The Happiest Time of Their Lives

oom. Her mother had the art of setting stages. The room was not large,-a New York brownstone front in the upper Sixties even though altered as to entrance, and allowed to sprawl backward over

pinquity, propinquity of older date than the house in which they now were, had given them harmony. Nothing in the room was

in it, and maple furniture of a late colonial date, inherited from her mother's family, the Lanleys, and discarded by her mother, who described the taste of that time as "pure,

tirely without some form of anticipation since she woke up; not, perhaps, since she had parted from him under the windy awning the night before. They had held up a long line of restless motors as she stood huddled in her fur-trimm

ike a coin in the pocket. And after Miss Severance had bidden him good night at the long glass door of the paneled ball-room without his saying anything of a future meeting, she had gone up-stairs with a heavy heart to find her maid and her wrap. She knew as soon as she reached the dressing-room that she had actually hurried her departure for the sake of

mightn't come and see her the next afternoon. Miss Severance, who was usually sensitive to inconveniencing other people, had not cared at all about the motor behind hers that was tooting its horn or for the elderly l

hat it had meant as much to him as it had to her, perhaps more. Her lips curved a little at the thought, and she gla

ked with the definite knowledge that this light was the certainty of seeing him that very day. The morning had gone very well; she had even forgotten once or twice

ed at the perversity of the police, who held them up just at the moment most promising for slipping through; and why Andrews, the chauffeur, could not see that he would do better by going to Madison Avenue. She did not speak these thoughts aloud, for she had not told her mother,

efore five she had been in the drawing-room, in her favorite dress, with her best slipp

through the whole cycle of certainty, eagerness, doubt, and she was now rapidly approaching despair. He was not coming. Perhaps he had never meant to come. Possibly he had merely yielded to a polite impulse; possib

again and again. Several minutes went by, too long for a man to give to taking off his coat. At last she got up and cautiously opened the door; a servant was

ell had rung once made it more possible that it would ring

d time to debate the possibility of a visitor having come in without ringing wh

l, but, like many red-haired men, he retained an appearance

gs put away before he had his own supper and began his arrange

alone, waiting for another half-hour, and when she finally did ring and tell Pringle he could take away the tea-thing

that she had never heard before-other door-bells, telephone-bells in the adjacent h

as some explanation of his not coming, but it could never be really atoned for

run up-stairs or even from the corner. She could do nothing but stare at him. She had tried in the last ten minut

as so extreme that she wanted to cry. The best she knew how to do was to

d, as if announcing a black,

a bit glad

urned, with an attempt a

u have s

aren't

down. She pressed her palms together; she set her teeth, but the muscl

g no further effort to conceal the fact that her ey

on the small, low sofa

ome," he said very gently, "becau

e you?" she asked,

y I did not come doesn't prove anything. We'l

so young. My mother was mar

shut more firmly on hers. Then he got up, and, pulling

some tea. I haven

ucked away her handkerchief, and be

ned. "You don't know what at

t's

, for the firm I'm with, Benson & Honaton. They're b

I never hea

oy la

ly, he added: "If a firm puts up money for a business, they want to know all about it, of course. I tell the

n years before she might have answered an inquir

ich vein, and the labor conditions aren't bad; but there's one fatal defect-a car shortage on the only railroad that reaches it. They can't

. "I never should have thought of t

lau

n awfully small salary. In fact," he added briskly, "I have almost no money at all." There was a pause, and he

, n

ut I didn't. Don't worry. I won'

iss Severance,

ng, and there you were-all the rest of the room like a sort of shrine for you. I said to a man I was with, 'I want to meet the girl who looks like cream in a gold

w the very first thin

gan, but he

first meeting, and those who fall in love at once are just that mu

us good fortune to

thi

n a lower tone, and his e

im his, but foreseeing that she would immediately be required to use it, and feeling unequal

ng a chest of buried treasure. You don't know what's going to be in it, but you know it's cert

erything he said so unexpected and thrilling that now a

ve here with my mother and stepfather. My mother

about him. I once reported on the Electric Equipment Company. That's the same Farron, isn't it? I believe that that company i

think

n't lik

ery much. I d

poor

things in a very quiet way that make you feel he's laughing at you, though he never does laugh. He said to me this morning at breakfast, 'Well, Mathilde, was it a m

did

a rapid smile

dfather often scolds me terribly for my English,-says I talk like a barmaid, although I tell him he ought not to know how barmaids talk,-but he never makes me feel small. Sometimes Mr

u wouldn't

be human. Mr. Fa

our mother

nks he's

ave they be

Five

e just as m

rance loo

added: "I don't mean they are not fond of each other, but Mr.

't s

her that some one was coming, and, Pring

tely and finished for such a word. Mathilde did not inherit her blondness from her mother. Mrs. Farron's hair was a dark brown, with a shade of red in it where it curved behind he

of this wonderful new friend, whose flavor of romance and interest no one, she supposed, could miss. Yet Mrs. Farron seemed to be taking it all very calmly, greeting him, taking his chair as being a tri

ect enunciation even in the most trivial sentences of every-day matters, she, as a great beauty, had learne

r long, pale, s

ons, tucked away in forgotten oases, and I'm their only connection with the vulgar, modern world. My aunt's favorite excitement is disapproving of me. She was particularly trying to-day." Mrs. Farron seemed to debate

Wayne. "Why

ance so much better than they do." She leaned over, and rang the little enamel bell that dangled at t

n't be left to

n-my still dancing. She says she put on caps at thirty-five." Mrs. Farron ra

rather spoiled it by interrupting Wayne in the midst of a sentence, as if she had never been as much

. Farr

's in his r

an escape. She seemed to settle back, to encourage her visitor to talk indefinitely; but when the moment came for her

nd her Wayne said, as if the

u were speaking

ked, not content to take up even the absorbing topic

, of course, overwhelmed to fin

randfather and Mr. Farron and all these old, old relations. She went away just now only becau

sat down bes

said: "you have to be perfect only to one person.

s Severance had the sensation of drowning,

ringle's opening the

Lan

stoo

I must go

as if this were the reason why she opposed his de

n the chair on the othe