Miss Gibbie Gault

of white pique, drew the large wing chair close to the open window and sat down in it. Over her gown she had put on a mandarin coat bou

ck, sent a thread of pale light upon the golden dragons on the coat, flashed on the slippers, and was lost in the darkness under

where you will you can't get rid of it. Spook

agrance of lilacs and crepe-myrtle, of bleeding-heart and wall-flower, of cow-slips and candy-tuft, and as they

care as you care; too old to take up what you've turne

art, and of a life it's usually useless, but it is all I have left, and I'll be jammed if I don't do so

are made to march or crawl through life on the edge of a precipice from which at any moment we may be knocked over. And we're told we should believe the experience is a privilege!" Both hands were lifted. "A privilege! Mary thinks it is, thinks parts of it ve

cared so much! Who doesn't care when they are young and wonderful things are ahead? Who does

Mary Cary do with you what she will! Well, suppose I am?" The keen gray eyes opened with a snap, and without warning stinging tears sprang in them. "Suppose I am? I've been a selfish old fool and shut out the only thing worth the having in life, and do you think now it's given me I am going to turn my back o

sper me and I'll pray you' is the prayer of many. 'Keep evil from me; hold death back; take care of me, and I'll build a new church, send out a missionary, give my tenth and over! Don't hurt me, and I'll be good!' Who doesn't pray like that some time or other in life? Well, you came near doing it yourself. Propitiation is an instinct, and money is al

cheeks none too gently, then opened her h

hose business is it? People may talk about her as much as they please, but they sha'n't feel sorry for her!" She threw her handkerchief on the table. "What idiots we are to go masquerading thro

ight go down easily with some, and over theirs I might not blink, but-Well, a pill is a pill; facts are facts, and old age is old age. The thing is to face what is, shake your fist at it if necessary, but never meet it, if disagreea

ere repeated, and from the mantel behind her the hour chimed softly. She closed her eyes. "Twelve o'clock! Time for ladies of my age

n by her prosaic mother? She was seven when her mother died, but she barely remembered her, and had she lived they would hardly have been great friends. Her mother's pride was in pickles and preserves and brandy peaches; in parties where the table groaned, the s

aine's, in English a sonnet of Shelley or extracts from Shakespeare's plays, and then letting her dance the heel-and-toe shuffle taught her secretly by the darkies on the place. What a selfish little pig she had been allowed to be! How selfish both of them had been! Their books a passion, travel their

e awakening of her womanhood and the mockery of life had come t

afella roses just under the window which the wind had brought; and her arms, interlocked, were pressed closer to her breast.

t her people, and never must she marry him, she told herself. On a visit North she had met him, and it was a whim of fate that he should be captain of one of the companies taking possession of Yorkburg, with headquarters in the Roy house, next to her own. A whim of fate! Friend and foe they met daily, and battle was never waged more hotly than was theirs. On his p

s eyes blankness. And on her knees by his bed she had twisted in an agony of prayer that for one moment, but one moment, light might c

of a mere body in the ground, but the burying of all youth has the right to ask of life. Out of the future were gone for her the dreams of girlhood and a woman's hopes.

ere they would, but always were back for the month of June; and no one remembered that the twenty-first was the date of Colleen McMast

s happy content, she had gone back to London and reopened the house which had become known for her sharp wit, her freedom of speech, and her disregard of

th elbows on its sill and chin on her crossed han

hypocrisies of life interested you immensely, didn't they? Take the truth out and face it. You tell other people the truth-tell it to yourself. A selfish old pig, that's what you were, and thinking yourself clever all the while. Clever! And why? Because all your life you have been a student of history, of human happenings, and of man's behavior to his fellow-man, and particularly to woman, you thought you knew life, didn't you? You didn't! Because you were an evolutionist and recognized Nature

most as hard on the people about you as the 'ego-itis' of to-day. Pity people can'

ge of Chenonceaux, at the Inn of Le Bon Laboureur. Her friend, Miss Rawley, of Edinborough, was with her. They were taking their coffee outdoors at a table placed where they could best get the breeze and see the roses climbing over the lattice-work of the lit

some bit, and all in a net-all! And to think of the way I was taken by the shoulders and turned around! Made to see all I'd been doing was squinting at life with my nose turned up. Just that! Because I had seen the just man perish in his righteousness, and the wicked prosper in

ed them. A man and his wife, two children, a nurse, and a young girl, twenty, perhaps. Something about her, something of glow and vividness and warmth, held her, and a faint memory was stir

! Oh, Aunt Katherine, i

ie, I'm so glad to see you! /I'm so glad!/ I'm Mary Cary who used to live in Yorkburg. You don't mind my kissing you, do you

you've been living in since. Somebody was really glad to see you. It

ented on Mary's views. In that at least she had learned to hold her tongue. But it did not matter. They were here in Yorkburg, lives closely interknit, and here, in the home in wh

Laboureur she invited her to be her guest in a trip around the world. The invitation was blunt. She had long wanted to take this trip, had long been looking for the proper companion. She

visit to Michigan first, long talks with her uncle and aunt, and then whatever she was to do in life was to be done in Yorkburg. There was a little money, something her uncle had invested for her when she first went to live with him, until she decided on some sort of w

g, Gibbie Gault! Back to shabby, sleepy, satisfied old Yorkburg! Well, you're here! Mary Cary made you come. She loves it, always wanting to do something for it; helping every broken-down old thing in it; laughing at its funny ways, and keeping straight along in

she sat upright; then, at a noise behind,

has turned almost cold, and raining hard, and here you are sitting by an open window!" She felt t

the mandarin coat with its golden dragons, and kicked h

et me cover you up! Are you

now bending over and tucking the covering round her warm an

er and kissed her. "Good-night! Don't get up to breakfast. I'll see you during the day." With a swift movement she

, she's all I've got. I'm an ol