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diff --git a/old/60099-8.txt b/old/60099-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 1867a51..0000000 --- a/old/60099-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6625 +0,0 @@ -Project Gutenberg's Cecilia of the Pink Roses, by Katharine Haviland Taylor - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Cecilia of the Pink Roses - -Author: Katharine Haviland Taylor - -Illustrator: May Wilson Preston - -Release Date: August 14, 2019 [EBook #60099] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CECILIA OF THE PINK ROSES *** - - - - -Produced by Al Haines - - - - - - - - - -[Frontispiece: "MILK, AN' SUGAR IF YOU HAVE IT"] - - - - - CECILIA - OF THE PINK ROSES - - - BY - KATHARINE HAVILAND TAYLOR - - - - ILLUSTRATED BY - MAY WILSON PRESTON - - - - NEW YORK - GROSSET & DUNLAP - PUBLISHERS - - - - - COPYRIGHT, 1917, - BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY - - COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY. - - PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - - - - - TO - MY DEAR MOTHER - SOURCE OF MY INNER PINK ROSES - - - - - CONTENTS - - CHAPTER - - I Where Is Gawd? - II The Vision of a Promised Land - III The First Step into Canaan - IV Learning - V Disgrace - VI A Hint of Pink - VII Santa Claus - VIII A Little Touch of the Man with the Hour Glass - IX Home - X My Best Friend - XI Acceptance - XII Pain - XIII A Request - XIV Pink - XV Firelight - XVI The Mystery - XVII A Relapse - XVIII Forgiveness - XIX Spring - XX Pulling Off the Thorns - XXI Pink Roses - - - - - CECILIA OF THE - PINK ROSES - - - -CHAPTER I - -WHERE IS GAWD? - -The Madden flat was hot and the smell of frying potatoes filled it. -Two or three flies buzzed tirelessly here and there, now and again -landing with sticky clingingness on a small boy of four who screamed -with their advent. When this happened a girl of seven stepped from -the stove and shooed them away, saying: "Aw now, Johnny!" and Johnny -would quiet. - -The perspiration stood out on her upper lip and there were shadows, -deeper than even Irish ones should be, beneath her eyes. The sun -beat in cruelly at one window which was minus a shade. At another -the shade was torn and run up crookedly. - -In the hall there was the sound of a scuffle, then a smart slap, and -a child's whimpering wail. - -"What's--that?" came in a feeble voice from the bedroom off the -kitchen. - -"It's the new gent in the flat across whackin' his kid," answered the -small girl. - -"Oh," was the weak answer, and again there was quiet, broken by the -sizzle of hot fat, the tireless buzz of the flies, and now and then -the little boy's cry. - -"Here, Johnny," commanded the small maiden, "come have your face -washed off." Johnny objected. She picked him up with decision, and -set him on the table with resounding emphasis, where he screamed -loudly during the rite. - -The door opened. A man in overalls came in. "Hello, Paw," said -Cecilia Evangeline Agnes Madden. He answered her with a grunt and -kicked off his heavy shoes. - -"Gawd, it's hot!" he said with his first contribution to the -conversation. "Two Dagos got sunstruck. One of 'em he just went -like a goldfish outa water, keeled over, then flop,--flop. The Boss -he up an'--" - -"Supper, Paw," said Cecilia. She pushed a chair up to the -oil-clothed table, and the man settled, beginning to eat loudly. He -stopped and pointed with his knife to the bedroom door. "How's she?" -he asked in a grating whisper. - -"She ain't so good," answered the small girl. Her eyes filled with -tears and she turned away her face. - -"Maw--Maw--Maw!" cried Johnny. - -"Aw now!" said his sister while she picked up his hot little person -to comfort him. - -"Maw--Maw!" he echoed. - -Cecilia looked up. Her eyes were like those of a small dog that has -been whipped. "I ain't the same," she said across his brick-dust -curls. "He wants _her_, I ain't the same. I do my best, but I ain't -her." - -The man laid aside his knife. He set his teeth on his lower lip, and -then he asked a question as if afraid to. - -"Has the doctor been here?" - -"Yes," answered Cecilia. - -"Whatud he say?" - -"He sez she wasn't so good. He sez she wouldn't be no better 'til -the weather was cooler an'--" - -"Celie!" came in the voice from the bedroom. Cecilia put down Johnny. - -"Yes, Maw," she answered gently. - -"Celie!" came again in almost a scream. Celie vanished. She -reappeared in a few moments. She was whiter than before. - -"She throwed up fierce," she said to her father; "something fierce, -an' all black. Don't you want no coffee?" The man shook his head. -He reached for his shoes. - -"Where yuh goin'?" asked Cecilia. - -"Doctor's," she was answered. He went into the bedroom. "Well, old -woman," he said loudly, "how yuh feelin', better?" The thin creature -on the bed nodded, and tried to smile. The smile was rather -dreadful, for it pulled long lines instead of bringing dimples. Her -blue lips stretched and the lower cracked. A drop of blood stood out -on it. - -"Gawd, it was hot to-day," said the man. He settled by her bed in a -broken-backed chair. She stretched out a thin hand toward him. - -"Mary--!" he said, then choked. - -"Aw, Jerry!" said the woman. In her voice was little Cecilia's tone -of patience, with the lilt removed by a too hard life. - -"Do yuh feel _some_ better?" he entreated. - -"Sure--I do. Gimme that glass of water--" She drank a mouthful and -again vomited rackingly. - -"Oh, Gawd!" said Jeremiah Madden. He laid a rough hand on her -forehead and she pulled it down against her cheek. - -"Jerry," she said between long gasps, "I been happy. I want you -should always remember that I been happy. Awful happy, Jerry." - -"Oh, Gawd, Mary!" said the man. "If I'd a knew how hard you'd a had -to work, I wouldn't have brung yuh!" - -"Don't!" she begged. "Don't say that!" She looked at him, time -faded, and with it a hot and smelling flat. She stood on a -wind-swept moor. Jerry, only eighteen, stood by her. His arm was -around her with that reverent touch that comes in Irish love. "I'll -send fer yuh," he'd said, "after I make me fortune in America." - -She had cried and clung to him. With her touch, reason and a rolling -moor had faded for him. "I can't leave you," he had said, "I can't! -Mary, you come with me." And Mary had come. Those days had been -beautiful.... But fortunes in America did not come as advertised. -Sometimes Mary thought of green turf, and the gentle drip-drip of -fog, like rain. That rain that came so often.... Now she thought of -it more than ever. She hoped that the Virgin would allow her a -little corner of Heaven that would look like an Irish moor.... The -gold the priest talked of was "grand," but heresy or not, she wanted -a bit of green, with the gentle drip of rain on it. - -Jeremiah bent and kissed her. Then he rubbed the spot of blood of -her lip from his. "It wasn't no mistake," he said. Her eyes grew -moist. - -"Jerry," she said, "Celie is a good kid. She kin do fer yuh. Ain't -she, right along? She won't give yuh no trouble neither. But the -kid--he ain't so easy. It's the kids growin' up in America better'n -their folks, that go to the devil. Watch him, Jerry, watch him good. -Won't yuh now?" The man nodded; she closed her eyes. After a few -moments that throbbed with the heat of the flat, she spoke again. - -"Jerry," she said. - -"Darlin'?" - -"It's this way, Jerry. I always wanted to be a lady--" - -"Yuh are!" he interrupted hotly. - -[Illustration: "NOW LAUGH! PAW'S COMING HOME AND HE NEEDS ALL OUR -LAUGHS"] - -"No," she stated quietly, "I ain't, an' I always thought I could be. -The Irish learns fast. It's this way, Jerry; if ever the time comes -when you get money, you send Celie to one of them schools that learns -'em French and drawin' and such, Jerry, will yuh?" - -"Before Gawd, I will, Mary. If I ever kin." - -She closed her eyes and slept quietly, clinging to his hand. - - -The next day was Sunday so Jeremiah went to Mass and heard it with -especial intention. If his thoughts were more on the gentle Saint -slowly dying in a hot flat than on the Gentle Mother, who can blame -him. - -Jeremiah went from the baroqued church vastly comforted, and -painfully aware of his Sunday collar, which had rough edges. Cecilia -had rubbed soap on it, but it still scratched. Outside Jeremiah -went, not in the direction of his home, but in the other. He passed -a beggar's entreating wail, and then retraced his steps to bestow a -penny,--and even pennies were not easily spared. Jerry was still a -little child at heart. He was courting divine favour. He needed God -and all the Saints on his side. - -After a brisk walk of many blocks he turned into a house with a -doctor's sign on it. The office was crowded; he sat, outwardly -submissive, to wait his turn. "Blessed Mother," he prayed, "make him -mak'er well. Mother of the Saviour--" his thoughts were a chaos. "A -gold heart!" he promised rashly, even while he remembered the unpaid -grocer's bill. A woman with a pallid skin and hacking cough crept -from the office. Across from him a boy exhibited a burn to an -interested neighbour. "Blessed Mother,--" entreated Jeremiah, even -while his eyes saw the burn and he wondered how it had happened. - -A crisp young person in white, who gave an impression of great -coolness, said, "Your turn next." Jerry jumped and got up. Two -little girls, at the Sheraton period in legs, giggled loudly at his -jump, but Jerry didn't notice. He stopped on the threshold of the -inner office. He twirled his hat in his hands. "Mister," he said, -"it's my wife I come about." The doctor had been up all night. -Added to his fact was the fact that he was fitted, emotionally, to -run a morgue. - -"Name?" growled the doctor. Jeremiah Madden sank to a chair and told -his name, of his wife, and how sick she was. He also interspersed a -few facts about Irish moors, love and business in America. And he -ended with: "An my doc he sez' no one can save her but Doctor Van -Dorn. He's the cancer man of New York. The only one who can -possibly save her! He sez that," repeated Jeremiah. "Oh fer Gawd's -sake, Doc! I can't pay yuh now but--" - -The doctor swung about in his swivel chair. "My time is entirely -mortgaged," he stated curtly. "I can't keep up to my work. Your -wife will probably die anyway; accept the inevitable. You couldn't -pay me, and I haven't the time. All New York bothers me. Good -morning." - -He turned back to his desk. Jeremiah went toward the door. His step -was a blind shuffle. Hand on the knob, he paused. "Doc," he said, -"I love her so, an' the little kids, they need her. I feel like -she'd live if you'd help her. I promise I'd pay. All my life I'd -pay an' thank Gawd I could--" he stopped. The doctor moved his -shoulders impatiently. - -"The Virgin will reward yuh--" said Jeremiah. "Oh, Doc! Fer Gawd's -sake!" - -"Good morning," answered the doctor with another impatient move of -his shoulders. Jeremiah left. A young person in crisp white said, -"Your turn next, Madam." Madam went in. "Oh, Doctor, my heart--" -she began. The doctor got up to move her chair so that the light -would not trouble her. - - -Jeremiah spent the morning in going from office to office. First he -told the unfavourable report of his doctor. He met sympathy in some -quarters, curt refusals in others, and worst of all he sometimes met: -"Cancer of the stomach? Not much chance--" - -At half after one, sick from the sunlight of the cruelly hot streets, -he turned into an office for his last try. He felt numb.... His -tongue was thick. He looked with resentment on a well-dressed woman -who waited opposite him. "Flowers on her bunnit," he thought, "while -my Mary--" He thought of his hard labour and, with bitterness, of -the "Boss." He had never felt this way before. If he'd had money, -he reflected, how quickly that first doctor would have helped him.... -The other refusals had come from truer reasons. His own doctor's -report, although Jeremiah didn't realise this, had stopped all -efforts. If the doctor had said no one but Van Dorn could help her, -Lord, what chance had they? This was their line of reason. - -Jeremiah sat in the outer waiting room. At last his turn came. The -doctor looked tired; he was gruff in his questions. "I'll come with -you and look at her," he said at last. Jeremiah felt a sob rise in -his throat. The doctor rang a bell. - -"Tell Miss Evelyn," he said to the maid who answered him, "that we'll -have to give up our drive this afternoon. She's my little girl," he -explained to Jeremiah. "Her mother's dead,--I don't see as much of -her as I should. A doctor has no business with a family. I'm ready. -Come on." - -They went out by a back door, leaving an office full of patients. -The sun was hot. Jeremiah prayed fervently even while he answered -the doctor's questions and responded to his pleasantries. At last -they came to the building which held Jeremiah's home. They mounted -the long stairs. Two or three children, playing on them, stopped -their squabbling and looked after the doctor with awe. - -"He's got a baby in that case," said one, a fat little girl with -aggressive pig-tails. - -"There is too many now," said a boy. "They don't all get fed, and -they're all beat up fierce. Our teacher in that there corner mission -sez as how Gawd is love. Why don't he come down here an' love?" - -There was an awed silence after this. Outright heresy as it was, the -immediate descent of a thunderbolt was expected. - - -Upstairs Jeremiah opened the door of the flat. The kitchen was full -of women. Several of them sobbed loudly.... Johnny Madden sat on -the table, eating a piece of bread thickly spread with molasses. On -seeing Jeremiah the women were suddenly silent. Jeremiah swayed and -leaned against the door. - -The small Cecilia heard him and came from the bedroom. - -"Paw," she said, "I'll do all I kin fer yuh. I always will.... She -was happy. She sez as how she seen green fields an' rain." Jeremiah -took her in his arms. He hid his face against her thin little -shoulder. His shook. Cecilia was very quiet. She had not cried. -She looked over her father's head at the roomful of gaping women. -Something flashed across her face. Her teeth set. - -"She always wanted a bunnit with pink roses on it," said Cecilia. "I -don't see why Gawd didn't give her jest _one_." - -The man sobbed convulsively and Cecilia remembered him. "She was -happy," Cecilia said in a less assured tone. "She sez as how she -seen green fields with rain on 'em like Ireland." - - - - -CHAPTER II - -THE VISION OF A PROMISED LAND - -As Mrs. Madden had said, "The kids that grow up better than their -folks go to the devil." Cecilia felt this at eleven, for she was all -of Johnny's mother, and the role was a difficult one. She had -learned to spat him and kiss him judiciously, and at the proper -times. She had learned to understand his marble games and to coax -him into attendance at Catechism. - -Cecilia had begun to understand a great many things at eleven that -some of us never understand. One thing made learning easy for -her,--she loved so greatly that she was often submerged into the -loved, and so saw their viewpoint. - -"Paw," said Cecilia. She had turned about on the piano stool, and -Jeremiah looked up from his paper. "Well?" he questioned. - -"I been thinking," she said, "that it would be genteel to ask the -priest to supper. It ain't as though we hadn't a hired girl to do -fer us, an' it would be polite." - -"That's so, that's so," said Jeremiah. He laid aside his paper. -"You're like your maw," he added. Cecilia knew he was pleased. She -smiled happily. - -"An' have ice-cream?" suggested the interested Jeremiah. - -"Yes," said Cecilia, "an' chicken, an' fried potatoes, an' waffles, -an' of course pie, an' biscuits, an' suchlike. I'd like to entertain -Father McGowan, he's been good to us." - -"Yes," answered Jeremiah. They were both silent. The vision of an -overcrowded and smelling flat had come to sober them. Also the -memory that always went with it.... "Play me 'The Shepherd Boy,'" -said Jeremiah. He closed his eyes while Cecilia banged it out in -very uneven tempo, owing to difficulties in the bass. - -Johnny came in. He sat down on a lounge covered with a green and red -striped cloth. He looked at Jeremiah with a supercilious expression. - -"The other fellahs' fathers wears their shoes in the house," he -stated coldly. "The Shepherd Boy" stopped suddenly. Cecilia went -toward the "parlor." "Johnny!" she called on reaching it. Johnny -followed meekly. The parlor was the torture chamber. When he went -in Cecilia put her hands on his shoulders. - -"Johnny," she said in her gentle little way. "Um?" he answered, -wriggling beneath her hands. - -"Johnny," she repeated, "it ain't polite to call down your paw." - -"But Celie," objected John, "he ain't like the other fellahs' -fathers. They wears collars an' shoes, _all_ the time." - -"I know, dear," said Cecilia. "I know, but it ain't polite to call -down your paw, an' nothing can make it so." - -"Aw right," answered John sullenly. Cecilia leaned over and kissed -him. John didn't mind, "none of the fellahs being around." He went -back to the living room. Jeremiah had put on his shoes. He looked -at Johnny, awaiting his approval. - - -"An' Norah," said Cecilia, excited to the point of hysteria, "you see -that I get the plate with the crack in it, an' the glass with the -piece outa it." - -"Sure, I will," answered Norah. "Now go 'long." - -Cecilia went to the dining room. They were going to eat there, -because they were going to have company. Norah was not going to sit -down with them either. It was to be most formal and "elegant." - -And now for the decorations. Cecilia put on two candlesticks, each -at a corner of the table. They did not match, but why be particular? -Then she took a bunch of peonies, and, removing all foliage, jammed -them tightly in a vase that had the shape of a petrified fibroid -growth, and had accumulated gilt, and a seascape for decoration. - -"It looks bare," said Cecilia. She went to her room and brought out -a new hair-ribbon, worn only twice. She unearthed this from below a -hat trimmed with pink roses. The hat was gorgeous and beautiful, but -she could not wear it.... Looking on "bunnits with pink roses on -'em" always made her a little sick. The hair-ribbon was tied around -the vase in a huge bow. Cecilia stood off to admire. - -"Norah!" she called. - -Norah appeared. "Ain't that grand?" she commented. "Now ain't it?" - -"Well," answered Cecilia, "I don't care if I do say it, I think it's -pretty swell! Norah, you use the blue glass butter dish, won't you?" - -"Sure," answered Norah, and then with mutters of waffle batter, she -disappeared. Cecilia stood a moment longer looking at the table in -all its beauty. The plates were upside down. Napkins (that all -matched) stood upright in tumblers. The knives and forks were -crossed in what was to Cecilia the most artistic angle. - -"It's grand!" she said with a little catch in her breath. "Just -_swell_!" Then with a backward glance, she vanished. "I hope paw'll -like it," she muttered as she went upstairs. - - -Father McGowan was a charming guest. He looked at the decorations -and then on the small Cecilia with softened eyes: "Now I'll bet you -fixed this beautiful table!" he said. Cecilia nodded, speechless. -She drew a long, shaky breath. Life was so beautiful.... Father -McGowan put his hand on her curls. (She sat next to him at the -table.) His touch was very gentle. - -"Good little woman?" inquired the priest of Jeremiah. - -"She's maw and all to all of us," answered Jeremiah. There was a -silence while they ate. - -"This chicken," said Father McGowan, "is fine!" - -"It's too brown, I'm afraid," answered Cecilia with the deprecatory -attitude proper while speaking of one's own food. Her father looked -at her with pride. The priest's eyes twinkled. - -"Paw," said Cecilia, leaning across the table and putting her hand on -her father's, "tell Father McGowan how yuh hit the boss on the ear -with the brick." Jeremiah sat back in his chair, first laying his -knife and fork with the eating ends on the plate and the others on -the cloth. He drew a long breath and told a long tale, at which the -priest laughed heartily. He ended it thus: "An' I sez, 'I ain't -_dee_pendent on no man. Yuh can do yer own brick layin' an' here's -one to start with!'" With that Jerry had hit him on the ear. It was -a dramatic tale, and one which made Cecilia swell with pride over a -wonderful paw! - -The priest leaned across the table. "Have you a patent protection on -those bricks?" he asked. - -"Why, no," answered Jeremiah. The priest talked long and fast. -Cecilia could not understand all of what he said, but he mentioned -unusual qualities of Jeremiah's product. His own knowledge of such -things came through a brother in the same business. The necessity of -a little risk and a big push. He talked loudly, and excitedly. He -mentioned Cecilia and John as the incentive to gain.... He spoke of -what he knew to be true of Jeremiah's product. Jeremiah sat very -silent. If what the priest said were true! They went to the living -room, where, over a pitcher of beer, there was more talk, -incomprehensible to Cecilia. - -Then the priest smiled, and said: "All right, Jerry. In five years -you'll be a millionaire. Now, Cecilia, I want to hear a piece." -Cecilia sat down to play "The Shepherd Boy." Her fingers trembled so -that it wasn't as good as usual, but the priest was pleased. Then -she left, and wiped the rest of the dishes for Norah. Norah said -that the priest was a "swell talker" and that she hadn't minded the -extra work. - -Cecilia went up to bed very happy. She slipped out of her pink silk -dress and hung it in the closet. As she reached up, a hat, all over -bobbing roses, slid from the closet shelf to the floor. Cecilia's -smile faded. She put it back, and shut the door. - - - - -CHAPTER III - -THE FIRST STEP INTO CANAAN - -Cecilia stood in her bedroom in the new house. The paper in her -bedroom was pink and hung in panels. At the top of each panel was a -hip-diseased, and goitered cupid, who threw roses around,--roses that -looked like frozen cabbages, and stuck in the air as if they'd been -glued there. Father Madden had picked out the paper as a surprise -for Celie. When she had seen it she had gasped and then kissed him -very hard. He had said, "There, Celie, I knew you'd like it." - -After he had gone Cecilia had looked around and said, "Oh, dear--Oh, -dear!" Roses always had made her sick, and even to Cecilia, the -paper was "pretty bad." And Cecilia had kissed him hard and said she -loved it. - -Some one tapped on the door. - -"Come," said Cecilia. - -"Father McGowan's down," said Norah with a point of her finger over -her left shoulder. "An' the man's down with doughnuts, too." Cecilia -laughed. Norah's mode of announcement always made people sound -diseased. Cecilia had a mental picture of a man in the throes of -doughnuts--with them breaking out all over his person. - -"You can take a dozen and a half," said Cecilia, referring to the -doughnut-man, "because Johnny likes them so." - -Norah didn't move, but stood in the doorway surveying the tumbled -room. A trunk stood in the centre, lid thrown back. From it exuded -frills and tails. The bed was piled high with more frilly garb. -Norah sniffed loudly. Suddenly, there were sobs and then she -dissolved into many tears. "I dunno how we can do without yuh!" she -explained in gulps. "Me, and Johnny and your paw. Aw, _Celie_!" -Cecilia put her arms around the troubled Norah. She looked very near -tears herself. - -"I would rather stay with you, but maw wanted me learned to be a -lady," she said. Her chin set. "I gotta do it," she added. "Paw -promised her." Norah sniffed and took the apron from her face. "I -know yuh gotta, dearie," she answered. Celie put her arms around the -damp Norah. "Norah," she said, "you will be very good to Johnny and -paw? When Johnny wants paw to wear collars all the time, you take -him out and give him doughnuts to divert him, will yuh?" Norah -nodded. She was sniffing again. - -"And, Norah," went on Celie, "don't let the new cook use the blue -glass butter dish everyday." - -"N-no, dearie," answered Norah. She still stood irresolute by the -door. "Celie," she said, "when they learn yuh to be a lady, don't -let 'em learn yuh not to love us." - -"I'll _always_ love you all," answered Cecilia. Her eyes filled with -tears, and she kissed Norah. - - -Downstairs Father McGowan sat looking at a gilt cabinet decorated -with forget-me-nots, and a variety of chrysanthemums never seen on -sea or land. On the top shelf of the cabinet was a brick, lying on a -red velvet bed. Father McGowan smiled and then sobered. He -remembered a night three years past when he had pointed out -possibilities to Jeremiah Madden, possibilities in the manufacture of -the humble brick. The possibilities had amounted to more than even -he had anticipated. Sometimes he questioned what he had done.... -His hope lay in Cecilia. The boy, he was afraid, would not be helped -by money. Perhaps he'd turn out well. Father McGowan hoped so. -He'd bet on Cecilia anyway. She'd use money in the right way in a -few more years. - -There was a rustle at the door. Cecilia, in a new gown bought to -wear at the "swell school," came in. - -"Father McGowan, dear!" she said. - -"Cecilia Madden, dear!" he answered. They both laughed, and then -settled. - -"Have you come to tell me to be a good girl at the swell school?" she -questioned. The father was silent. He was looking at Cecilia's -dress. The dress was of purple silk with a green velvet vest. There -were ribbons looped carelessly on its gorgeousness too. - -"Little Celie," said Father McGowan, "I want to tell you things and I -can't. Now if you had a mother! Sometimes women do come in handy." - -Cecilia nodded. - -"I want to tell you," said Father McGowan, looking hard at the brick, -"not to be hurt if at first the girls are stand-offish like. That's -their way." - -"Oh, no," said Cecilia. "I won't be, but I think they'll be nice. -Mrs. De Pui says they're all of the best families with wonderful home -advantages." - -"Hum--" grunted Father McGowan. He did not seem much impressed. He -still gave the brick his undivided attention. "And," he went on, "if -you should get lonely, remember that there's one Lady you can always -tell your troubles to. She won't laugh, and she always listens." - -"Oh, _yes_!" said Cecilia, and she crossed herself. - -Father McGowan drew a long breath. "Now," he said, "remember that if -your clothes are different from theirs that your father has plenty of -money to buy new ones for you. Remember that. A penance is all -right, but not at fourteen." - -"Why, my clothes are beautiful!" said Cecilia. She looked -bewildered. "They're all silk and lace and velvet, and I haven't a -low heeled pair of shoes. _French_ heels, Father McGowan, dear!" - -"Cecilia Madden, dear," said Father McGowan. His look was -inscrutable. He laid a hand on her hair. His touch was very gentle. -"Most of all," he said, "remember never to be ashamed of your people, -and always to love them. Love those who love you. Reason the truth -out in your heart, and don't accept the standards of little Miss -Millionairess, because she is that. Understand?" - -"Yes," replied Cecilia, "I understand, but Father McGowan, I would -always love paw. Wearing shoes and collars in the house is just the -trimmings," she stated bravely. "His heart is genteel." - -"Saint Cecilia!" said Father McGowan in a low voice, and then he -muttered a few words in Latin. Cecilia did not understand them, but -she bowed her head and crossed herself, and felt strong. - -After Father McGowan left she stood in front of a mirror admiring a -purple silk dress with green velvet trimmings. "Holy Mary," she said -with quickly closed eyes, "help me not to be too stuck on my -clothes!" When she opened her eyes she looked into the mirror. "Oh, -it's grand!" she whispered. "I am almost pretty in it!" She drew a -long, shaking breath. - - -The room in which Cecilia waited, while not at all like her home, -impressed her. Most of the furniture looked old, and some of it -showed a cracking veneer. The clock especially needed repair. It -was a grandfather one, and had inlaid figures of white wood on the -dark. Cecilia wondered vaguely if it couldn't be repaired and shone -up? Dilapidated as she thought the furnishing, yet it left an -impress. Two girls entered the room, they looked at Cecilia and -tried not to smile. Cecilia wondered uncomfortably if her hat were -on crooked, or whether her red silk petticoat hung out. - -They selected books from a low case with leisure, then left. Outside -the door Cecilia heard them giggle. One of them said, "Some one's -cook." - -"Every one has trouble with cooks," thought Cecilia. Then she looked -down and forgot cooks. Her shoes were so beautiful! Pointed toes -and high of heels. And her suit now, all over braid and buttons, -with a touch of red here and there! - -Even those giggling girls must have been impressed. Their clothes -had been so plain. Cecilia pitied them. She decided to give them a -"tasty" hair-ribbon now and then.... The waiting was so long. She -wished Mrs. De Pui would come. She thought of paw and Johnny and her -eyes filled with hot tears. - -"Oh," she thought miserably, "if Johnny just won't reform paw! -People are so happy when they aren't reforming or being reformed!" - -Again she saw the station at which she'd started for Boston, her -father and Johnny both sniffing. She was so glad she hadn't cried. -She had so wanted to! Her breath caught in her throat. "Please, -Gawd," she made mental appeal, "make them learn me to be a lady -quick!" - -Weren't they _ever_ coming? - -The shabby clock tick-tick-ticked. The sun lowered and made more -slanting rays on the floor. A maid, very smart in uniform, came in. -She gave Cecilia a guilty look, then said: "This way. Mrs. De Pui -will see you upstairs." - -"Yes, ma'am," answered Cecilia. She followed humbly. The maid -decided that her forgetfulness hadn't made much difference. She -didn't think that _that_ would report her.... Cecilia went upstairs -after the slender black figure. Her heart beat sickeningly. There -were voices from the door at which the maid paused. Cecilia saw some -girls sitting around a table at which a white-haired woman was -pouring tea. - -"Oh," said Cecilia impulsively, "I'm interrupting yuh at yer supper." - -"No," answered Mrs. De Pui, faintly smiling; "come in. You are -Cecilia?" - -Cecilia nodded. Somehow the sobs that had been kept in all day, -were, at the first kind voice, very near the surface. The girls -smiled at each other. Cecilia wondered about her hat, or perhaps her -petticoat hung out below her skirt? Mrs. De Pui motioned her to a -chair. - -"Annette," she said, "give our new friend some tea." - -"How do you take your tea?" questioned Annette crisply. - -"Milk," answered Cecilia, "an' sugar if yuh have it." She reddened. -Of course they would have it. She wished she hadn't said that! She -stared in acute embarrassment at her feet. Some one gave her a cup -of tea, some one else a sandwich. She dipped it in the tea, then she -remembered that that was not proper and reddened again. At that move -the young person called Annette had suddenly choked and held her -handkerchief over her mouth. The other girls looked into their cups, -with the corners of their lips twitching. - -A fat and dumpy-looking girl seated a little out of the group looked -at Cecilia with sympathy. Mrs. De Pui spoke of a recent exhibition -of water colours, with her well-bred tones trickling over the -inanities she uttered, and making them sound like a reflection of -thought.... Even the sun looked cold to Cecilia. - -"I wish I was back in the flat," she thought, and then: "I wonder if -I can bear it!" - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -LEARNING - -A month had passed. Cecilia quite understood what Father McGowan had -meant about clothes. Cecilia wore no more French heels. She had -taken down her hair and discarded her beautiful rhinestone hair-pins. -Father McGowan too, it seemed, had been responsible for her -admittance to the school. Cecilia had found out from Mrs. De Pui -that he had written a book! This astounding fact had been divulged -after Mrs. De Pui, more than usually tried by Cecilia, had said: -"Your entrance here has been rather difficult for me. You see, of -course, that the other girls' advantages have not been yours?" - -"Oh, yes, Mrs. De Pui," answered Cecilia, and swallowed hard. - -"Realising that, my dear," continued Mrs. De Pui, "I hope that you -will do your utmost to develop a womanly sympathy, and broaden your -character." - -Cecilia said somewhat breathlessly that she would try to, very, very -hard! "And," went on Mrs. De Pui, then coughed, "desist from the use -of such words as 'elegant,'--'refined' (which, when used at all, is -re_fine_d, not 'r_ee_fined'), and 'grand.' Such words, my dear -Cecilia, are not used in----" (Mrs. De Pui nearly said polite -society, but swallowed it with a horrified gulp) "are not used by -persons of cultivation," she finished weakly. - -Cecilia vanished. She went to her lonely room. (There were no -room-mates.) She settled on the bed. By the bed, on a chair, was a -pink silk dress. It had been her star play, and after a month of -boarding school she was going to give it to the maid. The maid was -_so_ friendly! - -There were two letters on the small dressing table. Cecilia got them -and read: - - -"Celie girl, we miss you. It ain't like it was in the house. I hope -they are learning you good and the board is good. I hope they treat -you good. Father McGowan was here last night. He sez he will go to -see you soon. Johnny is well. Norah sez your cat is lonely too. -Your father with love, - -"J. MADDEN." - - -The other was a line from John. A petulant line, full of querulous -complaint of a collarless father, redeemed to Cecilia by a word or -two at the end. - -"You were so good to me, Celie. I know it now." She threw herself -down on the bed. Her shoulders shook miserably. Tears wet a once -loved pink silk dress, "all over beads and lace." - -Upstairs in another room, a group of girls were laughing -uncontrollably. "You know she actually invited Annie to _sit_ down!" -said one. (Annie was the slender maid.) - -"That is not r_ee_fined," answered Annette. There was more wild -laughter. - -"_Do_ ask her up to-night," suggested a tawny haired maiden with -cat-green eyes. "_Do!_ It would be simply _screamingly_ funny!" - -Annette, although one of the most unkind, objected. "It doesn't seem -quite nice," she said. However, as the idea promised fun, the -majority ruled. - -Cecilia answered the tap on her door. "Come up to your room -to-night?" she echoed after the invitation. "Oh, Miss Annette, I'd -be that glad to come!" she smiled, and her smile was like sunshine -after rain. - -"I _do_ thank you!" she said. "I do!" - -Annette turned away. Cecilia closed the door, then she covered her -eyes. "Gawd, thank you ever so much!" she whispered, "thank you! I -_have_ been so lonely! Make them love me. Please make them love me, -Gawd." Then she lifted her head. Her face shone. "I wonder what I -shall wear?" she said. - - -To meet the ideal of one's dreams while carrying a sick cat is -humiliating. And that is what happened to Cecilia Evangeline Agnes -Madden. Her shadowy dream-knight had materialised into human shape -through a photograph. And she met him while chaperoning a sick cat. - -Two weeks before she had gone to a party in Annette Twombly's room. -She'd not enjoyed the party very much, in fact she'd been rather -unhappy until she saw the photograph. After that she didn't care -what happened. All the romance of the Celt had leaped.... Her -shadowy dreams took form. The ideal lover developed a body. - -"Oh, your _heavenly_ cousin, Annette!" said the green-eyed. "I -_adore_ his hair!" She stood before a large photograph, framed -elaborately. - -"He _is_ a sweet boy," Annette had responded, "but so particular! I -never knew any one quite so fastidious. It is _fearfully_ hard to -please him!" - -"Does he get crushes?" asked the green-eyed. - -"My dear," said Annette, "it would be impossible. He's terribly -intellectual and all that, and girls so easily offend him. He -doesn't say so, but he simply stops paying them any attention." - -The group gathered about the picture to admire. It showed a rather -nice looking boy, with an outdoor flavour, and eyes that -questioned.... The face was too young to have character. - -"He's had on long trousers for six years!" said Annette. There was a -hushed silence. "Isn't he _divine_!" gurgled one young person at -length. Cecilia had only looked. The shadowy dream man vanished. -The picture boy took his place. - - -This day Cecilia walked alone as usual. Mrs. De Pui was an advocate -of trust as a developer of "womanly instinct," so on a stipulated -number of streets, the girls were allowed to walk unchaperoned. They -went in little groups, all except Cecilia. She was her own small -group. - -To-day she walked alone, at least it seemed so, but by her Cecilia -felt K. Stuyvesant Twombly. "I admire art," he was saying. His -voice, curiously enough, was Mrs. De Pui's. - -"So do I," agreed Cecilia. "Beauty develops us, the best of us, and -brings a shining light into the soul." Cecilia stopped. Then -because she was very truthful she went on: "That is not original. -The man who lectures us on Art said it. He has whiskers and false -teeth, I believe, for they click when he says, 'Renaissance.'" ... -"Oh, Heavens!" thought Cecilia, "I will never be a lady. That would -not be the way to talk to the ideal man. About teeth!--false ones!" - -Then the cat had appeared. Rather Cecilia had nearly walked on it. -It was a limp little grey and white heap, its fur half wet from the -gutter, and eyes half closed. - -"Poor pussy," said Cecilia. "You look like I feel when I'm with them -what have social advantages. Poor pussy!" She was very tender -toward it. She leaned above it, then picked it up. "I will bribe -Annie, with dresses, to feed it," she thought. The cat began to be -violently ill. Cecilia put it down. - -"I say!" came in a rather husky voice, "Pussy needs some -Mothersill's, doesn't she?" - -Cecilia didn't understand the allusion, but she looked up smiling. -The voice had been attractively hearty. After she looked up, she -gasped. - -"What are you going to do with it?" went on the young man. - -"I thought I'd take it to my school and get the hired girl,--I mean -maid,--to feed it." - -"No," objected K. Stuyvesant; "it's poisoned. We'll take it to a -drug store and get them to kill it." - -"Oh, _no_!" said Cecilia. - -"See here," said the boy, "the cat will die. I've had dogs of mine -poisoned. It's the most merciful thing to have it killed. It'll -only suffer and drag its life out if you take it home." - -"I see," said Cecilia. "I suppose you know. It's just as you say." - -"Good kid," he commented. His comment called forth an agony and -elation. Cecilia wished for the longer dresses with which she'd come -to school. The boy picked up the cat gently and wrapped his -handkerchief about it. - -"Come on," he said. "Drug store around the corner." - -Cecilia followed. She could not keep up to him. Half the time she -ran. The whole affair was humiliating. - -"Thank the Lord no one saw me!" said the boy when they got inside the -drug store. He looked at Cecilia. They both laughed. - -"Sit down," he said. "I'm going to buy you a soda." Cecilia sat -down. "Choclut," she ordered. He sat down opposite her, and put his -arms on the sticky little table. He thought he looked on the -prettiest child he'd ever seen.... She seemed entirely and only a -child. - -"What's your name?" he asked. - -"Cecilia Evangeline Agnes Madden," she answered. - -"Well, Cecilia Evangeline," he said, "don't try to eat the bottom of -the glass; I'm wealthy to-day. I'm going to buy you another soda!" - -"Oh," answered Cecilia, "I really oughtn't." At a motion the clerk -bent above her. "C-could I have a sundae?" asked Cecilia. The boy -laughed and nodded. - -"Peach," said Cecilia, "with a good deal of whipped cream on top, if -you please!" She smiled frankly on K. Stuyvesant. "I'm having a -_fine_ time!" she said. Her sentimental dreams of him had vanished. -He didn't talk a bit like the phantom, but he was _nicer_! - -"What's your name, please?" she asked. She knew, but little Cecilia -at fourteen was a woman. - -"Keefer Stuyvesant Twombly," he answered. "Rotten name. Imagine -being hailed as 'Keefer'! It sounds like some one's butler. It -isn't a nice name, is it, Evangeline Cecilia?" - -"No," said Cecilia. "But then, you are nice. Names and things are -just trimmings. _You_ are nice," she repeated. - -"So are you," returned the boy, "and I'll _bet_ you're Irish!" - -"_How_ did you know?" asked Cecilia, wide-eyed. "How did you know?" - - -"And there she sat," said the green-eyed, "laughing with him in the -most brazen way, and he bought her two sodas!" - -"How vulgar," said Annette. "Was he good looking?" - -"Ravishing, my dear. Alice thought that he looked like your cousin." - -"That, of course, is impossible," said Annette coldly. "He _does_ -happen to be here. He and his mother are at the Touraine. But as -for his looking at any one like that Madden girl--! How she got in -here, I can't imagine. I think that it is an imposition to be asked -to meet her." - -Annette surveyed her hair, and picked up a mirror. "Did you tell -Mrs. De Pui?" she asked. - -"Yes," answered the green-eyed; "I thought that it was my _duty_. It -hurt me to do it, but I thought I _ought_ to. We watched them for -the longest time. We pretended to be looking at a window full of hot -water bottles." - -Alice came in. She picked up the photograph of K. Stuyvesant -Twombly. She nodded at the green-eyed after she looked long.... -Annette saw this in the glass and glared. - - - - -CHAPTER V - -DISGRACE - -The day had been terrible for Cecilia. She had learned from Mrs. De -Pui that she had hopelessly offended.... What she had done, Mrs. De -Pui said, was an act suitable for one of the maids. Mrs. De Pui was -pained. She could not believe that one of her pupils, with the -womanly inspiration of the school set before her, could have so -offended. It was unthinkable! - -Cecilia wriggled, and swallowed with difficulty. - -"Cultivate repose," ordered Mrs. De Pui coldly. Cecilia stood so -rigidly that she looked like a wooden Indian. One of the girls -entered. She said, "Excuse me," and backed away, plainly much -interested. - -"What was the boy's name, Cecilia?" asked Mrs. De Pui. Cecilia -swallowed so hard that she shook. "I don't know," she answered -loudly. - -Then what Mrs. De Pui said was very terrible. Cecilia crawled off at -last, white and shaking. She groped for her door knob. Things -before her were not very clear. What Mrs. De Pui had said was very -terrible, but,--but the other, her first lie, uttered with that -brazen assurance.... She went in and threw herself across the -bed.... She didn't cry. The hurt was too big. So her dear father -and the fact that she was born in poverty made her an outcast? If -so, she would stay so. "Learn her to be a lady," the breeze that -came in through an inch opened window whispered. Cecilia felt it, -and set her chin. - -And Mrs. De Pui hadn't believed her story. Hadn't believed her.... -"One more try, Cecilia, although you are a great trial both to me and -my pupils," echoed through her brain in Mrs. De Pui's cold tones. -Cecilia sat upright on the bed. "My heart's right," she said aloud. -"I believe it's better than Annette's. Don't that count for nothing? -Ain't being kind being a lady?" She stared sullenly across the room. -The white furniture glittered coldly. From between the flutter of -scrim curtains she saw a painfully well arranged park. Even the -trees were smugly superior. - -"Gawd _was_ in that flat," she said, and again aloud. A sentence -came to her mind. A sentence that is shopworn and has been on the -top shelf for many years. "I guess Gawd is what I feel fer paw,--" -she said, half musingly,--"Love. An' fer Johnny, even when he's bad, -an' Father McGowan, dear, an' Norah. Just that." ... She looked out -of the window and saw the painfully well regulated trees again. -"Them trees ain't so bad," she stated; "at least they ain't when I -remember that they love me at home." Her face changed, for she -remembered some of Mrs. De Pui's well-aimed truths. Her father,--his -difference. It should always be hers, too, she decided. - -Her first touch of hate came. "Gawd, make me a lady quick!" she -implored. Some one tapped on the door. Cecilia opened it. Annie -was there, beaming. She held a long box with stems sticking out of -one end of it. "Fer you, dearie," said Annie. Cecilia opened the -box with trembling hands. The box held pink roses, very, very pink -roses.... On the top lay a card. On it was written in a loose, -boy-hand: "For little 'A-good-deal-of-whipped-cream-on-top.'" -Cecilia stared at the card, breathless. - -"Annie," she-said at last, "ain't they lovely?" - -"Aren't, dearie," corrected Annie, and then added, "You bet they are! -You bet!" Cecilia lifted them reverently. There were three dozens -of them. Her years were such that numbers and prices still counted. - -"Who shall I tell _her_ they're from?" asked Annie. "Yuh got her -goat, yuh know." - -"Father McGowan," answered Cecilia. Suddenly the guilt of the other -lie, her shame over the act unthinkable, and her new realisation of -the standing of those she loved, slid from her soul. She was wildly -happy. She hugged Annie. - -The white furniture didn't glitter coldly. It smiled. A crowded -flat was far away. The trees in a smug park were beautiful. - - -"One new frock," read Father McGowan, "twenty-five dollars. Hat, -fifteen. 'Madam Girard's skin food, and wrinkle remover,' two -dollars and fifty cents. Flat-heeled shoes, seven dollars. Taxi, -one dollar and fifty-two cents. Church offering, ten cents." - -Father McGowan threw back his head, and laughed loudly. Jeremiah -Madden looked on him, bewildered. - -"It's her cash account, yuh know. Twenty-five dollars fer one -dress," he mused, with a pleased smile. "_Ain't_ she learnin' quick? -But the letter," he added, with a perplexed frown appearing, "it -sounds _too_ happy. The happiness is a little _too_ thick. Smells -like she put it on with a paint brush jest fer show." - -"Hum----" grunted Father McGowan. - -He opened a pink letter sheet. At the top of it a daisy was -engraved. "I give her that paper," said Jeremiah proudly. "She -_was_ tickled. She sez as how none of the girls in school had -nothing like it." - -"I believe it," replied Father McGowan. There were heavy lines in -his face. Cecilia's heart-ache lay on his shoulders, he felt, for he -had made the "Brick King." - - -"Darling Papa:" read Father McGowan, "I was so happy to hear from -you. I read your letters over and over. I love you very much. I am -learning that that is the biggest thing in the world, loving people, -and having them love you. I miss you, but of course I am happy. - -"The School is elegant very nice, and I get enough to eat. The view -from the front windows is swell beautiful. It looks right out on the -Park, all over fancy foliage and rich people walking around. I -sometimes walk there, and one little girl, awfully cute, with bare -legs and a nurse, likes me. Yesterday she threw a kiss to me. She -looked like Johnny when he was little, and we lived in the flat. It -made me want to cry. - -"I am very happy. You do so much for me. I will be very happy when -I can come home to you and Johnny, and we can have Father McGowan to -supper dinner every Saturday night. I am sending some things that -look like fruit knives, but which are butter spreaders, and are used -to apply butter to bread, etc. (i.e., not to eat off of). - -"I am very happy. I went to one party in an exclusive girl's room. -It was kind of her to ask me. I love you so much, Papa. Please kiss -Johnny for me, and Norah. Tell her to use the butter spreaders -daily. (_All_ the time.) - -"She need not cherish the blue glass butter dish any more. - -"I do love you, dear Papa. Your, - -"CECILIA." - -"P.S.: I send my respectful regards to Father McGowan, and thanks for -getting me into this exclusive School, which caters only to -sophisticated people with money. - -"C." - - -"Well?" asked Jeremiah, after Father McGowan had laid down a pink -sheet of paper with an engraved daisy at the top. "Well?" - -"Hum," grunted Father McGowan, "Hum!" He stared long at a brick -which lay on the top shelf of a gilt cabinet. "I'm going up to -Boston," he said at length. "I'll look in on our little Cecilia." - -"Will yuh, now?" asked Jeremiah. "It's kept me awake nights, -thinkin' that mebbe in spite of all the expense, she wasn't happy. I -wanted to go up, but Johnny sez I wasn't suitable fer a girls' -school, being as I remove my collar absent-minded like (having always -did it)." - -"You're suitable, all right," said Father McGowan, "but since I am -going up, I might as well attend to it. Hard for you to leave -business, too." - -"Yes," admitted Jeremiah happily. He swelled and cast a loving eye -toward the brick. Then he wilted. The proud pleasure was gone. -"_She_ always wanted a bunnit with pink roses on," he said in a low -voice, "an' I couldn't never buy her none, an' now----!" - -Father McGowan laid a hand on Jeremiah's. "There, there, Jerry!" he -said. "Think how happy you're making the children!" - -A sallow boy came in. He cast a sneering look at a limp figure in a -gilt chair. Then, without a word, he picked up a book and went out. - -Jeremiah's eyes were like a child's--the eyes of a frightened child. -"Sometimes," he said in a whisper, "I'm afraid he's _ashamed_ of me!" - -"No!" exploded Father McGowan, "No!" - - -There is nothing like the scorn of the undetected guilty for those -who are exposed. Cecilia was treated to fine scorn, supercilious -looks, and, worst of all, a chill overlooking; for she had allowed a -boy whom she'd never met to buy her a soda water and a pink sundae! -And,--what made the offence doubly revolting?--was the fact that the -boy was considered by the girls a man, and that those who had seen -him termed him "_Ravishing_, my dear!" He,--but let us quote: -"Simply _Rav_ishing, my dear, with dark eyes and hair. _Hon_estly, -he looked as if he had a secret sorrow, or was on the stage, or was -_fear_fully fast. Something wonderfully interesting about him, you -know. Why he would _ever_ look at _her_, I can't see,----" etc. - -Cecilia sat in the corner of the shabby-impressive room. She was -reading "Sordello" because it was required by the English teacher. -Cecilia wasn't a bit interested, and twice the book had slipped shut, -and she hadn't known at all where she'd left off, which was annoying; -she was afraid she might read one page twice, and she couldn't bear -the idea of that. She wondered if this Browning person could have -made a success at manufacturing bricks? She judged not. He didn't -seem practical, but inwardly she was sure that he could have done -anything better than write poetry. She really wondered quite a -little bit about him, but after the laughter of the class on her -question: "Is Mr. Browning an American or does he come from the Old -Country?" she had ceased to voice her speculations. - -She turned the pages fretfully. There were a great many more. She -hoped that Mr. Browning was dead, so that he wouldn't write any more -stuff that they would be required to read. Then she berated herself -soundly for this unholy wish. - -Annette Twombly and a girl with tawny hair and green eyes came in. -When they saw Cecilia they raised their eyebrows. - -"There seems to be _no_ privacy in this place!" said Annette. -Cecilia turned a page. - -"And what is worse, my dear," answered the green-eyed, "one is -constantly called upon to meet persons socially inferior--the kind -suitable to the kitchen and associating with the policeman." - -Cecilia had turned another page, but she had not read it. The print -was jumping dangerously from the quick pump of her heart. "I will -not move," she thought. "I will not move, nor show them that I hear." - -"Imagine allowing an unknown man to buy you sodas!" said Annette, who -was looking out of the window. "Isn't it utterly _hope_less?" - -There was a pained silence. The hopelessness of it had evidently -eaten deeply into the systems of Annette and the green-eyed. - -"Milk, an' sugar, if yuh have it," mimicked the green-eyed. She -scored her point. Cecilia's book closed. She got up quickly and -went toward the door. There she paused with her hand on the jamb. -"I hope it pleases you to make me so unhappy," she said quietly, "for -otherwise I don't know what you are accomplishing." Then she went -upstairs to an always lonely room. She closed the door gently and -lay across the bed, staring at the ceiling. She never cried any -more. She reached beneath the pillow. Her cold and moist little -hand closed about the letter of a brick king. - -"I love you!" she whispered fiercely. "I shall make you proud of me, -but Maw, I'm glad you died before the roses came! I'm glad! I'm -glad! ... They have so _many_ thorns!" - - -The young ladies downstairs didn't giggle as usual. They avoided -each other's eyes. At last Annette said, "Upstart! How dared she -speak to me that way!" It was said in an effort to reinstate her -superior right to exercise the rack. The green-eyed didn't answer. -She looked out of the window. At last she said carelessly, "Going to -dress." And Annette was not invited to her room. - -The green-eyed stood still just inside her door. She thought of a -fat father, and of his code of morals. The mother whom her eyes came -from was very distant. - -"It has been utterly devilish!" she said loudly. "Utterly. And I -did it while I read 'The Mob,' and ranted over it." Then she threw a -book across the room, which spelled emotional crisis for her -temperament and, this time, reform. Her green eyes were full of -healthily ashamed tears. - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -A HINT OF PINK - -Cecilia sat well forward in the parquet seats of an opera house in -Boston. Her small hand was curled up in the fat palm of a fat -priest. The people who saw this smiled indulgently, then looked -again; for the little girl was so pretty, and so happy, and the man's -face was unusual. - -The curtain had not gone up. They were a good fifteen minutes early. - -"You see, Father McGowan-dear," said Cecilia, "it was not just their -fault, for I am so different. I am still, but less so.... Then one -day they said more than usual while I was reading that Sordello poem. -(It isn't interesting, is it?)" Father McGowan smiled and shook his -head. "And I thought I just couldn't stand it. I was so miserable -that I even thought of taking the veil!" Father McGowan laughed -suddenly. Cecilia looked at him with questioning eyes. "Go on, -dear," he said gently, "and excuse a bad-mannered old priest." - -She squeezed his thumb and continued: "Well, it was that day I -decided to go home. I decided I could not be a lady, I mean I could -not acquire a _savoir faire_ (that means a natural swellness)," -explained Cecilia. Father McGowan nodded. His eyes twinkled. "So," -said Cecilia, "I took all my money, and put on my hat and sneaked -out. Then I walked down the block and across the Park. I saw a baby -in the Park, a little girl, and she makes me think of Johnny when he -was little and I took care of him. Then I thought of maw, and how -she wanted me learned, I mean taught, and I went back. I am not very -brave, and I wanted to cry dreadfully. I got in the hall, and there -was Mrs. De Pui. She looked awfully cold, and she said, 'May I ask -where you have been, Cecilia?' and then, that green-eyed girl I hated -broke right in and said, 'I had a slight headache, and I asked her to -post a letter for me, Mrs. De Pui. I _hope_ you don't mind.' The -green-eyed girl is very rich, and so Mrs. De Pui said so sweetly that -she hadn't minded at all. - -"She always says 'post' instead of 'mail,' Father McGowan-dear. She -spent two weeks in London last summer, and she said that the English -accent became unconscious, or at least that she used it -unconsciously. And she does except when she gets excited or talks -fast. - -"Well, she followed me upstairs, the green-eyed one, her name is -Marjory, and I said, 'I do thank you.' Then I felt mean about the -way I'd felt toward her, and I added, 'I am very sorry that I have -hated you so.' Then she kissed me, Father McGowan-dear. Really, she -did, and she said she was _glad_ I'd hated her. That it helped. She -went down the hall, and paused at the turn to say, 'It is a great -deal to ask, but some day I hope you'll like me!' Oh,--the curtain's -going up! Look at that yellow dress. Aren't her legs _beautiful_? -Mine are _so_ skinny!" - -There was a burst of music, and the chorus waved their arms with the -regularity of the twist of aspen leaves, when rain is coming. - -Cecilia gasped. Then she sat breathless, watching every motion on -the stage. A fat priest sat looking down at her. Once he took off -his glasses and polished them. Something was making them misty. - -The curtain went down. Cecilia gasped again, then she told of the -awful, humiliating sick-cat episode, and of her disgrace in accepting -a "choclut soda," and a pink sundae with whipped cream on top. -Father McGowan was very understanding. He did not think it was a -sin. In fact he was quite violently sure it was not. He grew very -red in the face. - -"What is the matter with that woman?" he asked in an entirely new, -and really horribly stern tone. Cecilia didn't answer. Her startled -eyes recalled him. "By George!" he said. "I forgot the candy!" and -he produced from a coat pocket the most beautiful box. - -"_Oh_," said Cecilia, "oh!" She smiled up into Father McGowan's -face, and then added, "I can put that ribbon in a chemise. Oh, dear -Father McGowan!" - -"What is a priest to do," asked Father McGowan, "when all his -inclinations are to kiss a young lady's hand?" - -"I am so happy!" said Cecilia. Father McGowan put his other hand on -the small one that lay in his. Cecilia tightened her little fingers -about his thumb. - - -Father McGowan pushed away his plate. The chops were underdone, the -potatoes soggy. - -"Here's yer coffee," said Mrs. Fry. She was a perfect person for the -housekeeper of a priest, being so visited with warts and a lemon -expression that questioning her morals was impossible. Father -McGowan stirred the coffee, then took a sip. He sighed. "Well,", he -thought, "at least it makes fasting easier!" - -In the hall of the rectory were twelve people. They were all shabby, -and a boy of eleven sniffed with a wonderful regularity. They were -all waiting to see a fat priest. A girl with sullen eyes and once -pretty face looked around with defiant assurance. Opposite her on -the wall hung a carved wood crucifix. When her eyes met that, she -shrank, and then she'd look away, and again be sullenly brazen. - -A well-dressed man rang the bell. The warted housekeeper answered it. - -"I should like to see Father McGowan," he said. "I will only need a -few moments of his time," he added on seeing the people waiting. - -"Set down," ordered Mrs. Fry. "You'll have to wait yer turn." The -man smiled. He was faintly amused. "I hardly think so," he said; "I -am Doctor Van Dorn. My time is rather valuable. I can hardly waste -it in that way." - -"It's his rule," said Mrs. Fry, nodding her head toward the rear of -the hall. "All who waits is the same. Yuh waits yer turn, or yuh -goes. _He_ don't care." She had fixed her eyes above the man's head -with all her words. He looked on her, frowning deeply, then said -with an unconcealed irritation showing in his voice: "Will you at -least take him my card?" - -Mrs. Fry nodded. She held out a palm that looked damp, then went -down the hall, reading the card as she walked. "He needn't be so -smart," she made mental comment. "_Here_ he ain't no better than -none of the rest." She went toward the table at which Father McGowan -sat and shoved the card toward him. "He wants to see yuh right off, -_now_," she said. - -Father McGowan picked up the card, read it, and then laid it aside. -"Tell him the rules," he said shortly. He turned back to a page of -pink letter paper, with a daisy engraved on its top. He glanced from -it to the clock. He still had twenty minutes before work began. - - -"Dearest Father McGowan, dear:" was written on the pink sheet. It -was crossed out and below it was written, "Respected Father:--(I -meant the first, but I suppose this is properer.) I can't tell you -how happy you made me by the play and everything. I have put the -pink ribbon in a chemise where it looks decorative, and cheers me up, -as I like pink ribbons in underwear, although white are better taste. -I am much happier. I am not _always_ happy, but do not tell Papa, -nor any one that I am not. I _am_ much happier than I was. - -"I apologise for clinging to you and kissing your hand good-bye when -you left, but I am not sorry. It was very hard to let you go. Pink -roses seemed _all_ thorns just then." - -Father McGowan stopped reading. He looked across the room with far -eyes. They were surrounded by fat wrinkles, and made small by thick -lenses, but they were rather beautiful. - -"I wanted to do as you suggested and try another school," he read, -"but I somehow feel that I must finish what I've started, and I would -like to show these girls that my soul is not purple silk trimmed with -green velvet, if you can understand that; they seem to judge -everything by rhinestone hair-pins, which is not a real clue to -character. - -"When you go to dinner with Papa, see that Norah uses the butter -spreaders, which are small knives shaped like fruit knives. I will -be deeply grateful. They are used for buttering bread, and so on -(not to eat from). - -"We are studying art. Andrea Dalsartoe, who painted the Madona of -the Chair, just now. Marjory is so kind to me. She is an Episcopal -but nice in every other way. They say a prayer to themselves when -they go into church, too. She says, 'Peanuts, popcorn, and chewing -gum, amen,' which I do not think is _very_ devout. She says it is -just the right length when said _slowly_. - -"You did make me so happy by that play and the candy. I have never -had a better time but once, after which I was disgraced and sorry. -(I had not met him socially, you know, which made it improper to eat -sundaes with him, even while on an errand of mercy to a sick and -dying cat.) - -"We hear an orchestra every Saturday, chaperoned by our English -teacher, who has asthma horribly and splutters a great deal. The -music is classical and improving. I do not enjoy it very much, but -there is a man in the orchestra who has an Adam's apple that wiggles -and he helps me. One can always find enjoyment when looking for it, -can't one? He plays a horn, and blows the spit from it often. He -seems to have a great deal of spit. - -"I have not thanked you the way I wanted to for the play, and -everything, not forgetting the taxi ride and the sundae afterward. I -do love you, Father McGowan, dear. I believe if there were more -priests who believed in God, _and_ pink boxes of candy, there would -be more Christians. - -"Most respectfully, and lovingly, - "CECILIA." - - -The clock struck one. Father McGowan folded up a pink sheet, and put -it, in its envelope, in his pocket. - -He was smiling gently. He opened the door into the hall, and the -people struggled tiredly to their feet. - -"Pax Tibi!" he said with a hand above his head. A girl with sullen -eyes sobbed aloud. A Doctor sneered. - -Much later the Doctor was admitted to a rather bare room, made -tolerable by the colours of the books which lined its walls. The -priest sat behind a table. They exchanged the usual formalities, -then Father McGowan said: "Well?" Doctor Van Dorn shifted uneasily. -"It is difficult to explain," he said. "I don't know just how to put -it, but I thought you, if any one, could help me." - -"I shall do all in my power to help you, if I think you need help," -answered Father McGowan. The Doctor picked up a paper knife. He -toyed with it, then blurted out: "I feel sure that there must be some -reason for it, and that he's merely doing it from some evil wish." - -"Who? Doing what?" asked Father McGowan. - -The Doctor looked silly and laughed uneasily. "I'm not very -coherent," he said. - -"Oh, well," said Father McGowan, "we're both doctors in a way. We -both meet that enough to understand it. Now take your time and tell -me your story in your own way." He pushed a box of cigars across the -table. "Want to smoke?" he asked with the move. The Doctor nodded -and lit a cigar. - -"It concerns a man named Madden," he said, "who, I have found, is one -of your people. I have no proof, at least of the tangible sort, but -I believe he is doing all he can to ruin me.... He is succeeding -fairly well, too." - -"Well, well," said Father McGowan. "Now what's he doing?" - -"It began," said the Doctor, "with my hospital, which you know is a -private affair, and in which some of my fellow doctors, with me, do -some experimental work. The most of my clientele consists of the -rather more well-known people of this city, as you know." - -Father McGowan nodded. The Doctor's voice was as usual, and he began -to swell a bit, with the tale of his hospital and its clientele. - -"I rarely take charity work," said the Doctor. "All New York is -after me...." Suddenly his face changed. "Was after me," he -corrected. He studied the end of his cigar. "I did take one small -chap," he went on slowly, "a charity case. He interested me. The -complications were most unusual; however, you would not understand -about them, and they do not influence the tale. I took him in and -gave him the best of care, even to giving him a hundred-dollar room -and an especial nurse. (His case was most interesting.) Well, as -you know, the action of the muscles and organs is changed by -anesthesia. I--ah,--I did but the slightest experimental work, -keeping him well-fed, you know, and in this hundred-dollar-a-week -room. The best of care, as I explained. He,--ah,--himself submitted -to this slight pain when I told him that after it he would run and -play as other boys. He had a natural, childish desire to run and -play. Quite natural, I suppose." - -"I suppose so," said Father McGowan. His tone was dry. His -expression was very different from that which he had worn while -reading the pink letter sheet. - -"Then one day when a slight,--very slight, I assure you,--operation -was absolutely necessary to his getting well, he said he would not, -could not endure it. He had been quite weakened by his being in bed, -and so on, but he screamed wildly. What he said was most improper -and very ungrateful. He turned against us suddenly, as is the way of -some when diseased." The Doctor stopped. He had grown rather white. -He was again in a hundred-dollar room, which had a slat door, and no -way to keep the voice of a frenzied charity patient from the rest of -his aristocratic hospital. He heard the voice again: "Gawd, no, -youse devils! ... Youse are killing me! Lemme die! Oh, Mister, -don't strap me down! I can't stand it no more.... Don't--don't! -Christ ... Christ ... Kill me, but don't----" - -The Doctor moistened his lips, and came back to the bare room in St. -Mary's Rectory. "He was most ungrateful," he said to Father McGowan, -"and he bit my hand when I tried to silence him." Father McGowan was -looking out of the window. The Doctor went on less surely. "A woman -who scrubbed the floors heard this, and, as is the way with her -class, got emotionally aroused. It seems she lived in a tenement, -and had lived there when Jeremiah Madden had lived across the hall, -before he made his money. She went to see him. He removed the lad -from my care, and with his malicious help, lied viciously about me -and my work, scattering statements broadcast, and giving their -statements to the papers. My own profession do not largely back me -up, being, I suppose, jealous, and of little spirit. I think they -recognise my skill too well to love me. You read those articles?" he -asked, turning to Father McGowan. - -"That has nothing to do with your narrative," answered Father -McGowan. "Please go on." - -"Well," said the Doctor, his well-bred voice holding a hint of frost, -"it,--that is, this malicious attack,--had prejudiced many. For the -good of this Madden man's soul you should help him to be truthful, -not to so belittle his nature by----" - -"You're worried about his soul?" said Father McGowan. "Is _that_ why -you came to me?" Father McGowan smiled. The Doctor shifted in his -chair. There was the staccato tap of crutches on the bare floor of -the hall. The knob of the door turned. - -"Father," came in a small boy's voice from the doorway, "I brung yuh -a toad. I want youse to bless it. It's dead. It was a cripple, -too. I found it all mashed. You'll bless it? Me an' the fellers is -going to bury it. _Ain't_ it cute?" - -The Doctor had not turned. - -"Come in, little Saint Sebastian," said Father McGowan. The little -boy gave him a look that was pathetically adoring. His crutches -tapped across the bare floor. Opposite the Doctor, he looked at him. -Suddenly he screamed. - -"Gawd! My Gawd! Oh, Father McGowan,--_don't_--let him have me!" He -clung to Father McGowan's cassock as he sobbed out his broken prayer. -"Don't, Mister, don't!" he ended weakly. Father McGowan picked him -up. He looked at the Doctor. - -"Go," he said. - -Father McGowan again settled back of a bare table. A little boy -sobbed in his arms. "Will you forgive me, little Saint Sebastian?" -asked Father McGowan. The child's arms tightened around his neck. -Father McGowan coughed. - -"We're going to have some pink ice cream," he said after an interval. -"Now here's my hanky. Gentlemen don't wipe their noses on their -sleeves!" - -"Will--will yuh bless the toad?" asked the child, after a damp -smearing of Father McGowan's handkerchief. "He was a cripple. -_Ain't_ he cute, now?" he added in a tender, little voice. Then he -brightened and said loudly, "But I'm glad he's dead, for they ain't -no Father McGowan toads to be good to little toad-cripples!" - -Father McGowan coughed, and tightened his arms about Sebastiano Santo -of the slums. - - -"Oh, dearest Paw--I mean Papa!" said Cecilia. She clung to him. The -lights of the New York station blurred through her tears. Then she -veered away from him, and gathered Johnny close. - -"Aw," he said, "cut it! There's one of the fellows over there." But -"one of the fellows" faced the other direction, Johnny saw, and he -allowed himself to hug Celie quickly. He was glad to see her, but he -felt a vague resentment toward her because her coming made his throat -so stuffy. He remembered the time when he used to sit on her lap and -eat bread spread thickly with molasses. He didn't know quite why he -was thinking of it in the Pennsylvania Station.... He remembered -that he used to pull her curls and that she'd pretend to cry and then -kiss him, and then they'd both laugh, and laugh. It was always a -great joke. And then she'd look at the clock and fry potatoes and -meat over a smelly stove, and say, "Now laugh! Paw's coming home. -He needs all our laughs!" - -"John dear!" said Cecilia. Johnny forgot the past, and swelled. -Cecilia's use of his name made him feel a man. - -"Mister, will yuh please attend to this here baggage?" he heard his -father say. - -"Don't call him 'Mister,'" he corrected Jeremiah in an undertone. -Cecilia stepped from them to a group nearby. - -"Good-bye, Marjory," John heard her say. "Yes, I _will_ come to see -you. You'll come to my house, too?" She turned to a rather more -cool looking young person, and added less surely, "I would love to -have you, too, Miss Annette, if you'd care to come." - -"I'm rather busy----" John heard the Annette person reply. Then he -saw her turn away from Cecilia. His heart grew hot. "If I don't see -you again," said Cecilia, "I wish you the happiest kind of a -Christmas!" Annette did not reply. The Marjory girl kissed Cecilia -twice. "Good-bye, little Saint," she called after Cecilia. "I'm -coming to see you to-morrow!" - -In the motor there was a pause for inspection. "Yuh look so -different," said Jeremiah rather wistfully. - -"My heart is just the same," said Cecilia. "It will always be the -same." She kissed Jeremiah Madden after her words and then leaned -forward and kissed Johnny. He didn't mind, none of the fellows being -present. Then they were silent, for when hearts are very full they -are liable to wiggle up into throats and choke people when they try -to talk. At last they were out of the crowded streets and on broad -ones, where other cars, taking people pleasure-bent, rolled past them. - -Then the house. The house from which Cecilia had gone last -September, wearing a suit all over buttons, with a touch of "tasty" -red here and there. - -"Norah, darling Norah!" said Cecilia. Norah's red arms drew her -close, then, quite in Norah's way, she eclipsed behind a blue-checked -apron, and sobbed loudly. Cecilia looked about the hall. There was -some new furniture. A hat-rack that was evidently the work of a -lunatic with the unrestrained use of a jig-saw. - -"Look up, Celie!" ordered Jeremiah. Cecilia looked up. Strung -across the hall was an elaborate electric sign. The words were made -of blue, yellow and red globes. She read: "Welcome to our -Darling!!!" Cecilia gasped. Then she turned to her father. "It is -beautiful," she said, "and just what I wanted." She stopped and -swallowed with difficulty. Then added, "Papa dear, I love you so!" -Johnny smiled. He raised his eyebrows and his shoulders. Then he -sniffed. He thought he smelled the scent of roses. - - - - -CHAPTER VII - -SANTA CLAUS - -Father McGowan, holding a cassock high about his black-clad legs, -stood in the back yard of the rectory grounds. The back yard looked -like those photographs entitled, "Rude shelters for the soldiers," or -"Huts built by the South Australian Light Horse Brigade." - -All over the brown lawn were small shacks. Some of them made of -brick, some of old and weather-beaten boards, and some of these two -with a smattering of very ex and sticky roofing mixed in. Father -McGowan smiled. Mrs. Fry looked out of the window. Her lips -tightened. - -A small boy emerged from one of these affairs. Emerged on his -stomach, wiggling out. - -"Father McGowan," he yelled, "we got a secret passage!" - -"No!" said Father McGowan enthusiastically, "No!" - -Another door opened. Another boy came wiggling forth. "_We_ got a -secret place to hide things in, in ours!" he said in a sing-song, -mine-is-better-than-yours tone. - -"Aw----!" said the first disparagingly. - -Father McGowan laughed. A boy came swaggering across the lawn. He -whistled, "In My Harem." He touched his hat to the priest. - -"I'm going to get a case of pop," he said loudly, "an' drink it here. -Mom, she gimme a candle, and Pop sez I can stay out 'til nine." -After this he was instantly the centre of an awed and admiring group. - -Mrs. Fry opened the door. "The 'phone wants yuh," she said shortly -to Father McGowan. Father McGowan went in with evident reluctance. -He wanted to hear more of the case of pop, which he knew would narrow -down to two bottles. - -After he'd passed through the kitchen, Mrs. Fry spoke again to her -sister who sat steaming by the stove. "_He's_ like that," she said, -a great love, yet vast contempt, showing in her tone. "He lets all -the kids around build shacks in the backyard, and even gets 'em stuff -to build with!" - -"What fer?" asked the steaming one. Her bewilderment was complete. - -"Oh," said Mrs. Fry, "he sez something about its bein' necessary to a -boy's soul to build something and tear it down. An' pretend things -that ain't. One day they calls that mess of rubbish the wilds of -Sieberia, an' the next an Indian camp. An' _he_, he gets right out -an' chases around with 'em. He's busted his glasses twice this -month." Mrs. Fry sighed. "I kicks," she went on, "and then he sez, -'Mrs. Fry, I'm sorry, but the fact is, an aunt brought me up, awfully -good woman, too, but too neat. I never pounded, and a boy needs to -pound.' Then he sez, 'Now if there is anything you need for the -kitchen that I can get you, Mrs. Fry, I'd be glad to.' An' what can -I do? I lead an awful life because of them young rapscallions, but -_he_ can't see it!" - -"Well, I'll be beat!" - -Mrs. Fry poured out a cup of coffee and pushed it toward her guest. -"Ain't sugar high?" she said as she dumped in two lumps. - -"You bet," answered her guest. "Does _he_ set and study much?" she -questioned. _He_ was very interesting. Mrs. Fry drew a long breath. -"He don't get no time to set," she answered. "He hardly has a chance -to eat half the time besides being pestered by them kids. I never -know when he'll be on time for meals. Did I tell yuh about the -bath-tub?" she questioned. - -The steaming shook her head. - -"_It has two ally-gaters in it!_" said Mrs. Fry with emphasis. - -"My Gawd!" - -"Yes, one of these here kids got 'em sent him from Florida, or some -furrin port, an' his mother, being a sensible woman, wouldn't have -'em near. Well, the kid comes bawlin' to Father McGowan (they always -do), an' he sez, 'Now, Jimmy, don't cry. You can put 'em in my -bath-tub; I only bathe once a day, and I can use a tin one. Mrs. Fry -has her own bath-tub on the third floor, so she won't care.' I did, -but what kin yuh do? I sez, 'I won't enter that room with them -rep_tiles_ in it fer to clean it.' He sez, troubled like, 'Well, -Mrs. Fry, I'll do it, or get one of the boys to. I don't mind.' -Them kids messing around there. Can yuh see the way _they'd_ clean -it!" - -"Ain't that fierce?" - -"Yes, an' he don't care so much fer it, either. He sez he _could_ -hope they'd die or summer'd come. (We're going to have a pond in the -backyard--to run into the cellar!) Yuh oughta see that room after -he's bathed in that there tin tub. All that's missin' is Noah and -Shem--we got the animiles." - -There was the click of crutches in the dining room. The door opened. -A small boy appeared. - -"Come in, dearie," said Mrs. Fry. Her tone was softened. - -"What's his name?" asked the visitor. - -"He don't know," answered Mrs. Fry. "He was in the hospital one -time, real sick, and lately he don't remember so good. 'Father -McGowan calls him 'Sebastiano.' Want a cooky, dearie?" The boy -nodded, and smiled. - - -Cecilia had had her friend Marjory to lunch. It had gone rather -well. She recalled it as she stood looking out of a heavily glassed -window into a frosted street. She, herself, had set the table. The -napkins had not been set up in tumblers. The fibroid tumor vase was -quite absent. There had been valley lilies in a flat bowl for the -centrepiece.... She had disposed of the blue glass butter dish by -dropping it. Cecilia felt strangely sad as she did it. The blue -glass butter dish had once seemed so very lovely.... "Are they -giving me anything to take your place?" she questioned, as it -shattered on the floor. Then she called Norah, and listened to her -laments as she gathered up the pieces. She had the feeling of -untruth added to her little sadness. - -As yet nothing had taken the place of blue glass butter dishes for -small Cecilia. She still preferred rhinestone hair-pins, and -French-heeled shoes to their plainer sisters. Beauty had been taken -away and none substituted, at least none that she enjoyed. The only -thing she really cared for was the dragging of her newly acquired -French in her talk. She did this often with the proud feeling that -it was what her mother had wished. - -Jeremiah had said, on meeting Marjory, "Pleased to meet yuh, mam," -and Cecilia had broken in with, "I love papa so much, Marjory, you -must too." She had hardly known why she had made this defiant and -sudden declaration. Johnny had been much impressed with Cecilia's -guest. So much so that his misery was acute when Jeremiah related -the incident of the brick throwing. - -"I sez to him, 'Yuh can lay yer own bricks an' here's one to begin -with!'" Jeremiah had said with his customary chuckle, that chuckle -that always came with his proud remembrance. - -"I think that was exceedingly clever of you, Mr. Madden," Marjory had -replied. Cecilia had smiled on Marjory with the smile of an angel, -she had also laid her hand on her father's. Johnny had squirmed. - -Cecilia gazed out of the window. The air looked cold. She wondered -whether she would ever get the chance to thank that Mr. Keefer -Stuyvesant Twombly for those lovely flowers? They had come just at -the right time. He was wonderful, as the girls said, and -"ravishing," but better, he was nice. There was a scuffle at the -door, Norah's voice was heard: "Now mind the _eee_-lectric sign!" she -said sharply. Cecilia knew that the tree was coming in. - - -Late that evening Jeremiah opened the door of the pink and gold -"parlour." - -"Santa Claus has been here and went," he said mysteriously to Cecilia -and Johnny, who sat on the stairs, "an' he's did good by yuh!" - -"Now remember!" said Cecilia to Johnny, with a stern look. Johnny -had been told that his disbelief in Santa Claus was not to be -expressed. They scrambled up. Cecilia stopped in the door. The -tree was a mass of silver and glittering lights. It was really very -lovely. Mr. Madden's tastes were well suited to trimming a Christmas -tree. - -"Showy like, an' nothing cheap or old lookin'!" he said, as he -surveyed it with proud eyes. Cecilia went toward a table on which -her gifts were spread out. First, she saw a phonograph with a -morning glory horn.... By it was a pink velvet box, strapped in -silver. "Jewels," was written in a neat, spencerian engraving on one -spot of the silver banding. There was a mother of pearl brush and -comb and glass, bound in wiggly gold. - -"They are lovely, Papa!" said Cecilia. "And _just_ what I wanted!" - -"Looka here!" whispered Jeremiah. He pulled her toward the light the -tree threw and took from his pocket a small box. He opened it -slowly. Cecilia saw a chain and pendant that would have made a very -good showing on the Christmas tree itself. It was plainly built for -one of the rhinoceros family. It had seemed to dislike showing any -partiality in gems. There was a fair smattering of all jewels -present. - -"Three hunderd dollars!" breathed Jeremiah Madden. His eyes shone, -and he breathed quickly. "Celie," he said, "it ain't too good fer -yuh! There ain't nothing I wouldn't do fer yuh!" - -"I know, dear," answered the small Cecilia, "but you shouldn't. It -is too much. You have made me very happy." She turned away. There -was a sudden smarting beneath her eyelids.... She hated the school -that had taught her a quiet manner, and to see blue glass butter -dishes as a visitation rather than a glory. - -"That ain't _all_!" said Jeremiah. He took hold of her arm, and led -her to the other side of the room. "Throw on the lights, Johnny!" he -called loudly. Cecilia felt him tremble. The lights snapped on with -a too white glare. Jeremiah and Cecilia stood before a picture over -which was thrown a cloth. Jeremiah drew it aside. - -"It was did from a tintype," said Jeremiah softly. He looked on the -face of his Irish wife. Her lips were painted a brazen carmine. Her -cheeks glowed like the stage ladies' of the billboards. Around her -neck were three ropes of huge pearls. - -"He threw in the pearls," explained Jeremiah in a voice that shook a -little, "an' fancied her up some, but them eyes,--it's your maw, -Celie. Your maw that died in a two-room flat." With the last words -Jeremiah had turned away. His shoulders had a limp droop. The -happiness of the evening had faded. - -"What's in this box?" asked Cecilia, unsteadily. It was a hat box -and stood beneath the new portrait. - -"Her present," answered Jeremiah. "The present I give her. Look at -it, Celie. Ain't it pretty? I picked it." - -Cecilia opened the box. She drew out a large, flopping hat. It was -trimmed with pink roses. - - -The next day when Father McGowan was all ready to start for the -Madden house, there was commotion in the wilds of _Sie_beria. It had -been reported the day before that one of the "guys" had smoked a -Piedmont, and Father McGowan, finding this so, had had to dust him -mildly with a hickory cane, hung on the back porch for that purpose. - -He disliked doing this, and smoked for a good hour afterward to -soothe his nerves. Mrs. Fry had watched the chastising with pleased -eyes, but then, on going to the bathroom, all happiness had vanished, -for one of them rep_tiles_ had crawled out of the tub. She had -dropped her scrubbing cloths, and disappeared screaming. - -Father McGowan had been all ready to start. He had found his hat -(which had the most mysterious way of disappearing), and with an -ashamed expression, he'd put a small box in his pocket. - -Then the wilds of _Sie_beria had demanded attention. - -"Them young devils," Mrs. Fry had said, with a bob of her head -backward. "They are raising Cain! Something's wrong." She went off -muttering. She still cherished and resented the encounter with the -rep_tile_. Father McGowan went toward _Sie_beria. It was one of the -few times in his life that he hadn't wanted to. - -"_Now_ what?" he called from the back porch. A scream was the only -answer. It came from one of the brick dwellings. The chastised of -yesterday, Father McGowan saw going quickly over the fence. - -"Oh, drat!" said Father McGowan. There were wilder howls from the -brick mansion. Father McGowan went toward it. He looked for the -door, then he chuckled softly, for the door was entirely gone. He -took off his gloves and began to pull out the bricks. - -"Walled in," he muttered. - -"Lemme out! Lemme out!" came from within, in muffled tones. Then -with the opening Father McGowan had made, and with the advent of -light, the screams dissolved into pathetic sobs. - -"When I git him!" came in moist tones. A small boy wiggled out. He -had a paper covered book in his hands. "He done it," explained the -boy, between sniffs, "while I was a-readin' in the secret chamber. -_He_ done it. When I git him! I'll smash him! I mighta starved!" -he ended pathetically. - -"Well," said Father McGowan, "that is a shame! Won't you come have a -piece of pie now? You must be hungry." - -The boy nodded. He followed Father McGowan toward the house. "He -done it," he went on, "because I told on him fer smoking. I thought -I _oughta_." The sufferer's tone was pious. "My nerves is shook -up," he said when they reached the porch. "I was afraid I'd starve. -There's pictures in our physiologies of starving Cubans--they ain't -so nice. - -"Mrs. Fry," said Father McGowan, "we do need a piece of pie. Could -you find us some?" Mrs. Fry muttered and went to the refrigerator. -Out on the back fence the chastised called, "Yi! Yi!" A note -expressing scorn. He added, "Cry baby! Cry baby!" The cry baby -turned and exhibited a piece of pie. The chastised relaxed into a -pained silence. - -"Come here!" called Father McGowan. The boy slid from the fence and -came slinking toward him. "Mrs. Fry saw you smoking," said Father -McGowan. "I never listen to what you tell of each other. Here's a -piece of pie for you." He looked at his watch and added in a -perfunctory way, "You shouldn't have walled him in." - - -"I ought to have given you a Rosary," said Father McGowan. He still -looked guilty, but happily so. Cecilia stood before a mirror, -looking at a dainty little chain and pendant, which she'd clasped -about her throat. - -"I know you ought, Father McGowan, dear," she answered, "but I'm _so_ -glad you didn't! It's _so_ beautiful!" - -She gasped happily. Father McGowan smiled. "Papa gave me one," she -said. "It--it is, that is, I love it, but I'll wear this more." She -looked into Father McGowan's understanding eyes. - -"I am learning," she said, "but I learned things before I went to -school that I shall never forget, and that I never want to forget." - -Jeremiah came in. - -"You give her that?" he asked in a pleased voice. "Well! But have -you saw the one I give her? _Three_ hunderd dollars! Get it, Celie, -and then play us 'The Shepherd Boy.'" Celie vanished. - - -White-clad nurses flitted about the halls of Jeremiah Madden's house. -There was a dead silence, and upstairs that druggy-sick smell. - -Cecilia had been very ill. She was better, but still sick enough to -keep Jeremiah anxious. He hovered about the house almost forgetting -bricks, and wearing a collar all the time, as he did on Sundays. It -had begun with a cold, then a cough, which (through Celia's standing -on the curb, better to view a gentleman down the street who was -interestingly drunk) had turned to pneumonia on both sides. - -She had gone to bed protesting that she felt very well, but that her -breath was not acting quite right. Then she had grown so very, very -sick that she had forgotten time, life and even Jeremiah of the -bricks. - -Those days had been rather dreadful for Jeremiah.... He had taken to -sitting just outside her door on a very upright chair. He turned the -pages of "Ridpath's History of the World." He was trying to "educate -himself up to Celie." ... However, he missed a great many of the -pictures and only got as far as Volume One. - -Each time a trim nurse would step from Cecilia's door, he would cough -to get his voice in shape, and then whisper gratingly: "Excuse me, -Missis, but how is she?" - -"She is doing well," the white one would answer, in a tone of thin -sincerity. Then Jeremiah would go back to Ridpath, miserable, and -unconvinced. Once in a while he would hear Cecilia's high, little -voice--"Keefer, the butler!" she repeated again and again one day. -She said it in gasps, but somehow got out the words. The effort in -her voice had cut Jeremiah's heart, but the words had brought a proud -smile. - -"Associatin' with butlers!" he whispered. "_Ain't_ she gettin' fine?" - -Then Cecilia moaned of butter dishes, blue ones. Jeremiah had left -his post and Ridpath's History long enough to go shopping. He bought -her three butter dishes. Two of them had covers. The third boasted -of a curling handle, on which perched a dove and a cupid, on a spray -of something that looked like spinach in the crude state. Cecilia -had been very pleased with them. She had looked on them, said, -"T-thank you, _dearest_!" and then cried gently, the tears slipping -down her face with pathetic regularity. She cried all that afternoon. - -"I'm not good enough for you!" she gasped, "but I love you, and -butter dishes!" - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - -A LITTLE TOUCH OF THE MAN WITH THE HOUR GLASS - -Time had been careful with Father McGowan. Perhaps he thought Father -McGowan rather nice as he was, and unneedful of the lines that -usually come with heart and soul expansion. Be this as it may, the -fact was that he was little changed. The lenses in his glasses were -a bit thicker. He had accumulated a little more tummy in the last -seven years, but he still played Indian and exile in _Sie_beria with -the same joy, and he was still the true father to every child who -knew him. - -He sat behind a bare table in a room unbeautiful except for the books -which lined its walls. He was looking over his mail. He laid one -letter with a foreign postmark aside. - -There was a tap on the door. A small boy of nine, or thereabout, -came in, sobbing wildly. "My mom, she sez you're a _Catholic_!" he -gasped between sobs. "Yuh ain't, are yuh?" - -"I'm afraid so," answered Father McGowan. He looked very guilty. - -"Oh, dear!" replied the small boy, and sobbed more loudly. - -"Now, now!" said Father McGowan. "We can't _all_ be Methodists, you -know. The church wouldn't hold 'em.". The child still sobbed. -"I'll tell you," went on Father McGowan; "you pray that we'll all -belong to one church in Heaven. You do that. Wouldn't that be nice?" - -"Uh huh," agreed the boy with tempered enthusiasm. He smeared his -tears across his face with his coat sleeve. They left white streaks. -"I couldn't _believe_ you was a Catholic!" he said sadly. "You're so -nice, and because of the pie and all." His face was long and his -eyes melancholy. - -"I'm sorry," said Father McGowan, "so sorry. How's Siberia to-day?" -The child reported and then vanished to do his utmost in making a -convert by prayer. - -Father McGowan opened the rest of his mail, and then reached toward -the letter of foreign stamp. He always kept the best 'til last. - - -"Dearest Father McGowan-dear:--" it began in a hand characteristic of -many boarding schools, and yet showing a bit of individuality--"I -have wanted to write you.... So many things to do that half the time -all I get accomplished is my loving of you dear people, every day a -little more, though more seems impossible. I love you, and Papa and -John so much. So much that when I'm away from you, and think of you, -I feel quite choked. It is rather beautiful, and terrible, this -caring so deeply. I do not know how I could ever say good-bye." - -There was a page of Cecilia's large scrawl. It contained no news, -but Father McGowan read it closely. His eyes were the same as when, -years before, he had looked on a table Cecilia had decorated in -honour of a big, fat, Roman priest. Suddenly he laughed. "We have a -small donkey," he had read, "whom we have named Clara, after the -vicar's sister. Our donkey has long ears and a religious expression, -too. The vicar's sister is really very nice, but our grey donkey -looks so like her that we always expect her to stop in the middle of -the road and talk of missionary barrels and Sunday School treats. -The latter is a form of entertainment which contains much jam, tea, -many pop-eyed little girls and boys, not to omit a large stickiness. -(I went to one, and poured tea down Lord Somebody's neck. It was a -great condescension for him to 'stop in,' and only the fact that I am -of 'mad America' saved me from a public hanging.) - -"Marjory and I have splendid times. I am so glad I am with her. It -is nice for me, and I think for her. Mamma Aliston is one of those -poor ladies who enjoys suffering. If she had lived where I did in my -younger days, she would have said: 'I ain't feelin' so well. The -doctor's give me three kinds of medicine. It's me _nerves_.' As -this is not in order, she mutters of draughts, and places a pudgy and -diamond-ringed hand above her heart many times a day, sighing -expressively. Marjory has no sympathy with her. She only says, -'Don't eat that, Mamma; it is bad for you,' about anything Mamma -enjoys. I am a beautiful buffer. (Please pardon the 'beautiful'; it -refers to spirit.) - -"The way those two people clash is utterly dreadful. I remember -always, when I hear them, Saturday nights, years ago, when the -gentlemen of our building used to tumble upstairs, very drunk, and I -would then hear squawks and abuses. We are all the same, but people -never realise it.... I laugh inside when they talk of 'lower -classes.' I laugh but sometimes it hurts a little. I am ashamed, -Father McGowan, that it should.... Coming home very soon. I want to -give a man named Jeremiah Madden as many years of happiness as I can. -I am coming home to play 'The Shepherd Boy' every evening after a -lemon pie-ed dinner. - -"Father McGowan-dear, I have been worried about John.... Here I see -so many heavy-eyed boys slinking into manhood. Those boys who travel -with their blindly indulgent mammas and leave a man at home, alone, -across the seas. - -"I think if my little brother should grow up to be viciously weak, I -could not bear it. I cannot see how he could, for the blood in us is -too plain for fancy wickedness. Rather ours would run to fierce -encounter, and, if we must be truthful, flying dish-pans. -But,--well, I've dreamed of him too often lately, and I remember that -he may be stepping into manhood. I wish I were better fitted to be -wise with him.... I have not liked his letters, Father McGowan. His -estimate of people is made in the shadow of a dollar mark...." -Father McGowan read another page. On the last was written: "So, I -will see you very soon, dear (excuse the liberty, but you _are_ -dear!), and I am ready to take up my burdens. Those that come with -money. I hope to do much and learn to do it well. You will help me? - -"I shall leave Marjory and her mother in this sleepy little village, -shadowed by its Cathedral. The cross that has stood for peace -through many years shines from its spire and seems to bring it here. -It is so lovely, Father McGowan! - -"Very much love from your always grateful and loving - -"CECILIA." - - -"But, my dear!" said Mamma Aliston, "I could not _permit_ you to -return alone! Could not permit it!" - -"I'm sorry," answered Cecilia, "but I must go. I have my maid. I -should not be really alone." - -"I don't like the look of it," said Mrs. Aliston fretfully. Then, -"_Is_ Clara going to sleep! Why you girls _insist_ on having her -when you could motor smoothly with a footstool and cushions and all -the windows closed,--Oh! My heart!" Cecilia turned a sympathetic -eye toward Mrs. Aliston. "It is nothing, my dear," said Mrs. Aliston -in answer to her look, "nothing to one who is _used_ to suffering. -Oh, dear, what a sorry thing this world is, when we are poorly -equipped to meet it. Who was that who passed us? Not Lady -Grenville-Bowers?" - -Cecilia nodded and stopped Clara so that Mrs. Aliston could feast her -eyes on the holy dust titles were kicking up. It was not Lady -Grenville-Bowers, but Mrs. Aliston was happily unconscious of it, and -Cecilia had learned the proper use of lies. After Mrs. Aliston again -settled she went back to the original subject. "Let me see," she -said, speculatively; "perhaps there will be some one crossing to whom -it will be suitable to confide you. I dislike so intensely this -running about alone,--my dear! _please_ watch that beast! Yes, more -than likely there will be some one. I know so many people, many of -whom some would feel privileged to know! I'll look about. I dislike -so intensely this idea of your crossing alone. It is rather, pardon -me, dear, common,--middleclass. Yes, I'll look about. No doubt some -one may be found." - -Cecilia nodded absently. She had learned to "yes" and "no" at the -proper times with Mrs. Aliston, quite without a listening attention. -Strangely, she was thinking of some one else beside her father, John -or Father McGowan. This some one who had been the leading man of her -dreams for a great many years. In fact, ever since she had rescued a -sick and dying tabby. - -She had carried his true voice with her wherever she went.... Often -when things called men had asked for her hand because it held money, -a genuine voice had echoed through the years. - -"Pussy needs some Mothersills,----" she would hear, and then with an -absurdly little-girl feel for being so influenced, she would gently -discourage. - -There had been some who really loved; some loving with an air of -condescension showing through their manner,--others truly, and with -humbleness. Some poor, weak, with only love as recommendation. Some -just ordinary men,--one or two made big by what they felt for small -Cecilia. - -And with them all, something was wrong. She heard the echo of a nice -boy's voice, as he bought a small girl a "choclut soda," and a sundae -all-over-whipped-cream, and she heard it while she said: "No; I'm -sorry. I really can't. I'm _never_ going to marry. I hope you'll -find some one you'll like _much_ more than me!" - -And they had all said they never would, which is the way with young -men.... Cecilia had believed the first one, then life had taught her -the quick healing of some hearts, and she had smiled a little when -the rest said it. - -That smile was always the undoing. They usually kissed the hem of -her dress, and swore to shoot themselves, and Cecilia would whisper: -"Oh, _please!_ Some one will see you!" or, "Oh, _please!_ Some one -might hear you!" whichever the case might be. Then they always -kissed her hand and went away, and Cecilia would sigh and say, "Well, -I suppose that means an awfully nice wedding present soon, to show -that I'm not put out!" - -Sometimes she wondered if K. Stuyvesant Twombly were living, and if -so, where? Then she often decided _not_ to think of him, because it -was too childish.... And then she would discover that every life -must have its fairy tale, and that he was hers.... "Home!" said Mrs. -Aliston, with a sigh of relief. "Oh, my poor body! 'My little body -is a-weary of this world.' Who said that, Cecilia? Bernard Shaw? or -Arnold Bennett?" - -"No," answered Cecilia, "I think it's in the Bible, but I can't just -remember." - -A groom stepped forward to lead Clara away to her boudoir and dinner. -Cecilia went into the cool house to write her father on a small -typewriter she carried for that purpose, Jeremiah being "partial to -print." - -Outside the grey of the English twilight crept slowly near.... -Everything was peaceful,--quiet. America were far away. - - -The person suitable for Cecilia's chaperon was found. She was very -correct, had several chins, and was well connected. She came from -Boston and mentioned this fact in a hushed tone. On talking with -her, Cecilia felt as she had in the first few months of boarding -school--chilled, and alone. - -This morning was the one before they sailed. Miss Hutchinson had -wished to go to Westminster for a last look. "You will come with -me?" she had asked of Cecilia. The question had really been a -statement. Cecilia replied that she would be charmed to go. She -went to get a broad hat that entirely eclipsed one eye. - -The sun was faintly present. "It is fine," said Miss Hutchinson, who -spoke English whenever she remembered it, to show that she had lived -much abroad. - -"So it is," said Cecilia. "How absent-minded of the sun!" Miss -Hutchinson didn't answer. She was busy showing a taxi driver the -error of his ways. - -"Robbers!" said Miss Hutchinson, as they settled on the stuffy -cushions. Cecilia looked after a passing bus, and wistfully. She -dearly loved to ride on top. They bumped along, Miss Hutchinson -expatiating on some one's relatives. It seemed that one of them had -been "in trade." - -"Papa makes bricks," said Cecilia calmly, wondering, as she said it, -whether the British soaked their shoes overnight in the "bath" to get -that delightful muffiny effect and the curl up at the toes. - -"My dear," said Miss Hutchinson quickly, "that is quite different. -His business is on a large scale, and his fortune excuses anything. -This man had been in trade in a small way?--a sweet-stuff shop, I -believe, or a chemist. Something fearfully ordinary." - -"Horrible!" said Cecilia. Miss Hutchinson looked at her. Cecilia's -smile was strange. She hoped she was not saddled with a young person -of too modern ideas for seven days.... In Westminster Miss -Hutchinson went toward the Poet's Corner. Cecilia wandered outside. -She paused by a small stone set in the wall. "Jane Lister, Dear -Child," she read. The gentle little ghost smiled on her from those -simple words. She looked long at them. She always saw the "Dear -Child," quaintly frocked, smiling. - -Some one paused behind her. She turned. "Isn't that almost too -beautiful?" she whispered. - -"Yes," answered K. Stuyvesant Twombly. - -He looked on this impulsive, American girl, and smiled. Then she -turned back to Jane Lister, and he raised his hat and went on. - -Her eyes made his memory itch, but he could not know why. Perhaps -some one whom he'd met suggested her. He met a great many people.... -Uncommonly pretty, if he cared for beauty,--or girls. Then his mind -turned to business interests. He was supremely American. - -The girl in the cloister still gazed at a weather worn slab. "Dear -child," she said, "he is alive. Oh, dear child, isn't that beautiful -too?" - - -John was faintly smiling. A superior smile that was his own and took -in no one else. He used it often on the "Gov'ner," who from it, was -reduced to a pulp, and realised himself fit for nothing but supplying -funds.... Father McGowan was not reduced to a pulp, but he was -genuinely angry. He thought with a longing of a hickory cane which -hung on the back porch of the rectory. - -"How old are you, John?" asked Father McGowan. - -"Eighteen," replied the overgrown boy. "Gettin' on, yes, gettin' -on." He lounged back in his chair. Father McGowan leaned across the -table. - -"Old enough to take tender care of your sister when she gets back," -he said. - -"Certainly," answered John. He studied his finger nails. They were -gorgeous examples of the manicure's art. John wished the old man -would get on. He had a date.... He wondered what he was driving at -anyway? He covered a yawn and muttered a pardon.... "Late hours," -he added, in explanation. - -Father McGowan again thought of a cane which hung on the back porch. - -"How's your father?" he asked. - -"Oh,--the Gov'ner?" replied John in a tone of entire surprise. -"Really, I don't know. I haven't seen him for a week." He again -looked at his finger nails then he thought of a girl he did not meet -socially. His thoughts and attentions ran to that kind. - -"What a rotten life a priest's would be! Staying in a dull room like -this--" he thought, then became conscious of a long silence. He -looked up. Father McGowan's eyes were full on him.... Space faded. -John was a baby in a crowded flat. He cried, and a little, -tired-eyed girl picked him up. "Aw, Johnny!" she said. Flies buzzed -about. The dull hum of traffic came from the street below. - -Some one called, "Celie, aw Celie! Quick!" from a room off of the -kitchen. The little girl vanished. He heard unpleasant sounds, then -moans. - -John started up. The chair in which he'd sat overturned. "You -devil!" he said to a fat priest. The dream had faded. John breathed -in gasps. - -"I will excuse you," said Father McGowan, "if you will remember what -a sister did for you, and in return give her the greatest gift: a -pride in the boy she loves. Good-night, John." - -After the boy had gone, Father McGowan scratched his head, as was his -manner when perplexed. "What was the matter with him?" he asked -aloud. Then he sighed. The talk, he was afraid, had done little -good. At first he had gotten only a supercilious smile, and then -that outburst. - -Well, life was only a succession of tries, and a climbing at the wall -unscalable.... Father McGowan dismissed the problem, thought of the -comfort of a hot bath, and then the perusing of a new book he'd just -bought. "Oh, drat!" he muttered. There was a baby water snake in -the tub, and the tin one did not invite a lingering. It scratched in -several inconvenient spots. - - -Outside, John still breathed in gasps. "Home," he thought as he -settled in a low, grey roadster. "I don't like her hair anyway," he -offered in weak excuse for abandoning his original plan. Yes, he -would be good to Cecilia. Awfully good to her.... Had her life, -his,--ever been as dreadful as that flash? Cecilia should never know -him otherwise than she believed him. It would be a noble deceit, -lived for love of her. That was the game one played with women that -one truly loved. - - -The _Arcania's_ decks were alive with people scurrying hither and -thither, seemingly with no impulse behind their unrest, nor aim in -direction. - -A few souls stood very calmly by the rail, watching the steerage -embarking. Their whole attitudes said, and loudly: "This is all old -to me. I will have you know it is even a bore!" They were looked on -with respect by the few to whom crossing was a novelty. - -Cecilia was pleasantly excited. Sailing was not new to her, but she -was so healthily alive that she tingled with any enthusiasm near. - -"Our deck chairs are in the most absurd spot!" said Miss Hutchinson. -"I told the steward what I thought of him, and them. He said he -would change them. Aren't you going to look at your flowers? Your -state room is full of them. I stepped in. Your maid was putting -some of them in your wash bowl. I told her that would never do. You -will have to use it, you know, to brush your teeth, wash, and so on, -and if you're sick--it is most inconvenient to have the stand -cluttered with flowers. I--ah, happened to notice Lord Ashby's card -on some flowers. Where did you meet him, _dear_?" - -"Sunday school treat," replied Cecilia. "I poured tea down his -neck." Her reply was made in an absent way. She was scrutinising -the passengers. There was a fat woman near who looked lovely! She -stood within earshot of Cecilia and Cecilia heard her address her -husband as "Poppa," and then a very healthy and pleasantly -loud-looking maiden as "Lotty." It made Cecilia feel as if she were -in the warmth of a summer sun, just to hear them. So happily -natural, they were. - -"_Horrid_ people!" said Miss Hutchinson loudly. She elevated a -lorgnette, and looked "poppa" up and down critically. "Beer, -Cincinnati," she decided in far-reaching tone. Cecilia squirmed. - -"That dear baby in the steerage!" said Cecilia, to divert the -offended Miss Hutchinson. - -"Dirty!" commented the diverted. "So absolutely degrading the way -the lower classes have children! One after the other!" ended Miss -Hutchinson. Cecilia did not voice it, but she wondered what other -mode of entrance into the world was possible, one at a time, rarely -two, having been the style for a good many years. - -The baby began to whimper. Its mother slapped it vigorously. -Cecilia looked away. She hated to see a child slapped. Johnny had -often been most trying. She had rarely slapped him.... Then she -turned and quite forgot the hot, whimpering baby of the steerage.... -K. Stuyvesant Twombly stood behind her. He recognised the impulsive -girl who had spoken to him at the small tomb of "Jane Lister, dear -child," and he raised his hat and smiled. - -Cecilia gasped. Then, she went below, and very quickly, to see her -flowers. - - -"Oh, but you are nice," said Cecilia, "if your name is not!" Then -she looked away from K. Stuyvesant Twombly. She had not meant to say -anything like that! It had simply come out! - -The wind blew strongly and ruffled her hair. K. Stuyvesant Twombly -watched her with a good deal of interest. She was _quite_ different -from any girl he'd ever met.... She watched first the rough sea -which looked like a small boy's chewing gum, laid in a safe place -waiting for the next chew ... grey, indented with the marks of small -teeth. Then all the sea would slip below the rail, and all of the -world would be sky. - -"I was named," explained K. Stuyvesant, "Keefer, after a rich uncle. -He died and left all his money for the support of Lutheran missions -in China. After that my mother used to faint every time she'd think -of my first name." - -Cecilia laughed. "I'm _so_ sorry!" she said. "Does she still faint -over it?" - -"She died last February," answered K. Stuyvesant quietly. - -"I'm so sorry!" said Cecilia again. K. Stuyvesant didn't answer. -They were quiet for a few moments, both watching the tilt, and -eclipse of the sky-line. At last the man spoke. "It is tragic," he -said, "to have the ones you love die, but it is more tragic to have -those you have loved from instinct, and never known, die. You -wonder, all the time, whether they too, are fretting because of the -lost opportunity. You wonder what there was below that you didn't -see.... All I remember of my mother was her hurry to get in a great -number of engagements, and a chill aloofness, cultivated, I have -thought since, to keep in check over-tired nerves.... If we could -have once gone below the surface! Even with incivilities, if in that -way, we could have known each other.... Never saw one another, -fleeting glimpses...." - -"You poor man!" said Cecilia. - -"I'm ashamed to have said that," he said. His voice was gruff. -"But,--it's been in my heart these long months,--that endless -regret." He drew a shaky breath. Cecilia laid her hand on his arm. -Without a shade of consciousness his hand closed around hers. "I've -never told any one that before," he said. "You're -awfully--different. I feel as if we'd known each other always." He -turned his head and looked down at her. Their eyes met, and it was -hard to look away. - -"You're so dear!" he blurted out. - -Cecilia, used to many men of many compliments, coloured. She -squeezed his hand, and then shyly drew hers away. - -Mrs. Higgenmeyer came waddling down the deck. She saw Cecilia and -smiled widely. "Well, dearie!" she said in her usual carrying tone, -"Lotty was looking fer yuh. She and poppa are playing rum now. She -wants you should see a wireless she had from her gentleman friend." - -"I'd love to!" answered Cecilia. Momma passed by. K. Stuyvesant and -Cecilia laughed gently. - -"I like to love and laugh," said Cecilia; "but if you leave the love -out, the laughter is too liable to turn sour." - -K. Stuyvesant nodded, but he hadn't heard what she said. He was -undergoing new and terrifyingly beautiful sensations. - -"The Higgenmeyers are dear, aren't they?" said Cecilia. - -"Um hum," answered K. Stuyvesant. He turned quite boldly and stared -at her, while she looked out upon the sea and sky. He wondered, -while he swallowed hard, whether he had any chance. He wished he -weren't such a duffer! He even wished faintly that she weren't so -wonderful. - -Cecilia looked up at him again, and again the warm colour came into -her cheeks. Then she began to talk quickly of a recent play. Her -voice was not quite steady. She wouldn't meet his eyes. - - -Miss Hutchinson was speaking of a paper she'd read before the Boston -literati on "The Message of Ibsen." Cecilia didn't know much about -Ibsen, but she thought he would have been rather surprised if he'd -heard what he "really meant." - -K. Stuyvesant was, as usual, with them. Cecilia and he looked at -each other often. The new, disconcerting light in his eyes had given -way, and was displaced for the moment by a mischievous twinkle. -Cecilia was able to look at him frankly again. - -Miss Hutchinson arose, untangling from her steamer blanket like a -huge butterfly from a cocoon. "My point was," she said loudly, "that -Ibsen is the Seer of those who SEE, but," she sighed, "there are so -few of us!" - -She vanished. - -Cecilia giggled. "Are you one of _us_?" she asked of K. Stuyesant. - -"Lord, no!" he answered laughing, and then added seriously, "I'm an -awful duffer. Stupid and all that. I never used to care, but now I -do. You--you don't read that kind of stuff, do you?" His appeal -held a great fear. - -"Oh, no!" answered Cecilia. "I stopped reading improving things -after I left school, I can't bear them, and it depresses me so to use -my head! I'm not a bit clever." She sighed with her last words. -They were both making many confessions about their failings. Somehow -it seemed necessary. Also, they both wished a great deal of the time -that they were much nicer! - -"You know what Stephen Leacock said about intellectual honesty?" -asked Cecilia. K. Stuyvesant shook his head. - -"I can't quote," said Cecilia, "but he said as you grew old you would -find books had brought you more pleasure than anything except -tobacco. But then, he said, you must be honest about them, reading -only what you liked. That if 'Pippa Passes' didn't appeal, you -should let 'Pippa' pass, that she was not for you. There was some -more, but I shan't ruin it by misquoting it. It was so clever!" - -K. Stuyvesant didn't answer. Because Cecilia was afraid of his -silences, she began to tell him of a small brother whom she greatly -loved. - -"But you'll know him," she ended, "if you come to see us. You will, -won't you?" - -"Well, rather!" answered K. Stuyvesant. "Why, you _know_ I'm -coming!" There was almost a resentment in his voice. "Cecilia," he -said, with his first use of her first name, "I haven't any right, but -you're so _dear_, I have to. Have I _any_ chance?" He leaned very -close above her steamer chair. He had gotten quite white. -"Cecilia?" he whispered in question. He reached for her hand, then -drew back sharply. - -"I know you meet lots of fellows much finer than I am," he went on, -"and when I'm away from you I don't see how I have the nerve to hope, -but I can't help it. Cecilia--dear?" The "dear" was rather muffled. -K. Stuyvesant had never used it before and it stuck, even though he -wanted so much to say it! - -She turned her face toward him, and he could say no more. - -She thought of a brick on the top shelf of a gilt cabinet. "Nothing -could matter to him," she thought; "he is so dear, but I must see..." - -"When we get home," she whispered, "after two months you may ask me -again, if you're sure." - -"Sure?" he echoed. "Sure? Oh, _heavens!_" Then he looked down at -her for quite a few rather breathless moments. - -After that they talked. "After two months," repeated Cecilia -stubbornly. It made no impression. At last she equivocated a bit -and gained her point. "I hardly know you," she said, looking away -from him; "I--I prefer----" - -"I don't know anything about girls," said K. Stuyvesant, "but I know -I've been a dub. I'll try to be agreeable, I'll _try_ to keep this -to myself. But,--you _will_ give me a chance?" - -Cecilia said she would. - -"Gosh,--I love----" began K. Stuyvesant; then he shook his head. -Cecilia didn't mean to, but she slipped her hand in his, under the -kind shelter of a blue and green checked blanket. K. Stuyvesant -didn't say anything more. He only looked. - -Mrs. Higgenmeyer came paddling by. - -"Poppa ain't so well," she called. "He's sick to his stummick!" - -"I'm--I'm sorry," answered Cecilia. She tried to pull her hand from -K. Stuyvesant's. He refused to let it go. After Mrs. Higgenmeyer -had passed, he spoke. "You're mine!" he said in the manner of all -lovers. "You are!" His voice was gruff. Cecilia was to learn that -that meant that she mattered much. - -At his words Cecilia's heart turned over, but she remembered her -eccentric, dear, and much-loved father, and a certain brick. - -"You promised," she reminded him. "I said after two months, when I -knew you. You promised." - -"I'll be good," he answered dismally, "but I know you, and it's hard -to think of waiting. There isn't any question of time. You're -just----, well, I'm thirty-two. I'd never dreamed that I could feel -this. I want to kneel when I think of you. I----" he stopped. - -Cecilia drew a deep breath. They looked at each other, and the world -ceased for them. They were only a chord stretched to breaking,--a -chord for Heaven's tunes. - - - - -CHAPTER IX - -HOME - -"I tell Celie, it ain't like we couldn't buy 'em perfect. (I could -pay for 'em whole.) But she sez that ain't it." - -Jeremiah Madden surveyed a Greek Venus as he spoke, whose arms were -quite lacking. "As fer me," he went on, "I like 'em with all their -limbs with 'em,--tasty and neat. This here kind of thing makes me -think of the War. There's one in the Eyetalian garden I'm going to -buy a cork leg for." - -The young men who surrounded Jeremiah Madden laughed loudly. The -loudness of their laughter made Jeremiah a bit suspicious at first, -but he reasoned they would hardly accept his hospitality and laugh at -him,--it must be with him. So, vastly pleased and beaming widely, he -went on with pleased pride: "This here garden cost me near a million, -fixings and all. That fountain to the right (the one with the dinky -bird settin' on the female's arm) cost me----" but he didn't finish, -for Johnny came around the corner of a path and emerged from its -boxwood protection with a cough, and then a loud inanity. He frowned -on Jeremiah and the laughter of the young men stopped. - -"I didn't know _you_ were here," he said coolly to the quaking -Jeremiah. Jeremiah realised that he had displeased, and began -unsurely, "I'll be gettin' back to work. I just left fer a few -minutes, I----" - -"Come on," broke in Johnny, and the group of tired-looking youths -followed him, leaving Jeremiah confiding to the stone "female" of his -work and of how he must get back to it. Realising himself alone, he -swallowed his words, and watched the group disappear toward the -tennis courts with a puzzled hurt in his face.... A half a mile -away, and well below, the waters of the Sound shone brazen blue in -the sunlight. Sometimes a gull swooped low, and its wings were -silver. In one spot a marble wall with a Greek relief stood out in -blazing white against the distant water.... Jeremiah saw all the -loveliness, but he could not feel it. - -"That wall cost me----" he muttered, and then stopped, hearing -footsteps. - -Cecilia stepped from the same path from which Johnny had made his -entrance. Her hat was a broad one, hiding her face provokingly, her -dress one of those "simple" affairs, so dangerous to hearts and -purses. - -"Dearest!" she called rather breathlessly, "I did so want to see you! -I've been hunting for you everywhere!" Jeremiah put his arms around -her and forgot his worry about a certain son, and even forgot the -cost of things. - -"Well?" he questioned gently. - -"Well," she repeated after him, "I just wanted to see you." She -fidgetted as she had at seven, when the request for a new skillet or -pan had been necessary. Jeremiah understood, and looked down at the -simple affair, talking of it, to give her time. "That dress now," he -said, "ain't it kind of plain? Don't you like 'em fancied up with -ruffles and lace and stuff?" - -Cecilia said that perhaps it was plain, but that she rather liked it. -However, she would get one all-over ruffles for Jeremiah's dear gaze. -After that they were silent, Cecilia staring absently out over the -deep, blue Sound. - -"Papa, dear," she said at last, with a gulp. "There's a man coming -out to see me,--I mean us,--for Sunday. I hope you'll like him. -He--he's really nice. I hope you'll like him." She stopped for a -moment and then again said: "I _do_ hope you'll like him." - -"Do you want me to like him?" asked Jeremiah. - -"Oh, yes," said Cecilia, "I do!" She was again looking toward the -Sound. Her small, white teeth were set on her lower lip. "He's very -dear," she said at last; then she plaited a pink-edged handkerchief. -Jeremiah frowned. "There ain't a man fit fer yuh!" he said crossly, -"not a one!" - -"Yes, there is," answered Cecilia. - -"There ain't!" contradicted Jeremiah. "Does he play tennis?" he -questioned, "and set around in white pants?" Jeremiah's voice had -grown absolutely fierce. Cecilia laughed. "I suppose he does," she -admitted, "but he works, really hard. He told me that life had only -meant work for him, until----" - -"Hum!" grunted Jeremiah. "Hum! Let me catch him trying to keep -company with you! White tennis, and pants, and gulfing around with -them funny sticks! _Lemme_ catch him!" - -"Don't get so excited!" said Cecilia between little giggles. "He may -not even want me. He really hasn't asked me yet." - -"He ain't?" exploded Jeremiah. "He ain't? _Why_ not? Is the durn -fool blind? I'd like to know why not." - -Cecilia sank to a white marble seat. She was laughing helplessly. -Suddenly she sobered and wiped her eyes. - -"Dear," she said, "do you think I'd love you less, for--for loving -some one else? Didn't you love the whole world more because of -mamma? It only makes me want to be much nicer, and want to hug the -earth!" - -She covered her face as she finished, with slender, little hands. -Jeremiah sat down by her. - -"I want my bonnet with pink roses on it!" she whispered, "I _do_ want -it!" He put his arms around her because he couldn't answer. A gull -with silver wings swooped low. Cecilia uncovered her face, and -kissed the brick king. "Which is my very prettiest dress?" she -asked. "I want to wear it Saturday afternoon." - - -She tried to think her depression came from the night before, but -half of it came from the letter which she held in her hand. She had -had the strangest sinking sensation on reading it, and she _did_ love -Marjory. Why it had made her feel that way was a mystery. - -[Illustration: THE DINNER HAD BEEN WHAT SHE WANTED] - -She opened the letter again. Its pages crackled, and sprung into -their first folds as she laid them on the table. The third sheet she -picked up and read: "Mamma is really quite wild about travelling with -the Johnstons and I am absurdly relieved. Being with that dear lady -tells on my disposition (usually perfect, you know, dear!), and I am -happy to say a dutifully depressed good-bye to the water bottles and -ailments which are all I know of my progenitor. I told her I would -come to you for the summer months, and then perhaps go to Cousin -Alice. I may go home, but I'm not sure, and such a course involves -the proper dowager, who is always too proper, or too improper, and -ever a bore! I shall write you again about all this, and when I -shall arrive. - -"Dear, I shall so enjoy being with you. You are the only good person -I know who does not offend me. Perhaps because you are so -unconscious of that quality. Your influence is wonderful with me.... -How do you like being an 'Influence'? I have turned flippant, but -you know I was serious----" - -And that letter, in some strange way, had depressed Cecilia. She had -wanted the summer to be a quiet one,--one in which she could learn to -know a small brother, have ample time to amuse her father,--and---- - -Well, she was utterly ashamed, but she'd wanted it alone. It was so -little of her to wish it so. Marjory had been so good to her. -But,--Cecilia had dreamed of quiet evenings with the moon making a -glittering path of silver on the Sound.... She'd dreamed of a big, -gruff man coming toward her across soft grass.... That, and the -scent of roses, pink roses.... Instead the summer would be full of -Marjory's friends. Marjory had so many and such gay ones! Dancing, -playing cards, motoring,--hunting pleasure with a strained intensity, -running foolishly so that boredom should not overtake them.... And -she had needed the summer with John. Marjory, her good friend, was -not the one to show him things as Cecilia would have him see them. -Cecilia sighed. - -Then a little spasm of pain flickered across her face. The night -before was in her mind, when John, with the friends who were visiting -him, had grown too joyous. She had heard them come in in the deep -night. The sounds had rung clear in the still air. - -The cars they drove had come crashing through rose bushes, knocking -down slender trellises.... With silly laughter, she had heard the -men come toward the house. There had been unpleasant words said -loudly, as if such utterances were humorous. There had been more -silly laughter after them. - -Cecilia had felt quite sick. She had covered her eyes and made -requests of some one's else mother.... Then she had slipped into a -negligee and cautiously opened her door. - -The hall was empty and she went to John's room. She shook as she -travelled the long hall, and she hated John's friends with a -marvellous hate for one so sweet-natured. She was heart-sick and -afraid. John's room was empty. - -She stood there a moment, steadying herself. There were pictures -scattered about the room, which made her understand things more -fully. One, on a table near her, showed a pert miss, with tightly -curled hair, and a dress of cheap fanciness. - -"Your own little girl," was written across its corner, and then the -little girl's name, "Fanchette LeMain." - -Cecilia turned away. She went out into the hall. She felt as she -had years ago when John was her baby. At the top of the broad and -long stairs she looked down. John was on the first step, sprawled -unbeautifully, his head hanging limp on his chest, his hands closed -around a cerise scarf on which glittered little silver spots. - -She looked about to see that no one else was there and then ran -quickly down the stairs. - - -"I'm too heavy," said John, halfway up the stairs. He had been -considerably sobered by black coffee, and more so by the sight of -Cecilia. He leaned on her arm. - -"I have carried you before," answered Cecilia. "When we lived in the -flat, that was. I used to think that when you grew up I could lean -on you. It was funny how I planned." - -John didn't answer. They had reached his room and he sank to his bed -and sat, blinking stupidly, on the edge of it. Cecilia slipped to -her knees, and began to take off his shoes. - -"Don't!" he ordered sharply. "Ring for Higgens." - -"I'd rather not," answered Cecilia. - -"It was the heat----" he began. Cecilia sat back on her little -heels. She looked like a small girl saying her "Now I lay me----" - -"It was not the heat," answered Cecilia. "When you were small I -washed your mouth out with brown soap for doing that. Now do you -want a drink? I'll wet this towel; you'd better put it on your head. -There's the dawn," she said, looking toward the window. Then she -turned and picked up a cerise scarf with silver spots on it. She -folded it and laid it on the table by the photograph of Fanchette -LeMain. John looked unhappy. - -Cecilia put her hand on her brother's shoulder. "Good-night, dear," -she said. A quiver ran across his face. - -"I didn't want you to know," he whispered "You're so dear, but -old-fashioned. You don't understand how a man----" he stopped, and -she slipped down on the bed by him. "Everything's so beastly here. -I'm so ashamed to have the fellows see dad," he went on incoherently. -"Always talkin' of how things cost--always makin' breaks in -grammar,--afraid of his own butler----" John's eyelids were -drooping. He fell back, asleep. Cecilia got up and tried to pull -him into a more comfortable position. Then she went to her own room. -On the way she passed Jeremiah's. She paused by his door. She -wanted to kiss him,--as she had Johnny, when, very small, he had -bumped himself. - -"Excuse him, Dearest," she whispered. "He's very young. Some day -he'll understand, I hope." Then she went on. The dawn had come. -The Sound was covered by a grey fog. Cecilia lay down to stare up at -her ceiling. She did not sleep again. - -At last came noises. The gardeners talked as they worked on the -terrace below her windows. "Cut up rough," said one. Cecilia could -hear the break of wood. The white trellis with its pink rambler had -evidently suffered. - -"The old man----!" said another voice expressively. They laughed a -little. - -"Well, the kid's a gent, anyway," said the other, loudly. "Drunk -every night, and enough lady friends for a Hippodrome chorus----" -they laughed again. - -Cecilia turned and hid her face in the pillow. Her palms were wet. - -Father McGowan was surrounded by brigands. Their burnt cork -moustaches gave them a fierce expression terrible to view. - -"So you saw a man climbing up the grape arbor?" questioned Father -McGowan. - -The spokesman wriggled a little, and then said, "Well, we didn't just -see him but we heard him." - -"I seen him," said the youngest brigand, whose lower lip was -quivering. "I seen him. He had eyes like fire. I want--my maw! -I'm scared!" The youngest brigand dissolved into tears. They ran -down his cheeks and through his Kaiser Wilhelm of burnt cork, leaving -a grey trail on his small chin. "I want my maw!" he repeated. - -"An' las' night I seen a man down the alley. He sez 'Hello Bub.' -That fierce I ran home, _I_ tell yuh!" said another of the group. - -"Bet it was Jack, the Hugger," came in an ominous tone from the -background. The brigands quaked. Their eyes had grown large with -excitement, and fear was plain above the moustaches. One small boy -who wore a horse-hair imperial, muttered of "gettin' home to study -his gogerfy." He, and all the rest, cast longing eyes toward the -door. The youngest mopped the tears and smeared his moustache across -his face with his coat sleeve. - -The fat priest got up and laid aside his pipe with reluctance. "Come -on," he said; "we'll go find the villain. Come on!" - -Two small boys clung to his cassock,--the rest pretended a bravado. -They swaggered largely through the kitchen, where Mrs. Fry, washing -the rectory dishes, glared at their intrusion. Outside the soft dark -covered the fears of the brigands. Father McGowan went toward the -arbour. He looked well on the frail structure, and then shook it. A -black cat hissed, and jumped down. - -"_I_ wasn't scared none!" said the brigand who had wanted his maw, -"_I_ was just pretending!" The rest of the brigands giggled -foolishly and muttered of "Foolin'." - -Father McGowan tactfully spoke of the weather, and then he suggested -going down to the corner drug store, where pink sodas could be bought -for five cents. There was a flattering acceptance of his offer. -They started off, all talking loudly to him of their large -achievements. He listened and answered just at the right time, and -said just the right thing. So they faded into the night, the long, -black shadow with the smaller ones about it, clinging to it. - -"He's takin' 'em to the drug store, I bet," said a lanky boy who was -smoking in the shadows. His voice was sad. - -"He must say lots of Masses," said his companion. "Every time them -kids bawl around his place they get something to eat." - -"Um hum," agreed the first speaker, "but he ain't no soft guy. -Sometimes he licks 'em fit to kill." - -Down the street the drug store screen door slapped shut smartly. - -"Them five-cent sodas ain't no good anyway!" said the lanky boy. -"_I_ wouldn't want none!" the other sighed. - - -"No," said Mrs. Fry, "he ain't here. He's went to the drug store -with a mess of kids. Yuh can set, or yuh can go. _He_ don't care. -That's the kind of a man _he_ is." - -The man who stood on the Rectory porch said he would wait. As he -stepped across the threshold Mrs. Fry recognised him as a doctor who -had been uppish and sent in his card, "like he was a King." She -looked critically at his boots. "Trackin' in dust all the time----" -she muttered. Then she went heavily down the hall, slamming the -dining-room door after her. - -"_He_ never gets no rest!" she stated aloud to a picture of a dead -duck, hanging by its feet. "Never no peace nor no time to smoke!" -She glared at the fowl which had been given Father McGowan by Agnes -O'Raddle, as she soliloquised. The erstwhile Mr. Fry, who had always -been forced to smoke in the backyard, was far away. - - -"Well?" questioned Father McGowan. The doctor who sat across the -table from him leaned forward and began to speak quickly, his breath -coming between his quick words in gasps: "My wife's people had the -controlling interest in this plant, and I put all my money in it. It -had always paid well. A ventilator, it is, which slips beneath a -raised window,--simple affair, yet good. Then this Madden man got -ahold of an improved article, patented it, and started a manufactory -in the same town, started it on a large scale,--advertised -extensively.... Well, we're ruined. We can't compete. He sells -below cost. He can't want money; he's losing now. Why does he do -it? We've done everything. I've offered him----" - -The bell of the telephone which stood on the desk rang sharply. - -"Pardon," said Father McGowan, and then, "Why, Cecilia!" There was -an interval then the doctor heard him say: "Your prettiest dress? -Why they're all pretty! Why?" There was a longer interval, then a -sharp "What?" from Father McGowan. A silence, and then, "Dear child! -I'll be out to-morrow!" Father McGowan hung up the receiver. His -manner and voice were changed and softened. - -"The little boy is dead," he said to the doctor. "He was happy -before he died. He grew very young, and forgot a great deal, the -little boy who was in your care, I mean. Now go on, tell me more of -this. Will you smoke?" - -The fat priest pushed a box of cigars toward the shaking doctor. - -"I--I wouldn't do that now----" began the doctor. "Something's -broken me. God, I've suffered! What's that?" he ended sharply. -There was the tap-tap-tap that sounded like small crutches on a -polished floor. Father McGowan looked perplexed. - -"It must be the vines against the window," he said, "but I didn't -know it was windy. Have you a match?" - -The doctor nodded, and lit his cigar. His hands shook cruelly. - -"God, I've suffered!" he said hoarsely, "and I believe this Madden -man has caused it all. My practice and money gone, I----" he -stopped. "_Can't_ you help me?" he finished. "_Can't_ you?" - - -"Norah," said Cecilia, "which is my prettiest dress?" - -"I dunno, dearie," replied Norah. "Yuh ain't exactly homely in none! -But don't go thinkin' too much of yer looks. My maw used to say, -'Beauty's only skin deep.' She was a great one fer them sayin's." - - -"Norah," said Cecilia, "am I--am I what you'd call pretty?" - -"That depends," said Norah, "on whether yuh like dark or light hair." -She surveyed Cecilia critically, her lips sternly tight, but a proud -light showing in her eyes. Since Cecilia had grown up, the Virgin -had undergone a complete physical transformation for Norah. If -Norah's Virgin had been on earth, she might easily have been confused -with Cecilia Evangeline Agnes Madden. - -"How you kin set in them corsets!" said Norah, anxious to change the -subject. Cecilia laughed, then turned before a long glass which -stood between windows. "I wish I hadn't been educated," said -Cecilia. "I _love_ pink ones, trimmed all over with roses and lace!" - -"My maw used to say, 'Handsome is as handsome does!'" said Norah -sternly. Cecilia's new concern for her looks and clothes was -disquieting to her. She thought with a horror of Marjory's salves, -and eyebrow pencils.... Suppose Cecilia!--Norah shook her head. - -A maid came in the room with a froth of lacy frills falling over her -arm. She disposed of the froth, then bent above the seated Cecilia, -and began taking the pins from her yellow hair. It fell loosely, -with the soft, slow motion of waves, about her shoulders and well -below her hips.... - -"_Tres joli!_" said the true worshipper of beauty, as she always did. - -"Nonsense!" replied Cecilia, absently, as she always did. This was -the rite, frowned on by the jealous Norah. - -"I mended yer skirt," said Norah crossly. "It was tore fierce." - -"Thank you, dear," said Cecilia, and then: "Josephine, which is my -most pretty dress?" - -Norah left, shutting the door with decision. She muttered of people -who talked Eyetalian, and other Heathen languages. Then she decided -it was her duty to tell Cecilia of Josephine's outrageous flirting -with Mr. 'Iggens. After this lofty resolve her face cleared, and her -expression, became pleasant. - -She passed a heavy-eyed boy in the hall. In the early days he had -often shed his tears against her shoulder.... He had found love, and -understanding, exhibited by doughnuts, and bread spread thickly with -brown sugar. - -"Mr. John----" said Norah timidly as they were opposite. - -"Huh?" he responded, with a cool look. Norah swallowed with a gulp, -and went on. Her heart was heavy. Her spirit ached. - -"We give him too many doughnuts," she said. Then again her face -cleared. - -"I'll tell Celie how they go on!" she reflected. "Then I guess she -won't be so smart! Winkin' and carryin' on!" The dwelling on the -iniquities of Josephine was vastly cheering. Norah almost forgot a -heavy-eyed and overgrown boy, who, when little, had sobbed his -troubles out against her thin shoulder, and had turned to her for -soothing sugar cookies. - - -At the pretty little station, K. Stuyvesant was met by Cecilia. - -"How'd do?" he said gruffly. - -"How do you do?" said Cecilia. She had on her prettiest dress, but -K. Stuyvesant Twombly didn't notice it. They disposed of the baggage -question and then he settled, stiff and conscious, by her side in a -small grey car. - -"Pretty day," said K. Stuyvesant at last. Then he looked at Cecilia. -"Gosh! I love----" He stopped suddenly and shook his head. - -"Wh-what have you been doing since I saw you?" asked Cecilia. - -"Thinking of you," answered K. Stuyvesant gruffly. Cecilia didn't -answer. He was afraid she hadn't liked his telling her the truth, so -he described a futurist exhibition, while horribly conscious that the -quick beating of his heart made his voice shake. - -"I'm glad you came," said Cecilia after the futurist exhibition had -been described. "I wanted to see you." - -"Dear!" said K. Stuyvesant loudly, and without the least effort. He -sat looking down on her with a very honest and revealing look, a look -that would have made any one with the least feeling bet their last -cent on him. - -"Two months," reminded Cecilia.... It was really too wonderful. It -had to be proved. If he really cared he would wait two months. - -"There's the house," she said aloud, "and on the terrace my dear -brother." The car twisted between tall gate posts, and the house and -terrace were lost to sight from the shading trees. A collie dog -bounded out from the shrubbery and barked fiercely. - -"Evangeline!" called Cecilia. "He is Norah's," she explained to K. -Stuyvesant. "She named him after me." - -"Who is Norah?" asked K. Stuyvesant. - -"She was our 'hired girl,'" answered Cecilia, "before we ever heard -of maids." K. Stuyvesant didn't reply. In a second the car was by a -side entrance. "John!" called Cecilia to the languid figure on the -terrace. John sauntered slowly toward them. - -"Glad to know you, I'm sure," he said in his most grown-up and -_blasé_ manner. "Nice of you to run out to see us. We get jolly -bored, you know." After this John turned toward the house. There -was an old man on the broad porch, looking wistfully and undecidedly -toward the group. - -"Oh, the Gov'ner!" said John in a tone indescribable. - -"Daddy," called Cecilia loudly, "please come here _right_ away!" The -brick king came toward them eagerly. "Pleased to meet yuh," he said -as he acknowledged the introduction. K. Stuyvesant spoke kindly of -the beauty of the place. "It ought to be beautiful!" answered -Jeremiah. "It cost enough! Them there fixings fer the garden," he -went on, "them alone cost----" - -"Let me take you to your room," broke in John. "Don't you want to -get in cooler things?" K. Stuyvesant assented and followed John to -the house. When he reached the porch he looked back. Cecilia stood -with her arm through her father's. She was looking up at his face. -Her smile was tender. - -"Gosh!" said K. Stuyvesant, and shook his head. Then he drew a long -breath and turned to follow John. - - -The dinner had been what she wanted, thought Cecilia. He had seen -_everything_.... Jeremiah had asked the butler to "spare" him a -piece of bread. He had also tucked his napkin in his collar, and -then, with a quick movement, removed it, looking around as he did so -to see if he'd been noticed. - -John had wiggled and sighed loudly when bricks had been talked of. -In an effort to gloss over the crudities he had contributed a "smart -line of talk," far more impossible than any amount of money mention. - -K. Stuyvesant had responded politely to everything and had avoided -looking at Cecilia with a studied effort. Cecilia had been silent. -She felt it better that she should not appear in this act. - -"He come to me, being as I was a man with money, and I sez----" came -to her again in Jeremiah's cracked voice. - -"I beg pardon?" K. Stuyvesant had said, having lost it through John's -interruption. - -"Granted," said Jeremiah. "I sez, he come to me an'----" - -K. Stuyvesant had been _so_ dear! Cecilia stood leaning on the wall -with the Greek relief, as she thought her thoughts.... She looked on -the Sound, which was black in the night, except for a path of white -moonlight. A path that quivered silver. She looked and saw K. -Stuyvesant listening to Jeremiah's talk. He _had_ been so dear! She -wondered whether they'd never finish their smoke and talk, and -whether he'd _ever_ come to her. - -Her eyes filled with tears. - -"Mamma!" she whispered to the soft dark. A fitful little breeze -sprang up, seeming to answer. - - -He came across the soft grass slowly. His heart knelt to the little -Irish girl who sat upon the white marble wall. - -"Hello, Mr. K. Stuyvesant!" she called gaily. - -"Hello," he answered heavily. He stood, arms on the wall, a few feet -from her, looking at her boldly in the soft light. The world was -full of the rhythmic surge of his pulses.... The night air seemed to -beat upon him with the heat of fire, but there was no thought of -touching her. He was utterly humble before his shrine. He wanted, -this American man of 1915, to kneel before this little maiden.... He -craved the touch of her hands on his head. He was shaken, purified, -thrilled.... He repeated "two months--two months!" to still his -overmastering desires. The silence had been long and had grown -heavy. K. Stuyvesant was afraid of it. He gulped convulsively and -almost yelled: "Great night, isn't it?" - -Cecilia nodded. "Don't you want to smoke?" she asked. - -"I guess I'd better," he said unsteadily, then, "Oh, Cecilia!" He -reached toward her, then drew back, for John came toward them. - -"Cablegram," he said languidly, "for you, Celie." - -Cecilia opened it. "From Marjory," she said, after reading it by the -light of John's flash. "She comes next week. You must like her," -she added to Stuyvesant. "She is my best friend." - - - - -CHAPTER X - -"MY BEST FRIEND" - -Father McGowan frowned. - -"I love him," said Cecilia. "I don't care who knows it. Where's -your handkerchief? I--I guess I've lost mine." - -Father McGowan supplied the handkerchief. Cecilia dabbed her eyes. -"You see she's so attractive," she went on, "and I'm--I'm not so -very. And then John, and everything. I'm ashamed of crying like -this." She gulped again. Father McGowan covered her small hand with -his. "Dear child!" he said gently. "Dear child!" - -The fire leaped, spluttered and hissed with capricious change. -Outside the weather was grey, with a drab touch in the air. The sky -was a shivery colour. Cecilia and Father McGowan sat on a wide -davenport in the library. - -"Where is he now?" asked Father McGowan. - -"Playing tennis with Marjory," said Cecilia. She again dabbed Father -McGowan's handkerchief on her eyes. - -"Oh, drat!" said Father McGowan fiercely. He put his other hand over -the small one which lay in his. Cecilia tightened her fingers about -his thumb. - -"I've been so miserable," she said, "that I've even thought of being -a nun. I would if it weren't for papa, and John,--and my hair. (I -couldn't bear to have it cut.) And he shows so plainly that he likes -her, and then she tells me what he says,--oh, dear!" - -"Darn fool!" said Father McGowan. "Is he _crazy_?" He glared at -Cecilia with his question, and she laughed unsteadily. - -"I'm ashamed to bother you," she said, "but it helps, and I can't -tell papa. I think papa'd kill him. He's done nothing wrong, you -know. You can't help what your heart does." She avoided the fat -priest's eyes and looked down at her ringless left hand. "There have -been lots of men," she said, "but none I could even dream of -marrying. This is different, and--and I do! His eyes are so dear -and so is he, but I would love him anyway. I think he's the rest of -me." - -"Drat!" said Father McGowan forcibly. "Drat him!" - -"I wish I'd been left in the flat. Then I'd have grown up to marry -some teamster. It's only when you reach for things too high above -you that your arms begin to ache,--then papa and John, all the time -misunderstanding each other. Both of them being hurt by this -money,--and I--I _love_ him so!" - -"Cecilia," said Father McGowan, "this world is full of hurts. You -have to take them as you do the weather, without a question. Some -one put them here to polish our little souls.... After you are fifty -you will accept them with thankfulness and cease questioning. The -faith of childhood will return in a bigger way, with a belief in the -absolutely unknown. Some one put them here to polish our little -souls. They are here, let them polish, not scratch." - -"Yes," answered Cecilia meekly. - -"Oh, drat!" said Father McGowan with an entire change of tone. "I -don't _want_ you polished. _Dear_ child! Drat him, is he _crazy_?" - -Jeremiah wandered in. He was sullen. He had been talked to by a fat -priest, who told him that he should leave the discipline of a certain -doctor to God and the world, explaining that it was rarely necessary -for humans to add to any one's unhappiness by a mistaken sense of -dealing out justice. - -Jeremiah had listened with his eyes on the top shelf of a gilt -cabinet which held a brick. After Father McGowan had finished, -Jeremiah had spoken of the weather, and Jeremiah was a good Catholic. -Father McGowan realised it was a bad case. He had abandoned it for -that time. - -"And will yuh stay fer dinner?" asked the sullen Jeremiah. - -"I _will_," answered the priest decidedly. Cecilia handed him a -handkerchief, which he folded carefully and put in his pocket. Then -she got up and played "The Shepherd Boy" for the King of Bricks. - - -Outside in the grey light a sullen-eyed man played tennis with -Marjory. He played with much energy and replied with scant courtesy -to Marjory's remarks. - -"Cecilia said that she was tired of entertaining,--that I'd have to -do it for her," sang out the green-eyed. K. Stuyvesant's chin -squared. - -"In," he called. "I'm a fool to stick around," was his mental -comment on himself. He was not surprised by the dead weight his -heart felt, although the sensation was new. - -They finished their game and went toward the house. "You're doing -lots for John," said Marjory. "He adores you! Imitates your every -move! You'll try to get him through this smartness?" - -In truth she did not consider it smartness, for to her it was the -natural attitude of young men. However she was clever enough to see -the way this big, silent man felt about it, and to agree outwardly. - -"I'd do anything to help one girl," he said loudly. He wanted -Marjory to know how he felt about Cecilia. Perhaps she'd help him. -They reached the broad steps. - -"After dinner I want to see you," whispered Marjory. "In the -garden,--alone. Something about Cecilia. By the white wall?" - -"Not there," he answered quickly, "but by the Italian dial, if you -like." - -In the hall he met a fat priest. The man was heartily uncordial, but -he didn't much care. After a few words he went up to his room. -There he stood by his window and looked on the grey Sound. A fog was -creeping over it. Everything was dismal and dull. - -"I'm not much good," he muttered, "but no one could love her more. I -would be--so good to her. So good. Little Saint--I----" He covered -his eyes with his hands. His hands shook. - -There was a tap on the door. John came in. "Hello, old chap!" he -said energetically, the languid indifference all gone from his tone. -"Can I stay and talk?" He settled, while K. Stuyyesant took a grip -on himself, and tried to bring himself to an agreeable acceptance of -his task. - - -In another wing of the house Cecilia was dressing. Marjory, gorgeous -in a flame-coloured negligee, lounged in a comfortable chair and -talked during the operation. - -"You may go, Josephine," said Cecilia, "and thank you." - -"If I treated my maid as you do yours," said Marjory, "she'd have no -respect for me." - -"If I weren't decently kind," answered Cecilia, "I'd have no respect -for myself, and Josephine likes me." - -"Oh, my _dear_," said Marjory, "she _adores_ you." Marjory -scrutinised her nails. "I told Stuyvesant to-day," she said, "how -much he'd done for John. You don't mind?" - -"No," answered Cecilia. "He has. I'm grateful." - -"He said he was glad I wanted him to, that he'd do anything for a -certain girl. He has the dearest eyes, when he looks at you--oh, you -know how----" - -"Yes," answered Cecilia, "I know." There was a pause while the only -sound heard was the brush on Cecilia's hair--the soft snap and swish. - -"Cecilia," said Marjory, "_were_ you engaged to Tommy Dixon?" - -"Yes," answered Cecilia, "but, Marjory, I can't bear to remember it. -It--it was while I was much younger and hurt because of something -Annette Twombly had said. I thought I'd have to marry some one like -that to help papa. You know how foolish duty may be at nineteen? He -was of a splendid family. I thought papa would like it, when now I -know that all he wants is my happiness. After all, decayed flowers -from a good plant are not worth anything." - -"When did you break it off?" asked Marjory. - -"When he kissed me," answered Cecilia. "It taught me how intolerable -love is unless it is very true. I will always remember those kisses. -I can't forget them. What are you going to wear to-night?" Cecilia -changed the subject with suddenness, for it made her sick. - -"Black," answered Marjory. Cecilia's heart sank. Marjory was so -very pretty in black! Marjory got up. "Bye, childy," she called, "I -must go." And she waved her hand airily as she went out. - -On the way down the hall she repeated Cecilia's words: "I will always -remember those kisses. I can't forget them." That would do very -nicely for the little talk by the Italian dial.... She would play -sympathy, understanding. She would not lie, but if he cared to -misunderstand how could she, Marjory, help that? A sudden spark of -her honest father flew across her soul. - -"I don't care!" she said in answer to it, "I love him, I really do!" -Then the love and trust of the small Cecilia twanged on a heart -chord. Marjory shut her eyes. In her mind came those of K. -Stuyvesant Twombly, as he looked when he gazed on the daughter of a -"Brick King." Marjory hardened. "She doesn't love him as I do," she -whispered; "she can't!" - -She was only the echo of a single purpose: cruel in its selfishness, -animal in its origin, and savage in intensity. - - - - -CHAPTER XI - -ACCEPTANCE - -"Celie, be yuh happy?" asked Jeremiah anxiously. - -"Oh, yes!" answered Cecilia. She caught her breath rather -spasmodically and went on: "Of course I'm happy! Here I am, all -through being improved and ready to stay at home with you and John. -Isn't that enough to make any one happy?" - -"Don't you want some new frills, or something?" asked Jeremiah -wistfully. "You know I can buy yuh anything, and I like to, good." - -"I have so much," answered Cecilia. She went over to him and perched -on the arm of his chair. "You and John are everything to me," she -said. "When I have you I have everything!" She leaned toward him -and kissed him. Her arms tightened fiercely about his neck. "You -are _everything_!" she repeated loudly. 'Iggins came sliding in with -that effect of being on casters, proper to butlers. - -"Was yuh lookin' fer me, sir?" asked Jeremiah. Higgins assented and -delivered a small box. Then he elevated his head and left. Outside -the door he muttered of leaving. He recalled with bitterness his -last post, where the man of the house had been a "perfect gentleman" -and had thrown boots and curses at him without partiality. - -"'Sir!'" he echoed with a fine scorn. "'Ow is a man to keep 'is -self-respect?" - -Josephine tripped down the hall. She carried Marjory's small dog, -who had a scarlet coat buttoned about his small tummy. "Dee-ar -Eegeens!" she purred, then fluttered her eyelashes. - -"The post 'as its hadvantages," said Dee-ar Eegeens, and followed in -Josephine's direction. - - -Inside the library Cecilia stood by a window with Jeremiah. He was -untying the string of a small box and his fingers shook. - -"I got it fer you, Celie," he said, "because I thought you was peaked -like." He opened the box reverently. - -"Oh!" said Cecilia. - -"_Twenty_-five thousand," said Jeremiah. "_Look_ at her!" Jeremiah -lifted his present from the box. The pendant of his present looked -like a lamp shade from Tiffany's. - -"_Oh!_" said Cecilia again. - -"_Look_ at that there diamond and emerald and ruby all mashed -together like!" said Jeremiah proudly. "_Look_ at her! _Don't_ she -sparkle?" - -"It does," said Cecilia; "it certainly does!" - -"I told 'em to take out the pearls and put more sparkly stuff in. I -sez, 'Put in all yuh can! Don't spare no expense.' I sez, 'Make her -showy. She's fer the best girl on earth.' They done it too." - -"Oh, yes!" said Cecilia. Her eyes were a little moist. Tears came -easily lately. She put her arms around Jeremiah's neck. "Dear," she -said, "I love it. I can't say thank you the way I want to." - -Jeremiah didn't answer and she laid her cheek against his shoulder. -Together they looked out of the window on the green and then the -water's grey. - -"Celie," said Jeremiah uncertainly. - -"Yes?" answered Cecilia. - -"Celie," he said, "you wasn't sweet on that young Twombly? You -_wasn't_?" Cecilia shook her head. - -"I was afraid you was frettin' over him," said Jeremiah; "you -wasn't?" Again he felt her head move against his shoulder. She -clung to him for a moment, and then straightened and said, "I must go -dress." At the door she paused and turned back. "I love the -pendant," she said. "It is beautiful. I _love_ it!" - -Jeremiah beamed widely. "I knew yuh would," he said boastfully. "I -sez, 'Spare no expense. It's fer my little girl that nursed her maw, -cooked her paw's meals, and then learned him to wear a _dress_-suit. -None smarter!'" - -"It is beautiful, dearest," murmured Cecilia. Then she left the -room. Alone, Jeremiah went to stand below a portrait. - -"Mary," he whispered, "what makes her look like she wants to cry?" - - - - -CHAPTER XII - -PAIN - -"If it is any satisfaction," said Father McGowan dryly, "I will -assure you that he loves you. Anybody could see that. I suppose it -is your father, Cecilia." - -She nodded. "Marjory----" she started, then stopped. - -"Well?" said Father McGowan. - -"Marjory told me he said it was--papa," said Cecilia. All the -tragedy possible to feel at twenty-one was in her young eyes. "She -did it kindly," added Cecilia. Then she went on unsteadily: "I don't -know why I am not brave. I am so ashamed. He--he isn't worth it." - -"No," answered Father McGowan, "he isn't." Cecilia slipped her hand -in his. The warm contact had brought her peace at many times. It -did now, in a way. "Cecilia," said Father McGowan, "sometimes love -means pain. You know Father Tabb's poem about it?" - -"No," said Cecilia. - - "Once only did he pass my way - 'When wilt Thou come again? - All, leave some token of Thy stay!' - He wrote (and vanished) 'Pain.'" - -Cecilia tightened her fingers about Father McGowan's thumb. "You -have always been so good to me," she whispered. "You have always -understood and helped me!" - -"Well, well!" said Father McGowan. "What else am I here for?" - -"Marjory said if I kept papa,--kept papa----" Cecilia stopped. - -"Kept him in the backyard or in the cellar, it would be better?" -ended Father McGowan. - -"Oh, _don't_!" said Cecilia. "Please don't; for two or three times -I've felt like John,--I'm _so_ ashamed." - -"Dear child!" Father McGowan said. "Dear child!" - -"I love papa," said Cecilia. "It's only this new feeling that -unsettles me. Sometimes I think I'd pay any price. Sometimes, like -John, I'm ashamed, and then how I _hate_ myself!" - -A gilded moon had slid from behind a line of poplars. It had shown -Father McGowan eyes that reflected an aching soul, tragic young eyes, -almost bitter in their hurt. - -Suddenly Cecilia held his fat hand against her cheek. Then she -smiled at him bravely. "I'm going to be good!" she said with a -little catch in her voice. "I'm going to be good!" - -"Cecilia Evangeline," said Father McGowan, "dear child!" - - -Marjory entered the room with a slam and a swish. "I telephoned -Stuyvesant and asked him to come out to dinner," she said. "You -don't mind?" - -"No," answered Cecilia, "certainly not." - -"He seemed anxious to come," said Marjory consciously. Cecilia -didn't reply. - -"What's in that box?" asked Marjory. - -"A present," answered Cecilia. She took it from the box and held it -up for inspection. - -"Oh, Lord!" said Marjory. "Your father?" - -Cecilia again did not reply. Her cheeks were pink and her eyes -sparkled. - -"If I were you," advised Marjory, "I wouldn't wear it to-night. You -know how conservative the Twomblys are----" - -"What he thinks is not vital to me," said Cecilia. "I shall wear it. -I _love_ it. I think it's beautiful!" - -"You dear child!" said Marjory. She looked on the small liar with -respect. Suddenly she was shocked into speechlessness. The small -liar was sobbing wildly. - -"Oh, Marjory! Oh, Marjory!" she gasped. - - -Much later Cecilia stood at the foot of the broad stair. - -"Where's your necklace?" asked Jeremiah. - -"Oh," said Cecilia, "I forgot it, but I want to wear it. I do! I'm -going to get it now." She turned from him and ran up the steps. - -"Here he is!" she heard John call from the porch. Then came -Marjory's loud laugh. Cecilia's breath came fast, and her fingers -trembled as they clasped the new necklace about her throat. She -stood before the mirror a minute before she started down. "It _is_ -beautiful," she said, "and I am proud to wear it!" - - -That night Cecilia lay long wakeful. She had not slept much or well -lately. She heard the different clocks follow each other with -minutes' difference in their chimes. Hour after hour.... Cruel -hours.... Control left her and she turned from side to side, -restlessly moving into what seemed, each time, a more restless -position. - -She hoped K. Stuyvesant had believed her when she said she thought -her new necklace beautiful. She remembered John's sneer and his -question: "Been shopping at the 'Five and Ten'?" - -Best, she remembered Jeremiah's proud pleasure in his gift. The -remembrance hurt, and made her feel little. - -There was a tap on her door which made her strained nerves leap. She -sat up in bed and turned on the lights, blinking in their glare. - -"What is it?" she called. - -"It is I," answered Marjory. "I've been wakeful. I want to talk -with you for a moment." - -"Come in," said Cecilia. Marjory opened the door and came across the -room to sit on the edge of Cecilia's bed. - -"I'm sorry you haven't slept," said Cecilia. - -"That doesn't matter," answered Marjory. Cecilia saw that she was -very tired, so tired that she looked old. She was the Marjory of gay -evening, with a grey veil shrouding her. - -"I'm going away," said Marjory abruptly. Her fingers played with the -coverlet and her eyes avoided Cecilia's. "I'm going back to mamma," -she continued. "I think she needs me, and--and I _hate_ the States!" - -"Marjory, _dear_!" said Cecilia, "I'm sorry--so sorry." - -"No one wants me," said the new Marjory. "I only make trouble -wherever I go. No one wants me----" - -"I always want you," said Cecilia. "I do, Marjory,--I really do." - -"I believe you really mean that," said Marjory slowly. "I'm almost -too little to understand you, but I know you never lie." - -"I lied about the necklace," said Cecilia; "I don't think it -beautiful, except for the love it shows." - -"Cecilia," said Marjory, "I can't be truthful. I can't, Cecilia----" - -"Don't!" answered Cecilia. "You are! I know you better than any -one. You have been my best friend always, and I say you are!" - -Marjory's fingers plucked at the coverlet restlessly. She breathed -in quick gasps. Cecilia laid her hand on Marjory's. "Perhaps -to-morrow you'll feel differently?" she suggested. "You know dark -makes things so much darker. I'll do anything to make you happier. -I'll ask Mr. Twombly to come out and play with you often, Marjory -dear." - -"Don't, oh, don't!" whimpered Marjory. Her shoulders shook. Cecilia -closed her eyes a moment, and then spoke quite loudly and steadily. -"Dear," she said, "I'm sure he loves you. I'm sure he does." - -"Don't!" implored Marjory. "Don't!" She threw back her head and -spoke in a different tone. "I hate America!" she said viciously. "I -hate everything! Life, my place in it. I hate you for being so -good! I hate,--oh, God! Oh, God!" Her tirade ended in a paroxysm -of dry sobs. Small Cecilia reached out her arms and drew Marjory's -head against her soft bosom. - -"Oh, dear Marjory!" she whispered, "you have been so good to me! I -would do anything to make you happier! _Anything!_ Marjory, dear -Marjory!" - -Marjory sobbed on. - -"I wasn't worthy of my dreams," Cecilia heard her say between gasps. -"I--they were too big for me. I knew it, but----" she stopped. -Cecilia, all uncomprehending, baffled, said only, "Dear!" and again, -"Dear!" - -Some strange trouble this was to bring tears to the dry-eyed Marjory, -but Marjory needed comfort, not questions. "Dear!" she said once -again. Marjory drew away. "Oh, heavens!" she said, laughing, "what -an emotional actress I could have been. Forget this and sleep; I -shall." She stood up, stretching. Suddenly she was again the new -Marjory. She looked on Cecilia. "I _did_ try," she said, "and some -people can't be decent even when they try. They can only get -halfway." - -"What?" began Cecilia. - -"Nothing," said Marjory. "Good-night." She started for the door, -and then turned back. She leaned above the bed and kissed Cecilia -rather fiercely, quite as if she thought of some one else whom she -loved in another way while she did it. After she'd gone Cecilia hid -her eyes. Without reason the kisses of Tommy Dixon were recalled. -Those of the life-half, without a touch of soul. Then Cecilia forgot -them in her wonder about Marjory. - -"I would do anything for her happiness," thought Cecilia, "even -that." And then she closed her eyes and asked to be strong. - -When she opened them she saw a golden streak across the floor. The -sun was up. - - - - -CHAPTER XIII - -A REQUEST - -"Miss Cecilia----" said Stuyvesant Twombly into the telephone which -stood on his desk. His heart hammered so that his ears ached, and -the furniture in the room swayed and bent. - -"I want to ask you a favour," he heard. "It matters a great deal to -me, and, well, to----" she stopped. - -"Yes?" he said, aware that his voice was crisp. He had not meant to -have it so, but his voice, when Cecilia was near, did as it pleased. - -"It's about John," he heard her say very quickly. "He--you know he -cares a great deal about you, and that you influence him greatly. -You did more than any one else ever has for him." - -"I'm sure," interrupted K. Stuyvesant, "I'm glad. I don't mean -that," he blurted out; "I mean----" - -"I understand," said Cecilia; "I telephoned you to ask you if you -wouldn't come to the house sometimes because of him? I--I'm not home -very much. The--the little incident of the boat is quite -forgotten----" - -K. Stuyvesant coughed. - -"I understand you," said Cecilia. "I hope you do me?" - -"Yes," answered K. Stuyvesant miserably. - -"You will help him?" she questioned further. - -"I will," he answered. "I told Miss Marjory I'd do---- - -"Yes," broke in Cecilia, unable to bear more; "she told me what you -said. I'll be more grateful than you can ever know, too." - -K. Stuyvesant swallowed convulsively. - -"Good-bye," she said in a small voice. "Good-bye," he answered -gruffly. He hung up the receiver and stared across the room. His -teeth were set with cruel tightness on his lower lip.... He -remembered how her little hand had crept into his beneath a blue and -green checked steamer blanket. He almost wished he could forget -it.... And that distance at which she'd kept him had not been what -he'd thought, her proving of his sudden love, but only her -inclination. Lord, how he'd dreamed, and still dreamed! ... He'd do -what he could for John. He believed much was possible. - -And how even the sound of her voice left him! Shaking, and aching -with his want. First hot, then cold.... He stared, unseeingly, -across his office. He recalled his first evening at the country -house when he'd stood by the white wall with a Greek relief, -worshipping a little Irish maid. - -Then Marjory had come. He wished she hadn't. He almost hated her, -and found no reason why he should, except for her telling him -something which haunted his long nights.... "Cecilia, Cecilia!" ran -through his head,--and heart.... For her, he'd do what he could for -John. He reached for the telephone and called a number he knew too -well. After an interval, and a request, John answered. - -At first his tone was languid, then it leaped into colour from -pleasure, and K. Stuyvesant hid his eyes.... John, genuine, echoed -the dearest Cecilia. His voice, even in its grating boy-quality, -held a hint of hers. - -"Then we'll go riding?" K. Stuyvesant asked. - -"I'd be jolly glad to!" answered John. "I've wanted to see you, but -I thought I'd better not bother you." - -"We'll take in the aeroplane show," said K. Stuyvesant, "if you -like." John liked very much. He hung up the receiver, looking like -a boy. His thickened eyelids were lifted, his eyes wide open. - -Looking toward the photograph of Fanchette, he recalled an -engagement. "You may go to hell!" he said loudly, not stopping to -think that his staying away would not send her there; but that she -was more liable to its admittance on earth, if he, and other idle -young men of his stamp, were with her. - -The aeroplane show! That would be great! Of all the chaps he'd ever -known he most admired K. Stuyvesant, and to chum with him! Well, -wouldn't the fellows look! Well, rather! - -In the hall he passed Jeremiah. "Going out with Stuyvesant," he -called pleasantly. Confiding his intentions or aim in direction was -unusual. Both he and Jeremiah wondered at it. Jeremiah was so -pleased that he was past smiling. A little quirk came in his heart, -and he whispered, "Just then he looked like Mary used to when I brung -her the wages. He did! I wished she could have saw him!" Then -Jeremiah went on down the hall, stooping a little more than usual, as -he always did with the thought that made him old. - -"A bunnit with pink roses on!" he muttered next. That always came -with his memory of Mary, that "bunnit" that she never had. - - -"Hello, Madden," said K. Stuyvesant. John threw out his chest. K. -Stuyvesant had acknowledged him a man. "How're yuh?" he added. John -said that he was well. As they spoke they sped away from the -stern-faced houses of New York's moneyed folk and into its hum. - -"Glad to be in town again," said John; "awful glad to see you too. -Got beastly quiet out there after Marjory left. Can't be sleepy -while _she's_ around!" K. Stuyvesant assented. - -"You mashed on her too?" inquired John. K. Stuyvesant took his eyes, -for the faintest second, from the street ahead. Then he looked back. -He had answered. John felt limp, and adored with more fervor. -"Didn't mean to offend," he muttered. - -They had spent a pleasant afternoon. At least John thought so, the -pleasantest, he thought, for ages, but just now he was suffering from -a profound shock. K. Stuyvesant had said something that had left -John mentally holding on to his solar plexus. - -"You say it's an evidence of _youth_ to get drunk?" said John. - -"Uh huh," answered K. Stuyvesant in an indifferent tone. "Surest -sign in the world that a fellow's about nineteen. You know how it -is, a chap wants to get old, be thought old, so he imitates what he -thinks is manhood. Like a kid, picking out gilt instead of gold, he -picks out a drunk, and thinks it's a man. Look at that motor! -_Some_ peach!" - -"Yes," agreed John absently. However he hadn't seen the motor. He -was hoping with violence that K. Stuyvesant had not heard of his -lurid past. For the first time he thought of his "past" without -pleasure. Heretofore his "past" had been like a treasured museum. -Each piece of fresh wickedness added to it with great pleasure, and -the knowledge that its value was greater. - -"Everybody goes through that stage," said K. Stuyvesant, quite as if -he'd read John's mind. "It's the measles of the pin-feather age. -Look here, John, whatcha think of that shaft? Looks kinda heavy to -me." - -"Hollow, aluminum," said John in a little voice. He was suffering -from a complete emotional turn over. It was difficult to contemplate -shafts. K. Stuyvesant fingered a frame with interest. "Like to own -one," he said, "darned if I wouldn't!" - -"Keep yer hands off them machines!" said a loud voice, the owner of -which glared on K. Stuyvesant. K. Stuyvesant removed his hands. He -also smiled. John was nettled. His great dignity was hurt. - -"Why didn't you tell him who you were?" he asked of Stuyvesant with -heat. - -"Oh, Lord!" said Stuyvesant. "Why should I? The fact that I draw a -little more on pay day than the next fellow doesn't give me the -divine right to paw all over the works." John was silent. He was -again mentally steadying his solar plexus. The afternoon had been -full of earthquakes to his small ideas, and reconstruction. - -"Look here," said John seriously, "did you go through that period?" - -K. Stuyvesant looked sheepish, then he laughed. "Sure," he said; "I -was a real devil at twenty. I couldn't stand girls because I thought -they laughed at me, so I decided to drink myself to death. My proud -ideal was to be the heaviest drinker in New York, and to be so -pointed out. Sometimes I stayed out as late as two." - -John laughed with him, although his inclinations were far from -laughter. Coarse hands were despoiling his altar, and, worse, -laughing at it, as an echo of childhood. - -K. Stuyvesant had seated himself on a folding chair that smelled of a -hearse. John settled by him. "These chairs always make me think of -Uncle Keefer's funeral," said Stuyvesant. "Mother went, draped in -eighteen yards of crape. She mourned him deeply until she heard the -will, then she tore off the weeds and had 'em burned." - -John was far away, so the subject of Uncle Keefer's funeral was -abandoned. - -"Did--did you collect girls' photographs?" asked John. - -"Girls never liked me," said Stuyvesant, "and guns weren't allowed. -I did use to have a gallery of second-rate actresses decorating my -boudoir. I bought the pictures at a photographer's. The less they -wore the better. Lord, what a calf period! Hiccoughing, little -asses! Makes me sick to think of it!" Real disgust was written on -K. Stuyvesant's face. John pushed his hair away from his forehead. -He felt very hot. If some one else had spoken, he would not have -noticed. But K. Stuyvesant--chased by most of New York! Honestly -liked by the fellows, as a good sport. Owner of several cups for -several achievements. Rated as "damned indifferent, but a bully -chap!" - -John felt weak and little,--worse,--he felt terribly young. He -looked away from K. Stuyvesant. Perhaps K. Stuyvesant sensed -something of his misery, for he laid a big hand on John's shoulder. -The hand was cheering. - -"Where you going to college?" he asked. John explained that he had -not thought of going, that he hated work, and that a certain amount -of study seemed necessary for school. - -K. Stuyvesant talked persuasively. "If you studied this winter you -could enter next fall," he said; "you have all of the year to do it -in. I'll look up some decent tutors, and help all I can, but I'm -darned stupid, myself. Wish I weren't. All I could do would be to -root. I'd do that!" - -"Would you kind of help me keep interested?" said John, looking at -his feet. "I haven't done anything that I haven't wanted to, for so -long, that I've lost the knack. If you'd help me keep -interested,--will you?" - -"You bet I _will_!" answered K. Stuyvesant. - -"Thank you," said John quietly. K. Stuyvesant's hand tightened on -John's shoulder convulsively. Then he took it away. Cecilia's voice -had seemed to say the little "thank you." He was shaken, and vastly -relieved when John began to talk of monoplanes. He wondered with -dull misery if all his years would be full of this "where is the rest -of me?" feel. "Why isn't she here? _How_ can we be apart when I -feel like this?" - -He looked at John. The monoplane essay had ceased. "How is your -sister?" asked K. Stuyvesant gruffly. - - -"Cecilia," said John, "I wish you'd come in." He was by the door of -his bedroom as he spoke. Cecilia answered that she'd be happy to -come in, and stepped past him. "I'm going to college," said John -dramatically after he'd closed the door. "Stuyvesant wants me to. -He thinks he can get me in his Frat. He's going to buy an aeroplane, -but he says I can't go up unless you say so. Can I? Are you glad -I'm going to college?" - -Cecilia was entirely bewildered, but said she was glad he had decided -to go to college. She sat in a low chair by a table, and her -bewilderment increased when John took several photographs from his -bureau and threw them carelessly into the waste basket. Next she saw -Fanchette thrown in a table drawer, which was then slammed. - -"John dear," said Cecilia, "_are_ you sick?" - -"No," answered John, then she saw a twinkle in his eyes, often there -in the little boy days. "I'm Irish," he continued, "and I can see a -joke, even on myself. I've tried to be very old, Celie." - -She put her arms around his neck. He hid his face against her -throat, and she felt him shake. The joke was forgotten. "It's so -hard," she heard in muffled tones; "I'm ashamed of dad, and then I -try to gloss it over, I----" - -"If it hadn't been for dad," said Cecilia slowly, "we would have both -been getting slabs of peat out of an Irish bog, surely barefooted, -probably hungry." - -"It would have been better," said John bitterly. - -"Perhaps," answered Cecilia, "but that is not the question. We're -here." - -"Quite so," said John, and laughed a little. He had drawn away, -ashamed of his emotion. - -"Have I seemed like a kid to you?" he asked. - -Cecilia looked at him squarely. "Yes," she answered. - -"Why didn't you help me?" he blurted out. "Let me be the laughing -stock of every one. The son of a multi-millionaire, the laughing -stock of----" - -"If you recollect," interrupted Cecilia, "I did try. More than once. -You told me I was only a girl, that I didn't understand. You even -told me to mind my business on several occasions." - -"Oh, Celie!" said John. - -"Dear!" answered Cecilia, in another tone. She sat on the arm of the -chair in which he'd thrown himself. He put an arm around her. - -"Now that you are awake," said Cecilia, "what do you think of those -near-men you've been introducing me to all summer?" She was smiling. -John's inclination to anger vanished. He smiled foolishly instead. - -"The mixture is the trouble," he said, "with no one whom you can -respect to guide you,--no power above. I feel better, naturally, -than the Gov'ner." - -Cecilia let that pass. "Orchids and hollyhocks in one bed," she -said, "but in time I believe you'll come to love the homely honesty -of hollyhocks,--those that thrive in all weathers. I believe you -will, John. I do." - -He got up and stretched. The new man had gone. She saw this, and -rose with him. "Good-bye, dear," she said in a very everyday tone; -"I'm glad you had a good time this afternoon." - -In a flash he changed again. His arms closed about her soft body, -and he kissed her. "Celie," he said huskily, "you're the _best_ -fellow!" - -"Johnny," she answered, "you _darling_!" He gave her another squeeze, -and released her. Then he was again the conscious boy. "This darn -tie," he muttered, looking in a mirror; "it wads up rottenly!" - -Cecilia left indifferently, but outside his door she turned and -kissed a panel opposite her small head. - -She wore the want-to-cry expression which so worried Jeremiah, but -her eyes were happy. They looked like those of a little girl who -holds the best beloved, just mended, doll, all fixed up, ready to -love and spank some more, to scold, forgive, and kiss. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV - -PINK - -"You are an advocate of gum-chewing?" asked Miss Annette Twombly, -with a faint, not too pleasant smile. - -"No," answered Cecilia, "but I do think we ought to give them a good -time, not reform them. Why, they get discipline all day at their -work. I wanted to make them forget that, and all their -imperfections." She turned with the words to glance about the group -of young women who sat in the office of the Girls' Club. - -There was a vague murmur. "But--gum--!" Cecilia heard in a voice -which held horror. - -"My idea," said Annette, in her cool, slow voice, "was to give them -higher ideals, and to teach them not to wear those horrid, pink silk -blouses, you know. Teach them that it isn't nice to chew gum, -and,--ah,--well, give them a _larger_ life." - -"How are you going to give it?" asked Cecilia. "I see what you are -going to destroy, but what are you going to put in their places? I -think a certain amount of pink is necessary. It has to be _very_ -bright, for there is so little of it. It has to reach a long way." - -Annette didn't think this worth answering. She simply raised her -shoulders and eyebrows in a gesture denoting suffering tolerance and -pity. Then she turned to a neighbour and spoke in an undertone. -They laughed, and Cecilia flushed. - -"Are you an upholder of the green velvet 'throw' on the parlour -organ, Miss Madden?" asked a young woman, noted for her bizarre dress. - -"I am when the green velvet is the only possible beauty for -them,--the only reachable one. I think it's so narrow," she went on -heatedly, "to make them enjoy themselves just in our way,--to inflict -our likes and dislikes because it's possible to do so. I want to -give these girls what _they_ consider a good time, and what they -want. Patterns for good times differ. I want dances instead of -classes in art. They need them." - -"But, my dear,--gum, and those fearful frocks! Annette meant to tell -them not to wear cheap laces, but to dress plainly, and suitably to -their station," explained a drab young lady whose own dress looked as -if it had been designed for a futurist ball. - -Cecilia sighed. She saw a band of heavy-eyed and tired-out girls -denied their little cravings for beauty. She saw them laying aside -pink blouses which brought a faint pink into their small, starved -souls. She saw them trying to be ladies, and losing the little -solace of "spear-mint gum," and roses of cabbage size and -architecture on their cheap hats. - -"I think they need the pink," said Cecilia. "If their dress is -criticised I think the Club is failing in its mission. Every one -will criticise them, few will love them. Let's leave their manners -and their dresses to their own management. Let us just try to make -them forget the factories, and the flat crowded full of children. I -wanted to give them a place where they could bring their beaux." - -"We agreed about the dances," said Miss Twombly; "I shall _adore_ -coming to them! Won't they be _killing_?" A hum of voices followed -this, in which was heard: "But their horrible frocks!"--"In the end -they would thank us!"--"Give them a vision of a larger, more helpful -life!" - -"I shall not subscribe to a reformatory," said Cecilia loudly. She -hated to say it, but an echo of some one who had wanted a "bunnit -with pink roses on" flew before her. She meant to do all she could -to help other people get, and keep, their particular brands of pink -roses. - -Cecilia's contribution for the club's maintenance was large. It was -agreed that for the present at least no helpful hints as to the bad -taste of its members' clothes should be given. Cecilia looked at a -small watch, and got up. She said good-bye pleasantly. When the -door closed after her there was a surge of noise. - -"Well," said Annette in a carrying tone, "of course she _would_ -sympathise. I suppose her own tastes are really theirs. _Have_ you -ever seen her father?" - -"She plays 'The Shepherd Boy,' and 'The Storm in the Alps' for him -every evening," said the bizarre. - -"My _dear_," said another, "_have_ you seen the boy? He is _really_ -quite possible and they say that the horrible old man is fabulously -wealthy too." - -"Criminal!" breathed Annette. Her eyes were angry and full of -resentment. - -"Annette," said a girl from across the room, "how are you getting on? -I think it's too original of you!" - -"You aren't still doing that?" asked another. Annette nodded. - -"What?" asked a bewildered onlooker. - -"Working, really work," she was informed. - -"My _dear_, how sweet!" said the informed. "Isn't it ennobling, and -broadening, and all that kind of thing?" - -Annette nodded, and then spoke flippantly of it as a "lark." Her -bravado was a bit too thick. Several young people who knew something -of Mrs. Twombly's investments looked at each other across Annette's -head. - -After she left there was another free discussion. "Social -secretary," said the drab one, "to a horrid person from Ohio, or the -state of Washington, or somewhere terribly west. Trying to break in, -lots of money, but oh,--like the Maddens." - -"Hasn't Stuyvesant a huge fortune?" asked the bizarre. "Why doesn't -he help then? Though his not doing so is quite what I'd expect. I -tried to be so pleasant to him on one occasion, and he was absolutely -_rude_! Really rude! He said----" - -Cecilia had stopped at Mrs. Smithers' on her way home. She sat by -the stove holding the latest Smithers on her lap. - -"We got it with tradin' stamps," said Mrs. Smithers. She held up a -purple vase which had evidently been created by some one suffering -with a toothache. Mrs. Smithers was trying not to smile. She felt -that she should be easily careless with her new grandeur, but it was -hard to be so. "Look at that there seascape," she said, turning the -seascape side toward Cecilia, "an' that there sailor with his girl. -Ain't she purty? My old man, he sez if he seen one like her, he -wouldn't come home no more!" Cecilia joined Mrs. Smithers' loud -laughter over the "old man's" subtle humour. - -"Two books," Mrs. Smithers explained after the laughter had ceased, -"an' next time we're going to get a plush photograph album. It has a -mirror-like on top, with daisies and I dunno what all painted around. -_Hand_ painted on that there velvet, mind yuh. It's _swell_!" - -"I imagine it is," agreed Cecilia. "You like to have pretty things, -don't you?" she questioned. - -Mrs. Smithers' wide and fat face clouded. "Dearie," she said, "yuh -gotta have gilt an' fancy vases to make yuh ferget how homely most -life is. I wish you could have saw me yesterday. My Gawd, I get -tired a-doin' the wash, an' Jim so tony, him usin' _two_ shirts a -week! Well, I didn't mind the sweatin' all day, the way I do over -the wash, f er all I seen was that there vase a-settin' there. Now -ain't it purty?" - -Cecilia agreed that it was. Mrs. Smithers smiled again. "Why," she -exclaimed, "I nearly forgot Lena's dress--the one she's going to wear -to the club dance. She set up 'til one last night a-fixing it. She -was tickled to fits about it. Looka here." Mrs. Smithers reached -below the dining table and took out the third box from the bottom. -She opened it reverently. It disclosed a dress of cheap and flimsy -lawn, made in the most extreme of styles. There was black velvet on -it, several bales of lace, and some roses. Its colour was pink. - -"How lovely!" said Cecilia, and she meant it; for Cecilia saw what -the colour meant,--what it brought,--and the dress to her was truly -lovely. - -"Yessir," said Mrs. Smithers; "Lena, she sez, 'Maw, I feel like a -queen in this here!' (she's partial to pink) an' yuh oughta see her -in it. Mebbe she ain't purty. Her gentleman friend, who works at -Helfrich's delicatessen store, cold meat counter, yuh know,--he sez, -'My Irish rose,' when he seen it. That's a song, 'My Irish Rose.' -The Kellys got it on the graphaphone. It's swell. Ever hear it?" - -Cecilia had not. - -"I wish she had a pink hat," said Mrs. Smithers, "an' then she could -wear this to church. First Luthern, we go to,--that one with the -fancy brick, corner of Seventh, and----" - -"I have a hat," said Cecilia, "that I'm going to send to Lena. It's -pink, and it has lots of roses on it!" - -Tears came to the little eyes of Mrs. Smithers. She beamed widely. -"I didn't mean fer to hint," she said; "honest to Gawd, I didn't." - -"I know," answered Cecilia, "and you know I love to send Lena things. -Is she still coughing, and is she drinking the milk I send?" - -"Yes," answered Mrs. Smithers, "but she don't just like it. She -likes evaporated better, bein' used to it." Mrs. Smithers looked -doleful. The mention of Lena's cough always made her so. Her -expression was like that of a meditative pig, for her small eyes and -fat face together provided everything but the grunt. However, to -Cecilia she was beautiful, for Cecilia saw the love in Mrs. Smithers' -soul, which she spread around her seven children and the "old man." - -"I won't forget the hat," called Cecilia from the doorway, "and it -shall be _very_ pink!" - - -"Miss Madden, meet my gentleman friend." The gentleman friend -shuffled his feet and emitted a raucous "Pleased tuh meet yuh." - -It was the night of the first dance at the Girls' Club. Little knots -of its members stood around the edges of the floor, laughing often, -and loudly. The gentlemen friends seemed to spend their time -deciding which foot to stand on, and then shifting to the other. - -The committee of "uplift workers" rushed around wildly, doing -nothing. It was notable that Cecilia was the one to whom the -"gentleman friends" were introduced. - -Lena Smithers came up to Cecilia. "That hat," she said, "I dunno how -to thank yuh! Paw, he's talkin' alla time about them roses. They're -grand!" - -"I'm glad you liked it, dear," said Cecilia. - -"Yes," went on Lena more shyly, "an' my gentleman friend, him who -clerks at the delicatessen, he likes it too. Honest, that boy's -grand to me! They ain't hardly an evening that he don't bring me a -string of sausage or a hunk of ham!" Cecilia looked impressed and -murmured, "Really?" - -"Um hum! Gawd's truth!" said Lena. - -"Mr. Ensminger," said a fat girl, towing a flaxen-haired boy with no -chin. "Soda fountain clerk to the Crystal. Better kid him on, Miss -Madden, mebbe he'll give yuh a soda!" - -There was loud laughter at this persiflage. Suddenly Cecilia forgot -it, her surroundings, the gentlemen friends, in fact everything but -the cruelly fast pumping of her small heart, for across the room she -saw John coming in, and by him Stuyvesant Twombly. - - -"How did Mr. Twombly happen to come?" Cecilia asked of John much -later, when they were dancing. - -"Why," answered John, "I told him of it, and he said, 'Let's go down. -Would your sister mind?' Of course I said, 'No.'" - -"Of course," answered Cecilia. - -"Who's the girl who dances like a duck with the rheumatism?" asked -John. "She walked halfway up my shins, got discouraged, gave it up, -and then later started it all over again." - -"Sweet persistency," murmured Cecilia. Her eyes were on the partner -of the duck with the rheumatism, K. Stuyvesant. He looked warm. - -The music stopped. Cecilia and John found themselves with the duck -and her partner. K. Stuyvesant stepped toward Cecilia with -determination. "Will you _please_ give me the next?" he said. His -request was made in a desperate tone, a tone absolutely unsuitable -for the asking of a dance. - -"Why," said Cecilia, "there are so many girls here who sit about. I -have to see that they have partners, and----" - -"Oh, go on!" broke in John. "You dance; I'll do the proper for you." -K. Stuyvesant put a hand on John's arm; the touch was full of -gratitude. Then the music started in a slow, sentimental, sweet -waltz song, popular that season. K. Stuyvesant invented several new -steps. It was good that Cecilia was an unusual and adaptable dancer, -for his tempo and intentions were mixed. "What is this?" he asked at -last. - -"A waltz," answered Cecilia, and at that he stopped his mixture of -one-step and maxixe. "Excuse me," he said gruffly. Beads of wet -stood out on his forehead. He was out of breath. - -"Would you like to stop?" asked Cecilia. "It's warm and you seem -tired." - -"Oh, no!" he said passionately. She looked up at him, and when their -eyes met his arm tightened with a spasmodic quickness about her; then -he turned a deep mahogany colour and stared unseeingly across her -head. He had not meant to do that. He wondered what she'd think of -him. - -As for Cecilia, she shut her eyes and tried to be indignant. It was -an insult, an insult when he felt as Marjory said he did, an insult! -But oh, how sweet, how sweet! - -The music stopped. "Thank you," said K. Stuyvesant huskily. Then he -left Cecilia with many maidens and singled out John. "If you don't -mind, I'm going home now," he said. "I'm tired. Thank you for -bringing me along." - -He looked back toward Cecilia. He saw the top of her golden head, -surrounded by others of more elaborate coiffure. They made a -worshipping circle around her. - -"Gosh!" said K. Stuyvesant. He recalled the little second when he'd -drawn her nearer. "I'm not sorry!" he thought, then turned to hurry -away from the lights and the music, for he wanted to be alone. - - - - -CHAPTER XV - -FIRELIGHT - -"It's a serious," said a boy with a voice like a nutmeg grater. - -"Yuh boob!" exploded his companion. "He means a serial," he -explained to Father McGowan. - -"And," said Father McGowan, "you have come to me because you are -temporarily embarrassed for funds?" - -"Yep," said the nutmeg grater. "We're broke." - -"An' it's that exciting! Every time they busts up an automobile an' -wrecks a train--we'd pay yuh back,--an' him an' her in it, they----" -broke in the other. - -"You'd like a loan," said Father McGowan. "Well, well, here it is. -What's the name of it?" - -"'The Iron Claw,'" said the younger impressively. "It's grand. Them -there shows learn yuh a lot too." His voice showed his great thirst -for knowledge. Father McGowan smiled. He was urged to go along, -with the assurance that they would also pay for that in the future, -but he refused on the plea of work. - -He went to the rectory door with them and let them out into the -dismal snowfall, the first of the season. Half-hearted, damp, then -he went back to his study, with a tender look in his eyes. - -He was thinking of a small boy who had known no such pleasures--a -small boy brought up by an always-old aunt, whose heart and soul were -cut square, and without any dimples. He had been a very quiet small -boy with a great hankering for nails and something to pound with. - -He had gone through the pound period without pounding, and when he -reached the dream time he knew that dreams to his unyielding old aunt -would be as troublesome as nails, so he had kept silent. - -Father McGowan's eyes still held the wistful look that had come into -them at seventeen. He recalled all his naillessness as he saw two -joyful theatregoers start off to see "The Iron Claw," but in thinking -of it there was no regret--only a gratitude that from his denials had -come a backyard full of junk and a paradise for many little boys who -otherwise would have gone without their small-boy heaven. - -"She was a good woman!" said Father McGowan; "a good woman!" He was -thinking of the still old aunt who'd brought him up. - - -"Are you well, Father McGowan-dear?" asked Cecilia later in the -afternoon when Father McGowan had settled before a fire in the Madden -library. - -"Oh, yes," answered Father McGowan. "Have a little cold, but I feel -splendidly." Cecilia did not look impressed, and certainly Father -McGowan's aspect was not convincing. His head was thrown back -against the chair, and his breath came raspingly. - -"A hot lemonade," said Cecilia rather to herself. - -"Never!" said Father McGowan. "Never! Cecilia, you are a dear -child. Don't irritate me. I hate lemonades. They make me think of -money for the parish house, and they are bad enough cold." - -"Hot toddy?" suggested Cecilia; her eyes twinkled. - -"Ah--!" replied Father McGowan softly. Cecilia rang, spoke to a -haughty person in buttons, and soon Father McGowan was sipping -something warm which did not smell of lemons. - -"How's the pain?" asked Father McGowan in a commonplace tone; he -studied the glass he held. - -"Oh," answered Cecilia, "it is the same, but I am braver. I _will_ -be good, Father McGowan. I can't help lov--caring for him. I fixed -my hair eight times the other day when I knew I'd see him, and used -an eyebrow pencil Marjory left, but it wasn't becoming, and I washed -it off. I can't help caring for him, although I know he's unworthy. -I seem to have lost my handkerchief,--thank you." Father McGowan -supplied a large square. - -"You didn't use to cry much, did you, dear child?" he asked gently. - -"No," answered Cecilia, "and I don't now except with you. You see, -when I voice it it becomes so tragically real. It is fixed because I -speak it to a human, while when I think of it it seems like a bad -dream. It--it doesn't seem possible that I can care so much, while -he doesn't." - -The fat priest reached for Cecilia's hand. He lifted it and kissed -it. Cecilia looked surprised. - -"A token of immense respect and humble love, dear child," said Father -McGowan. "Kisses," he continued, "Cecilia, tie to the man who humbly -kisses your hand. There are two kinds, the kind who wants only your -lips and the kind who humbly touches your hand and who longs to be -absolved by whimpering out his shames against your throat. Lord, -what an old fool I am! _What_ a subject for a priest to lecture on!" - -Cecilia was silent, for she was thinking of Stuyvesant's kisses, -which still burned her palm. They had held humbleness,--and hunger. -She remembered how he had muttered that he "darn well wanted to get -down on his knees, gosh! How he _did_ love----" And then Mrs. -Higgenmeyer had come along and called loudly of the night: "Purty -night, ain't it?" and, worse, the chaperone of Boston had then -appeared and said in her crisp, quick-cut way: "'Beautiful night of -stars,' as our inimitable Mr. Browning said." - -Then the man with the Vandyke beard from Philadelphia had passed. He -had crossed forty times, had a valet, and complained of the coffee -and service, therefore commanding every one's respect. "Stevenson," -he had corrected in passing. "Horrid person!" said Miss Hutchinson, -but to Cecilia there were no horrid persons, for the world was full -of a tall, gruff man, and her heart was swollen from his hot kisses -on her small palm. Her eyes must have told him something of this, -for he muttered, "Dear!" with the impetuosity of a loosened champagne -cork. "What say?" Miss Hutchinson had asked. - -"Father McGowan," said Cecilia, "shall I ever be allowed to forget my -inferiority to the most? It is always there, even when they ask me -for money for their charities. They say, 'Mrs. Dash has subscribed. -_You_ will probably _want_ to.' By right of bricks, I purchase my -admission. Shall I always feel this way?" - -"Oh, no," answered Father McGowan. "When you get past thirty you -forget how you feel--that is, if you're any good. After that you -think of others, and the _ego_ is rubbed down by the world into its -proper size." - -"I _am_ a pig!" said Cecilia. - -"You're not!" disagreed Father McGowan. "No one could call you -that----" He paused. "For a long time," he went on, "I've wanted to -say something to you, because you are too near it to get a -perspective. I want you to look around at the snobs who do not mix -with those in trade, and then I want you to ask what grandpapa did. -Probably he made pretzels or ran a laundry. Do not ask the immediate -members of the family of this, for they may not like it, but ask some -_kind_ friend. You and John, you people of stronger, fresher blood, -are America. You are what comes in and puts bright eyes into -depleted stock and takes out the hiccoughs. Don't apologise for your -strength and the fact that papa's reservations for his first trip -were made in the steerage." - -"I don't," answered Cecilia. "I'm rather blatantly proud of it, -although since boarding school I haven't bragged of it." - -"In time you may even elevate your lorgnette and ask coldly, 'Who -_is_ she?'" suggested Father McGowan. - -"Oh, no!" said Cecilia, "I'll _never_ do that!" - -"Your children probably will!" said Father McGowan, and then he said -"Drat!" to his own stupid self. - -"My children," said Cecilia, "are gentle, white ghosts, and they play -and do only what I dream. They would never do that, I would send -them from my arms first, and I do--love them. My arms would be -empty. Am I going to be a sentimental old maid, Father McGowan-dear?" - -Father McGowan said he thought not. Then he turned and again quite -brazenly kissed Cecilia's small palm. - -"Cecilia," he said, "to-day seems like the end of the world to me.... -My soul is on wings. Dear child, I wish you could know what you have -always been to me. But you do, don't you?" - -"Yes, Father McGowan-dear," answered Cecilia. "I have known. I have -always brought my worst hurts to you, and one does that only to one -who loves." - -"Well, well," said Father McGowan, unused to personal sentiment and -awkward from it, "now we understand. How's John?" - -"Wonderful," answered Cecilia. She smiled mischievously. "Almost a -boy again," she added in explanation. - -"Twombly responsible?" asked Father McGowan. - -"Yes," she answered, "entirely. His ideals when transplanted are -unusually good. However, they do not seem to take root in him." - -"Well, well," said Father McGowan. He stretched in a tired way and -said he must go. No, he couldn't stay for dinner, for he was to take -the night turn at nursing a burned iron moulder. "Won't he be -thirsty when he sniffs my lemonade?" said Father McGowan. - -Cecilia rang; the lofty person appeared. "Just a minute," said -Father McGowan. "I want one more word with you." The person faded. - -"Cecilia," said Father McGowan, "there's a doctor to whom your father -is playing God. I don't want to bother you about it, but to-day, -coming here, I somehow felt as if I ought to." Father McGowan -settled on the edge of a chair, and he told Cecilia the dry facts of -the ruin of Doctor Van Dorn. "Try to make your father see that it's -better not to tamper with the works," he ended; "to leave that to -whoever or whatever is pushing the old ball around.... Well, -good-bye, dear child. Oh, I can get out without the help of his -Royal Buttons, thank you." - -After he left Cecilia again settled in front of the fire to think of -her new problem. Her brain eluded it with a maddening persistency. -She thought of a new frock, the Girls' Club, a dance. Then again of -the really horrible revelation, and the unexpected obstinacy of her -father. - -She looked up at a softly coloured painting above the mantel, which -she'd had painted in Paris. It had been marvellously done, and -especially since the only model had been a small tintype. - -"Dearest," said Cecilia, "you would not want him punished, would you? -And,--is there any punishment more cruel than life?" - -The painting smiled down gently. - -"Pink roses," it seemed to say. "There are always pink roses, but -youth must hold them to see their beauty.... Seeing no loveliness in -dreams denied, no heights in greatest depths...." - - -"Come in!" said John. "Please!" K. Stuyvesant hesitated. He wanted -to, for just a glimpse of Cecilia was everything to him; but, -she--she had not wanted to see him. "I am out a great deal," she -said in that memorable 'phone message,--also, "I have quite forgotten -the little episode of the boat." Those two sentences had made things -cruelly plain. - -"Come on," begged John, "you must be cold!" - -K. Stuyvesant got out of his machine, and went with John into the -long-waisted house. - -"Fire in the library," said John; "wood, you know. Bully, aren't -they?" John, ahead, stopped with his hand on the drapery which -softened the broad doorway into the library. He put the other, -silencingly, on K. Stuyvesant's arm. Cecilia sat in front of the -fire. She held a framed picture in her hands, standing upright on -her knees. Looking,--looking,--looking, she was. They stood there -for what seemed to Stuyvesant many minutes. He felt himself grow -hot, cold, then he longed to shake John,--again, hug him. - -"Celie!" called John. With a crash the photograph slipped from her -hands to the floor. - -"Oh!" she cried breathlessly, "_how_ you frightened me!" - -"Come in, Stuyv," said John, loudly. "Look what she's looking at! -_Your_ picture!" Stuyvesant didn't answer. He had set his teeth, -and his chin was very square. - -"How long were you there?" asked Cecilia. - -"We just came in," said Stuyvesant, before John could answer. - -"I just picked up your picture," said Cecilia. "John hadn't shown it -to me. I'm sorry I was stupid and broke the glass." - -She moved, and Stuyvesant's eyes followed her, a heartache too large -for concealment showing in them. - -"Whatcha go for?" asked John. "Stay and talk!" - -"I really can't, dear," she answered. "I'm sorry." Then, nodding, -she disappeared. In a moment they heard the sound of the piano. -Some one who could feel, as well as play, was tinkling out "The -Shepherd Boy." - -"She does it for dad," said John, "because he likes it, but you ought -to hear her play good music. She's a wonder; why, in school----" - -John broke off, another thought interrupting: "Why didn't you let me -jolly her about your picture?" he asked. "It was a great chance." - -"She wouldn't like it," answered K. Stuyvesant miserably. "Please -don't tell her we were watching her, will you, John?" - -"Aw,--why not!" - -"_Please_, John!" Stuyvesant's voice was earnest. - -"Well, I won't," agreed John in a disappointed way. "But I do like -to tease her! She's awfully cunning when she gets excited, and you -can get a rise out of her every time." - -After that they settled to play rum for a small stake. Stuyvesant -was absent. Time and again John and the cards faded while he saw -Cecilia sitting before an open fire,--soft in the firelight, -gentle,--almost ready to smile on him. His picture? ... Probably -scorning him,--but,--at least she'd thought of him for that little -space. He looked toward the chair, and he saw her gently smile in -his direction. - -"Rum!" yelled John, much delighted. "That puts me out. Gee, you're -in the clouds! You owe me forty-nine cents." - - - - -CHAPTER XVI - -THE MYSTERY - -The rectory hall was quiet, although it was well filled with -people--shabby, the most of them, and sitting uneasily upright in -their chairs. Damp snow clung to the coat of one woman who had just -entered, and the smell of dirty and wet clothing was in the air. - -Now and again the steam pounded in a low radiator below a window. -There was a great deal of sniffing, and a hacking cough from a woman -who bragged of a "weak chest." At last an old man who had been -fingering the brim of his hat spoke in a hoarse whisper. "How _is_ -he?" he croaked. His thumb pointed over his shoulder toward the -stairs. - -"Ain't no better," responded the woman who coughed. "_She_ come down -a half hour ago an' sez 'He's the same.'" The woman coughed again, -and afterward wiped her eyes. - -"He gimme a pipe," said the old man, turning the hat in his hands. -"It hez a real amber mouthpiece on. He sez, 'Here, Jake, you know a -good pipe, now I don't. This here was gave to me, I want you should -hev it,' he sez,--like that he sez----" - -"I bet!" said a frightened looking little man, hitherto silent, "I -bet he did! What he done fer me----!" The little man stopped, -looked around, and cowered back in is chair, swallowed several times, -then spoke in a high voice, evidently unnatural and the fruit of -great effort. "I was in the penitentiary," he said, "an' when I come -out no one would gimme a job. I was despert. I got my wife, an' her -aunt, what's had a stroke, an' can't use her limbs no way. My wife -took to coughin' an' couldn't work no more. Gawd, it was fierce! I -was despert. I come to him. What he done fer me----! I sez 'What -kin I do? I gotta feed them women. Hev I gotta steal again?' He -sez no, an' he set me down an' gimme a meal. Talkin' to me while I -et ... Gawd, I never kin fergit it.... That there meal was none of -them cold potato hand-outs served up with a sneer. Human beings is -awful rough with each other sometimes. When I got through I got up. -I sez, 'I don't want no more. I guess I kin hunt my own job now, fer -you've made me a man agin....' He sez, 'Well, well,' an' then he set -me down, an' believe it or not, he gimme a c_ee_gar! A fie' center -too! Then he come with me to my old woman, and Aunt Ellen, an' he -seen that they was did for, an' the next week he got me a job at the -cement plant." After he finished he cowered again. The world had -shown him little forgiveness. His world was scorn, or a hidden shame. - -The little man had, in telling of Father McGowan's goodness, voiced -his crucifixion. The pain of telling it made him feel as if he were -at last thanking the big priest adequately.... He blinked, and -avoided his companions' eyes now. He knew what to expect. - -"I'm glad he helped yuh," said the old man, "but he would. There -ain't nothing he wouldn't do fer nobody." - -Common sorrow, like common joy, had drawn these people together. The -love of the man upstairs had filled their souls, and left no room for -littleness. The little man of the penitentiary was one of them, not -an outcast. - -He sat up straight again, still blinking. "Yer right," he said; -"he's helped a lot of us to believe there is a Gawd ... an' -something beside hell, livin' or dead." - -"Yep," answered the woman with the cough. She drew a shawl close -about her and moved near the clanking radiator. "Ain't it cold?" she -said. "I'm used to settin' near the stove. I wisht she'd come. -That there woman in white, I mean, the one what nurses him." - -"I wish too," said a fat soul who surveyed every one with suspicion. -"I gotta get home an' pack my man's dinner pail. Night work he does. -It ain't so nice. _I_ don't get no company. All day long he snores, -an' at night I set home, or go alone. We used to go to pictures -every Monday regular as clockwork." - -"He helped me buy a parlour organ," said a thin woman a little apart -from the group. "I come to him, and I sez, 'I'd go hungry to get a -organ, what I could pick out tunes on, an' mebbe learn to play "Home, -Sweet Home" on.' He sez, 'Well, well!' (yuh know his way) an' then I -told him how I'd wanted one, an' saved up, and then had to use that -there money to bury pop (his insurance havin' ran out) an' he helped -me. I got it. I kin play three measures a 'Home, Sweet Home,' real -good, except fer being slow in the bass.... There ain't nothing like -music fer company. I don't get lonely no more of evenings. I use to -get that down, an' tired a settin' alone after work, that I'd hate to -hear the six a'clock whistles. It ain't no joke, settin' in one room -with the wall paper all off. I wonder how he is?" she ended in -another voice. No one answered. The woman near the radiator -coughed, then wiped her eyes. The old man twirled his hat. - -A girl with a sullen look slunk in, and settled near the door. There -was quiet. Once in a while a chair was moved, and grated on the -floor. The radiator clanked. There was the staccato tap of heels in -the upper hall, then on the stairs. - -"_You_ ask her," said one woman to another. - -The old man spoke. "Mrs.," he said, "how _is_ he?" - -"There ain't no change," said Mrs. Fry, "and there ain't no sense to -your settin' here." - -"We'll be quiet," said the old man wistfully, "and we'd kinda like -to. We all love him." - -Mrs. Fry covered her face with her handkerchief. "Set if yuh want -to," she said in what was, for her, a softened tone, "but there ain't -a bit a sense to it." Then she turned and went down the hall, -blowing her nose loudly. - -"There's three doctors," said a girl just out of childhood, and yet -from her place in life old looking. - -"I know that," replied the thin woman. "It looks bad fer him, but he -_can't_ die! There ain't another!" - -"He won't die!" said the old man. "Fer them that knowed him, he'll -always live." - -In the kitchen Mrs. Fry was sobbing in the roller towel. She heard -Father McGowan's voice come, as it had, in gasps. "Now,--now! Mrs. -Fry----" echoed in her heart, "don't feel badly--I'm tired,--and--I'm -ready to go--to sleep----" And then he had smiled. - -"Mrs. Fry," came in a voice from the doorway, "yer wanted!" She -looked up to see an old man with the tears running down his face and -following the wrinkles in criss-cross paths of salty moisture. - -The nurse stood in the hall. She alone was calm. "You'd better go -now," she said quietly to the little group. Several of them sobbed -loudly. The door opened suddenly. "Where's Father McGowan?" called -a little boy. "I got a new kitty what I want to show him. _Ain't_ -he in?" - -Cecilia was on her knees in the dark, by her bed. - -"Father McGowan," she whispered, "oh, Father McGowan-_dear_, where -are you?" He had not gone where childhood had had an Irish mother -go. Growing had made the mystery--the vast uncertainty--the haunting -question of the still, dark hours! - -Cecilia lifted her face. Her eyes were dry. "Oh, God," she said -aloud, "if you are, give us another life. There is no possible -good-bye for little human hearts that love. Oh, God, let me see -Father McGowan-dear again. Oh, let me! I will be good all my life, -if I may meet him once again----" - -She stopped, choked. - -The mystery echoed.... "Father McGowan-dear," she whispered, "where -_are_ you? Dearest, _where_ have you gone, and why?" - - - - -CHAPTER XVII - -A RELAPSE - -"He died," said Johnny, "of pneumonia. One of those quick cases, you -know. Cecilia's frightfully broken up--you can see it--although she -doesn't say anything." - -"I'm sorry," said Stuyvesant. - -"I never saw much in him," said John musingly, "but he had an awful -hold on a lot of people." - -"Your sister cared for him, didn't she?" asked Stuyvesant, then added -bravely, "I think that assures his being unusual." - -"Oh, I don't know," said John in a lazy way; "girls are -queer,--sometimes sentimental. He was good to her when she was tiny. -She always remembers things like that. I think she's kinda -sentimental." - -Stuyvesant looked peculiar and grunted. - -"Saw Tommy Dixon down town to-day," said John. A sudden flush spread -across Stuyvesant's face. His eyes were unpleasantly bitter. "Good -sport," continued John. - -"I disagree," said Stuyvesant loudly. "Don't like him, nor his -rotten code." John looked on Stuyvesant speculatively. He reflected -that, after all, Stuyv didn't know it all, and that if he wore a -cassock he might have been taken for Father McGowan. His ideals were -very similar. - -"Can't train with a Sunday school class," said John. "Live while -you're here, yuh know. Damned if I haven't been good lately!" - -Stuyvesant was worried. Thus far his work had been easy, because of -John's adoring following. But,--were John to follow Tommy Dixon with -the same adoration,--then,--it _would_ be work! He thought, with an -inward sneer, of the smallness of the boy's measures for life. He -thought of his always following the new, and of his weak swaying, and -then he thought of who had asked his help. - -"Come to dinner with me, John," he said, while he made mental -arrangement for the cancelling of another engagement. - -"Don't mind," answered the old John, in his old tired-of-life manner. -"Got a date before dinner. Where'll I meet you?" Stuyvesant named a -club, and they parted. Stuyvesant went to his office. There were -several matters awaiting his attention, but he pushed them aside. -Across the room he saw Tommy Dixon's insolent face. On it was the -ever-present smile, that which shaded into a leer too easily.... -"She says she can't forget his kisses," came with a touch of flame -across his tortured brain. - -"God!" said K. Stuyvesant. "God!" He hid his eyes with his hands. -His breath came fast. - - -It was half after eight, and John was to have met him at eight. -Stuyvesant looked at his watch, and frowned. The day had been hard, -and had left small capacity for patience.... The mention of Tommy -Dixon had brought back a misery he'd hoped somewhat dulled (one -remembered by a stern control of thought, usually not more than once -a day). - -Now John, after Stuyvesant's breaking an engagement,--was late. His -casual acceptance of Stuyvesant's hospitality brought a smile to that -gentleman's lips. He wondered if John thought he courted the -opportunity of hearing his rather young, and too often callow, -opinions stated with absolute assurance as truths? - -At nine Stuyvesant shut his watch with a snap, and went out alone to -dinner. He was entirely out of humour. He allowed himself to -meditate largely on Tommy Dixon. It was torture--exactly fitted his -mood, and helped. - - -"Celie," said Jeremiah. - -Celie stopped playing the chimes of a new "piece" of Jeremiah's -pattern. - -"Celie," he went on, "I done that you asked." - -"Doctor Van Dorn?" she asked in a whisper. - -"Yes," answered Jeremiah. He blew his nose loudly. "_He_ asked me, -an' he asked me," Jeremiah explained, "an' I was that uppish! -Jeremiah,' he'd say, 'don't try to cast yourself for God. It won't -work,' an' I'd say, 'Is it going to rain, Father McGowan?' Just the -last time he come I seen him in the hall, an' he was pleadin' with -me; he sez, 'You can control his work. See that he does no harm, but -don't do more,' an' I sez, 'It's snowin' now, ain't it?' Oh, dear -Lordy! Ain't life one mess of regrets! One after the other, -spoilin' your digestion, an' makin' yuh kick around of nights! ... I -loved him too." - -"Dear," said Cecilia, "he knew that!" - -"Yuh think so, Celie?" asked Jeremiah wistfully. "Oh, yes!" she -answered. Her answer held an applied genuineness. It convinced -Jeremiah. - -"I give him back his rotten little factory (I was losin' money on it, -anyway), and I wrote him a letter. I sez, 'Dear Sir----' An' I went -on telling him Father McGowan an' Gawd done it, not me. I sez I was -his well-wisher now, wishin' him all success, an' I sez not to get -funny in the hospital business on sick kids no more or I'd have him -jailed. The letter was friendly and Christian, all owing to Father -McGowan, who doesn't know it--God rest his soul!" - -Cecilia was smiling tremulously. "You absolute darling!" she said. -She perched on the arm of his chair, and they sat in silence. - -"After all," she said, "hurting this little man wouldn't bring mamma -her pink roses, would it, dear?" - -Jeremiah's eyes snapped. In them was the look that certain -competitors, who scorned him socially, dreaded. "It brung me mine," -he stated; "it brung me mine!" Cecilia laughed. A sudden lightness -of spirit, like the flash of day into dawn, was hers. - -"Dear," she said, "I believe Father McGowan knows! I believe he -does!" Jeremiah kissed her and smoothed her golden hair with his -hand which would never become smooth. "You're like your maw," he -said. It was his greatest tribute. Cecilia clung to him with a -pathetic hunger. - -"Miss Cecilia, the telephone," said the pompous person from the -doorway. - -"Yes, sir; yes, sir," answered Jeremiah, "she's a-coming." Cecilia -went to an adjoining room. After her "yes" things swayed a bit. She -did not need his voice, which said, "This is Stuyvesant Twombly." -She knew. "Yes," she repeated. - -"I _have_ to bother you," he said. "I've just had a message from -John. He's been a little hurt--just a little, Miss Cecilia, and he -wants you to come with me to where he is. He's a little hurt. You -won't worry? I'll stop for you in a moment, that is, if you'll come?" - -"Oh, of course!" she answered; "but you're sure he's not really hurt?" - -"Yes," he answered. "Do up well. It's cold." She hung up the -receiver, and stood a minute, hand over her thudding heart. She was -not thinking of John. - -As for Stuyvesant, he hung up the receiver and swore loudly. He was -thinking of the 'phone message which had come from John, and of -John's small sister. "Stuyv," he had heard John say, "I'm up here at -the Eagles' View House. I had a bust-up. Get Celie and come. I'm -dying----" There had been a lull. "He's fainted," had come across -the wires in another tone. Stuyvesant's first amusement over the -last 'phone message faded suddenly. Perhaps John had made the -supreme effort and had managed to speak those few words? Then he -abandoned speculation and telephoned Cecilia. He had assured her -that John was not much hurt.... The gentle care of her was -instinctive. If John were right the other would come later. - -With a doctor in the car they drew up before the Madden House. The -chauffeur was not off his seat before Stuyvesant was out and on the -steps. "Are you warmly enough dressed?" he asked of her. - -"Yes, thank you. John?" she questioned. - -"He telephoned me that he had a smash-up and that he wanted you. I -have a doctor; he may have some sprains or bruises," said Stuyvesant. - -"It's so good of you," she responded. All of Marjory's hints had -gone. She felt his hand on her arm and felt from it a sweet sickness. - -"Miss Cecilia, may I introduce Doctor Holt? Miss Madden----" After -that she settled, and felt rugs being wrapped around her. -Stuyvesant's hands lingered. They held a thrilling tenderness. "Are -they well around you?" he asked. Cecilia said they were, and -Stuyvesant drew a long breath. The doctor looked from one to the -other speculatively. He judged them lovers and himself in the way. -The girl was certainly entirely lovely--the soft type who asked for -gentleness in return for unbounded love. The way she looked at young -Twombly as he stared straight ahead was rather beautiful, thought the -doctor. She jumped as he spoke. "These gay young men and their -speeding," he had said. - -"Oh, yes," said Cecilia, "aren't they fearful? I think they should -be reared without silly sisters to worry over them!" - -The doctor agreed. He imagined young Madden to be a hard-muscled -fellow who liked sport. In speaking of speed, his only thought had -been mileage. - -The car had left the city and was running with difficulty over a road -which was bad from a light snow. - -"Miss Madden is skidding quite a bit (pardon me, Miss Madden) alone -on that back seat. You'd better get back there, Mr. Twombly," said -the doctor. He smiled. He thought he had done something very kind, -and done it neatly. Mr. Twombly stuttered something that sounded -like, "I'm glad; I'd be glad--pleased----" Cecilia stared agonizedly -ahead. The car made a turn, and, alone on the broad seat, she -swayed, slid half across the seat, bumped. - -Stuyvesant turned his chair. "May I, Miss Cecilia, or the doctor? -We're going so fast. You'll be so jolted." In answer she turned -back the rug, and Stuyvesant settled by her. After that there was -quiet. Cecilia looked ahead, through steamed glass, at the ears of -Stuyvesant's chauffeur. Stuyvesant sneakingly looked at her. - -"Only ten," said the doctor; "we're making good time." - -"Pardon?" said Stuyvesant, and at the same time from Cecilia, "Excuse -me. I didn't hear." Under cover of the dark the doctor smiled. -Cecilia flushed, and Stuyvesant bit his lip. He clasped his hands -together very tightly, for he was afraid that if she looked toward -him he would put his arms around her and draw her close. - -The doctor began to criticise the administration, as people always do -when they know little of the facts. Stuyvesant clutched the straw, -and argued hotly first on one side, and then the other. The doctor -was pleased, for K. Stuyvesant was illustrating a pet theory of his, -universal insanity. "Now if Van Dorn could hear this!" he reflected. -"Why, the man could be locked up! He's much worse than millions in -asylums!" - -The car jolted, and turned. Cecilia swayed, and bumped against -Stuyvesant's arm. It slipped back of her protectingly, and closed -around her. "That was a jolt--" he said shortly, "these roads,--did -it jar you?" - -"No," answered Cecilia, "thank you." His arm had been pulled away -with a jerk. Cecilia stared ahead at the chauffeur's ears. They -were large and floppy, and the whole world seemed like them, a -misfit. She felt chilled, alone, afraid. She wished the car would -jolt again. She wished so brazenly. She didn't care,--she did! - -At the Eagles' View Cecilia was ushered up creaking stairs to a -cheap, little room. It was shabby, and hung with soiled cretonnes. -There were pictures on the walls, entitled "The Bathers,"--"Playful -Kittens,"--"A Surprise!" Some more lurid with titles impossible. -Stuyvesant had followed Cecilia and from the doorway, over her head, -he caught the impression. He had expected it, but it hurt cruelly. -His spirit was a mixture of longing to press her face against his -shoulder, and a great hankering to kick John. - -"I'm dying!" gasped John. - -"My dearest!" said Cecilia, and caught her breath sharply, then she -slipped to her knees by the bed. She put her arm beneath his head, -which was too low, and turned to Stuyvesant. "Where is the doctor?" -she asked. At that moment he appeared in the doorway. "Well, young -man," he, said, "speeding?" - -"I'm going to die," answered John in gasps. Cecilia had grown very -white. - -"Nonsense!" said the doctor. "Now if you people will just leave us -for a few moments----" He began to open his case as he spoke. - -"Want me?" asked Stuyvesant. - -"No," he was answered; "you take care of Miss Madden." The door -opened and a girl appeared. Her hair was streaked from bleach, and -dark at the roots; her expression insolently daring. - -"How yuh feel, honey boy?" she asked of John. John turned away his -face. He looked sicker. - -"One of your friends?" questioned Cecilia. John did not answer. -"Yes," replied the girl. "I'm Miss LeMain. Me and John have been -pals for this long while." - -"I'm John's sister," said Cecilia, and held out her hand. Miss -LeMain took it with a limp and high gesture cultivated as "elegant." -"Pleased to meet yuh," she murmured, and then, "I'm glad you've came. -My nerves is that shook up! Mebbe the gent'man would get us -something to drink. My nerves is all shook. I feel fierce." - -They descended the rickety stairs, the girls followed by Stuyvesant. -If John had been well something would have happened to him. As it -was Stuyvesant was fiercely protective of the small sister in a curt, -silent way. His anger was almost overpowering.... He thought of -Cecilia on her knees in that evil room. He thought of her gentle -treatment of Miss LeMain.... He was humbled by her sweetness, and -furious from its cause. - -"Is he your gent'man friend?" asked Miss LeMain while Stuyvesant -ordered the drink. Cecilia shook her head. - -"Thought he was. Seems like a cute fellah. Gawd, my nerves is -shook! Jacky speeds so! I sez, 'Jack, you'll do this trick once too -often!' an' he sez, 'I'm running this boat, girlie,' an' I sez some -more, an' then he kissed me; yuh know what a kidder he is! An' the -car a-running like that! Then the next thing she was over, an' I was -in a field. Jack was somewhere in the road. This ain't the _first_ -accident I been in. I believe in a short life an' a merry one. All -my gent'men friends has cars. No Fords neither. I hope Jacky ain't -suffering. He's a sweet boy, an' some sport!" Cecilia's hands were -locked tightly together in her lap. Her eyes were tragic. "My -nerves is shook up fierce!" echoed Miss LeMain. - -"I'm sorry," said Cecilia. - -Stuyvesant had appeared in time to hear the last of the recital. -"You'd better go lie down," he said decidedly. "It will do you good, -and Miss Madden needs quiet." - -"An' 'two's company, three's a crowd!' ain't that it?" questioned -Miss LeMain with a giggle. Her sally was not greeted with -enthusiasm. She left, terming Stuyvesant a grouch, and Cecilia -sweet, but lacking pep. - -Alone, Stuyvesant stood looking down at Cecilia. His arm was on the -mantel. The shadows and lights from an open fireplace played on -them. The rest of the room in half dark brought them close. -Constraint was impossible because of the situation and Cecilia's -dependence on Stuyvesant. - -"The money came too quickly," she said meeting his eyes. "John has -to spend it in the way that makes the most noise. I--I am so tired -of it! So bruised by it! I wish we were back in that little flat, -with John laying bricks as my father did. Perhaps then he would be a -good man. That is everything to me." - -"He is going to be a good man, Cecilia," said Stuyvesant. Neither -noticed the use of her first name. "He will be a good man. This is -a relapse,--a recurrence of growing pains. There are good things in -him. When he's awake he has a sense of humour. That is a darn good -thing to have, you know. I think, next to God, it's the best thing a -man can own." - -Cecilia pressed her handkerchief against her lips. "You will help -him again?" she whispered. - -"I will," said Stuyvesant. He put out his hand in pledge and hers -was swallowed in his huge grasp. At the touch of her hand he gasped, -"Cecilia!" but she did not answer, for the doctor's step was heard on -the rickety stairs. - -"Two broken ribs," he said; "scratch on his arm. Now we'll take him -home. He'll probably yell over the bumps, but I judge the yells will -do him good. Where's his companion? Send another car for her, or -take her along?" - -"Send for her," said Stuyvesant. - -"No," disagreed Cecilia, "if you don't mind, we'll take her. I think -it would be better." Stuyvesant looked annoyed, but sent the oily -proprietor to call the lady of the shook-up-nerves. She descended -immediately, wrapped in a large fur coat, and with a cerise motor -scarf about her head. "I couldn't get no rest," she called; "I'm all -fussy. How's Jacky darling?" - -"_She_ isn't going with us?" said John at the top of the stairs. He -stopped and leaned heavily on Stuyvesant. "My God!" he exploded. -"Stuyv, she _can't_! Celie can't meet her! She can't! Tell her -we'll send a car. I don't want Celie to see her." - -"They've been talking for half an hour," said Stuyvesant. "Your -sister insists on taking her in." - -"Oh, Lord!" said John. "Oh, Lord!" - -"Come along!" said Stuyvesant roughly. - -"I really thought I was dying," said John in a shamed way. - -"Shut up!" ordered Stuyvesant. "You make me sick!" They went down -with no more conversation. - -"How are you, dear?" asked Cecilia. - -"Oh, Celie!" said John. He reached for her hand and clung to it. -"Oh, Celie!" he echoed. - - -Until dawn Stuyvesant relived the night. The ride home had made the -deepest impression. A girl with a painted soul and face had -chattered loudly, and with a cheap sentiment reeking in her talk. -She had spoken often of "Jacky darling." - -While Jacky darling, from shame and pain, had groaned in deep, shaky -groans, his head had lain on his sister's shoulder. On the other -side Stuyvesant had sat. The doctor had disposed of the case as -typical, and was thinking of an article which he'd just read in the -_Medical Journal_. - -"Dearie," Fanchette LeMain had said, "your fur's open." She had -reached toward Cecilia's throat, but Stuyvesant reached first. He -fastened the clasp with shaking hands, and the back of one hand -touched her chin. Then he had sunk back to dream his impossible -dreams, and wonder why she should have cared. He knew he was a -duffer! But he was almost sure that she once had cared,--for him. - - - - -CHAPTER XVIII - -FORGIVENESS - -"Celie," said John, "honestly he was devilish to me, and I deserved -it!" John was lying on a lounge, covered and looking wan. The -library fire burned cheerfully, and the portrait of an Irish mother -smiled down on Cecilia and John. - -Stuyvesant Twombly had just left. He had uttered some scathing -truths. - -"He said I was a 'callow pup,'" said John. "He said I shouldn't have -called you to that place if I'd been half dead. Cecilia dear, he was -right. Celie, forgive me!" - -"Dearest!" said Cecilia. She sank to her knees by the lounge, and -pressed John's face to hers. He felt her tears. - -"I never will again!" he said huskily. "God help me!" She didn't -reply. She couldn't, but only pressed him closer. - -"I can't bear to see you take the tawdry and cheap," she whispered at -length, "for, John dear, it does crowd out the real. I know it does." - -He nodded. - -"Kiss me," he ordered. She turned her face, and then the door opened. - -"I beg pardon," said Stuyvesant uncomfortably, "I thought you were -alone." Cecilia had gotten to her feet, and stood, shy and flushing -adorably. - -"Cecilia's been weeping over the prodigal pup," explained John. "I -told her I was sorry. I am. If you and she will give me another -chance----" He held out his hand with his words, and Stuyvesant took -it. - -"I came back to say I was sorry I was so darn brutal," he said, -squeezing John's hand, "but I'm afraid I meant it all." - -Cecilia left them with a word or two. At the door she turned. -Stuyvesant was looking after her, oblivious to John's presence. - -"Celie's tears," said John, using a handkerchief on his cheeks. He -recalled the new leaf, and added, "Three or four of mine too, I -guess." His expression was sheepish, but that vanished, for in -Stuyvesant's face was approval. "John," said Stuyvesant, "you're -_all_ right!" - -John coughed. The genuine gruffness of Stuyvesant unsettled him. -"I'm awfully glad you came back," said John. "You'll stay? Let's -play rum." - - - - -CHAPTER XIX - -SPRING - -"What are _you_ doing here?" Stuyvesant asked of Annette. -Considerable surprise was in his face and voice. - -"Oh," answered Annette, "I have been telling Cecilia Madden that I -was a pig. I asked her to forgive me. I feel much better!" - -They had met on the long drive that ran on the inland side of the -Sound house, toward the main road. - -"I'm stopping at a house up the road for Sunday," explained Annette. -"Cecilia wanted to motor me back, but I needed air. Indigestion and -conscience are so much alike. You want to breathe deeply after the -easing of both." - -"Yes," agreed K. Stuyvesant absently. "How could you ever dislike -her, Annette?" - -"She came into school," said Annette, "the rawest little person you -ever saw. I felt the injustice of her having money, while I, who -knew so well how to use it, had to scrimp and save. I saw her with -everything in the world that would have put me into heaven and she -was miserably unhappy. It was my first taste of injustice. I hated -it. I never was a resigned person, you know, Stuyv." - -"How did the girls treat her?" asked Stuyvesant. He was becoming -gruff. - -"We put her through a refined form of hell," answered Annette, "the -cruelties of which were only possible for the feminine mind to -evolve. Stuyv, _do_ look what you're doing! The gardener will be -grateful to you!" - -Stuyvesant had been switching a cane viciously. He had taken off -many heads of a particularly dressed-up variety of tulip. - -"I'll be darned!" he said, looking at them with surprise. "Couldn't -you see how dear and all that kind of thing she was?" he queried -farther. "I don't see how even a set of simpering, half-witted, -idiotic, jealous girls could _help_ seeing----" - -"So you're in love with her?" interrupted Annette. - -Stuyvesant looked on his cousin with surprise. Then he answered. -"Of course," he said, "but how'd you know?" - -Annette laughed. After her laughter she slipped a hand through his -arm. "Stuyvesant," she said, "your soul and mine are cut from a -different pattern. It was always hard for me to understand you, but -something has happened lately which has made me larger, much -decenter. Stuyvesant, I want a long talk--a heart-to-heart effect. -Will you walk back with me?" - -"Of course," he answered. - -"You'll be glad to know," she went on, "that after Cecilia had -pneumonia she was quite the idol of the school. There was one of -those complete shifts so characteristic of our American youth, and -every one liked her but me. She used to try to make me like her with -the most transparent little appeals. Heavens, I was a devil! She -sent me violets at one time when I had a cold, and I gave them to the -maid, and then spoke loudly before her of unwelcome attentions and -social climbers." - -Stuyvesant was walking in jerks. His arm beneath Annette's was rigid. - -"She's forgiven me," said Annette, smiling. - -He relaxed. "I am a darn fool!" he said, "but honestly----!" He -stopped and shook his head. - -"Doesn't she care for you?" asked Annette; "turned you down?" - -"I haven't asked her. She's shown very plainly what she thinks of -me." - -"Rubbish!" said Annette shortly. "No man in love is a judge of -anything! He only knows that she has blue eyes, or he can't just -remember, maybe they're brown, but anyway they're beautiful!" -Annette's cousin grinned sheepishly. - -"What colour are they?" asked Annette. - -"I don't know, but I guess they're brown. I know they're unusual, -now aren't they, Annette?" - -Annette giggled. "Very ordinary," she answered, "and they happen to -be blue." - -"They're not ordinary. You know they aren't! It doesn't make any -difference to me, of course. I'm not in love with her looks, but -they're _not_ ordinary!" - -"It is not like you," said the girl, "to give up anything you want in -that half-hearted way. I don't quite understand, Stuyvesant." - -"I----" he began, then stopped. - -"Well?" questioned Annette. - -"I didn't give it up without being sure. Her friend Marjory, well, -she made me see a few things." He was staring moodily ahead. A car -whizzed by, leaving a trail of dust. "Damn!" said Stuyvesant. -Annette laughed. "You see now if I asked her," he continued, "I'd -lose my chance of seeing her. I don't suppose you or any one else -could know what that means to me!" - -"You might not lose it. I don't trust the green-eyed lady. I never -have." - -"But she's Cecilia's best friend," objected Stuyvesant, "and why -would she do anything to hurt her?" - -"I used to think you posed," she answered despairingly. "Now I -imagine it is only feeble-mindedness. Take my advice, Stuyvesant: -_Ask_ her! The other course is so spineless." - -"You don't know what I'd lose!" - -"You wouldn't lose it!" - -"I wouldn't?" he repeated. "Excuse me, Annette, but really you don't -know what you're talking about. I do. I know too well." His voice -had become bitter. She looked at him and saw that in the year past -he had changed greatly. - -"And now about you?" he said in a changed way. "Are you still set on -this working business? I hope you aren't. I honestly want to help. -It worries me like thunder!" - -"You're a dear!" responded Annette, "and that is quite a tale. Can't -we sit on this wall? Whose is it? ... The Maddens own all this? -Heavens!" - -She perched on the wall and he lit a cigarette. "No, not now," she -answered as he held out the case. "The small Saint Cecilia doesn't, -does she? Well, she couldn't. She might revert to the cob pipe." -It was a flash of the old Annette. Stuyvesant looked unpleasant. - -"My tale--" said Annette. "You know mamma is a worshipper of the -long-haired. Any one who can create _anything_--futurist painters, -pianists, the inventor of a new cocktail. You know her, Stuyv." - -"Yes," admitted Stuyvesant. - -"Well, what with their bleeding and papa's insane investments, he -never provided properly for us, Stuyv. Mamma used to go to him and -really cry! It was pathetic! And all he would say was that he had -no money." - -"He hadn't," answered Annette's cousin. - -"I'd expect you to sympathise," she said. "You men always do, but -that isn't my story. When he died his affairs were in such fearful -shape that mamma and I were terribly pinched. She never liked you, -Stuyv, or she might have asked your advice. As it was, she invested -in lovely nut groves in southern California. The promoters quite -misrepresented them; they didn't pay at all or declare dividends or -whatever they do. In fact they assessed the owners of the common -stock for irrigation or something like that. I don't just understand -business. About that time I met Dicky Fanshawe, who doesn't do -anything original--only works--fearfully poor. I fell in love with -him, but mamma saw me as the mistress of some gilt and pink salon, -with a long-haired genius as a husband, and was simply devilish about -Dicky. You know her, Stuyv." - -"Yes," answered Stuyvesant. "I do." - -"Then you know the Altshine failure took us in too." - -"Yes," he answered. "I know. Why were you so stiff-necked about my -help, Annette? I have enough to help you all you need, and I want -to. You know it." - -"Mamma has never liked you," said Annette, "but when the crash came, -well, she was willing to live on you. For the same reason I was not. -I know you disapprove of me. My ideals are not many, but under the -circumstances----!" - -"You make me feel an awful dub!" said Stuyvesant. "I haven't any -right to disapprove of you or be lofty." - -"But you do. Well, mamma saw me retrieving the family fortune in -some romantic and bohemian manner. I was to create something, a -book, or be a decorator for the smart, a reader of East Indian poems. -She had splendid ideas, but the fact is, I've found, you have to have -a hint of something inside to do anything successfully outside. I -hadn't it. - -"I descended to a social secretary and chaperoning that horrid -woman's nasty little white pups, and from that mamma has consented to -my marrying Dicky. He only has ten thousand a year, and I'm going to -marry him on that! I love him terribly! Isn't it splendidly -romantic?" - -"Um," grunted Stuyvesant. "Annette," he said, "I want you to let me -provide for your mother. You will? ... No, don't thank me. It -irritates me. Oh, please!" After his last plea she stopped her -effusive thanks and pressed his arm. Suddenly she laughed. - -"What are you laughing at?" asked Stuyvesant. - -"Cecilia advocated pink for the poor," Annette explained, "and I -never understood how they felt until my terrible employer asked me -not to wear frills. She said they weren't suitable for my position! -It's all so relative, isn't it? Cecilia saw the panorama. I saw -only my corner." - -Annette slipped from the wall. "Must go," she said. "Dicky's coming -out at eight. You want me to be happy?" - -"Of course," said Stuyvesant. Annette's face changed. "Stuyv," she -said, "it's everything when you find the one who fits your heart and -mind.... _Ask_ her. Please, Stuyv. I can't believe she doesn't -care." - -"You're awfully good," he answered huskily. "Lord, Annette! If you -were right----!" - -Annette stepped near him. For the first time since the nursery days -she kissed him. "Stay here," she ordered, "and think it out. Bye!" -With a wave she left. At the first turn in the road she looked back. -Her cousin was still sitting on the wall, and he was staring intently -at the cigarette between his fingers. Annette had seen that it had -gone out before she started. - -"Poor boy!" she said. "Poor boy!" and then she thought of Dicky, who -had turned her hard little heart softer to all the world. She forgot -the "poor boy" who sat alone on the wall. She forgot money and -things, the two which had mattered most to her, and once had been her -life. With a new look on her face, she dreamed of a future--a future -at which she once would have laughed. - -Hers was the spirit that puts glory into the face of the tired mother -in the overcrowded flat; beauty into the face of the tawdry little -girl who sits on a park bench with her "gentleman friend"; youth into -age, waiting for soft and endless night; a little touch of God, a -hint of something larger, veiled for eyes too young; the proof -intangible, sublime. - - - - -CHAPTER XX - -PULLING OFF THE THORNS - -The heat of June in the city drew forth a hot, damp steam. It made -white faces and brought to mind sunstrokes, not June's country -thought--roses. - -"Gee, it's hot!" said John. He sat opposite Stuyvesant Twombly in a -restaurant famed for its coolness. "Come out with me to-night!" he -added. "Dad and Celie will be glad to have you, too. Come on! -Awful nice and cool out there." - -Stuyvesant answered absently, and smiled a little as he did. The -idea of "Celie's" being glad to see him amused, even while it hurt, -him desperately. He thought with a cankered humour of his trying to -find out whether there was a spark of hope for him, after the talk -with Annette had made his dreams too daring, and had made him need, -all over again, proof of how little he mattered. He had gotten the -proof. His first talk had been full of Marjory,--Marjory,--Marjory. -He had not wanted to talk of Marjory. Again he had hated her for -coming between them. - -Cecilia had told of what Marjory's letters had held,--how dear -Marjory was (Cecilia had been a bit breathless at this point)--how -she, Cecilia, loved her,--where Marjory was,--where she was going. -It had been a very surface talk, not once touching anything personal, -at least no more than the small Cecilia's great love for her friend. -Then John had appeared and Cecilia had excused herself with much -relief and gone quickly away. - -It was as always, her avoidance, and what in a less sweet nature -would have shown as marked distaste. Stuyvesant had understood, and -held on to his small privilege doggedly. - -"Then I'll leave," Stuyvesant heard John say; he didn't know what had -come before, "but I'll get home from school often and see you." - -"I'm going away myself for a while," said Stuyvesant,--"I don't know -just where. I'm tired of business,--everything. I guess I need a -change." He thought miserably of the "change" he needed, and then -shut his heart on her sweet image. He made up his mind to stop -thinking of "that kind of thing," and his heart laughed at his -decision. - -[Illustration: CECILIA STOPPED AND GASPED. IT WAS HARDER THAN SHE -HAD DREAMED] - -"Stuyv!" said John aghast, "what am I going to do without you? Why, -Stuyv! You can't go, at least for long. You don't mean a long trip?" - -"'Fraid so," he was answered. "I guess I'd better, John. I--the -fact is I've wanted something I can't have. I don't want to baby -about it, only I'm,--well, I can't forget it here. I'm going to try -a change. Damn it! What did I say that for? I hate to whine." - -"Stuyv!" said John. He reached across the table, and squeezed the -hand that was drawing designs on the tablecloth with a strawberry -fork. - -Stuyvesant felt the sympathy, and looked up. The boy on the other -side of the table gasped. - -"Is it as bad as that?" he asked. Stuyvesant shook his head, and -then he uttered his own word and convincingly. "Gosh, John," he -said, "it's the limit. I'd never have believed it possible." - -"Would it help to tell?" asked John. Stuyvesant smiled a little. -"Not exactly," he replied. "I did tell one person," he continued -after a pause, "and after that it was worse. This person meant well -too. Rot it, if I couldn't run a world better than it's run! I'd -have people that love each----" he stopped, and looked wildly around. -Then he mopped his forehead. "It's awful hot," he finished inanely. - -"Yes," agreed John. "Lord, I'll miss you!" John was utterly -despondent. "There's no one like you, Stuyv," he said in an -embarrassed way. "You know how hard it is to say some things, but -you can bet I know what you've done for me! I do--so does Cecilia. -I had the wrong idea." - -"I've been glad to be your friend," answered Stuyvesant. "You'll -write me and tell me how,--how you all are?" - -"Certainly," responded John. "Why, of course I will, but I don't -know how I can say good-bye! Stuyv, I depend on you awfully. You -know,--you know with dad, that is, I can't take his advice because I -don't respect him." - -"Why not?" broke in John's companion. "I'd like to know why not?" - -John's mouth flew open. "His grammar----" he began. - -"Trimmings," said K. Stuyvesant. - -"Crudeness," said John. - -"Companion of strength," said K. Stuyvesant. - -"Mentioning money all the time," said John, "how much things cost." - -"Better than spending it without mention on dubious objects." John -looked away as Stuyvesant replied. "Look here," continued -Stuyvesant, "you and I both know the honest goodness in your -father--his rugged ideas of a decent life--his respect of them. The -other things are tinsel balls on the Christmas tree. Desirable -trimmings, but not essential for the tree's strength. A few more -years will convince you,--absolutely convince you. Some day you -won't even wince when your father forgets and uses his knife to eat -from." - -"Never," stated John. - -"You prefer a man who is slippery both inside and out?" questioned -Stuyvesant. - -"They get along better with the world," said John. - -"Oh, no," said Stuyvesant. "They get along better with the empties. -A few people, those that count, look for something on the inside." - -John suddenly leaned well across the table. "Look here, Stuyv," he -said, "is this a bluff? Damned if I understand you! I was lying in -the hammock on the porch last summer when Marjory and Cecilia came -from the courts. They didn't see me, and I thought I'd hear about -some beau and have a joke. I heard Marjory say that you said the old -man should be kept in the garage. Not just those words, but -smooth--Marjory's way. I never saw Celie so mad! She turned white -as----" - -"Did she say that?" shouted Stuyvesant. - -"Lord, Stuyv!" said John, "everybody's lookin' at you. Yes, of -course she said that. What's the matter with you?" - -"What else did she say?" asked Stuyvesant. He was somewhat -breathless, but for the sake of John more restrained. - -"Well, Marjory told Cecilia what a hell of a case you had on her, -talking about her eyes, and all that kind of stuff. Trust -girls--they blab everything. Gimme the salt, will you?" - -Stuyvesant shoved his glass of water toward John. "The salt, man!" -said John, and then as he surveyed Stuyvesant with sad eyes, he -added, "I hope it isn't catching." - -"You go telephone her that we're coming out," said Stuyvesant. - -"Who?" - -"Your sister, of course. Tell her not to have any one else there. -I've got to see her, John,--got to! Honestly, John, I've _got_ to. -I've got to see her a little while alone. I really must." - -"I think you've made it plain," replied John. "You say you must see -Cecilia. You did mention that, didn't you?" - -There was no room for anything but heaven in Stuyvesant. He nodded -seriously. "Yes," lie answered, "I must! Really, I've got to, John!" - -John howled. "The heat!" he explained, then he sobered. - -"Look here, Stuyv," he said, "_did_ you say that?" - -"What?" asked Stuyvesant, then he remembered, and for the first and -last time made a certain utterance. "She lied," he said quietly, and -then, "Oh, my _gosh_, I'm happy! I believe I'm going crazy." - -"Oh, no!" replied John, "impossible." - - -"Yes, John?" said Cecilia. - -"Stuyv's coming out with me," she heard him say. - -"Yes, dear," she answered. - -"Any one coming to dinner?" - -"No, dear. Shall I ask one of the Welsh twins? They're always so -sweet about coming." - -"No," said John; "Stuyv and I were talking about dad, rather Marjory, -and he's got a hunch that he's got to see you alone. Got to,--got -to,--got to!" Cecilia did not understand, and was rather bewildered -at John's laughter. - -"Certainly he shall, John," she replied. Her heart beat in her -voice. "Good-bye, dear," she ended, and heard the click of his -receiver. - -"Talking of Marjory" ... Cecilia turned away from the telephone and -went to stand by the sea window of her room. She would help them -both all she could. All she could.... She closed her eyes, for she -felt sick and faint. - -"How can I help him?" she questioned, for Marjory's letters had not -held a mention of him, although Cecilia's had tactfully recorded his -every move. She looked out on the world--it was grey like the -frothing Sound. - -"I will help them to be happy," she whispered unsteadily. "Father -McGowan-dear,--I am learning. Some day I will learn to think of it, -and smile----" Then she turned to dress. - -Norah came in, and looked on happily. Cecilia was not vain after -all. No, she didn't care which frock she put on, and she told -Josephine not to fuss so over her hair, that it bored her. "What is -the difference?" she had asked a little bitterly, and then to Norah -she had said, "I didn't mean that! I didn't! What made me say it? -I am not bitter, am I, Norah?" - -"And why should you be," Norah had answered, "with everything in the -world that money can buy?" - - - - -CHAPTER XXI - -PINK ROSES - -At five K. Stuyvesant and John started for the Sound house. The sun -beat down cruelly with the same murky, hot-damp feel. The car wove -between the traffic of the crowded streets like a huge shuttle. Both -men in it were silent--Stuyvesant breathless and afraid to trust his -hope, yet hoping; John despondent over Stuyv's going away. All that -that gentleman had done came to John with a new force,--came when the -possibility of losing Stuyv even for a few months was thrust before -him. - -Stuyvesant spoke: - -"Takes so long to get out to-day," he said; "we seem to crawl. Look -at that fellow ahead. Won't let us get past; have to crawl! Lord! -Say, John, let me drive." - -"I will not!" replied John with decision. "I have a distinct -fondness for life. What's wrong with you?" - -"Nothing," answered Stuyvesant loudly, "nothing at all!" Then he -began to speak of certain affairs downtown, talking quickly, as if -afraid of silence. John looked at him with wonder. It was very -unlike Stuyvesant to be hectic. He recalled the mentioned -disappointment. That, also, brought wonder. Stuyvesant didn't seem -to care for girls. In business he seemed to get what he wanted. -What could it be? Suddenly an idea, which seemed to John almost -insane, flew across his mind. - -He couldn't recognise it in the face of Cecilia's and Stuyvesant's -open avoidance of each other, but in spite of that, the idea clung. -"Got to see her, got to----" echoed in John's ears. He swallowed -convulsively. If it were true! And it was not Marjory after -all,--well, wouldn't he be the happiest fellow on earth? Well, -rather! - -The last months had brought John to a state of adoration of Cecilia -and Stuyvesant. More than love it was. To be as sure of Stuyv's -always closeness,--to have Cecilia so cared for.... "Can't you let -her out a little?" he heard Stuyvesant say impatiently. John -answered with a gentleness absolutely new, but it was not noticed. -He ran the car faster and well, and his best efforts were greeted -with: "This thing seems to crawl to-night. Darned if I don't want to -get out and push!" - -"You're in a hurry!" said John bravely. - -"Oh, no, no!" answered Stuyvesant, looking on John suspiciously. -Then he mopped his forehead, leaving it streaked with the dust that -came off. "Hot," he said. - -They rounded the last hill before the Madden gateway, and through a -gap in some stately poplars they caught a glimpse of a white speck on -an upper terrace. - -"Cecilia!" blurted out Stuyvesant. "Oh, gosh! John, is my tie, that -is, do I look----" - -"Sure, you do," said John, comfortingly. Stuyvesant mopped some -more. His face looked like a futurist painting of "The Dancers" or -some one's aunt. - -They rounded up the hill slowly. Evangeline bounded from the -shrubbery and barked welcome. - -"Evangeline," said Stuyvesant, as one in a trance. - -"Yes," answered John; "Norah named him for Cecilia. Norah is an old -family servant." Had Stuyvesant heard, he might have smiled, but -Stuyvesant was past hearing. - -"You poor boys!" said Cecilia. "How hot and tired you must be!" -Then she looked at Stuyvesant and laughed. "I judge it was dusty?" -she said. - -"No, that is, I mean quite so," stuttered Stuyvesant. He stood -before her silent, openly staring. - -When John saw Cecilia flush he put his hand on Stuyvesant's arm. -"Come on," he said. "We'll go brush up." - -John's manner was as gentle as Cecilia's. Stuyvesant followed him. -On the broad porch he paused and looked back. - -Evangeline was telling Cecilia that he loved her, in dog fashion--wag -code. - -Cecilia patted him. - -"Gosh!" said Stuyvesant, and then he mopped his forehead, making -another picture in the dust. - - -Dusk came before dinner time. It crept down stealthily, like the -thief it is of day. Shadows darkened and lengthened. Greens grew -black. Cecilia in the half light on a wide porch watched a certain -big and unusually gruff man. Something, she could see, was making -him like a wistful boy--a boy so heart-set on his want that he fears -the risk of refusal. - -Cecilia thought of Marjory across the seas. There was a chance to -play traitor--a chance to rekindle the little spark she had once -fired in Stuyvesant. The idea danced about her soul and burnt its -edges. - -"Father McGowan-dear," she appealed inside, "please help me! I am -trying, but I _am_ so little!" A breeze from the Sound came with a -swish and moaned gently in and out among the loving arms of trees. - - -The lights in the dining room were soft. They shone gently down on a -large bowl of pink roses which were in the centre of the table. -Their hearts were a deeper colour and they nodded and seemed to talk -when the steps of two pompous persons who passed things shook them. - -Stuyvesant looked at Cecilia and then quickly away. He did not know -what kind of a frock she wore except that it was white. He knew that -she looked good, gentle and pure; that her eyes held the depths that -hurts bring and the deep loyalty of love. There was a little droop -to her lips that made him ache to see. He wondered at it, dared to -hope that it had come because of him, and then he put the thought -away. Unbelievably sweet it seemed. - -And Cecilia? - -"Marjory across the seas," she thought, "to subdue Jeremiah just a -little----" She closed her eyes. "Oh dear!" she thought, "what _is_ -the matter with me? These awful thoughts!" She opened them again -and saw Jeremiah leaning on the table. His fists were closed about -his knife and fork, and he held them upright, the handle ends resting -on the cloth. John, curiously enough, did not seem bothered by this. -He was watching Stuyvesant, who sat opposite. - -"After that I started makin' bricks instead of layin' 'em. (Celie, -ask that young feller to loan me a piece of bread. I want bread with -my supper. I don't care what the style is.) So I begin to make -bricks, an' when I look around and think that bricks done it all----" -Jeremiah's voice faded. He left the rest to the imaginations of his -listeners, while he laid a piece of bread flat on the table, and -spread it _en masse_. - -"I wisht my wife could have saw it," said Jeremiah as he loosened the -piece of bread from the cloth. "She deserved everything. I never -gave her nothing." - -"You gave her a great deal," disagreed Cecilia. "You know you did! -We were happy in that little flat. I remember that. We loved each -other and we had enough to eat." - -Cecilia was aware of Stuyvesant's eyes. They were so dear! She -wondered if it was very wicked to love them, for she knew she always -would.... And he had intimated that if Jeremiah were less -prominent--Cecilia swallowed hard. The gods are visited with -temptations, and too often they come to little humans. Cecilia was -meeting hers. For the minute she felt anything possible, justifiable -for the end she craved, and in the middle of her minute the white -spark in her little heart flared. - -"Papa," she said, "please tell Mr. Twombly about the time you hit the -boss on the ear with a brick." - -The request of that tale was her crucifixion on the cross of loyalty -... her proof beyond all doubt that her heart was in Jeremiah's rough -old hands. Jeremiah looked pleased. His face lit rather -pathetically. Cecilia answered his happy smile, and then she looked -down at her plate. Her throat felt full and stiff. She found it -hard to swallow. - -Through a numbed consciousness she heard a long and much loved tale. - -"I love him, I love him!" she chanted inside. "He and John are -_everything_!" She looked up and found Stuyvesant looking at her. -The way he looked made her gasp a little, and below the table she -closed her small hands so tightly that her nails hurt her palms. - -"An' then I sez, 'Yuh can lay yer own bricks,'" came in the voice of -Jeremiah. "'An' here's one to begin with.' (It took him on the -ear.)" He ended in parenthesis. - -"Your stand for liberty--was--well--timed. It was--certainly the -best thing you could have done," commented Stuyvesant in jerks. He -was trying very hard not to look at Cecilia, and it was work not to. - -"Celie," said Jeremiah, "what _has_ this fellow did to the potatoes? -He does be-devil 'em so. He puts on so many airs that yuh hardly -recognise 'em fer potatoes!" - -"I don't know, dear," answered Cecilia, "but I'll see about it -to-morrow." - -"Mebbe Celie couldn't fry potatoes!" said Jeremiah. He smacked his -lips loudly in remembrance. "These here furriners," he went on, -"that we hire to cook,--poor things, _they_ don't know no better!" -And thus Jeremiah disposed of French chefs. The lips of one of the -pompous persons curled a little. The roses nodded and bobbed. - -To Stuyvesant, who stared resolutely on them, they all whispered, -"Cecilia!" - -To Cecilia they shouted "Keefer, the butler." - -To John they were lovelier that night from a new hope, and, of his -father, a new understanding. - -But to Jeremiah Madden they brought back only the heat of an -overcrowded flat--the woman who held his heart dying by inches, when -money might have made her live.... Money! ... A little tired-eyed -girl struggling under a woman's load. A little boy who always cried -for things he couldn't have. - -"The bunnit with pink roses." - -Life's question mark,--Fate's smile,--or God's hand? - -Jeremiah looked away from the roses, and absently stuck the corner of -his napkin in his collar. Then he looked about to see if any one had -noticed, and hastily took it out. - -Cecilia saw and her heart leaped with love. It seemed to her that -the Saints had made Jeremiah do that then. Do it to show the little -earth maiden her work in life. The taking from her father the shame -which a son would have him feel, and giving him a substitute for the -love that left him too soon,--too hungering. - -They got up at last. Cecilia took a bobbing rose from the -centrepiece. She began to break the thorns from it, but Stuyvesant's -hands took it from her. He removed them methodically, and -surely,--as he would. When he gave it back to her, there was nothing -left to hurt. - -"Thank you," she said. - -"I wish I could take them out of the world for you," he answered -gruffly. She shook as she crossed the room to where her father and -John waited at the door. Her temptation was past. Her heart was -strong, but she prayed that he would not say such things so much as -if he meant them. It made it too hard. - -"I am so weak," she thought, "so weak!" - - -Stuyvesant walked laggingly across the soft grass. John had said -that he would find her by a white wall with a Greek relief, that that -was her favourite spot. Stuyvesant knew that he dreamed of that spot -because of her, but his connection with it influencing her, he never -thought of. His spirit, always humble with her, knelt. - -He thought of John's understanding, and whispering, "Good luck, -Stuyv, dear!" and of his gasping, "John,--you'd be willing?" John -had whacked him on the back and had answered convincingly. Then he'd -gone unsteadily down the steps, and had lagged across the -close-clipped grass. He wanted as he had never wanted anything to -see her, but he was shaken and unsure ... sick from longing and fear. - -Ahead of him in the half light he saw the stretch of wall standing -out among the shadows. - -He stopped, heart pounding, at the corner of the hedge-sheltered -path. The little Irish maiden who was his key to heaven sat on the -wall. Behind her the Sound was black. The soft stillness enveloped -everything. The half night throbbed. Cecilia looked up, and saw the -tall shadow in the shadows. - -"John, dear?" she queried. Stuyvesant didn't answer for his voice -was gone, but he stepped toward her. He put out a hand and laid it -on a white wall. The world was reeling for him. - -"Oh," she said, "I thought it was John, but--but you wanted to see -me?" - -He nodded. - -"Marjory----" she began, then scolded herself for a too abrupt start. -She drew a quick breath, and tried to control reason and tact. "She -is so lovely, Mr. Stuyvesant," she went on, "but sometimes she -doesn't let people know when she likes them. She's like that." - -Cecilia stopped and gasped. It was harder than she had dreamed. - -"Has she been a good friend to you?" asked Stuyvesant in a queer, -tight voice. - -"Oh, yes!" answered Cecilia, "so good! I do love her so much! I -would do anything to make her happy!" - -"You _darling_!" said K. Stuyvesant. He spoke loudly, but his words -shook, for his heart was pounding with a sickening speed. With his -words Cecilia caught her breath so deeply that it seemed a sob. -Doubts vanished,--seemed incredible,--but she spoke what would always -be her truth, though her heart famished from it. She looked -Stuyvesant squarely in the eyes: "I love my father," she said, "and I -am proud of him. I am proud to be his daughter." - -"Of course you are," he answered. "You should be. Cecilia, I am -very little, but I am large enough to see what you love in him. Have -you misunderstood what I thought?" - -She nodded. White, she was, and her eyes were on his face, imploring -in their new hope. - -"I loved you," said Stuyvesant, "on the boat. I saw how wonderful -you were, but, Cecilia,--when I saw you here! When I see you turn -and kiss your father when his eyes grow hurt because of John's -unkindness.... Oh, my dear! Every instant of this year I've loved -you, and more and more. I love you so ... No one could be worthy of -you, but, little Saint,--no one could love you more! No one." - -He stopped, choked. "I dream on my knees," he went on: "I'll dream -of you until I die. But,--what's the use of saying all this? I love -you! I love you so! That's everything." - -He put a hand out toward her, then drew back. "Cecilia," he -whispered, "you are so sweet!" - -He looked down and drew his breath sharply. He wondered if she would -ever speak. - -He heard her slip from the wall.... Perhaps she would leave him -without a word. Dully, he wondered how he could go on living if she -did that. - -And then the world turned over and then it ceased to be, for -Cecilia's hands lay on his shoulders. He felt them move and creep up -and around his neck. It was true.... He felt a wonderful, shaken -strength. - -"Cecilia! Cecilia!" she heard him gasp. - -After a time she pushed him away and laughed tremulously. "Dearest -Keefer Stuyvesant," she whispered shakily, "whose tears are these? -Yours or mine?" - -There was no room for laughter in Keefer Stuyvesant's soul. He drew -her close again and answered gruffly: "There is no yours nor mine any -more, little saint. They're ours, dearest,--ours. Oh, Cecilia, -_gosh_, how I _love_ you!" - - - -THE END - - - - -* * * * * * * * - - - - -CHARMING BOOKS FOR GIRLS - -May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list - - -WHEN PATTY WENT TO COLLEGE, By Jean Webster. - -Illustrated by C. D. Williams. - -One of the best stories of life in a girl's college that has ever -been written. It is bright, whimsical and entertaining, lifelike, -laughable and thoroughly human. - - -JUST PATTY, By Jean Webster. - -Illustrated by C. M. Relyea. - -Patty is full of the joy of living, fun-loving, given to ingenious -mischief for its own sake, with a disregard for pretty convention -which is an unfailing source of joy to her fellows. - - -THE POOR LITTLE RICH GIRL, By Eleanor Gates. - -With four full page illustrations. - -This story relates the experience of one of those unfortunate -children whose early days are passed in the companionship of a -governess, seldom seeing either parent, and famishing for natural -love and tenderness. A charming play as dramatized by the author. - - -REBECCA OF SUNNYBROOK FARM, By Kate Douglas Wiggin. - -One of the most beautiful studies of childhood--Rebecca's artistic, -unusual and quaintly charming qualities stand on midst a circle of -austere New Englanders. The stage version is making a phenomenal -dramatic record. - - -NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA, By Kate Douglas Wiggin. - -Illustrated by F. C. Yohn. - -Additional episodes in the girlhood of this delightful heroine that -carry Rebecca through various stages to her eighteenth birthday. - - -REBECCA MARY, By Annie Hamilton Donnell. - -Illustrated by Elizabeth Shippen Green. - -This author possesses the rare gift of portraying all the grotesque -little joys and sorrows and scruples of this very small girl with a -pathos that is peculiarly genuine and appealing. - - -Her Book and Heart, By George Madden Martin, - -Illustrated by Charles Louis Hinton. - -Emmy Lou is irresistibly lovable, because she is so absolutely real. -She is just a bewitchingly innocent, hugable little maid. The book -is wonderfully human. - - - - STORIES OF RARE CHARM BY - GENE STRATTON-PORTER - - -MICHAEL O'HALLORAN, Illustrated by Frances Rogers. - -Michael is a quick-witted little Irish newsboy, living in Northern -Indiana. He adopts a deserted little girl, a cripple. He also -assumes the responsibility of leading the entire rural community -upward and onward. - - -LADDIE. Illustrated by Herman Pfeifer. - -This is a bright, cheery tale with the scenes laid in Indiana. The -story is told by Little Sister, the youngest member of a large -family, but it is concerned not so much with childish doings as with -the love affairs of older members of the family. Chief among them is -that of Laddie and the Princess, an English girl who has come to live -in the neighborhood and about whose family there hangs a mystery. - - -THE HARVESTER. Illustrated by W. L. Jacobs. - -"The Harvester," is a man of the woods and fields, and if the book -had nothing in it but the splendid figure of this man it would be -notable. But when the Girl comes to his "Medicine Woods," there -begins a romance of the rarest idyllic quality. - - -FRECKLES. Illustrated. - -Freckles is a nameless waif when the tale opens, but the way in which -he takes hold of life; the nature friendships he forms in the great -Limberlost Swamp; the manner in which everyone who meets him succumbs -to the charm of his engaging personality; and his love-story with -"The Angel" are full of real sentiment. - - -A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST. Illustrated. - -The story of a girl of the Michigan woods; a buoyant, loveable type -of the self-reliant American. Her philosophy is one of love and -kindness towards all things; her hope is never dimmed. And by the -sheer beauty of her soul, and the purity of her vision, she wins from -barren and unpromising surroundings those rewards of high courage. - - -AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW. Illustrations in colors. - -The scene of this charming love story is laid in Central Indiana. -The story is one of devoted friendship, and tender self-sacrificing -love. The novel is brimful of the most beautiful word painting of -nature, and its pathos and tender sentiment will endear it to all. - - -THE SONG OF THE CARDINAL. - -Profusely illustrated. - -A love ideal of the Cardinal bird and his mate, told with delicacy -and humor. - - - -GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK - - - - - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Cecilia of the Pink Roses, by -Katharine Haviland Taylor - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CECILIA OF THE PINK ROSES *** - -***** This file should be named 60099-8.txt or 60099-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/0/0/9/60099/ - -Produced by Al Haines -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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