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CHAPTER I

"HALF DEVIL AND HALF CHILD"

"Then the preacher preached of Sin ... fair of flower and bitter of fruit."—Juliana Horatia Ewing.

"To me the idea of slaving for a life-time in order to die rich is a pitiful sort of insanity. That's the Italian in me, I suppose. I would think it wiser to drink—drink deep and long and gloriously—and die of it—die in a ditch if necessary! Then I would have lived some sort of life, anyway, and enjoyed it after my fashion. But I'm not going to live or die that way. I'm going to take everything in life that's worth having, and I'm going to enjoy—and enjoy—and enjoy! The devil, himself, can't cheat me of it. I've long arrears of happiness to make up and by God——I'll make them!" The speaker broke off, coughing horribly; a gleam of intense rage shone in his great, wild eyes and his thin nostrils quivered, furiously. Poor slight earth-worm! caught in the whirlwind of Destiny and tossed hither and thither! compelled to falsify his weak boasts even as he uttered them! The man who sat opposite, smoking and lounging in the dim light of the studio, withdrew his gaze with an effort from his visitor's frail form and frenzied face; there seemed something indecent in gazing thus openly at the contortions of a naked soul.

"Have a little hot Scotch for the cough," he suggested, reluctantly. "What's the use? I may just as well give it to him, here," he added to himself. "The boy's trebly doomed and a drop more or less isn't going to make any difference either way." He busied himself with a spirit lamp and glasses and soon his visitor was gulping down the proffered draught, greedily.

"That's good!" he exclaimed. "That puts life in me. I feel as if I could write something now—something worth while."

"Something unfit for reading, I suppose you mean," returned his host, cheerfully.

The boy laughed easily and settled back among the cushions of his easy chair with panther-like grace.

"Not a bit of it," he answered, gaily. "I only write them after gin. The best thing I ever did was gin—'Sin's Lure.' You read it?"

"I did."

"Strong, wasn't it?"

"Strong, yes. So is a—so are various other things strong. Just the sort of thing a diseased, vice-racked, dissipated young—genius—like you might be expected to produce. What bothers me now is your prose. Anything more uncharacteristic"—

The boy laughed and gazed at the older man, intently and mischievously.

"Nothing morbid about that, is there?"

"Nothing. Bright, dainty, unerringly truthful, delightfully witty—how in thunder do you do it? You must have two souls."

"Two! I've got a dozen."

The boy lit a cigarette and puffed it, meditatively. The man smoked a well-coloured pipe and gazed steadily at his visitor. Seen thus, they were an ill-assorted pair.

Gerald Amherst, the owner of the studio, was an artist, uncursed overmuch by the artistic temperament. His strong, sane face and massive figure suggested the athlete, the pose and substance of his attitude the successful business man. Nor did the omens lie. He was an athlete in his leisure moments, a business man at all times. Art was his occupation, his delight; but he never forgot that she was also his bread-winner. Amherst painted good, sometimes exceptional pictures; and he demanded—and obtained—good, sometimes exceptional prices for them. For the rest he was thirty-four, fine-looking, well-bred, honest—and popular. Friends came to him as flies come in July to ordinary mortals.

So alien was his visitor that he hardly seemed to belong to the same world. Lithe, long-limbed, sinuous, with features of almost feminine delicacy and charm and hands that made the artist soul in Gerald vibrate pleasurably. The eyes—deep-set, hollow, passionate—were the eyes of a lost soul; impenetrable, fathomless, and lurid.

Strange, alluring, repellent personality! where the seeds of a thousand sins—sown centuries before—bore hideous fruit. Madness, vice, disease, and death—and, through them all, the golden fire of genius! This boy's age was nineteen; and no second glance was needed to tell that the fierce, straining spirit must soon leave its wretched tenement behind and fare forth into darkness. In the meantime—Amherst puffed at his pipe and thought. A year ago this boy had been a pet and idol of Montreal society; to-day his open corruptness had closed all doors to him save those of a few, who, like Amherst, forgave the madman in the genius, and the beast in the dying boy.

Then, too, our hero was an artist; and Leo Ricossia was a model such as artist seldom sees. He was graceful as some young wild animal; his delicately nervous body could form no pose that was not pleasing. As for his face—thin-lipped, wide-eyed, luminous—"Ricossia will never write a poem so wonderful as his face," a brother-artist had once remarked; and Amherst fully concurred in the opinion.

Ricossia spoke presently, his dark eyes heavy with thought.

"You think it possible that one may have ten souls?"

"I think it probable that one soul may have twenty outlooks, and all of them vile, when he has soaked in sufficient gin. But how an unhealthy mind can produce healthy stuff—that's beyond me. Your prose is healthy, and what's more, it's fine. It ranks with"—He stopped abruptly, amazed and confounded by the glitter in Ricossia's eye.

"You—you don't think it better than my poetry? You can't!"

"I think—in a sense—it is better!" Amherst spoke slowly and Ricossia leaned forward to catch his words with an avidity which seemed disproportioned to the matter in hand. "In another sense it's not so good, of course. The poems are unhealthy, feverish, abnormal—but, in their way, they're efforts of genius. The stories are simply very unusually clever prose—healthy, witty, and clean. Personally I prefer them."

"You—you miserable Philistine!"

The boy leaned back as though relieved and his scarlet lips parted in a smile of startling sweetness. The eyes had lost their wild gleam now and were simply wells of dusky kindness and fellowship; the eyes of an intelligent, friendly brute with something added. Gerald noted the change with unflagging interest; as a study the boy never palled.

"You think I'm a bad lot, don't you?"

"I think you're as bad as the worst. But a chap like you isn't to be judged by ordinary standards."

"Yet," pursued Ricossia, slowly, "you allow that I can write clean stuff. Perhaps in spite of it all, underneath it all—my soul is clean."

"I hope so; but I don't believe it for a moment. No, I can't account for it that way."

"Possibly," suggested the other, puffing fitfully, "possibly, then, my unclean spirit has gained control of some healthy, human soul which it dominates."

"Possibly you're talking awful rot," returned the other, good-humouredly but a trifle impatiently.

"Possibly I am."

The poet smiled softly and leaned back, making a lovely thing of the corner where he lounged.

"Healthy people often have a liking for me," he observed. "You, for instance—the healthiest man I know. And the healthiest woman—Miss Thayer."

"That'll do."

"What do you mean?"

"That you mustn't speak of her."

"Why?"

"You ought to know."

The boy stared, uncomprehendingly; then threw himself back, chuckling inaudibly.

"You didn't understand me," he said at last, his beautiful eyes bright with amusement. "She has far too much sense to be attracted by me in the ordinary way. I meant only"—

"I don't care what you meant. I don't like to talk to you about her and I won't. If she did bestow a good deal of attention on you at one time it was before she knew your real character; she regarded you just as a sick, inspired boy. None of them ever speak of you, now; you ought to know that."

Ricossia fixed his great eyes on the speaker's face with an impenetrable expression, then shook with silent laughter.

"We'll talk on some less delicate subject," he said at last with a keen, bright glance at the other man, replete with subtle mockery. "Still," he added, softly, "you'll allow—leaving all personalities out of the question—that I have a magnetic attraction for all women, good and bad—even if I am ostracized from polite society."

"I'll allow nothing—I don't want to discuss it, I tell you," said Amherst, irritably. "There are some things and some people one doesn't care to hear you mention, you young— Can't you understand that?"

"Perfectly!" returned the boy, laughing. His laugh was an uncanny thing, so melodious and bell-like as to be startlingly unmasculine. Amherst liked it no better than the rest of him—and found it equally attractive.

After all, he mused, his momentary irritation subsiding, our ideas of what a man should be were arbitrary. Certainly there was a beauty of disease; a beauty even of corruption, which, while no one cared to imitate, no one, on the other hand, could deny the existence of. Here was a living example; the scapegoat of heredity, laden down with sin, weighted with disease, yet possessed of how many goodly gifts! And all to end in—what? The passion of the hot heart, the sweat of the over-active brain—all, all for nothing. An evil life and an early grave. Retribution, yes; but retribution, really, for the sins of the dead men whose deeds lived, poisoning the life and rotting the blood in the veins of this, their human puppet. And these dead men, what of them? What of their life, endlessly self-renewed, unceasingly sinned against until this, the last representative of a name that had once been great, went to fertilize the waiting earth. "About all he is fit for, too," mused Gerald grimly enough, noting the signs plainly written on the face of the boy. Then his mood changed. How pitiful! This beautiful creature, in nature a cross between a satyr and an elfin, in face, nothing short of a god; this "vessel of a more ungainly make" "leaning all awry"; this marionette of the scornful gods, dancing gaily enough, to every tune the devil chose to play him; this strange, only half human being of the unbridled will, the untempered desires. And only nineteen!

The studio showed bright with candle-light and lamp-light. A fire of wood and coal glowed and chattered on the hearth. It was all very quiet, very restful. The boy still lingered among the rich-hued cushions and his face showed an unwonted sense of peace.

The poetic instincts which an Italian father, an Irish grandmother, had bequeathed to him responded amazingly to this atmosphere of cosy, sinless warmth. He was quite capable of rising to heights of extraordinary mental spirituality at such moments, though quite incapable of applying the first principle of morality to his daily life.

Gerald Amherst thought, as he had thought many times before, of the strange inequalities of life. Here was he, thirty-four, the possessor of a sound body, a clear conscience, a healthy mind and a sufficient income. He reflected on these various advantages with no sense of personal merit, feeling that they had been bequeathed to him as truly as had the old mahogany chest which formed one of the chief ornaments of his room. He had certainly started as well equipped as most to play the great game of life.

What if he, too, had had this boy's heritage? He tried, smiling a little, to imagine himself a Ricossia; a doomed, reckless, light-hearted being who chose to spend his few remaining years in hopeless vice. As he thought, a sudden pity for the boy overtook him as it had very often done before, a sudden curiosity as to what really transpired behind the black veil which we all hang between our inmost selves and the eyes of our fellow-humans. Did the boy ever feel regret or shame or loathing for himself or reluctance to continue in his vile career? Would he confess to it if he did? Amherst, pressed by a sudden desire to know more of his whimsical visitant, questioned him, soberly.

"I say—Leo!"

"Well, old man?"

"You've been going it a bit, lately, haven't you? Drinking pretty hard? Drugs, too, of some sort, I fancy. You look pretty seedy."

The boy started and glanced hastily in a polished, steel mirror which hung near. What he saw evidently re-assured him, for he tossed his black head and smiled, carelessly.

"I think I look pretty fit," he said, coolly. "I'd hate to think otherwise. My word! I don't know what I'd do if—some fellows show that sort of thing so. Swollen faces, purple round the nose and all that—you know?"

"I know."

"But I'm not in that class, yet, thank the Lord."

"Yes, but suppose the Lord went back on you and handed you the red nose and the pimples and all the other ornaments which rightfully belong to you—what then?"

"Then?—oh, then, I'd end it very quickly. I can't bear to have an ugly object in the room with me; do you think I could bear to be one myself? Chloral's painless."

"Yes, and cheap. The idea of suicide appeals to you, then?"

"Not especially," answered the boy, beginning to stir, restlessly. "But one must do something if the worst comes to the worst."

"I wonder, if you feel like that, that you continue to live. Do you really think your life's worth living?"

"No," answered Ricossia, calmly. "Do you think yours is?"

Gerald stopped half-way in an answer, struck by a sudden thought. Was his life worth living? It was a good life as lives go; but if he could exchange it now, to-night, for total oblivion, absolute insurance against future pain, old age, illness, sorrow—would he, or would he not? He hesitated.

"I ask you," pursued Ricossia, quietly, "because, just now, as I leaned back here in your comfortable chair with your fire dancing in my eyes and your good drink warming the very cockles of my heart, I thought of you and, for a moment, envied you. Then I thought of your life. Your tiresome routine of work, exercise, wholesome food, good air, sound sleep—God! how do you stand it? I'd go mad!"

"You think your own life preferable?"

"My life is life of a kind. My cough's a devilish nuisance but I can always purchase oblivion with a few cents—oblivion! Have you ever known what it is to want sleep? No? I thought not. Wait until you have. Then know what it is to want sleep and to get it; to drop off to slumber, lulled with pleasant thoughts, dreams, fancies, and to feel no pain, no bother, nothing but a delicious drowsiness. Of course the waking up is bad—but you don't think of that; if you did, I suppose you'd take a bigger dose once for all."

"I'm not paid to induce you to commit suicide, but, feeling as you do, I wonder what on earth you live for?"

"So do I. So do most of us. But of course there is only one answer to that question; namely, that Nature has implanted in the breast of the tiniest insect that lives and crawls on the face of this globe not only the desire to live but the intention to live. It's an instinct. We all have it. Life is a horrible thing, really. This world is an unspeakable place. But none of us wants to leave it all the same. That may be because it is the only life we have or it may be because there's a worse life waiting. But I don't believe that, someway. Though the Creator seems pretty cruel at times I think perhaps old Khayyam did him no injustice. 'He's a good fellow and 'twill all be well.' And now, Amherst, yarning always makes me restless and dry and the night's still young. I'm going to get drunk."

"Hold on!" expostulated Amherst, genuinely shocked and startled, he could hardly tell why, at this most unexpected and unpleasant ending to their talk. "Don't do it, Ricossia. How can you? What—what can you expect from the 'Good Fellow' if you fly in his face, that way? It's devilish, that's what it is. Stay and let me fix you up for the night, you young fool, you!"

Ricossia laughed. "You're a funny old boy, Amherst," he observed, meditatively. "I wonder what it feels like to have a conscience. I'd rather have a drink—a series of drinks! 'My Clay with long oblivion has gone dry.' As for the 'Good Fellow'—I haven't seen anything of him, yet. Have you? But the other old Boy is howling to be fed, so I'm off. Good-night."

CHAPTER II

A VISIT TO AGATHA

"This life of ours is a wild Æolian harp of many a joyous

strain—

But under them all there runs a loud, perpetual wail as of

souls in pain."—Longfellow.

Agatha Ladilaw had made a pink dress and was embroidering it with roses. Each of us has some particular talent; Agatha's was dressmaking. Her parents were not wealthy and therefore she could not indulge in the "creations" affected by many of her friends; but by dint of constant industry, excellent taste and unusual skill, she contrived to be always charmingly costumed. True, with a figure that might have stepped out of a Fifth Avenue shop window and a face which any colour rendered lovely, she did not confront the difficulties of ordinary mortals.

As physical perfection is rare and as Agatha Ladilaw was, in her way, an unusually fine specimen of purely mundane and limited loveliness, a pen picture of her as she sat may be of interest.

Nature in planning Agatha had done unusually well. She had not only bestowed upon her a great amount of comeliness, but she had, apparently, taken pride in finishing her work in a way that is not common. How often a pretty face is spoilt by an irregular nose, a large ear, an imperfect contour of cheek or brow! In Agatha's case, however, no pains had been spared to produce a thoroughly bewitching whole. While face and form were sufficiently classical in outline to satisfy the most exacting, there was a warmth, a colour, a radiance about her, born partly of exuberant youth, partly of brilliant health. Her eyes were wonderful; purple pansies, black-lashed, white-lidded; her hair was a ripe chestnut, deepening to auburn, lightening to gold. Her skin had that pure satin whiteness peculiar to extreme youth; her hands were plump, dimpled, tapering, with pink palms and transparent nails. Her teeth were white, tiny and sharp; when she smiled, her pink cheeks broke into enchanting dimples which added the last touch of enticement to her kitten-like charms.

Nature had planned her upon classic lines—a sort of pocket edition Venus. Agatha, however, after a careful perusal of the fashion plates every spring, moulded her figure in accordance with the latest "craze." When long waists and narrow hips held sway, Agatha presented a faultlessly correct outline; when the coquettish athlete adorned magazine covers, Agatha might have passed for her sister. How all this was accomplished with no injury to health is a mystery which only the corsetiere can solve; Agatha at all times might have sat for a picture of Hebe.

For the rest, she was slightly under medium height, a fact which she publicly deplored, but for which she was secretly grateful. She did not admire tall girls; in fact, she did not admire anybody or anything which differed very greatly from her extremely attractive self. She had an intense and artistic appreciation of her various good points and looked with pity on those to whom the fairies had been less lavish. One who came in for a share of this ingenuous pity was her cousin, Lynn Thayer.

This young lady had dropped in at the time the chapter opens, for a cup of tea, in accordance with a long-deferred promise. As she sank into an easy-chair and loosened her furs she smiled at Agatha with a smile which held no tinge of envy. For Lynn, while cherishing in common with many plain women an enthusiastic admiration for beauty, enjoyed it in much the same way that she enjoyed music; intensely, even emotionally, but impersonally. Notwithstanding, she attached an exaggerated importance to it and affected her small cousin more than she otherwise might have done because she possessed it in such unstinted measure.

As she sat, idly watching Agatha's white fingers moving through the pink draperies of the gown which she was embroidering, the thought of Leo Ricossia occurred to her and she mentally compared them. Both were beautiful to an extraordinary degree; but Agatha's beauty suggested roses, kittens, Cupids, everything that was soft and appealing, exquisite and empty, while Ricossia's beauty suggested storm, flaming sunset, glorious music. His was, in short, the beauty of a young caged tiger, Agatha's the loveliness of a very perfect white Persian kitten. Lynn laughed as this simile presented itself to her mind; it seemed to her singularly apropos. What different worlds they inhabited, these two radiant young creatures! Ricossia represented the pagan element, Agatha was the last word of civilized young-ladyship. The world was wide enough to contain both; nay, this little, stately old city was wide enough for that. They lived within an hour's distance of one another, as far asunder in thought, life, knowledge, ideals as is this little earth from "the last star's uttermost distance."

Lynn Thayer's and Agatha Ladilaw's mothers had been sisters and both had been beauties. Lynn, however, as her maternal relatives were fond of remarking, had "taken after her father." Though her face was pleasing it was rather plain; plain, not ugly; for its plainness consisted rather in lack of positive beauty than in any particular defect. Her hair was brown and abundant, her eyes deep-set and giving the effect of brown to the casual observer, although, as a matter of fact, they were a dark greyish green. Her skin was colourless, her mouth, large and thin-lipped, her nose, ordinary. However, her figure was excellent of its kind, tall, straight, flat-backed, and, while delicately proportioned, giving the effect of considerable reserve strength. Her movements, too, were graceful, but graceful somewhat as a young boy's are graceful, alert, easy, noiseless and entirely lacking in effort or self-consciousness. Perhaps her only positive beauty consisted in her teeth which, though not dainty like Agatha's, were white and regular. It would hardly be fair to say that her face lacked expression, but it was not a mobile face; habits of self-control and repression had stamped themselves too deeply in her nature not to show elsewhere. Her bearing was dignified and even distinguished and her voice well-modulated and soft. As a whole, she was the sort of girl whom one might meet any day in any city of the continent; a girl who was no longer young, yet showed no signs of age; a girl who could never be pretty, yet would hardly be considered ugly; a girl who wore dark coloured tailor-made costumes and looked like a lady in them; a girl who closely resembled scores of other girls the world over.

Lynn Thayer occupied a somewhat unusual position in Montreal. Her mother had been a pretty woman of fashion, her father a well-to-do man. However, her father dying shortly after his marriage and her mother losing all her money in a way which shall be explained elsewhere, Lynn had been left penniless. Her father's only living brother had offered her a home and a dress allowance; but she had refused the latter, had qualified as a public school teacher, and was earning a regular salary in one of the Board Schools. As both her father's and her mother's relatives were people of some wealth and much social standing, she occupied an anomalous position in what is known as "society." As a young girl she had "gone out" quite a little; now for reasons which shall presently develop, she went only to the homes of intimate friends and was seldom seen in public.

Oddly enough Lynn Thayer possessed a considerable fascination for both sexes. All men and most women liked her. She had never been pretty and was no longer a young girl, but her attraction had rather augmented than diminished as time went by. Debutantes, secure in the possession of unimpeachable gowns and rosy cheeks, often looked with amazement at the alacrity with which their partners left them for a dance with Miss Thayer. Probably these same partners would have found it difficult to explain why, themselves. Lynn always created the impression that she was a nice girl; a positive "nice girl," not a negative "nice girl." People liked her. Children "took to her" at once, dogs followed her; cats jumped on her knee without waiting for an invitation. Beyond an admirable figure and a pretty wit she possessed no surface charms; but something about her attracted and inspired confidence and trust. It is difficult to say why one excellent person is universally liked, another excellent person universally detested, another excellent person universally respected and shunned. Lynn Thayer belonged to the first class, that was all.

Certainly no two girls could resemble one another less than the cousins. Lynn was at best "a nice-looking girl," Agatha was "a dream." She showed to excellent advantage, too, in her mother's house where everything had been planned with an eye to the petted daughter as the central figure.

It was a very pretty sitting-room where Agatha Ladilaw sat, this cold January day. Without, the sharp air cut like a knife; within, all was comfort, warmth, cosiness. It would be difficult to imagine Agatha in anything but elegant and graceful surroundings. She was like a lovely, white, Persian kitten who had fed on cream and lain on cushions all her life; and, someway, one always knew that she would continue to feed on cream and lie on silk even if she lost her fur and her teeth in the course of time. If certain natures carry within themselves the elements of tragedy, others carry within themselves not only the desire for the soft things of life but the capacity for obtaining them. To the latter class Agatha undoubtedly belonged. Her beautiful aunt, Lynn's mother, had made rather a mess of her life, in spite of the fact that she had had all and more than Agatha possessed in the way of beauty and fascination. One knew instinctively that Agatha would never fall into her mistakes. In the first place she would not wait till twenty-five before marrying; in the second place she would never dislike any man who fed and clothed her sumptuously; in the third place she would never be carried away by any indiscreet and expensive infatuation. In short Agatha was quite the most correct thing in young ladies, eminently satisfactory and desirable.

The room where Agatha liked to sit with embroidery or sewing was long, low, light. The bay-window was filled with plants, and the fragrance of mignonette and jasmine hung about the rose-coloured curtains which draped the alcove and separated it from the rest of the room. The furniture was light and artistic rather than costly; easy chairs upholstered in rose-patterned chintz; mission-wood tables, bookcases and "rockers"; the inevitable "cosy corner," cushioned to the last degree of comfort; a green carpet displaying a border of various-coloured roses; a silver-laden tea-table, a table containing books and magazines—mostly uncut; another containing one beautiful vase of cut flowers. Presently, when dusk arrived, the room would be suffused with rose-coloured lamp-light, but, at present, the winter sun flooding the room and the tiny fire which burned on the hearth gave a sufficient suggestion of cheer.

Agatha in her pink environment sewing on a pink dress gave one a delightful sense of the eternal fitness of things. One forgot, for the time being, the bitter January wind howling outside, the flock of black cares that dog the footsteps of ordinary mortals. Agatha certainly had her place in the scheme of the universe, just as the Persian kitten has. If the kitten were thrust out into the world and told to earn its cream—that would be another story.

Agatha, as has before been stated, would never have to earn her cream, otherwise than by existing and ornamenting. She would always be cheerfully ready to pay for it whenever necessary in the coin with which Nature had so richly endowed her. Therefore it will at once be seen that Agatha was a most satisfactory girl; everything that a young lady ought to be; just the sort of person who could be depended upon to give Society no shocks and her parents no anxiety.

Lynn almost wished that Agatha would not think it necessary to talk; the fire-lit, rose-decorated room and the beautiful little occupant who sat, absorbed in her draperies, were both so eminently satisfactory from an artistic point of view that she would have preferred to lounge idly, and enjoy them. Everything about Agatha was so attractive, so feminine, in such charming taste. The delicate white fingers moving in and out of the pink draperies; the graceful pose of the pretty figure in the easy chair; the absorbed, almost spiritual expression of the great, violet eyes; all charmed Lynn, even while she realized their misleadingness and realized, too, that, by breaking into these absorbed meditations, one was liable to disturb nothing more important than the set of an imaginary train. Soon, however, Agatha spoke; slowly and with something resembling an effort.

"Lynn, what do you think of Harry Shaftan, the General's nephew?"

"He's a nice boy."

"Nicer than Howard Pyle or Jimmy Gresham?"

"I believe I like him better."

"What do you think of the others?"

"Why? Are you engaged to any of them?" asked Lynn, laughing.

"Oh, no! That is—I mean to say—yes. I mean, I'm engaged to them all."

Lynn leaned back and gasped. Agatha continued to embroider.

"And—may I ask which one you intend to marry?"

"I don't know, exactly," confessed Agatha, poising her needle on her pink lip and gazing reflectively heavenward. "They're all nice; but I don't think I'll marry any of them."

"Agatha Ladilaw! What do you mean?"

"Why, lots of engagements are broken," said Agatha, looking surprised. "Lots and lots of them. If I found that I didn't really love any of these men—that the real passion of my life was yet to come—you wouldn't advise me to marry them, would you?" She looked at her cousin with an air of virtuous surprise and Lynn shouted.

"Oh, Agatha, you're a treat!" she exclaimed, with intense enjoyment. "A veritable, living treat!"

"I really don't see why," said Agatha, coldly, proceeding to thread a needle with an offended air. "And if you're going to laugh about serious subjects like love and marriage, why, I won't talk about them, that's all."

This consummation was far from Lynn's desire; and by dint of earnest and respectful entreaties she finally induced her small cousin to continue.

"What made you accept them all in the first place?" she asked with interest.

"Why, they all wanted me," said Agatha, simply. "And it's so hard to say no to a nice man. Even if he isn't nice, it's not easy. And you said yourself that they"—

"But, Agatha?"

"Yes?"

"Doesn't it seem queer to—well, to let three men kiss you at the same time?"

"The idea!" said Agatha, haughtily. "Of course they don't all do it at once. I very seldom see more than one of them in the same evening."

"Oh, don't be silly, Agatha; you must know what I mean. Doesn't it seem—isn't it a little hard to"—

"Why, no," said Agatha, staring, "it's the easiest thing in the world."

"Dear me! You don't feel at all sneaky or confused about it?"

"Confused? Why, no. You see, I've always been engaged to two or three people more or less ever since I was fifteen; of course before that it wasn't really necessary."

"How do you mean?"

"Why, to be engaged, you know! one didn't have to be. But after you're fifteen, it seems rather fast, somehow, to let people kiss you that you're not engaged to."

"I had no idea you were so particular," murmured Lynn, bending down to hide a smile.

"Oh, I always think a girl can't be too particular about those things," said Agatha, firmly. "Because suppose someone happened to see you! All you have to do then is to say, 'To tell you the truth, I'm engaged to Mr. ——,' whichever one it was. And there you are!"

"And suppose the same person found you with one of the others—what then?"

"Oh, that would be very unlucky. I don't believe I would ever be so unlucky as that. And, Lynn, now that I have taken you into my confidence and told you things, won't you make a friend of me? and let me give you a little advice?"

"Why, yes," said Lynn, smiling.

"It's about Mr. Lighton. You know he is so eligible and it would be so dreadful if, by any mismanagement, you let him slip through your fingers."

"Oh!"

"Yes, indeed; and men are so deceitful," continued Agatha, piously, "you can't tell a thing about them, you really can't. Now there was a case I knew; it was something like yours only not so disappointing, for the man had only two thousand a year. But he kept running after this girl, just the way Lighton does after you, and everybody thought he meant something. People kept expecting to hear the engagement announced; but it never came off."

"What was the trouble?"

"Why, you know, it was the queerest thing! he kept calling and calling and every time you'd think he was going to propose; but he never did. So the girl got mad. She said she simply wasn't going to stand it a moment longer, so she packed her trunk and went off to stay with some people in Toronto. She was not going to have any such nonsense. But it didn't do any good, for he married some one else."

"What a sad story!"

"Isn't it?" agreed Agatha, oblivious of sarcasm. "But she was very lucky, for she met someone who had quite six hundred a year more than the first man had, and he proposed to her quite quickly, and so then of course they were married, and I sent them a centrepiece that I had embroidered, myself. It was a very handsome one but you see Toronto is a nice place to stay in."

"Oh, I quite see why you sent it. I also see why you told me the story. It has a moral. If the man who is rushing you doesn't propose after a reasonable space of time—go to Toronto! Isn't that the idea?"

"You are so clever," said Agatha with an apologetic smile, "that sometimes I don't quite understand you. But if you mean that you think that I am advising you to go to Toronto, that isn't right, because any other place would do as well. Except that, of course, there are quite a good many men in Toronto."

"And you think that one of them might be induced to accept me?"

"Why not?" said Agatha, encouragingly. "But, of course, you wouldn't be at all likely to make another match like Mr. Lighton. So that is why I want you to be so particularly careful. You don't take these things seriously enough, Lynn, you know you don't. You must remember that you are getting on."

"Every year brings me nearer the grave, but no nearer matrimony," commented Lynn, assuming an appropriately funereal aspect.

"Oh, don't say that!" cried Agatha, looking genuinely shocked. "Please don't! It sounds so dreadfully as if it might be— And I am sure Mr. Lighton is most attentive and Mr. Amherst and two or three others call pretty often, don't they?"

"Yet," said her cousin, solemnly, "I think myself, Agatha, that there is just one little thing which is going to effectually prevent Mr. Lighton from marrying me. You mark my words! as sure as I stand here just so surely will I never be Mrs. Lighton. This one little obstacle is going to stand in the way."

"Why, what can it be?" queried Agatha, with intense interest.

"You have no idea?"

"Why, no."

"I thought that you wouldn't have," returned Lynn, very gravely.

"It won't prevent him from proposing, will it?"

"Not a bit of it. It will only prevent him from marrying—that is, from marrying me."

"Oh, how dreadful!" cried Agatha in genuine distress. "And to think of all the men you have refused, Lynn! and I suppose that there isn't one you could get back at a pinch."

"I fear not. The majority are either dead or married and the Grave and the Other Woman do not disburse."

"No, indeed," sighed her mentor. "And it's so necessary for you to marry, Lynn, for if Uncle Horace died to-morrow he would leave Aunt Lucy everything and there would be nothing left for you. Oh, what a pity that your mother's money was all spent."

"Yes, it seems a little unfortunate."

"That dreadful Italian! What a pity Aunt Clara married him after your father died. And didn't they have a son? What has become of him?"

"My dear Agatha, how should I know?" said Lynn, restlessly. "Don't you remember that, when Uncle Horace adopted me, he did it with the distinct understanding that I was to hold no communication with my mother and my little half-brother?"

"Oh, how dreadful! How could you bear to be parted from your own dear mother for ever?"

Lynn surveyed the questioner with a slight smile.

"Oh, I enjoyed the feeling that I brought in six hundred a year. I knew that it would procure my mother more pleasure than my society could, and that, with six hundred a year, her baby boy, and an occasional kiss from the biggest blackguard the Lord ever let loose on earth, she would be as happy as she could ever be. Poor mother! she was pretty, they say, even when she lay dead; her beauty didn't do her much good, but, on the other hand, my ugliness hasn't profited me, greatly. On the whole, I wish I looked like her."

"Aunt Clara was so awfully pretty and that Italian she married was so wonderfully handsome! the boy must have been a perfect little beauty."

"He was." Lynn spoke without enthusiasm.

"Weren't you fond of him?

"Very."

"Wouldn't you like to see him, again?"

"No—yes"—

"I don't believe you cared much about him, really."

Lynn looked at her and smiled.

"I was nine when he was born. My own father had died when I was a baby and my earliest recollections are those of seeing my mother crying half the day because my stepfather was out and laughing and chatting wildly because he was in. She never noticed me. I was an ugly little thing and she worshipped beauty—as I do. Besides, there are certain people who seem to suck the lifeblood of all who care for them, and my stepfather was of these; her love for him was a feverish thing, a thing that absorbed and tortured and finally killed her. Such is the perfect justice of the universe! no good man or woman ever receives that idolatrous love; it is only the vile, the utterly selfish, the heartlessly cruel—oh, here! what am I saying? To return to my story; I had a nurse till we grew too poor, then I looked after myself. Then ... the baby came. The baby! Oh, Agatha, if you had seen him! He was so beautiful, so utterly dear and heavenly, and no one had ever cared for me, and he—the very first time I saw him he put out his tiny hand and the little fingers twined about mine ... oh, my baby, my baby, how could I ever love anything in earth or heaven as I loved you? Well! for three years I was always with him and then—and then Uncle Horace wanted to adopt me, to rescue me, as he called it. And—I went. I was twelve years old at the time—in years—and I realized, in the bitterest moment of my life, that to go meant money and comfort and pleasure for him—my idol! All I could do for him was to leave him—I saw it plainly—and I went without a word. I went. I wonder if any misery in after life can ever compare with the agony of that last hour when I sat, holding him in my arms and rocking him to and fro—and waiting. The carriage came at last to take me to the station and I kissed the wonderful little face and looked into the marvellous baby eyes and went! Oh, my baby, my baby, if I ever have a child of my own, will he, can he, ever be to me what you were, I wonder!—dear me, what a lot of nonsense I'm talking, Agatha! You mustn't mind."

"Not at all," said Agatha, politely, "it's interesting. I had no idea that you were so fond of babies, Lynn. But it seems so queer that you don't know where he is, now. What became of him when your mother died? He was about ten, wasn't he? for I remember you were nineteen."

"Yes, he was ten. Oh, he lived at school and then with his father till the latter died of consumption. That was two years ago."

"And now?"

"Why, now—he is probably living somewhere else. He is a man, you see, and able to take care of himself."

"But, oh, Lynn dear, you show so little feeling," said Agatha, with dainty reproach. "Not to care what has become of that boy—when you used to be so fond of him."

"Oh, we forget everybody and everything—in time," returned Lynn, listlessly. "At least," she added in a lower voice, "I hope we do."

"Yes, I suppose so," said Agatha, comfortably. "Lynn, did you ever see anything so sweet as that last rosebud I've just made? And it's given me such a lovely idea. The very next fancy dress ball I'm asked to, I'll go as the Queen of the Roses. Don't you think that will be lovely? Pale pink, you know, with garlands of rosebuds and a rose-wreath. Ring for tea, won't you, please? I'm dying for a cup, and it's getting too dark to work."