ed quickly and saw two
slow tears running down her grandfather's face. He had been kicking
against the pricks again and had hurt his foot.

With all the elaborate care of a Deerslayer, Joan got up, gave the
boards that creaked a wide berth--she knew them all--and tiptoed to the
door. The fact that she, at eighteen years of age, a full-grown woman
in her own estimation, should be obliged to resort to such methods made
her angry and humiliated. She was, however, rejoicing at one thing. Her
grandfather had fallen asleep several pages of the paper earlier than
usual, and she was to be spared from the utter boredom of wading
through the leading articles which dealt with subways and Tammany and
foreign politics and other matters for which she had a lofty contempt.
She was never required to read the notices of new plays and operas and
the doings of society, which alone were interesting to her and made her
mouth water.

Just as she had maneuvered her way across the wide, long room and was
within reach of the door, it opened and her grandmother hobbled in,
leaning on her stick. There was a chuckle from the other end of the
room. The blood flew to the girl's face. She knew without turning to
look that the old man had been watching her careful escape and was
enjoying the sight of her, caught at the moment when freedom was at
hand.

Mrs. Ludlow was one of those busy little women who are thorns in the
flesh of servants. Her eyes had always been like those of an inspecting
general. No detail, however small, went unnoticed and unrectified.

She had been called by an uncountable number of housemaids and footmen
"the little Madam"--the most sarcastic term of opprobrium contained in
their dictionary. A leader of New York society, she had run charitable
institutions and new movements with the same precision and efficiency
that she had used in her houses. Every hour of her day had been filled.
Not one moment had been wasted or frittered away. Her dinner parties
had been famous, and she had had a spoke in the wheels of politics. Her
witty sayings had been passed from mouth to mouth. Her little
flirtations with prominent men and the ambitious tyros who had been
drawn to her salon had given rise to much gossip. Not by any means a
beauty, her pretty face and tiptilted nose, her perennial cheerfulness,
birdlike vivacity and gift of repartee had made her the center of
attraction for years.

But she, like Cumberland Ludlow, had refused to g