Half loaves

It was dusk in the convent. All the stillness of the hour of prayer was deepened by the soft twilight coming through the narrow windows of the long corridor that led from the st...

The Convent of the Sacred Heart was a curiously cloistral structure, situated in a manner quite unanticipated by its founders, in the spreading outskirts of the city itself. It...

Cecily’s mother had been married twice. That was as it should be, for she had not managed to get much happiness out of her first marriage. Allgate Moore, Cecily’s father, had be...

There was a well-bred society in Carrington--new perhaps in the sense that Carrington itself was young, but though the aggregate society might be new, most of its members were n...

But it seemed rather unimportant, except to three rather frowzy, struggling persons, what was happening to Fliss. The important thing was what was happening to Cecily--what did...

Even the unhappy, disillusioned man or woman who looks back at a wrecked marriage with cynicism or disgust or who does not look back at all because it is too painful, will, none...

Fliss, opening her eyes reluctantly, found them resting on a fat gray roll of dust under her bureau. It made her uncomfortable and discouraged. She closed her eyes and shifted h...

So it was, through the curious little twirl of circumstance which took Fliss, elated, and Cecily, reluctant, to the Palladium Hotel on the same night, that Matthew Allenby met C...

The word love must not be narrowed or we shall lose the key to many a chamber of life. In our cross-section of life, which shows itself the most beautiful love? The love of Matt...

The dawn brought confidence and no small feeling of triumph to all of them. The nurse, the Carrington specialist and Cecily’s mother all arrived and with the verdict of the trus...

The baby changed from a novelty into a treasure; to the period of ecstatic delight there succeeded the scientific business of infant care. The expert nurse having brought her pa...

Fliss--still Fliss despite the dignity of the name of Allenby--was, after two years, still attracting attention. She reacted to it exactly as she had reacted to her own populari...

It was Alumnæ Day at the convent. Alumnæ Day meant a half holiday for the students, frosted cakes for “gouter” at four o’clock, the formal rooms and study halls and dormitories...

Cecily started on a fairly determined round of gayety for a few weeks. She found it interesting at first and a little boring afterwards. It was very difficult for her to take or...

Dick, a little under-slept, a trifle red about the eyes, was shaving. He knew he was late for breakfast and that that would bother Cecily. He knew the mechanism of his house oug...

Ellen had an unexpected call to take care of a sick relative--she did not tell Cecily that it was Mrs. Horton--on whom tragedy in the form of cancer had descended. She would not...

The cook could not get along with Jenny. Jenny gave notice and acted upon it promptly, deaf to remonstrance, because her young man was going to get her a place as waitress so sh...

Dick Harrison was R. G. Harrison in the Second National Bank Building. R. G. Harrison was increasingly important. He had started at twenty-five, looking after his dead father’s...

There were many times when Cecily felt the absurdity of allowing her life to be affected by her domestic machinery and the servants who operated it. It wasn’t, she felt, dignifi...

Mrs. Walter Warner, in the most elaborate of mourning clothes, ordered from New York, still held sway in her mother-in-law’s house. It seemed probable that she always would be t...

It could not last too long after that, but they ran the whole gamut of possible moods. There were times when the antagonism between them seemed to one or the other so intangible...

There was no doubt that at the start the break meant peace to Cecily. That was what surprised her so much. She had tortured herself in advance with the thought of those nervous...

Mrs. Horton’s death came just before the time when Matthew had planned to leave for Washington. A succession of complications had hastened it. Three days before it came, Fliss k...

“The trouble with the country just now,” said Matthew, making a farewell talk to the Chamber of Commerce, “is that it’s absolutely unfitted nervously to stand any strain or exci...

Winter came early that year. Even in November the cold was steady and relentless. Cecily felt her isolation more as she was shut up with her children in the house, except for th...

It was two days after the New Year had come in. Only nine o’clock, but Cecily had almost decided to go to bed. The timidity which she had felt often at first in being in a house...

Those first months in Washington took all the concentrated social skill of Fliss. They were months when she felt with confusion that she was playing a game with experts who coul...

The town of Allenby had grown in the five years since the birth of Dorothea Harrison in Mrs. Olson’s house. It had a hotel now, a moving picture house, several emporiums, a Main...

There was something in Ellen’s assumption which it was impossible to circumvent. There was no answer. He was their father; he had asked to see them; she had no right to prevent...

“It will be like another wedding trip, darling,” said Dick tenderly, and hurried out to make some final arrangements. The motor with the children had just moved away and Cecily...