m.

The crash of the renewed applause aroused him from his absorption and,
hand in hand with _Senta_, he emerged from his watery grave to bow his
appreciation. But it was not enough. Even to his dressing-room, he was
pursued by the cries of his name. Yielding reluctantly, he went out
before the curtain once again. Then he hurried back, and began tearing
off his costume with a feverish haste which took no account of the time
before he could get a train back to New York.

As Thayer's cab turned into the familiar street and stopped at the door
of the Lorimers' house, the gray dawn was breaking. Before its wan
color, the street lamps turned to a sickly yellow, and the asphalt
street stretched away between them like a long chalky ruler bordered
with dots of luminous paint. Above him, the lights in the house glared
out across the sombre dawn, and something in their steady, unsympathetic
glow, in the gray dawn and in the yellowing lamps carried Thayer's mind
far back to that other winter morning when he had hurried through the
storm to be with Beatrix in her hour of need.

The old butler opened the door to him, and took his coat. Then he
pointed towards the library.

"She is there," he said softly, with an odd little quaver in his thin
old voice. "I think you may go to her."

Thayer crossed the hall, laid his hand on the door, then hesitated. For
an instant, he shrank from the scene that might be before him. Then
instinctively he drew himself up and pushed open the door.

"Beatrix?" he said.

The color rushed to her face, as she sprang up and held out her hands.

"Thank God, you have come!"

* * * * *

=Little, Brown, and Co.'s New Novels=

_The Siege of Youth._ By FRANCES CHARLES, author of "In the Country God
Forgot." Illustrated. 12mo. Decorated cloth, $1.50.

This is a story of the present day, and its scene is San Francisco,
the author's home. It deals with art, with journalism, and with
human nature, and its love episodes are charming and true to life.
The three women characters of the book are finely drawn and
contrasted, there is much local color in the story, and a great
deal of bright and epigrammatic writing. The author's previous
book, "In the Country God Forgot," has been received with the
utmost favor. The _Boston Daily Advertiser_ says it "discloses a
new writer of uncommon power."

=Barbara, a Woman of the