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chestnut coat. Then she perceived that the rider was tall and thin, that he stooped in the saddle with an air of slouching accustomedness, and, as he passed beneath the window, that he had a red sharpfeatured face that looked rather foxlike beneath his peaked tweed cap.

'Renny,' murmured Eden, 'back from his porcine expedition.'

'Yes, I thought it must be Renny, though he is not like I expected him to be. Why did you not call to him?'

'He's rather a shy fellow. I thought it might embarrass both of you to exchange your first greetings from such different altitudes.'

Alayne, listening to the muffled sound of hoofs, remarked: 'He gives the impression of a strong personality.'

'He has. And he's as wiry and strong as the devil. I've never known him to be ill for a day. He'll probably live to be as old as Gran.'

Gran Gran, thought Alayne. Every conversation in this family seemed to be punctuated by remarks about that dreadful old woman.

'And he owns all this,' she commented. 'It does not seem quite fair to all you others.'

'It was left that way. He has to educate, provide for the younger family. The uncles had their share years ago. And, of course, Gran simply hoards hers. No one knows who will get it.'

Gran again.

A gentle breeze played with a tendril of hair on her forehead. Eden brushed his lips against it.

'Darling,' he murmured, 'do you think you can be happy here for a while?'

'Eden! I am gloriously happy.' 'We shall write such wonderful things together.'

They heard steps on the graveled path that led to the back of the house. Alayne, opening her eyes, heavy with a momentary sweet languor, saw Renny enter the kitchen, his dogs at his heels. A moment later a tap sounded on the door.

'Please,' said Wake's voice, 'will you come down to dinner?'

He could not restrain his curiosity about the 'brideangroom.' It seemed very strange

to find this young lady in Eden's room, but it was disappointing that there were no confetti, no orange blossoms about.

Alayne put her arm around his shoulders as they descended the stairs, feeling more support from his little body in the ordeal of meeting the rest of the family than the presence of Eden afforded her. There were still Renny and the wife of young Piers.

Their feet made no sound on the thick carpet of the stairs. The noontide light falling through the colored glass window gave the hall an almost churchlike solemnity, and the appearance at the far end of old Mrs. Whiteoak emerging from her room, supported on either side by her sons, added a final processional touch. Through the open door of the dining room Alayne could see the figures of Renny, Piers, and a young girl advancing toward the table. Meg already stood at one end of it, surveying its great damask expanse as some high priestess might survey the sacrificial altar. On a huge platter already lay two rotund roasted fowls. Rags stood behind a drawn-back chair awaiting Mrs. Whiteoak. As the old lady saw Alayne and her escorts approaching the door of the dining room, she made an obviously heroic effort to reach it first, shuffling her feet excitedly, and snuffing the good smell of the roast with the excitement of an old war horse smelling blood.

'Steady, Mama, steady,' begged Ernest, steering her past a heavily carved hall chair.

'I want my dinner,' she retorted, breathing heavily. ‘Chicken I smell chicken. And cauliflower. I must have the pope's nose, and plenty of bread sauce.'

Not until she was seated was Alayne introduced to Renny and Pheasant. He bowed gravely, and murmured some only half-intelligible greeting. She might have heard it more clearly had her mind been less occupied with the scrutiny of him at sudden close quarters. She was observing his narrow weather-beaten face, the skin like redbrown leather merging in color into the rust-red of his hair, his short thick eyelashes, his abstracted yet fiery eyes. She observed, too, his handsome, hard-looking nose, which was far too much like his grandmother's.

Pheasant she saw as a flowerlike young girl, a fragile Narcissus poeticus, in this robust, highly colored garden of Jalna.

Alayne was seated at Renny Whiteoak's left, and at her left Eden, and next him Pheasant and Piers. Wakefield had been moved to the other side of the table, between his sister and Uncle Ernest. Alayne had only glimpses of him around the centrepiece of crimson and bronze dahlias, flowers which in their rigid and uncompromising beauty were well fitted to withstand the overpowering presence of the Whiteoaks.

To one accustomed to a light luncheon the sight of so much food at this hour was rather disconcerting. Alayne, looking at these enormous dinner plates mounded with chicken, bread sauce, mashed potatoes, cauliflower, and green peas, thought of little salady lunches in New York with mild regret. They seemed very far away. Even the table silver was enormous. The great knife and fork felt like implements in her hands. The saltcellars and pepper pots seemed weighted by memories of all the bygone meals they had savored. The longnecked vinegar bottle reared its head like a tawny giraffe in the massive jungle of the table.

Renny was saying in his vibrant voice that was without the music of Eden's: 'I'm sorry I could not go to your wedding. I could not get away at that time.'

'Yes,' chimed in Meg, 'Renny and I wanted so very much to go, but we could not arrange it. Finch had a touch of tonsillitis just then, and Wakefield's heart was not behaving very well, and of course there is Grandmamma.'

Mrs. Whiteoak broke in: 'I wanted to go, but I'm too old to travel. I did all my traveling in my youth. I've been all over the world. But I sent my love. Did you get my love? I sent my love in Meggie's letter. Did you get it, eh?'

'Yes, indeed,' said Alayne. 'We were so very glad to get your message.'

'You'd better be. I don't send my love to everyone, helter-skelter.' She nodded her cap so vigorously that three green peas bounced from her fork and rolled across the table. Wakefield was convulsed by laughter. He said, 'Bang!' as each pea fell, and shot one of his own after them.

Renny looked down the table sharply at him and he subsided.

Grandmother was peering at her fork, shrewdly missing the peas. 'My peas are gone,' she said. 'I want more peas; more cauliflower and potatoes, too.'

She was helped to more vegetables, and at once began to mould them with her fork into a solid mass.

'Mama,' objected Ernest mildly, 'must you do that?'

Sasha, who was perched on his shoulder, observing that his attention was directed away from his poised fork, stretched out one furry paw and drew it toward her own whiskered lips. Ernest rescued the morsel of chicken just in time. 'Naughty, naughty,' he said.

As though there had been no interruption, Meg continued: 'It must have been such a pretty wedding. Eden wrote us all about it.'

By this time Renny had attacked the second fowl with his carvers. Alayne had made no appreciable inroads on her dinner, but all the Whiteoaks were ready for more.

'Renny, did you get the pigs?' asked Piers, breaking in on conversation about the wedding with ostentatious brusqueness, Alayne thought.

'Yes. You never saw a grander litter. Got the nine and the old sow for a hundred dollars. I offered ninety; Probyn wanted a hundred and ten. I met him halfway.'

The master of Jalna began to talk of the price of pigs with gusto. Everyone talked of the price of pigs; and everyone agreed that Renny had paid too much.

Only the disheveled carcass of the second fowl remained on the platter. Then it was removed, and a steaming blackberry pudding and a large plum tart made their

appearance.

'You are eating almost nothing, dear Alayne,' said Meg. 'I do hope you will like the pudding.'

Renny was looking at Alayne steadily from under his thick lashes, the immense pudding spoon expectantly poised.

"Thank you,' she answered. 'But I really could not. I will take a little of the pie.'

'Please don't urge her, Meggie,' said Eden. 'She is used to luncheon at noon.'

'Oh, but the pudding,' sighed Meg. 'It's such a favorite of ours.'

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Would she ever get used to them, Alayne wondered. Would they ever seem near to her-like relatives? As they rose from the table and moved in different directions she felt a little oppressed - she did not quite know whether by the weight of the dinner or by the family, which was so unexpectedly foreign to her.

Old Mrs. Whiteoak pushed her son Ernest from her, and, extending a heavily ringed hand to Alayne, commanded: 'You give me your arm, my dear, on this side. You may as well get into the ways of the family at once.'

Alayne complied with a feeling of misgiving. She doubted whether she could efficiently take the place of Ernest. The old woman clutched her arm vigorously, dragging with what seemed unnecessary and almost intolerable weight on her. The two, with Nicholas towering above them, shuffled their way to Mrs. Whiteoak's bedroom, where she was established before the fire by painful degrees. Alayne, flushed with the exertion, straightened her back, and stared with surprise at the unique magnificence of the painted leather bedstead, the inlaid dresser and tables, the Indian rugs and flamboyant hangings.

Mrs. Whiteoak pulled at her skirt. 'Sit down, my girl; sit down on this footstool. Ha- I'm out o' breath! Winded-'She panted alarmingly.

"Too much dinner, Mama,' said Nicholas, striking a match on the mantelpiece and lighting a cigarette. 'If you will overeat you will wheeze.'

'You're a fine one to talk,' retorted his mother, suddenly getting her breath. 'Look at your own leg, and the way you eat and swill down spirits!'

Mrs. Whiteoak leaned over Alayne, where she now sat on the footstool, and stroked her neck and shoulders with a hand

not so much caressing as appraising. She raised her heavy red eyebrows to the lace edging of her cap and commented with an arch grin:

'A bonny body. Well covered, but not too plump. Slender, but not skinny. Meg's too plump. Pheasant's skinny. You're just right for a bride. Eh, my dear, but if I was a young man I'd like to sleep with you.'

Alayne, painfully scarlet, turned her face away from Mrs. Whiteoak toward the blaze of the fire. Nicholas was comfortingly expressionless.

'Another thing,' chuckled Mrs. Whiteoak. 'I'm glad you've lots of brass. I am indeed.'

'Easy now,' cried Boney. 'Easy does it!' At that moment Grandmother fell into one of her sudden naps. Nicholas took Alayne's hand and drew her to her feet.

'Come,' he said, 'and I'll show you my room. I expect you to visit me often there and tell me all about New York, and I'll tell you about London in the old days. I'm a regular fossil now, but if you'll believe me I was a gay fellow once.'

He led the way to his room, heaving himself up the stairs by the handrailing. He installed her by the window, where she could enjoy the splendor of the autumn woods, and where the light fell over her, bringing out the chestnut tints in her hair and the pearl-like pallor of her skin. It was so long since he had met a young woman of beauty and intelligence that the contact exhilarated him, made the blood quicken in his veins. Before he realized it he was telling her incidents of his life of which he had not spoken for years. He even unearthed a photograph of his wife, in a long-trained evening gown, and showed it to her.

He presented her, as a wedding present, with a silver bowl in which he had been accustomed to keep his pipes, first brightening it up with a silk handkerchief.

'You are to keep roses in it now, my dear,' he said, and quite casually he put his fingers under her chin, raised her face, and kissed her.

Alayne was touched by the gift; a little puzzled by a certain smiling masterfulness in the caress.

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'He intends to bore you with his melancholy annotating of Shakespeare. I warn you,' exclaimed Nicholas.

'Nonsense,' said Ernest. 'I just don't want to feel utterly shelved. Don't be a beast, Nick. Alayne is as much interested in me as she is in you, are n't you, Alayne?'

'She's not interested in you at all,' retorted Nicholas, ‘but she's enthralled by my sweet discourse, are n't you, Alayne?'

They seemed to take pleasure in the mere pronouncing of her name, using it on every occasion.

To Ernest's room she was led then, and because of his brother's jibe he at first would not speak of his hobby, contenting himself with showing her his water colors, the climbing rose whose yellow flowers still spilled their fragrance across his window sill, and the complacent feline tricks of Sasha. But when Alayne showed an unmistakable interest in the annotation of Shakespeare, and an unexpected knowledge of the text, his enthusiasm overflowed like Niagara in springtime.

Two hours flew by, in which they established the intimacy of congenial tastes. Ernest's thin cheeks were flushed; his blue eyes had become quite large and bright. He drummed the fingers of one hand incessantly on the table.

So Meg found them when she came to carry Alayne away for an inspection of the house and garden. Eden was off somewhere with Renny, Meg explained, and Alayne had a sudden feeling of anger toward this brother who so arrogantly swept Eden from her side, and who was so casually polite to her himself.

Eden had told her that Renny did not like his poetry that he did not like any poetry. She thought of him as counting endless processions of foals, calves, lambs, and young pigs, always with an eye on the market.

night, to find how gentle he was toward little Wake, who was tossing about, unable to sleep after the excitement of the day. Renny rubbed his legs and patted his back as a mother might have done.

Wake, drowsy at last, curled up against Renny's chest and murmured: 'I believe I could go to sleep more quickly if we'd pretend we were somebody else, Renny, please.'

'Do you? All right. Who shall we be? Living people or people out of the books? You say.'

Wake thought a minute, getting sleepier with each tick of Renny's watch under the pillow; then he breathed: 'I think we'll be Eden and Alayne.'

Renny stifled a laugh. 'All right. Which am I?'

Wake considered again, now deliciously drowsy, sniffing at the nice odor of tobacco, Windsor soap, and warm flesh that emanated from Renny. 'I think you'd better be Alayne,' he whispered.

Renny, too, considered this transfiguration. It seemed difficult, but he said resignedly: 'Very well. Fire away.'

There was silence for a space; then Wakefield whispered, twisting a button of Renny's pajamas: 'You go first, Renny. Say something.'

Renny spoke sweetly: 'Do you love me, Eden?'

Wake chuckled; then answered, seriously: 'Oh, heaps. I'll buy you anything you want. What would you like?'

'I'd like a limousine and an electric toaster, and a feather boa.'

'I'll get them all first thing in the morning. Is there anything else you'd like, my girl?'

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yes. I'd like to go to sleep.' 'Now see here, you can't,' objected the pseudo groom. 'Ladies don't pop straight off to sleep like that!'

But apparently this lady did. The only response that Wakefield could elicit was a gentle but persistent snore.

For a moment Wake was deeply hurt, but the steady rise and fall of Renny's chest was soothing. He snuggled closer to him, and soon he too was fast asleep. (To be continued)

She would have been surprised, could she have followed him to his bedroom that

THE CONTRIBUTORS' COLUMN

Accustomed to attack, and reasonably indurated against prejudice, the Atlantic does not often care to reply to the more extravagant forms of criticism, but when we are accused of conspiring to cheat the public it is time to lisp a gentle protest. If ever there was an honest debate, honestly printed, it was the Smith-Marshall correspondence. Both gentlemen wrote with vigor and absolute conviction of their minds and hearts. The villainous statement, wherever made, that the debate was a pretense, framed by collusion in advance, is an unqualified falsehood, cruel to Mr. Marshall, whose whole life is a testimony to the sincerity of his convictions, libelous to Governor Smith, whose career has been lived in the calcium light of publicity, and insulting to the Atlantic. Incidentally it is ridiculous.

The Atlantic has received scores of contributions in reply to both Mr. Marshall and Governor Smith. The decision to publish none of them is based on the belief that the proper place for further discussion of the issues raised in these two important letters is the newspaper press.

A YOUNG American born in the Middle West, Ernest Hemingway has been, in the stages of a remarkable career, an amateur boxer, newspaper man, bullfighter (in Spain), and soldier of fortune. In the war, he fought with the French and Italian armies, was seriously wounded, and decorated. So it is hardly to be wondered that from Paris, Mr. Hemingway's headquarters, have come in recent years a series of short stories and a novel of surpassing vigor and accuracy. His present narrative we accept as literature not too brutal for its subject, and human as war. To those unfamiliar with the prize ring it may be pointed out that for a fighter such as 'Jack' to bet against himself is a violation of professional ethics, extenuated in this instance only by the fact that the champion had reached the end of his career and believed he

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was to be beaten. Though giving his best, he had actually lost the decision on points when his opponents double-crossed him and coached the challenger, Walcott, to commit a deliberate foul. To accept the foul was to win the decision- and to lose the 'fifty grand.' By retaliating in kind, Jack steered the fight back to its natural and, if you will, rightful conclusion. Dr. Bernard Iddings Bell is president of St. Stephen's College on the Hudson, a small and distinctive Episcopal institution, about which he writes:

When we started the reorganization eight years ago, we determined that the proper unit for our sort of work was two hundred and fifty men. We are, moreover, not enlarging the scope of our work, but will continue definitely our attempt to develop intelligent interest in the classics and in the liberal arts generally. You are quite right that our chief usefulness lies in that very definiteness of purpose, combined with intimate flexibility in our teaching relationships. The success we have in bringing out the creative individuality of our students is to me an almost miraculous thing. Our graduates are almost uniformly doing original and worth-while work.

Lover rather than fancier of dogs, Sir W. Beach Thomas has found through intimate experience that spaniels are the most intelligent and responsive of canine friends. Anne W. Armstrong has enjoyed considerable success as an employment manager for two internationally known concerns. From her listening post she has detected signs of the growing resentment among business women and their women associates. Her observations have been made on the Pacific Coast, in Illinois and Michigan, in the South, and in New York and Pennsylvania.

***

Tennis player and writer, A. Wallis Myers, the Englishman, is a veteran of many tournaments where he has observed the national styles and temperaments in action. Mr. Myers has for many years followed tennis for the London Times. Josephine Preston Peabody died before her

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