The Rich Mrs. Burgoyne

g wore on, he seemed in no hurry to depart. Sidney was delighted to see him really in his element with the Von Praags, father and son, the awake

ress and the gravity of his handsome face had made him seem almost a stranger, but this wore off, and afte

e tired, but pleased with her dinner and her guests, and ready for a breath of the sweet summer night before going upstairs, was confused by having her heart suddenly begin to thump again. She looked at Barry, his figure lost in the shadow, only his face dimly

dark mass of tree-tops that almost hid the town, an

t,' you know. I loved gowns and parties then, as I hope the girls will some day; but I knew all the while it wasn't living." She paused, but Barry did not speak. "And, then, before I was twenty, I was married," Sidney went on presently, "and we started off for St. Petersburg. And after that, for years and years, I posed for dressmakers; I went the round of jewelers, and milliners, and manicures; I wrote notes and paid calls. I let one strange woman come in every day and wash my hands for me, and another wash my hair, and a third dress me! I let men-who were in the busine

me," Barry said; "now y

ying. My father and I visited him about two years ago, and one day when he and I were taking a tramp, I suddenly burst out that I envied him. I wanted to live in an olive garden, too, and wear faded blue clothes, and eat grapes, and tramp about the hills. He said very simply that he had worked for twenty years to do it. 'You see, I'm a rich man,' he said, 'and it seems that one must be rich in this world before one dare be poor from choice. I couldn't d

u, Sid?" Barry questioned. "Wouldn'

er, and women in full dress, and men with orders. Of course I was very new to it all, but he liked to spoil me, draw me out. If it hadn't been for his accident, I never would have grown up at all, I dare say. As it was, I was more like his mother. We went to Washington for the season, New Y

rwards," she said presently, "there was Father. And Father neve

it is. I've been thinking about that clubhouse plan of yours; I wish to the Lord that we could do something for those poor kids over there. You're right. Those girls have rotten homes. The whole family gathers in the parlor right after dinner. Pa takes his shoes o

g a step above him, Sidney's ardent face was very c

d laugh. "I was going to cut that sort of thing out," he said gruffly, "but all roads lead to Rome, it

iendship means something to me, too? I don't like you to talk as if I did all the giving and you all the taking. I don't know how the girls and I would get along

e left the sentence unfinished, and began again: "You have a hundred men friends; you can't realize what you mean to me. You-but you know what you are, a

breathlessly, but

all that, your money and my poverty, your life and my life, everything that puts you as far above me as the moon and stars; say that I c

e upon her heart as unconsciously as a hurt child, and the

ffort, "have I been mistaken in t

ge, you know; her mother advised it, and she-just left me. We were in New York, then; Bill was a little shaver; I was having a hard time with a new job. It was an awful time! After a few months I brought Bill back here-he wasn't very well-and then I found that everyone thought Hetty was dead. Then her mother wrote me, and said that Hetty had taken a stage-name, and

honest, how unaffected she was, to stand so, making no attempt to disguise the confusion in her own mind. For a long time there was no sound but the vague s

d at length. "I'm sorry. I am

lunged into the dark avenue without a backward look. Sidney turned