The Proof of the Pudding

Nan crossed a pasture, whistling. The Holsteins, nibbling the young grass, lifted their heads and bent their slow, meditative gaze upon her. She paused to pat one of them on the...

It was three o’clock, but the luncheon the Kinneys were giving at the Country Club had survived the passing of less leisurely patrons and now dominated the house. The negro wait...

When Jerry came in “off the road” Saturday, he found a note from Eaton asking him to call at his office that evening. To comply with this request, Jerry was obliged to forego th...

The Farleys had lived for twenty years in an old-fashioned square brick house surrounded by maples. The lower floor comprised a parlor, sitting-room, and dining-room, with a lib...

In a quiet corner of the club veranda Fanny Copeland and John Cecil Eaton had been conscious of the noisy gayety of Mrs. Kinney’s party, and they observed Nan Farley’s hurried e...

“Oh, I haven’t any,” laughed Nan. “I’ve run away. Papa isn’t so well to-day and couldn’t take his drive as usual, so I’m truanting--and very naughty. I must be back in the house...

When Nan left Copeland the night of the Kinney party she promised to call him the next day. As telephoning from home was hazardous, she made an excuse for going downtown and cal...

Nan sang as she dressed the next morning. The gods had ordained that she shouldn’t marry Billy, and after her uncertainties on that point she was relieved to find that the highe...

Jerry, who had never been ill in his life, was now experiencing disquieting sensations which he was convinced pointed to an early and probably a painful death. He went about his...

“Copeland Farm Products” in blue letters against a white background swung over Nan’s head on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday mornings in the city market-house. On those days she...

Nan decided to explain to Eaton that Farley’s illness had taken a turn for the worse and that he had been abusing her as a relief from his suffering. She was surprised to find t...

No other branch of commerce is as fascinating as the wholesale drug business. A drug stock embraces ten thousand small items, and the remote fastnesses of the earth are raked to...

Life began to move more briskly for Nan. She was not aware that certain invitations that reached her were due to a few words carefully spoken in safe quarters by Eaton.

Nan lay on her bed, fully dressed, on the evening of the day of the funeral, listening to the sounds of the street with an uncomfortable sense of strangeness and isolation. The...

At six o’clock every morning Mr. Jeremiah Amidon’s alarm-clock sent him trotting down the hall of his boarding-house to the bathroom for an immersion in cold water. When he had...

Nan stood at her window watching a man turn out of the walk that led from the front door to the street. Her eyes followed him until the hedge hid him from sight, and then she sa...

On a rainy evening in mid-September, a salesman for an Eastern chemical firm invited Amidon to join him in a game of billiards at the Whitcomb House. As Russell Kirby was one of...

“Not so sure of it myself, Nan. But please listen to me carefully. Our friend from the southern part of the State is here. I have him marked at his hotel. He has probably come t...

Farley improved as the summer gained headway. He became astonishingly better, and his doctor prescribed an automobile in the hope that a daily airing would exercise a beneficent...

Now that they had the car, Farley insisted that Nan should go to market. His wife, like all the thrifty housewives of the capital, had always gone to market, and he thought the...

Eaton tore March from his office calendar, crumpled it in his hand, and glanced out of the window as though expecting to see April’s heralds dancing over the roofs below. It was...

While they were still at dinner, Mrs. Copeland was called to the telephone. The instrument was in the living-room and Nan could not avoid hearing Fanny’s share in the conversation.

From the beginning of his infirmities Farley’s experiments in will-writing had taxed the patience of Thurston, his lawyer. Within two years he had made a dozen wills, and he kep...

“I’ve bought in your stock,” Eichberg was saying to Copeland. “You put up fourteen hundred and eighty-five shares with the Western National and I’ve bought ’em in at private sal...

“Those documents have a familiar look,” remarked Thurston with a smile as Nan placed the packet of wills on the table beside him in the Farley parlor. “Mr. Farley was hard to pl...

At twelve o’clock on the night of Nan’s prolonged struggle, Jerry, having walked to the station with a traveling man of his acquaintance, paused at the door of Copeland-Farley,...

The question haunted her insistently. She lighted the lamp by her bed and tried to read, but the words were a confused jumble. She threw down her book impatiently. If only she h...