up. "I'm not proud just at
this moment, Cecily. You see--there's Valentine Landry."

"Mother--!"

"Now please don't say it that way, Cecily. He's half in love with me,
and I'm beginning to like him, awfully. I've never had a bit of romance
in my life. I married your father when I was too young to know my own
mind, and he was much older than I. Then came the years of struggle
after he went away.... I was a good wife and a good mother. I worshiped
you and Bob, and I gave my youth for you. I never thought of any other
man while your father lived, even though he did not belong to me. And
now he is dead. You'll never know--I hope you may _never_ know--what
drudgery means as I have known it. I've written my poor little screeds
when I was half-dead with fatigue; I've been out in cold and rain to get
news; I've interviewed all sorts of people when I've hated them and
hated the work. And if now I want to have my little fling, why not?
Everybody effervesces some time. This is my moment--and you can't expect
me to spoil it by playing the devoted grandmother."

The baby was wailing, a little hungry call, which made her mother take
her up and say, hastily: "It's time to feed her. You won't mind,
mother?"

"Yes, I _do_ mind," said the little lady. "I don't like that Madonna
effect, with the baby in your arms. It makes me feel horribly frivolous
and worldly, Cecily. But it doesn't change my mind a bit."

After a pause, the Madonna-creature asked, "Who is Valentine Landry?"

Mrs. Beale had her saucy little cap off, and was brushing out her thin,
light locks in which the gray showed slightly. But she stopped long
enough to explain. "He isn't half as sentimental as his name. I met him
in Chicago at the Warburtons', just before I made a success of my book.
I was very tired, and he cheered me a lot. He's from Denver, and he made
his money in mines. He hasn't married, because he hasn't had time. We're
awfully good friends, but he doesn't know my age. He knows that I have a
daughter, but not a grand-daughter. He thinks of me as a young
woman--not as a grandmother-creature in black silk and mitts--"

"_Mother_! nobody expects you to wear black silk and mitts--"

"Well, you expect me to have a black-silk-and-mitt mind. You know you
are thinking this very minute that there is no idiot like an old
one--Cecily--"

The girl flushed. "I don't think you are quite kind, mother."

Mrs. Beale laughed and forgot to be cynical. "I know what y