ed every one (except me)
by announcing thickly, at dessert, that he would have married French Eva
if she hadn't drowned herself. I believed it no more the second time
than I had believed it the first. Anyhow, she wouldn't have had him.
Schneider left us during those days. We hardly noticed his departure.
Ching Po still prospers. Except Stires, we are not squeamish on Naapu.

THE PAST[10]

By ELLEN GLASGOW

(From _Good Housekeeping_)

I had no sooner entered the house than I knew something was wrong.
Though I had never been in so splendid a place before--it was one of
those big houses just off Fifth Avenue--I had a suspicion from the first
that the magnificence covered a secret disturbance. I was always quick
to receive impressions, and when the black iron doors swung together
behind me, I felt as if I were shut inside of a prison.

When I gave my name and explained that I was the new secretary, I was
delivered into the charge of an elderly lady's maid, who looked as if
she had been crying. Without speaking a word, though she nodded kindly
enough, she led me down the hall, and then up a flight of stairs at the
back of the house to a pleasant bedroom in the third story. There was a
great deal of sunshine, and the walls, which were painted a soft yellow,
made the room very cheerful. It would be a comfortable place to sit in
when I was not working, I thought, while the sad-faced maid stood
watching me remove my wraps and hat.

"If you are not tired, Mrs. Vanderbridge would like to dictate a few
letters," she said presently, and they were the first words she had
spoken.

"I am not a bit tired. Will you take me to her?" One of the reasons, I
knew, which had decided Mrs. Vanderbridge to engage me was the
remarkable similarity of our handwriting. We were both Southerners, and
though she was now famous on two continents for her beauty, I couldn't
forget that she had got her early education at the little academy for
young ladies in Fredericksburg. This was a bond of sympathy in my
thoughts at least, and, heaven knows, I needed to remember it while I
followed the maid down the narrow stairs and along the wide hall to the
front of the house.

In looking back after a year, I can recall every detail of that first
meeting. Though it was barely four o'clock, the electric lamps were
turned on in the hall, and I can still see the mellow light that shone
over the staircase and lay in pools on the old pink rugs, which wer