XII

"Miss Claudia Revelly," answered Reed, "is one of the most respected and admired young ladies in the State, I may say in the whole South. I have known her and her family since she was a child, and I should have been informed if anything of the kind had taken place."

As he said this, the glance that the cook cast at him was indescribable. It was mingled pity and wonder, as much as to say, "What hope is there, after all, for a man who can talk like that?"

"Undoubtedly you're right, Mr. Reed," said Lefferts, "and yet I have never heard of a girl's announcing more than one engagement at a time, although it has come within my experience to know—"

"But, after all, why not?" said Crane. "Perhaps that will be the coming fashion. We shall in future get letters from our friends, which will begin: 'I want you to know of the three great happinesses that have come into my life. I am engaged to John Jones, Peter Smith and Paul Robinson, and I feel almost sure that one of these three, early next June—'"

Seeing that Reed was really growing angry, Lefferts hastened to interrupt his host.

"I think you might tell us, Mr. Reed," he said, "what the great beauty of the county looks like?"

"I can't think that this is the time or place for retailing the charms of a young lady as if it were a slave market," answered Reed; and it seemed to Crane that the cook, who had come in to change the plates, looked a little bit disappointed.

"No, not as if it were a slave market," said Lefferts, "because, of course, it isn't."

"I can see no reason, Reed," said Crane, "why you shouldn't give us a hint as to whether Miss Revelly is blond or brunette, tall or short."

"Perhaps I see reasons that you do not, sir," answered the wretched real estate man.

"Well," said Crane, "I tell you what, Jane-Ellen must have seen her often,—Jane-Ellen," he added, "you've seen Miss Revelly. What does she look like?"

Jane-Ellen advanced into the room thoughtfully.

"Well, sir," she said, "it isn't for me to criticize my superiors, nor to say a word against a young lady whom Mr. Reed admires so much, but I have my own reasons, sir, for thinking that there was more in those stories of her engagement than perhaps Mr. Reed himself knows. Servants hear a good deal, you know, sir, and they do say that Miss Revelly—"

"Claudia!" burst from Reed.

"Miss Claudia Revelly, I should say," the cook corrected herself. "Well, sir, as for looks—let me see—she's a tall, commanding looking lady—"

"With flashing black eyes?" asked Crane.

"And masses of blue-black hair."

"A noble brow?"

"A mouth too large for perfect beauty."

"A queenly bearing?"

"An irresistible dignity of manner."

"Jane-Ellen," said Crane, "I feel almost as if Miss Claudia Revelly were standing before me."

"Oh, indeed, sir, if it were she, it's you who would be standing," said the cook.

"For my part," said Crane, turning again to the table, "I had imagined her to myself as quite different. I had supposed her small, soft-eyed, with tiny hands and feet and a mouth—" He was looking at Jane-Ellen's mouth, as if that might give him an inspiration, when Reed interrupted.

"I regret to say, Mr. Crane," he said, "that if this conversation continues to deal disrespectfully with the appearance of a young lady for whom—"

"Disrespectfully!" cried Crane. "I assure you, I had no such intention. I leave it to you, Jane-Ellen, whether anything disrespectful was said about this young lady."

"It did not seem so to me, sir," answered the cook, with all her gentlest manner. "But," she added, glancing humbly at Reed, "of course, it would never do for a servant like me to be setting up my opinion on such a matter against a gentleman like Mr. Reed."

"What I mean is, if Miss Revelly were here, do you think she would object to anything we have said?"

"Indeed, I'm sure she would actually have enjoyed it, sir."

"Well, then, she ought not," shouted Reed sternly.

Jane-Ellen shook her head sadly.

"Ah, sir," she said, "young ladies like Miss Revelly don't always do what they ought to, if report speaks true."

"May I ask, without impertinence, Burton," said Tucker, at this point, "whether it is your intention to give us nothing whatsoever to drink with our dinner?"

"No, certainly not," cried Crane. "Jane-Ellen, why haven't you served the champagne?"

The reason for this omission was presently only too clear. Jane-Ellen had not the faintest idea of how to open the bottle. Crane, listening with one ear to his guests, watched her wrestling with it in a corner, holding it as if it were a venomous reptile.

"For my part," Tucker was saying, "I have a great deal of sympathy with the stand Mr. Reed has taken. Any discussion of a woman behind her back runs at least the risk—"

Suddenly Crane shouted:

"Look out! Don't do that!" He was speaking not to Tucker, but to the cook. His warning, however, came too late. There was the sound of breaking glass and a deep cherry-colored stain dyed the napkin in Jane-Ellen's hand.

All four chairs were pushed back, all four men sprang to her side.

"Let me see your hand."

"Is it badly cut?"

"An artery runs near there."

"Is there any glass in it?"

They crowded around her, nor did any one of them seem to be averse to taking the case entirely into his own control.

"There are antiseptics and bandages upstairs," said Crane.

"Better let me wash it well at the tap in the pantry," urged Reed.

"Does it hurt horribly?" asked Lefferts.

Tucker, putting on his glasses, observed:

"I have had some experience in surgery, and if you will let me examine the wound by a good light—"

"Oh, gentlemen," said Jane-Ellen, "this is absurd. It's nothing but a scratch. Do sit down and finish your dinner, and let me get through my work."

As the injury did not, after a closer observation, seem to be serious, the four men obeyed. But they did so in silence; not even Lefferts and Crane could banter any more. Tucker had never made any pretense of recovering his temper, and Reed seemed to be revolving thoughts of deep import.

As they rose from table, Crane touched the arm of Reed.

"Come into the office, will you? I have something I want to say to you."

"And I to you," said Reed, with feeling.

ONCE in the little office, Crane did not immediately speak. He drew up two chairs, put a log on the fire, turned up the lamp, and in short made it evident that he intended to do that cruel deed sometimes perpetrated by parents, guardians and schoolmasters in interviews of this sort—he was going to leave it to the culprit to make a beginning.

Reed, fidgeting in a nearby chair, did not at once yield to this compulsion, but finally the calm with which Crane was balancing a pen on a pencil broke down his resolution and he said crossly:

"I understood you had something to say to me, Mr. Crane."

Crane threw aside pencil and pen. "I thought it might be the other way," he answered. "But, yes, if you like. I have something to say to you. I have decided to break my lease and leave this house to-morrow."

"You don't mean to go without paying the second instalment of the rent?"

"Why not? The Revellys have broken, or rather have never fulfilled their part of the contract. I took the house on the written understanding that servants were to be supplied, and you are my witness, Mr. Reed, that to-night I have no one left but a cook."

"Oh, come, Mr. Crane! We only agreed to provide the servants. We could not guarantee that you would not dismiss them. You must own they showed no inclination to leave the house."

"No, I'll not deny that," returned Burton grimly.

"No sane man," continued Reed eagerly, "would allow the payment of his rent to depend on whether or not you chose to keep a staff of servants in many ways above the average. You'll not deny, I think, sir, that the cooking has been above the average?"

Crane had reached a state of mind in which it was impossible for him to discuss even the culinary powers of Jane-Ellen, particularly with Reed, and so he slightly shifted the ground.

"Let us," he said, "run over the reasons for which I dismissed them: The housemaid, for calling one of my guests an old harridan; the boy, for habitually smoking my cigarettes, for attempting to strike Mr. Tucker, and finally, for stealing a valuable miniature belonging to the house; the butler, for again introducing this same larcenous boy into the house disguised as a lame old man. The question is not whether I should have kept them, but whether I should not stay on here and have them all arrested."

Reed's face changed. "Oh! I hope you won't do that, Mr. Crane," he said.

Burton saw his advantage. "I should not care," he answered, "to go through life feeling I had been responsible for turning a dangerous gang loose upon the countryside."

"They are not that, sir. I pledge my word they are not that."

"There is a good deal of evidence against that pledge."

"You doubt my word, sir?"

"I feel there is much more to be explained than you seem willing to admit. For instance, how comes it that you are a—I will not say welcome—but at least assured visitor in my kitchen?"

Reed felt himself coloring. "I do not feel called upon," he replied, "to explain my conduct to any one."

"In that case," said Crane, getting to his feet, "this interview might as well end. I shall leave to-morrow, and if you and your friends, the Revellys, feel yourselves aggrieved, we can only take the matter into court. If the record of these servants is as excellent as you seem to think, they can have nothing to fear. If it isn't, the whole matter will be cleared up."

This was the crisis of the conversation, for as Crane moved to the door, Reed stopped him.

"Wait a moment, Mr. Crane," he said. "There are circumstances in this connection that you do not know."

"Yes, I guessed that much."

"If you will sit down, I should like to tell you the whole story."

Crane yielded and sat down, without giving Reed the satisfaction of knowing that his nervousness at the expected revelation was as extreme as Reed's.

"The Revellys, Mr. Crane, are among the most respected of our Southern gentry. They fought for the original liberties of this country, and in the war of secession—"

Crane nodded. "I know my history, Mr. Reed."

"But, sir, their distinguished position and high abilities have not saved them from financial reverses. The grandfather lost everything in the war; and the present owner, Henry Patrick Revelly, has not been completely successful. Last winter a breakdown in his health compelled him to leave the country at short notice. His four children—"

"Four children, Mr. Reed? Two girls and two boys?"

"Four grown children, Mr. Crane. The eldest is twenty-six, the youngest seventeen. They were left with a roof over their heads and a sum of money—a small sum—to provide for them during the absence of their parents. Not a satisfactory arrangement, sir, but made in haste and distress. Mrs. Revelly's devotion to her husband is such that in her alarm for him, she did not perhaps sufficiently consider her children. At the moment when, left alone, their difficulties began to press upon them, your offer, your generous offer, for the house was made. There was no time to submit it to their parents, nor, to be candid with you, would there have been the slightest chance of Mr. Revelly's accepting it. He has never been able to tolerate the mere suggestion of renting Revelly Hall. But the four young people felt differently. It was natural, it was in my opinion commendable, that they decided to move out of their home for the sake of realizing a large sum—the largest sum probably that had come into the family purse for many years. But an obstacle soon appeared. You had insisted that servants should be provided. This was impossible. They tried earnestly. Miss Claudia told me herself that she went everywhere within a radius of twenty miles, except to the jails. At last it became a question of refusing your offer, or of—of—I believe you have already guessed the alternative."

"This is not a time for the exercise of my creative faculties, Mr. Reed. What was their decision?"

Reed's discomfort increased. "I wish you could have been present as I was, Mr. Crane, on that occasion. We were sitting round the fire in the sitting-room, depressed that Miss Claudia's mission had not succeeded, when suddenly she said, with a determination quite at variance with her gentle appearance, 'Well, I've found a cook for him—and a mighty good one, too.' 'Where did you find her?' I asked in astonishment, for only a moment before she had been confessing absolute failure. 'I found her,' she answered, 'where charity begins.' I own that even then I did not get the idea, but her brother Paul, who always understands her, saw at once what was in her mind. 'Yes,' she went on, 'I've found an excellent cook, a good butler, a rather inefficient housemaid, and a dangerous extra boy,' and she looked from one to the other of her family as she spoke. Her meaning was clear. They themselves were to take the places of the servants they could not find. As Paul pointed out, the plan had the advantage of saving them the trouble of finding board and lodgings, elsewhere. Miss Lily was opposed from the start. Her nature, exceedingly refined and retiring, revolted, but no one in the Revelly family can bear up against the combined wills of Paul and Miss Claudia. How the plan was carried out you know."

There was a short silence. It was now some days since Crane had suspected the identity of his servants, an hour since Jane-Ellen had turned at the name of Claudia and made him sure. Nevertheless the certainty that Reed's confession brought was very grateful to him; so grateful that he feared his expression would betray him, and he assumed a look of stern blankness.

Seeing this, Reed thought it necessary to plead the culprits' cause.

"After all, Mr. Crane, was there not courage and self-sacrifice needed? You see this explains everything. The miniature of their grandmother was taken upstairs for fear its likeness to Miss Claudia might betray them. Miss Lily, who as I said never approved of the plan, was constitutionally unable to be calm under the accusation of stealing a hat, made, as I understand, rather roughly by Mrs. Falkener. I should be very sorry if your opinion of the Revelly family—"

"I can't see what my opinion has to do with the situation," said Crane. Every moment now that kept him from Claudia was to him an intolerable bore. He drew his check-book toward him. "However, your story has convinced me of this—my only course is to pay my rent in full."

Reed began to feel the pride of the successful diplomat. "And one other thing, Mr. Crane. You see the necessity of not mentioning this. It would make a great deal of talk in the country. A young lady's name—"

Burton rose quickly. It was not agreeable to him to have Reed pleading with him for the preservation of Claudia's reputation.

"Here's your check," he said.

Reed pressed on. "And another thing will now be equally clear to you, I am sure. Miss Revelly cannot possibly spend the night here alone."

"That," replied Crane, "is a question for Miss Revelly herself to decide. My motors are at her disposal to take her anywhere she may choose to go." And he opened the door as if he expected that Reed would now take his departure.

But Reed did not move. "I cannot go away and leave Miss Revelly here alone with you," he said.

"Of the two alternatives," said Crane, "you might find it more difficult to stay in my house without my consent. But I'll leave it this way—do you think Miss Revelly would regard your presence as a protection?"

"I don't understand you, sir."

"Your last visit to my kitchen did not, I believe, inspire her with confidence. Shall we leave the decision to her?"

Reed went out in silence. He had had no reconciliation with Jane-Ellen since that fatal kiss in the kitchen, and he knew she would not now side with him. He decided to go away and find her brothers.

Lefferts, meanwhile, left alone, had stretched himself on a sofa, and was smoking, with his eyes fixed on the ceiling.

"My dear fellow," cried Crane with some compunction, "were you waiting to see me?"

"I was waiting for my motor," answered the poet. "You know that, imagining this to be an ordinary dinner-party, I ordered it back at a quarter before eleven."

"Where's Tucker?" asked Burton.

At this moment a step was heard on the stairs and Tucker, dressed in a neat gray suit, adapted to traveling, wearing a cap and goggles and carrying his bag, descended the stairs.

On seeing his host he approached and held out his hand. "Good-by, Burton," he said, "I hope the time will come when you will forgive me for having tried too hard to serve you. For myself, I entirely forgive your hasty rudeness. I hope we part friends."

Crane hesitated, and then shook hands with his lawyer. "There's no use in pretending, Tucker," he said, "that I feel exactly friendly to you, and, if you'll forgive my saying so, I can't believe that you feel so to me. You and I have got on each other's nerves lately; and that's the truth. How much that means, only time can show. Sometimes it is very important, sometimes very trivial; but while such a state exists, I agree with you that two people are better apart. Good-by."

Here, Jane-Ellen, who had just finished putting the dining-room in order, came out into the hall followed by Willoughby. As she saw Tucker, she had one of her evil inspirations.

Springing forward, she exclaimed: "Oh, wasn't it a pity, sir, you had to do your own packing! Let me put your bag in the motor for you."

Tucker was again caught by one of his moments of indecision. He did not want Jane-Ellen to carry his luggage, but he did not consider it dignified to wrestle with her for the possession of it, so that in the twinkling of an eye she had seized it and carried it down the steps.

But he was not utterly without resource. He had been holding a two-dollar bill in his hand, more from recollections of other visits than because he now expected to find any one left to fee. This, as Jane-Ellen came up the steps, he thrust into her hand, saying clearly:

"Thank you, my girl, there's for your trouble."

Jane-Ellen just glanced at it, and then crumpling it into a ball she threw it across the hall. Willoughby, who like many other sheltered creatures retained his playfulness late in life, bounded after it, caught it up in his paws, threw it about, and finally set on it with his sharp little teeth and bit it to pieces. But neither Tucker nor the cook waited to see the end. He got into the car and rolled away, and she went back to the kitchen.

Crane glanced at Lefferts, to whom plainly his duty as host pointed, and then he hurried down the kitchen stairs, closing the door carefully behind him.

JANE-ELLEN was shaking out her last dishcloth, her head turned well over her shoulder to avoid the shower of spray that came from it. He seated himself on the kitchen-table, and watched her for some time in silence.

"And is that the way you treat all presents, Jane-Ellen," he asked, "throwing them to Willoughby to tear to pieces?"

"That was not a present, sir. Presents are between equals, I've always thought."

"Then, Jane-Ellen, I don't see how you can ever hope to get any."

She looked at him and smiled. "Your talk is too deep and clever for a poor girl like me to understand, sir."

He smiled back. "They've all gone, Jane-Ellen," he said.

The news did not seem to disturb the cook in the least. Reed would have been shocked by the calmness with which she received it.

"And there was no truth in it?""And there was no truth in it?"

"And now you're all alone, sir," she replied.

"Absolutely alone."

She was still pattering about the kitchen, putting the last things to rights, but—or so it seemed to Crane—a little busier than her occupation warranted.

"They left early, sir, didn't they? But then it did not seem to me that they were really enjoying themselves, not even Mr. Lefferts, though he is such an amusing gentleman. Every one seemed sad, sir, except you."

"I was sad, too, Jane-Ellen."

"Indeed, sir?"

"Something was said at dinner that distressed me deeply."

"By whom, sir?"

"By you."

She did not stop her work nor seem very much surprised, but of course she asked what her unfortunate speech had been.

"I was sorry to hear you say you believed in Miss Revelly's triple engagement."

At this she did stop short, and immediately in his vicinity. "But I did not know you knew Miss Revelly."

"Yet I do."

"And when I was describing her—"

"It was as if I saw her before me."

"I am sorry I said anything about a friend of yours, sir. I had supposed she was quite a stranger to you."

"Sometimes it seems to me, too, as if she were a stranger," Crane answered. "Each time I see her, Jane-Ellen, she seems to me so lovely and wonderful and miraculous that it is as if I saw her for the first time. Sometimes when I am away from her it seems to me quite ridiculous to believe that such a creature exists in this rather tiresome old world, and I feel like rushing back from wherever I am to assure myself that she isn't just a creation of my own passionate desire. In this sense, I think she will always be a stranger, always be a surprise to me even if I should have the great felicity of spending the rest of my days with her. Does it bore you, Jane-Ellen, to hear me talking this way about my own feelings?"

Jane-Ellen did not answer; indeed something seemed to suggest that she could not speak, but she shook her head and Burton went on.

"So you see why it distressed me to hear from so good an authority as yourself that she had already engaged herself three times. It is not that I am of a jealous nature, Jane-Ellen, but when I ask her to be my wife, if she should say yes, I should want to feel sure that that meant—"

"Oh, Mr. Crane!" said Jane-Ellen, "I said that to make Mr. Reed angry."

"And there was no truth in it?"

There was a pause. Jane-Ellen looked down and wriggled her shoulders a little.

"Well," she admitted, "there was some truth in it. They were not exactly engagements. We think in this part of the world that there's something almost too harsh in a flat no—oh! the truth is," she added, suddenly changing her tone, "that girls don't know what they're doing until they find that they have fallen in love themselves."

"And do you think by any chance that this revelation may have come to Miss Revelly?"

"I know right well it has," answered Jane-Ellen.

"Oh, my dear love!" cried Crane and took her into his arms.

The kitchen clock, loudly ticking, looked down upon them on one side, and Willoughby, loudly purring, looked up at them from the other, and a good deal of ticking and purring was done before Claudia broke the silence by saying, like one to whom a good idea has come rather late:

"But I never said it was through you that the revelation came."

"You mustn't say that it hasn't even in fun—not yet."

"When may I?"

"When we've been married five years."

Sometime later, when, that is to say, they had talked a little longer in the kitchen, and then shut it up for the night, and had gone and sat a little while in the parlor so that he might realize that she really was Miss Claudia Revelly, and they had sat a little while in the office so that she might act out for him the impression he had made on her during that first famous interview when he had reproved her conduct, when all these important conversations had taken place, Crane at last took her hand and said gravely: "I mustn't keep you up any longer. Good night, my darling." And he added, after an instant, "I'm so glad—so grateful—that your mind doesn't work like Reed's and Tucker's."

"Like theirs—in what way?"

"I'm glad you haven't thought it necessary to make any protest at our being here alone."

A slight motion of his beloved's shoulders told him she was not fully at one with him.

"How foolish, Burton, of course I trust you absolutely, only—"

"Only what—"

She evidently felt that it was a moment when something decisive must be done, for she came and laid her head, not on his shoulder, but as near as she could reach, which was about in the turn of his elbow.

His arm was coldly limp. "Only what?" he repeated.

"Only we're not really alone."

"What do you mean, Claudia?"

"They're all here—my brothers and sister."

"What, Smithfield, and Lily, and even Brindlebury?"

She nodded in as much space as she had.

"Where are they?" he asked.

"They're playing Coon-Can in the garret. And oh," she added with a sudden spasm of recollection, "they'll be so hungry! They haven't had anything to eat for ages. I promised to bring them something as soon as the house was quiet, only you put everything out of my head."

"We'll give them a party in the dining-room—our first," said Crane. "I'll write the invitation, and we'll send Lefferts to the garret with it."

"Don't you think I'd better go up and explain?" said Claudia.

"The invitation will explain," answered Burton. It read: "Mr. Burton Crane and Miss Claudia Revelly request the pleasure of the Revellys' company at supper immediately."

They roused Lefferts, who had by this time fallen into a comfortable sleep. "Just run up and give this note to the people you'll find in the garret, there's a good fellow," said Crane.

Lefferts sat up, rubbing his eyes. "The people I'll find in the garret," he murmured. "But how about the little black men in the chimney, and the ghosts who live in the wall? This is the strangest house, Crane, the very strangest house I ever knew." But he took the note and wandered slowly upstairs with it, shaking his head.

On the landing of the second story, his eye caught the whisk of a skirt, and pursuing it instantly, he came upon Lily. He cornered her in the angle of the stairs.

"Hold on," he said, "I have a note for you, at least I have if you are one of the people who live in the garret."

Lily, knowing nothing of the explanation that had taken place between Reed and Crane, was not a little alarmed at being thus caught in a house from which she had been so recently dismissed. She did not think quickly in a crisis, and now she could find nothing to say but "I don't exactly live in the garret."

"How interesting it would be," observed Lefferts, "if you would sit down here on the stairs and tell me who you are."

"There's nothing to tell," said Lily, wondering what she had better admit. "I'm just the housemaid."

"Oh," cried Lefferts, "then there are lots of things to tell. I have always wanted to ask housemaids a number of questions. For instance, why is it that you always drop the broom with which you sweep the stairs at six in the morning? Why do you fancy it will conduce to any one's comfort to shut the blinds and turn on all the lights in a bedroom on a hot summer evening? Why do you hide the pillows and extra covering so that one never finds them until one is packing to go away the next morning? If you are a housemaid, you do these things; and if you do these things, you must know why you do them."

Lily smiled. "I'm afraid I was a very poor housemaid," she answered. "Anyhow, I'm not even that any more. I was dismissed."

"Indeed," said Lefferts. "Now that must be an interesting experience. I have had several perfectly good businesses drop from under me, but I have never been dismissed. Might I ask what led to it in your case?"

A reminiscent smile stole over Lily's face. "Mr. Crane dismissed me," she said, "for saying something which I believe he thought himself. I called Mrs. Falkener an old harridan."

Lefferts shouted with pleasure.

"If Crane had had a spark of intellectual honesty, he'd have raised your wages," he said. "It's just what he wanted to say himself."

"Oh! I was glad to be dismissed," returned she. "I never approved of the whole plan anyhow." And then fearing she had betrayed too much, she added, "And now you might tell me who you are."

"My name is Lefferts."

"Any relation to the poet?"

It would be impossible to deny that this unexpected proof of his fame was agreeable to Lefferts. The conversation on the stairs became more absorbing, and the note was less likely to be delivered at all.

In the meantime Claudia, while setting the table in the dining-room, had sent Crane down to the kitchen floor to get something out of the ice-box. As Crane approached this object about which so many sentimental recollections gathered, he saw he had been anticipated. A figure was already busy extracting from it a well-filled plate. At his step, the figure turned quickly. It was Brindlebury.

Even Brindlebury seemed to appreciate that, after all that had occurred in connection with his last departure, to be caught once again in Crane's house was a serious matter. It would have been easy enough to save himself by a confession that he was one of the Revellys, but to tell this without the consent of his brother and sisters would have been considered traitorous in the extreme.

He backed away from the ice-box. "Mr. Crane," he said, with unusual seriousness, "you probably feel that an explanation is due you." And there he stopped, not being able at the moment to think of anything to say.

Crane took pity on him. "Brindlebury," he said, "it would be ungenerous of me to conceal from you that our relative positions are reversed. At the present moment the power is all in your hands. Have a cigarette. I believe you used to like this brand."

"Only when I had smoked all my own."

"You see, Brindlebury, it is not only that I am obliged to forgive you, I have to go further. I have to make up to you. For the truth is, Brindlebury, that I want to marry your sister."

"You want to marry Jane-Ellen?"

"More than I can tell you."

"And what does she say?"

"She likes the idea."

"Bless my soul! you are going to be my brother-in-law."

"No rose without its thorn, I understand."

The situation was too tempting to the boy's love of a joke. He seated himself on the top of the ice-box and folded his arms.

"I do not know," he said, "that I should be justified in giving my consent to any such marriage. Would it tend to make my sister happy? The woman who marries above her social position—the man who marries his cook—is bound to regret it. Have you considered, Mr. Crane, that however you may value my sister yourself, many of your proud friends would not receive her?"

"To my mind, Brindlebury, these social distinctions are very unimportant. Even you I should be willing to have to dinner now and then when we were alone."

"The deuce you would," said Brindlebury, and added, "but suppose my sister's lack of refinement—"

"I can't let you talk like that even in fun, Revelly," said Crane. "Get off your ice-box and let us go back to Claudia."

"Ah, you knew all along?"

"I have suspected for some time. Reed told me this evening."

But when they reached the dining-room, Claudia was not there. She had gone herself to tell her news to her brother Paul. He was sitting alone in the garret with the remnants of the game of Coon-Can before him. Claudia came and put her hand on his shoulder, but he did not move.

"Do you know what I have made up my mind to do?" he said. "I mean to go and make a clean breast of this to Crane. The game is about up, and I don't think he's had a square deal. He's a nice fellow, and I'd like to put myself straight with him."

Claudia remained standing behind her brother, as she asked, "You like him, Paul?"

"Very much indeed. I think he's behaved mighty well through all this. Don't you like him?"

There was an instant's pause, and then Claudia answered simply:

"I love him, Paul."

Her brother sprang to his feet. "Don't say that even to yourself, my dear," he said. "You don't know what men of his sort are like. Spoilt, run after, cold-blooded. He's not like the men you've ruled over all your life—"

"No, indeed, he's not," said Claudia.

"My dear girl," her brother went on seriously, "this is not like you. You must put this out of your head. After all, that oughtn't to be very hard. You've hardly known the man more than a few days."

"Paul, that shows you don't know what love is. It hasn't anything to do with time, or your own will. It's just there in an instant. People talk as if it were common, as if every one fell in love, but I don't believe they do—not like this. Look at me. I've only known this man as you say a little while, I've only talked to him a few times, and some of those were disagreeable, and yet the idea of spending my life with him not only seems natural, but all the rest of my life—you and my home—seem strange and unfamiliar. I feel the way you do when you've been living abroad hearing strange languages and suddenly some one speaks to you in your own native tongue. When Burton—"

"Burton?"

"Didn't I tell you we're engaged?"

"My dear Claudia, you must admit we don't really know anything about him."

"You have the rest of your life for finding out, Paul."

They went downstairs presently to supper—a meal that promised to be a good deal more agreeable than dinner had been. For all Paul's expressed doubts, he had every disposition to make himself pleasant to his future brother-in-law, and even Lily had felt his charm. Lefferts, the only person in the dark as to the whole situation, served as an excellent audience. All four recounted—together and in turn—the whole story, from the moment when the idea had first occurred to Claudia, at eleven years of age, that she would like to learn to cook, down to the subtlest allusion of that evening's dinner-table.

Then suddenly there was a loud peal at the front door-bell. Every one knew instantly what it was—Reed returning to make one more effort to save Claudia's reputation.

"Well," said Paul, sinking down in his chair and thrusting his hands still deeper into his pockets, "I shan't let him in. My future depends on my getting over the habit of answering bells."

"Same here," said Brindlebury.

"I certainly shan't open the door for the man," said Crane, "and Claudia shall go only over my dead body."

Again the bell rang.

Lily rose. "I shall let him in," she said, "I think you are all very unjust to Randolph."

Claudia smiled as her sister left the room.

"There," she said, "that's all right. No one has such a good effect on Randolph as Lily has. In fifteen minutes he will be perfectly calm and polite. In half an hour she will have persuaded him he likes things better the way they are."

"I should think," said Lefferts, glancing at Claudia, "that it might take her a little longer than that."

It did take her a little longer.

May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list

THE LIGHT OF WESTERN STARS

A New York society girl buys a ranch which becomes the center of frontier warfare. Her loyal superintendent rescues her when she is captured by bandits. A surprising climax brings the story to a delightful close.

THE RAINBOW TRAIL

The story of a young clergyman who becomes a wanderer in the great western uplands—until at last love and faith awake.

DESERT GOLD

The story describes the recent uprising along the border, and ends with the finding of the gold which two prospectors had willed to the girl who is the story's heroine.

RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE

A picturesque romance of Utah of some forty years ago when Mormon authority ruled. The prosecution of Jane Withersteen is the theme of the story.

THE LAST OF THE PLAINSMEN

This is the record of a trip which the author took with Buffalo Jones, known as the preserver of the American bison, across the Arizona desert and of a hunt in "that wonderful country of deep canyons and giant pines."

THE HERITAGE OF THE DESERT

A lovely girl, who has been reared among Mormons, learns to love a young New Englander. The Mormon religion, however, demands that the girl shall become the second wife of one of the Mormons—Well, that's the problem of this great story.

THE SHORT STOP

The young hero, tiring of his factory grind, starts out to win fame and fortune as a professional ball player. His hard knocks at the start are followed by such success as clean sportsmanship, courage and honesty ought to win.

BETTY ZANE

This story tells of the bravery and heroism of Betty, the beautiful young sister of old Colonel Zane, one of the bravest pioneers.

THE LONE STAR RANGER

After killing a man in self defense, Buck Duane becomes an outlaw along the Texas border. In a camp on the Mexican side of the river, he finds a young girl held prisoner, and in attempting to rescue her, brings down upon himself the wrath of her captors and henceforth is hunted on one side by honest men, on the other by outlaws.

THE BORDER LEGION

Joan Randle, in a spirit of anger, sent Jim Cleve out to a lawless Western mining camp, to prove his mettle. Then realizing that she loved him—she followed him out. On her way, she is captured by a bandit band, and trouble begins when she shoots Kells, the leader—and nurses him to health again. Here enters another romance—when Joan, disguised as an outlaw, observes Jim, in the throes of dissipation. A gold strike, a thrilling robbery—gambling and gun play carry you along breathlessly.

THE LAST OF THE GREAT SCOUTS,

By Helen Cody Wetmore and Zane Grey

The life story of Colonel William F. Cody, "Buffalo Bill," as told by his sister and Zane Grey. It begins with his boyhood in Iowa and his first encounter with an Indian. We see "Bill" as a pony express rider, then near Fort Sumter as Chief of the Scouts, and later engaged in the most dangerous Indian campaigns. There is also a very interesting account of the travels of "The Wild West" Show. No character in public life makes a stronger appeal to the imagination of America than "Buffalo Bill," whose daring and bravery made him famous.

Grosset & Dunlap,PublishersNew York

May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.

MOTHER.Illustrated by F. C. Yohn.

This book has a fairy-story touch, counterbalanced by the sturdy reality of struggle, sacrifice, and resulting peace and power of a mother's experiences.

SATURDAY'S CHILD.

Frontispiece by F. Graham Cootes.

Out on the Pacific coast a normal girl, obscure and lovely, makes a quest for happiness. She passes through three stages—poverty, wealth and service—and works out a creditable salvation.

THE RICH MRS. BURGOYNE.

Illustrated by Lucius H. Hitchcock.

The story of a sensible woman who keeps within her means, refuses to be swamped by social engagements, lives a normal human life of varied interests, and has her own romance.

THE STORY OF JULIA PAGE.

Frontispiece by Allan Gilbert.

How Julia Page, reared in rather unpromising surroundings, lifted herself through sheer determination to a higher plane of life.

THE HEART OF RACHAEL.

Frontispiece by Charles E. Chambers.

Rachael is called upon to solve many problems, and in working out these, there is shown the beauty and strength of soul of one of fiction's most appealing characters.

Ask for Complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction

Grosset & Dunlap,PublishersNew York

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