White Motley

Switzerland where none might discover her. She was very much astonished and not a little dismayed to di

er to his own table. There she speedily began to reign to the satisfaction of a little coterie of the elect. If she, in her turn, shrank from the greatness thus thrust u

bing it. Her diamonds were undoubtedly magnificent. Obviously a woman of fashion and of the world, she racked the animosities of prim misses from the suburbs and positively exasperated their mammas. These were of the "blouse" ord

an poet would have likened to a "rosebud," and hair so fine and silky and bewitching in its play of browns that another woman would have been tempted to ask immediately for the name of the hairdresser who supplied it. Her nose was retroussé and just a little flat; her forehead spok

. But despite their knowledge, the usual conversation was eschewed altogether, and they discussed neither the magnificence of the latest production at His Majesty's, nor the fashion

erson, Lady Coral-Smith-her husband made his money out of red herrings, and we shall have to draw one across the scent. All this kind of thing

uting. "It is only the consciousness of intellectual inferiority which can say su

ally, "she covers me with scorn and then dies for m

that such a person as Dr. Orange lived, they will say that he was my doctor.

ing phantom, who had scared the peasants out of their wits and had actually appeared to a party coming down from Vermala at midnight. Miss Bessie told the st

s a dear, and he thinks he's swimming when he waltzes. He went up to Vermala to dinner the other night and saw the ghost as he came down. It's a great big black bird and makes a noise like a windmill. Dr. Orange says that it is troubled by asthma, but Mr. Benny says that its bones want greasing. He is an engineer, you know. He told me so yesterday. He is an engineer in principle, but in pra

ed like a Grecian shepherdess, with little white daisies all over her gown, came nodding and smiling to the table and began to hand out various ridiculous presents to the winners in question. Of these, the most conspicuous

trifle more condescending at this stage, and declared it to be a pity that these accomplished young ladies had not to get their living a

hem is sure of a hundred or more objets d'art-to say nothing of virtue-a

rry them both?" Mi

en youth

pose. I shouldn't know one

to know the on

about it: 'The Bride Who Wasn't,' or somethi

s. Why, of course, we won the doubles together.

nded her appearance-and obviously a great popular favourite. When she had received one Teddy Bear upon skis from

have coffee at Vermala. If the ghost does not appear for me, he

the ladies think. Is

ight night, and they would come down on luges. It was the very thing to do: and as the amiable doctor said emphatically, so very much be

ut it, blowing the "Merry Widow" into three keys in the ball-room upstairs. Rather, the guests turned with expectant interest to the exquisite scene without, the snow plateau gleaming in the moonlight, the mellow radiance of the heights, the silent moonlit woods. Few of the men had dressed for dinner, and

enjoying a tête-à-tête with Kavanagh, and mounting slowly with him toward the heights. She had hoped that the old parson would have espied her and made one of the party; but he was playing bridge with a trio of matrons when she

the woods-what purpose could they serve so well as that of an amiable and meaningless flirtation with a pretty woman, who was already the well-desired of the whole community? Kavanagh had been greatly smitten at dinner, though his silence might not have been so inter

the nice people sort themselves, though. Why, I saw you before you got out of your sleigh, and I said, 'Thank Heaven.' We wanted reinforcements, and you came just in time. Kennaird's a name I couldn't he

hid the blush upon her cheek when she spoke. Oblivious of

of his legs round his neck and the other at the bottom of a crevasse. All right at twenty-one, perhaps; but I'm no chicken, and I don't like to make a fool of myself for nothing. If you skate, we might have some good times here-and we can always go down the Vermala run in the afternoon-or at night if you like. I call it top notch at night, and you'll do the

e cast with him. Possibly he was the only Yorkshireman in all the company, and fate had thus thrown them together at the very beginning. And with this thought there was just another, passing as a flash upon the white ground of memory, of one whos

question served to turn the dangerous talk. Kavanagh answer

climbed about a thousand feet since we started. You'd never think it, would you; and doesn't the old show look ju

he infinite variety of their matchless tracery. Below them Andana lay like an oasis of light upon a bleak hillside. Great arc-lamps waned and waxed upon the narrow road by the skating rink and again downwards toward the village. The hotel itself blazed with radiance and suggested the antithe

plodding upward to the heights. In sharp contrast to this leisure of the climb would come the swift descent of a luge towards Andana, the loud cry, "Achtung!" the passing of the prone figure, and the lantern jolting at every rut. These cries became more frequent as the climbers neared Vermala. Some of the toboggans were bed

a upon "Our Miss Gibbs," arranged as a sonata in the fashion of Schubert. Everyone took coffee, and the ladies sipped crême de menthe under protest. The ghost received less attention than he merited-and when the best part of the company trooped out to look for him, and did not find him, not a few took advantage of the opp

ows; and if the mountains had any message for her, the silent woods their consolation, it was that forgetfulness might be won, and upon forgetfulness, peace. Let t

n he offered her the luge he had dragged up from Andana and showed her what

it was the easiest t

I'd better get on ahead, for I shall be faster. I'll wait at the path where we go down to th

ed to obey his interjectory instructions. But the dazzle and glory of the thing seemed less when she had started, and she reflected with irony that she could have walked much faster. Then the luge was so uncomfortable; just a few bars of wood, a cushion and two steel runners. And "the thing" would go up the banks in the most shameless way-first to the right, then to the left, now half round, now frighteni

ved so shabbily, and it had become a burden to her. Trying to set it going again, she ran a little way and lost hold of it; and then, as a horse which has lost its rider in a steeple-chase, it went on gaily, rounding the corners upon its own account, and disappearing as her guide and philosopher had done. She was quite alone now, and very pleased to be so-at least, she thought s

at you? Well, I'm Ben

st out

known him could forget