The Beloved Woman

and to a dark, strange day of steady snowing. Now, on Saturday, dirty snow was banked and heaped in great blocks everywhere, and still the clean, new flakes fluttered and twirled softly do

y exhilaration in the emergency, a tendency to be proud of the storm, and of its effect upon their humdrum lives. They laughed and shouted as they battled with it, and as Nature's great barrier of snow threw down the little barriers of convention and shyness. Men held out their hands to slipping and stumbling women, caught them by their shoulders, pan

surface cars helpless. Here and there long lines of the omnibuses stood blocked in snow, and the press fr

motionless and sweet. The city emerged exhausted from its temporary blanketing, and from the buried benches of Bow

. Melrose had been held captive for almost two days, first by Thursday's inclement winds, and then by the blizzard. Her motor-car was useless, and although at sixty she was an extremely

immer toward the southeast that indicated the location of the long-lost sun. The old lady looked her approval at Fifth Avenue, w

the sun will be out

ublic omnibuses. For Regina herself it did not matter, but Mrs. Melrose was one of the city's prominent and wealthy women, and Regina could not remember that she had ever sunk to the use of a public conveyance before to-day. The

should continue useless, the great specialists said, there was a hope-even a probability-that as Alice grew rested and strong, after the serious accident, she might find herself walking again. But Alice had been a prisoner for ten years now, and the mother and sister who idolized her feared that she would never again be the old dancing Alice and feared that she

entrance, and a great iron grill, and two potted trees, and the small square windows were leaded, and showed blossoming plants inside. The three long windows above gave upon a little-used formal drawing-room, with a Gothic fireplace of white stone at one end, and a dim

as Alice's sitting-room; comfortable, beautiful, and exquisitely ordered. None of the usual clutter of the invalid was there. The fireplace was of plain creamy tiling, the rugs dull-toned upon a dark, polished floor. There were only two canvases on the dove-gray walls, and the six or seven phot

d for her almost every night. A great Persian tortoise-shell cat was at home here, and sometimes Alice had her magnificent parrot besides, hanging himself upside down on his gaily-painted stand, and veiling the beady, sharp eye with which he watched her. The indulgent extravagance of her mother had bound all the books that Alice loved in the

s, with a little fountain and goldfish, a floor of dull pink tiling, and plants in great jars of Chinese enamel. Christopher had planned this delightful addition to Alice's domain only a few years ago, and, with that knowledge of her secret heart that only Christopher could claim, had let her share the pleasure of designing and arranging it. It stretched out across the west side of the spacious backyard, a

uch more than thirty, in whose spreading silk lap a fair little girl was sitting. This little earnest-eyed child was Alice at seven. The splendid, dark-eyed, proud-looking boy of about fourteen, who stood beside the mother, was Teddy, her only son, dead now for many years, and perhaps mercifully dead. The fourth and last person pictured was the elder daughter, Annie, who had been about nine years old then, Alice remembered. Annie and Alice had been unusually alike, even for si

o-day, and Alice's colourless warm cheek flushed

get here? Miss Slater says that th

y much pleased with herself. "How warm and comfy y

k Chris was such a duck to get hold of him. I was translating it, you know, and Bowditch, who was here for dinner last night, told me he'd place it, if I finished it. And now I can talk it over

mbered, "and Leslie is at a girls' luncheon somewhere. Annie had breakfast with me,

uching Annie's life, Annie's boys or husband, was too small to interest Alice. She was especially interested, too, in Leslie, the eighteen-year-old daughter that her brother Theodore had left to his mother's care; in fact, between the mother and daughters, the one grandda

he devoted Miss Slater, saw with satisfaction that preparations for tea were noiselessly under way, called R

st Thirty-fourth Street ebbed and flowed; a few blocks north the great fa?ade of the Grand Central Station shut off the street completely. Third Avenue, behind it, swarmed and rattled alarmingly close, and Broadway flared its impudent signs only

of snow, and the heavy door at the top swung noiselessly open to admit her. She suddenly realized that she was very tired

, please. And when Miss Leslie comes in, tell her I should li

tt might come in for a moment, on his way to the

nd orderly, her coal fire burning behind the old-fashioned steel rods, all the homely, comfortable treasures of her busy years awaiting her. She sank into a chair, and Regina flew

rcrowded room. Presently she reached a plump, well-groomed hand toward the bell. But when Regina came to stand expectantly nea

lie hasn'

s Melrose is at Miss

ndmother said, discontentedly. "She was play

, Ma

lrose was m

, a Mrs. Sheridan. Please see that she is shown

. Regin

er mistress ann

r a few moments with narrowed eyes fixed on space, reca

e late eighties, seated to best display their bustles and their French twists, with heavy-headed infants in their tightly cased arms, and there were children's pictures, babes in shells, in swings, or leaning on gates. There were three Annies: one in ringlets, plaid silk, and tasselled boots, at eight; one magnificent in drawing-room plumes; and a recent one, a cloudy study of the severely superb mother, with a sleek-headed, wide-collared boy on each side of her. There was a photog

er's only brother, only relative indeed, and promised already to be as great a favourite as the irresistible Chris himself. Both were rich, both fine-looking, straightforward, honourable men, proud of their own integrity, their long-established family, and their old firm. Acton was pleasantly at home in the Melrose, Liggett, and Von Behrens houses

in the least self-conscious with Acton; she turned to him with all the artless confidence of a little sister. She asked him about her d

bridesmaid? Would you?-after I refused Linda Fox, you know. I don't like to dance

er many a confidential cup of tea. And just lately, the grandmother noticed

et you, lovey?" she asked t

said, walk. There was no use trying motor-cars, anyway, for they were slipping an

f a quickened heart-beat. The thoughtful almost

presently, "how old was my

-two," the ol

as Aunt Annie

r mother considered. "She was ab

id Leslie, an

an expression at once infantile and astonished. When Leslie opened her blue eyes widely, and stared at anything, she looked like an amazed baby, and the effect of her round eyes and tilted nose was augmented by her very fair skin, and by just a sixteenth of an inch shortness in her upper lip. Of course she knew all this. Her acquaintance with her own good and bad points had begun in school days, and while through her grandmother's care her teeth were being straightened, and her eyes and throat subjected to mild forms of surgery, her Aunt Annie ha

tously married, she would have felt ready for her nunc dimittis. She watched Leslie expectantly. But the girl was apparently dreaming, and

lsh peasants!" the grandmother said to herself, in mi

small gold case, and was

spotic childhood. She had fainted when Leslie had dived off the dock at Newport, and had wept when Leslie had galloped through the big iron gates on her own roan stallion; she had called in Christopher, as Leslie's guardian, when Leslie, at fifteen, had calmly climbed into o

one, G

e to know what a nice young man thin

en are smoking themse

dear, no man, whether he smokes himself or not,

ndmother Murison disapproved of?" Leslie teased, dropping on he

," said Mrs. Melrose. "And don't blow

her own, gave her, and she patted it with her soft, wrinkled hand. Sudde

ie-oh, goody! I w

oman of perhaps forty-five, with a rosy, cheerful face, and wide, shrewd gray eyes shining under

ossessed by these particular callers. The younger woman's clothing, indeed, if plain, was smart and simple; her severe tailor-made had a collar of beaver fur to

oes, all awakened a certain contempt in the granddaughter of the house, and caused Leslie shrewdly to surm

arm about the visitor. "Well, my dear, my dear, I've not seen you these--W

ce that was full of easy confidence and friendliness. "This is Mrs. Melro

till keeping an arm about the sturdy figure. "This is my granddaughter, The

ge and upbringing, but she could not but give Mrs. Sheridan a pr

s studying her with

she's like you all-she's like Mr. Theod

nimated, and as oblivious to Leslie's hostile loo

id, presently, watching the girls as they shook han

Melrose said. Leslie glanced at

, I really--

n while I talk"-she turned smiling to her old friend-"to Kate! Tell m

nty-four, and Rose is twenty-one, and this one," she nodded toward Norma, who was exchanging comments on the great storm with Leslie, "this one is nearly nineteen! And you see they're all working: Wo

nearly every week!

heridan. "She's in what they call the Old Book Room," she added, lowering her voice. "She's wonderful about books, reads them, and knows them as if

he old lady asked, with her amused and affe

s. Sheridan, roundly. "The

ibuted, with a sort of shy and loving audacity. "She'll tell you in a minute that faith, she and her sister used to

at a loss because her usual social chatter was as foreign here as a strange tongue would be. But no type is quicker to grasp upon amusement, and to appreciate the amuser, than Leslie's, unable to amuse itself, and skilled in seeking for entertainment. She was too shy to ask Norma to imitate her aunt again, but her stiffness

, with her childish widening of the

minutes? I'll tell you my little bit of business, Mrs. Melrose, and then Norma and I will go along. It won't take me f

her. "If you must change, dear-but wait

ourselves. What wer

ls me she is fond of books." Mrs. Melrose did not quite like to commit Leslie to entertaining the

room, Grandma. Marion

ll, Kate, I've wondered where you were hiding yourself all this time! Let's have the business. But first I want to say that I appreciate your t

she added, glad of a diversion. "They bought themselves a car two years ago, and if it isn't a Victrola this week, it's a thermos bottle, or a pair of white buck

ill hav

e baby-we call Norma the bab

ate-Sheridan. Had you

ut, and at the one to the adjoining room to make sure that it was closed also. Then sh

nonsense, and send me packing-and God knows I hope you will! But it just began to ge