longer packets: they were
fused into one dear whole, the thought of which and the presence of
which made her heart ache with tenderness.
And now, thinking of these things, she had a thirsty eye for the opening
of the door, a thirsty ear for the sound of his foot in the passage
outside. But she knew he would not come quite yet, for at tea some silly
discussion had arisen between him and Jim as to whether it was possible
to get (with a run) from the bottom of the terrace to the lake in
twelve strides. Jim had been vehement on the impossibility of it, and
though Claude cordially agreed that it was a feat of which Jim was
pathetically incapable, he backed himself to do it for the sum of one
shilling. Even now she could hear him running along the terrace below
the window, and Jim’s voice counting the strides.
Dora got up and strolled on to her balcony. The last attempt had
apparently been unsuccessful, for Claude was starting again, and next
moment with great strides his long legs were taking him across the grass
that sloped down to the lake. This time it looked as if he would easily
succeed, for the sixth leap had taken him well beyond the half-distance.
The eleventh took him within a couple of yards of the edge, and next
moment Dora joined in the shout of laughter that came from Jim. For it
had not apparently occurred to Claude what happened next, if you leap at
top speed to the margin of a lake. But he knew now, as he vanished in a
fountain of spray. It was the deep end of the lake too.
Jim had collapsed altogether on the ground by the time Claude swam to
shore, and Dora was equally helpless on the balcony, but by the time the
involuntary bather had wrung his clothes out, Jim had recovered
sufficiently to find the shilling he had lost to him.
“Oh! it was cheap at the price,” he said. “I wish it had been a florin.”
Claude walked up the terrace to the house, leaving a trail of water on
the paving stones, and in a moment his dressing room door opened with a
crack, and a head and naked shoulder came round the corner.
“Darling! I’ve been making a fool of myself,” he said “I must change
first, and then shall I come in to read to you?”
“Yes, do,” she said, still laughing. “I saw it. I thought I should have
a fit. Can’t you do it again before you change? It was too heavenly.”
“Yes, if you wish,” said he. “But I shall have to put on my wet clothes
again.”
She laughed again.
“No, there would be no ‘first fine careless rapture’ the second time,”
she said.
“What’s that?” asked Claude.
“Nothing. Browning. Change, and then come and read to me.”
It was not long before he joined her, and seated himself on the floor by
the side of the sofa where she lay, with his back against it. The book
he was reading was “Esmond,” and that evening they came to the chapter
in which Harry comes home, on December 29th, and goes to the service in
Winchester Cathedral. And Claude read:
“‘She gave him her hand, her little fair hand: there was only her
marriage ring on it. The quarrel was all over. The year of grief and
estrangement had passed. They had never been separated.’”
Dora’s hand lay on her husband’s arm, and he felt a soft pressure of her
fingers.
“Oh, Claude,” she said, “how nice! He was so faithful and patient, and
it all came right.”
He let the book fall to the ground. As soon as she spoke he ceased to
think of Esmond, and though Dora’s words referred to him, she was not
thinking of him either.
“‘They had never been separated,’” she went on, still quoting, but still
not thinking of the book. “They hadn’t really been separated, because
their love was present all the time, but she had let it get covered up
with irritation and impatience. Was it like that it happened?”
“I can’t remember,” he said, “indeed I cannot. Everything seems unreal
that isn’t perfect.”
“And there is something more coming,” she said, “coming soon, perhaps in
a few days now. So to-night, dear, let us talk a little instead of
reading even that beautiful chapter. I am glad we got to it to-day. I
like stopping just at those very words, and I want you to tell me just
once, what really I know so well, that you feel as if we had never been
separated, that you forgive all my stupidity and shallowness. I want to
let it all pass from my mind for ever: to know that I needn’t ever
reproach myself any more. I think I have learned my lesson: I do indeed.
Just tell me, if you can, that you think I have!”
He had turned himself about as she spoke, and now instead of sitting he
knelt by her side, she leaning on her elbow toward him. In the humility
of the simple words, there was something exquisite to him, they flooded
his heart with a tender protectiveness.
“Oh, my darling, you say that to me! Indeed, indeed, I never reproached
you.”
Dora was still grave.
“I know that,” she said, “but I reproached myself. How could I help it?
But, Claude, the sting has gone out of my self-reproach. I can’t help
it: it has. You have to tell me, if you truly can, that I needn’t barb
it again.”
He saw she wanted the direct answer.
“You need not,” he said. “And I think you cannot. You can’t make an old
bruise ache again when it is well.”
“Then it has gone,” she said. “Pull me up, dear, with those strong
hands.”
He raised her to her feet, and she clung to him a moment.
“Oh, Claude! it is getting near the best time of all,” she said. “Your
mother once told me that to bear a child was the best thing God ever
thought of for women. Oh dear! and she was so funny at tea. Dad said
something about a foreman he had discharged with nine children and
another coming, and she pulled him up. How beautifully laughter and the
biggest things in the world go together. They don’t interfere with one
another in the least.”
“Lord! and to think that once I used to believe you weren’t respectful
enough to Dad and her,” said he.
“And you were quite right. I can laugh at them now I love them. It’s
that which makes the difference.”
She strolled to the window.
“Let’s come out on the balcony for a little,” she said. “What an
evening!”
The sun had set, but not long, and in the west a flash of molten red lay
along the horizon. That melted into orange, which again faded into pale
green. Higher up the sky was of velvet blue, and little wisps of
feathery cloud flushed with rose colour were flecked over it. The stars
were already lit, and some noble planet near to its setting flamed
jewel-like in that green strip of sky. Already the colours were half
withdrawn from the garden beds, but a hint of the flower presences came
to them in the little fragrant breeze that fluttered moth-like in the
stillness. Beyond lay the lake, screened from the glory of sunset by the
tall clumps of rhododendrons on its far side, and in the shadow the
water was dark and steel-like in tone. Birds still chuckled in the
bushes, and from far away came the pulse of some hurrying train. And in
the hush and quiet of the hour they spoke together of the dear event
that was coming and would not be long delayed.
“So I wanted,” she said at last, “to clear everything off my mind which
could make me look backward. I want nothing to exist for me except you
and our love for each other. Even Dad and Mother must get a little dim.
I can’t explain.”
“I think I understand very well,” said he.
“And you won’t be frightened for me, Claude?” she asked. “Yet I needn’t
ask you. I saw what you were when mother was ill.”
He did not answer.
“What then, dear?” asked Dora.
“Well, it’s you, you see, now,” he said. “I can’t help it. But I’ll do
my best.”
* * * * *
A week more passed quietly enough. Lady Austell arrived, and that
somehow was the last straw for Uncle Alf, for she was so extraordinarily
appropriate, and he persuaded Jim to come back to Richmond with him.
Lady Austell had very thoughtfully let the house at Deal most
advantageously for the whole month of September, and intended to have a
nice long stay at Grote. Really it was quite too wonderful that Dora’s
baby should be born at Grote. It was a clear case of special Providence.
* * * * *
Then came a day when the house was very still, and the hot hours passed
with leaden foot. To Claude it seemed that the morning would never pass
to noon, and when noon was over each hour the more seemed an eternity
twice told. But just before sunset there was heard the cry of a child.
* * * * *
Later, he was allowed to see Dora for a moment, and in a cot by her bed,
tiny and red and crumpled, lay that which had come into the world.
“Oh Claude!” she said softly, as he came up to her bed, “all three of
us--you and your son and I.”
THE END
* * * * *
GROSSET & DUNLAP’S
DRAMATIZED NOVELS
Original, sincere and courageous--often amusing--the kind that are
making theatrical history.
MADAME X. By Alexandre Bisson and J. W. McConaughy. Illustrated
with scenes from the play.
A beautiful Parisienne became an outcast because her husband would not
forgive an error of her youth. Her love for her son is the great final
influence in her career. A tremendous dramatic success.
THE GARDEN OF ALLAH. By Robert Hichens.
An unconventional English woman and an inscrutable stranger meet and
love in an oasis of the Sahara. Staged this season with magnificent cast
and gorgeous properties.
THE PRINCE OF INDIA. By Lew. Wallace.
A glowing romance of the Byzantine Empire, presenting with extraordinary
power the siege of Constantinople, and lighting its tragedy with the
warm underflow of an Oriental romance. As a play it is a great dramatic
spectacle.
TESS OF THE STORM COUNTRY. By Grace Miller White. Illust. by Howard
Chandler Christy.
A girl from the dregs of society, loves a young Cornell University
student, and it works startling changes in her life and the lives of
those about her. The dramatic version is one of the sensations of the
season.
YOUNG WALLINGFORD. By George Randolph Chester. Illust. by F. R.
Gruger and Henry Raleigh.
A series of clever swindles conducted by a cheerful young man, each of
which is just on the safe side of a State’s prison offence. As
“Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford,” it is probably the most amusing expose of
money manipulation ever seen on the stage.
THE INTRUSION OF JIMMY. By P. G. Wodehouse. Illustrations by Will
Grefe.
Social and club life in London and New York, an amateur burglary
adventure and a love story. Dramatized under the title of “A Gentleman
of Leisure,” it furnishes hours of laughter to the play-goers.
GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK
* * * * *
TITLES SELECTED FROM
GROSSET & DUNLAP’S LIST
REALISTIC, ENGAGING PICTURES OF LIFE
THE GARDEN OF FATE. By Roy Norton. Illustrated by Joseph Clement
Coll.
The colorful romance of an American girl in Morocco, and of a beautiful
garden, whose beauty and traditions of strange subtle happenings were
closed to the world by a Sultan’s seal.
THE MAN HIGHER UP. By Henry Russell Miller. Full page vignette
illustrations by M. Leone Bracker.
The story of a tenement waif who rose by his own ingenuity to the office
of mayor of his native city. His experiences while “climbing,” make a
most interesting example of the possibilities of human nature to rise
above circumstances.
THE KEY TO YESTERDAY. By Charles Neville Buck. Illustrated by R.
Schabelitz.
Robert Saxon, a prominent artist, has an accident, while in Paris, which
obliterates his memory, and the only clue he has to his former life is a
rusty key. What door in Paris will it unlock? He must know that before
he woos the girl he loves.
THE DANGER TRAIL. By James Oliver Curwood. Illustrated by Charles
Livingston Bull.
The danger trail is over the snow-smothered North. A young Chicago
engineer, who is building a road through the Hudson Bay region, is
involved in mystery, and is led into ambush by a young woman.
THE GAY LORD WARING. By Houghton Townley. Illustrated by Will
Grefe.
A story of the smart hunting set in England. A gay young lord wins in
love against his selfish and cowardly brother and apparently against
fate itself.
BY INHERITANCE. By Octave Thanet. Illustrated by Thomas Fogarty.
Elaborate wrapper in colors.
A wealthy New England spinster with the most elaborate plans for the
education of the negro goes to visit her nephew in Arkansas, where she
learns the needs of the colored race first hand and begins to lose her
theories.
GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK
* * * * *
A FEW OF
GROSSET & DUNLAP’S
Great Books at Little Prices
CY WHITTAKER’S PLACE. By Joseph C. Lincoln. Illustrated by Wallace
Morgan.
A Cape Cod story describing the amusing efforts of an elderly bachelor
and his two cronies to rear and educate a little girl. Full of honest
fun--a rural drama.
THE FORGE IN THE FOREST. By Charles G. D. Roberts. Illustrated by
H. Sandham.
A story of the conflict in Acadia after its conquest by the British. A
dramatic picture that lives and shines with the indefinable charm of
poetic romance.
A SISTER TO EVANGELINE. By Charles G. D. Roberts. Illustrated by E.
McConnell.
Being the story of Yvonne de Lamourie, and how she went into exile with
the villagers of Grand Prè. Swift action, fresh atmosphere, wholesome
purity, deep passion and searching analysis characterize this strong
novel.
THE OPENED SHUTTERS. By Clara Louise Burnham. Frontispiece by
Harrison Fisher.
A summer haunt on an island in Casco Bay is the background for this
romance. A beautiful woman, at discord with life, is brought to realize,
by her new friends, that she may open the shutters of her soul to the
blessed sunlight of joy by casting aside vanity and self love. A
delicately humorous work with a lofty motive underlying it all.
THE RIGHT PRINCESS. By Clara Louise Burnham.
An amusing story, opening at a fashionable Long Island resort, where a
stately Englishwoman employs a forcible New England housekeeper to serve
in her interesting home. How types so widely apart react on each others’
lives, all to ultimate good, makes a story both humorous and rich in
sentiment.
THE LEAVEN OF LOVE. By Clara Louise Burnham. Frontispiece by
Harrison Fisher.
At a Southern California resort a world-weary woman, young and beautiful
but disillusioned, meets a girl who has learned the art of living--of
tasting life in all its richness, opulence and joy. The story hinges
upon the change wrought in the soul of the blasè woman by this glimpse
into a cheery life.
GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK
* * * * *
LOUIS TRACY’S
CAPTIVATING AND EXHILARATING ROMANCES
_THE STOWAWAY GIRL._ Illustrated by Nesbitt Benson.
The story of a shipwreck, a lovely girl who shipped stowaway fashion, a
rascally captain, a fascinating young officer and thrilling adventure
enroute to South America.
_THE CAPTAIN OF THE KANSAS._
A story of love and the salt sea--of a helpless ship whirled into the
hands of cannibal Fuegians--of desperate fighting and a tender romance.
A story of extraordinary freshness.
_THE MESSAGE._ Illustrated by Joseph Cummings Chase.
A bit of parchment many, many years old, telling of a priceless ruby
secreted in ruins far in the interior of Africa is the “message” found
in the figurehead of an old vessel. A mystery develops which the reader
will follow with breathless interest.
_THE PILLAR OF LIGHT._
The pillar thus designated was a lighthouse, and the author tells with
exciting detail the terrible dilemma of its cut-off inhabitants and
introduces the charming comedy of a man eloping with his own wife.
_THE RED YEAR_: A Story of the Indian Mutiny.
The never-to-be-forgotten events of 1857 form the background of this
story. The hero who begins as lieutenant and ends as Major Malcolm, has
as stirring a military career as the most jaded novel reader could wish.
A powerful book.
_THE WHEEL O’FORTUNE._ With illustrations by James Montgomery
Flagg.
The story deals with the finding of a papyrus containing the particulars
of the hiding of some of the treasures of the Queen of Sheba. The
glamour of mystery added to the romance of the lovers, gives the novel
an interest that makes it impossible to leave until the end is reached.
_THE WINGS OF THE MORNING._
A sort of Robinson Crusoe _redivivus_, with modern settings and a very
pretty love story added. The hero and heroine are the only survivors of
a wreck, and have adventures on their desert island such as never could
have happened except in a story.
GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK
* * * * *
FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS
Re-issues of the great literary successes of the time. Library size.
Printed on excellent paper--most of them with illustrations of marked
beauty--and handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents a volume,
postpaid.
LAVENDER AND OLD LACE. By Myrtle Reed.
A charming story of a quaint corner of New England where bygone romance
finds a modern parallel. One of the prettiest, sweetest, and quaintest
of old-fashioned love stories * * * A rare book, exquisite in spirit and
conception, full of delicate fancy, of tenderness, of delightful humor
and spontaneity. A dainty volume, especially suitable for a gift.
DOCTOR LUKE OF THE LABRADOR. By Norman Duncan. With a frontispiece
and inlay cover.
How the doctor came to the bleak Labrador coast and there in saving life
made expiation. In dignity, simplicity, humor, in sympathetic etching of
a sturdy fisher people, and above all in the echoes of the sea, _Doctor
Luke_ is worthy of great praise. Character, humor, poignant pathos, and
the sad grotesque conjunctions of old and new civilizations are
expressed through the medium of a style that has distinction and strikes
a note of rare personality.
THE DAY’S WORK. By Rudyard Kipling. Illustrated.
The _London Morning Post_ says: “It would be hard to find better reading
* * * the book is so varied, so full of color and life from end to end,
that few who read the first two or three stories will lay it down till
they have read the last--and the last is a veritable gem * * * contains
some of the best of his highly vivid work * * * Kipling is a born
story-teller and a man of humor into the bargain.
ELEANOR LEE. By Margaret E. Sangster. With a frontispiece.
A story of married life, and attractive picture of wedded bliss * * an
entertaining story of a man’s redemption through a woman’s love * * * no
one who knows anything of marriage or parenthood can read this story
with eyes that are always dry * * * goes straight to the heart of every
one who knows the meaning of “love” and “home.”
THE COLONEL OF THE RED HUZZARS. By John Reed Scott. Illustrated by
Clarence F. Underwood.
“Full of absorbing charm, sustained interest, and a wealth of thrilling
and romantic situations.” “So naively fresh in its handling, so
plausible through its naturalness, that it comes like a mountain breeze
across the far-spreading desert of similar romances.”--_Gazette-Times,
Pittsburg._ “A slap-dashing day romance.”--_New York Sun._
GROSSET & DUNLAP,-NEW YORK
* * * * *
FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS
Re-issues of the great literary successes of the time. Library size.
Printed on excellent paper--most of them with illustrations of marked
beauty--and handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents a volume,
postpaid.
THE SPIRIT OF THE SERVICE. By Edith Elmer Wood. With illustrations
by Rufus Zogbaum.
The standards and life of “the new navy” are breezily set forth with a
genuine ring impossible from the most gifted “outsider.” “The story of
the destruction of the ‘Maine,’ and of the Battle of Manila, are very
dramatic. The author is the daughter of one naval officer and the wife
of another. Naval folks will find much to interest them in ‘The Spirit
of the Service.’”--_The Book Buyer._
A SPECTRE OF POWER. By Charles Egbert Craddock.
Miss Murfree has pictured Tennessee mountains and the mountain people in
striking colors and with dramatic vividness, but goes back to the time
of the struggles of the French and English in the early eighteenth
century for possession of the Cherokee territory. The story abounds in
adventure, mystery, peril and suspense.
THE STORM CENTRE. By Charles Egbert Craddock.
A war story; but more of flirtation, love and courtship than of fighting
or history. The tale is thoroughly readable and takes its readers again
into golden Tennessee, into the atmosphere which has distinguished all
of Miss Murfree’s novels.
THE ADVENTURESS. By Coralie Stanton. With color frontispiece by
Harrison Fisher, and attractive inlay cover in colors.
As a penalty for her crimes, her evil nature, her flint-like
callousness, her more than inhuman cruelty, her contempt for the laws of
God and man, she was condemned to bury her magnificent personality, her
transcendent beauty, her superhuman charms, in gilded obscurity at a
King’s left hand. A powerful story powerfully told.
THE GOLDEN GREYHOUND. A Novel by Dwight Tilton. With illustrations
by E. Pollak.
A thoroughly good story that keeps you guessing to the very end, and
never attempts to instruct or reform you. It is a strictly up-to-date
story of love and mystery with wireless telegraphy and all the modern
improvements. The events nearly all take place on a big Atlantic liner
and the romance of the deep is skilfully made to serve as a setting for
the romance, old as mankind, yet always new, involving our hero.
GROSSET & DUNLAP,-NEW YORK
* * * * *
A FEW OF
GROSSET & DUNLAP’S
Great Books at Little Prices
THE MUSIC MASTER. By Charles Klein. Illustrated by John Rae.
This marvelously vivid narrative turns upon the search of a German
musician in New York for his little daughter. Mr. Klein has well
portrayed his pathetic struggle with poverty, his varied experiences in
endeavoring to meet the demands of a public not trained to an
appreciation of the classic, and his final great hour when, in the
rapidly shifting events of a big city, his little daughter, now a
beautiful young woman, is brought to his very door. A superb bit of
fiction, palpitating with the life of the great metropolis. The play in
which David Warfield scored his highest success.
DR. LAVENDAR’S PEOPLE. By Margaret Deland. Illustrated by Lucius
Hitchcock.
Mrs. Deland won so many friends through Old Chester Tales that this
volume needs no introduction beyond its title. The lovable doctor is
more ripened in this later book, and the simple comedies and tragedies
of the old village are told with dramatic charm.
OLD CHESTER TALES. By Margaret Deland. Illustrated by Howard Pyle.
Stories portraying with delightful humor and pathos a quaint people in a
sleepy old town. Dr. Lavendar, a very human and lovable “preacher,” is
the connecting link between these dramatic stories from life.
HE FELL IN LOVE WITH HIS WIFE. By E. P. Roe. With frontispiece.
The hero is a farmer--a man with honest, sincere views of life. Bereft
of his wife, his home is cared for by a succession of domestics of
varying degrees of inefficiency until, from a most unpromising source,
comes a young woman who not only becomes his wife but commands his
respect and eventually wins his love. A bright and delicate romance,
revealing on both sides a love that surmounts all difficulties and
survives the censure of friends as well as the bitterness of enemies.
THE YOKE. By Elizabeth Miller.
Against the historical background of the days when the children of
Israel were delivered from the bondage of Egypt, the author has sketched
a romance of compelling charm. A biblical novel as great as any since
“Ben Hur.”
SAUL OF TARSUS. By Elizabeth Miller. Illustrated by André
Castaigne.
The scenes of this story are laid in Jerusalem, Alexandria, Rome and
Damascus. The Apostle Paul, the Martyr Stephen, Herod Agrippa and the
Emperors Tiberius and Caligula are among the mighty figures that move
through the pages. Wonderful descriptions, and a love story of the
purest and noblest type mark this most remarkable religious romance.
GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK
* * * * *
THE MASTERLY AND REALISTIC NOVELS OF
FRANK NORRIS
Handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents per volume, postpaid.
THE OCTOPUS. A Story of California.
Mr. Norris conceived the ambitious idea of writing a trilogy of novels
which, taken together, shall symbolize American life as a whole, with
all its hopes and aspirations and its tendencies, throughout the length
and breadth of the continent. And for the central symbol he has taken
wheat, as being quite literally the ultimate source of American power
and prosperity. _The Octopus_ is a story of wheat raising and railroad
greed in California. It immediately made a place for itself.
It is full of enthusiasm and poetry and conscious strength. One cannot
read it without a responsive thrill of sympathy for the earnestness, the
breadth of purpose, the verbal power of the man.
THE PIT. A Story of Chicago.
This powerful novel is the fictitious narrative of a deal in the Chicago
wheat pit and holds the reader from the beginning. In a masterly way the
author has grasped the essential spirit of the great city by the lakes.
The social existence, the gambling in stocks and produce, the
characteristic life in Chicago, form a background for an exceedingly
vigorous and human tale of modern life and love.
A MAN’S WOMAN.
A story which has for a heroine a girl decidedly out of the ordinary run
of fiction. It is most dramatic, containing some tremendous pictures of
the daring of the men who are trying to reach the Pole * * * but it is
at the same time essentially a _woman’s_ book, and the story works
itself out in the solution of a difficulty that is continually presented
in real life--the wife’s attitude in relation to her husband when both
have well-defined careers.
McTEAGUE. A Story of San Francisco.
“Since Bret Harte and the Forty-niner no one has written of California
life with the vigor and accuracy of Mr. Norris. His ‘McTeague’ settled
his right to a place in American literature; and he has now presented a
third novel, ‘Blix,’ which is in some respects the finest and likely to
be the most popular of the three.”--_Washington Times._
BLIX.
“Frank Norris has written in ‘Blix’ just what such a woman’s name would
imply--a story of a frank, fearless girl comrade to all men who are true
and honest because she is true and honest. How she saved the man she
fishes and picnics with in a spirit of outdoor platonic friendship,
makes a pleasant story, and a perfect contrast to the author’s
‘McTeague.’ A splendid and successful story.”--_Washington Times._
GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, -- New York