Martie, the Unconquered

ard school in which she had been stumbling and blundering so long; s

ing car. The waiter was solicitous; would the lady have just a salad? No, said the lady, she did not feel hungry. She and Teddy

heart swelling with a wonderful peace. Everybody liked Teddy, and Teddy's touching happiness at being alone with his

n to lemonades every afternoon, and when they reached Chicago, hot and sunshiny at last, she and Teddy spent the day loitering through a big department store. Here Teddy was given a Boy

, were smoke-stained brick factories, and little canals and backwaters soiled with oil and soot, and heaps of slag and scrap iron and clinkers. Then villages swept by

and steadier as the early evening deepened. Up against the first early stars the li

wds of shoppers, to the Bronx teeming with tiny shops and swung with the signs of a thousand apartments to let. The hotels, with their uniformed starters, the middle Forties, with their theatri

er eyes. She pressed her face eagerly

with all the children playing; do you remembe

tric storm!" said Teddy, finding the old phra

ther. A thought smote her, and she paused with suddenly colouring cheeks. This might

ted that Monroe be given a hint that business had taken Mrs. Bannister suddenly eastward. It would be a nine days' wonder; in six months Monroe would only vaguely remember it. Gossips might suspect the truth: they would never know it. Clifford himself, in another year, would be placidly implying that there never had been anything in the rumour of an engagement. Rose would dimple and shake her head; Martie was always just a little ODD. Lydia

, ye wouldn't jump the traces like

simple, and you aren't narrow! You've grown older the way I want to, just smiling and listening. And you know more in your little fi

to be dead before he can stand for a thing like this!

positively. "But if ever

pasted on the window; Martie felt a real thrill of affection for the place as she went in. After a while

o rich to come here, Ted!"

ts; heard the shrill trill of the crossing policeman's whistle again; caught a glimpse o

inutive quarters for housekeeping; be comfortable either way. If they kept house, some kindly old woman would be found to give Teddy bread and butter when he came in from school. And on hot summer Sundays she and Teddy would pack their lunch, and make an early start for the beach; theoretically, it would be an odd life for the

ow. There would be visits to country cottages; there would be winter dinners, down on the Square. And some day, perhaps, she would h

woman should be offered, too. She had suffered bitterly; she might live to be an old, old woman, but she knew that the sight of a fluffy-headed girl baby must alw

uld have been proud to offer her a home. Miss Fanny was missing her now; a dozen persons idling into the Library in sleepy lit

t his assistant was as encouraging as

of fun; but it's not that. She's got a sort of PUSH to her; you'll like her. I bet she'll be

itor said. Her card was h

She radiated confidence and power. He had hoped for something like this from her letters; she was better t

levant talk, Martie thought it, for it was principally of her personal history and his own. Then a ste

ided into his mother's lap. Then the three had another half-hour's ta

all sides. Martie was glad she had on her wedding suit, and the new hat that had been in a department store on Sixth Avenue yesterday afternoon. Mr. Trowbridge called M

s articles to change, or cut, or adapt. Also our Miss Briggs, in the 'My Own Money Club,' needs help.

'm worth all that money," she added, "for it doesn't seem to me that anybody in the world really EARNS as much as twe

was. Oh, how she would work, how she would work! She would get down to the office first of all; she would wear the trimmest suits; she would never be cross, never be tired, never rebel at the most flagrant imposition! S

ntroduced as the assistant editor. Coolly dressed, dainty and calm, she had not suggested that the struggle was

e keynote to her new philosophy. "MEN don't worry and fidget about keeping their jobs, and I'M not going to. I'm just as necessary

had children younger and older than Teddy, and well-disposed toward Teddy, and it was only half a block from the Park. At first Mrs. Gilfogle said she would charge nothing at all for the child; a final price for the two was placed at fifteen dollars a week. Martie suspected t

f furniture in, God rest him. I didn't know would I ever pay for it at all, with Joe here at the breast, and Annie only walking. But I've ha

suddenly reminded, she thought that she would take

ntal delight was only a part of her new experience. Mrs. Converse wanted her to settle down with Teddy in her old ro

ed, but she never married again,

't marry her

oman who could spoil the lives of two good men? Somebody told Doctor that the doct

me in the telephone book, anyway, and perhaps chance an anonymous t

. Martie was in a department store, Teddy beside her, when a woman came smiling up to her, and laid a hand on her arm. She recognized a changed Adele. The bea

le, "this is my si

bridge player, and a most successful hostess and guest at women's hilarious lunch-eons, looked at the stranger truculently. She was a tightly corseted woman, with prominent teeth, and a goo

she looks like death. How do, dear?" she added to Teddy. "Are you mama's boy? I don't live in New York like you do;

was asking. "We haven't. I was ke

he was free even to sit down with a woman whose name was under a cloud. They all crowded

f. To sit with the wife of a Mystic Shriner, and the woman who had done what Adele had done, and whose

s a fool, Martie, but don't men do that sort of thing all the time, and get over it? Why should us women pay all the time? You know

santer than her words. "He must have been a skunk, if you ask me. Adele here was wrong, Mrs.

Adele drawled, playing with her

rmly as Martie murmured her sympathy, "and I says to Adele, throw the whole crowd of them down. Billy Baker and I have plenty, and my daughter-Ruby, she's a lovely girl and she's married an elegant feller whose people own about all the lumber interests in our part of the coun

r. Cooper?" Martie fe

viciously. "And good enough for him, too! His wife won't even se

" Adele said, widening her eyes

er, the novelist," Martie answered co

was playing with her bracelets now, a

e's a fellow out our way, Joe Chase; he's got a cattle ranch. You never heard of him? He's a di'mond in the rough, i

ness winters!" Adele said, wit

zle and distress him in his ranch-house; she would Fret and exact and complain. Probably one of the Swedish farmers thereabout could give him a daughter who would make him an infinit

u!" She came close to Martie, her faded, bitter little face flushing suddenly. "Now this Mrs. Cooper," she said in a low tone, "her father was a shoe manufacturer, and left her half a million dollars. O

ine pang of sympathy for the unhappy little creature whose o

and then!" s

and Mrs. Baker kissed her, too. Martie went away smiling; o

ourse were tangled enough to make living a blind business at best, and she had deliberately tangled the web that held them even more deeply than life had done. Befor

han work and companionship, youth and health, and Teddy. Every day w

oint with pride? Deep in her singing heart she suspected that it was true. How it was to come about she could only guess. By her pen, of course. By some short story suddenly in

shaded reading lamp, Martie reviewed them, for herself, and for Sally. She and Sally had thought of Dr. Ben as only an am

she was sitting here poised, established, needed at last. She saw her life to-night as a long road, climbing steadily up from the fields and valleys, mounting, sometimes in storm

know the joy of perfected expression, the fulfillment of the height. She dedicated herself solemnly, joyfully, to the claim of the years ahe

E