The Grafters

at the house in the Back Bay sub-district. Elinor was busy packing for the migration, but she left Penelope and the maid to cope with the prob

she begged. "There

eupon Elinor smoothed the two small wrinkles of impatience out of her brow, tu

inheritor of the Ormsby millions, was pacing back and forth befor

dog friend," he protested reproachfully. "

e owed him an explanation, but just now she

n't know?" she retorted. "

hrough the society column. I didn't see the paper. Dyckman brought me word last night at V

e said. "But you are here, and in good

time to do your errands for yo

nd failing James, there is a very dependable young woman at the head of th

I or do I not recollect a dark night on the German frontier when she was glad enough to call o

especially kind of you

ch the clean-cut, square-set jaw and the athletic figure were th

s flinty and adamantine, and that s

laug

nt out some time ago, didn't sh

e myself believe other things about you. Don

should. But I have had to be the

e this morning to save you some of them; to take the man's part in your outsetting, or as much of it as

with a faint gesture

friends; as good friends as we were before that evening at Bar Harbor. I told yo

her with na

ke to know what door of your heart it

ing and took refuge i

e beginnings, I shall go back, als

her, the mask lifted and the mast

good, you know. I

l and the

place out West-wherever it i

decisively; "

hy

ught to be suff

good-naturedly. "Shall I tell you why you don

ot," sh

no reason why you should continue to make me unha

ool gray that take on slate-blue tints

ction," she said coldly. "Mother and P

laughed. "Never mind; I'll be decent about it

little gesture of p

e in a false position. Can't y

en to press the point home, and when to recede gracefully. Ormsby abr

harge, giving the dependable young person a well-earned holiday-a little journey in which she wo

in the folds of her loose-waisted morning gown, and she fancied it stirred like a thing alive to remind her of its message. Ormsby was looking p

ng about the choosing of a r

m another in our own country," she confessed. "But at the

routes as one who travels m

The Overland Short Line is a good bit more direct;

oncession to David Kent's lette

acific stock," she suggested. "We do;

y lau

points since the election of Governor Bucks

g, with a touch of the austerity which was her Puritan

-date thing in a nation of successfulists? But seriously; you ought to get rid

now it would be because we were afraid it might prove to be a bad investment. T

led le

rdian. But I mustn't keep you any longer from Abigail and the tr

and went with

he said, when she had thrown the nigh

in that I am as conscientious as even you could wish. Good

Elinor found herself under fire when she went

le person, plain-spoken to the verge of unfriendliness; a woman in whom the rugged, self-reliant, Puritan strain had become panic-acidulous. And when the Puritan stock

ntly in Loring's summing-up of Elinor's mother as a woman who had taken culture and the humanizing amenities of the broader

" was her comment when Elinor came back. "You are your father's daughters, both

mother's reproaches: also, there was enough of the Grimkie blood in her ve

other went on, irritated by Elinor's silence. "I don't care so much for myself: your father and I began with nothing, and I can go back to nothing, if

d to do," said Elinor, wearily. "Please

that gun cool while

od-by: what is he going to d

ure perversity's sake was strong u

s the Amphitrite and the

entwood

exclaimed. "Of course, he will take an entire house-party with him, as

flashing white teeth, laughing eyes with an imp of mischief in them, and an exquisitely turned-up nose that

here were some way of making him believe he had to give me what remains of his income after he has spent all he c

er," said Elinor, repenting her of t

ood looked

s?" she

es

her hands and tri

" she said;

retorted; "