IV

IVThe lawyers were to arrive at eight. Long before that hour came the conviction that something startling was in the wind had begun gradually to dawn in the minds of Mrs. Tilney's boarders. The dinner in itself was significant.Usually under Mrs. Tilney's practiced eye the meal progressed with order, with propriety. Not so tonight In fact, the longer it continued, the more it seemed to take on the haste, not to say the impulsiveness, of an Alpine avalanche. Food, plates, silverware, all were hurled across the terrain of the tablecloth as if discharged upon it by some convulsion of Nature."Pardon!" said Miss Hultz, pausing abruptly in the middle of the repast. Then she grasped Lena, the waitress, firmly by the wrist. "You give me back that slaw!" directed Miss Hultz, her tone minatory. "The idea, the way you're snatching things before I'm finished!"Lena valiantly defended herself."You needn't lay it on me, miss! There's folks callin' to see Mrs. Tilney at eight, I tell you, and I gotta git th' room cleared!""That's all right too!" retorted Miss Hultz. "Mrs. T. can ask in the whole street if she's a mind, only I'm not going to give up eating! Pass th' bread, Mr. Backus!"Mr. Backus, the gentleman at Miss Hultz' left, was a plump, pasty young man who worked in Wall Street, and as he passed the bread he inquired:"What's th' madam giving, asoirée?""Sworry" was what he called it, but Miss Hultz seemed to comprehend. Shrugging her shoulders, she raised at the same time her fine, expressive eyebrows."Search me," she murmured indolently.The colloquy, it appeared, had not been lost on the others; neither had they missed the vague evidences that something unusual was happening in Mrs. Tilney's house.Mr. Jessup spoke suddenly."Did you say someone was coming?" he abruptly asked. Then he added: "Tonight?"His tone was queer. His air, too, was equallycurious; and Mrs. Jessup glanced up at him astonished."What's that?" she asked."I asked what was happening," said Mr. Jessup. Then, as no one seemed able to answer him, he looked round the table. "Where's Mr. Mapleson?" he suddenly inquired.No one seemed able to tell him this."H'm!" said Mr. Jessup queerly, and picking up his knife and fork he silently went on eating. His face, however, still wore a strange expression.Varick arose. He too had been conscious throughout the dinner of the haste, the hurry that had filled it with confusion. However, he had given little heed to that. Assured that something was happening, he was at the same time little interested in its effect on Mrs. Tilney's table arrangements. For Mr. Mapleson's was not the only face that was absent. Bab, too, was missing.A growing worry, in spite of himself, had begun to nag and nettle Varick. He still pondered curiously over what had occurred between them there in the dining-room before dinner. Then, besides, what was it that was happening? Was she affected? Hisdinner half finished, he shoved back his chair from the table."Hello, off for a party, I see!" knowingly cried Mr. Backus.Varick nodded."Yes, just off," he returned; and glancing about the table, he bobbed his head, smiling shyly. "Merry Christmas, everyone!"Miss Hultz, for one, gave him a flashing smile, all her handsome teeth revealed."Same to you, Mr. Varick! Many of them!""Sure! And a happy New Year, son!" added Mr. Backus.All the others joined in, even crusty old Mr. Lomax, the broken-down, disappointed life-insurance solicitor who tenanted Mrs. Tilney's back parlor."—— Christmas, young man!" he grunted; and again fell to pronging his slaw in moody silence. His wife leaned over and touched him. She was a tall, faded woman in black silk and a lace cap, with the frail pink cheeks that go with caps and black silk. "Some night you must put on your full-dress suit too," she whispered. "We will go to a theater!"As Varick passed toward the door her eyes followed him. She could remember the time when Mr. Lomax, too, had looked young; when he had seemed slender, vital, energetic. Varick saw the look, and as his eyes caught hers he smiled at her in his friendly, boyish way. Mrs. Lomax beamed.The young man had reached the floor above and was passing on his way up the second flight of stairs when Mr. Mapleson appeared suddenly at the stairhead. The little man's haste was evident. The instant he saw Varick he exclaimed:"Why, there you are! I was just looking for you!"He came pattering down the stairs, his small figure more alert, more fussy, more bustling than ever. About it, though, was an uneasiness that was unmistakable. His air was, in fact, as if he had steeled himself to face something."You are going out?" he asked, his tone quick.Varick said he was. Mr. Mapleson at the reply seemed to fuss and flutter even more. Then, swiftly putting out his hand, he touched Varick on the arm."Could you wait?" he appealed. "It is a favor—a great favor!"Varick regarded him with surprise. The little man was quivering. For the moment a fit of shyness more than usually awkward seemed painfully to convulse him. His eyes leaped about him everywhere. Nor was his speech less agitated."If you could wait," he faltered, "I have something to tell you."Then his emotion, whatever the cause of it, got the better of him. "I beg of you do not go yet!" he piped; and he peered up at Varick, his eyes gleaming, his mouth working nervously.A moment passed while Varick, his wonder growing, gazed down at the white face turned up to his. Then he laid his hand quietly on Mr. Mapleson's shoulder."Why, what's wrong, Mr. Mapleson?" he asked. "You're not in any trouble, are you?"Mr. Mapleson at the question looked blank."In trouble? I?""Yes. If I can help you——" Varick had begun, when the little man gave vent to a sudden exclamation."I'm in no trouble! Who said I was?" he cried; and Varick stared, gazing at him with renewedastonishment. If it wasn't for his own sake that Mr. Mapleson had begged him to stay in, for whose, then, was it? Varick at this point started with a sudden thought."Look here," he said sharply; "it isn't Bab, is it?"The effect was immediate. Again Mr. Mapleson peered up at Varick, his face transfigured; and again, his manner impulsive, he touched the young man on the arm."She is very lovely, isn't she?" he said; "and she is very good and sweet; don't you think she is?"There was no doubt of it, but still Varick did not reply. A vague understanding had begun to creep into his mind, and questioningly he gazed down into the little man's upturned face."Tell me," said Mr. Mapleson—and as he heard him Varick's eyes grew wide—"tell me," he faltered, "you do think her lovely? You do think her sweet and lovely, don't you?"Varick nodded slowly."Why, yes," he said, "she is very lovely." And at that Mr. Mapleson gave vent to an eager exclamation.His face gleaming, again he threw out both his hands."Oh!" he cried, "then if she were rich, if you knew her to be well-born, too, why—why——" Here Mr. Mapleson began awkwardly to falter—"Why, then you would—would——" There he paused. Moistening his lips, the little man quivered suddenly: "She could marry—marry anyone, don't you think?" he shrilled. "She could marry whom she chose; you think so, don't you?"But if he did, Varick did not say so. A moment passed, and then, as it had been with Bab, a tide of color swept up into his face, mantling it to the brows. In other words he had seen at last exactly what Mr. Mapleson meant by his vague, faltering phrases. If Bab were rich, if Bab were well-born, then would Varick marry her? The question was never answered. Just then at Varick's back Mrs. Tilney's doorbell rang suddenly.VWould he marry Barbara Wynne? That night with its train of abrupt, confusing happenings, all following swiftly, one hard on the heels of another, Varick ever afterward could remember only as the mind recalls the vague, inconstant images of a dream. The least of it all, though, was that veiled query put to him by Mr. Mapleson. However, he had still to answer it, even to himself, when the clang of the doorbell interrupted.Outside in the vestibule stood two persons—a woman and a man. Their voices, as they waited, were audible through the glass; and Varick, once he heard them, listened curiously. Something in their tone was familiar, especially in the woman's tone; and though the footfalls of Lena, the waitress, already could be heard slipslopping on the stair, he did not wait. Instinctively he threw open the door.It was as he'd surmised. The two outside were known to him, and for a moment he gazed, astonished. The lady—for manifestly in spite of hercurious appearance she was that—was the first to break the silence."Bless me!" she said in a voice that boomed like a grenadier's. "If it isn't Bayard Varick!"Her escort seemed equally astonished. The gentleman, a middle-aged, medium-sized person with pale, myopic eyes, pale, drooping mustaches, and thin, colorless hair, gave vent to a grunt, then a sniff. The lady's buglelike tones, however, at once submerged this.Her surprise at finding Varick there was not only startled, it was scandalized, one saw."You don't mean you're living here?" she demanded. Afterward, having given her bonnet a devastating jab with one hand, she remarked eloquently: "My Lord!"Varick in spite of himself had to smile. The world, or that part of the world at least which arrogates to itself that title, ever will recall with reverence—a regard, however, not unmixed with humor—that able, energetic figure, Miss Elvira Beeston. The chatelaine, thedoyennetoo, of that rich, powerful family, Miss Elvira enjoyed into the bargain a personality not to be overlooked. Briefly, it wouldhave made her notable whatever her walk in life. But never mind that now. In years she was sixty—that or thereabouts; in figure she was short, not to mention dumpy. Bushy eyebrows, a square, craggy face, inquiring eyes and a salient, hawklike nose comprised other details of her appearance.As the prefix suggests, Miss Elvira never had married. There were reasons, perhaps. Of these, however, the one advanced by the lady herself possibly was the most plausible. "Life," she was heard to observe, "has enough troubles as it is."However, that she was a woman of mind, of character, rather than one merely feminine, you would have divined readily from Miss Elvira's dress. Her hat, a turban whose mode was at least three seasons in arrears, sagged jadedly into the position where her hand last had jabbed it; while her gown, equally rococo, was of a style with which no washerwoman would have deigned to disfigure herself.Her companion, the gentleman of the myopic eyes and pale mustaches, was her niece's husband, De Courcy Lloyd. Old Peter Beeston was his father-in-law. His air bored, his nose uplifted and his aspect that of one pursuing a subtle odor, Mr. Lloydadvanced into Mrs. Tilney's hallway. Evidently its appointments filled him with distaste, for having glanced about him he was just remarking, "Good Lord! What a wretched hole!" when of a sudden there was a diversion.Mr. Mapleson was still in the hallway. The instant the doorbell rang he started; and then had one looked, a quick change would have been seen to steal over the little man's gray, furrowed features. In turn the varying emotions of alertness, interest, then agitation pictured themselves on his face; and now, having for a moment gazed blankly at Miss Beeston, he gave vent to a stifled cry. The next instant, turning on his heel, Mr. Mapleson fled at full tilt up the stairs. He ran, his haste unmistakable, flitting like a frightened rabbit. Then as he reached the stairhead he turned and cast a glance behind him. It was at Miss Beeston he looked, and Varick saw his face. Terror convulsed the little man. The look, however, was lost on Miss Elvira. Having glanced about her for a moment, she leveled at Varick a pudgy yet commanding finger."Well, young man," bugled Miss Elvira; "you haven't told me yet what you are doing here?"Varick, with a queer expression on his face, turned to her."Don't you know?" he inquired quietly.Miss Beeston didn't. From the time Varick had been a boy in short trousers she had known him. Added to that, he long had been a friend, a close friend, too, of her nephew, crippled David Lloyd."That reminds me," Miss Elvira said abruptly, "why haven't you been to see us lately?"Varick gave his shoulders a shrug. The shrug, though, was deprecatory rather than rude. That somehow he felt awkward was evident. Miss Beeston stared inquiringly."Well?""Your brother knows," Varick was saying; "perhaps you'd better ask him," when he became aware that Miss Elvira was neither interested in what he was telling her nor, for that matter, listening to him.Her square, unlovely face raised expectantly, she stood looking up the stairway, and as Varick gazed at her he saw a sudden transformation. The square jaw seemed to grow less square; the bright, inquiring eyes visibly softened, their gleam less hard, less penetrating, while Miss Elvira's mouth, set ordinarilyin a shrewd, covert grin, seemed for a moment to quiver. Her breast, too, was gently heaving and, marveling, Varick turned to look.At the head of the stairs stood Barbara. Her hand on the stair rail, she paused momentarily, staring at the strangers in the hall below. Then a faint air of wonderment crept into her face, and, her eyes on Miss Elvira, she came slowly down toward her.Miss Elvira's square, squat form was as if suddenly transfigured. For once in her life a rare, indefinable beauty shone upon her plain unlovely features—a radiance that would have startled into wonder Miss Elvira's cronies had they been there to see it. She did not speak. She stood, bending forward, her mouth working, her eyes glowing beneath their shaggy brows.Bab walked straight to her."I am Barbara—Barbara Wynne," she said. "You've come to see me, I suppose?"Varick, puzzled, looked from one to the other in his wonder. As yet he grasped nothing of what was going on. "Why, what is it?" he murmured to Miss Elvira. By now, however, that lady had forgottenthat Varick even existed. With a jab at her bonnet, her hard old face twitching queerly, she suddenly threw out both her hands."Come here, girl," said Miss Elvira thickly, her voice cracking as she spoke; "you know me, don't you? I'm your father's aunt—yours too. I've come to take you home."Late that night, long after the dinner hour at Mrs. Tilney's, the news of what had happened ran from room to room. To say the boarding house was stupefied but barely expresses it. The story read like a fairy tale.It was told, for example, how twenty years before, old man Beeston's son, against his father's will, had married an insignificant nobody—a girl without either wealth or position. Disowned, then disinherited, the son as well as the woman he'd married had disappeared. It was as if the grave had swallowed them. Which, indeed, had been the case, as both the man and his girl wife were dead. A child, however, had survived them, and that child was Bab. Picture the sensation at Mrs. Tilney's!"Well, talk of luck!" remarked Miss Hultz, whohad been among the first to hear the news. "She can have anything she wants now!" A thought at this instant entering her mind, she gave a sudden exclamation. "Why, she can even have Mr. Varick!" There seemed no reason to doubt it.In Mrs. Tilney's house, it happened, was one person who did not share Miss Hultz' view. This was Varick himself!Eleven o'clock had struck and Bab, with her little handbag packed, her face white, had been whirled away uptown in the Beestons' big limousine. Mrs. Tilney, too, had made her exit. Her gaunt face drawn and grim, she sat in her bedroom staring into the cold, burned-out grate. Its ashes seemed somehow to typify her sense of desolation, of loneliness; for, as she reflected, Bab was gone, Bab was no longer hers. How swift it all had been! How unexpected! However, with that fortitude bred of a long familiarity with fate—or call it fortune if you like—Mrs. Tilney accepted dry-eyed this last gift it offered; and with a sigh she arose and made ready for bed.Meanwhile, on the floor above, Varick had just knocked at Mr. Mapleson's door. His face was astudy. All the color had left it until he was white, ash pale, and his gray eyes were clouded darkly."Mapleson," he said thickly, "do you know what you've done?"The little man gaped. He cringed, starting as if he had been struck. Then from Mr. Mapleson's face, too, the last vestige of color sped swiftly."I?" he gasped.Varick grimly nodded."Yes, you, Mapleson! It was you, wasn't it, that had those letters, the ones in that dead woman's trunk? It was you, too, wasn't it, that gave the lawyers the other papers—their proofs?" His voice rasping, he stared at the little man fixedly. "A fine mess, man, you've made of it!"Both hands at his mouth, Mr. Mapleson shrank back, quivering."What do you mean?" he shrilled, and Varick shrugged his shoulders disgustedly."Just what I say!" he returned. "You don't know, do you, it was that man, that scoundrel, who ruined my father? You don't know, do you, he was the one who trimmed him in Wall Street? And now you've given her to him!"Mr. Mapleson stared at him appalled."Ruined? He? Your father?" he stammered brokenly. "Beeston?"The sweat started suddenly on Varick's brow."Don't you know I love her?" he cried. "Don't you know I want her? You don't think they'd let me have her now, do you?"But the little man did not heed. All at once he tossed up both his hands."What have I done?" he groaned. "Oh, what have I done?"VIThe wayfarer familiar with the highways and byways of New York will recall that in one of the widest, the most select of the uptown side streets opening off Fifth Avenue there is a row of brownstone double dwellings of imposing grandeur and magnitude, and of the most incredible ugliness as well. Not even Mayfair in London can show worse; for that matter, neither can Unter den Linden or even Pittsburgh. A wide stairway with swollen stone balustrades guards the street front of each; and above these the houses themselves rise flatly, their façades chiefly notable for their look of smug, solid respectability—that and a wide acreage of plate-glass windows. Formerly a vast variety of rococo tutti-frutti decoration in the stonecutter's best art ornamented these fronts; but today the weather, as well as a sluggish uneasiness awakening in the tenants' minds, has got rid of the most of it; so that now the houses look merely commonplace, merely rich. But be that as it may, this particularChristmas Eve it was to the largest, the richest, and most formidable of these dwellings that the Beeston limousine brought Bab. For Bab had come home.The ride, brief as it was, up the lighted, glittering Avenue, Bab felt she ever would remember with a vividness that not even time could mar. It was her first opportunity to get her mind in order. She a Beeston? She, the little boarding-house waif, heir to a goodly fortune? Bab felt she had only to say "Pouf!" to burst, to shatter into air the frail, evanescent fabric of that bubble!So many things had happened! So many, too, had happened all at once! The excitement fading now, she began to feel herself languid and oppressed. And yet, as she knew, the night's ordeal had scarcely begun. In a few minutes now she was to see her father's own father, that grim and masterful figure, Peter Beeston. What would happen then?In the newspapers that day Bab had read that the old man was at death's door. If this had been true, though, there was now a surprising change. Peter Beeston was not dead, neither was he dying; instead, the news having got to him that his son's childhad been found, it had roused him like an elixir. "Bring her here!" he'd said. When they had protested, fearful of the effect on him, the man had turned in smoldering wrath. "Bring her, d'ye hear!" he'd rumbled fiercely. "You bring her, I say!" So Bab, as he'd ordered, was being brought.It would be difficult to tell how much she dreaded it! If only Mr. Mapy could have come with her! To be sure, Miss Beeston had been kind, she had been gentle; but still Bab wished she could have with her in the coming ordeal someone she had always known. Curiously, however, Mr. Mapy had disappeared. Neither she nor anyone else for hours had laid eyes on him.She vaguely wondered why. As she remembered now, on her way downstairs that night she had met him coming up; Mr. Mapy was running, helter-skelter too. Besides, she recalled how queer his face had looked—agitated, quite fearful, in fact. More than that, though she'd tried to speak to him he hadn't heeded her. He had rushed on up the stairs.But then Mr. Mapy was not the only one that night who'd acted curiously. There was Varick too. The impression crept over her that for whathad happened, her good fortune, Varick had seemed even sorry. That was it—sorry! Why?It was when he came downstairs, dressed ready to go out, that he had said good-by.They met on the stairs, and for a moment she had stood with him in the dim light on the landing. His face was grave, silent, grim. It looked to her, too, as if he'd had something he would have liked to say to her. But he didn't. Awkwardly he put out his hand."Good-by, Bab," he'd said."Good-by, Mr. Varick," she had answered, clumsily at a loss for anything else to say; and again he had smiled, a dry, dusty smile."Good-by; I won't see you again!"It was not at all what she'd pictured—that parting.Bab, however, had little time, little opportunity to mull over thoughts like these. She had no more than begun to reflect on Varick's curious attitude when the limousine, turning the corner, rolled up to the Beeston door."Ah, here we are!" the condescending voice of Mr. Lloyd announced; and the footman havingthrown open the limousine door, Bab glanced past him at the house beyond. Dark, no light from its windows anywhere, it loomed like a cliff, a towering crag high above the pavement. She could have gasped at its magnitude.Miss Elvira, who had sat during the drive sunk back in a corner of the car, arose briskly."Come!" she said, and the next instant, the street door opening from within, Bab stood gazing about her with breathless interest at the house which once had been her father's home.If the place outside had seemed huge, within she felt engulfed by it. A drawing-room, now a vast vault of darkness, lay on one hand, while on the other was a reception room, itself cavernous in its immensity. Beyond, other rooms opened too. Bab glimpsed a library, then a dining-room, its sideboard and serving table glittering with silver. But of all this she had no more than a glance. A footman had opened the door for them, and in addition to him the butler stood in the hall. To him Miss Elvira turned abruptly."Well, Crabbe?" she demanded.The man, a white-haired, pink-cheeked old fellowwho had been staring round-eyed at Bab, got himself hastily together."The doctor's still upstairs—the assistant, that is, madam. The master's stronger, 'e says."Miss Elvira did not tarry. With a sign to Bab the energetic lady went bustling up the stairs, the others trooping after her. Not more than half a minute later Bab found herself standing at her grandfather's bedside.What happened upon that was swift, inexpressibly confusing. The room in which old Peter Beeston lay was huge, like all the rest of that house. It was a crypt-like impressive chamber, and was furnished darkly in the same massive way. And like his surroundings, the room and its furniture—the big dressing table, the vast writing desk, the massive four-poster that held him—the man himself was huge, a bulk of a man whose fierce, brooding face glowered about him as threatening as a thunder-cloud.Bab gazed at him in awe. He lay outstretched, his limbs crossed like a Crusader's beneath the sheets; and though both age and illness had ravaged him the impression he gave was still of giant force,of giant fierceness too. His face, framed among the pillows, gazed up at her with a quick, inquiring look; and then, as he seemed to comprehend, Bab felt his eye drill through and through her with piercing intensity. His lips moved, his mouth worked momentarily, and he seemed about to speak. But when he did speak it was not to Bab.Lloyd as well as Miss Elvira had accompanied Bab into the room, and of this Beeston instantly was aware. One gnarled, knotted hand raised itself from the coverlid, and, turning his eyes from Bab, he spoke. The speech came fiercely rumbling."Get out!" he said.Lloyd's air thus far had been singularly curious, and now Bab saw him start."Do you mean me, sir?" he asked awkwardly. His manner, Bab thought, was uncomfortable, strangely uncertain for one heretofore so cocksure, so condescending; and she looked at him surprised.Again Beeston spoke. The hand he had raised struck the coverlid a sudden blow, and the room rumbled with the echo of his voice."Get out, I say!" he repeated; and Lloyd, aftera quick look at Bab, a glance the resentment of which she did not miss, withdrew abruptly.Then old Beeston raised his hand, his forefinger beckoning."Vira," he said. "Vira!" And when his sister bent over him old Beeston growled thickly, his voice, if rough, still friendly: "Vira, you go too, old girl!"So Bab found herself left alone with that grim, dark figure lying there—her grandfather."Come closer!" rumbled Beeston. "I want to look at you!"A pause followed. Her heart beating thickly, Bab drew nearer to the bed, and as she stood there gazing down at the swart, fierce face staring darkly up at hers, pity for an instant welled into her heart. This was her father's father, she told herself; and troubled, she began to see now that if this masterful, unconquerable man had ruined others' happiness in his life, he had ruined his own as well.The knotted hand upon the counterpane reached out suddenly."They say you're my son's child," said Peter Beeston. "Well, are you?"His voice carried in it a note of intimidation, of truculent disbelief, but now she felt no fear of him. The hand that held hers she could feel quiver too."Yes," she said.Again a pause. He wet his lips, his tongue running on them dryly, eagerly; and then of a sudden his eyes left hers and went drifting toward the ceiling. His voice when again he spoke broke thickly."Tell me about him, about my son!" said Beeston.Bab looked at him hesitantly. It was this that she had dreaded."What shall I tell you?" she asked.Beeston's eyes still were on the ceiling."Dead, isn't he?" he demanded.Yes, he was dead, as the man lying there long must have known; and her trouble growing, Bab stared silently at him. But the grim eyes gave no sign."You don't look like him!" said her grandfather suddenly, so abruptly that she started. "You must look like that woman, eh!"Bab gazed at him steadily."You mean my mother, don't you?" she inquired. She had been prepared for this, and in her voice was a tone of quiet decisiveness she meant him clearly to see. "You mustn't speak like that," she said clearly. "My mother did you no wrong!"She saw his eyes leap from the ceiling to her and back again. Then a smile, a grim effigy of merriment, dawned in his somber face. A growl followed it."So you're self-willed, eh?" he rumbled. "You're all Beeston, I see!" Then a grunt, a sneer escaped him. "I'd be careful, young woman! I'm all Beeston too, and I've seen what comes to us self-willed folk! Your own father, because of it, ruined himself. That's not all either. Because of it, too, my daughter is married to a fool! Oh, I've seen enough of it!" he rumbled.Bab was startled. She knew, she thought, the fool he meant, but to that she gave but momentary heed. Struggling up, his face dark, convulsed, no doubt, with the thoughts rioting in his mind, Beeston turned and shook roughly into place the pillows that supported him. And this was the man they had thought dying! Grumbling, growling thickly, he layback then, the growls subsiding presently like thunder muttering away among the depths of distant hills.She was still gazing at him, absorbed, startled, when she saw a change steal upon the man's distorted face. It was as if that instant's rage, flaming hotly, must have lighted in the dim recesses of his mind some forgotten cell; for of a sudden the smoldering anger of his eyes passed and he sat staring at the wall."Well, won't you tell me?" he asked heavily. "I want to know about my son."But Bab knew nothing to tell. That was why the ordeal she had faced that night had filled her so with dread. The little she knew of either of her parents was what they had told her at Mrs. Tilney's. Vaguely they'd had the impression that the mother had come from somewhere upstate; where, they did not know. But scant as this information was and shadowy, what they'd learned of the father was even less. Of his history they had gathered nothing, not even an impression. As for herself, she remembered nothing of him. Nor did she know when he had died or how. She could not, in fact,even tell where her father's grave was; and, sunken among the pillows, Beeston lay staring at the ceiling. Then suddenly he stirred."You mean you can't tell me anything? Answer me!" he said, his voice breaking thickly. "He was my son; I drove him from me! Don't you understand? I want to know! I've got to; he was my boy!"Bab strove to free her hand from his."You're hurting me," she said, and at that he abruptly recovered himself."Eh?" he said, as if awakening.He dropped her hand then, and, his eyes closing, he lay back among the pillows, his breast heaving with the tumult of emotions that had tortured him. But now that the struggle had passed the man's face changed anew with one of those astonishing transformations that so often marked his character. He smiled wanly. The fierceness waned from his face. And as Bab, pitying anew, sat gazing down at him, Beeston's hand again crept out and softly closed on hers. Drawing her toward him, he laid his cheek to hers."Don't be afraid," whispered Peter Beeston."Don't be afraid! You're my boy's girl—his! You need never be afraid of me!"Ten minutes later, when Miss Elvira and the nurse looked into the room, they found Bab perched on the bed talking to Beeston as if she had always known him. A smile played about the corners of the man's grim mouth. He held her hand in his.VIIAs Mr. Mapleson, bubbling with anticipation, had foreseen, the city the following morning awoke to a good, old-fashioned white Christmas. At midnight the snow began to fall and, the storm thickening hour after hour, by dawn the streets were deep with it.Her room had been darkened, the hangings at the windows tightly drawn, so that Bab, worn by the strain of the night before, slumbered on long past her usual hour for awakening. But presently a peal of chimes clanging a stave from a near-by church-steeple broke in on her, and with a start she sat upright. Dazed, drowsy-eyed, her perceptions still misty, she gazed about her in momentary wonder. Brunnehilde awakening could not more have been at a loss. Then with a throb she remembered.Outside the chimes still pealed; the snow crept whispering on the window panes; and at the end of the street, murmuring like a sea, the muffled roar of the Avenue arose. Within the house, though,all was silent; and, her breath coming swiftly, Bab gazed about her open-eyed.The surroundings, in contrast with her own little room at Mrs. Tilney's, were quite enough to make her stare. At the boarding house chintz of a cheap but pretty design was the fabric most in evidence. The curtains were made of it and so was the valance on Bab's little bed—that and the drapery on her dressing table. But here brocade thick and board-like formed the window hangings; the bureau cover was linen edged with Irish lace; and the bed was a vast thing of mahogany, its four posts crowned by a canopy, its coverlid of costly embroidered silk.The other appointments were as rich. Her eyes, roaming about the room, glanced from one side of it to the other in wondering appreciation. Ivory and heavy, finely chased silver filled the dressing table; a great tilting pier glass stood beside it, and there were ornaments of porcelain and chased crystal on the mantel; while at each side of the four-poster, on the carpet's yielding pile, was spread a white fur rug, the skin of a great Polar bear. The more Bab's glances roved about, the more she marveled at themany costly evidences of wealth, of luxury that surrounded her.And to think that this room, once her father's, was with all its wealth, the riches it conveyed, now hers! Propped up among the pillows, her diminutive figure lost in the midst of the great four-poster, Bab sat absorbed in profound reflection. It was the strangeness of it all that for the moment weighed on her spirits. The big, dim room, too, so vast and solemn, sent a shadow of loneliness creeping into her heart; and just then, on the mantel over the fireplace, the clock ticking busily there softly struck the hour. That was the finishing touch! Each stroke she counted separately. There were nine of them! With a catch in her breath, a stifled gulp, she remembered that at Mrs. Tilney's they would just be sitting down to breakfast!Breakfast—Christmas breakfast—and Bab would not be with them! First there would be grapefruit, each like an apple of the Hesperides, a golden globe of juiciness, its edge fluted by a dexterous hand. Then would follow beefsteak, baked potatoes, coffee with real cream and, to finish, a great heaping platter of waffles of a luscious golden yellow and steaminghot. Where could food be found better than this? Where, too, would one look for more goodwill and simple kindliness, more cheerfulness and pleasure, than in that simple, homely party there gathered about Mrs. Tilney's board?Her eyes misty, the lump thickening in her throat, Bab sat poring on that picture in her mind. In honor of the occasion Mrs. Tilney herself would be seated at the head of the table. At the opposite end would be Mr. Mapleson, his eyes snapping with excitement and merriment, his shy, frosty little giggle sounding at every turn. For Christmas was a great day with the little man! The night before he had been up until all hours trimming a tree in the parlor. The tree was for all. No one, not even the newest boarder, would be forgotten."Understand," Mr. Mapleson would say, "we all can't have a home—not our own maybe; but we all can have Christmas, can't we?"Even Mary Mangin, the kitchen behemoth, would be bidden in. Her arms akimbo, a mountainous monument of tittering embarrassment, she would be escorted to the tree by Mr. Mapleson himself. Then with a great to-do the little man would squirrelfussily among the many packages, hunting the required one. "Ha! here we have it!" he would finally exclaim. "Miss Maria Mangin, with Merry Christmas from Kris Kringle!" Whereat Mary Mangin, with a seismic convulsion shaking her from pediment to dome, would totter to the nearest sofa and, to the peril of that piece, crash down upon it, exclaiming the while in Mr. Mapleson's behalf: "Th' fairies be good to ye! Th' fairies be good to ye!" Then, when all the others had had their presents, and he had made sure no one had been overlooked, the little man would sit down in a corner and, his eyes gleaming, his hands trembling eagerly, would open the parcels that held the presents for himself.What a time then! What chirps! What giggles! What laughter and merriment! "Just what I wanted!" "Why, the very thing!" "Who told you I needed that?" "Why, Mrs. Jessup!" he cried once. "How did you ever dream——" The sentence never was finished. "Here, give me that; it's for Bab!" Mrs. Jessup cried scandalized; and she snatched from the little man the pink silk hairpin case which he'd been delightedly accepting. One present, however, Mr. Mapleson always reserved to the last, carefullylaying it aside until all the others had been opened. Then, his eyes glowing with soft brightness, and his deft, slender fingers prying skillfully, he would make haste, but gently, to undo its ribbons and its wrappings. But first, before he came to the present, he would find a little card with a border of bright green and red Christmas holly:For Mr. Mapy,With love and Merry Xmas,From Bab!"H'm!" Mr. Mapleson would say, and he would violently blow his nose. "H'm!"Then—— The picture faded, blurring suddenly, and with a stifled sob Bab turned and buried her head swiftly among the pillows of the big four-poster. Mr. Mapy this morning would not have his present. It lay forgotten in a drawer of her bureau at Mrs. Tilney's.Poor Mr. Mapleson! She lay for a while thinking of the little man and of all his tenderness for her; and presently out of that thought, a feeling of comfort cheered her. Mr. Mapy would understand. He always did. He would know she did not reallyforget him. It was only because everything had been so sudden, so amazing. Her spirits climbing, she again sat up among the pillows and, with a growing excitement gently stimulating her, once more glanced about her in the big, dim room.She was still sitting there, her mind alive with a hundred thoughts, when there was a tap at the door, then a maid stole in. The servant, a tall, angular Englishwoman with a stony, imperturbable face, went to the windows and began throwing back the hangings."Begging pardon, it's nine o'clock, my lady, and snowing. Mrs. Lloyd asks if you will see her shortly.""Mrs. Lloyd?""Yes, miss. She and Mr. Lloyd are motoring out to Long Island for luncheon."Then Bab remembered. Mrs. Lloyd was the aunt she had not yet seen. How kind of her to think so soon of her new niece. Surely Bab would go down to see her, and at once."And if you please, miss," the maid announced, "a box of flowers was left for you this morning. Will you have it now?""Flowers?"Even under the Englishwoman's cold, impassive stare she could not restrain the exclamation. Who could have sent her flowers, Christmas flowers? A moment later the maid handed her the long pasteboard box, then she withdrew. With rounding eyes Bab lifted off the box cover."Oh, you darlings!" she whispered.A great sheaf of cut flowers lay within. There were roses, pale Gloire de Dijons; there were lilies of the valley, mignonette, and hyacinths—these and lacelike sprays of maidenhair fern. Never before had she seen a box like this, much less had it sent to her; and lifting out the cluster of fragrant, delicately tinted roses she pressed them to her face, reveling in their beauty."Oh, you darlings!"Then the card lying in the box caught her eye:For Bab, with a Merry Christmasand much love from her new cousin,David LloydHer heart beat quickly, and she was conscious that a faint color burned in her cheeks as she read the writing, penned in a delicate, well-bred hand.She knew of David Lloyd. He was the cripple boy—the man rather—she had asked Varick about; and as she read anew his kindly, pleasant greeting her heart warmed instinctively to her new-found relative.How good it all seemed! How wonderful it was! Not even in her wildest imagination had she dreamed it was to be like this! To think she not only had found her kin, but that they should prove so kind! She did not care now who saw how her eyes were glistening. She could have sung aloud of her happiness."Your bath is drawn, miss," Mawson, the impassive Englishwoman, announced, and resigning the flowers to her, Bab arose. As she dressed, it became evident that if Bab and the world at large had been astonished at the sudden change in her fortunes, Miss Elvira had not. Manifestly that able lady not only must have known for days what was to be expected, she also had prepared for it. Many little luxuries she had laid in to make Bab comfortable; and as Mawson brought them out, one by one, Bab felt her heart beat swifter, then more swiftly still. If only Mr. Mapy could have beenthere! If only he and she could have joined hands once to dance round, to rejoice! Mawson, imperturbable, bony-faced, was about as good company as a gryphon! However, not even Mawson's stoniness could quite repress all her feeling of wonder-growing joy. She was too young, too unspoiled and unaffected, to lose the bloom of it, and as she hurried to finish dressing her face was radiant.Her first duty, as she hurried down the stairs, was to tap at her grandfather's door. The trained nurse answered, and as she saw who had knocked she beamed pleasantly. The patient, it appeared, was much brighter. He had already asked for Bab. She was to see him at noon; and, thanking the young woman, Bab hurried on. She must not keep the Lloyds!The dining-room, like the other rooms in that vast house, was itself vast—a great, dimly lighted apartment where the decorations, all of the richest sort, were a legacy of that morose, astonishing era of bad taste, the late Victorian period. Quartered oak and an embossed bronze wall-paper vied with each other in gloominess; while the sideboard, the table and the chairs, in the style of the early eighties,wore a corresponding air of stodgy, solid richness and melancholy. This effect, too, was heightened by the pictures on the wall, all valuable and each, of course, a still life—the usual fish, the inevitable platter of grapes and oranges, the perpetual overturned basket of flowers. A group of sheep by Verboeckhoven, typically woolly, completed the display.As Bab, her heart doing a little tattoo in anticipation, passed along the hall, she saw that her aunt and uncle had left the table and were standing on the rug before the fire, their heads together, and talking earnestly. A morning coat, Piccadilly striped trousers and tan spats at the moment attired Mr. Lloyd; but one had but to glance once at the pale, myopic, blasé gentleman to guess that presently he would retire to change, his man helping him, into clothes more suitable for motoring—a lounge suit of tweeds, say, or homespun. Bab, smiling shyly, was just entering the dining-room when Lloyd looked up. Instantly she saw him start. She was certain, too, she heard him whisper swiftly a warning: "Look out!" Then, turning away, Lloyd fell to twirling idly his pale, limp mustaches.That they were talking about her was manifest. That what they said was not meant for her to hear also was manifest. For an instant she faltered. She felt her color self-consciously betrayed her."Oh, here you are!" Lloyd exclaimed in his inconsequent, singsong voice. "We've been waiting for you, you know!"His voice was pleasant enough, though at the same time he smiled. Subconsciously, if not directly though, Bab began to divine a hint of antagonism in the man. Evidently for some reason he had not as yet accepted her as Miss Elvira had, as his son, too, had accepted her—that is, if the message with the flowers meant anything. However, having greeted him, she turned shyly to her aunt. While waiting Mrs. Lloyd had been frankly studying her."So this is our new relative, is it?" she remarked. Afterward she briefly held out a hand. She did not offer to kiss her niece.Bab felt subtly bewildered. Her aunt was a tall, finely formed woman, a Boadicea in bigness, her eyes a light iris-blue, her mouth small with curiously puckered lips. It was her voice, though, that mostheld Bab. In it was that note of repression, a studied indolence almost insolent, that women of her class and kind often cultivate. Idly tolerant it was rather than interested, Bab thought.There were many things that morning that she would have liked to ask about—her father, for example, his boyhood, what he'd been like, who his friends had been. All this and more! It appeared, however, that the topic held but scant interest for the Lloyds, for Lloyd the least of all. A few passing references, to be sure, were made to Bab's dead father; but in every instance these were as lacking in interest, in intimacy, as if uttered by a stranger. In her own affairs, she felt presently, their curiosity was far more robust.Lloyd, reaching out, touched a near-by button."Breakfast, Lumley," he directed, indicating Bab to the manservant who entered. Then when she had seated herself Lloyd returned to his place on the hearthrug. While Mrs. Lloyd in her dragging, wearied voice addressed herself to Bab, her husband sedulously inspected his finger nails.Curiously he seemed nervous, irritable too; but that he paid close heed to the talk Bab somehow feltsure. It did not add to her easiness. What was the matter? Why was their air so queer? Mrs. Lloyd, her manner on the surface blandly idle but her curiosity still evident, was questioning Bab about her life at Mrs. Tilney's, how she had gone there, why she had remained, when of a sudden Lloyd's increasing interest got the better of him."Look here," he remarked to Bab abruptly, "you know Varick, don't you—the chap there last night?"Know Varick? The teacup she had raised to her lips hung suspended, and for a moment she gazed over it at Lloyd, inwardly astonished at his tone."Why, yes," she replied.He shot a glance at Mrs. Lloyd."Varick's lived there a long time, too, hasn't he?" he demanded."Since last spring," answered Bab quietly."And you know him rather well, too, don't you?" persisted Lloyd.Bab put down her teacup. Her uncle's voice not only was querulous; it had in it, for some reason, a note of mocking accusation. Varick, to be sure, was acquainted with the Lloyds; but the uncle's queries had behind them, she saw, more than a meresocial interest. Nor was that all! While the man was plying her with his questions her aunt, she was conscious, was studying her with scrutinous attention. Phryne before the Areopagus could not have felt more challenged; and her wonder rising, her discomfort keeping pace with it, she was parrying her uncle's cross-examination when of a sudden there was an interruption."Good morning!" cried a cheerful voice. "Merry Christmas, everyone!"Bab, as she looked round, breathed a sigh of relief.The smiling, boyish fellow who stood there, framed for a moment in the doorway, Bab, in the months to come, was destined to know better than any man she yet had met. Her interest in him was instant. In age he was perhaps twenty-eight, and he was slight of figure, with crisp, reddish-brown hair, an animated face, and shrewd, kindly gray eyes, deep-set and expressive. Gentle, one saw he was, but in that gentleness was nothing weak, nothing effeminate. In David Lloyd—Peter Beeston's grandson—the strength, the character, that had skipped Beeston's own children again had made itselfevident. As she looked at him a swift, sudden stab of pity pierced Bab to the core. Crutches supported him. He was a hopeless cripple.He came forward swiftly, skillfully guiding himself along the treacherous hardwood floor, and his face was lighted with pleasure. "This is Bab, isn't it?" he smiled; and propping himself on the crutches, he held out a welcoming hand. Of his heartiness she saw she need have no fear; and shyly responsive, she gave him her hand. The clasp of his cool, strong fingers was singularly friendly, reassuring, too; and though the telltale color again flew its pennons in her face, this time it signaled only pleasure."Think of it!" he laughed. "A week ago I didn't even dream I had a cousin!" Then he gave her a sly, whimsical look: "Much less such a good-looking one!"Bab felt her spirits rise mercurially. He pulled out a chair and, teetering perilously for an instant on his crutches, made ready to sit down. Bab caught swiftly at her breath."Let me help!" she exclaimed, and half rose from her chair; but the cripple shook his head."Don't bother," he chuckled lightly; "I always manage somehow. There now!" he added as he lowered himself to the chair. One might have thought from it that the affliction that had maimed him for life was merely a day's disability. "Now don't mind me," he directed, "just you finish your breakfast!"His pleasant, graceful good-nature diffused about him an air of cheerfulness that seemed to lighten even the dining-room's atmosphere of gloomy dimness; and inspired by it his father and mother too awoke, joining in the talk. It was not for long though. Again in gloomy abstraction his father began to inspect his finger nails; again his mother resumed her covert scrutiny of her niece."Hello!" David all at once exclaimed. "What's the trouble?"Bab saw the father glance swiftly at Mrs. Lloyd, and as he did so she was sure her aunt made him a swift, subtle signal. It was as if she impressed silence. But if so Lloyd gave no heed."Trouble?" he echoed. "What makes you think that?" Then with a queer look he abruptly added: "What do you think—last night we saw Varick!""Bayard!" cried David. His interest was evident."Why, yes," returned his father. "He's living there in that boarding house."There was a subtle emphasis in what he said that did not escape Bab, and again her wonder rose. What was their interest in Varick? Why, too, had they looked to her to satisfy their singular curiosity? Was Varick's presence at Mrs. Tilney's more than a mere coincidence? If it were, why were they concerned? She still was cogitating, bewildered now, when out of the corner of her eye she again saw her aunt make Lloyd a guarded signal. But Lloyd merely frowned.David spoke then, his tone wondering."You say he's living where Bab was? Why, what in the world is he doing there?""That's what I'd like to know!" instantly answered his father, and again Bab marked in his tone that note of covert significance. David, however, did not seem to hear it."You don't mean Bayard's penniless?" he said hesitantly. "It can't be possible his father lost everything!"He had, it appeared; but even so that was notwhat Lloyd, Senior, had sought to convey. For a third time Bab saw him glance at Mrs. Lloyd, and in turn her aunt signaled him anew. Now, however, it was David, not Bab, whom she indicated; and Bab's wonder grew. What was it about Varick they did not wish their son to know? As before Lloyd disregarded the signal, this time turning to Bab."Come now," he said abruptly, his tone almost brusque, "how came Varick to go to that boarding house? Who took him there? I'd like to hear. You know, don't you?"Bab laid her napkin on the table and prepared to rise. Her breakfast she had not finished, but in her growing distaste of her uncle she felt she must get away. His tone now was not to be misunderstood. It was very nearly sneering, and yet what motive he had behind his persistence Bab could not fathom. Uncomfortable, irritated too, she was debating how she could avoid answering him when a second time that morning chance came to her rescue."Come!" Lloyd was prompting, when she saw her aunt stir uncomfortably."Barclay!" Mrs. Lloyd said abruptly. When her husband, not heeding her, prompted Bab anew, again she spoke, her voice now acute. "Barclay!" she said; and not even Lloyd, blundering on, could mistake her warning."What? Well, what is it?" he returned.With an almost imperceptible nod Mrs. Lloyd indicated the hall outside. There in her usual energetic manner Miss Elvira came clumping down the stairs. Attired in lace and voluminous mid-Victorian brocade, thedoyenneof the Beeston family sailed toward them, burgeoning like a full-rigged ship. And it was a ship-of-war, too, one observed, its decks cleared for action! With her eye murky, her turtle-like jaw set firmly, onward she came, and the course she set was straight toward her niece's husband."Good morning, Bab! Good morning, David!" said Miss Elvira, not looking at them, however, but straight at Lloyd, Senior. "You two go see your grandfather; he's asking for you. Hurry, now!" Then, the two in their wonder hesitating, she waved them to make haste. "Off with you now!" she ordered. Her eyes still were fixed on her niece'shusband, and Miss Elvira, one saw, was furious.Halfway up the stairs a fragment of talk reached Bab. It was Miss Elvira that spoke, and her voice was frigid."Last night I warned you to hold your tongue! The next time now it will be my brother who warns you!"To whom she said it Bab had no doubt. Lloyd's voice arose then, an unintelligible mumble. But why did that man need to be warned? What was it about Varick they were hiding? She looked at David, and he was frowning thoughtfully. Why? Bab meant to know!

IVThe lawyers were to arrive at eight. Long before that hour came the conviction that something startling was in the wind had begun gradually to dawn in the minds of Mrs. Tilney's boarders. The dinner in itself was significant.Usually under Mrs. Tilney's practiced eye the meal progressed with order, with propriety. Not so tonight In fact, the longer it continued, the more it seemed to take on the haste, not to say the impulsiveness, of an Alpine avalanche. Food, plates, silverware, all were hurled across the terrain of the tablecloth as if discharged upon it by some convulsion of Nature."Pardon!" said Miss Hultz, pausing abruptly in the middle of the repast. Then she grasped Lena, the waitress, firmly by the wrist. "You give me back that slaw!" directed Miss Hultz, her tone minatory. "The idea, the way you're snatching things before I'm finished!"Lena valiantly defended herself."You needn't lay it on me, miss! There's folks callin' to see Mrs. Tilney at eight, I tell you, and I gotta git th' room cleared!""That's all right too!" retorted Miss Hultz. "Mrs. T. can ask in the whole street if she's a mind, only I'm not going to give up eating! Pass th' bread, Mr. Backus!"Mr. Backus, the gentleman at Miss Hultz' left, was a plump, pasty young man who worked in Wall Street, and as he passed the bread he inquired:"What's th' madam giving, asoirée?""Sworry" was what he called it, but Miss Hultz seemed to comprehend. Shrugging her shoulders, she raised at the same time her fine, expressive eyebrows."Search me," she murmured indolently.The colloquy, it appeared, had not been lost on the others; neither had they missed the vague evidences that something unusual was happening in Mrs. Tilney's house.Mr. Jessup spoke suddenly."Did you say someone was coming?" he abruptly asked. Then he added: "Tonight?"His tone was queer. His air, too, was equallycurious; and Mrs. Jessup glanced up at him astonished."What's that?" she asked."I asked what was happening," said Mr. Jessup. Then, as no one seemed able to answer him, he looked round the table. "Where's Mr. Mapleson?" he suddenly inquired.No one seemed able to tell him this."H'm!" said Mr. Jessup queerly, and picking up his knife and fork he silently went on eating. His face, however, still wore a strange expression.Varick arose. He too had been conscious throughout the dinner of the haste, the hurry that had filled it with confusion. However, he had given little heed to that. Assured that something was happening, he was at the same time little interested in its effect on Mrs. Tilney's table arrangements. For Mr. Mapleson's was not the only face that was absent. Bab, too, was missing.A growing worry, in spite of himself, had begun to nag and nettle Varick. He still pondered curiously over what had occurred between them there in the dining-room before dinner. Then, besides, what was it that was happening? Was she affected? Hisdinner half finished, he shoved back his chair from the table."Hello, off for a party, I see!" knowingly cried Mr. Backus.Varick nodded."Yes, just off," he returned; and glancing about the table, he bobbed his head, smiling shyly. "Merry Christmas, everyone!"Miss Hultz, for one, gave him a flashing smile, all her handsome teeth revealed."Same to you, Mr. Varick! Many of them!""Sure! And a happy New Year, son!" added Mr. Backus.All the others joined in, even crusty old Mr. Lomax, the broken-down, disappointed life-insurance solicitor who tenanted Mrs. Tilney's back parlor."—— Christmas, young man!" he grunted; and again fell to pronging his slaw in moody silence. His wife leaned over and touched him. She was a tall, faded woman in black silk and a lace cap, with the frail pink cheeks that go with caps and black silk. "Some night you must put on your full-dress suit too," she whispered. "We will go to a theater!"As Varick passed toward the door her eyes followed him. She could remember the time when Mr. Lomax, too, had looked young; when he had seemed slender, vital, energetic. Varick saw the look, and as his eyes caught hers he smiled at her in his friendly, boyish way. Mrs. Lomax beamed.The young man had reached the floor above and was passing on his way up the second flight of stairs when Mr. Mapleson appeared suddenly at the stairhead. The little man's haste was evident. The instant he saw Varick he exclaimed:"Why, there you are! I was just looking for you!"He came pattering down the stairs, his small figure more alert, more fussy, more bustling than ever. About it, though, was an uneasiness that was unmistakable. His air was, in fact, as if he had steeled himself to face something."You are going out?" he asked, his tone quick.Varick said he was. Mr. Mapleson at the reply seemed to fuss and flutter even more. Then, swiftly putting out his hand, he touched Varick on the arm."Could you wait?" he appealed. "It is a favor—a great favor!"Varick regarded him with surprise. The little man was quivering. For the moment a fit of shyness more than usually awkward seemed painfully to convulse him. His eyes leaped about him everywhere. Nor was his speech less agitated."If you could wait," he faltered, "I have something to tell you."Then his emotion, whatever the cause of it, got the better of him. "I beg of you do not go yet!" he piped; and he peered up at Varick, his eyes gleaming, his mouth working nervously.A moment passed while Varick, his wonder growing, gazed down at the white face turned up to his. Then he laid his hand quietly on Mr. Mapleson's shoulder."Why, what's wrong, Mr. Mapleson?" he asked. "You're not in any trouble, are you?"Mr. Mapleson at the question looked blank."In trouble? I?""Yes. If I can help you——" Varick had begun, when the little man gave vent to a sudden exclamation."I'm in no trouble! Who said I was?" he cried; and Varick stared, gazing at him with renewedastonishment. If it wasn't for his own sake that Mr. Mapleson had begged him to stay in, for whose, then, was it? Varick at this point started with a sudden thought."Look here," he said sharply; "it isn't Bab, is it?"The effect was immediate. Again Mr. Mapleson peered up at Varick, his face transfigured; and again, his manner impulsive, he touched the young man on the arm."She is very lovely, isn't she?" he said; "and she is very good and sweet; don't you think she is?"There was no doubt of it, but still Varick did not reply. A vague understanding had begun to creep into his mind, and questioningly he gazed down into the little man's upturned face."Tell me," said Mr. Mapleson—and as he heard him Varick's eyes grew wide—"tell me," he faltered, "you do think her lovely? You do think her sweet and lovely, don't you?"Varick nodded slowly."Why, yes," he said, "she is very lovely." And at that Mr. Mapleson gave vent to an eager exclamation.His face gleaming, again he threw out both his hands."Oh!" he cried, "then if she were rich, if you knew her to be well-born, too, why—why——" Here Mr. Mapleson began awkwardly to falter—"Why, then you would—would——" There he paused. Moistening his lips, the little man quivered suddenly: "She could marry—marry anyone, don't you think?" he shrilled. "She could marry whom she chose; you think so, don't you?"But if he did, Varick did not say so. A moment passed, and then, as it had been with Bab, a tide of color swept up into his face, mantling it to the brows. In other words he had seen at last exactly what Mr. Mapleson meant by his vague, faltering phrases. If Bab were rich, if Bab were well-born, then would Varick marry her? The question was never answered. Just then at Varick's back Mrs. Tilney's doorbell rang suddenly.

The lawyers were to arrive at eight. Long before that hour came the conviction that something startling was in the wind had begun gradually to dawn in the minds of Mrs. Tilney's boarders. The dinner in itself was significant.

Usually under Mrs. Tilney's practiced eye the meal progressed with order, with propriety. Not so tonight In fact, the longer it continued, the more it seemed to take on the haste, not to say the impulsiveness, of an Alpine avalanche. Food, plates, silverware, all were hurled across the terrain of the tablecloth as if discharged upon it by some convulsion of Nature.

"Pardon!" said Miss Hultz, pausing abruptly in the middle of the repast. Then she grasped Lena, the waitress, firmly by the wrist. "You give me back that slaw!" directed Miss Hultz, her tone minatory. "The idea, the way you're snatching things before I'm finished!"

Lena valiantly defended herself.

"You needn't lay it on me, miss! There's folks callin' to see Mrs. Tilney at eight, I tell you, and I gotta git th' room cleared!"

"That's all right too!" retorted Miss Hultz. "Mrs. T. can ask in the whole street if she's a mind, only I'm not going to give up eating! Pass th' bread, Mr. Backus!"

Mr. Backus, the gentleman at Miss Hultz' left, was a plump, pasty young man who worked in Wall Street, and as he passed the bread he inquired:

"What's th' madam giving, asoirée?"

"Sworry" was what he called it, but Miss Hultz seemed to comprehend. Shrugging her shoulders, she raised at the same time her fine, expressive eyebrows.

"Search me," she murmured indolently.

The colloquy, it appeared, had not been lost on the others; neither had they missed the vague evidences that something unusual was happening in Mrs. Tilney's house.

Mr. Jessup spoke suddenly.

"Did you say someone was coming?" he abruptly asked. Then he added: "Tonight?"

His tone was queer. His air, too, was equallycurious; and Mrs. Jessup glanced up at him astonished.

"What's that?" she asked.

"I asked what was happening," said Mr. Jessup. Then, as no one seemed able to answer him, he looked round the table. "Where's Mr. Mapleson?" he suddenly inquired.

No one seemed able to tell him this.

"H'm!" said Mr. Jessup queerly, and picking up his knife and fork he silently went on eating. His face, however, still wore a strange expression.

Varick arose. He too had been conscious throughout the dinner of the haste, the hurry that had filled it with confusion. However, he had given little heed to that. Assured that something was happening, he was at the same time little interested in its effect on Mrs. Tilney's table arrangements. For Mr. Mapleson's was not the only face that was absent. Bab, too, was missing.

A growing worry, in spite of himself, had begun to nag and nettle Varick. He still pondered curiously over what had occurred between them there in the dining-room before dinner. Then, besides, what was it that was happening? Was she affected? Hisdinner half finished, he shoved back his chair from the table.

"Hello, off for a party, I see!" knowingly cried Mr. Backus.

Varick nodded.

"Yes, just off," he returned; and glancing about the table, he bobbed his head, smiling shyly. "Merry Christmas, everyone!"

Miss Hultz, for one, gave him a flashing smile, all her handsome teeth revealed.

"Same to you, Mr. Varick! Many of them!"

"Sure! And a happy New Year, son!" added Mr. Backus.

All the others joined in, even crusty old Mr. Lomax, the broken-down, disappointed life-insurance solicitor who tenanted Mrs. Tilney's back parlor.

"—— Christmas, young man!" he grunted; and again fell to pronging his slaw in moody silence. His wife leaned over and touched him. She was a tall, faded woman in black silk and a lace cap, with the frail pink cheeks that go with caps and black silk. "Some night you must put on your full-dress suit too," she whispered. "We will go to a theater!"

As Varick passed toward the door her eyes followed him. She could remember the time when Mr. Lomax, too, had looked young; when he had seemed slender, vital, energetic. Varick saw the look, and as his eyes caught hers he smiled at her in his friendly, boyish way. Mrs. Lomax beamed.

The young man had reached the floor above and was passing on his way up the second flight of stairs when Mr. Mapleson appeared suddenly at the stairhead. The little man's haste was evident. The instant he saw Varick he exclaimed:

"Why, there you are! I was just looking for you!"

He came pattering down the stairs, his small figure more alert, more fussy, more bustling than ever. About it, though, was an uneasiness that was unmistakable. His air was, in fact, as if he had steeled himself to face something.

"You are going out?" he asked, his tone quick.

Varick said he was. Mr. Mapleson at the reply seemed to fuss and flutter even more. Then, swiftly putting out his hand, he touched Varick on the arm.

"Could you wait?" he appealed. "It is a favor—a great favor!"

Varick regarded him with surprise. The little man was quivering. For the moment a fit of shyness more than usually awkward seemed painfully to convulse him. His eyes leaped about him everywhere. Nor was his speech less agitated.

"If you could wait," he faltered, "I have something to tell you."

Then his emotion, whatever the cause of it, got the better of him. "I beg of you do not go yet!" he piped; and he peered up at Varick, his eyes gleaming, his mouth working nervously.

A moment passed while Varick, his wonder growing, gazed down at the white face turned up to his. Then he laid his hand quietly on Mr. Mapleson's shoulder.

"Why, what's wrong, Mr. Mapleson?" he asked. "You're not in any trouble, are you?"

Mr. Mapleson at the question looked blank.

"In trouble? I?"

"Yes. If I can help you——" Varick had begun, when the little man gave vent to a sudden exclamation.

"I'm in no trouble! Who said I was?" he cried; and Varick stared, gazing at him with renewedastonishment. If it wasn't for his own sake that Mr. Mapleson had begged him to stay in, for whose, then, was it? Varick at this point started with a sudden thought.

"Look here," he said sharply; "it isn't Bab, is it?"

The effect was immediate. Again Mr. Mapleson peered up at Varick, his face transfigured; and again, his manner impulsive, he touched the young man on the arm.

"She is very lovely, isn't she?" he said; "and she is very good and sweet; don't you think she is?"

There was no doubt of it, but still Varick did not reply. A vague understanding had begun to creep into his mind, and questioningly he gazed down into the little man's upturned face.

"Tell me," said Mr. Mapleson—and as he heard him Varick's eyes grew wide—"tell me," he faltered, "you do think her lovely? You do think her sweet and lovely, don't you?"

Varick nodded slowly.

"Why, yes," he said, "she is very lovely." And at that Mr. Mapleson gave vent to an eager exclamation.

His face gleaming, again he threw out both his hands.

"Oh!" he cried, "then if she were rich, if you knew her to be well-born, too, why—why——" Here Mr. Mapleson began awkwardly to falter—"Why, then you would—would——" There he paused. Moistening his lips, the little man quivered suddenly: "She could marry—marry anyone, don't you think?" he shrilled. "She could marry whom she chose; you think so, don't you?"

But if he did, Varick did not say so. A moment passed, and then, as it had been with Bab, a tide of color swept up into his face, mantling it to the brows. In other words he had seen at last exactly what Mr. Mapleson meant by his vague, faltering phrases. If Bab were rich, if Bab were well-born, then would Varick marry her? The question was never answered. Just then at Varick's back Mrs. Tilney's doorbell rang suddenly.

VWould he marry Barbara Wynne? That night with its train of abrupt, confusing happenings, all following swiftly, one hard on the heels of another, Varick ever afterward could remember only as the mind recalls the vague, inconstant images of a dream. The least of it all, though, was that veiled query put to him by Mr. Mapleson. However, he had still to answer it, even to himself, when the clang of the doorbell interrupted.Outside in the vestibule stood two persons—a woman and a man. Their voices, as they waited, were audible through the glass; and Varick, once he heard them, listened curiously. Something in their tone was familiar, especially in the woman's tone; and though the footfalls of Lena, the waitress, already could be heard slipslopping on the stair, he did not wait. Instinctively he threw open the door.It was as he'd surmised. The two outside were known to him, and for a moment he gazed, astonished. The lady—for manifestly in spite of hercurious appearance she was that—was the first to break the silence."Bless me!" she said in a voice that boomed like a grenadier's. "If it isn't Bayard Varick!"Her escort seemed equally astonished. The gentleman, a middle-aged, medium-sized person with pale, myopic eyes, pale, drooping mustaches, and thin, colorless hair, gave vent to a grunt, then a sniff. The lady's buglelike tones, however, at once submerged this.Her surprise at finding Varick there was not only startled, it was scandalized, one saw."You don't mean you're living here?" she demanded. Afterward, having given her bonnet a devastating jab with one hand, she remarked eloquently: "My Lord!"Varick in spite of himself had to smile. The world, or that part of the world at least which arrogates to itself that title, ever will recall with reverence—a regard, however, not unmixed with humor—that able, energetic figure, Miss Elvira Beeston. The chatelaine, thedoyennetoo, of that rich, powerful family, Miss Elvira enjoyed into the bargain a personality not to be overlooked. Briefly, it wouldhave made her notable whatever her walk in life. But never mind that now. In years she was sixty—that or thereabouts; in figure she was short, not to mention dumpy. Bushy eyebrows, a square, craggy face, inquiring eyes and a salient, hawklike nose comprised other details of her appearance.As the prefix suggests, Miss Elvira never had married. There were reasons, perhaps. Of these, however, the one advanced by the lady herself possibly was the most plausible. "Life," she was heard to observe, "has enough troubles as it is."However, that she was a woman of mind, of character, rather than one merely feminine, you would have divined readily from Miss Elvira's dress. Her hat, a turban whose mode was at least three seasons in arrears, sagged jadedly into the position where her hand last had jabbed it; while her gown, equally rococo, was of a style with which no washerwoman would have deigned to disfigure herself.Her companion, the gentleman of the myopic eyes and pale mustaches, was her niece's husband, De Courcy Lloyd. Old Peter Beeston was his father-in-law. His air bored, his nose uplifted and his aspect that of one pursuing a subtle odor, Mr. Lloydadvanced into Mrs. Tilney's hallway. Evidently its appointments filled him with distaste, for having glanced about him he was just remarking, "Good Lord! What a wretched hole!" when of a sudden there was a diversion.Mr. Mapleson was still in the hallway. The instant the doorbell rang he started; and then had one looked, a quick change would have been seen to steal over the little man's gray, furrowed features. In turn the varying emotions of alertness, interest, then agitation pictured themselves on his face; and now, having for a moment gazed blankly at Miss Beeston, he gave vent to a stifled cry. The next instant, turning on his heel, Mr. Mapleson fled at full tilt up the stairs. He ran, his haste unmistakable, flitting like a frightened rabbit. Then as he reached the stairhead he turned and cast a glance behind him. It was at Miss Beeston he looked, and Varick saw his face. Terror convulsed the little man. The look, however, was lost on Miss Elvira. Having glanced about her for a moment, she leveled at Varick a pudgy yet commanding finger."Well, young man," bugled Miss Elvira; "you haven't told me yet what you are doing here?"Varick, with a queer expression on his face, turned to her."Don't you know?" he inquired quietly.Miss Beeston didn't. From the time Varick had been a boy in short trousers she had known him. Added to that, he long had been a friend, a close friend, too, of her nephew, crippled David Lloyd."That reminds me," Miss Elvira said abruptly, "why haven't you been to see us lately?"Varick gave his shoulders a shrug. The shrug, though, was deprecatory rather than rude. That somehow he felt awkward was evident. Miss Beeston stared inquiringly."Well?""Your brother knows," Varick was saying; "perhaps you'd better ask him," when he became aware that Miss Elvira was neither interested in what he was telling her nor, for that matter, listening to him.Her square, unlovely face raised expectantly, she stood looking up the stairway, and as Varick gazed at her he saw a sudden transformation. The square jaw seemed to grow less square; the bright, inquiring eyes visibly softened, their gleam less hard, less penetrating, while Miss Elvira's mouth, set ordinarilyin a shrewd, covert grin, seemed for a moment to quiver. Her breast, too, was gently heaving and, marveling, Varick turned to look.At the head of the stairs stood Barbara. Her hand on the stair rail, she paused momentarily, staring at the strangers in the hall below. Then a faint air of wonderment crept into her face, and, her eyes on Miss Elvira, she came slowly down toward her.Miss Elvira's square, squat form was as if suddenly transfigured. For once in her life a rare, indefinable beauty shone upon her plain unlovely features—a radiance that would have startled into wonder Miss Elvira's cronies had they been there to see it. She did not speak. She stood, bending forward, her mouth working, her eyes glowing beneath their shaggy brows.Bab walked straight to her."I am Barbara—Barbara Wynne," she said. "You've come to see me, I suppose?"Varick, puzzled, looked from one to the other in his wonder. As yet he grasped nothing of what was going on. "Why, what is it?" he murmured to Miss Elvira. By now, however, that lady had forgottenthat Varick even existed. With a jab at her bonnet, her hard old face twitching queerly, she suddenly threw out both her hands."Come here, girl," said Miss Elvira thickly, her voice cracking as she spoke; "you know me, don't you? I'm your father's aunt—yours too. I've come to take you home."Late that night, long after the dinner hour at Mrs. Tilney's, the news of what had happened ran from room to room. To say the boarding house was stupefied but barely expresses it. The story read like a fairy tale.It was told, for example, how twenty years before, old man Beeston's son, against his father's will, had married an insignificant nobody—a girl without either wealth or position. Disowned, then disinherited, the son as well as the woman he'd married had disappeared. It was as if the grave had swallowed them. Which, indeed, had been the case, as both the man and his girl wife were dead. A child, however, had survived them, and that child was Bab. Picture the sensation at Mrs. Tilney's!"Well, talk of luck!" remarked Miss Hultz, whohad been among the first to hear the news. "She can have anything she wants now!" A thought at this instant entering her mind, she gave a sudden exclamation. "Why, she can even have Mr. Varick!" There seemed no reason to doubt it.In Mrs. Tilney's house, it happened, was one person who did not share Miss Hultz' view. This was Varick himself!Eleven o'clock had struck and Bab, with her little handbag packed, her face white, had been whirled away uptown in the Beestons' big limousine. Mrs. Tilney, too, had made her exit. Her gaunt face drawn and grim, she sat in her bedroom staring into the cold, burned-out grate. Its ashes seemed somehow to typify her sense of desolation, of loneliness; for, as she reflected, Bab was gone, Bab was no longer hers. How swift it all had been! How unexpected! However, with that fortitude bred of a long familiarity with fate—or call it fortune if you like—Mrs. Tilney accepted dry-eyed this last gift it offered; and with a sigh she arose and made ready for bed.Meanwhile, on the floor above, Varick had just knocked at Mr. Mapleson's door. His face was astudy. All the color had left it until he was white, ash pale, and his gray eyes were clouded darkly."Mapleson," he said thickly, "do you know what you've done?"The little man gaped. He cringed, starting as if he had been struck. Then from Mr. Mapleson's face, too, the last vestige of color sped swiftly."I?" he gasped.Varick grimly nodded."Yes, you, Mapleson! It was you, wasn't it, that had those letters, the ones in that dead woman's trunk? It was you, too, wasn't it, that gave the lawyers the other papers—their proofs?" His voice rasping, he stared at the little man fixedly. "A fine mess, man, you've made of it!"Both hands at his mouth, Mr. Mapleson shrank back, quivering."What do you mean?" he shrilled, and Varick shrugged his shoulders disgustedly."Just what I say!" he returned. "You don't know, do you, it was that man, that scoundrel, who ruined my father? You don't know, do you, he was the one who trimmed him in Wall Street? And now you've given her to him!"Mr. Mapleson stared at him appalled."Ruined? He? Your father?" he stammered brokenly. "Beeston?"The sweat started suddenly on Varick's brow."Don't you know I love her?" he cried. "Don't you know I want her? You don't think they'd let me have her now, do you?"But the little man did not heed. All at once he tossed up both his hands."What have I done?" he groaned. "Oh, what have I done?"

Would he marry Barbara Wynne? That night with its train of abrupt, confusing happenings, all following swiftly, one hard on the heels of another, Varick ever afterward could remember only as the mind recalls the vague, inconstant images of a dream. The least of it all, though, was that veiled query put to him by Mr. Mapleson. However, he had still to answer it, even to himself, when the clang of the doorbell interrupted.

Outside in the vestibule stood two persons—a woman and a man. Their voices, as they waited, were audible through the glass; and Varick, once he heard them, listened curiously. Something in their tone was familiar, especially in the woman's tone; and though the footfalls of Lena, the waitress, already could be heard slipslopping on the stair, he did not wait. Instinctively he threw open the door.

It was as he'd surmised. The two outside were known to him, and for a moment he gazed, astonished. The lady—for manifestly in spite of hercurious appearance she was that—was the first to break the silence.

"Bless me!" she said in a voice that boomed like a grenadier's. "If it isn't Bayard Varick!"

Her escort seemed equally astonished. The gentleman, a middle-aged, medium-sized person with pale, myopic eyes, pale, drooping mustaches, and thin, colorless hair, gave vent to a grunt, then a sniff. The lady's buglelike tones, however, at once submerged this.

Her surprise at finding Varick there was not only startled, it was scandalized, one saw.

"You don't mean you're living here?" she demanded. Afterward, having given her bonnet a devastating jab with one hand, she remarked eloquently: "My Lord!"

Varick in spite of himself had to smile. The world, or that part of the world at least which arrogates to itself that title, ever will recall with reverence—a regard, however, not unmixed with humor—that able, energetic figure, Miss Elvira Beeston. The chatelaine, thedoyennetoo, of that rich, powerful family, Miss Elvira enjoyed into the bargain a personality not to be overlooked. Briefly, it wouldhave made her notable whatever her walk in life. But never mind that now. In years she was sixty—that or thereabouts; in figure she was short, not to mention dumpy. Bushy eyebrows, a square, craggy face, inquiring eyes and a salient, hawklike nose comprised other details of her appearance.

As the prefix suggests, Miss Elvira never had married. There were reasons, perhaps. Of these, however, the one advanced by the lady herself possibly was the most plausible. "Life," she was heard to observe, "has enough troubles as it is."

However, that she was a woman of mind, of character, rather than one merely feminine, you would have divined readily from Miss Elvira's dress. Her hat, a turban whose mode was at least three seasons in arrears, sagged jadedly into the position where her hand last had jabbed it; while her gown, equally rococo, was of a style with which no washerwoman would have deigned to disfigure herself.

Her companion, the gentleman of the myopic eyes and pale mustaches, was her niece's husband, De Courcy Lloyd. Old Peter Beeston was his father-in-law. His air bored, his nose uplifted and his aspect that of one pursuing a subtle odor, Mr. Lloydadvanced into Mrs. Tilney's hallway. Evidently its appointments filled him with distaste, for having glanced about him he was just remarking, "Good Lord! What a wretched hole!" when of a sudden there was a diversion.

Mr. Mapleson was still in the hallway. The instant the doorbell rang he started; and then had one looked, a quick change would have been seen to steal over the little man's gray, furrowed features. In turn the varying emotions of alertness, interest, then agitation pictured themselves on his face; and now, having for a moment gazed blankly at Miss Beeston, he gave vent to a stifled cry. The next instant, turning on his heel, Mr. Mapleson fled at full tilt up the stairs. He ran, his haste unmistakable, flitting like a frightened rabbit. Then as he reached the stairhead he turned and cast a glance behind him. It was at Miss Beeston he looked, and Varick saw his face. Terror convulsed the little man. The look, however, was lost on Miss Elvira. Having glanced about her for a moment, she leveled at Varick a pudgy yet commanding finger.

"Well, young man," bugled Miss Elvira; "you haven't told me yet what you are doing here?"

Varick, with a queer expression on his face, turned to her.

"Don't you know?" he inquired quietly.

Miss Beeston didn't. From the time Varick had been a boy in short trousers she had known him. Added to that, he long had been a friend, a close friend, too, of her nephew, crippled David Lloyd.

"That reminds me," Miss Elvira said abruptly, "why haven't you been to see us lately?"

Varick gave his shoulders a shrug. The shrug, though, was deprecatory rather than rude. That somehow he felt awkward was evident. Miss Beeston stared inquiringly.

"Well?"

"Your brother knows," Varick was saying; "perhaps you'd better ask him," when he became aware that Miss Elvira was neither interested in what he was telling her nor, for that matter, listening to him.

Her square, unlovely face raised expectantly, she stood looking up the stairway, and as Varick gazed at her he saw a sudden transformation. The square jaw seemed to grow less square; the bright, inquiring eyes visibly softened, their gleam less hard, less penetrating, while Miss Elvira's mouth, set ordinarilyin a shrewd, covert grin, seemed for a moment to quiver. Her breast, too, was gently heaving and, marveling, Varick turned to look.

At the head of the stairs stood Barbara. Her hand on the stair rail, she paused momentarily, staring at the strangers in the hall below. Then a faint air of wonderment crept into her face, and, her eyes on Miss Elvira, she came slowly down toward her.

Miss Elvira's square, squat form was as if suddenly transfigured. For once in her life a rare, indefinable beauty shone upon her plain unlovely features—a radiance that would have startled into wonder Miss Elvira's cronies had they been there to see it. She did not speak. She stood, bending forward, her mouth working, her eyes glowing beneath their shaggy brows.

Bab walked straight to her.

"I am Barbara—Barbara Wynne," she said. "You've come to see me, I suppose?"

Varick, puzzled, looked from one to the other in his wonder. As yet he grasped nothing of what was going on. "Why, what is it?" he murmured to Miss Elvira. By now, however, that lady had forgottenthat Varick even existed. With a jab at her bonnet, her hard old face twitching queerly, she suddenly threw out both her hands.

"Come here, girl," said Miss Elvira thickly, her voice cracking as she spoke; "you know me, don't you? I'm your father's aunt—yours too. I've come to take you home."

Late that night, long after the dinner hour at Mrs. Tilney's, the news of what had happened ran from room to room. To say the boarding house was stupefied but barely expresses it. The story read like a fairy tale.

It was told, for example, how twenty years before, old man Beeston's son, against his father's will, had married an insignificant nobody—a girl without either wealth or position. Disowned, then disinherited, the son as well as the woman he'd married had disappeared. It was as if the grave had swallowed them. Which, indeed, had been the case, as both the man and his girl wife were dead. A child, however, had survived them, and that child was Bab. Picture the sensation at Mrs. Tilney's!

"Well, talk of luck!" remarked Miss Hultz, whohad been among the first to hear the news. "She can have anything she wants now!" A thought at this instant entering her mind, she gave a sudden exclamation. "Why, she can even have Mr. Varick!" There seemed no reason to doubt it.

In Mrs. Tilney's house, it happened, was one person who did not share Miss Hultz' view. This was Varick himself!

Eleven o'clock had struck and Bab, with her little handbag packed, her face white, had been whirled away uptown in the Beestons' big limousine. Mrs. Tilney, too, had made her exit. Her gaunt face drawn and grim, she sat in her bedroom staring into the cold, burned-out grate. Its ashes seemed somehow to typify her sense of desolation, of loneliness; for, as she reflected, Bab was gone, Bab was no longer hers. How swift it all had been! How unexpected! However, with that fortitude bred of a long familiarity with fate—or call it fortune if you like—Mrs. Tilney accepted dry-eyed this last gift it offered; and with a sigh she arose and made ready for bed.

Meanwhile, on the floor above, Varick had just knocked at Mr. Mapleson's door. His face was astudy. All the color had left it until he was white, ash pale, and his gray eyes were clouded darkly.

"Mapleson," he said thickly, "do you know what you've done?"

The little man gaped. He cringed, starting as if he had been struck. Then from Mr. Mapleson's face, too, the last vestige of color sped swiftly.

"I?" he gasped.

Varick grimly nodded.

"Yes, you, Mapleson! It was you, wasn't it, that had those letters, the ones in that dead woman's trunk? It was you, too, wasn't it, that gave the lawyers the other papers—their proofs?" His voice rasping, he stared at the little man fixedly. "A fine mess, man, you've made of it!"

Both hands at his mouth, Mr. Mapleson shrank back, quivering.

"What do you mean?" he shrilled, and Varick shrugged his shoulders disgustedly.

"Just what I say!" he returned. "You don't know, do you, it was that man, that scoundrel, who ruined my father? You don't know, do you, he was the one who trimmed him in Wall Street? And now you've given her to him!"

Mr. Mapleson stared at him appalled.

"Ruined? He? Your father?" he stammered brokenly. "Beeston?"

The sweat started suddenly on Varick's brow.

"Don't you know I love her?" he cried. "Don't you know I want her? You don't think they'd let me have her now, do you?"

But the little man did not heed. All at once he tossed up both his hands.

"What have I done?" he groaned. "Oh, what have I done?"

VIThe wayfarer familiar with the highways and byways of New York will recall that in one of the widest, the most select of the uptown side streets opening off Fifth Avenue there is a row of brownstone double dwellings of imposing grandeur and magnitude, and of the most incredible ugliness as well. Not even Mayfair in London can show worse; for that matter, neither can Unter den Linden or even Pittsburgh. A wide stairway with swollen stone balustrades guards the street front of each; and above these the houses themselves rise flatly, their façades chiefly notable for their look of smug, solid respectability—that and a wide acreage of plate-glass windows. Formerly a vast variety of rococo tutti-frutti decoration in the stonecutter's best art ornamented these fronts; but today the weather, as well as a sluggish uneasiness awakening in the tenants' minds, has got rid of the most of it; so that now the houses look merely commonplace, merely rich. But be that as it may, this particularChristmas Eve it was to the largest, the richest, and most formidable of these dwellings that the Beeston limousine brought Bab. For Bab had come home.The ride, brief as it was, up the lighted, glittering Avenue, Bab felt she ever would remember with a vividness that not even time could mar. It was her first opportunity to get her mind in order. She a Beeston? She, the little boarding-house waif, heir to a goodly fortune? Bab felt she had only to say "Pouf!" to burst, to shatter into air the frail, evanescent fabric of that bubble!So many things had happened! So many, too, had happened all at once! The excitement fading now, she began to feel herself languid and oppressed. And yet, as she knew, the night's ordeal had scarcely begun. In a few minutes now she was to see her father's own father, that grim and masterful figure, Peter Beeston. What would happen then?In the newspapers that day Bab had read that the old man was at death's door. If this had been true, though, there was now a surprising change. Peter Beeston was not dead, neither was he dying; instead, the news having got to him that his son's childhad been found, it had roused him like an elixir. "Bring her here!" he'd said. When they had protested, fearful of the effect on him, the man had turned in smoldering wrath. "Bring her, d'ye hear!" he'd rumbled fiercely. "You bring her, I say!" So Bab, as he'd ordered, was being brought.It would be difficult to tell how much she dreaded it! If only Mr. Mapy could have come with her! To be sure, Miss Beeston had been kind, she had been gentle; but still Bab wished she could have with her in the coming ordeal someone she had always known. Curiously, however, Mr. Mapy had disappeared. Neither she nor anyone else for hours had laid eyes on him.She vaguely wondered why. As she remembered now, on her way downstairs that night she had met him coming up; Mr. Mapy was running, helter-skelter too. Besides, she recalled how queer his face had looked—agitated, quite fearful, in fact. More than that, though she'd tried to speak to him he hadn't heeded her. He had rushed on up the stairs.But then Mr. Mapy was not the only one that night who'd acted curiously. There was Varick too. The impression crept over her that for whathad happened, her good fortune, Varick had seemed even sorry. That was it—sorry! Why?It was when he came downstairs, dressed ready to go out, that he had said good-by.They met on the stairs, and for a moment she had stood with him in the dim light on the landing. His face was grave, silent, grim. It looked to her, too, as if he'd had something he would have liked to say to her. But he didn't. Awkwardly he put out his hand."Good-by, Bab," he'd said."Good-by, Mr. Varick," she had answered, clumsily at a loss for anything else to say; and again he had smiled, a dry, dusty smile."Good-by; I won't see you again!"It was not at all what she'd pictured—that parting.Bab, however, had little time, little opportunity to mull over thoughts like these. She had no more than begun to reflect on Varick's curious attitude when the limousine, turning the corner, rolled up to the Beeston door."Ah, here we are!" the condescending voice of Mr. Lloyd announced; and the footman havingthrown open the limousine door, Bab glanced past him at the house beyond. Dark, no light from its windows anywhere, it loomed like a cliff, a towering crag high above the pavement. She could have gasped at its magnitude.Miss Elvira, who had sat during the drive sunk back in a corner of the car, arose briskly."Come!" she said, and the next instant, the street door opening from within, Bab stood gazing about her with breathless interest at the house which once had been her father's home.If the place outside had seemed huge, within she felt engulfed by it. A drawing-room, now a vast vault of darkness, lay on one hand, while on the other was a reception room, itself cavernous in its immensity. Beyond, other rooms opened too. Bab glimpsed a library, then a dining-room, its sideboard and serving table glittering with silver. But of all this she had no more than a glance. A footman had opened the door for them, and in addition to him the butler stood in the hall. To him Miss Elvira turned abruptly."Well, Crabbe?" she demanded.The man, a white-haired, pink-cheeked old fellowwho had been staring round-eyed at Bab, got himself hastily together."The doctor's still upstairs—the assistant, that is, madam. The master's stronger, 'e says."Miss Elvira did not tarry. With a sign to Bab the energetic lady went bustling up the stairs, the others trooping after her. Not more than half a minute later Bab found herself standing at her grandfather's bedside.What happened upon that was swift, inexpressibly confusing. The room in which old Peter Beeston lay was huge, like all the rest of that house. It was a crypt-like impressive chamber, and was furnished darkly in the same massive way. And like his surroundings, the room and its furniture—the big dressing table, the vast writing desk, the massive four-poster that held him—the man himself was huge, a bulk of a man whose fierce, brooding face glowered about him as threatening as a thunder-cloud.Bab gazed at him in awe. He lay outstretched, his limbs crossed like a Crusader's beneath the sheets; and though both age and illness had ravaged him the impression he gave was still of giant force,of giant fierceness too. His face, framed among the pillows, gazed up at her with a quick, inquiring look; and then, as he seemed to comprehend, Bab felt his eye drill through and through her with piercing intensity. His lips moved, his mouth worked momentarily, and he seemed about to speak. But when he did speak it was not to Bab.Lloyd as well as Miss Elvira had accompanied Bab into the room, and of this Beeston instantly was aware. One gnarled, knotted hand raised itself from the coverlid, and, turning his eyes from Bab, he spoke. The speech came fiercely rumbling."Get out!" he said.Lloyd's air thus far had been singularly curious, and now Bab saw him start."Do you mean me, sir?" he asked awkwardly. His manner, Bab thought, was uncomfortable, strangely uncertain for one heretofore so cocksure, so condescending; and she looked at him surprised.Again Beeston spoke. The hand he had raised struck the coverlid a sudden blow, and the room rumbled with the echo of his voice."Get out, I say!" he repeated; and Lloyd, aftera quick look at Bab, a glance the resentment of which she did not miss, withdrew abruptly.Then old Beeston raised his hand, his forefinger beckoning."Vira," he said. "Vira!" And when his sister bent over him old Beeston growled thickly, his voice, if rough, still friendly: "Vira, you go too, old girl!"So Bab found herself left alone with that grim, dark figure lying there—her grandfather."Come closer!" rumbled Beeston. "I want to look at you!"A pause followed. Her heart beating thickly, Bab drew nearer to the bed, and as she stood there gazing down at the swart, fierce face staring darkly up at hers, pity for an instant welled into her heart. This was her father's father, she told herself; and troubled, she began to see now that if this masterful, unconquerable man had ruined others' happiness in his life, he had ruined his own as well.The knotted hand upon the counterpane reached out suddenly."They say you're my son's child," said Peter Beeston. "Well, are you?"His voice carried in it a note of intimidation, of truculent disbelief, but now she felt no fear of him. The hand that held hers she could feel quiver too."Yes," she said.Again a pause. He wet his lips, his tongue running on them dryly, eagerly; and then of a sudden his eyes left hers and went drifting toward the ceiling. His voice when again he spoke broke thickly."Tell me about him, about my son!" said Beeston.Bab looked at him hesitantly. It was this that she had dreaded."What shall I tell you?" she asked.Beeston's eyes still were on the ceiling."Dead, isn't he?" he demanded.Yes, he was dead, as the man lying there long must have known; and her trouble growing, Bab stared silently at him. But the grim eyes gave no sign."You don't look like him!" said her grandfather suddenly, so abruptly that she started. "You must look like that woman, eh!"Bab gazed at him steadily."You mean my mother, don't you?" she inquired. She had been prepared for this, and in her voice was a tone of quiet decisiveness she meant him clearly to see. "You mustn't speak like that," she said clearly. "My mother did you no wrong!"She saw his eyes leap from the ceiling to her and back again. Then a smile, a grim effigy of merriment, dawned in his somber face. A growl followed it."So you're self-willed, eh?" he rumbled. "You're all Beeston, I see!" Then a grunt, a sneer escaped him. "I'd be careful, young woman! I'm all Beeston too, and I've seen what comes to us self-willed folk! Your own father, because of it, ruined himself. That's not all either. Because of it, too, my daughter is married to a fool! Oh, I've seen enough of it!" he rumbled.Bab was startled. She knew, she thought, the fool he meant, but to that she gave but momentary heed. Struggling up, his face dark, convulsed, no doubt, with the thoughts rioting in his mind, Beeston turned and shook roughly into place the pillows that supported him. And this was the man they had thought dying! Grumbling, growling thickly, he layback then, the growls subsiding presently like thunder muttering away among the depths of distant hills.She was still gazing at him, absorbed, startled, when she saw a change steal upon the man's distorted face. It was as if that instant's rage, flaming hotly, must have lighted in the dim recesses of his mind some forgotten cell; for of a sudden the smoldering anger of his eyes passed and he sat staring at the wall."Well, won't you tell me?" he asked heavily. "I want to know about my son."But Bab knew nothing to tell. That was why the ordeal she had faced that night had filled her so with dread. The little she knew of either of her parents was what they had told her at Mrs. Tilney's. Vaguely they'd had the impression that the mother had come from somewhere upstate; where, they did not know. But scant as this information was and shadowy, what they'd learned of the father was even less. Of his history they had gathered nothing, not even an impression. As for herself, she remembered nothing of him. Nor did she know when he had died or how. She could not, in fact,even tell where her father's grave was; and, sunken among the pillows, Beeston lay staring at the ceiling. Then suddenly he stirred."You mean you can't tell me anything? Answer me!" he said, his voice breaking thickly. "He was my son; I drove him from me! Don't you understand? I want to know! I've got to; he was my boy!"Bab strove to free her hand from his."You're hurting me," she said, and at that he abruptly recovered himself."Eh?" he said, as if awakening.He dropped her hand then, and, his eyes closing, he lay back among the pillows, his breast heaving with the tumult of emotions that had tortured him. But now that the struggle had passed the man's face changed anew with one of those astonishing transformations that so often marked his character. He smiled wanly. The fierceness waned from his face. And as Bab, pitying anew, sat gazing down at him, Beeston's hand again crept out and softly closed on hers. Drawing her toward him, he laid his cheek to hers."Don't be afraid," whispered Peter Beeston."Don't be afraid! You're my boy's girl—his! You need never be afraid of me!"Ten minutes later, when Miss Elvira and the nurse looked into the room, they found Bab perched on the bed talking to Beeston as if she had always known him. A smile played about the corners of the man's grim mouth. He held her hand in his.

The wayfarer familiar with the highways and byways of New York will recall that in one of the widest, the most select of the uptown side streets opening off Fifth Avenue there is a row of brownstone double dwellings of imposing grandeur and magnitude, and of the most incredible ugliness as well. Not even Mayfair in London can show worse; for that matter, neither can Unter den Linden or even Pittsburgh. A wide stairway with swollen stone balustrades guards the street front of each; and above these the houses themselves rise flatly, their façades chiefly notable for their look of smug, solid respectability—that and a wide acreage of plate-glass windows. Formerly a vast variety of rococo tutti-frutti decoration in the stonecutter's best art ornamented these fronts; but today the weather, as well as a sluggish uneasiness awakening in the tenants' minds, has got rid of the most of it; so that now the houses look merely commonplace, merely rich. But be that as it may, this particularChristmas Eve it was to the largest, the richest, and most formidable of these dwellings that the Beeston limousine brought Bab. For Bab had come home.

The ride, brief as it was, up the lighted, glittering Avenue, Bab felt she ever would remember with a vividness that not even time could mar. It was her first opportunity to get her mind in order. She a Beeston? She, the little boarding-house waif, heir to a goodly fortune? Bab felt she had only to say "Pouf!" to burst, to shatter into air the frail, evanescent fabric of that bubble!

So many things had happened! So many, too, had happened all at once! The excitement fading now, she began to feel herself languid and oppressed. And yet, as she knew, the night's ordeal had scarcely begun. In a few minutes now she was to see her father's own father, that grim and masterful figure, Peter Beeston. What would happen then?

In the newspapers that day Bab had read that the old man was at death's door. If this had been true, though, there was now a surprising change. Peter Beeston was not dead, neither was he dying; instead, the news having got to him that his son's childhad been found, it had roused him like an elixir. "Bring her here!" he'd said. When they had protested, fearful of the effect on him, the man had turned in smoldering wrath. "Bring her, d'ye hear!" he'd rumbled fiercely. "You bring her, I say!" So Bab, as he'd ordered, was being brought.

It would be difficult to tell how much she dreaded it! If only Mr. Mapy could have come with her! To be sure, Miss Beeston had been kind, she had been gentle; but still Bab wished she could have with her in the coming ordeal someone she had always known. Curiously, however, Mr. Mapy had disappeared. Neither she nor anyone else for hours had laid eyes on him.

She vaguely wondered why. As she remembered now, on her way downstairs that night she had met him coming up; Mr. Mapy was running, helter-skelter too. Besides, she recalled how queer his face had looked—agitated, quite fearful, in fact. More than that, though she'd tried to speak to him he hadn't heeded her. He had rushed on up the stairs.

But then Mr. Mapy was not the only one that night who'd acted curiously. There was Varick too. The impression crept over her that for whathad happened, her good fortune, Varick had seemed even sorry. That was it—sorry! Why?

It was when he came downstairs, dressed ready to go out, that he had said good-by.

They met on the stairs, and for a moment she had stood with him in the dim light on the landing. His face was grave, silent, grim. It looked to her, too, as if he'd had something he would have liked to say to her. But he didn't. Awkwardly he put out his hand.

"Good-by, Bab," he'd said.

"Good-by, Mr. Varick," she had answered, clumsily at a loss for anything else to say; and again he had smiled, a dry, dusty smile.

"Good-by; I won't see you again!"

It was not at all what she'd pictured—that parting.

Bab, however, had little time, little opportunity to mull over thoughts like these. She had no more than begun to reflect on Varick's curious attitude when the limousine, turning the corner, rolled up to the Beeston door.

"Ah, here we are!" the condescending voice of Mr. Lloyd announced; and the footman havingthrown open the limousine door, Bab glanced past him at the house beyond. Dark, no light from its windows anywhere, it loomed like a cliff, a towering crag high above the pavement. She could have gasped at its magnitude.

Miss Elvira, who had sat during the drive sunk back in a corner of the car, arose briskly.

"Come!" she said, and the next instant, the street door opening from within, Bab stood gazing about her with breathless interest at the house which once had been her father's home.

If the place outside had seemed huge, within she felt engulfed by it. A drawing-room, now a vast vault of darkness, lay on one hand, while on the other was a reception room, itself cavernous in its immensity. Beyond, other rooms opened too. Bab glimpsed a library, then a dining-room, its sideboard and serving table glittering with silver. But of all this she had no more than a glance. A footman had opened the door for them, and in addition to him the butler stood in the hall. To him Miss Elvira turned abruptly.

"Well, Crabbe?" she demanded.

The man, a white-haired, pink-cheeked old fellowwho had been staring round-eyed at Bab, got himself hastily together.

"The doctor's still upstairs—the assistant, that is, madam. The master's stronger, 'e says."

Miss Elvira did not tarry. With a sign to Bab the energetic lady went bustling up the stairs, the others trooping after her. Not more than half a minute later Bab found herself standing at her grandfather's bedside.

What happened upon that was swift, inexpressibly confusing. The room in which old Peter Beeston lay was huge, like all the rest of that house. It was a crypt-like impressive chamber, and was furnished darkly in the same massive way. And like his surroundings, the room and its furniture—the big dressing table, the vast writing desk, the massive four-poster that held him—the man himself was huge, a bulk of a man whose fierce, brooding face glowered about him as threatening as a thunder-cloud.

Bab gazed at him in awe. He lay outstretched, his limbs crossed like a Crusader's beneath the sheets; and though both age and illness had ravaged him the impression he gave was still of giant force,of giant fierceness too. His face, framed among the pillows, gazed up at her with a quick, inquiring look; and then, as he seemed to comprehend, Bab felt his eye drill through and through her with piercing intensity. His lips moved, his mouth worked momentarily, and he seemed about to speak. But when he did speak it was not to Bab.

Lloyd as well as Miss Elvira had accompanied Bab into the room, and of this Beeston instantly was aware. One gnarled, knotted hand raised itself from the coverlid, and, turning his eyes from Bab, he spoke. The speech came fiercely rumbling.

"Get out!" he said.

Lloyd's air thus far had been singularly curious, and now Bab saw him start.

"Do you mean me, sir?" he asked awkwardly. His manner, Bab thought, was uncomfortable, strangely uncertain for one heretofore so cocksure, so condescending; and she looked at him surprised.

Again Beeston spoke. The hand he had raised struck the coverlid a sudden blow, and the room rumbled with the echo of his voice.

"Get out, I say!" he repeated; and Lloyd, aftera quick look at Bab, a glance the resentment of which she did not miss, withdrew abruptly.

Then old Beeston raised his hand, his forefinger beckoning.

"Vira," he said. "Vira!" And when his sister bent over him old Beeston growled thickly, his voice, if rough, still friendly: "Vira, you go too, old girl!"

So Bab found herself left alone with that grim, dark figure lying there—her grandfather.

"Come closer!" rumbled Beeston. "I want to look at you!"

A pause followed. Her heart beating thickly, Bab drew nearer to the bed, and as she stood there gazing down at the swart, fierce face staring darkly up at hers, pity for an instant welled into her heart. This was her father's father, she told herself; and troubled, she began to see now that if this masterful, unconquerable man had ruined others' happiness in his life, he had ruined his own as well.

The knotted hand upon the counterpane reached out suddenly.

"They say you're my son's child," said Peter Beeston. "Well, are you?"

His voice carried in it a note of intimidation, of truculent disbelief, but now she felt no fear of him. The hand that held hers she could feel quiver too.

"Yes," she said.

Again a pause. He wet his lips, his tongue running on them dryly, eagerly; and then of a sudden his eyes left hers and went drifting toward the ceiling. His voice when again he spoke broke thickly.

"Tell me about him, about my son!" said Beeston.

Bab looked at him hesitantly. It was this that she had dreaded.

"What shall I tell you?" she asked.

Beeston's eyes still were on the ceiling.

"Dead, isn't he?" he demanded.

Yes, he was dead, as the man lying there long must have known; and her trouble growing, Bab stared silently at him. But the grim eyes gave no sign.

"You don't look like him!" said her grandfather suddenly, so abruptly that she started. "You must look like that woman, eh!"

Bab gazed at him steadily.

"You mean my mother, don't you?" she inquired. She had been prepared for this, and in her voice was a tone of quiet decisiveness she meant him clearly to see. "You mustn't speak like that," she said clearly. "My mother did you no wrong!"

She saw his eyes leap from the ceiling to her and back again. Then a smile, a grim effigy of merriment, dawned in his somber face. A growl followed it.

"So you're self-willed, eh?" he rumbled. "You're all Beeston, I see!" Then a grunt, a sneer escaped him. "I'd be careful, young woman! I'm all Beeston too, and I've seen what comes to us self-willed folk! Your own father, because of it, ruined himself. That's not all either. Because of it, too, my daughter is married to a fool! Oh, I've seen enough of it!" he rumbled.

Bab was startled. She knew, she thought, the fool he meant, but to that she gave but momentary heed. Struggling up, his face dark, convulsed, no doubt, with the thoughts rioting in his mind, Beeston turned and shook roughly into place the pillows that supported him. And this was the man they had thought dying! Grumbling, growling thickly, he layback then, the growls subsiding presently like thunder muttering away among the depths of distant hills.

She was still gazing at him, absorbed, startled, when she saw a change steal upon the man's distorted face. It was as if that instant's rage, flaming hotly, must have lighted in the dim recesses of his mind some forgotten cell; for of a sudden the smoldering anger of his eyes passed and he sat staring at the wall.

"Well, won't you tell me?" he asked heavily. "I want to know about my son."

But Bab knew nothing to tell. That was why the ordeal she had faced that night had filled her so with dread. The little she knew of either of her parents was what they had told her at Mrs. Tilney's. Vaguely they'd had the impression that the mother had come from somewhere upstate; where, they did not know. But scant as this information was and shadowy, what they'd learned of the father was even less. Of his history they had gathered nothing, not even an impression. As for herself, she remembered nothing of him. Nor did she know when he had died or how. She could not, in fact,even tell where her father's grave was; and, sunken among the pillows, Beeston lay staring at the ceiling. Then suddenly he stirred.

"You mean you can't tell me anything? Answer me!" he said, his voice breaking thickly. "He was my son; I drove him from me! Don't you understand? I want to know! I've got to; he was my boy!"

Bab strove to free her hand from his.

"You're hurting me," she said, and at that he abruptly recovered himself.

"Eh?" he said, as if awakening.

He dropped her hand then, and, his eyes closing, he lay back among the pillows, his breast heaving with the tumult of emotions that had tortured him. But now that the struggle had passed the man's face changed anew with one of those astonishing transformations that so often marked his character. He smiled wanly. The fierceness waned from his face. And as Bab, pitying anew, sat gazing down at him, Beeston's hand again crept out and softly closed on hers. Drawing her toward him, he laid his cheek to hers.

"Don't be afraid," whispered Peter Beeston."Don't be afraid! You're my boy's girl—his! You need never be afraid of me!"

Ten minutes later, when Miss Elvira and the nurse looked into the room, they found Bab perched on the bed talking to Beeston as if she had always known him. A smile played about the corners of the man's grim mouth. He held her hand in his.

VIIAs Mr. Mapleson, bubbling with anticipation, had foreseen, the city the following morning awoke to a good, old-fashioned white Christmas. At midnight the snow began to fall and, the storm thickening hour after hour, by dawn the streets were deep with it.Her room had been darkened, the hangings at the windows tightly drawn, so that Bab, worn by the strain of the night before, slumbered on long past her usual hour for awakening. But presently a peal of chimes clanging a stave from a near-by church-steeple broke in on her, and with a start she sat upright. Dazed, drowsy-eyed, her perceptions still misty, she gazed about her in momentary wonder. Brunnehilde awakening could not more have been at a loss. Then with a throb she remembered.Outside the chimes still pealed; the snow crept whispering on the window panes; and at the end of the street, murmuring like a sea, the muffled roar of the Avenue arose. Within the house, though,all was silent; and, her breath coming swiftly, Bab gazed about her open-eyed.The surroundings, in contrast with her own little room at Mrs. Tilney's, were quite enough to make her stare. At the boarding house chintz of a cheap but pretty design was the fabric most in evidence. The curtains were made of it and so was the valance on Bab's little bed—that and the drapery on her dressing table. But here brocade thick and board-like formed the window hangings; the bureau cover was linen edged with Irish lace; and the bed was a vast thing of mahogany, its four posts crowned by a canopy, its coverlid of costly embroidered silk.The other appointments were as rich. Her eyes, roaming about the room, glanced from one side of it to the other in wondering appreciation. Ivory and heavy, finely chased silver filled the dressing table; a great tilting pier glass stood beside it, and there were ornaments of porcelain and chased crystal on the mantel; while at each side of the four-poster, on the carpet's yielding pile, was spread a white fur rug, the skin of a great Polar bear. The more Bab's glances roved about, the more she marveled at themany costly evidences of wealth, of luxury that surrounded her.And to think that this room, once her father's, was with all its wealth, the riches it conveyed, now hers! Propped up among the pillows, her diminutive figure lost in the midst of the great four-poster, Bab sat absorbed in profound reflection. It was the strangeness of it all that for the moment weighed on her spirits. The big, dim room, too, so vast and solemn, sent a shadow of loneliness creeping into her heart; and just then, on the mantel over the fireplace, the clock ticking busily there softly struck the hour. That was the finishing touch! Each stroke she counted separately. There were nine of them! With a catch in her breath, a stifled gulp, she remembered that at Mrs. Tilney's they would just be sitting down to breakfast!Breakfast—Christmas breakfast—and Bab would not be with them! First there would be grapefruit, each like an apple of the Hesperides, a golden globe of juiciness, its edge fluted by a dexterous hand. Then would follow beefsteak, baked potatoes, coffee with real cream and, to finish, a great heaping platter of waffles of a luscious golden yellow and steaminghot. Where could food be found better than this? Where, too, would one look for more goodwill and simple kindliness, more cheerfulness and pleasure, than in that simple, homely party there gathered about Mrs. Tilney's board?Her eyes misty, the lump thickening in her throat, Bab sat poring on that picture in her mind. In honor of the occasion Mrs. Tilney herself would be seated at the head of the table. At the opposite end would be Mr. Mapleson, his eyes snapping with excitement and merriment, his shy, frosty little giggle sounding at every turn. For Christmas was a great day with the little man! The night before he had been up until all hours trimming a tree in the parlor. The tree was for all. No one, not even the newest boarder, would be forgotten."Understand," Mr. Mapleson would say, "we all can't have a home—not our own maybe; but we all can have Christmas, can't we?"Even Mary Mangin, the kitchen behemoth, would be bidden in. Her arms akimbo, a mountainous monument of tittering embarrassment, she would be escorted to the tree by Mr. Mapleson himself. Then with a great to-do the little man would squirrelfussily among the many packages, hunting the required one. "Ha! here we have it!" he would finally exclaim. "Miss Maria Mangin, with Merry Christmas from Kris Kringle!" Whereat Mary Mangin, with a seismic convulsion shaking her from pediment to dome, would totter to the nearest sofa and, to the peril of that piece, crash down upon it, exclaiming the while in Mr. Mapleson's behalf: "Th' fairies be good to ye! Th' fairies be good to ye!" Then, when all the others had had their presents, and he had made sure no one had been overlooked, the little man would sit down in a corner and, his eyes gleaming, his hands trembling eagerly, would open the parcels that held the presents for himself.What a time then! What chirps! What giggles! What laughter and merriment! "Just what I wanted!" "Why, the very thing!" "Who told you I needed that?" "Why, Mrs. Jessup!" he cried once. "How did you ever dream——" The sentence never was finished. "Here, give me that; it's for Bab!" Mrs. Jessup cried scandalized; and she snatched from the little man the pink silk hairpin case which he'd been delightedly accepting. One present, however, Mr. Mapleson always reserved to the last, carefullylaying it aside until all the others had been opened. Then, his eyes glowing with soft brightness, and his deft, slender fingers prying skillfully, he would make haste, but gently, to undo its ribbons and its wrappings. But first, before he came to the present, he would find a little card with a border of bright green and red Christmas holly:For Mr. Mapy,With love and Merry Xmas,From Bab!"H'm!" Mr. Mapleson would say, and he would violently blow his nose. "H'm!"Then—— The picture faded, blurring suddenly, and with a stifled sob Bab turned and buried her head swiftly among the pillows of the big four-poster. Mr. Mapy this morning would not have his present. It lay forgotten in a drawer of her bureau at Mrs. Tilney's.Poor Mr. Mapleson! She lay for a while thinking of the little man and of all his tenderness for her; and presently out of that thought, a feeling of comfort cheered her. Mr. Mapy would understand. He always did. He would know she did not reallyforget him. It was only because everything had been so sudden, so amazing. Her spirits climbing, she again sat up among the pillows and, with a growing excitement gently stimulating her, once more glanced about her in the big, dim room.She was still sitting there, her mind alive with a hundred thoughts, when there was a tap at the door, then a maid stole in. The servant, a tall, angular Englishwoman with a stony, imperturbable face, went to the windows and began throwing back the hangings."Begging pardon, it's nine o'clock, my lady, and snowing. Mrs. Lloyd asks if you will see her shortly.""Mrs. Lloyd?""Yes, miss. She and Mr. Lloyd are motoring out to Long Island for luncheon."Then Bab remembered. Mrs. Lloyd was the aunt she had not yet seen. How kind of her to think so soon of her new niece. Surely Bab would go down to see her, and at once."And if you please, miss," the maid announced, "a box of flowers was left for you this morning. Will you have it now?""Flowers?"Even under the Englishwoman's cold, impassive stare she could not restrain the exclamation. Who could have sent her flowers, Christmas flowers? A moment later the maid handed her the long pasteboard box, then she withdrew. With rounding eyes Bab lifted off the box cover."Oh, you darlings!" she whispered.A great sheaf of cut flowers lay within. There were roses, pale Gloire de Dijons; there were lilies of the valley, mignonette, and hyacinths—these and lacelike sprays of maidenhair fern. Never before had she seen a box like this, much less had it sent to her; and lifting out the cluster of fragrant, delicately tinted roses she pressed them to her face, reveling in their beauty."Oh, you darlings!"Then the card lying in the box caught her eye:For Bab, with a Merry Christmasand much love from her new cousin,David LloydHer heart beat quickly, and she was conscious that a faint color burned in her cheeks as she read the writing, penned in a delicate, well-bred hand.She knew of David Lloyd. He was the cripple boy—the man rather—she had asked Varick about; and as she read anew his kindly, pleasant greeting her heart warmed instinctively to her new-found relative.How good it all seemed! How wonderful it was! Not even in her wildest imagination had she dreamed it was to be like this! To think she not only had found her kin, but that they should prove so kind! She did not care now who saw how her eyes were glistening. She could have sung aloud of her happiness."Your bath is drawn, miss," Mawson, the impassive Englishwoman, announced, and resigning the flowers to her, Bab arose. As she dressed, it became evident that if Bab and the world at large had been astonished at the sudden change in her fortunes, Miss Elvira had not. Manifestly that able lady not only must have known for days what was to be expected, she also had prepared for it. Many little luxuries she had laid in to make Bab comfortable; and as Mawson brought them out, one by one, Bab felt her heart beat swifter, then more swiftly still. If only Mr. Mapy could have beenthere! If only he and she could have joined hands once to dance round, to rejoice! Mawson, imperturbable, bony-faced, was about as good company as a gryphon! However, not even Mawson's stoniness could quite repress all her feeling of wonder-growing joy. She was too young, too unspoiled and unaffected, to lose the bloom of it, and as she hurried to finish dressing her face was radiant.Her first duty, as she hurried down the stairs, was to tap at her grandfather's door. The trained nurse answered, and as she saw who had knocked she beamed pleasantly. The patient, it appeared, was much brighter. He had already asked for Bab. She was to see him at noon; and, thanking the young woman, Bab hurried on. She must not keep the Lloyds!The dining-room, like the other rooms in that vast house, was itself vast—a great, dimly lighted apartment where the decorations, all of the richest sort, were a legacy of that morose, astonishing era of bad taste, the late Victorian period. Quartered oak and an embossed bronze wall-paper vied with each other in gloominess; while the sideboard, the table and the chairs, in the style of the early eighties,wore a corresponding air of stodgy, solid richness and melancholy. This effect, too, was heightened by the pictures on the wall, all valuable and each, of course, a still life—the usual fish, the inevitable platter of grapes and oranges, the perpetual overturned basket of flowers. A group of sheep by Verboeckhoven, typically woolly, completed the display.As Bab, her heart doing a little tattoo in anticipation, passed along the hall, she saw that her aunt and uncle had left the table and were standing on the rug before the fire, their heads together, and talking earnestly. A morning coat, Piccadilly striped trousers and tan spats at the moment attired Mr. Lloyd; but one had but to glance once at the pale, myopic, blasé gentleman to guess that presently he would retire to change, his man helping him, into clothes more suitable for motoring—a lounge suit of tweeds, say, or homespun. Bab, smiling shyly, was just entering the dining-room when Lloyd looked up. Instantly she saw him start. She was certain, too, she heard him whisper swiftly a warning: "Look out!" Then, turning away, Lloyd fell to twirling idly his pale, limp mustaches.That they were talking about her was manifest. That what they said was not meant for her to hear also was manifest. For an instant she faltered. She felt her color self-consciously betrayed her."Oh, here you are!" Lloyd exclaimed in his inconsequent, singsong voice. "We've been waiting for you, you know!"His voice was pleasant enough, though at the same time he smiled. Subconsciously, if not directly though, Bab began to divine a hint of antagonism in the man. Evidently for some reason he had not as yet accepted her as Miss Elvira had, as his son, too, had accepted her—that is, if the message with the flowers meant anything. However, having greeted him, she turned shyly to her aunt. While waiting Mrs. Lloyd had been frankly studying her."So this is our new relative, is it?" she remarked. Afterward she briefly held out a hand. She did not offer to kiss her niece.Bab felt subtly bewildered. Her aunt was a tall, finely formed woman, a Boadicea in bigness, her eyes a light iris-blue, her mouth small with curiously puckered lips. It was her voice, though, that mostheld Bab. In it was that note of repression, a studied indolence almost insolent, that women of her class and kind often cultivate. Idly tolerant it was rather than interested, Bab thought.There were many things that morning that she would have liked to ask about—her father, for example, his boyhood, what he'd been like, who his friends had been. All this and more! It appeared, however, that the topic held but scant interest for the Lloyds, for Lloyd the least of all. A few passing references, to be sure, were made to Bab's dead father; but in every instance these were as lacking in interest, in intimacy, as if uttered by a stranger. In her own affairs, she felt presently, their curiosity was far more robust.Lloyd, reaching out, touched a near-by button."Breakfast, Lumley," he directed, indicating Bab to the manservant who entered. Then when she had seated herself Lloyd returned to his place on the hearthrug. While Mrs. Lloyd in her dragging, wearied voice addressed herself to Bab, her husband sedulously inspected his finger nails.Curiously he seemed nervous, irritable too; but that he paid close heed to the talk Bab somehow feltsure. It did not add to her easiness. What was the matter? Why was their air so queer? Mrs. Lloyd, her manner on the surface blandly idle but her curiosity still evident, was questioning Bab about her life at Mrs. Tilney's, how she had gone there, why she had remained, when of a sudden Lloyd's increasing interest got the better of him."Look here," he remarked to Bab abruptly, "you know Varick, don't you—the chap there last night?"Know Varick? The teacup she had raised to her lips hung suspended, and for a moment she gazed over it at Lloyd, inwardly astonished at his tone."Why, yes," she replied.He shot a glance at Mrs. Lloyd."Varick's lived there a long time, too, hasn't he?" he demanded."Since last spring," answered Bab quietly."And you know him rather well, too, don't you?" persisted Lloyd.Bab put down her teacup. Her uncle's voice not only was querulous; it had in it, for some reason, a note of mocking accusation. Varick, to be sure, was acquainted with the Lloyds; but the uncle's queries had behind them, she saw, more than a meresocial interest. Nor was that all! While the man was plying her with his questions her aunt, she was conscious, was studying her with scrutinous attention. Phryne before the Areopagus could not have felt more challenged; and her wonder rising, her discomfort keeping pace with it, she was parrying her uncle's cross-examination when of a sudden there was an interruption."Good morning!" cried a cheerful voice. "Merry Christmas, everyone!"Bab, as she looked round, breathed a sigh of relief.The smiling, boyish fellow who stood there, framed for a moment in the doorway, Bab, in the months to come, was destined to know better than any man she yet had met. Her interest in him was instant. In age he was perhaps twenty-eight, and he was slight of figure, with crisp, reddish-brown hair, an animated face, and shrewd, kindly gray eyes, deep-set and expressive. Gentle, one saw he was, but in that gentleness was nothing weak, nothing effeminate. In David Lloyd—Peter Beeston's grandson—the strength, the character, that had skipped Beeston's own children again had made itselfevident. As she looked at him a swift, sudden stab of pity pierced Bab to the core. Crutches supported him. He was a hopeless cripple.He came forward swiftly, skillfully guiding himself along the treacherous hardwood floor, and his face was lighted with pleasure. "This is Bab, isn't it?" he smiled; and propping himself on the crutches, he held out a welcoming hand. Of his heartiness she saw she need have no fear; and shyly responsive, she gave him her hand. The clasp of his cool, strong fingers was singularly friendly, reassuring, too; and though the telltale color again flew its pennons in her face, this time it signaled only pleasure."Think of it!" he laughed. "A week ago I didn't even dream I had a cousin!" Then he gave her a sly, whimsical look: "Much less such a good-looking one!"Bab felt her spirits rise mercurially. He pulled out a chair and, teetering perilously for an instant on his crutches, made ready to sit down. Bab caught swiftly at her breath."Let me help!" she exclaimed, and half rose from her chair; but the cripple shook his head."Don't bother," he chuckled lightly; "I always manage somehow. There now!" he added as he lowered himself to the chair. One might have thought from it that the affliction that had maimed him for life was merely a day's disability. "Now don't mind me," he directed, "just you finish your breakfast!"His pleasant, graceful good-nature diffused about him an air of cheerfulness that seemed to lighten even the dining-room's atmosphere of gloomy dimness; and inspired by it his father and mother too awoke, joining in the talk. It was not for long though. Again in gloomy abstraction his father began to inspect his finger nails; again his mother resumed her covert scrutiny of her niece."Hello!" David all at once exclaimed. "What's the trouble?"Bab saw the father glance swiftly at Mrs. Lloyd, and as he did so she was sure her aunt made him a swift, subtle signal. It was as if she impressed silence. But if so Lloyd gave no heed."Trouble?" he echoed. "What makes you think that?" Then with a queer look he abruptly added: "What do you think—last night we saw Varick!""Bayard!" cried David. His interest was evident."Why, yes," returned his father. "He's living there in that boarding house."There was a subtle emphasis in what he said that did not escape Bab, and again her wonder rose. What was their interest in Varick? Why, too, had they looked to her to satisfy their singular curiosity? Was Varick's presence at Mrs. Tilney's more than a mere coincidence? If it were, why were they concerned? She still was cogitating, bewildered now, when out of the corner of her eye she again saw her aunt make Lloyd a guarded signal. But Lloyd merely frowned.David spoke then, his tone wondering."You say he's living where Bab was? Why, what in the world is he doing there?""That's what I'd like to know!" instantly answered his father, and again Bab marked in his tone that note of covert significance. David, however, did not seem to hear it."You don't mean Bayard's penniless?" he said hesitantly. "It can't be possible his father lost everything!"He had, it appeared; but even so that was notwhat Lloyd, Senior, had sought to convey. For a third time Bab saw him glance at Mrs. Lloyd, and in turn her aunt signaled him anew. Now, however, it was David, not Bab, whom she indicated; and Bab's wonder grew. What was it about Varick they did not wish their son to know? As before Lloyd disregarded the signal, this time turning to Bab."Come now," he said abruptly, his tone almost brusque, "how came Varick to go to that boarding house? Who took him there? I'd like to hear. You know, don't you?"Bab laid her napkin on the table and prepared to rise. Her breakfast she had not finished, but in her growing distaste of her uncle she felt she must get away. His tone now was not to be misunderstood. It was very nearly sneering, and yet what motive he had behind his persistence Bab could not fathom. Uncomfortable, irritated too, she was debating how she could avoid answering him when a second time that morning chance came to her rescue."Come!" Lloyd was prompting, when she saw her aunt stir uncomfortably."Barclay!" Mrs. Lloyd said abruptly. When her husband, not heeding her, prompted Bab anew, again she spoke, her voice now acute. "Barclay!" she said; and not even Lloyd, blundering on, could mistake her warning."What? Well, what is it?" he returned.With an almost imperceptible nod Mrs. Lloyd indicated the hall outside. There in her usual energetic manner Miss Elvira came clumping down the stairs. Attired in lace and voluminous mid-Victorian brocade, thedoyenneof the Beeston family sailed toward them, burgeoning like a full-rigged ship. And it was a ship-of-war, too, one observed, its decks cleared for action! With her eye murky, her turtle-like jaw set firmly, onward she came, and the course she set was straight toward her niece's husband."Good morning, Bab! Good morning, David!" said Miss Elvira, not looking at them, however, but straight at Lloyd, Senior. "You two go see your grandfather; he's asking for you. Hurry, now!" Then, the two in their wonder hesitating, she waved them to make haste. "Off with you now!" she ordered. Her eyes still were fixed on her niece'shusband, and Miss Elvira, one saw, was furious.Halfway up the stairs a fragment of talk reached Bab. It was Miss Elvira that spoke, and her voice was frigid."Last night I warned you to hold your tongue! The next time now it will be my brother who warns you!"To whom she said it Bab had no doubt. Lloyd's voice arose then, an unintelligible mumble. But why did that man need to be warned? What was it about Varick they were hiding? She looked at David, and he was frowning thoughtfully. Why? Bab meant to know!

As Mr. Mapleson, bubbling with anticipation, had foreseen, the city the following morning awoke to a good, old-fashioned white Christmas. At midnight the snow began to fall and, the storm thickening hour after hour, by dawn the streets were deep with it.

Her room had been darkened, the hangings at the windows tightly drawn, so that Bab, worn by the strain of the night before, slumbered on long past her usual hour for awakening. But presently a peal of chimes clanging a stave from a near-by church-steeple broke in on her, and with a start she sat upright. Dazed, drowsy-eyed, her perceptions still misty, she gazed about her in momentary wonder. Brunnehilde awakening could not more have been at a loss. Then with a throb she remembered.

Outside the chimes still pealed; the snow crept whispering on the window panes; and at the end of the street, murmuring like a sea, the muffled roar of the Avenue arose. Within the house, though,all was silent; and, her breath coming swiftly, Bab gazed about her open-eyed.

The surroundings, in contrast with her own little room at Mrs. Tilney's, were quite enough to make her stare. At the boarding house chintz of a cheap but pretty design was the fabric most in evidence. The curtains were made of it and so was the valance on Bab's little bed—that and the drapery on her dressing table. But here brocade thick and board-like formed the window hangings; the bureau cover was linen edged with Irish lace; and the bed was a vast thing of mahogany, its four posts crowned by a canopy, its coverlid of costly embroidered silk.

The other appointments were as rich. Her eyes, roaming about the room, glanced from one side of it to the other in wondering appreciation. Ivory and heavy, finely chased silver filled the dressing table; a great tilting pier glass stood beside it, and there were ornaments of porcelain and chased crystal on the mantel; while at each side of the four-poster, on the carpet's yielding pile, was spread a white fur rug, the skin of a great Polar bear. The more Bab's glances roved about, the more she marveled at themany costly evidences of wealth, of luxury that surrounded her.

And to think that this room, once her father's, was with all its wealth, the riches it conveyed, now hers! Propped up among the pillows, her diminutive figure lost in the midst of the great four-poster, Bab sat absorbed in profound reflection. It was the strangeness of it all that for the moment weighed on her spirits. The big, dim room, too, so vast and solemn, sent a shadow of loneliness creeping into her heart; and just then, on the mantel over the fireplace, the clock ticking busily there softly struck the hour. That was the finishing touch! Each stroke she counted separately. There were nine of them! With a catch in her breath, a stifled gulp, she remembered that at Mrs. Tilney's they would just be sitting down to breakfast!

Breakfast—Christmas breakfast—and Bab would not be with them! First there would be grapefruit, each like an apple of the Hesperides, a golden globe of juiciness, its edge fluted by a dexterous hand. Then would follow beefsteak, baked potatoes, coffee with real cream and, to finish, a great heaping platter of waffles of a luscious golden yellow and steaminghot. Where could food be found better than this? Where, too, would one look for more goodwill and simple kindliness, more cheerfulness and pleasure, than in that simple, homely party there gathered about Mrs. Tilney's board?

Her eyes misty, the lump thickening in her throat, Bab sat poring on that picture in her mind. In honor of the occasion Mrs. Tilney herself would be seated at the head of the table. At the opposite end would be Mr. Mapleson, his eyes snapping with excitement and merriment, his shy, frosty little giggle sounding at every turn. For Christmas was a great day with the little man! The night before he had been up until all hours trimming a tree in the parlor. The tree was for all. No one, not even the newest boarder, would be forgotten.

"Understand," Mr. Mapleson would say, "we all can't have a home—not our own maybe; but we all can have Christmas, can't we?"

Even Mary Mangin, the kitchen behemoth, would be bidden in. Her arms akimbo, a mountainous monument of tittering embarrassment, she would be escorted to the tree by Mr. Mapleson himself. Then with a great to-do the little man would squirrelfussily among the many packages, hunting the required one. "Ha! here we have it!" he would finally exclaim. "Miss Maria Mangin, with Merry Christmas from Kris Kringle!" Whereat Mary Mangin, with a seismic convulsion shaking her from pediment to dome, would totter to the nearest sofa and, to the peril of that piece, crash down upon it, exclaiming the while in Mr. Mapleson's behalf: "Th' fairies be good to ye! Th' fairies be good to ye!" Then, when all the others had had their presents, and he had made sure no one had been overlooked, the little man would sit down in a corner and, his eyes gleaming, his hands trembling eagerly, would open the parcels that held the presents for himself.

What a time then! What chirps! What giggles! What laughter and merriment! "Just what I wanted!" "Why, the very thing!" "Who told you I needed that?" "Why, Mrs. Jessup!" he cried once. "How did you ever dream——" The sentence never was finished. "Here, give me that; it's for Bab!" Mrs. Jessup cried scandalized; and she snatched from the little man the pink silk hairpin case which he'd been delightedly accepting. One present, however, Mr. Mapleson always reserved to the last, carefullylaying it aside until all the others had been opened. Then, his eyes glowing with soft brightness, and his deft, slender fingers prying skillfully, he would make haste, but gently, to undo its ribbons and its wrappings. But first, before he came to the present, he would find a little card with a border of bright green and red Christmas holly:

For Mr. Mapy,

With love and Merry Xmas,

From Bab!

"H'm!" Mr. Mapleson would say, and he would violently blow his nose. "H'm!"

Then—— The picture faded, blurring suddenly, and with a stifled sob Bab turned and buried her head swiftly among the pillows of the big four-poster. Mr. Mapy this morning would not have his present. It lay forgotten in a drawer of her bureau at Mrs. Tilney's.

Poor Mr. Mapleson! She lay for a while thinking of the little man and of all his tenderness for her; and presently out of that thought, a feeling of comfort cheered her. Mr. Mapy would understand. He always did. He would know she did not reallyforget him. It was only because everything had been so sudden, so amazing. Her spirits climbing, she again sat up among the pillows and, with a growing excitement gently stimulating her, once more glanced about her in the big, dim room.

She was still sitting there, her mind alive with a hundred thoughts, when there was a tap at the door, then a maid stole in. The servant, a tall, angular Englishwoman with a stony, imperturbable face, went to the windows and began throwing back the hangings.

"Begging pardon, it's nine o'clock, my lady, and snowing. Mrs. Lloyd asks if you will see her shortly."

"Mrs. Lloyd?"

"Yes, miss. She and Mr. Lloyd are motoring out to Long Island for luncheon."

Then Bab remembered. Mrs. Lloyd was the aunt she had not yet seen. How kind of her to think so soon of her new niece. Surely Bab would go down to see her, and at once.

"And if you please, miss," the maid announced, "a box of flowers was left for you this morning. Will you have it now?"

"Flowers?"

Even under the Englishwoman's cold, impassive stare she could not restrain the exclamation. Who could have sent her flowers, Christmas flowers? A moment later the maid handed her the long pasteboard box, then she withdrew. With rounding eyes Bab lifted off the box cover.

"Oh, you darlings!" she whispered.

A great sheaf of cut flowers lay within. There were roses, pale Gloire de Dijons; there were lilies of the valley, mignonette, and hyacinths—these and lacelike sprays of maidenhair fern. Never before had she seen a box like this, much less had it sent to her; and lifting out the cluster of fragrant, delicately tinted roses she pressed them to her face, reveling in their beauty.

"Oh, you darlings!"

Then the card lying in the box caught her eye:

For Bab, with a Merry Christmasand much love from her new cousin,

David Lloyd

Her heart beat quickly, and she was conscious that a faint color burned in her cheeks as she read the writing, penned in a delicate, well-bred hand.She knew of David Lloyd. He was the cripple boy—the man rather—she had asked Varick about; and as she read anew his kindly, pleasant greeting her heart warmed instinctively to her new-found relative.

How good it all seemed! How wonderful it was! Not even in her wildest imagination had she dreamed it was to be like this! To think she not only had found her kin, but that they should prove so kind! She did not care now who saw how her eyes were glistening. She could have sung aloud of her happiness.

"Your bath is drawn, miss," Mawson, the impassive Englishwoman, announced, and resigning the flowers to her, Bab arose. As she dressed, it became evident that if Bab and the world at large had been astonished at the sudden change in her fortunes, Miss Elvira had not. Manifestly that able lady not only must have known for days what was to be expected, she also had prepared for it. Many little luxuries she had laid in to make Bab comfortable; and as Mawson brought them out, one by one, Bab felt her heart beat swifter, then more swiftly still. If only Mr. Mapy could have beenthere! If only he and she could have joined hands once to dance round, to rejoice! Mawson, imperturbable, bony-faced, was about as good company as a gryphon! However, not even Mawson's stoniness could quite repress all her feeling of wonder-growing joy. She was too young, too unspoiled and unaffected, to lose the bloom of it, and as she hurried to finish dressing her face was radiant.

Her first duty, as she hurried down the stairs, was to tap at her grandfather's door. The trained nurse answered, and as she saw who had knocked she beamed pleasantly. The patient, it appeared, was much brighter. He had already asked for Bab. She was to see him at noon; and, thanking the young woman, Bab hurried on. She must not keep the Lloyds!

The dining-room, like the other rooms in that vast house, was itself vast—a great, dimly lighted apartment where the decorations, all of the richest sort, were a legacy of that morose, astonishing era of bad taste, the late Victorian period. Quartered oak and an embossed bronze wall-paper vied with each other in gloominess; while the sideboard, the table and the chairs, in the style of the early eighties,wore a corresponding air of stodgy, solid richness and melancholy. This effect, too, was heightened by the pictures on the wall, all valuable and each, of course, a still life—the usual fish, the inevitable platter of grapes and oranges, the perpetual overturned basket of flowers. A group of sheep by Verboeckhoven, typically woolly, completed the display.

As Bab, her heart doing a little tattoo in anticipation, passed along the hall, she saw that her aunt and uncle had left the table and were standing on the rug before the fire, their heads together, and talking earnestly. A morning coat, Piccadilly striped trousers and tan spats at the moment attired Mr. Lloyd; but one had but to glance once at the pale, myopic, blasé gentleman to guess that presently he would retire to change, his man helping him, into clothes more suitable for motoring—a lounge suit of tweeds, say, or homespun. Bab, smiling shyly, was just entering the dining-room when Lloyd looked up. Instantly she saw him start. She was certain, too, she heard him whisper swiftly a warning: "Look out!" Then, turning away, Lloyd fell to twirling idly his pale, limp mustaches.

That they were talking about her was manifest. That what they said was not meant for her to hear also was manifest. For an instant she faltered. She felt her color self-consciously betrayed her.

"Oh, here you are!" Lloyd exclaimed in his inconsequent, singsong voice. "We've been waiting for you, you know!"

His voice was pleasant enough, though at the same time he smiled. Subconsciously, if not directly though, Bab began to divine a hint of antagonism in the man. Evidently for some reason he had not as yet accepted her as Miss Elvira had, as his son, too, had accepted her—that is, if the message with the flowers meant anything. However, having greeted him, she turned shyly to her aunt. While waiting Mrs. Lloyd had been frankly studying her.

"So this is our new relative, is it?" she remarked. Afterward she briefly held out a hand. She did not offer to kiss her niece.

Bab felt subtly bewildered. Her aunt was a tall, finely formed woman, a Boadicea in bigness, her eyes a light iris-blue, her mouth small with curiously puckered lips. It was her voice, though, that mostheld Bab. In it was that note of repression, a studied indolence almost insolent, that women of her class and kind often cultivate. Idly tolerant it was rather than interested, Bab thought.

There were many things that morning that she would have liked to ask about—her father, for example, his boyhood, what he'd been like, who his friends had been. All this and more! It appeared, however, that the topic held but scant interest for the Lloyds, for Lloyd the least of all. A few passing references, to be sure, were made to Bab's dead father; but in every instance these were as lacking in interest, in intimacy, as if uttered by a stranger. In her own affairs, she felt presently, their curiosity was far more robust.

Lloyd, reaching out, touched a near-by button.

"Breakfast, Lumley," he directed, indicating Bab to the manservant who entered. Then when she had seated herself Lloyd returned to his place on the hearthrug. While Mrs. Lloyd in her dragging, wearied voice addressed herself to Bab, her husband sedulously inspected his finger nails.

Curiously he seemed nervous, irritable too; but that he paid close heed to the talk Bab somehow feltsure. It did not add to her easiness. What was the matter? Why was their air so queer? Mrs. Lloyd, her manner on the surface blandly idle but her curiosity still evident, was questioning Bab about her life at Mrs. Tilney's, how she had gone there, why she had remained, when of a sudden Lloyd's increasing interest got the better of him.

"Look here," he remarked to Bab abruptly, "you know Varick, don't you—the chap there last night?"

Know Varick? The teacup she had raised to her lips hung suspended, and for a moment she gazed over it at Lloyd, inwardly astonished at his tone.

"Why, yes," she replied.

He shot a glance at Mrs. Lloyd.

"Varick's lived there a long time, too, hasn't he?" he demanded.

"Since last spring," answered Bab quietly.

"And you know him rather well, too, don't you?" persisted Lloyd.

Bab put down her teacup. Her uncle's voice not only was querulous; it had in it, for some reason, a note of mocking accusation. Varick, to be sure, was acquainted with the Lloyds; but the uncle's queries had behind them, she saw, more than a meresocial interest. Nor was that all! While the man was plying her with his questions her aunt, she was conscious, was studying her with scrutinous attention. Phryne before the Areopagus could not have felt more challenged; and her wonder rising, her discomfort keeping pace with it, she was parrying her uncle's cross-examination when of a sudden there was an interruption.

"Good morning!" cried a cheerful voice. "Merry Christmas, everyone!"

Bab, as she looked round, breathed a sigh of relief.

The smiling, boyish fellow who stood there, framed for a moment in the doorway, Bab, in the months to come, was destined to know better than any man she yet had met. Her interest in him was instant. In age he was perhaps twenty-eight, and he was slight of figure, with crisp, reddish-brown hair, an animated face, and shrewd, kindly gray eyes, deep-set and expressive. Gentle, one saw he was, but in that gentleness was nothing weak, nothing effeminate. In David Lloyd—Peter Beeston's grandson—the strength, the character, that had skipped Beeston's own children again had made itselfevident. As she looked at him a swift, sudden stab of pity pierced Bab to the core. Crutches supported him. He was a hopeless cripple.

He came forward swiftly, skillfully guiding himself along the treacherous hardwood floor, and his face was lighted with pleasure. "This is Bab, isn't it?" he smiled; and propping himself on the crutches, he held out a welcoming hand. Of his heartiness she saw she need have no fear; and shyly responsive, she gave him her hand. The clasp of his cool, strong fingers was singularly friendly, reassuring, too; and though the telltale color again flew its pennons in her face, this time it signaled only pleasure.

"Think of it!" he laughed. "A week ago I didn't even dream I had a cousin!" Then he gave her a sly, whimsical look: "Much less such a good-looking one!"

Bab felt her spirits rise mercurially. He pulled out a chair and, teetering perilously for an instant on his crutches, made ready to sit down. Bab caught swiftly at her breath.

"Let me help!" she exclaimed, and half rose from her chair; but the cripple shook his head.

"Don't bother," he chuckled lightly; "I always manage somehow. There now!" he added as he lowered himself to the chair. One might have thought from it that the affliction that had maimed him for life was merely a day's disability. "Now don't mind me," he directed, "just you finish your breakfast!"

His pleasant, graceful good-nature diffused about him an air of cheerfulness that seemed to lighten even the dining-room's atmosphere of gloomy dimness; and inspired by it his father and mother too awoke, joining in the talk. It was not for long though. Again in gloomy abstraction his father began to inspect his finger nails; again his mother resumed her covert scrutiny of her niece.

"Hello!" David all at once exclaimed. "What's the trouble?"

Bab saw the father glance swiftly at Mrs. Lloyd, and as he did so she was sure her aunt made him a swift, subtle signal. It was as if she impressed silence. But if so Lloyd gave no heed.

"Trouble?" he echoed. "What makes you think that?" Then with a queer look he abruptly added: "What do you think—last night we saw Varick!"

"Bayard!" cried David. His interest was evident.

"Why, yes," returned his father. "He's living there in that boarding house."

There was a subtle emphasis in what he said that did not escape Bab, and again her wonder rose. What was their interest in Varick? Why, too, had they looked to her to satisfy their singular curiosity? Was Varick's presence at Mrs. Tilney's more than a mere coincidence? If it were, why were they concerned? She still was cogitating, bewildered now, when out of the corner of her eye she again saw her aunt make Lloyd a guarded signal. But Lloyd merely frowned.

David spoke then, his tone wondering.

"You say he's living where Bab was? Why, what in the world is he doing there?"

"That's what I'd like to know!" instantly answered his father, and again Bab marked in his tone that note of covert significance. David, however, did not seem to hear it.

"You don't mean Bayard's penniless?" he said hesitantly. "It can't be possible his father lost everything!"

He had, it appeared; but even so that was notwhat Lloyd, Senior, had sought to convey. For a third time Bab saw him glance at Mrs. Lloyd, and in turn her aunt signaled him anew. Now, however, it was David, not Bab, whom she indicated; and Bab's wonder grew. What was it about Varick they did not wish their son to know? As before Lloyd disregarded the signal, this time turning to Bab.

"Come now," he said abruptly, his tone almost brusque, "how came Varick to go to that boarding house? Who took him there? I'd like to hear. You know, don't you?"

Bab laid her napkin on the table and prepared to rise. Her breakfast she had not finished, but in her growing distaste of her uncle she felt she must get away. His tone now was not to be misunderstood. It was very nearly sneering, and yet what motive he had behind his persistence Bab could not fathom. Uncomfortable, irritated too, she was debating how she could avoid answering him when a second time that morning chance came to her rescue.

"Come!" Lloyd was prompting, when she saw her aunt stir uncomfortably.

"Barclay!" Mrs. Lloyd said abruptly. When her husband, not heeding her, prompted Bab anew, again she spoke, her voice now acute. "Barclay!" she said; and not even Lloyd, blundering on, could mistake her warning.

"What? Well, what is it?" he returned.

With an almost imperceptible nod Mrs. Lloyd indicated the hall outside. There in her usual energetic manner Miss Elvira came clumping down the stairs. Attired in lace and voluminous mid-Victorian brocade, thedoyenneof the Beeston family sailed toward them, burgeoning like a full-rigged ship. And it was a ship-of-war, too, one observed, its decks cleared for action! With her eye murky, her turtle-like jaw set firmly, onward she came, and the course she set was straight toward her niece's husband.

"Good morning, Bab! Good morning, David!" said Miss Elvira, not looking at them, however, but straight at Lloyd, Senior. "You two go see your grandfather; he's asking for you. Hurry, now!" Then, the two in their wonder hesitating, she waved them to make haste. "Off with you now!" she ordered. Her eyes still were fixed on her niece'shusband, and Miss Elvira, one saw, was furious.

Halfway up the stairs a fragment of talk reached Bab. It was Miss Elvira that spoke, and her voice was frigid.

"Last night I warned you to hold your tongue! The next time now it will be my brother who warns you!"

To whom she said it Bab had no doubt. Lloyd's voice arose then, an unintelligible mumble. But why did that man need to be warned? What was it about Varick they were hiding? She looked at David, and he was frowning thoughtfully. Why? Bab meant to know!

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