useless. And my clubs--belonging to them is a duty I owe other women. I
try to fulfill it."

"But you're not happy."

"Happy! I've forgotten the meaning of the word. To tell the honest
truth, Don, I've been feeling for a long while that I didn't care--how
soon it ended."

"Poor little sister!"

A crashing blow upon the door startled Mrs. Breckenridge so that she
cried out under her breath. Brown went to the door. A furious gust of
wind hurled it wide open beneath his hand, but there was no one upon the
doorstep. No one? At his feet lay a bundle, from which sounded a wailing
cry. He picked it up, looked up and down a vacant street, closed the
door, and came back to Sue Breckenridge by the fire.

"I wonder if they chose the bachelor's doorstep by chance or by
intention," he said.

V

BROWN'S UNBORROWED BABY

"Don! Don't take it in! They'll come back for it if you don't--they're
watching somewhere. Put it back on the doorstone--don't look at it!"

"Why, Sue!" he answered, and for an instant his eyes flashed reproof into
hers. "On such a night?"

"But what can you do with it?"

"Make it comfortable, first."

He was unwrapping the bundle. The child was swathed none too heavily in
clean cotton comforters; it was crying frantically, and its hands, as
Brown's encountered them in the unwinding, were cold and blue. There
emerged from the wrappings an infant of possibly six weeks' existence in
a world which had used it ill.

"Will you take him while I get some milk?" asked Brown, as naturally as
if handing crying babies over to his sister were an everyday affair with
them both.

She shook her head, backing away. "Oh, mercy, no! I shouldn't know what
to do with it."

"Sue!" Her brother's tone was suddenly stern. "Don't be that sort of
woman--don't let me think it of you!"

He continued to hold out the small wailing bundle. She bit her lip,
reluctantly extended unaccustomed arms, and received the foundling
into them.

"Sit down close by the fire, my dear, and get those frozen little hands
warm. A bit of mothering won't hurt either of you." And Brown strode away
into the kitchen with a frown between his brows. He was soon back with a
small cupful of warm milk and water, a teaspoon, and a towel.

"Do you expect to feed a tiny baby with a teaspoon?" Sue asked
with scorn.

"You don't know much about babies, do you, Sue? Well, I may have some
trouble, but it's too late to get any other equipment from m