Sylvia: A Novel

Such were the customs of young ladies in Sylvia’s world; but I must not fail to mention that she had sometimes the courage to set her face against this “world.” For instance, she had a prejudice against drunkenness. She stood fast by the bold precedent that she would never permit an intoxicated person to dance with her; and terrible humiliations she put upon two or three who outraged her dignity. They hid in their rooms in an agony of remorse, and sent deputations of their friends to plead for pardon, and went away from home and stayed for months, until Sylvia consented to take them into her favor again.

She took her place upon the icy heights of her maidenhood, and was not to be drawn therefrom. There were only two men in the world, outside of fathers and uncles and cousins, who could boast that they had ever kissed her. About both of these I shall tell you in the course of time. She was famous among other men for her reserve—they would make wagers and lay siege to her for months, but no one ever dared to claim that he had secured his kiss.

With boyish frankness they would tell her of these things; they told her all they thought about her. I have never heard of men who dealt so frankly in personalities, who would discuss a woman and her various “points” so openly to her face. “Miss Sylvia, you look like all your roses to-night.”—“Miss Sylvia, I swear you’ve got the loveliest eyes in the world!”—“You’ll be fading soon now; you’d better marry while you’ve got a chance!”—“I came to see if you were as pretty as they say, Miss Castleman!”

She would laugh merrily. “Are you disappointed? Don’t you find me ado’able?”

So far I have made no attempt to give you an idea of Sylvia’s way of speaking English. It was a drawl so charming that Miss Abercrombie had given instructions not to mar it by rash corrections. I can only mention a few of her words—which is as if I gave you single hairs out of her golden glory. She always spoke of “cannles.” She could, of course, make nothing of the letter r, and said “funnichuh” and “que-ah” and “befo-ah mawnin’.” There had been an English heiress at Miss Abercrombie’s who had won the whole school over to “gel,” but when Sylvia arrived, she swept the floor with “go-il.” The most irresistible word of all I thought was “bug;” there is no way to indicate this by spelling—you must simply take three times as long to say it, lingering over the vowel sound, caressing it as if you thought that “bu-u-u-gs” were the most “ado’able” things in all the “wo’il.”

Sylvia learned to apply with deadly effect the maxim of Lady Dee—that a woman’s sharpest weapon is her naïveté. “Beware of me!” she would warn her helpless victims. “Haven’t you heard that I’m a coquette? No, I’m not joking. It’s something I’m bitterly ashamed of, but I can’t help it; I’m a cold-hearted, selfish creature, a deliberate breaker of hearts.” And then, of course, the victim would thrill with excitement and exclaim, “See what you can do to me, Miss Sylvia! I’ll send you armfuls of roses if you can break my heart!” You may judge how these competitions ended from a chance remark which Sylvia made to me—“When I look back upon my life, it seems to me that I waded in a river of roses.”

The only protection which nature has vouchsafed against these terrors is the fact that sooner or later such cold and cruel huntresses themselves get snared. In the simile of “Sterne’s starling,” they are lured up to a certain cage, and after much hopping about and hesitating, much advancing and retreating, much chattering and chirping, they adorn themselves in satin robes and lace veils and lilies-of-the-valley, and to the sound of sweet strains from “Lohengrin” they enter the golden cage. And then, snap! the door is shut and locked fast, and the proprietor of the cage mounts guard over it—in Sylvia’s part of the world with a shotgun in his hands.

§ 10

So I come to the time when this haughty lady was humbled; that is to say, the time of her meeting with Frank Shirley. Because it was through Harriet Atkinson that she came to know him, I must first tell you in a few words about that active and pushing young lady.

Harriet Atkinson was the one weak spot in the fortifications of respectability which Sylvia’s parents had built up about her. Harriet’s ancestors were Yankees, of the very most odious “carpet-bag” type. Her grandfather had been a pawnbroker in Boston, so fierce rumor declared; and her father was a street-railroad president, who purchased “red-neck” legislators for use in his business. Harriet herself was a brunette beauty, so highly colored that she looked artificial, no matter how hard she tried to look natural.

But in spite of these appalling facts, Harriet Atkinson was the most intelligent girl whom Sylvia had met during her three years at the “college.” She had a wit that was irresistible, and also she understood people. You might spend weeks in her company and never be bored; whereas there were persons who could prove possession of the “very best blood in the South,” but who were capable of boring you most frightfully when they got you alone for half an hour.

Sylvia was never allowed to go to Harriet’s home, nor was Harriet ever asked to Castleman Hall. But Sylvia refused to give up her friend, and for a year she intrigued incessantly to force Harriet upon her hostesses, and to persuade her own suitors to call at the Atkinson home. In the end she married her off to the scion of a great family—with consequences which are to be told at a later stage of my story. The point for the present is that things happened exactly as Sylvia’s aunts had predicted; through her intimacy with the undesirable Harriet Atkinson she was “exposed” to the acquaintance of several undesirable men, among them Frank Shirley.

Sylvia had known about the Shirleys from earliest childhood. She had heard the topic talked about at the family dinner-table, and had seen tears in her father’s eyes when the final tragedy came. For the Shirleys were among the “best people,” and this was not the kind of thing which was allowed to happen to such.

About twelve years previously the legislature had appropriated money for the building of a veterans’ home, and the funds had been entrusted to a committee, of which Robert Shirley was treasurer. The project had lapsed for a couple of years, and when the money was called for, Robert Shirley was unable to produce it. Rumors leaked out, and there came a demand in the legislature for an accounting.

The Major was one of a committee of friends who were asked by the Governor to make a private investigation. They found that Shirley had deposited the money to his private bank account, after the unbusinesslike methods of a Southern gentleman. Checks had been drawn upon it; but there was evidence at the bank tending to show that the checks might not have been signed by Shirley himself. He had a younger brother, a spendthrift and gambler, whom he had indulged and protected all his life. Such were the hints which Sylvia had heard at home—when suddenly Robert Shirley proceeded to the state Capitol and requested the Governor to stop the investigation, declaring that he alone was to blame.

It was a terrible thing. Shirley was besought to fly, he was told by the Governor’s own authority that he might live anywhere outside the state, and the search for him would be nominal. But he stood fast; the money was gone, and some one must pay the penalty. So the world saw the unprecedented spectacle of a man of “good family” standing trial, and receiving a sentence of five years in the penitentiary.

He left a broken-hearted wife and four children. Sylvia remembered the horror with which her mother and her aunts had contemplated the fate of these latter. Two girls, soon to become young ladies, and cut off from all hope of a future! “But, Mamma,” Sylvia cried, “it isn’t their fault!” She recollected the very tone of her mother’s voice, the dying away to a horrified whisper at the end: “My child, their father wore stripes!”

The Shirleys made no attempt to hold up their heads against the storm, but withdrew into strict seclusion on their plantation. Now, ten years later, Robert Shirley having died in prison, his widow was a pitiful shadow, his daughters were hopeless old maids, and his two sons were farmers, staying at home and acting as their own managers.

Of these, Frank Shirley was the elder. I am handicapped in setting out to tell you about him by the fact that he sits in the next room, and will have to read what I write; he is not a man to stand for any nonsense about himself—nor yet one whose ridicule an amateur author would wish to face. I will content myself with stating simple facts, which he cannot deny; for example, that he is a man a trifle below the average height, but sturdily built and exceedingly powerful. He had in those days dark hair and eyes, and he would not claim to have been especially bad-looking. He is the most reserved man I have ever known, but his feelings are intense when they are roused, and on these rare occasions he is capable of being eloquent. He is, in general, a very solid and dependable kind of man; he does not ask anything of anybody, but he is willing to give, cautiously, after he has made sure that his motive will be understood. As I read that over, it seems to me a judicious and entirely unsentimental statement about him, which he will have to pass.

He was, he tells me, a lively boy; but after the age of eleven he always had, as the most prominent fact in his consciousness, the knowledge that men set him apart as something different from themselves. And this, of course, made intercourse with them difficult; if they were indifferent to him, that was insult, and if they were cordial, then they were taking pity upon him. He always knew that the people who met him, however politely they greeted him, were repeating behind his back the inevitable whisper, “His father wore stripes!” So naturally he found it pleasanter not to meet people.

Then, too, there were his mother and sisters; it was hard not to be bitter about them. He knew that the girls were gentle and lovely; and it rather made men seem cowardly, that it should be certain that no one in their own social world would ever ask them in marriage. There is so much asking in marriage in the South—it is really difficult for a gentlewoman to be passed over altogether. The Shirley girls could not discuss this, even in the bosom of their family; but Frank came to understand, and to brood over the thing in secret.

§ 11

So you see Frank Shirley was a difficult man to get at—as much so as if he had been an emperor or an anchorite. I have been interested in the psychology of sex, and I wondered how much this aloofness had to do with what happened to Sylvia. There were so many men, and they were all so much alike, and they were all so easy! But here was a man who was different; a man whom one could not get at without humiliating efforts; a man of mystery, about whom one could imagine things! I asked Sylvia, who thought there might be something in this; but much more in a deeper fact, which is known to poets and tellers of love-tales, but has not been sufficiently heeded by scientists—that intuitive, commanding and sometimes terrifying revelation of sexual affinity, which we smile at and discredit under the name of “love at first sight.” The first time Sylvia met Frank she did not know who he was; she saw at first only his back; and yet she began at once to experience a thrill which she had never known in her life before. Absurd as they may sound, I will repeat her words: “There was something about the back of his neck that took my breath!”

It had been some years since she had heard the Shirleys mentioned. They had quietly declined all invitations, and this made it easy for everybody to do with decency what everybody wanted to do—to cease sending invitations. The Shirley plantation was remotely located, some twenty miles away from Castleman Hall; and so little by little the family had been forgotten.

But there was a certain Mrs. Venable, a young widow who owned a hunting-lodge near the Shirley place; and as fate would have it, she was one of the people whom Sylvia had persuaded to take up Harriet Atkinson. One day, as the latter was driving to the lodge in her automobile, she was “mired” in the midst of a terrific thunderstorm, when along came a gentleman on horseback, who politely insisted upon her taking his waterproof, and then mounting behind him and riding to his home up on the hill; by which romantic method the delighted Harriet found herself conveyed to an old and evidently aristocratic homestead, and welcomed by some altogether lovely people.

Being younger than Sylvia, and not so much on the “inside” as to local history, Harriet had been obliged to get the story from Mrs. Venable. It had heightened her interest in the Shirleys—for Harriet’s great merit was that she was human and spontaneous where she should have been respectable. She went to call again on the family, and when she got home she made haste to tell Sylvia about it. “Sunny,” she said—that was her way of taking liberties with Sylvia’s complexion—“you ought to meet that man Frank Shirley.” She went on to tell how good-looking he was, how silent and mysterious, and what a fine voice he had. “And the sweetest, lazy smile!” she declared. “I’m sure he could be a lady-killer if he did not take life so seriously!” So, you see, Sylvia had something to start her imagination going, and a reason for accepting Mrs. Venable’s invitation to a hunting party.

One sunshiny morning in the late fall she was taking part in a deer-hunt, carrying a rifle and looking as picturesque as possible. They put her on a “stand” with Charlie Peyton, who ought to have been at college, but was hanging round making a nuisance of himself by sighing and gazing. After waiting a half hour or so, off in the woods they heard a dog yelping. Charlie went off to investigate, thinking it might be a bear; and so Sylvia was left to her fate.

She heard a sound in the bushes at one side, and thought it was a deer. The creature moved past her, hidden by a dense thicket, and passed a little way ahead, with a heavy trampling sound. She had half raised her gun, when suddenly the bushes parted, and with a leap over a fallen log there came into view—not a deer, but a horse with a rider upon his back.

The girl lowered her gun. The dog yelped again and the man reined up his horse and stood listening. The horse was restive; as he drew rein upon it, it turned slightly, exhibiting the rider’s face. To the outward eye he was a not unusual figure, wearing the khaki shirt and knickerbockers affected by the younger generation of planters when on duty. The shirt was open, with a red bandana handkerchief tucked round at the throat.

But Sylvia was not looking with the outward eye. Sylvia had been reading romances, and had a vague idea of a lover who would some day appear, being distinguished from the ordinary admirers of salons and ball-rooms by something knightly in his aspect. And this man seemed to have that something. His face was a face of power, yet not harsh, rather with a touch of melancholy.

As a rule Sylvia was immediately observant of her own emotional states, especially where men were concerned; but this once she was too much interested to think what she was thinking. She was noting the man’s deeply-shadowed eyes and shiny black hair, his statue-like figure and his mastery of the horse. She wondered if he would look in her direction, and she waited, fascinated, for the moment when his glance would rest upon her.

The moment came. He started slightly, and then quickly his hand went up to his hat. “I beg your pardon,” he said, politely.

Sylvia noted his deep, full-toned voice; and with a sudden thrill she recollected Harriet’s adventure. “Can this be Frank Shirley?” she thought. She caught herself together and smiled. “It is for me to beg pardon,” she said. “I came near shooting at you.”

“I deserved it,” he answered, smiling in turn. “I was trespassing on my neighbor’s land.”

Sylvia had by now been “out” a full year, and it must be admitted that she was a sophisticated young lady. When she met a man, her thought was: “Could I love him? And how would it be if I married him?” Her imagination would leap ahead through a long series of scenes: the man’s home, his relatives and her own, his occupations, his amusements, his ideas. She would see herself traveling with him, driving with him, presiding at dinner-parties for him—perhaps helping to get him sober the next morning. As a drowning man is said to live over his whole past in a few seconds, so Sylvia might live her whole future during a figure at a “german.”

But with this man it was different. She could not imagine him in any position in her world. He was an elemental creature, belonging in some wild place, where there was danger to be faced and deeds to be done. Sylvia had read “Paul and Virginia,” and “Robinson Crusoe,” and “Typee,” and in her mind was a vague idea of a primitive, close-to-nature life, which one yearned for when one was tightly laced, or was sent into the parlor to entertain an old friend of the family. She imagined this strange knight springing forward and lifting her upon his saddle-bow, to bear her away to such a world. She could feel his powerful arms about her, his whispered words in her ear; she could hear the clatter of his horse’s hoofs—away, away!

She had to make another effort, and remember who she was. “You are not lost, I suppose?” he was asking.

“Oh, no,” she said. “I am on a ‘stand.’”

“Of course,” he replied; again there was a pause, and again Sylvia’s brain went whirling. It was absurd how the beating of her heart kept translating itself into the clatter of horse’s hoofs.

The man turned for a moment to listen to the dog; and she stole another look at him. His eyes came back and caught her glance. She absolutely had to say something—instantly, to save the situation. “I—I am not alone,” she stammered. Oh, how dreadful—that she, Sylvia Castleman, should stumble over words!

“My escort has gone to look for the dog,” she added. “He will be back in a moment.”

“Oh,” he said; and Sylvia noted a sudden change in his expression—a set, repressed look. She saw the blood mounting slowly, until it colored his cheeks to a crimson.

“I beg your pardon,” he said, coldly. “Good-morning.” He turned his horse and started on his way.

He had taken her words as a dismissal. But that was the least part of the mistake. Sylvia read his mind in a flash—he was Frank Shirley, and he thought that she had recognized him, and was thinking of his father who had worn stripes! Yes, surely it must be that—for what right had he to be hurt otherwise—that she did not care to stand conversing with a strange man in a forest?

The thought sent her into a panic. She thought of nothing but the cruelty of that idea. “No, no!” she cried, the tears almost starting into her eyes. “I did not mean to send you away at all!”

He turned, startled by her vehemence. For a moment or two they stood staring at each other. The girl had this one swift thought: “How dreadful it must be to have such a thing in your mind, to have to be waiting for insults from people—or at best, for pity!”

Then, in his quiet voice, he said, “I really think I had better go.” Again he turned his horse, and without another glance rode away, leaving Sylvia staring at his vanishing figure, with her hands tightly clutching her gun.

After that Sylvia felt that she had in common decency to meet Frank Shirley. She asked nothing more about her motives—she simply had to meet him, to remove one thought from his mind. But for two days she was at her wit’s end, and went round bored to death by everything and everybody. She had a sudden whim to be let alone; and how difficult it is to be let alone at a house party! There was the everlasting Charlie Peyton, looking at her out of sickly blue eyes, and forever trying to get hold of her hand; there was Billy Aldrich, with his sybaritic silk socks, his shiny finger nails and talcum-powdered face; there was Malcolm McCallum, a dandy from Louisville, with his endless stream of impeccable suits and his caravan of trunks; there was Harvey Richards, a “steel-man” from Birmingham, who had thrown his business to the winds and settled down to the task of boring Sylvia. He was big and burly, and had become the special favorite of her family; he dandled the baby brother and made fudge with the sisters—but Sylvia declared viciously that his idea of love-making was to poke at her with his finger.

She took to getting up very early in the morning, so that she could go riding alone. As there was but one road, it was not her fault if she passed near the Shirley place. And if by any remote chance he were to be out riding too——

It was the third morning that she met him. He came round a turn, and it all happened in a flash, before she had time to think. He gave her the stiffest greeting that was consistent with good breeding; and then he was past. Of course she could not look back. It was ten chances to one that he would not do the same, but still he might, and that would be dreadful.

She went on. She was angry with herself for her stupidity. That she should have met him thus, and had no better wit than to let him get by! Theoretically, of course, ladies cannot stop gentlemen to whom they have not been introduced; but there are always things that can happen, in cases of emergency like this. She thought of plans, and then she fell into a rage with herself for thus pursuing a man.

The next morning when she went riding, she forced herself to turn the horse’s head in the other direction from the Shirley place. But her thoughts would come back to Frank, and presently she was making excuses for herself. This man was not as other men; if he avoided her, it was not because he did not want to know her, but because of his misfortune. It was wicked that a man should be tied up in such a net of misapprehension; to get him out of it would be, not unmaidenly, but heroic. When she had met him yesterday morning, she ought to have stopped her horse, and made him stay and talk with her. She was to leave in two days more!

She turned her horse and went back; and when she was near the Shirley house—here he came!

She saw him far down the road, and so had plenty of time to get her wits together. Had he, by any chance, come out in the hope of meeting her? Or would he be annoyed by her getting in his way? Suppose he were to snub her—how could she ever get over it?

She took a diamond ring from her finger, and reached back and shoved it under the saddle-cloth. It was a “marquise” ring, with sharp points, and when she threw her weight upon it, the horse gave a jump. She repeated the action, and it began to prance. “Now then!” whispered Sylvia to herself.

§ 13

He came near; and she reined up her chafing steed. “I beg pardon,” she said.

He raised his hat, and holding it, looked at her inquiringly.

“I think my horse must have a stone in his foot.”

“Oh!” he said, and was off in a moment, throwing the reins of his mount over its head and handing them to her.

“Which foot?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

He bent down and examined one hoof, then another, and so on for all four, without a word. Then, straightening up, he said, “I don’t see anything.”

He looked very serious and concerned. How “easy” he would be! “There really must be something,” she said. “He’s all in a lather.”

“There might be something deep in,” he answered, making his investigation all over again. “But I don’t see any blood.” (What a fine back he has! thought Sylvia.)

He stood up. “Let me see his mouth,” he said. “Are you sure you’ve not held him too tight?”

“I am used to horses,” was her reply.

“Some of them have peculiarities,” he remarked. “Possibly the saddle has rubbed——”

“No, no,” answered Sylvia, in haste, as he made a move to lift the cloth.

It was always hard for her to keep from laughing for long; and there was something so comical in his gravity. Then too, something desperate must be done, for presently he would mount and ride away. “There’s surely no stone in his foot,” he declared.

Whereat Sylvia broke into one of her radiant smiles. “Perhaps,” she said, “it’s in your horse’s foot!”

He looked puzzled.

“Don’t you see?” she laughed. “Something must be wrong—or you couldn’t be here talking to me!”

But he still looked bewildered. “Dear me, what a man!” thought she.

A color was beginning to mount in his cheeks. Perhaps he was going to be offended! Clearly, with such a man one’s cue was frankness. So her tone changed suddenly. “Are you Mr. Shirley?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“And do you know who I am?”

“Yes, Miss Castleman.”

“Our families are old friends, you know.”

“Yes, I know it.”

“And then, tell me—” She paused. “Honestly!”

“Why—yes.”

“I’ve been honest and told you—I’m not really worried about my horse. Now you be honest and say why you rode out this morning.”

He waited before replying, studying her face—not boldly, but gravely. “I think, Miss Castleman, that it would be better if I did not.”

Then it was Sylvia’s turn to study. Was it a rebuke? Had he not come out on her account at all? Or was it still the ghost of his father’s prison-suit?

He did not help her with another word. (I can hear Frank’s laugh as he told me about this episode. “We silent fellows have such an advantage! We just wait and let people imagine things!”)

Sylvia’s voice fell low. “Mr. Shirley, you have me at a great disadvantage.” And as she said this she gazed at him with the wonderful red-brown eyes, wide open, childlike. So far there had never been a man who could resist the spell of those eyes. Would this man be able? The busy little brain behind them was watching every sign.

“I don’t understand,” he replied; and she took up the words:

“It is I who don’t understand. And I dare not ask you to explain!”

She was terrified at this temerity; and yet she must press on—there was no other way. She saw gates opening before her—gates into wonderland!

She leaned forward with a little gesture of abandonment. “Listen, Frank Shirley!” she said. (What a masterstroke was that!) “I have known about you since I was a little girl. And I understand the way things are now, because I am a friend of Miss Atkinson’s. She asked you to come over and meet me, and you didn’t. Now if the reason was that you have no interest in me—why then I’m annoying you, and I’m behaving outrageously, and I’m preparing humiliation for myself. But if the reason is that you think I wouldn’t meet you fairly—that I wouldn’t judge you as I would any other man—why, don’t you see, that would be cruel, that would be wicked! If you were afraid that I wanted to—to patronize you—to do good to you——”

She stopped. Surely she had said enough!

There was a long silence, while he gazed at her—reading her very soul, she feared. “Suppose, Miss Castleman,” he said, at last, “that I was afraid that you wanted to do harm to me?”

That was getting near to what she wanted! “Are you afraid?” she asked.

“Possibly I am,” he replied. “It is easy for those who have never suffered to preach to those who have never done anything else.”

Sylvia did not know quite how to meet that. It was so much more serious than she had been looking for, when she had slipped that ring under the saddle-cloth! “Oh,” she cried, “what shall I say to you?”

“I will tell you exactly,” he said, “and then neither of us will be taking advantage of the other. You are offering me your friendship, are you not?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then, can you say to me that if I were to accept it, the shame of my family would never make any difference to you?”

She cried instantly, “That is what I’ve been trying to tell you! Of course it would not.”

“You can say that?” he persisted. “It would make no difference whatever?”

She was about to answer again; but he stopped her. “Wait and think. You must know just what I mean. It is not a thing about which I could endure a mistake. Think of your family—your friends—your whole world! And think of everything that might arise between us!”

She stared at him, startled. He was asking if he might make love to her! She had not meant it to go so far as that—but there it was. Her own recklessness, and his forthrightness, had brought it to that point. And what could she say?

“Think!” he was saying. “And don’t try to evade—don’t lie to me. Answer me the truth!”

His eyes held hers. She waited—thinking, as he forced her to. At last, when she spoke, it was with a slightly trembling voice. “It would make no difference,” she said.

And then she tried to continue looking at him, but she could not. She was blushing; it was a dreadful habit she had!

It was an absolutely intolerable situation, and she must do something—instantly. He never would—the dreadful sphinx of a man! She looked up. “Now we’re friends?” she asked.

“Yes,” he replied.

“Then,” she said, laughing, “reach under the saddle-cloth and get out my ring. I might lose it.”

Bewildered, he got the ring, and understanding at last, laughed with her. “And now,” cried Sylvia, in her friendliest tone of voice, “get on your horse again and behave like a man of enterprise! Come!” She touched her mount and went galloping; she heard him pounding away behind her, and she began to sing:

They were good comrades now; all their problems solved, and a stirrup-cup of happiness to quaff between them. Sylvia was amazed at herself—the surge of exultation which arose in her and swept her along upon its crest. Never in all her life had she been as full of verve and animation as she was throughout that ride. She laughed, she sang, she poured out a stream of fantasy; and all the while the clatter of the horses hoofs—romance blending itself with reality!

But also she was studying the man. There was something in her which must always be studying people. Thank Heaven, he was a man who could forget himself, and laugh and be good fun! It was something to have got him out of his melancholy, and set him to galloping here—admiring her, marveling at her! She felt his admiration like a storm of wind pushing her along.

At last she drew up, breathless. “Dear me,” she exclaimed, “what a lot of chattering I have done! And we must be—how many miles from home?”

“Ten, I should say,” he replied.

“And I’ve had no breakfast!” she said. “We really must go back.”

He made no objection, and they turned. “You must come and see me at the lodge,” she said. “I am going home to-morrow afternoon.”

But he shook his head. “Don’t ask me,” he replied. “You know I don’t belong among smart people.”

She started to protest; but then she thought of Billy Aldrich with his tight collars and fancy stick-pins—of Malcolm McCallum with his Japanese valet; no, there was no use pretending about such things. And besides, she did not want these people to know her secret.

“But where can we meet?” she said. (How perfectly appalling was that—without any hint from him!)

“Can’t we ride again to-morrow morning?” he asked, quite simply.

And so they settled it. He left her at the place where the road turned in to the lodge. He tried to thank her for what she had taken the trouble to do; but she was frightened now—she dared not stay and listen any longer to his voice. She waved him a bright farewell, and rode off, feeling suddenly faint and bewildered.

She had half a mile or so to ride alone, and in that ride it was exactly as if he were by her side. She still heard his horse’s hoofs, and felt how he would look if she were to turn. Once she thought of Lady Dee, and then she could not help laughing. What would Lady Dee have said! How many of the rules of coquetry had she not broken in the space of two brief hours! But after a little more thought, she consoled herself. Possibly there were moves in this game which even Lady Dee had never heard of! “I don’t think I managed it so badly,” she was saying to herself, as she dismounted from her horse.

And that was the view she took when she told Harriet about it. She had not meant to tell Harriet at all, but the secret would out—she had to have some one to talk to. “Oh, my dear,” she exclaimed, “he’s perfectly wonderful!”

“Who? What do you mean?” asked Harriet.

“Frank Shirley.”

“What? You’ve met him?”

“Met him? I’ve been riding with him the whole morning, and I’ve almost let him propose to me!”

“Sylvia!” cried Harriet, aghast.

The other stood looking before her, grown suddenly thoughtful. “Yes, I did. And what’s more, I believe that to-morrow morning I’m going to let him propose to me.”

“Sunny,” exclaimed her friend, “are you a woman, or one of Satan’s imps?”

For answer Sylvia took her seat at the piano and began to sing—a song by which all her lovers set much store:

§ 15

Sylvia did very little thinking that first day—she was too much possessed by feelings. Besides this she had to go through all the routine of a house party; to go to breakfast and make apologies for her singular desire to ride alone; to go quail-shooting and remind Charlie Peyton to fire off his gun now and then; to curl her hair and select a gown for dinner—and all the while in a glow of happiness so intense as to come close to the borderland of pain.

It was not a definite emotion, but a vague, suffused ecstasy. She was like one who goes about hearing exquisite music; angels singing in the sky above her, little golden bells ringing in every part of her body. And then always, penetrating the mist of her feelings, was the memory of Frank Shirley. She could see his eyes, as they had looked up at her; she could hear the tones of his voice—its low intensity as he had said, “Think of everything that might happen between us!” She would find herself blushing crimson at the dinner-table, and would have to chatter to hide her confusion.

When night came she went into a sleep that was a half swoon of happiness; and awoke in the early dawn, first bewildered, then horrified, because of what she had done—her boldness, her lack of dignity and reserve. She had thrown herself at a man’s head! And of course he would be disgusted and would flee from her. She drank her coffee and dressed a full half hour too early; and meanwhile she was planning how she would treat him that morning. But then, suppose he did not come that morning?

She rode out in the light of a sunrise she did not see, amid the song of birds she did not hear. Suppose he did not come! When she saw him, far up the road, she wanted to turn and flee. Her heart pounded, her cheeks burned, there was a clashing as of cymbals in her ears. She reined up her horse and sat motionless, telling herself that she must be calm. She clenched her hands and bit a little hole in her tongue; and so, when he arrived, he found a young woman of the world awaiting him.

She saw at once that something was wrong with him. He too had been having moods and agonies, and had come full of resolutions and reservations! He greeted her politely, and had almost nothing to say as they rode away together. Sylvia’s heart sank. He had come because he had promised; but he was regretting his indiscretions. Very well, she would show him that she, too, could be polite! Under the spur of her fierce pride, she could be a light-hearted child, utterly unaware of the existence of any sulking male.

So they rode on. It was such a beautiful morning, the odor of the pine-forests was so refreshing and the song of the birds so free, that Sylvia was soon all that she had set out to pretend. She forgot her cavalier for several minutes, laughing and humming. When she realized him again, she had the boldness to tease him about himself—

And when he had no poetry ready to reply, she grew tired of him altogether, and touched her horse and cantered quickly on. Let him follow her if he chose—what mattered it! Moreover, she rode well, and men always noticed it; she was bare-headed, and no man ever saw the golden glory of her hair in bright sunlight that his heart did not begin to quiver within him!

After a while he spurred his horse and rode at her side, and without looking, she saw that he was watching her. She gave him just a little smile, absent-minded and barely polite. Resolving to punish him still more, she asked him the time. He gravely drew out his watch and replied to her question. “I will ride as far as the spring,” she said. “Then I must be going back.”

But he did not make the expected protest. He was going to lose her, and he did not care! Oh, what a man!

As they drew near the spring, Sylvia began to be uneasy again. She did not want him to lose her; she wanted him to care. She stopped to breathe her horse, and to look at the moss-ringed pool of water, and at the field of golden-rod beyond. “How lovely!” she said; and repeated, “How lovely!” He never said a word—and when he might so easily have said, “Let us stay a while!”

She was growing desperate. Her horse had got its breath and had had some water—what else? “I must have some of that golden-rod!” she exclaimed, suddenly. What was the matter with him, staring into space in that fashion? Had he no manners at all? “I must have some golden-rod,” she repeated; and when he still made no move, she said, “Hold my horse, please,” and started to dismount.

He sprang off, and took the reins of her horse, and those of his own in the same hand, giving his other hand to her. It was the first time he had touched her, and it sent a shock through her that sent her flying in a panic—out into the field of flowers, where she could hide her cheeks and her trembling!

§ 16

He made the horses fast to the fence, carefully and deliberately; and meantime she was gathering golden-rod. She knew that she made a picture in the midst of flowers. She was very much occupied as he came to her side.

A moment later she heard his voice: “Miss Castleman.”

Panic seized her again, but she looked up, with her last flicker of courage. “Well?” she asked.

“There is something I want to tell you,” he began. “I can’t play this game with you—I am no match for you at all.”

“Why—what do you mean?” she managed to say.

As usual, she knew just what he meant. “I am not a man who can play with his emotions,” he said. “You must understand this at the very outset—the thing is real to me, and I’ve got to know quickly whether or not it is real to you.”

There he was! Like a storm of wind that threatened to sweep away her pretenses, the whole pitiful little structure of her coquetry. But she could not let the structure go; it was her only shelter, and she strove desperately to hold it in place. “Why should you assume that I play with my emotions?” she demanded.

“You play, not with your own, but with other peoples’ emotions,” he replied. “I know; I’ve heard about you—long ago.”

She drew herself up haughtily. “You do not approve of me, Mr. Shirley? I’m very sorry.”

“You must know—” he began.

But she went on, in a rush of defensive recklessness: “You think I’m hollow—a coquette—a trifler with hearts. Well, I am. It’s all I know.” She flung her head up, looking at him defiantly.

“No, Miss Castleman,” he said, “it’s not all you know!”

But her recklessness was driving her—that spirit of the gambler that was in the blood of all her race. “It is all I know.” She bent over and began strenuously to pluck sprays of golden-rod.

“To break men’s hearts?” he asked.

She laughed scornfully. “I had a great-aunt, Lady Dee—perhaps you’ve heard of her. She taught me—and I’ve found out through much experience that she was right.” She gazed at him boldly, over the armful of flowers. “‘Sylvia, never let yourself be sorry for men. Let them take care of themselves. They have all the advantage in the game. They are free to come and go, they pick us up and look us over and drop us when they feel like it. So we have to learn to manage them. And, believe me, my child, they like it—it’s what they’re made for!’”

“And you believe such things as that?”

She laughed, a superbly cynical laugh, and began to gather more flowers. “I used to think they were cruel—when I was young. But now I know that Aunt Lady was right. What else have men to do but to make love to us? Isn’t it better for them than getting drunk, or gambling, or breaking their necks hunting foxes? ‘It’s the thing that lifts them above the brute,’ she used to say. ‘Naturally, the more of them you lift, the better.’”

“Did she teach you to deceive men deliberately?”

“She told me that when she was ordering her wedding trousseau, she was engaged to a dozen; a cousin of hers was engaged to another dozen, and couldn’t make up her mind which to choose, so she sent notes to them all to say that she’d marry the man who got to her first.”

He smiled—his slow, quiet smile. Sylvia did not know how he was taking these things; nor did his next remark enlighten her. “Did it not surprise you to be taught that men were the centre of creation?”

“No. They taught me that God was a man.”

He laughed, then became grave. “Why do you need so many men? You can’t marry but one.”

“Not in the South. But when I am ready to marry that one, I want it to be the one I want; and the only way to be sure is to have a great many wanting you. When a man sees a girl so surrounded with suitors that he can’t get near her, he knows it’s the one girl in the world for him. Aunt Lady had a saying about it, full of wisdom.” And Sylvia looked very wise herself. “‘Men are sheep!’”

“I see,” he said, somewhat grimly. “I fear, Miss Castleman, I cannot enter such a competition.”

“Is it cowardice?”

“Perhaps. It has been said that discretion is the better part of valor. You see, to me love is not a game, but a reality. It could never be that to you, I fear.”

Poor Sylvia! She was trying desperately hard to remember and make use of her training. But the rules she had learned were, so to speak, for fresh-water sailing; no one had ever thought that her frail craft might be blown out upon a stormy ocean like this. Picture her as a terrified navigator, striving to steer with a broken rudder, and gazing up into a mountain-wave that comes roaring down upon her!

He was a man who meant what he said. She had tried her foolish arts upon him and had only disgusted him. He was going away; and once he had left her, she would be powerless to get hold of him again!

Love could never be a reality to her, he had said. With sudden tears in her voice she exclaimed, “It could! It could!”

His whole aspect changed in a moment. A fire seemed to leap into his eyes. “You mean that?” he asked. And that was enough for her. As he moved towards her, she backed away a step or two. She thrust out the great bunch of golden-rod, filling his arms with that, and retreated farther into the yellow field.

He stood for a moment, nonplussed, looking rather comical with his unexpected load. Then he turned away without a word, and went to where his horse was fastened, and began to tie the flowers to his saddle.

She joined him before he had finished and mounted her own horse, saying casually, “It is late. We must return.” He mounted and rode beside her in silence.

At last he remarked, “You are going away this afternoon?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Then where can I see you?”

“You will have to come to my home.”

There was a pause. “It will be a difficult experience,” he observed. “You will have to help me through it.”

She answered, promptly, “You must come as any other man would come. You must learn to do that—you must simply not know what other people are thinking.”

At which he smiled sadly. “There is nothing in that. When everybody in the world is thinking one thing about you, you find there’s no use pretending not to know what it is.”

There he was again—simple and direct. He had a vision of the hostility of her relatives, the horror of her friends; he went on to speak his thoughts quite baldly. Was she prepared to face these difficulties? She might have the courage, she might not; but at least she must be forewarned, and not encounter them blindly. She said, “My own people will be kind, I assure you.” And when he smiled dubiously, she added, “Leave it to me. I promise you I’ll manage them.”

§ 17

Sylvia, as you know, had been taught to discuss the affairs of her heart in the language of military science. Continuing the custom, the fortress of her coquetry had withstood an onslaught which had brought dismay to the garrison, who had never before known what it was to be in real danger. In the hope of restoring confidence to the troops there was now undertaken a raid into the territory of perfectly innocent and defenseless neighbors.

The first victim was Charlie Peyton. He had implored one last opportunity to prove his devotion—being unable to imagine how his devotion could be of no interest to Sylvia. So the guests of the house party were treated to the amazing spectacle of this dignified and self-conscious youth standing for two hours in the crotch of an apple-tree. Meanwhile Sylvia went off for a walk with Malcolm McCallum; and when at last Charlie’s time was up, and he set out in search of her, he found his rival occupied in crawling on his knees the length of a splintery dock which ran out into the lake. Sylvia sat by, absorbed in a book, and when Charlie questioned her as to the meaning of this strange phenomenon, she replied that Mr. McCallum (known to us previously as “the Louisville dandy”) was probably experimenting with the creases in his trousers.

Dressing for luncheon and the trip home, Sylvia had a consultation with her friend Harriet. “Do you suppose I’m really in love?” was her question.

“With whom?” asked Harriet.

But Sylvia paid no heed to this feeble wit. “I don’t think he approves of me, Harriet. He thinks I’m shallow and vain—a trifler with hearts.”

“What would you have him think?” persisted the other.

“He isn’t like other men, Harriet. He makes me ashamed of myself. I think I ought to treat him differently.”

Whereat her friend became suddenly serious. “Look here, Sunny, don’t you lose your nerve! You stick to your game!”

“But suppose he won’t stand it?”

“Make him stand it! Take my advice, now, and don’t go trying experiments. You’ve learned one way, and you’re a wonder at it—don’t get yourself mixed up at the critical moment.”

Sylvia was gazing at herself in the mirror, wondering at the look on her own face. “I don’t know what to do next!” she cried.

“The Lord takes care of children and fools,” said Harriet. “I hope He’s on His job!” Then the luncheon gong sounded, and they went downstairs.

There was a new man, who had arrived the night before. He was named Pendleton, and Sylvia found herself placed next to him. She suspected that he had arranged this, and was bored by the prospect, and purposely talked with Charlie Peyton on her other side. Towards the end of the meal a servant came in and whispered to the hostess, who rose suddenly with the exclamation, “Frank Shirley is here!” Amid the general silence that fell Sylvia began suddenly to eat with assiduity.

The hostess went out, and returned after a minute or so with Frank at her heels. “Do sit down,” she was saying. “At least have some of this sherbet.”

“I’ve had my luncheon,” he replied; “I supposed you’d have finished.” But he seated himself at the table, as requested. There was a general pause, everybody expecting some explanation; but he volunteered none.

Opposite to Sylvia was Belle Johnston, an insipid young person who had a reputation for wit, for which she made other people pay. “Did you think it looked like rain, Mr. Shirley?” she inquired. Sylvia could have destroyed her.

“The weather is very pleasant,” said Frank. No one could be sure whether he was imperturbable, or had missed the jest altogether.

Harriet, seeing her friend’s alarming appetite and discomfort, stepped in now to save the situation. “I hope you brought me a message from your sister,” she remarked. “I am expecting one.”

But Frank would have none of any such devices. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but I haven’t brought it.”

Sylvia was furious. Had he no tact, no social sense at all—not even any common gratitude? He ought to have waited outside, where he would have been less conspicuous; instead of sitting there, dumb as an oyster, looking at her and obviously waiting for her! Sooner or later everyone must notice.

With a sudden impulse she turned to the man at her side. “I am sorry you came so late,” she said.

“I am more than sorry,” he replied, brightening instantly.

“I really must go home this afternoon,” she said.

He was encouraged by her tone of regret. “I think I will tell you something,” he said.

“Well?”

“I came here on purpose to meet you. I was visiting my friends, the Allens, at Thanksgiving, and all the men there were talking of you.”

This, of course, was ancient history to Sylvia. “What were they saying?” she asked—and stole a glance at Frank.

“They said you’d never let a man go without hurting him. At least, not if you thought him worth while.”

“Dear me!” she exclaimed, astonished and flattered. “I wonder that you weren’t afraid to meet me!”

“I was amused,” answered the other. “I thought to myself, I’d like to see her hurt me.”

Sylvia lifted her delicate eyebrows and gave him a slow, quiet stare, four-fifths scorn and one-fifth challenge.

“Gad!” he exclaimed. “You are interesting for a fact! When you look like that!”

“Not otherwise?” she inquired, now wholly scornful.

“Oh, you’re not the most beautiful woman I ever saw! Nor the cleverest!”

“Do not challenge me like that.”

“Why not?” he laughed.

“You might regret it.”

“It would be a good adventure—I’d be willing to pay the price to see the game. I admire a woman who knows her business.”

So the banter continued; the man displaying his cleverness and Sylvia casting upon him glances of mockery, of contempt, half veiling curiosity and interest. He, of course, being secretly convinced of his own irresistibility, was noting these glances and speculating about them, thrilled by them without realizing it, persuading himself that the girl was really coming to admire him. This was a kind of encounter which had occurred, not once, but a hundred times in Sylvia’s career, and usually it meant nothing in particular to her. But now it brought a reckless joy, because of the shock it was giving to that other man—the terrible man who sat across the way, his eyes boring into her very soul!

§ 18

When the luncheon was over, Sylvia made her way to Harriet Atkinson and caught her by the arm. “Harriet!” she exclaimed. “You must help me!”

“What?” whispered the other.

“I can’t see him!”

“But why not?”

“He wants to lecture me, and I won’t stand it! I’m going into the garden—take him somewhere else—you must!” Then, seeing Frank making toward her, she gave Harriet a vicious pinch, and fled from the room. There was a summer-house in the garden at the far end, and thither she went upon flying feet.

I was never sure how it happened—whether, as Harriet always vowed, she tried to hold Frank and could not, or whether she turned traitor to her friend. At any rate Sylvia had been there not more than a minute, and had scarcely begun to get control of herself, when she heard a step, and looking up, saw Frank Shirley coming down the path.

There was but one door to the summer-house—and he soon occupied that. “Go away!” she cried. “Go away!” (That was all that was left of her savoir faire!)

He stopped. “Miss Castleman,” he said—and his voice was hard, “I came here to see you. But now I’m sorry I came.”

The garrison rallied as to a trumpet-call. “That is too bad, Mr. Shirley,” she said, with appalling hauteur. “But you know you do not have to stay an instant.”

He gazed at her in doubt for a moment. Her heart was pounding and the color flooding her face. “I don’t believe you know what you are doing!” he exclaimed.

“Really!” she replied, witheringly. “Do you?”

“No,” he went on, “I don’t understand you at all. But I simply will find out!”

He strode towards her. She shrank into the seat, but he caught her hands. For a moment she resisted; but he held fast, and from his hands she felt a current as of fire, flowing through all her veins.

Slowly he drew her to her feet. “Sylvia!” he whispered. “Sylvia! Look at me!”

She obeyed him instinctively, and their eyes met. “You love me!” he exclaimed. She could hear his quick breathing. She felt herself sinking towards him. She felt his arms about her, his breath upon her cheek.

“I love you!” he murmured. And she closed her eyes, and he kissed her again and again. In his kisses it seemed to her that she would melt away.

She was exultant and happy. The testimony of his love was rapture to her. But then suddenly came a fear which they had inculcated in her. All the women who had ever talked to her on the problem of the male-creature—all agreed that nothing was so fatal as to allow the taking of “liberties.” Also there came sudden shame. She began to struggle. “You must not kiss me! It is not right!”

“But, Sylvia!” he protested. “I love you!”

“Oh, stop!” she pleaded. “Stop!”

“You love me!” he whispered.

“Please, please stop!”

A gentle pressure would have held her, but she felt that he was releasing her—all but one hand. She sank down upon the seat, trembling. “Oh, you ought not to have done it!” she cried.

He asked, “Why not?”

“No man has ever done that to me before!” The thought of what he had done, the memory of his lips upon her cheek, sent the blood flying there in hot waves; she began to sob: “No, no! You should not have done it!”

“Sylvia!” he pleaded, surprised by her vehemence. “Don’t you realize that you love me?”

“I don’t know! I’m afraid! I must have time!” She was weeping convulsively now. “You will never respect me again!”

“You must not say such a thing as that! It is not true!”

“You will go away and remember it, and you will despise me!”

His voice was calm and very soothing. “Sylvia,” he said, “I have told you that I love you. And I believe that you love me. If that is so, I had a perfect right to kiss you, and you had a perfect right to let me kiss you.”

There he was, sensible as ever; Sylvia found the storm of her emotion dying away. She had time to recall one of the maxims of Lady Dee: “A woman should never let a man see her weeping. It makes her cheeks pale and her nose red.” She resolved that she would stay in the protecting shadows of the summer-house until after he had departed.

§ 19

She went home; and at the dinner-table she was telling some of the adventures of the house party. “Oh, by the way,” she said, carelessly, “I met Frank Shirley.”

“Really?” exclaimed Mrs. Castleman. “Those poor, unfortunate people!”

“He must be quite a man now,” said Aunt Varina. “How old is he?”

“About twenty-one,” said the mother. Sylvia was amazed; she had not thought definitely of his age, but he had seemed a mature man to her.

“I see him now and then,” put in the Major. “He comes to town. Not a bad-looking chap.”

“He asked if he might call,” said Sylvia. “I told him, Yes. Was that right, Papa?”

“Why, certainly,” was the reply.

“He seems a very shy, silent kind of man,” she added. “He wasn’t sure that he’d be welcome.”

“Why, my dear,” exclaimed Mrs. Castleman. “I’m sure we’ve never made any difference in our treatment of the Shirleys!”

“Bob Shirley’s children will always be welcome to my home, so long as they behave themselves,” declared the father.

And so Sylvia left the matter, content with their attitude. Frank was wrong in his estimate of her family.

Two days later there came a negro man, riding a mule and carrying a bag, with a note from Frank. He begged her to accept this present of quail, because she had lost so much of her hunting time, and Charlie Peyton’s aim had been so bad. Sylvia read the note, and got from it a painful shock. The handwriting was boyish and the manner of expression crude. She was used to leisure-class stationery, with her monogram in gold at the top, and this was written upon a piece of cheap paper. Somehow it made the whole matter seem unreal and incredible to her. She found herself trying to recall how he looked.

So she went to sleep; and awakening early the next morning, waiting for the agreeable tinkle of the approaching coffee-cup—there suddenly he came to her! Just as real as he had been in the summer-house, with his breath upon her cheek! The delicious, blinding ecstasy possessed her again—and then fresh humiliation at the memory of his kisses! Oh, why did he not come to see her—instead of leaving her the prey of her fancy? She could not escape from the idea that she had lost his respect by flinging herself at his head—by permitting him to kiss her.

The next morning came the negro again, this time with a great bunch of golden-rod. “What a present!” exclaimed the whole family; but Sylvia understood and was happy. “It’s because of my hair,” she told the others, laughing. It must be that he loved her, despite her indiscretions!

He wrote that he was coming to see her that evening; and that because of the length of the ride, he would accept her invitation and come to dinner. So Sylvia braced herself for the ordeal.

She dressed very simply, so as not to attract attention. Uncle Mandeville was there, and two girl cousins from Louisville, visiting the family, and two of the Bishop’s boys and one of Barry Chilton’s, who dropped in at the last moment to see them. That was the way at Castleman Hall—there were never less than a dozen people at any meal, and the cook allowed for twenty. To all this crowd Sylvia had to introduce her strange new conquest, ignoring their glances of inquiry and parrying their mischievous shafts.

I must let you see this family at dinner. At the head of the table sits the Major, with gray hair and a gray imperial, wearing his black vest cut so low that he can plead it is evening dress; still adhering valiantly to the custom of his fathers, and carving the roast for his growing family, while the littlest girls, who come last, follow each portion with hungry eyes and count the number intervening. At the foot sits Mrs. Castleman, serving the salad and dessert, her ample figure robed in satin. “Miss Margaret” is just at that stage of her life, after the birth of the son and heir, when she has definitely abandoned the struggle with an expanding waistline. When I met her, some years later, she weighed two hundred and eighty pounds, and was the best-natured and most comically inefficient human soul I have ever encountered in my life.

There is Aunt Varina Tuis, humble and inconspicuous, weary after a day of trotting up and down stairs after the housekeeper, to see that the embroidered napkins were counted before they went to the laundry, that the drawing-room furniture was dusted, the dead flowers taken out of the dining-room, the fleas in the servants’ quarters kept in subjection. Mrs. Tuis’ queer little voice is seldom heard at the dinner-table, unless she is appealed to in some matter of family history: whom this one married, whom that one had been engaged to, whether or not it was true that some neighbor’s grandfather had kept a grocery store, as rumored.

Then there is Uncle Mandeville, home to recuperate from a spree in New Orleans; enormous in every direction, rosy-faced and prosperous, with a resounding laugh and an endless flow of fun. Beside him sits Celeste, the next daughter, presenting a curious contrast to Sylvia, with her restless black eyes, her positive manner and worldly viewpoint. There are the two cousins from Louisville, healthy and radiant, and the two Chilton boys, Clive and Harley, and Barry’s boy, who is a giant like Uncle Mandeville, and whenever he laughs, makes the cut glass to rattle on the buffet.

All this family hunts in one pack. They know all each other’s affairs, and take an interest in them, and stand together against the rest of the world. They are a noisy crew, good-humored, careless, but with hot tempers and little control of them—so that when their interests clash and they get on one another’s toes, they quarrel as violently as before they loved. Their conversation is apt to be bewildering to a stranger, for they seldom talk about general questions, having a whole arcanum of family allusions not easily understood. At this meal, for example, they are merry for half an hour over the latest tales of the doings of an older brother of Clive and Harley, who has married a girl with rich parents, but is too proud to take a dollar from them, and is forcing his bride to play at decent poverty. When the provisions run out they visit the Bishop, or the Major, or Uncle Barry, as may be most convenient, and go off with an automobile-load of hams and sausage-puddings and pickles and preserves. How many jokes there are, and what gales of merriment go round the table! The Bishop’s son the first kleptomaniac in the family! Barry’s young giant declaring that a single smile from the bride cost his father a cow and calf! The little girls, Peggy and Maria, chiming in with their tale of how the predatory couple found a lone chicken foraging in the rose-garden, confiscated it, carried it off under Basil’s coat, tied it by the leg under the piazza at the back of their house in town—and then forgot it and let it starve to death!