the winter noon.

The old Melrose house was a substantial, roomy, brownstone building in
Madison Avenue, inconspicuous perhaps among several notoriously handsome
homes, but irreproachably dignified none the less. A few blocks below it
the commercial current of East Thirty-fourth Street ebbed and flowed; a
few blocks north the great facade of the Grand Central Station shut off
the street completely. Third Avenue, behind it, swarmed and rattled
alarmingly close, and Broadway flared its impudent signs only five
minutes' walk in the other direction, but here, in a little oasis of
quiet street, two score of old families serenely held their place
against the rising tide, and among them the Melroses confidently felt
themselves valued and significant.

Mrs. Melrose mounted her steps with the householder's secret
complacency. They were scrupulously brushed of the last trace of snow,
and the heavy door at the top swung noiselessly open to admit her. She
suddenly realized that she was very tired, that her fur coat was heavy,
and her back ached. She swept straight to the dark old curving stairway,
and mounted slowly.

"Joseph," she said over her shoulder, "send luncheon upstairs, please.
And when Miss Leslie comes in, tell her I should like to see her, if it
isn't too late. Anybody coming to-night?"

"Mr. von Behrens telephoned that he and Mr. Liggett might come in for a
moment, on his way to the banquet at the Waldorf, Madam. But that was
all."

"I may have dinner upstairs, too, if Leslie is going anywhere," Mrs.
Melrose said to herself, mounting slowly. And it seemed to her fatigue
very restful to find her big room warm and orderly, her coal fire
burning behind the old-fashioned steel rods, all the homely,
comfortable treasures of her busy years awaiting her. She sank into a
chair, and Regina flew noiselessly about with slippers and a loose silk
robe. Presently a maid was serving smoking-hot bouillon, and Mrs.
Melrose felt herself relaxed and soothed; it was good to be home.

Yet there was trace of uneasiness, of something almost like
apprehension, in the look that wandered thoughtfully about the
overcrowded room. Presently she reached a plump, well-groomed hand
toward the bell. But when Regina came to stand expectantly near her,
Mrs. Melrose roused herself from a profound abstraction to assure her
that she had not rung--it must have been a mistake.

"Miss Leslie hasn't come in?"

"Not yet, Madam, Miss Melrose is at Mis