A Top-Floor Idyl

However platitudinous it may sound, I am compelled to remark how the time flies. From the calendar's standpoint there are but three weeks to come before the advent of Spring, an...

And then, after a very short time, the parting came. I was the first to advise it. She could no longer remain in the little, decrepit boarding house. People would come to see he...

The passing of the next week or two can only be referred to in a few words, for how can a man gauge the distress of a soul, measure the intensity of its pangs, weight the heavy...

"Yet I beg that you will sit down for a moment," I asked her. "I shall take the piano-stool and you ladies will give me the delightful feeling of receiving a pleasant visit. I s...

"My dear fellow," he told me, "you must not be discouraged if the 'Land o' Love' does not sell quite so well as some of the others, for I have not the slightest doubt that your...

The day was a hot one. In Gordon's studio a slight breeze had blown in and mingled with the scent of the flowers with which his table was adorned, and the behavior of my collar...

Goodness only knows how many pages I blackened with the experiences of this short summer, but I have thrown them away, in small pieces. They were too introspective; mere impress...

"I am awfully sorry that you took the trouble of coming all the way up here," I told her. "I am afraid that the colored maid is little accustomed to social usages. There is a li...

I had met him in the middle of Bryant Park as I was on the way to the Public Library to look up information in regard to feminine garb of the Revolutionary period. It appeared t...

I had the mourning band taken from my silk hat, while I have worn my frock coat so little that it looked very nicely. A new pair of gloves and a scarf purchased for the occasion...

It was, as I had surmised, the Murillo-faced occupant of the room on the other side of the landing. In my dismay the desperate thought came to me that a lonely bachelor was the...

The ignorance of modern man is deplorable and stupendous. The excellent and far-famed Pico della Mirandola, for one whole week, victoriously sustained a thesis upon "_De Omne Sc...

A great extravagance of mine lies in the fact that I pay my board here, for the sake of Mrs. Milliken, and take a good many of my meals outside, for mine. Strange as it may seem...

I am very fond of my room on the top floor of Mrs. Milliken's house, but, as regards privacy, I might nearly as well have lodgings in a corner grocery. I had finally arranged th...

I smiled at my friend Gordon, the distinguished painter, lifting up my glass and taking a sip of the _table d'hote_ claret, which the Widow Camus supplies with her famed sixty-f...

When we reached the top floor, Frances took the baby from me, while I lit her gas-jet. She kissed Baby Paul effusively, and placed him on the bed, after which she turned to me.

It was all very well for Frieda to tell Mrs. Milliken that, if I had no objection to that baby, no one else could resent its presence. She assumes too much. If I had really belo...

It behooved me to waste no time and, as soon as I was ready, I briefly conferred with Frances, telling her that Gordon would probably be very glad to employ her for a short time...

On Saturday, I received the card Gordon had mentioned. It was a tastefully engraved thing, merely announcing that the Van Rossums would be at home on the Seventeenth of March, f...

Frances and I started away on the trip, immediately, for there was not a moment to lose. That letter must at once be retrieved. The dreadful woman had evidently seized upon one...

For some time I have permitted these pages to lie fallow. I thought I would not continue to jot down the events and the feelings that crowded themselves upon me, since they coul...

And so the short weeks went by and the fateful evening came. Frieda had spent the whole afternoon with Frances. The gown, it appeared, had come in plenty of time. My formal orde...

of simple things and of mysteries; his little arms spontaneously came to me and I would take him in my arms and get moist kisses from his tiny lips and dandle him and share in h...

We sat there for some long minutes, in silence. Gordon was thinking deeply. His expression, the abandonment shown in the looseness of his limbs and the falling forward of his he...