Little Lost Sister

Elsie Welcome was the one girl in the big machine room of the Millville button factory who did not rise when the bell sounded for the short afternoon recess. She swung on her re...

The distance from the Millville button factory to the corner of Main and Pine streets in Millville itself is, if you take the short cut through Nutting's Grove, as all sensible...

While Harvey Spencer was climbing down from his wagon Mr. Michael Grogan, who was not exactly the guileless soul Millville took him to be, permitted himself rather a close inspe...

"Well, I--" she stammered, "I wanted to get here because it's Monday and mother's washing day and--" She paused, her irritation getting the better of her. "I don't see what righ...

The word cattle seemed to arouse the roan colt to his own existence. He whinnied ingratiatingly and tugged at his hitching strap. Whether or not his master had forgotten, he kne...

Patience Welcome shared all the prejudices of her employer, John Price, against "city chaps." Her observation of those who had presented themselves in Millville had not raised h...

Harry Boland strode away from his interview with Patience deeply occupied with tumultuous reflections, not seeing the beauties of Millville which, but a short time before, he ha...

Grogan had accomplished the purpose for which the elder Boland had despatched him to Millville--that of disentangling Harry from his romance--but what he had seen of Patience We...

Lucas Randall inserted his key into the door and let himself into his Michigan boulevard residence. The butler, busy in one of the reception rooms, looked up merely to nod a wel...

Great cities thrive on sensations. The yellow journal with its blatant enthusiasms and its brazen effrontery finds a congenial habitat there, not because it is brazen, nor even...

The telephone in the outer office of the Lake City Telephone Company rang insistently. Miss Masters, the stenographer, after the fashion of stenographers, let it ring. At length...

The word Millville had an instantaneous effect on Harry Boland. It was, in fact, the most pleasant sound he had heard in days. Upon returning to Chicago after his lover-like int...

John Boland made no reply. He reached for his paper knife, ripped open the envelope and drew forth a sheet of blue note paper. He read with a gathering frown what had been writt...

John Boland was a very capable business man. He possessed the combination of shrewdness, ability to grasp and marshal details, and that utter selfishness which the world from ti...

There was nothing in Miss Masters' manner after Druce had made his hasty departure to indicate that she felt any thrills of triumph over the completeness of the dive keeper's ro...

But Patience did not leave the office of the Lake City Electrical Company as quickly as she had hoped to do. She was intercepted by the young man, who deliberately placed himsel...

The Cafe Sinister stands like a gilded temple at the entrance to Chicago's tenderloin. The fact is significant. The management, the appearance, the policy, if you please, of the...

So stupefied was Elsie Welcome by her emotions as she fled from the Cafe Sinister that it was not until her clothes were drenched that she realized it had begun to rain. Even th...

Martin Druce, still pacing uneasily; about the big drinking room of the Cafe Sinister after his angry parting with Elsie Welcome, looked up suddenly and saw the street door open...

Mary Randall realized that she was playing a dangerous game. She had placed herself in Druce's power because taking that risk had seemed to her the best way to gather evidence a...

Saturday night begins at the Cafe Sinister at nine o'clock. At that hour the twin columns of glass at its portal are lighted and the Levee pours the first of its revelers into t...

After Druce left Elsie he went back to his favorite station behind the musicians' stand. He had been there only a moment when he saw the elder Boland enter. Boland came in quiet...

Mary Randall stood beside the dead body of Carter Anson. Such tragedy had not entered into her plans, nor had she conceived what it might be to see a man die bearing the bullet...

Up to the moment when he heard the report of Druce's pistol and saw Carter Anson fall, Harry Boland's whole being had been concentrated in a consuming horror at sight of Patienc...

If John Boland was shaken by the interview with his son, there was no evidence of it in his bearing when he appeared at the offices of the Electric Trust the following morning....

When Martin Druce heard the news that bail had been raised for his release and that all arrangements were being made for his flight and concealment, it was exactly half an hour...

Harvey had waited about the jail for days. He was certain that Elsie Welcome would return to Druce, and he was resolved to make a great effort to induce her to leave him.

The laugh was low and cunning and there was more than the suggestion of a sneer in it. It rang from one end of the district to the other, convulsing dive-keepers who for days ha...

Elsie walked on and on eastward towards the lake. For a week she had been living alone in a room she had found near the park on the night that she left Harvey Spencer, telephoni...

Brightly shone the sunshine on the fields and woods surrounding Millville and on the little house where Mrs. Welcome was busy putting the last touches to the order and sweetness...

"I always liked him, but I never did love him, you know. I just let him come to see me because he wanted to, and all the girls had company."

Lake Geneva season was at its close. Most of the lake dwellers had closed their houses and returned to town. For those who remained late autumn had her glories. Woods and groves...