It was over now--the months of waiting, the pain, the fear that the
baby would die, the two weeks at the sanitarium. It was all over, or
practically so. This was Dot’s last night away from home.
She had spent most of the day in the nursery receiving instructions
from Miss Parsons on how to bathe, diaper, and dress the infant. It was
all very simple. You just went ahead and did it, praying to God all the
while that the baby wouldn’t slip, drop, or cry.
Now she sat in a chair at the window, with the baby in her arms,
looking at the house across the yard where tonight there was another
party well under way.
It was very pleasant sitting there with Edna and Eddie beside her and
young Edward lustily partaking of his supper. It was ten o’clock. Soon
they must all desert her for the night, but they would leave a cozy
contentment behind them. Dot’s eyes wandered over Edna’s familiar,
homely face and on to Eddie. Lastly they rested on the baby. Her heart
swelled till it seemed that it must leave her body and soar above the
clouds. The two loves of her life, and her friend. Her eyes wandered
to the bed where Mrs. Vernon had lain. She regretted the loss of the
strange, red-haired woman. She wished that she were here now, even
if she were only reading and scowling into her book in the manner
that Dot had come to know. Dot had asked for her address, but she had
laughed and said, “Dottie, you’re a darling, but you’re not one to keep
a secret. I’ll take your address instead.” But she had gone without
asking for it, and Dot had not pressed it upon her.
“What I’m trying to find out,” said Edna, “is what the devil you want
for supper tomorrow night.”
“Oh, anything,” said Dot. “Ham sandwiches will do. I’ll be so glad to
get home I won’t care what I eat.”
“In that case, I guess there’s no use of me fussing for you. I like a
good meal at six o’clock, and Eddie hasn’t had anything but sandwiches
for two weeks; so I guess the best thing we can do is to leave two
hunks of ham and a loaf of bread for you, and Eddie and I’ll go to a
restaurant to celebrate. How about it?”
Dot laughed. The idea of Edna and Eddie entertaining each other was
good.
“No kidding, Dot.” Eddie’s voice was coaxing. “Edna says she don’t mind
cooking supper tomorrow night; so as long as she’s game, why don’t you
pick out something you like and have a swell feed?”
Dot looked down at the baby’s face and spoke with her eyes fixed hard
on his little busy mouth. “What I want would cost about four dollars,”
she said.
“Well, speak up,” Edna said.
“Sure,” Eddie added, “Mr. Williams broke his heart and gave me a
five-spot.”
Dot looked up quickly. “And you’d buy supper things with it?” she
asked. “That’s for the baby. When people give you money, it’s because
they don’t know what you need for him.” She dropped her eyes again and
added, “It’s not fair to Mr. Williams, Eddie, not to spend the money on
something for the kid.”
“Is that so?” Eddie demanded, hotly. “You know what Williams told me to
do with it? He told me to get some whiskey and get cockeyed drunk and
recover from the wait I had downstairs. What do you think of that?”
“I think that’s darn mean of Mr. Williams,” said Dot. “Me with a
new-born baby and you cockeyed drunk.”
“Well, what are you mad about? I didn’t get drunk, did I? What is it
you want for supper tomorrow night?”
“I’d like an extra special steak. A real thick, tender one, you know.
And mashed potatoes and corn on the cob and sliced tomatoes with plenty
of mayonnaise, and rolls from the Hanscom Bakery, and bananas and
cream.”
“Order received and noted,” said Edna. “Coffee or tea?”
“Coffee.”
“Soft or hard rolls?”
“Soft.”
“Will you take it at the table or in bed?”
“At the table.”
“Fine. What time would you like it served, M’lady?”
Eddie turned to Edna and said, “I wanted to bring her home in the
morning, but I can’t get off till one o’clock, and it’s so hot then
that I thought we’d better wait till around five. I hate to drag her
out of here when it’s so hot. The nurse says she can wait.”
“That’s the best way,” said Edna. “You leave here at five o’clock and
come right home and sit down and eat your extra special steak.”
“First I’ll have to change the baby’s diaper,” said Dot.
Miss Harris came to get the baby, and Edna and Eddie got up to leave.
Dot smiled again. It was funny and kind of sweet to think of them
walking down the street together. What would they talk about?
They both kissed her. Edna bent over the baby and kissed his fingers
and murmured silly, soft things in his ear.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” she said suddenly. “Here I am hogging the baby
and not giving Eddie a chance to kiss him good night.”
The smile froze on Dot’s face. Eddie had never kissed the baby. He
didn’t want to. What would he do now that Edna had practically forced
him into it? Just as he and Edna were getting more friendly and he was
becoming kind of used to the baby, she had to pull a bone like this.
What would he do?
Eddie bent over the baby and kissed his cheek. He had a soft little
cheek, and the smell of his healthy, clean young skin filled Eddie with
happiness. His kid was like that. Sweet and normal and fresh like a
young flower on its stem.
“Come on, Edna,” he said. “It’s after ten o’clock, and I got to take
you home first.”
“Why, that’s silly, Eddie. I can perfectly well--”
“I’ll take you home. Good night, Dot. Sleep well.”
Dot heard them descending the stairs. Funny the stairs weren’t
carpeted. You’d think in a place like this where there were so many
sick people that they’d have carpet.... Hm, Eddie took that pretty well
after all. He’d made a good job of kissing the baby. Kissed him just
as though he’d always wanted to kiss him and as though something had
held him back before. Nice of him to try so hard to be decent about it.
Perhaps if he tried real hard to love the baby he might get so after a
while that he wouldn’t mind holding the kid in his arms. Gee, imagine
what it would be like if Eddie ever got to care about the baby! How
wonderful it would be to know he was there suffering with her when the
baby was ill, laughing with her at the antics of the child Edward, and
rejoicing with her when the child had become a man. No, that could
never be. The best she could hope for was a placid toleration of the
little fellow. Eddie wasn’t the sort to be soft over a kid. Maybe
because his own father had been so rough and hard. Dot sighed. No use
dreaming about the way things ought to be; it only made what really
was, much more awful to bear.
It was Dot’s duty now to prepare herself for bed. The days of being
waited on were over, too. She was a patient ready to be discharged.
Dot wondered if ever in her life again she would be waited upon.
Probably not. There would very likely be no serious illness which
would send her to the hospital, and she would try not to have any more
children. No, never again would a tray be brought to her bedside.
Hospitals were the only places where that was done, and she never
expected to enter another.
Dot went to the bathroom and washed her face and hands. She brushed her
teeth and combed her hair. Tomorrow night she would be doing this in
her own bathroom!
The ward was dark when she returned to her bed. Dot lay very still
and tried to sleep. The party across the way was rapidly rising to a
glorious peak. The husky, deep voice of a dusky woman reached Dot’s
ears.
“Pepper is pepper,
Salt is salt,
If I ain’t gave you lovin’,
It’s your own darn fault.”
Dot smiled. The woman who sang would be a creamy shade of tan with
black bobbed hair and gold circlets in her ears. She would have
flashing white teeth, and perhaps she’d wear a red dress. Once a girl
like that had come to the Poppyland Dance Hall. It was only by her
escort’s looks that the manager had been sure she was colored. They
had been put out, of course. It had ruined Sue Cudahy’s whole evening.
Sue had felt sort of contaminated; so they had all gone over to Maude
McLaughlin’s to forget the unpleasant episode.
Dot fell asleep, but her thoughts continued unbroken. She fancied that
the colored girl with the golden circlets was lying in the bed next to
her. They talked about childbirth.
It was only by Miss Parsons’ voice calling to her that Dot knew that
the night was over. She was going home today. She and her baby were
going home. It seemed wrong that everything in the ward was the same
and that she should eat her breakfast with slow indifference. There
should be bustle and rush, excitement. Heavens, she and her baby were
going home!
She found her clothes in the closet, the clothes she had worn to the
sanitarium, the dress which had enough material in it to make her two
dresses now, the cape which she would have to wear to conceal the
dress. She had wanted Eddie to bring some other things to her, but he
would not know which dress she wanted, no matter how carefully she
explained. After all, it didn’t matter. There wouldn’t be many people
to see her. Eddie had seemed less dense on the subject of baby clothes.
He had understood that he must bring a dress, two petticoats, a
shirtie, a diaper, a bonnet, a sacque, a bellyband, a pair of bootees,
two blankets, and stockings. Funny, how bewildered and frightened he
would have looked had she asked him to get her pink dress off the hook
and bring it along.
Dot got into her clothes. She made up her face very carefully.
She wanted to look nice despite the terrible dress which hung so
disgracefully upon her.
Miss Parsons came into the ward. She looked at Dot and laughed. “Hurry
up,” she said. “Get your hat. You’re going home at five o’clock, and
it’s a quarter of ten already.”
“Never mind. Don’t razz me,” said Dot. “Wait till some day you’re in a
hurry to get home.”
Dot picked up a magazine and tried to read, but she couldn’t get
interested in the stories. A baby cried in the nursery. She went to see
if it was young Edward, and it was. Gleefully, Dot lifted him from the
bassinet and reached for a dry diaper. She was going to change her
baby’s diaper. She was going to make him all nice and comfy again.
But Miss Parsons was too fast for her. She came hurrying into the
nursery just as Dot had opened the baby’s blanket. “Get out of here,”
she said. “You are a fool if ever one breathed. Here’s almost your last
chance to get your kid diapered for you, and you want to do it. Many a
time, in the months to come, you’ll wish you had Parsons to change him.”
Dot laughed. “I’ll love doing it,” she said.
“Yeh, you and the other inmates of the nut house.”
Dot went back to her magazine. Despite the friendly tone of Miss
Parsons’ jeers, it was evident that Dot was not supposed to minister to
her baby until she got him home. She wished they’d let her bathe him.
The time was dragging so terribly.
Just before luncheon, Sue Cudahy came in. Dot did not expect any more
visitors until she got home, but she was glad to see Sue.
Sue had something on her mind. She fairly glittered with the importance
of it. The shiny, shellacked wings on her hat and the rhinestones
on her slippers seemed to express her excitement as plainly as her
gleaming eyes and her torrent of words.
“Oh, I couldn’t wait till tonight when you were home to see you,” she
cried. “Besides, Edna will be there and all. This is a funny thing to
tell you just as you’re leaving the hospital, but I just went to the
doctor’s, and he says yes I am, and I just had to come here to tell
you. What do you think? I’m going to have a baby!”
Dot’s eyes grew large with surprise. She was sitting on the bed, facing
the window, and Sue looked well at her for signs of the ordeal through
which she had passed. She found no such signs, and with so concrete a
reassurance before her, she squeezed Dot’s hand and repeated, “I’m
going to have a baby, Dot!”
“Are you actually going to have it, Sue?”
“Sure. When a woman intends to give birth she says, ‘I’m going to have
a baby,’ and when she is not going through with it she says, ‘I’m
pregnant.’ That’s how you can tell, Dot.”
“Not always,” said Dot. “See, Sue, I’m getting smart. I never used to
be able to argue with you. Now I know a lot more things than I used to
know.”
“I want to ask you about some of them. Tell me, honest to God, Dot,
without trying to save me from being scared or without laying it on
like one little louse, whose name I won’t mention but who is a mutual
friend, would do--tell me, does it pain terrible?”
Dot’s gaze locked with Sue’s. Sue’s eyes were honest seekers after
truth. You couldn’t turn her question aside with a stall about cramps
or with a light reply. A woman had a right to have her questions
answered when she took the cheap cynicism which she loved so dearly and
traded it in for a straight answer on what concerned her so terribly.
“Sue, listen, if all the women in the world were sitting right where
you are and asked me that question I’d tell them this: yes, it pains
like bloody hell. Nobody who hasn’t been through it can know what it’s
like. No man doctor can have more than the smallest idea what it feels
like. It pains like hell. Maybe a lot of women like Edna Driggs who
would hear me say that would laugh at me and say that it was nothing
bad at all. And that’s the best part of it, Sue. When it’s over, you
forget. It depends on how good your forgetery is, how fast you get over
it. And it’s worth it. Oh, Sue, you don’t know how well worth it it
is to have a baby that’s all your own. If you have good care, you’re
all right. That’s what I’d tell all the women in the world if they
came and asked me, Sue. It pains like hell, but it’s over fast and you
forget it.”
“Have you forgotten?”
“Almost. If you’d have come tomorrow, I’d have probably told you that
it wasn’t as bad as a headache.”
“How about our mutual friend? She hasn’t forgotten.”
“I don’t know what to think about her, Sue. I’m kind of afraid that
she’s just a mean woman who feels important when she’s scaring people.
She’s too mean to even say that the pain was worth it, and it is, Sue,
it is.”
“My mother says it’s nothing,” Sue offered.
Dot’s lips parted in a smile of reminiscence. “Your mother has done a
good job of forgetting, Sue. And so will I, and so will you. You have
a couple of hours of pain, and then it’s all over forever and you have
your baby. Why shouldn’t it hurt? Gee, Sue, everything that’s worth
having hurts in some way or other.”
“I guess you’re right, Dot. It didn’t hurt at all to get Pat.”
Dot looked at Sue a moment more and then turned away. Why was it that
other people were always finished with a serious subject long before
she was? Other people were always quick to turn back to wisecracks.
Maybe that was why she didn’t have many friends. Too serious, perhaps.
She’d have to snap out of it. Be more flip. She laughed a little at her
thoughts. She’d start to be flip as soon as she had her son raised. A
mere matter of eighteen or twenty years.
The luncheon tray came in, and Sue got up from her perch on the window
sill. “I’ll be going, Dot,” she said. “I only dropped in to tell you my
news. Should I come up to your house tonight?”
“If you want to. To tell the truth, Sue, I’ll be going to bed very
early.”
“Well, I’ll come in for fifteen or twenty minutes.”
“All right, Sue.” Dot knew that she could depend on Edna to see that
Sue didn’t make a night of it.
She had no appetite at all for lunch. She wanted to go home. She longed
for the sight of her delft-blue living-room and for a cup of coffee
such as came only from her own little percolator. She thought of the
dinner which Edna would have ready for her and was horrified to find
that it awakened not the slightest desire. Well, she’d have to make a
bluff at enjoying it if her appetite was not aroused by the cheering
sight of her own home.
Bill came and took the tray away. Dot rouged and powdered again.
She started another story in the magazine and laid it aside without
finishing it. She strolled past the nursery, trying to get a peep at
her baby. She failed in her effort. She tried to hold a conversation
with the woman whose child had died. This effort also failed. There was
absolutely nothing she could do.
“Why don’t you lie down and take a nap?” Miss Parsons suggested.
Dot thanked her and curled up on the bed. She lay there for forty
minutes and then got up. It was useless. She could not sleep, but
anyhow forty minutes had passed.
She was going home, and nobody seemed to realize the importance of it.
Miss Parsons advised a nap, and Eddie seemed to think that he was going
to keep her cooped up in the sanitarium till five o’clock. Even the
baby thought this was the same as other days.
It was a quarter of three when Eddie came in. He had had to go home
first and gather up the baby’s clothes and get into his new blue suit.
He had shaved and had washed his hands with Gre-solvent. Dot untied the
very neat bundle which Eddie had made of the baby’s things and counted
them over carefully. He hadn’t forgotten anything. Everything was all
right, except that he had brought Mrs. Cudahy’s bootees instead of Miss
Eiden’s.
Miss Parsons gathered up the things and departed with them to the
nursery.
“Oh, can I watch you dress him?” asked Dot.
“I’m not going to dress him yet,” Miss Parsons said. “You’re not going
for another two hours.”
Dot looked at Eddie pleadingly. “Please, can’t we go right away?” she
asked.
“It’s awfully hot out, Kid.”
“But look, Eddie, it’ll be a half hour or so by the time the baby’s
ready, and it’ll be another half hour by the time we get home, and I
figured that maybe I’d feel better if I could lay down a while home
before supper. Can’t we tell her to fix the baby right away?”
“All right. It’s up to you.”
Dot ran to the nursery. “We’re leaving right away, Miss Parsons,” she
cried. “Could you fix the baby now?”
“Sure.”
Miss Parsons plucked the baby from his crib. She took off the
sanitarium clothes and began to dress him in his own little things. Dot
thrilled. The diaper she had hemmed, the petticoat she had embroidered,
were at last on the baby. Her eyes filled with tears of excitement when
the little dress was buttoned on him. She laughed with delight when she
saw the little bonnet on his head and the great white bow tied in a
fascinating knot under his chin. He was wearing the sacque that Eddie
had brought home. He looked kind of funny. Like a little pink monkey.
Dot grabbed him away from Miss Parsons and kissed him again and again.
She waltzed with him into the room where Eddie was waiting so uneasily.
He was pretending to read a magazine, but he couldn’t concentrate on
the words. He was bringing Dot and the kid home today. Home. Dot and
the kid. Today.
He looked up at her as she came into the room. “Why don’t you take it
easy?” he asked. “What’s the idea, capering around?”
“Oh, I’m so happy to be going home!”
“Well, take it easy.”
He got up and reached for his hat. It was last year’s straw. He put
it on, and Dot felt a little sorry for it, it looked so wilted and
weather-beaten in comparison with the new blue suit.
He walked toward the door, and Dot said, “Say, would you mind holding
the kid a minute while I get my hat and cape?”
“Lay him on the bed,” said Eddie.
“Maybe he’ll roll off. Here, he won’t bite you.”
Dot put the baby in Eddie’s arms and went to get her things. Eddie
walked out of the room. He stood in the hall for a minute looking down
at the baby. Then he kissed him. Could you squeeze them while they were
so young? Well, maybe a little bit. Eddie squeezed him a little bit,
and the baby fixed an inquisitive blue gaze upon him.
“That was squeezin’, old fellow,” Eddie whispered to the baby. “Should
we do it again?”
Miss Parsons came out of a room, and Eddie handed her the baby and ran
down the stairs. Dot found young Edward dozing in the nurse’s arms.
A wave of anger broke over Dot. He couldn’t even hold the kid for a
second. Who the hell did he think he was, that he was too good to hold
his own kid? She grabbed the baby from Miss Parsons and started down
the stairs.
“Need some help? Aren’t you a bit wobbly?”
“No, thanks, Miss Parsons. I can make it. Good-by.”
There was no sign of Eddie on the first floor. She sat down and waited.
Where had he gone? She straightened the bow on the baby’s cap and
brushed a smear of powder off his neck. Eddie came into the sanitarium,
banging the screen door behind him. “Come on, Dot,” he said. “I got a
taxi waiting.”
Her anger dissolved. That’s what he had gone away for. “Oh, Eddie, you
shouldn’t have done that. I could have gone home on the ’bus.”
“Come on.” He put his hand under her arm and piloted her down the stone
steps to the street. He helped her into the cab and seated himself
beside her. “Go slow, Buddie,” he said to the driver.
The driver turned around and smiled at the little family. He’d been in
Eddie’s boots three times.
Eddie held out his hands for the baby. “Want me to take him?”
“Yes, if you don’t mind, Eddie.” It really was hot, and she did wish
that she hadn’t been on her feet so much all day. The baby felt like a
ton of heat in her arms. It wouldn’t hurt Eddie to hold him.
The transfer made, she stretched her legs joyfully and turned to look
at St. Nicholas Avenue. The sky bending blue and dependable above the
world made her very happy, the sun glowing goldenly, brilliantly,
beautiful again now that her travail was over. The world was right.
Some day, somehow, Eddie would come to love the little pink monkey who
lay so trustingly, so unaware of antagonism, in his daddy’s arms.
She turned again to feast her eyes upon the tiny mortal. He was so
sweet, so adorable, so--Suddenly the blood in Dot’s veins turned to
ice water. A sharp prickling sensation ran up her back. The baby
was dribbling. On the sleeve of Eddie’s new blue suit the baby was
dribbling. On the sleeve of Eddie’s new blue suit! What would happen
now? Would Eddie slap the baby? Would he perhaps make her slap the poor
little thing?
He had to be told. Soon he might find out for himself, and then it
would be worse.
“Eddie, let me take the baby. He’s--he’s dribbling on the sleeve of
your new blue suit!”
Eddie looked at her with the narrowed gaze that she knew so well.
“Dribbling, huh?” he said. “Do you think that’s anything? Say, I’m wet
clear through, and I ain’t kicking, am I? Shut up!”
_There’s More to Follow!_
More stories of the sort you like; more, probably, by the author of
this one; more than 500 titles all told by writers of world-wide
reputation, in the Authors’ Alphabetical List which you will find on
the _reverse side_ of the wrapper of this book. Look it over before
you lay it aside. There are books here you are sure to want--some,
possibly, that you have _always_ wanted.
It is a _selected_ list; every book in it has achieved a certain
measure of _success_.
The Grosset & Dunlap list is not only the greatest Index of Good
Fiction available, it represents in addition a generally accepted
Standard of Value. It will pay you to
_Look on the Other Side of the Wrapper!_
_In case the wrapper is lost write to
the publishers for a complete catalog_
THE NOVELS OF VIDA HURST
May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap’s list.
Vida Hurst is recognized as one of the foremost authors of “Romances
of the Modern Girl.” All of her stories have been widely serialized in
newspapers throughout the country and her novels are always in great
demand. There are five stories now available in the Grosset & Dunlap
edition.
_BIG GAME_
The story of a girl who thought love more powerful than
society--more important even than marriage. A tremendous and
gripping romance of a girl who dared.
_DIANA_
After a hastened marriage between Diana and Arthur Vane, years
older and a successful lawyer, Diana soon runs away to New York
where a terrible experience brings her to her senses.
_THE GREATER LOVE_
A story in which Nancy Gage found after trials and tribulations
that the superficialities of pride are only surface deep. But that
true love is everlasting.
_SONIA_
Sonia Marsh goes to San Francisco to seek a new life and a happy
one but she finds everything is not smooth sailing. After many
harrowing experiences she finally marries the man she loves.
_SEQUEL TO SONIA_
It continues the life story of Sonia Marsh, who left her small
town to go to the city, where she falls in love with a Doctor and
marries him.
GROSSET & DUNLAP, _Publishers_, NEW YORK
THE NOVELS OF BEATRICE BURTON
May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap’s list.
These romances caused a tremendous sensation when they first appeared
as newspaper serials. They are now all available in book form in the
Grosset & Dunlap Edition.
_MONEY LOVE_
Wealth, ease, luxury--or love in a little flat. Which shall it be?
_SALLY’S SHOULDERS_
On Sally’s shoulders were heaped all the family troubles, but she
eventually found love and happiness.
_THE HOLLYWOOD GIRL_
Bobbie Ransom was movie mad. Her life was monotonous and she
finally decided to go to Hollywood.
_HONEY LOU, or THE LOVE WRECKER_
This is the story of the first year of Honey Lou’s married life and
how it almost came to grief through the efforts of a “love wrecker.”
_THE PETTER_
Because life seemed just a gay series of petting parties to “Mercy”
Locke she did not recognize the Real Thing when it came along.
_HER MAN_
The story of a girl who gave everything and still could not hold
the man she loved.
_LOVE BOUND_ (_Gilded Kisses_)
Where does a pretty girl get all the things she can’t afford? Does
love piracy pay?
_THE FLAPPER WIFE_
She yearned for ease and beautiful clothes and fluttered too close
to the consuming flame.
_FOOTLOOSE_ (_Sequel to the “Flapper Wife”_)
The story of a girl who tasted the bitterness of life, but found in
the end that love heals and love restores.
GROSSET & DUNLAP, _Publishers_, NEW YORK
RAFAEL SABATINI’S NOVELS
May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap’s list.
Jesi a diminutive city of the Italian Marches, was the birthplace of
Rafael Sabatini.
He first went to school in Switzerland and from Lycee of Oporto,
Portugal, and has never attended an English school. But English is
hardly an adopted language for him, as he learned it from his mother,
an English woman.
Today Rafael Sabatini is regarded as “The Alexandre Dumas of Modern
Fiction.”
_THE LION’S SKIN_
_THE SHAME OF MOTLEY_
_THE TRAMPLING OF THE LILIES_
_THE GATES OF DOOM_
_THE STROLLING SAINT_
_THE BANNER OF THE BULL_
_THE CAROLINIAN_
_SAINT MARTIN’S SUMMER_
_MISTRESS WILDING_
_FORTUNE’S FOOL_
_BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT_
_THE SNARE_
_CAPTAIN BLOOD_
_THE SEA-HAWK_
_SCARAMOUCHE_
GROSSET & DUNLAP, _Publishers_, NEW YORK
MARGARET PEDLER’S NOVELS.
May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap’s list.
_TO-MORROW’S TANGLE_
The game of love is fraught with danger. To win in the finest
sense, it must be played fairly.
_RED ASHES_
A gripping story of a doctor who failed in a crucial operation--and
had only himself to blame. Could the woman he loved forgive him?
_THE BARBARIAN LOVER_
A love story based on the creed that the only important things
between birth and death are the courage to face life and the love
to sweeten it.
_THE MOON OUT OF REACH_
Nan Davenant’s problem is one that many a girl has faced---her own
happiness or her father’s bond.
_THE HOUSE OF DREAMS-COME-TRUE_
How a man and a woman fulfilled a Gypsy’s strange prophecy.
_THE HERMIT OF FAR END_
How love made its way into a walled-in house and a walled-in heart.
_THE LAMP OF FATE_
The story of a woman who tried to take all and give nothing.
_THE SPLENDID FOLLY_
Do you believe that husbands and wives should have no secrets from
each other?
_THE VISION OF DESIRE_
An absorbing romance written with all that sense of feminine
tenderness that has given the novels of Margaret Pedler their
universal appeal.
_WAVES OF DESTINY_
Each of these stories has the sharp impact of an emotional
crisis--the compressed quality of one of Margaret Pedler’s widely
popular novels.
GROSSET & DUNLAP, _Publishers_, NEW YORK
THE NOVELS OF TEMPLE BAILEY
May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap’s list.
_THE BLUE WINDOW_
The heroine, Hildegarde, finds herself transplanted from the middle
western farm to the gay social whirl of the East. She is almost
swept off her feet, but in the end she proves true blue.
_PEACOCK FEATHERS_
The eternal conflict between wealth and love. Jerry, the idealist
who is poor, loves Mimi, a beautiful, spoiled society girl.
_THE DIM LANTERN_
The romance of little Jane Barnes who is loved by two men.
_THE GAY COCKADE_
Unusual short stories where Miss Bailey shows her keen knowledge
of character and environment, and how romance comes to different
people.
_THE TRUMPETER SWAN_
Randy Paine comes back from France to the monotony of every-day
affairs. But the girl he loves shows him the beauty in the common
place.
_THE TIN SOLDIER_
A man who wishes to serve his country, but is bound by a tie he
cannot in honor break--that’s Derry. A girl who loves him, shares
his humiliation and helps him to win--that’s Jean. Their love is
the story.
_MISTRESS ANNE_
A girl in Maryland teaches school, and believes that work is worthy
service. Two men come to the little community; one is weak, the
other strong, and both need Anne.
_CONTRARY MARY_
An old-fashioned love story that is nevertheless modern.
_GLORY OF YOUTH_
A novel that deals with a question, old and yet ever new--how far
should an engagement of marriage bind two persons who discover they
no longer love.
GROSSET & DUNLAP, _Publishers_, NEW YORK
THE NOVELS OF ELENORE MEHERIN
May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap’s list.
During the last year or two, millions of readers have become acquainted
with the romantic charm of Elenore Meherin’s stories through their
appearance in serial form in the daily papers. Because of the insistent
demand of the many readers who began these romances as serials for
the complete novels we have issued them all in the handsome Grosset &
Dunlap Popular Edition.
_NORA LEE_
The story of a girl to whom love is the most wonderful thing in the
world and faith to the One Man sweeter than fun with many--then she
was plunged into the jazzy household of the Pauls where she begins
to experiment with life.
_SANDY_
The story of a girl who defied life’s conventions in her search for
thrills. With flapper conceit she took everything and gave nothing.
Her own happiness was her only goal, but in seeking it she lost
herself.
_THE ROAD TO LOVE_
There is perhaps no author of today who has such a warm
understanding of the heart of the modern young girl who must earn
her own living and thread her way through the temptations which
beset her path on all sides. This new novel will be welcomed by the
many “Chickie” admirers.
_CHICKIE_
“Chickie” takes a pretty American girl, a stenographer, just like
millions of her kind, and tells the story of her love experiences
with two men--one a millionaire rounder, the other a poor but
honest youth.
_CHICKIE: A SEQUEL_
Should a young girl who, in the flaming days of first love, made a
desperate mistake, allow the spectre of the past to rob her of her
new-found happiness?
GROSSET & DUNLAP, _Publishers_, NEW YORK
* * * * *
Transcriber’s note
Minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice. Hyphenation
was standardized. In the ads at the back, italics have replaced the
underlined book titles.
Spelling was retained as in the original except for the following:
Page 204
but it never occured _changed to_
but it never occurred
Page 225
beat down on her ceaslessly _changed to_
beat down on her ceaselessly