Her desk stood on a low platform and from this vantage-point she could

overlook her department as a school teacher surveys her schoolroom.

She prided herself she could tell at a glance what any particular girl

ought to be doing; if ever in doubt she promptly summoned Mrs. M’Ardle

to her desk and inquired. All the girls respected and admired her;

they knew her to be fair-dealing and straightforward, though swift in

censure where merited. She liked to have them think of her in this way

and cultivated the idea.

“You’re conscientious and you try hard,” she would say in admonishing

some unfortunate bungler. “I want to be just to you. In conducting the

affairs of this department, I want to be as lenient as I can. I strive

to forget personalities and think only of my assistants,--or perhaps I

had better say ‘associates,’--as co-helpers in a big machine, each one

functioning to the best of her ability at her particular piece of work.

I’ve explained my ideas to Mr. Allister repeatedly. I want the girls in

the Mail Order Department to be every one her own boss, to come and

go as she pleases, and feel responsible--not to me but to the work....

I want to be a ‘big sister’ to every girl under me. I’m placed here

to help, advise and direct, not to scold. But if you fail to perform

properly the work assigned you, if you’re clumsy and careless and

haphazard in your methods, then it is my duty to call the fact to your

attention.... I want to be fair to everyone; I have no favorites....”

The lecture might continue at some length particularly if Miss

Stenicke, Mrs. M’Ardle or little Miss Lacy was within earshot.

For a long time this Mail Order branch of the business of which she was

the head had called forth Jeannette’s great pride. She had felt it was

all hers,--her work. But of late, she had been stirred less and less.

After all what had been accomplished? For nearly ten years she had

bent her energies to making this phase of the activities of the Corey

Publishing Company aboundingly successful. There no longer remained any

question as to whether or not she had achieved her purpose. A year or

two ago a recalcitrant spirit among her girls had immediately aroused

in her a determination to break it; the discovery of an error at once

had challenged her to trace it to its source; the questioning of her

authority or trespassing upon her prerogatives had stirred her upon the

instant to battle. One of the keenest pleasures of her days had been

to draft laws that should govern her girls and to see that these were

enforced. She had begun to detect in herself within the last year or

two an increasing indifference to all such things,--she did not care as

she once had cared. She was no longer hampered or troubled by those

“downstairs”; her assistants and her girls gave her small occasion

for supervision; the work of the department ran on well-oiled wheels.

With opposition eliminated, the task of organization perfected, the

maximum volume of business attained, there remained nothing to fire her

spirit or brain, to stimulate fresh effort. And she was distressed by

a suspicion that more and more persistently obtruded itself upon her

consciousness that perhaps she was getting old, that the indifference

to what went on about her and to her work was merely a sign of

approaching age!

She rebelled at the idea; she put it from her vigorously; she refused

to entertain it. Why, she was only forty-three! She was in the heyday

of her powers. Her judgment, her mind, her capacities were never so

keen as now. She was equal to far more exacting, more difficult work.

Disturbed by this fear, she decided to look about her for fresh fields

of endeavor. There was no higher position in the Corey Publishing

Company open to her; more important places were all filled by members

of the firm, and it was not likely that any one of them would step

aside and give her a chance at his work. No,--though proud of her long

years of service and her record with the publishing company,--she

decided that neither was of sufficient importance to keep her

indefinitely on its pay-roll until she was ready to follow in Miss

Holland’s footsteps. She let it be known in mail order circles that she

was looking for a job.

Of Walt Chase she continued to think enviously. She had heard he was

now one of the big men in Sears, Roebuck & Company, a fact

that exasperated her, because she felt herself to be cleverer than

he, more able in every respect. He was getting ten thousand--twelve

thousand--fifteen thousand,--whatever it was,--a year and climbing

the ladder of success rung after rung, while she was doing the work

he had left behind him at the Corey Publishing Company in a far more

efficient, economical, and profitable way and was being paid fifty

dollars a week!

One day she learned of a vacancy in the American Suit & Cloak Company,

where they were looking for someone familiar with mail order work.

She wrote and applied for the position. A conference with the General

Manager followed. It developed he was in search of a man,--a woman, it

was feared, was not qualified to do the work,--but the Manager admitted

he knew Miss Sturgis by reputation and would be glad to make a place

for her in his organization if she was dissatisfied where she was,--and

he could promise her,--well, he could pay her thirty-five dollars a

week. Jeannette declined and eased her mind by writing a coldly worded

letter of thanks and regret; the General Manager of the American Suit

& Cloak Company must have a poor opinion of her sense of values, if

he expected her to resign from a position where she was the head of a

department and receiving fifty dollars a week to accept an underling’s

place at a smaller salary! But fifty dollars a week from the Corey

Publishing Company was far below what she was worth, Jeannette

considered. It infuriated her to think that while Mr. Allister and

those “downstairs” were glib with their commendation of her work,

there was never any talk of expressing this appreciation by a raise in

salary.

§ 6

Her first business in the mornings upon reaching her desk was to fasten

a sheet of paper about each of her wrists and pin another to the

front of her shirtwaist as a protection against dirt. It was almost

impossible to go through half a day and keep one’s linen clean without

these shields. Dust from the street filtered in through the windows,

that must be kept open at the top for ventilation and occasionally

little feathery balls of soot made their appearance. Contact with

office furniture always held the risk of a smudge. Jeannette had her

desk and chair thoroughly wiped off by one of her girls before she

reached the office in the morning and again when she went to lunch but

in an hour or two after these protective measures, she would begin to

feel grit under the tips of her fingers and observe a fine gray layer

on the surfaces of white paper.

She usually arrived five or ten minutes before nine o’clock at which

hour the business of the day was supposed to begin. Never late herself,

she had trained her girls to be equally punctual. It was a matter of

pride with her that in the Mail Order Department work began promptly

on the stroke of the hour. There was no formality about the way it

commenced. Without sign or sound from Jeannette the girls set about

their various duties with simultaneous accord, the noise of chatter and

laughter died away, there was a general scraping of chair legs on the

cement floor, and the buzz of typewriters, like the chirping of marsh

frogs, began slowly to gather volume.

First Jeannette turned her attention to her “Incoming” basket, neatly

stacked the clipped correspondence, memorandums and communications

before her, and, armed with a thick blue pencil, began their

disposal, marking certain letters and papers a vigorous “No” or

“O.K.-J.S.”--pinning a sheet of scratch pad to others and

scribbling thereon a brief direction or query. Most of the pile before

her disappeared into her “Outgoing” basket, but in an upper corner of

her desk was a folder inscribed: “Mr. Allister,” and into this she

would occasionally slip a letter or memorandum. Its contents would

go to him by boy later in the day; once in a while she carried some

important matter to him herself but she troubled him as little as

possible. She tried to keep the affairs of her department to herself;

the less she attracted the attention of the Directors, the less they

were likely to ask for reports or feel called upon to supervise or

investigate her work; she preferred to let the monthly statements of

sales speak for her.

By ten o’clock the “Incoming” basket would be empty, and she could

begin the preparation of copy for an advertisement, a circular letter,

or the arrangement of a leaflet setting forth the features of a new

set of books. This was the work she loved best to do, knowing she was

unusually good at it; there were daily evidences her copy “pulled,”

that the touches she gave her advertisements were productive of sales.

No one “downstairs” appreciated how clever she was, though there were

the reports of sales to attest to her ability.

She often wished there was more of this particular kind of ad-writing

and circular-preparing to be done, but the books of the Corey

Publishing Company sold by mail, year after year, varied little in

type: These were a standard dictionary, a Home Library of Living

Literature, a set of handbooks for Garden and Kitchen, and then there

were the dressmaking books issued in connection with the pattern

department: “How to Sew,” “How to Knit,” “How to Embroider.” In

addition to the circularizing for these was that for subscriptions to

the magazines, offered in conjunction with some particular premium.

When a special letter had to be prepared, Jeannette preferred to write

it at home or come back to the office at night when she could be alone

and undisturbed. There was continual interruption during the day; she

rarely enjoyed five minutes of consecutive thought. One source of

distraction and a great annoyance was having personally to initial

every request for supplies, no matter how trifling. This was one of

Mr. Kipps’ schemes. He had made it a rule that heads of departments

must O.K. all such requisitions. A paper of pins, a pot of paste, a pad

of paper could not be issued by the stock clerk to any of her girls

without Jeannette’s initials being affixed to the request. All day long

she was interrupted by: “C’n I have a pencil, Miss Sturgis?” “Please

O.K. my slip for some paper, Miss Sturgis.” “’Xcuse me for interruptin’

you, Miss Sturgis, but I need some pen points.” Mr. Kipps’ idea was to

prevent waste, but Jeannette frequently realized with exasperation that

her time was of a great deal more value to the company than pencils,

pens or paper, and there was a far greater waste in interrupting a line

of constructive thinking than in trying to conserve the supplies of the

stock room.

The telephone at her desk was continually at her ear: the composing

room wanted the cut for Job 648; the engraver didn’t have the “Ben

Day” she had specified; Mr. Sanders, Mr. Kipps’ assistant, wished to

know if she could use a Five-and-a-quarter envelope just as well as

a Number Six; she had requisitioned five thousand two-cent stamps

and they had not been delivered; she needed a hundred thousand more

“Dictionary” circulars, and would like Stamper & Bachellor to submit

her some “m.f. laid, 24 by 36” in various tints; the stencil machine

was out of order and she wanted to borrow one from the mailing

department.

One thing followed another all day long.

“If we insert that return postal, we can’t mail this attack under

two-cent postage.”

“Hello, Miss Sturgis,--say, _Events_ can only give us a half page; will

you prepare new copy for the smaller space? They’re waiting to go to

press.”

“Miss Sturgis, we’re running short on ‘_How to Knit_.’”

“Miss Sturgis, we’ll have to get in some extra girls if you want those

letters signed by hand.”

“Miss Sturgis, do you want these mimeographed or printed?”

“Miss Sturgis, Mr. Allister’d like to see you.”

“Miss Sturgis, c’n I have some pins?”

At a quarter past twelve she went to lunch. She made a point of going

promptly. There was a time, some years back, when she had fallen into

the habit of letting her lunch hour lapse over into the afternoon,

allowing the demands upon her further and further to postpone it, and

it had been two o’clock, sometimes three before she went out. As a

result, indigestion and headaches commenced seriously to trouble her,

and the doctor advised a regular hour for lunch. At twelve-fifteen,

therefore, she compelled herself to drop whatever she had in hand and

leave the office; one of the girls was instructed to call her attention

to the time.

She always went to the Clover Tea Room for her luncheon. This was

a little basement restaurant operated by two elderly sisters. It

was prettily appointed with yellow lights, yellow candles, yellow

embroidered table doilies and yellow painted furniture. Jeannette had

her own special table daily reserved for her. Lunch cost sixty-five

cents and consisted generally of a small fruit cocktail, a chop, a

little fish, or an individual meat pie, with an accompanying dab of

vegetable, and a dessert.

She was accustomed to enter the Tea Room at twelve-twenty almost to the

minute: a tall, fine-figured, handsome woman in her dark tailor-made,

her modish hat and fur scarf. She would proceed directly to her table,

exchanging a smile and a word of greeting with the elder Miss Hanlon as

she passed her desk. Unbuttoning her gloves and drawing them from her

hands, she would study the handwritten menu:

Minnie would presently come for her order.

“Morning, Miss Sturgis; what’s it to-day? Stew looks good.”

“Good morning, Minnie. Well, if you say so, I’ll have the stew. And

don’t forget to bring lemon with my tea.”

The Tea Room would be but partially filled when Jeannette entered, but

as she waited for her lunch other people began to arrive. Ah, here was

Miss Hogan of Lyman & Howell, and here was that pretty Miss Thompson of

Altman’s; Mr. Crothers of the Stationers’ Supply was late,--no, here

he was; Mrs. Diggs had that funny looking hat on again; this person

was a stranger and that couple, busily talking, were quite evidently

shoppers. A gray-haired woman in the corner appeared at the Tea Room

several times of late; Jeannette decided she must ask Miss Hanlon who

she was, and find out where she was employed.

At quarter to one or perhaps ten minutes before the hour, Jeannette

would pour a little drinking water from her tumbler over her

finger-tips into her empty dessert saucer, moisten her lips, wipe them

on the little yellow napkin, and draw on her gloves nicely. She always

left ten cents for Minnie and paid her check at Miss Hanlon’s desk on

her way out. Usually she had the better part of half-an-hour before it

was time to return to the office. Between the Tea Room and the corner

of the Avenue, she almost invariably encountered Miss Travers, the

Cashier, who likewise patronized the little restaurant. They would nod

and smile at one another as they passed but neither had time to pause

for words. Jeannette frequently had a small errand to perform: gloves

to get at the cleaners’, her shoes polished, a bit of shopping, a book

to exchange at the library. When there was nothing specially pressing,

she would pay a visit to a bustling Fifth Avenue store, where she would

make her way through crowds of jostling women, and inspect counters,

examining, even pricing the merchandise that attracted her. In the long

years she had been an office-worker, she had spent many a luncheon

hour in this fashion; she never grew tried of such visits, nor of

acquainting herself with the new fads, novelties and latest styles in

feminine apparel.

Just one hour after she had left it, she would be back at her desk,

readjusting her paper cuffs, and re-pinning the sheet at her breast. At

once the demands upon her would recommence:

“Miss Sturgis, while you were out, engravers ’phoned and said they

can’t find that cut.”

“Miss Sturgis, Mr. Kipps wants to know how many copies of _Garden and

Kitchen_ we sold up to November first last.”

“Miss Sturgis, Miss Hilliker went home sick.”

“Miss Sturgis, will you sign my requisition for a box of clips?”

“Miss Sturgis, c’n I have a pencil?”

Thus it would continue for the rest of the day. The afternoon light

would shine bleak and garish through the fireproofed windows with their

meshed wire embedded in the glass, the dust would settle on desks and

papers, the thundering presses on the lower floors would send fine

vibrations through the building, typewriters would maintain a clicking

droning, a buzz of small noises would harass the ear, there would be

a continual flash of paper and of white hands at the folders’ tables,

while pervading everything would be the thick sweet smell of ink

emanating from stacks of new print matter fresh from the press-room.

Five o’clock always surprised Jeannette. Her work absorbed her; if

she threw a hasty glance at the neat small mahogany-cased clock on

her desk, it was to ascertain if there was time enough to complete

one more task that day, or to begin preparations for a new one. The

ringing gong that sounded “quitting time” invariably startled her into

a blank sensation of discouragement. She would wish at that moment for

another hour to finish the matter in hand,--just a little longer and

she would have it out of the way! The commotion among the girls which

instantly followed the gong never failed to annoy her. In less than

five minutes,--save for Mrs. M’Ardle, little Miss Lacy, Miss Stenicke,

and old man Harris,--her department would be empty. These assistants

remained a little later to clean up the day’s work and prepare for

the morrow’s. In another quarter of an hour, they too would begin to

bang desk drawers shut, and prepare to depart. Presently Jeannette

would be alone. She usually was the last to leave. It was then that

a feeling of fatigue, a weariness of soul, a distaste of life would

begin to assert themselves. Reaction from the racing events of morning

and afternoon would close down upon her and of a sudden her work, her

days, her whole life, would seem drab, colorless, profitless. What

did it matter if a few more copies of the Dictionary were sold, what

difference did it make if the new attack was a success, whether or

not little Miss Lacy was inclined to be careless, or that Mr. Kipps

had attempted to interfere with her again? Of what importance was the

Mail Order Department of the Corey Publishing Company anyway? Or the

concern itself? Mr. Corey had worked hard all his life and then had

died and left it behind him! What good had it ever done him? This

racketing building represented such trivial enterprise after all! It

seemed ridiculously trifling.... She would get to her feet with a great

sigh of apathy, disgust for her work and life rising strong within

her. Frequently with a sweep of an impatient hand she would scoop the

papers before her into the top drawer of her desk, or thrust them back

into her “Incoming” basket. They could wait until the morrow; to-night

they bored her; she wanted to get away; to shut them out of her mind!

... Ah, it was all so petty! No one would thank her for working after

hours! She was sick to death of it!

She would adjust her hat with her usual care before the mirror in the

dressing-room, tucking her hair neatly beneath its brim, don fur and

gloves, and proceed to the elevator.

On the way out she might encounter Mr. Kipps or Mr. Allister.

“Good-evening, Miss Sturgis.”

“Good-evening, Mr. Allister.”

The street would be blue with gathering dusk, and crowded with dark

hurrying figures homeward bound. Lights here and there streamed from

office windows, dabs of brilliant yellow in the purple scene. Motor

trucks and delivery wagons backed to the curb were being piled with

crates and packages by hustling, calling men and boys. The tide of

workers let loose from desk and counter set strongly in conflicting

currents. Long lines of traffic filled the congested thoroughfare and

waited for the signal to move forward. A dull clamor, a pulsing bass

note, a sound of feet, voices, motor horns, a banging and bawling, a

thumping and hubbub, clatter and rumble, throbbed persistently. There

was a sense of hurry and dispatch in the air. No one had any time to

waste; it was the hour of home-going, the end of the day’s toil, the

feeding time of the great army of workers.

§ 7

Dinner had still to be prepared by the time Jeannette reached

the apartment in Waverly Place. Beatrice, who was employed by a

manufacturer of soaps and toilet waters a few blocks from where she

lived, was usually in the kitchen when her friend arrived. Beatrice

did the marketing at her lunch hour, or in going to and from her

office. Mrs. Welch, who lived downstairs, obligingly took in packages

and kept an eye on Mitzi, well qualified, however, to look after

herself. The cat mysteriously disappeared during the day to present

herself bright-eyed, hungry and affectionate the instant Jeannette’s or

Beatrice’s steps sounded in the hall.

The dinners the two working women shared were usually simple. Very

seldom they ate meat. Eggs in any form were popular and the evening

meal,--nine times out of ten,--began with a canned soup served in

cups. From the delicatessen on Sixth Avenue a variety of canned food

was obtainable. Jeannette and Beatrice were particularly fond of

canned chicken _á la King_, which had merely to be heated, seasoned

and poured over toast. Sometimes they made their dinner of soup, a can

of asparagus tips, tea and crullers. The asparagus tips made frequent

appearances. Beatrice kept in the ice-box a little jar of mayonnaise,

which she usually whipped together on Sundays. Macaroni salad was

another prime favorite, and there were also tuna fish, creamed or made

into a salad, and fish balls whenever they could be obtained.

Once in a while on a Sunday or on one of those rare occasions when

company was expected Beatrice struggled with meat and potatoes

for a three-course meal, but in these ventures she received small

encouragement from Jeannette. The latter was forever proclaiming she

“despised” to cook and was therefore averse to betraying any interest

in plans for an elaborate meal; the odor of meat cooking in the house

smelled the place up horribly, she declared.

Punctiliously, however, she performed her share of the work in cleaning

up after dinner. She dried the dishes, gathered the small luncheon

cloth by its four corners and gave it a quick shake out of a rear

window, put away the silverware, and restored to the sideboard drawer

the two fringed napkins in their red lacquer rings, rearranged the

table and pushed back the chairs against the wall. Beatrice meanwhile

would be busy fussing in the kitchen, washing the one or two pans she

had used, the tea-pot and few dishes, feeding Mitzi the remnants of the

can of soup and perhaps a bit of fish or a little fried liver. By half

past seven dinner would be a thing of the past and the little home in

order again.

Jeannette made it a practice to spend the ensuing hour or two in the

seclusion of her own room. In many ways, this was the happiest time

of the day for her. She was alone finally and could count upon being

unhurried and undisturbed. First she made her bed with care: the

undersheet must be stretched tight and tucked well under the mattress,

there must be no wrinkles and the covers must be folded in loosely

at the bottom; she affected a baby pillow which twice a week must be

slipped into a fresh embroidered case. Five minutes followed with the

carpet sweeper; the room was tidied,--everything put in its right

place. When all was done, she would feel free to turn her attention

to herself. If there was mending, she next disposed of it; distasteful

though sewing had always been to her, she had grown dexterous with her

needle. She spent fifteen minutes manicuring her nails, and an equal

time brushing her hair and rubbing a tonic into her scalp. The gray was

very thick over the right temple and Beatrice had urged her to have it

“touched up” but Jeannette rather liked it as it was; she considered

it added a distinguished touch. There were other intimate offices

she performed at this hour with great thoroughness, her vigorousness

increasing as time carried her into middle age. Twice a week, sometimes

oftener, she took a hot bath about nine o’clock. Great preparations

were attached to this performance, and she indulged herself in perfumed

bath salts, perfumed soap, and delicately scented powder. When

Mehitable brought home the “wash” on Friday nights, Jeannette devoted

half-an-hour to running pink satin ribbons through her chemises and

brassières. The ribbons she carefully steamed herself once a month and

pressed with the electric iron in the kitchen. But those nights on

which she did not bathe, when her room was in order and her toilette

completed, she would don a kimona, and, with hair hanging in pig-tails

down her back, her feet in Japanese wicker sandals, shuffle her way to

the front room, with a book under her arm, to join Beatrice for perhaps

an hour’s chat or reading before finally retiring. Neither she nor her

companion ever went to the movies, and seldom to the theatre. Saturday

afternoons Jeannette spent in tours of shrewd and calculated shopping,

and on Sundays she went to Cohasset Beach to spend the day with Alice

and the children.

CHAPTER II

§ 1

Jeannette, on her way to Cohasset Beach, let her Sunday newspaper drift

indifferently into her lap, and turned her attention to the October

landscape through the car window. The train was filled with Sunday

visitors like herself, bound for friends and relatives in the suburbs.

They would enjoy a hearty meal around a crowded table at one o’clock,

would inspect the local country club for a view of the links or the

golfers in their “sports” clothes, indulge, perhaps, in a motor trip

to gain further aspects of the autumnal foliage, or, complaining of

having over-eaten and demurring at any effort, establish themselves at

the card table to while away the rest of the afternoon at bridge. At

five o’clock the swarm that had filtered into the country all morning

through the Pennsylvania Station would decide with one accord to return

to the city, the cars would be jammed and every seat taken long before

the westbound trains reached Cohasset Beach. It was always a noisy

crowd with crying, tired babies wriggling in parents’ laps, golfers

arguing about their scores and the adjustment of their bets, silly

girls convulsed at one another’s confidences or lifting shrill pipes

of mirth at the hoarse whispered comments from slouching male escorts,

returning ball teams of youthful enthusiasts who banged each other over

the head and vented their high spirits in rough jibes or horse-play.

Sunday travel was a bore, thought Jeannette in mild vexation. Even

the outbound trains during the morning, which were never more than

comfortably filled, stopped at every station along the line, no matter

how insignificant. It took ten minutes longer to get to Cohasset Beach

on Sundays than on any other day of the week; the express trains that

left the city late in the afternoons from Monday to Saturday landed

Roy home in nineteen minutes. It used to take a weary forty-five,

Jeannette remembered, when the East River had first to be crossed by

ferry and the rest of the way travelled in the old racketing, shabby,

plush-seated, puffing steam trains from Long Island City.

She fell to musing as she idly watched the country flying past. She

recalled the time when she and Martin had paid their first visit to

Cohasset Beach as guests of the Herbert Gibbses and had gone picnicking

on the shore at the Family Yacht Club. The Gibbses owned a handsome

home on the Point to-day, and the little Yacht Club had been merged

into the Cohasset Beach Yacht Club, which, since the fire that had laid

it in ashy ruins, was now housed in a large, imposing edifice of brick

and stone. The town itself,--then hardly more than a summer resort

for “rich New Yorkers,” a few hundred houses scattered carelessly

over some wooded hills,--had grown within the last dozen years into a

flourishing community with banks, brick business blocks, and fireproof

schools, with paved streets, and rows upon rows of white painted houses

with green shutters and fan-shaped transoms above panelled colonial

doorways. The woods were gone; the sycamores and gnarled old apple

trees had given place to spindling elms set at orderly intervals on

either side the carefully graded streets and to formal little gardens

and close-cropped patches of lawn. The dilapidated wooden station

had been supplanted by a substantial concrete affair, surrounded

with cement pavements, and provided with comfortable, steam-heated

waiting-rooms. The whirring electric trains swept on to other thriving

villages further down the Island, and paused, coming or going, but

a minute or two at the older town which had once been the terminal.

There were now blocks and blocks of these trimly-built, neatly-equipped

houses at Cohasset Beach, each with its garden, its curving cement

walks and contiguous garage, and Messrs. Adolph Kuntz and Stephen

Teschemacher had built stone mansions for themselves in the center of

Cohasset Beach Park, to-day the “court” end of town.

Alice and Roy lived in humbler quarters: the old frame house Fritz

Wiggens and his paralytic mother had once occupied. It was yellow and

gabled, rusty and blistered, and spread itself out in ungainly fashion

over a none-too-large bit of ground. It had, by no means, been a poor

investment, although the building had needed a steady stream of repairs

since the Beardsleys acquired it. Roy had been offered three times

what he paid for it on account of its desirable location overlooking

the waters of the Sound. Every now and then he and Alice discussed

selling the place but invariably reached the same conclusion: Rents

were prohibitive and no other house half as satisfactory could be

purchased for the money without assuming a mortgage, an additional

financial burden not to be considered; their problem was to devise ways

of reducing expenses rather than increasing them.

§ 2

Jeannette had decided to walk to her sister’s house, but on the

platform as she descended from the train she unexpectedly encountered

Zeb Kline and his wife, awaiting the arrival of Sunday guests. Zeb had

married Nick Birdsell’s daughter and gone into partnership with his

father-in-law; Birdsell & Kline, General Contractors, had built most of

the new houses in Cohasset Beach, and now Zeb had a fine stucco one of

his own, and his wife drove about in her limousine and kept a chauffeur.

At the time Jeannette and Martin separated, the former had been aware

that the sympathy of the community was with her genial, amusing,

good-looking husband. The townsfolk considered she had treated him

“shamefully”; only Edith French and the Doc were acquainted with the

true facts of the case and had defended her, but the Doc and his wife

had moved away within a year after Jeannette returned to work, and she

had lost touch with them. Word reached her that they had settled in St.

Louis, that the Doc had had his right hand amputated as the result of

an infection from an operation, and that he was running a drug store

there. Later Jeannette heard that Edith had left him and married an

actor.

Suspecting a hostile attitude among these friends and acquaintances of

her married years, Jeannette had kept herself carefully aloof from all

of them when Roy and Alice selected Cohasset Beach for their home. She

would avert her eyes when passing any of them on the street, or would

bow with but a brief, unsmiling inclination of the head when forced to

acknowledge recognition.

Now, as she came face to face with Zeb Kline and his wife, Zeb,

a trifle flustered, lifted his cap and greeted her by name, and

Jeannette, also taken unawares, responded with more cordiality than she

felt. She was somewhat perturbed by the incident and was conscious of

Kitty Birdsell Kline’s appraising eye following her as she made her way

across the station platform.

It was this trifling occurrence that induced her to alter her intention

and ride to Alice’s. Mrs. Kline might be admiring her,--her clothes

and carriage,--or she might be sneering. In either case, the scrutiny

was unwelcome, and, straightening her shoulders, Jeannette directed

her steps toward one of the shabby, waiting Fords, and climbed in. She

had no intention of letting the Klines sweep by her in their limousine

while she trudged along the sidewalk.

Established in her taxi and rattling over the familiar route to her

sister’s home, a pleasant thought of Zeb came to her. After all, he

was the best of that rough and common group; he had always been polite

to her, honest and straightforward; she remembered how kind he had

been about the construction of the screens for the bungalow’s windows,

hurrying their making and charging her practically no more than they

had cost. She wondered if he had been to Philadelphia recently or had

heard anything more of Martin. If she should chance to meet Zeb in the

street some day, she debated whether or not she should ask him for news.

Baby Roy, clad in his Sunday corduroy “knickers” and a white shirt,

which Jeannette knew well had been put upon him clean that morning,

was sprawled on the cement steps of the Beardsleys’ home as her

vehicle stopped before it. The cleanly appearance had departed from

Baby Roy’s shirt, the trousers had become divorced from it, his collar

was rumpled, and the bow tie, which his aunt suspected Etta’s hurried

fingers had tied before church, was bedraggled and askew over one

shoulder. He lay on his back, his head upon the hard stone, his fair

hair in tousled confusion, gazing straight upward into the sky, his

arms waving aimlessly above him. He made no move at the sound of the

motor-car and only stirred when Jeannette reached the steps.

“Hello, Aunt Jan,” he drawled in his curious, indolent voice.

“Well, I declare,” said Jeannette, surveying him with puzzled

amusement, “will you kindly tell me what you’re doing there? What are

you looking at? What do you think you see?”

Baby Roy smiled foolishly, and with open mouth, twisted his jaw slowly

from side to side.

“Aw,--I was just thinking,” he answered in awkward embarrassment. He

got to his feet and put his arms around his aunt’s neck as she stooped

to kiss him.

His cheek was soft and warm, and he smelled of dirt and sunburn.

“You’re a sight,” she told him; “your mother will be wild. Why don’t

you try to keep yourself clean one day a week at least?”

“Ma won’t care,” the youngster observed, “and Et won’t say nothin’.”

“Pronounce your ‘g’s, Baby Roy,--say ‘noth-_ing_.’ Why will Etta say

nothing?”

“’Cause she’s got her feller.”

“Who? That pimply-faced Eckles boy?”

The child nodded and then irrelevantly added:

“Nettie’s got appendicitis.”

“Good gracious!” exclaimed Jeannette. “Where did she get that?”

Further information was not forthcoming. The woman’s mind flew to the

possible complications such a calamity would precipitate as she opened

her bag and felt among its contents for the nickel package of lemon

drops she had purchased at the Pennsylvania Station while waiting

for her train. She shook three of the candies out into Baby Roy’s

dirt-streaked palm, and was admonishing the recipient that they were

to be eaten one by one, when there was a clatter of hard shoes on the

porch and a boy of thirteen catapulted out of the house.

“Dibs on the funny paper!” he yelled.

Jeannette eyed him with assumed disapproval.

“There’s no necessity for such a racket, Frank; it’s Sunday, remember,

and your sister’s sick and everything.”

She proceeded at once, however, to unfold her newspaper and to hand him

the comic section.

“I brought you one out of the _American_, too.” Frank seized the papers

and grunted his thanks.

“How is Nettie?” inquired his aunt.

She had to repeat her question for the boy’s attention was already

absorbed by the colored pictures.

“Oh, she’s all right, I guess,” he answered carelessly.

“Is she really sick?”

“I dunno.”

Reproof was on Jeannette’s lips but she checked herself. Frank was her

favorite among her sister’s children; he was the only one of them, she

was at pains to declare frequently, who had any “gumption.” The rest

were like their easy-going, amiable parents. Frank had some of her own

energy; he was like her in many ways. It was clear he was destined

to be the mainstay of his father’s and mother’s old age. He was sure

to get on, make money, be successful no matter in what direction he

turned his energies. A fine, clever boy, she considered him, with some

“get-up-and-get” in his composition.

She left the two brothers seated side by side on the steps, poring over

the “comics.” Their voices followed her as she entered the house.

“Go on, read it to me;--go on, read it to me. Don’t be a dirty stinker.”

“Aw, shut up, can’t yer? Wait till I get through first.”

Jeannette met Alice in the hallway and her first question was of the

sick child. Alice kissed her with affection and hugged her warmly.

“I don’t think anything’s the matter,” she said reassuringly.

“Nothing in the world but an old-fashioned stomach-ache; something

she’s eaten,--that’s all. I thought it wiser to keep her in bed for

to-day,--give her insides a good rest.”

“Why, Baby Roy said it was appendicitis!”

“Oh, nonsense! The child isn’t any more sick than I am!”

“Well, it gave me quite a turn.”

“Of course!” agreed Alice.

Jeannette eyed her sister a moment in suspicion. Allie’s vehement

rejection of the idea that anything might be seriously the matter

suggested Christian Science. Jeannette had heard Mrs. Eddy’s

teachings discussed more or less frequently of late by her sister and

brother-in-law. She suspected they both leaned toward that faith but

lacked courage to come out openly and declare themselves. She wondered

how far these idiotic principles had laid hold of them, and now, with a

searching glance, she asked:

“Has error crept in?”

Alice blushed readily and laughed.

“I don’t know anything about that. If she’s any worse to-morrow, I’ll

send for the doctor.

“I should hope so,” Jeannette approved warmly.

“Etta’s delighted with her dress,” Alice said with an abruptness that

suggested a desire to change the subject. “You were a dear to help her

out.”

“It was nothing at all,--less than five dollars. It seemed a shame not

to get something that was becoming, and there’s real value in that

garment.”

“Oh, yes, indeed. I could see that.”

Great thumping, banging and scraping were going on somewhere down below.

“Roy and Ralph are cleaning the furnace,” explained Alice in answer to

her sister’s puzzled look. “It hasn’t been fired,--oh, I don’t think

since last March.... Come upstairs and lay your things on Etta’s bed.

I’ve got Nettie in mine; it’s so much pleasanter in our room.”

The two women mounted the creaking stairs. In the front room a little

girl was propped up in bed with several pillows; she was cutting out

pictures from magazines and the bed clothes and carpet were littered

with scraps and slips of paper; a thin, plaid shawl was about her

shoulders, fastened clumsily across her chest with a large safety-pin.

She was not a particularly pretty child; her face was too long and too

pale, but her hair, soft and rippling, had the warm brown color that

had distinguished her mother’s, and her eyes were of the same hue.

“Look, Moth’, I put a new hat on this lady and she looks a lot nicer.”

The child held up a wavering silhouette for inspection. “Oh, hello,

Aunt Janny,” she cried as her aunt appeared in her mother’s wake; “was

that you in the taxi?”

There was a note of real pleasure, Jeannette felt, in the little girl’s

greeting, and she put some feeling into her kiss as she bent down to

embrace her.

“I brought you some lemon drops, Nettie, but since you’re upset perhaps

you’d better not have them.”

“Oh, I’m quite all right,” said the little girl brightly. “I’m not the

least bit sick.”

Here was the cloven hoof of Christian Science again, thought her aunt

darkly; the child had been coached, no doubt! It was a great pity if

that rigmarole was going to be taken up by Alice and Roy to make them

all miserable!

“Well, I think I wouldn’t eat candy till to-morrow,” advised Jeannette.

“What I think you need is a good dose of castor-oil,” she added firmly

with a glance at her sister. “But here,--I have something here, I

know you’ll like much better,” she went on, searching in her bag. She

brought to light a gold-colored, metal pencil about three inches long

with a tiny ring at one end, and gave it to the child.

“Oh, thank you, Aunt Janny,--thank you awfully,” cried the invalid,

immediately beginning to experiment with the cap which, in turning,

shortened or lengthened the lead.

“Where’s Etta?”

“Gone to church,” Alice replied.

“Heavens! ... What for?” Jeannette turned inquiring eyes upon the

girl’s mother. It was not that she lacked sympathy with any religious

observance on her niece’s part, but church-going for Etta was unusual.

The younger children were sent dutifully to Sunday school but the rest

of the family were rather casual about attending divine services. Alice

smiled significantly in answer to the query, elevated a shoulder, and

indulged in a slight head-shake.

“I suppose that means a boy again,” Jeannette said, interpreting the

look and gesture. “Doesn’t she see enough of them afternoons and

evenings? I declare, Alice, I don’t know what you’re going to do with

that girl. Yesterday afternoon, all she could talk about was the

movies, and she even stopped me in front of a photographer’s show-case

to ask me if I didn’t think a man in it was perfectly stunning! ... He

was old enough to be her father!”

“Well, all the girls are like that nowadays.”

“It was decidedly different when we were that age.”

“Oh, indeed it was,” agreed Etta’s mother. “I was thinking only

yesterday how we used----”

“You made a great mistake,” interrupted Jeannette, “in letting her bob

her hair. It’s affected her whole character. She was never quite so

frivolous before.”

“That was her father’s doing,” said Alice mildly.

“Oh, well,--he’d let her do anything she wanted! She has but to ask!

... What do you intend to do with her? Let her run round this way

indefinitely? I’d make her take up sewing or cooking or learn some

language.”

“Etta can sew quite nicely,” said her mother loyally, “and she’s a good

cook. She wants to go to work,--you know that. She thinks you’d have no

difficulty in getting her a position at the office.”

“Well, perhaps I would, and perhaps I wouldn’t. But I don’t approve of

the idea! She’d much better go to Columbia or Hunter College.”

“But, Janny dear, we’ve been all over that, time and time again. That

costs money. It would take several hundred a year to send Etta to

college, and we haven’t got it. Roy thinks it’s much more important

that Ralph should follow up his engineering at some university.”

Jeannette tapped her pursed lips with a meditative finger.

“When’s he ready?”

“This is his last year in High School.”

“It would be wiser to send him to business college.”

“Roy’s heart is set on Princeton, but if we can’t afford that,--and I

don’t see how we possibly can!--then Columbia. He could commute, you

know.”

Voices and the sound of feet on the porch announced arrivals.

Jeannette drew aside a limp window curtain and gazed down at the front

steps.

“It’s that pimply Eckles youth,” she announced.

“His dog has nine puppies and he’s promised one to me,” came from the

bed.

“I hope Etta doesn’t ask him to stay to dinner,” Alice remarked, “it’ll

make Kate furious.”

“No, he’s going.... I must take off my things.”

Etta running upstairs a moment or two later found her aunt before the

mirror in her room, powdering her nose.

“Oh, darling!” The girl rushed at her and flung her arms about her

enthusiastically.

“Careful,--careful, dearie,--I’ve just fixed myself.” Jeannette held

Etta’s arms to the girl’s sides and implanted a brief kiss on her

forehead. The enthusiasm of her niece was in nowise crushed.

“Didn’t we have fun yesterday, Aunt Jan? Oh, I just love going shopping

with you! You know _everything_!”

Jeannette smiled complacently. She was a dear child, this! So

responsive and appreciative!

Suddenly she glanced at her sharply, whipped a handkerchief from the

bureau, and before unsuspecting Etta could guess what she was about,

gave the girl’s lip a quick rub. There was a tell-tale smudge of red

on the white linen. Jeannette held forth the evidence accusingly and

her niece began to laugh, hanging her head like a little girl half her

years.

“I tell you, Etta, it doesn’t become you! Your lips are red enough

without putting any of that Jap paste on them! When you rouge them,

it makes you look cheap and common.... I don’t care _what_ the other

girls do!”

She surveyed the girl critically: a handsome child with a lovely mop

of dark brown hair that clung in rich clusters of natural curls about

her neck and ears; her eyes were unusually large and of a deep, velvety

duskiness, though there was a perpetual merry light in them, and her

mouth, too, had a ready smile; her teeth were glistening white, but her

complexion was bad, given to eruptions and blotches.

“And I wish,” continued Jeannette, “you’d stop eating candy and

ice-cream sodas, and leave cake and pastry alone. Your skin would clear

out in no time. It’s a shame a girl as pretty as you has to spoil her

looks by injudicious eating.”

“Isn’t it the limit?” agreed Etta. Her face clouded and she went close

to the mirror to study her reflection narrowly.

“I never knew it to fail!” she said in disgust. “Wednesday night,

Marjorie Bowen’s giving a bridge party, and she’s invited a boy I’m

just dying to meet! And there’s a blossom coming right here on my chin!

I always break out if there’s anything special doing!”

“Well, I tell you!” exclaimed her aunt. “You wouldn’t have those things

if you’d diet with a little care. Massaging won’t help a bit; you’ve

got to remember to stop eating sweets.... Who’s the new beau you’re

‘dying to meet’?”

“Oh, he’s a high-roller,--lives down on the Point,--drives a Stutz and

everything! The girls are all mad about him. He’s been at Manlius for

the last two or three years, and now he’s freshman at Yale.... Name’s

Herbert Gibbs!”

“Goodness gracious!” ejaculated her aunt.

“What’s the matter?”

“Well, ... nothing....”

“Oh, tell me please, Aunt Jan!--Please tell me!”

“Don’t be foolish! I knew his father, that’s all, and I once saw your

‘high-roller’ in his crib when he was less than a year old.... Isn’t he

rather expressionless and flat-headed?”

“No; I think he’s perfectly stunning. He wears the best-looking clothes

and he’s an awful sport!”

“Well, you’d never expect it, if you’d known his father,” her aunt said

dryly.

There was an ascending tramp of feet on the stairs, and Roy with his

eldest son appeared, dishevelled and sooty.

“That was a dirty job, all right,” declared Roy after he had greeted

his sister-in-law and kissed her with the tips of his lips for fear

of contaminating her. “I don’t think she’s been cleaned for years. We

shovelled out a ton of soot. Ralph did all the hard work.”

He seemed a little ridiculous, a little pathetic to Jeannette, as he

stood before her with his smirched and blackened face, and his tight,

wan smile, the upper lip drawn taut across his row of even teeth.

His stuck-up hair was still unruly, and had begun to recede at the

temples and to thin on top; his face was lined with tiny wrinkles

and he wore spectacles with bifocal lenses and metal rims,--an

insignificant man, industrious, conscientious, weighed down with the

cares and responsibilities of a large family. Life had dealt harshly

with him, and somehow, remembering the boy with the whimsical smile

who had once made such earnest love to herself in the flush of youth,

Jeannette could not but regard the result as tragic. She was fond of

Roy, nevertheless; he was always amiable, always good-tempered and

cheerful, but she wondered at this moment as she took stock of him what

sort of a man he would have become if she, and not Alice, had married

him. Different, no doubt, for she would have pushed him into material

success; she would not have been as easy-going with him as Alice; he

had wanted to write; well, if she had been his wife, he would probably

have turned out to be a very successful author for he had ability.

Roy’s oldest son, Ralph, was in many ways like his father. He had the

same sweet, obliging nature and was even gentler. His voice had the

quality of Baby Roy’s: indolent, drawling, dragging, and he spoke with

a leisureliness that was often irritating. He was slight of build,

narrow-chested and stoop-shouldered, a student by disposition, forever

burrowing into a book or frowning over a magazine article. Jeannette

would have considered this highly commendable had Ralph ever shown any

evidence of having gleaned something from his reading, or displayed any

knowledge as a result of it. What he read seemed to pass through his

mind like water through a sieve.

She had brought down an advanced copy of the forthcoming issue of

_Corey’s Commentary_ for him, and he accepted this now, with an

appreciative word.

She always made a point of bringing presents to her sister’s children

whenever she visited them; she liked the reputation of never coming

empty-handed. The gifts, themselves, might be trifling,--indeed she

thought it becoming that they should be,--but she strove to make them

sufficiently appropriate to indicate considerable thoughtfulness in

their selection. She regarded herself as very generous where her nieces

and nephews were concerned. Yesterday she had enabled Etta to buy a

more expensive dress than was possible with the money her mother had

given her, and last week she had sent Frank a fine sweater from a sale

of boys’ sweaters she happened upon in a department store. Of all her

sister’s children, Frank baffled her. He treated her casually, almost

with indifference. While the other children swarmed about her with

effusive gratitude and affection, whenever she gave them anything,

Frank either grunted his thanks or failed to express them at all. She

loved him by far the best, and was continually making him presents or

defending him from criticism. Her partiality was so noticeable she

was mildly teased about it by the rest of the family; but it drew no

recognition from the boy. His aunt, eyeing him with great yearning in

her heart, would often wonder how she could bribe him to put his stout,

rough arms about her neck and kiss her once with warmth and tenderness.

She was never able to stir him to the faintest betrayal of sentiment.

Her benevolence toward her sister’s family frequently went further than

presents for the children. At Christmas-time she was munificent to them

all, and she never forgot one of their birthdays. Once a year she took

Nettie, Frank and Baby Roy to the Hippodrome, and on the occasional

Saturdays that Alice or Etta came to the city, she always had them

to lunch with her, accompanied them on their shopping trips, and

contributed, here and there, to their small purchases. Not infrequently

when she knew Alice was worrying unduly about some vexatious account,

she would press a neatly folded bill into her hand. She liked the

power that money gave her where they were concerned; she delighted in

their gratitude and deference to her opinions; she was an important

factor in their lives and she enjoyed the part.

§ 3

At one o’clock dinner was announced. There was little ceremony about

the Beardsleys’ meals; the important business was to be fed. Kate,

the cook and waitress,--a big-bosomed, wide-hipped Irish woman, with

the strength of a horse and the disposition of a bear,--had scant

regard for the preferences of any one member of the family she served.

Her attention was concentrated upon her work; indeed, it required a

considerable amount of clear-thinking and planning to dispatch it at

all, and she brooked no interference. Roy, Alice, and the children were

frankly afraid of her; even Jeannette admitted a wholesome respect.

“Oh, Kate’s in an awful tantrum!” the whisper would go around the house

and the family would deport itself with due regard to Kate’s mood.

She piled the food on the table, rattled the bell and departed

kitchenward, leaving the Beardsleys to assemble as promptly or as

tardily as they chose. There never were but two courses to a meal: meat

and dessert. Kate had no time to bother with soup or salad. Her cooking

was good, however, and there were always great dishes of potatoes and

other vegetables as well as a large plate of muffins or some other kind

of hot bread. Jeannette firmly asserted that Kate’s meat pie with its

brown crisp crust could not be surpassed in any kitchen.

To-day there were but seven at table as Nettie remained upstairs in

bed. She would have crackers and milk later, her mother announced.

“Milk toast,” Jeannette suggested. But Alice shook her head and made a

motion in the direction of the kitchen.

“She doesn’t like anyone fussing out there,” she whispered, “and I

don’t like to ask her to do it herself; it’s extra work no matter how

trivial. The Graham crackers will do just as well; Nettie’s quite fond

of them.”

It was a cheerful scene, this gathering at the table of Roy, his wife,

and their children. Tongues wagged constantly; there was happy laughter

and loud talk, much clatter of china and clinking of silverware. Roy

stood up to carve and he served generously; plates were passed from

hand to hand around the table to Alice who sat opposite him and she

added heaping spoonfuls of creamed cauliflower or string beans, and

mashed potatoes. The pile of food set down in front of each seemed, by

its quantity, unappetizing to Jeannette, but the others evidently did

not share her feeling, for they cleaned their plates, while Frank and

Baby Roy almost always asked for more. The remarks that flew about the

board had small relevancy, but she found them interesting, liked to

lean back in her chair, with wrists folded one across the other in her

lap, and listen comfortably.

“Mr. Kuntz tells me he’s sold the Carleton place; the Hirshstines

bought it,” Roy might observe.

“Oh, golly,--those kikes!”

“Frank, you mustn’t speak that way; Mrs. Hirshstine’s a nice woman, and

Abe Hirshstine’s very public-spirited.”

“They may be Jews all right, but I wouldn’t consider them ‘kikes’;

there’s a lot of difference.” Ralph’s drawl often had that irritating

quality his aunt disliked.

“Well, _she’s_ certainly a dumb-bell, if there ever was one.” Jeannette

would infer this was of the daughter.

“That’s because Buddy Eckles’s after her!”

Etta with curling lip would dismiss this without comment.

“He likes to drive her Marmon,--that’s what _he’s_ after.”

“She spoke about taking us all over to Long Beach, Saturday, and

Buddy’s going to drive.”

“Hot dog!”

“You can’t go, smarty!”

“_Why?_--Why can’t I go?”

“’Cause you’ve got to go to the dentist’s.”

“Aw,--cusses!”

“Do you think I’d better have the storm windows put up to-morrow, Roy,

when that man comes to fix the radiators?”

“I wouldn’t hurry about it; it isn’t November first yet.”

“I know, but it keeps the house so much warmer, and I was thinking

about Nettie....”

“Ralph and I can do it when you need them.”

“We get Barthelmess at the Plaza Friday and Saturday!”

“Oh, c’n I go, Moth’?”

“We’ll see; perhaps your father will take you.”

“Do you let the children go to the movies much, Alice?”

“Depends on the picture. Barthelmess is always clean and good.”

“Friday I’ll be late coming home, and Saturday night I’m afraid I’ll

have to go to the Civic Improvement meeting.”

“Bet I’m gypped!”

“Don’t worry, Baby Roy; I’ll let you go by yourself, Saturday

afternoon, if you’re a good boy.”

“Pulitzer’s closing out his meat market; going to handle nothing but

groceries from now on.”

“Well, I guess he’s made money. He’s a good citizen, all right. He

subscribed two hundred and fifty for the district nurse.”

“Did you get on to my classy hair part, Aunt Jan? All the women-getters

at school do their hair this way now.”

“Really, Frank! Your language ...! I don’t know where or how you pick

up such phrases.”

“Don’t be too critical, Alice. He attaches no significance to them. You

know what boys are.”

There was an endless stream of such talk, Roy and his wife frequently

maintaining one conversation between ends of the table, while their

children carried on another across it.

Kate crammed the soiled dishes on the oval, black, tin tray, piled them

high, and grasping the tray with strong arms, bore it to the kitchen,

kicking the swing door violently open as she passed through.

Dessert made its appearance, usually a deep apple pie, a chocolate

pudding or a mound of flavored jelly in which slices of banana careened

at various angles. Kate refused flatly to bother with ice-cream. Once

in a while she condescended to make a layer cake.

During the meal it was customary for the telephone to ring several

times. Instantly at each summons, Etta would be upon her feet and make

a quick dash for the instrument. Long conversations would ensue in

which Etta’s voice would drift down to the dining-room.

“Well, I didn’t.... Well, you tell him I didn’t.... Well, you tell

him I didn’t say anything of the kind.... I never did.... He’s just

crazy.... I never said anything of the kind.... Well, you tell him I

didn’t....”

“Etta!” her father would call presently. The voice would continue

unfalteringly, and Roy at intervals would repeat her name until finally

the long-winded parley would be brought to an end.

By two o’clock on this particular day the meal was over, and there was

a general breaking-up of the group. Alice went out into the kitchen to

prepare Nettie’s tray. Frank vanished in pursuit of his own affairs,

which usually took him to the house of “Chinee” Langlon, whose parents

were wealthy and had lavished everything they could think of on their

one son, including an elaborate wireless outfit. Buddy Eckles arrived

a few minutes past the hour, planting himself on the front steps, and

waited ostensibly for Etta to go walking with him. Jeannette had her

own ideas as to where they actually went. She suspected they made

their way without delay to the home of some girl friend, whose parents

were absent or had lax ideas about the Sabbath, and there, having

carefully pulled down the window-shades, out of deference to the

possible prejudices of passers-by, they rolled back the rugs, turned

on the Victrola, and with other couples as frivolous as themselves,

danced until within a minute or two of the time when it was necessary

to return to their respective families. Ralph disappeared up into his

den,--a wretched, ill-lighted, cramped chamber he had built himself in

the attic. He kept the door of this apartment carefully locked at all

times, and when within by the light of a kerosene lamp, read what his

aunt earnestly hoped was entirely edifying literature, and where, she

was thoroughly persuaded, he indulged secretly in cigarettes. Baby Roy

wandered amiably and uncomplainingly about, listening to his elders’

conversation, or took himself off into the scraggy garden where he hid

in strange nooks and told himself stories in a droning voice which

always ended in frightening him. Jeannette regarded him the strangest

of her sister’s children; she frankly declared she did not understand

him and thought Alice outrageously lenient where he was concerned.

§ 4

To-day’s visit was an unusually happy one for Jeannette. Nettie drifted

off to sleep while her mother and aunt established themselves in shabby

grass-rockers on the side-porch and had a long, comfortable talk. The

day had turned unexpectedly warm and there was a reviving touch of dead

summer in the air. In a neighbor’s garden, chrysanthemums and cosmos

were still in bloom, and the brilliant colors made the Beardsleys’

own unkempt little yard appear gay and luxuriant. A mechanical piano

tinkled pleasantly somewhere, and every now and then there came the

vibrant hum of a passing motor-car. Kate marched past her mistress and

her mistress’s sister presently, clad in sober town clothes and wearing

one of Jeannette’s discarded hats which the giver thought, at the

moment, became her nicely. Kate was off for the rest of the day, and

Alice with Etta’s help would manage the cold supper for the family at

half-past six. A stillness on this midafternoon settled about the house

usually teeming exuberantly with life. Through an open window near at

hand, the women on the porch could hear an occasional rustle of papers

as Roy, prone upon the leather-covered couch in the living-room, read

the Sunday news.

Alice drew a deep sigh of weary comfort.

“I ought to get at my sewing, I suppose, but I don’t like bringing it

out on the porch Sunday; people can see you from the street.... It’s so

pleasant out here, I hate to go in.”

“Sit awhile,” encouraged Jeannette. “You’re always worrying yourself

about something, Alice.”

“I have to. Frank’s stockings have _got_ to be darned or he can’t go to

school to-morrow; Baby Roy’s cap is torn and I noticed his school suit

needs cleaning.”

“You ought to make Etta do these things.”

“Etta does enough,” her mother defended her; “she’s only young once,

you know, and Sunday ought to be as much of a holiday for her as it

is for other young folks.... And there’re some letters I must write,

one to Nettie’s teacher for Frank to take to school with him in the

morning.... Mercy! there’s never any let-up to it. I’ve got to go over

this month’s bills with Roy some time to-day and decide what we’re

going to do about them. You know, I just _won’t_ bother him about money

matters when he comes home all tired out at night, and I have to wait

until Sunday.”

“How are you off this month? Any worse than usual?”

“Roy’s premium falls due. I’ve got the money all right, but some of the

monthly bills will have to wait.... You know, Jan, I’m sick to death

of this ever-constant worry about money; I’ve had it all my life, ever

since I was a little girl. I wish to goodness I could earn something on

the side. When the children were little, I couldn’t spare the time, but

that isn’t a consideration now. Etta could perfectly well take care of

the house, and I could devote several hours a day to some kind of work

that would bring in money. I thought I’d knit a few sweaters and see if

I could induce some shop in the city to handle them; it would only cost

me the wool. If I’d learned typing, I think I could get some copying

to do. You know it makes me ashamed to realize how little I could earn

if I was obliged to get out and seek my living. I’d be worth about ten

dollars a week. That would be what they’d call my ‘economic value.’ ...”

“‘Economic value!’” cried Jeannette. “What do you mean? The mother of

five children has an economic value of ten dollars a week! Why, Alice,

you talk like a crazy woman!”

“I may be worth a great deal more than that to the nation, but that’s

all I’d be worth to a business man.”

“The Government ought to give you an annual income the rest of your

life for every child you bring into the world; that would represent

your economic value!”

“Well, there’s no likelihood of their doing it,” laughed Alice. “I wish

I had a definite way of earning money,--I mean a profession like a

stenographer or a nurse. I’ve always claimed, Janny, that every woman,

married or single, ought to learn a trade or profession. You have no

idea how I envy you, sometimes. You’re independent, you’re beholden to

no one, you’re utterly free of all these cares and responsibilities

that harass me from morning to night.”

Jeannette shook her head emphatically.

“You don’t know, Alice,” she said. “If you envy me my life, I envy you

a hundred times more. I envy you these very cares and responsibilities

of which you complain; I envy you your husband and your children and

all those things that go to make a home.... Oh, I think sometimes, I

was a blithering _fool_ to have left Martin!”

His name had not crossed her lips for months, and for a little time

there was silence on the porch.

“Do you ever hear from him?” asked Alice in a lower key.

“No. I understand he’s in Philadelphia in the automobile business. You

know as much about him as I do.”

“And he’s never married?”

“We’ve never been divorced.”

Again there was an interval of silence.

“Would you go back to him, Jan?”

Jeannette stared out into the warm sunshine, and her rocker ceased its

slow movement.

“I’ve thought about it,” she admitted. “I’d like a home. I’m so tired

of the office. There’s nothing to work for in the business any more.

I’ve got as far as they’ll let me go; there’s no future for me.”

“Why don’t you write him?” Alice suggested, watching her sister’s

serious face. “He may be as lonely as you are.”

“It’s fourteen years,” mused Jeannette. “We’ve both changed. He may be

very different.”

“He may still be thinking of you and blaming himself for having treated

you so unkindly.... Why don’t you write him and just say you’d be glad

to know how he’s getting on?”

“I don’t know his address.”

“Well, that could be found out easily enough.”

There was a sound within, and Roy came stumbling out on the porch to

stretch himself, luxuriously.

“Whew!” he said, enjoying a great yawn. “I nearly went to sleep in

there.”

“Why didn’t you? A nap would have done you good.”

“I don’t like to miss a single minute of my one day at home. It’s too

pleasant out here.”

Alice began to fidget, clearing her throat nervously.

“Do you feel like going over some bills with me, Roy?” she ventured

with obvious reluctance.

“Sure,” he agreed good-naturedly.

He sat down on the steps, while his wife went indoors and presently

returned with a sheaf of bills, a pad and pencil. She established

herself next to him.

“Now you see, Roy,” she began, “in the first place, there’s the two

hundred and forty that’s due on the fifth. I’ve got one hundred and

fifty saved up, and that means I must take ninety out of next week’s

salary. It’s going to leave me precious little, and there’s your

commutation for next month that’s got to come out right away. I figure

we owe about,--well, it’s not over six hundred; I’m not counting

Frank’s teeth nor Gimbel’s; they can wait. But here’s the first of the

month coming and Pulitzer, you know, won’t let you charge unless you

pay up by the tenth. Now I was thinking....”

The voices went on murmuring, and Jeannette mused. Here it was again:

the eternal war against want, the fight for existence, the battle for

bread. There was never any end to it; it was perpetual, incessant,

unending. In all the houses within the range of her vision, in all

the trim, orderly, little dwellings that made up Cohasset Beach, in

all the thousands and thousands of homes that dotted Long Island, in

the millions that were scattered over the United States, and over the

world, this struggle was going on. It was easy in some; it was bitter

hard in others. Alice, who was among the most readily satisfied and

uncomplaining of women, had protested against the everlasting drudgery,

a moment ago! ... Well, she, Jeannette, had solved that particular

problem for herself pretty much to her satisfaction. It was many years

since she had had to worry about a bill; her income more than covered

her expenses; she had saved and was going on saving; she had nearly

enough money in the bank to buy another bond. In a few years she would

have ten thousand dollars securely invested. Then, she would resign

from the Corey Publishing Company,--they would pay her something, part

salary, as long as she lived, the way they did Miss Holland,--and

perhaps she would travel, or perhaps make her home with Roy and Alice.

They would not want her particularly, but theirs might be the only

place to which she could go; she knew their loyalty and affection would

make them urge her to come to them.... And there was Frank! She would

like to do something for that boy: pay his way through college or make

him some kind of a handsome present that would render him eternally

grateful to her. But she supposed he would be getting married as soon

as he was grown up and would have no eyes nor time for anybody except

the fluffy-haired doll he would select for a wife! ... Love was a

funny thing! ... Her mind drifted to Martin,--Martin, with his youth,

his charm, his good looks, his winning personality. Ah, he was a man

of whom any woman might be proud! Well, she _had_ been proud of him;

she had always admired him; he had always had a particular appeal for

her.... It was the selfsame thing that was agitating Roy and Alice

to-day, that had caused her disagreement with Martin,--this struggle

for money, for the means to pay bills, for the wherewithal to buy

bread! ... Ah,--and they had had enough, more than enough, if Martin

only had been reasonable! ... Undoubtedly he was very successful now;

an agency for a motor-car in Philadelphia indicated success; he was, in

all likelihood, a rich man. She wondered what would have happened to

him and to her if she had stuck to him! ...

Her mind wandered into strange speculations. She had once viewed the

streets of Philadelphia from a car window on her way to Washington. She

thought of the city as blocks and blocks of small brick houses, with

pointed roofs, standing close together, row after row, each with a

little square bit of lawn beside brown stone front steps. She imagined

herself and Martin in one of these; she was keeping house again, and

she had a cook and perhaps a maid, and of course she would have an

automobile, since Martin had the agency for one. Her life was full of

friendships; she was able to dress beautifully; Martin’s associates

admired her, thought her handsome, regal; she took a keen interest in

her children’s schooling,--for, of course, there would be children,--a

twelve-year-old Frank, and perhaps a younger Frank, as well, and one

daughter, a girl different from either Etta or Nettie, a tall girl with

a fine carriage, gracious, dignified, beautiful. How she would enjoy

dressing her, and how proud Martin would be of his children, and of

herself,--her poise and beauty, her fine clothes and the way she wore

them, her graciousness to his friends and her capable management of his

home....

“No man ever had a better wife than I have; no man was ever prouder of

his wife and children; no man was ever more grateful. You’re a wonder,

dear,--have always been a wonder! Other men envy me,--envy me your

beauty and your goodness and your devotion. Everything I’ve amounted

to in this life I owe to you; you’ve made me what I am; you’ve made

our home what it is! My friends look at you and think how lucky I’ve

been. I look back on all the hard years we’ve been together, on all the

tough times we’ve had and somehow pulled through, and I know it’s to

you, and not to me, the credit belongs. Oh, yes, it does! You’ve made

my home for me, you’ve given me my children, you’ve taken the burden

of everything on your shoulders, you’ve carried us both along and

made our venture as man and wife, as father and mother, successful. I

owe everything in the world to you, and to me you’re the loveliest and

dearest woman in the world....”

It was Roy’s voice that she heard in the hush of the warm Sunday

afternoon, and it blended with the queer thoughts of the woman who sat

so still in her rocker as to be thought asleep.

“No--no, Roy,” Alice interrupted him. “We’ve done it together. Money

doesn’t count with me,--really it doesn’t. Sometimes I protest a bit

when I think of what the children have to do without, but there is

nothing that can take the place of the love we all share. We’re a

little group, a little clan that’s always clung together, and I’d

rather be cold and hungry and see the children shabby and needy than

have one less of them, or have discord amongst us. You and I have had

our trials and our disagreements, but we’ve always loved each other and

loved the children....”

Alice was crying now, softly crying with her head against her husband’s

shoulder and his arm about her, and the hot prick of tears came to

Jeannette’s eyes and a burning trickle ran down the side of her nose.

She dropped her forehead into her hand and shielded her face with her

palm.

“We’ll weather this difficulty as we’ve weathered many another,”

Roy said consolingly. “I’ll go into the insurance company’s office

to-morrow and fix it up with them; we’ll pay them half on the fifth,

and I’m sure they’ll give me thirty days on the balance. Then you can

settle what’s most pressing and give the others a little on account....

Why say,--we’ve faced worse times than this! Do you remember that

Christmas when Ralph was only three and we’d been out trying to find

the kids some cheap presents and I lost that ten-dollar bill out of my

pocket? And do you remember when I was so rotten sick with pneumonia

and the doctor thought I was going to get T.B.? And do you remember

the time when Baby Roy was coming and you fell downstairs and broke

your collar-bone? ... I tell you, Alice, we’ve _lived_, you and I! We

haven’t had very much to do it on, but we’ve _lived_!”

“You’re such a comfort, Roy. You’re always so sweet about everything

and you always put heart into me. You’re wonderful!”

“It’s _you_ that are the wonder, Alice,--the most wonderful wife a man

ever had!”

Their heads turned toward one another in mutual inclination and their

lips met lovingly. They sat on for awhile in silence, Alice’s head once

more against her husband’s shoulder, their hands linked, the man’s arm

about his wife.

There came a faint sound from somewhere in the house.

“That’s Nettie,” Alice said, immediately arousing herself and getting

to her feet. “I’ll go up. The child’s slept quite a while; it’s almost

four o’clock.”

She crossed the porch with careful tread not to disturb her sister, and

in another minute her voice and her daughter’s, alternately, floated

down from an upstairs window. Roy produced a pipe from his coat pocket,

and proceeded to empty, fill and light it with attentive deliberation.

When he had it briskly going, he rose and leisurely crossed the strip

of lawn to his neighbor’s yard, vaulted the low wire fence, and was

lost in a moment beyond the cosmos and chrysanthemums.

Jeannette remained as she was, head in hand, thinking, thinking. The

tears had dried upon her face, her eyes were staring, and there was an

empty hunger in her heart that she recognized at last had been there

for a long, long time.

CHAPTER III

§ 1

“Etta! Is that you?”

“Yes,--it’s me, Aunt Jan.”

“Say ‘it’s I,’ dear. What brings you to the city, Sunday?”

“I stayed in town last night. There was a dance at Marjorie Bowen’s

cousin’s house and Moth’ said I could go. We had a perfectly divine

time! Her aunt chaperoned us and I slept with Marj. I thought maybe

you’d be going down to Cohasset Beach this morning, and we’d go

together. So I got up, left the girls in bed, had my breakfast, and

took a ’bus to come down to see you. I want to talk to you about

something.”

“But, dear,--I wasn’t going to the country to-day. I promised an old

friend of mine who lives at the Navy Yard in Brooklyn, I’d go to see

her this afternoon.”

Etta’s face fell and she frowned disconsolately at the carpet. Her aunt

suspected something was troubling her.

“Couldn’t you tell me what’s on your mind, now?”

“Oh, it wasn’t anything particular; I wanted to ask your advice, and I

thought we’d have a talk as we went down in the train.”

A bright light suddenly came into the girl’s face.

“Is it Miss Holland you’re going to see, Aunt Janny? Won’t you let me

go with you? Remember I met her that day she was here to lunch? She’s

perfectly _sweet_! I’d just love to visit the Navy Yard!”

“Well, I don’t think you’ll find many ensigns or lieutenants hanging

about on Sunday.”

“Oh, but it would be lots of fun, just the same! I’ll ‘phone Moth’

I’m with you and take a late train this aft! Please say yes, Aunt

Janny,--please say yes!”

The girl was jumping up and down in eagerness.

“Well-l,” her aunt said with an amused but doubtful smile, “I don’t see

what you’d get out of it, particularly.”

“I’d just love the trip, and I’d like being with you, Aunt

Janny,--really I would!”

Jeannette narrowed her lids and eyed her skeptically. She was pleased,

nevertheless. Her niece’s excessive ebullition and high spirits never

failed to divert her; she liked the child’s company; the girl had a

great respect for her worldly judgment, much more than she had for her

mother’s or father’s, and the older woman found it an engaging business

to expound her theories of life and her views of affairs to the younger

one.

“I’m not going until after lunch,” she said, still with a vague

hesitancy in her manner.

“I don’t mind waiting a bit.”

“Can you amuse yourself until noon? I have some office work to do that

will take me about an hour. Miss Alexander’s gone to church but she’ll

be back directly.”

“Could I make some egg muffins? We could have ’em for lunch, an’

they’re awfully nice and I’m really good at them.”

Jeannette noted the child’s palpitant eagerness again with mild

amusement.

“I think that would be lovely,” she consented, her fine eyes twinkling.

“But don’t get things out there in a mess; Miss Alexander won’t like it

if she comes home and finds everything upset.”

“I’ll be ever and ever so careful,” agreed Etta, already skipping

toward the kitchen.

Jeannette took herself back to the cold front room, seldom used by

either herself or Beatrice, and brought her thoughts once more to the

construction of the half-finished circular letter which must be ready

for the composing room early Monday morning.

She heard Beatrice come in presently, and an hour later, as she was

completing the last revision of her work, Etta appeared breathlessly to

announce lunch.

The egg muffins were excellent and received enthusiastic praise.

Jeannette ate them with the heated canned tamales, and sipped her tea,

one eye on the clock, for she was anxious to make an early start if

Etta was to catch, at any seemly hour, a train back to Cohasset Beach.

It was after two before she and her niece found themselves seated in

the thundering subway.

“Well, now, tell me your troubles, my dear,” Jeannette began; “I want

to hear all about them.”

But Etta had to be coaxed before she would become communicative.

“Oh, it’s _this_!” she finally burst out, striking her skirt with

disdainful fingers. “It’s my clothes, Aunt Jan! I was horribly ashamed

last night. There wasn’t a girl there at Marjorie’s cousin’s party

who wasn’t a lot better dressed than I! I felt _awful_ and was so

embarrassed! One of the girls’ older sister was there and I saw her

taking an inventory of everything I had on! I just wanted to sink

through the floor! Moth’ does everything she possibly can to see

that I look decent, and I know better than anyone else what she does

without so that I can have things! But I don’t want that! I don’t want

Moth’ and Dad denying themselves on my account. I want to be able to

take care of myself and buy my own clothes, earn my own living and be

independent! ... Aunt Jan, won’t you get me a job at your office? Won’t

you back me up with Moth’ and Dad, and urge them to let me go to work?

I don’t want to stay at home and just help Moth’ here and there with

the housework and do nothing else but go to the movies and dance jazz!

They call me a ‘flapper,’ and I suppose I am one,--but what else is

there for me to be? I hate it, Aunt Jan,--I _hate being a flapper_! I

want to be something different and better; I want to make my own way

in the world and not be obliged to stick round home until a man with

enough money comes along and asks me to marry!”

It was the old familiar cry, the cry of youth calling for

self-expression, the cry of budding life eager for experience, the cry

of young womanhood demanding independence, emancipation.

The words rang familiarly in the older woman’s ears, and she smiled

sadly with a sorry head-shake.

“Why, what’s the matter, Aunt Jan?” asked the girl after a troubled

scrutiny of her companion’s face. “Don’t you think I have a right to

earn my own living if I want to?” She renewed her arguments with

characteristic vehemence. There was nothing new in them for Jeannette;

she had voiced them all herself twenty-five years ago. A memory of her

patient, hard-working little mother came to her, and she saw her once

again with the comforter over her knees, the knitted red shawl pinned

across her shoulders, thin of hair, with trembling pendent cheeks,

bending over the canvas-covered ledger, figuring--figuring--figuring.

And she saw herself, the impatient eighteen-year-old, striking

her faded velvet dress with angry fingers, protesting against the

humiliation her shabby attire occasioned her, asking to be allowed to

work, to earn the money that would permit her to dress as other girls

dressed, and be her own mistress, self-supporting. How well, she,

Jeannette, could now sympathize with that earnest, tearful, little

mother!

She looked at Etta and, in her mind, saw her anxiously taking dictation

from some frowning business man, saw her white flying fingers busy at

some switch-board disentangling telephone cords, pictured her perched

on a tall stool, bending over a great tome, making careful entries, saw

her folding circulars, writing cards, filing letters, giving her youth,

her eagerness and beauty to the grim treadmill of business life, and

her heart filled with pain.

“... and there’s no reason on earth,” Etta was saying, “why I shouldn’t

help out at home. Dad and Moth’ have given all their lives to us

children; they’ve denied themselves and denied themselves just so we

can have clothes for our backs, enough to eat and go to school! It

isn’t fair. It’s time I helped. I could go to business college, take a

course, and in three months, I could learn to be a stenographer and

earn fifteen or twenty dollars a week....”

“Hush, child,--hush! You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

Jeannette broke in, suddenly stirred to speech. “I threw away my life,

talking just that kind of nonsense. To learn to earn her own living is

a dangerous thing for a young girl.”

“Why, how do you mean, Aunt Jan?”

“Its effect is poison; it’s like a drug, a disease! I’ve paid bitterly

for my financial independence. I sacrificed everything that was

precious to me because I wanted to be self-supporting. Etta dear, life

is a hard game for women at best, but waiting within the shelter of her

own home for the man she’ll some day come to love and who will love her

is the best and wisest course for a girl to follow.”

“But I hate the kind of life I’m living! There’s nothing ahead of

me but marriage, unless I go to work! You wouldn’t want me to marry

just because I was bored at home,--and I’ve known lots of girls to

do that! I never meet any attractive men,--only High School kids and

rah-rah boys out of college. Wouldn’t I have a much better chance

to meet a finer class of young men around business offices,--I mean

serious-minded, ambitious young men? It seems to me I’d have much more

opportunity to meet a man I’d admire, and who might want me to marry

him if I went to work than I ever will waiting stupidly at home.”

“It doesn’t make any difference where you meet him, whether it is in

business or at a High School dance,” Jeannette answered. “He’s bound

to find you, and you him.... I hate to see you go to work. You pay a

fearful penalty in doing so. It makes you regard marriage lightly, and

prejudices you against having children----”

“Oh, I shall want children!” exclaimed Etta, promptly. She proceeded

to outline just what were her requirements in a husband, and to give

her views on the subject of having children. Her aunt was somewhat

disconcerted to discover that she had these matters, as far as they

concerned herself, entirely settled in her own mind. “Oh, yes, indeed,”

Etta repeated, “I shall want children. Perhaps not such a lot of them

as Moth’ and Dad have. They would have had a much easier time of it, if

they’d had only one or two. Instead of always being poor and having to

struggle, they could have lived in considerable comfort, and now there

would be no question about their being able to send me to Bryn Mawr or

Vassar. I think two children are enough for any couple. Now, my idea,

Aunt Janny,----”

“Oh, for Heaven’s sakes, Etta!” Jeannette interrupted with impatience;

“you don’t know what you’re talking about! What does your education

or Ralph’s education amount to in comparison with the lives of Frank,

Nettie, and Baby Roy? You’ll have a great deal more worth-while

education pounded into you by having brothers and sisters and by having

to help your mother take care of them, than you would ever get at Bryn

Mawr. More than that, just living in the same house with them, being

brought up with them and learning to deny yourself, now and then, for

their sake has taught you unselfishness, forbearance that will make you

a far better wife and mother than ten years’ of college education! ...

Your father and mother with you children about them, with the hard

problems you present, with the ever-pressing question of ways and means

before them, with the solving of these problems,--for there is always a

solution,--are among the most enviable people in the world. There was a

time when I used to feel sorry for your mother, but now I look at her

with only admiration and jealousy. You think of her as poor! Well, I

think of her as rich! And I attribute much of the happiness she has had

out of life to the fact that she never went into business.... Stay out

of it, Etta my dear, whatever you do! It’s an unnatural environment for

a girl, and in it her mind and soul as surely become contaminated as

if she deliberately went to live in a smallpox camp.... Look at me, my

dear! I’ve given twenty years of my life to business and what have I to

show for it? Nothing but a very lonely and selfish old age!”

“Oh, Aunt Jan!” cried the girl, shocked into protesting. “How can you

say such things! Why I think you’re one of the handsomest, happiest,

most enviable, smartest-dressed women in the world!”

Jeannette laughed.

“Well, I didn’t mean to deliver a ‘curtain’ lecture! I just hated the

thought of your following in my footsteps. It makes me actually shudder

even to think of it. But I didn’t mean to get started the way I did----

“Here,” she suddenly cried, gathering her things together and hurriedly

getting to her feet, “this is the Bridge! We have to get off here and

change cars.”

§ 2

The house just inside the high iron fence of the Navy Yard in which

Commander Jerome Sedgwick lived was a three-story, square, dirty

cream-painted cement affair, which bore his name in a small, neat

sign on the third step of the front stairs. Across the street from

it, children racketed upon a city play-ground, and in its rear some

green-painted hot-houses leaned haphazardly against one another, their

backs turned upon a quadrangle where several orderly tennis courts were

located. Jeannette had visited Miss Holland here many times, and one

summer a few years ago, had spent her two weeks’ vacation keeping her

old friend company, while the nephew, Jerry, was enjoying a month’s

leave with his family, fishing among the Maine lakes.

A little girl of five, just tall enough to reach the knob, opened the

door a few inches and stared up unsmilingly at the visitors.

“How do you do, Sarah?” said Jeannette, recognizing the child. “Is your

mama at home?”

Sarah continued to stare stolidly a moment, then turned and

disappeared, leaving the door hardly more than ajar. Jeannette and Etta

could hear the sound of her shrill, piping voice, and her small running

feet within.

Mrs. Sedgwick came rustling to greet the callers promptly, and in her

wake limped Miss Holland.

“Oh, you _dear_!” exclaimed the latter, catching sight of Jeannette.

“I’m so glad you came; I’ve been hungering for a sight of you for

weeks.” She kissed her friend warmly on both cheeks. Etta was presented.

“The child begged to be allowed to come,” explained her aunt. “She

wanted a glimpse of the Yard.”

“Why, certainly,” exclaimed Mrs. Sedgwick cordially. “I’m delighted you

brought her. Jerry unfortunately isn’t home but I have to take Sarah

and Junior out shortly, and I’ll be charmed to show your niece about,

and leave you two to gossip by yourselves.”

Miss Holland, her thin, knuckly, white hand on Jeannette’s forearm,

drew her into the sitting-room.

“Take off your things down here, my dear; I can’t climb stairs very

well on account of my knees, and no one’s coming in.”

“How _is_ your rheumatism?” inquired Jeannette.

“’Bout the same; it keeps me rather helpless, and the doctor is

actually starving me to death. What with the things he says I can’t eat

and the things I don’t like, my menus are rather limited.”

The two women settled themselves before the small, glowing coal fire in

an old-fashioned grate, and began talking in low tones. Mrs. Sedgwick

excused herself to make the children ready to go out, while Etta stood

at the window, gazing with absorbed interest at any evidence of Navy

life that came within the range of her vision.

“’Xcuse me, Miss Holland,” she interrupted presently with her usual

breathlessness, “do you happen to know, or did you ever hear Commander

Sedgwick mention a young ensign named White?”

Miss Holland looked doubtful.

“My friend, Marjorie Bowen, knew him, or knew his sister, I think,

while he was at Annapolis.”

“Well, I’m afraid ...” began Miss Holland.

Etta proceeded hastily to another observation.