The Squirrel-Cage

Paul was still asleep when Lydia opened her eyes one morning and said to herself with a little laugh, but quite resolutely: "I come to tell ye of a world ye mortals wot not of."

The Black Rock woods lay glowing under the cloudy autumn sky like a heap of live coals, the maples still quivering in scarlet, the chestnuts sunk into a clear yellow flame, the...

Little Ariadne was six months old before Lydia could begin to make the slightest effort to resume the social routine of her life. This was not at all on account of ill health, f...

Spring had come with its usual hotly advancing rush upon the low-lying, sheltered southerly city. There had been a few days of magical warmth, full of spring madness, when every...

"No, no, dear Godfather. I just thought I'd come over and see you for a while. I had a little headache--Marietta's back from Cleveland to-day, and she and Flora Burgess are at t...

Lydia's unmarried life had given her but few abstract ideas for the regulation of conduct, and fewer still ideals of self-discipline, but chief among the small assortment that s...

"If I should wait and read my paper here instead of on the cars, do you suppose Lydia would be up before I left?" asked the Judge as he put his napkin in the ring and pushed awa...

She watched him until he was out of sight, and although the vigorous, rhythmic swing of his broad shoulders was like another manifestation of the morning's joyous, buoyant spiri...

As the spring advanced and Judge Emery's widow recovered a little strength, it became apparent that life in Endbury, with its heartbreaking associations, would be intolerable to...

All over the half-finished house the workmen began to lay down their tools. Paul Hollister's face broke into a good-humored smile as a moment later he caught the faraway five-o'...

Inside the big Interurban car Lydia and Rankin were talking with a freedom that enormously surprised Lydia. The man had started up with an exclamation of pleasure, had taken her...

In the midst of his conference with Dr. Melton, an hour later, it came upon Judge Emery with a clap that he had forgotten this behest of his wife's, plunged deep in legal specul...

The dinner parties, so Paul told Lydia one evening a few days later, would certainly be as successful and with but little more trouble. "Just think of the dinners Ellen's been g...

A ripple from the surging wave of culture which, for some years, had been sweeping over the women's clubs of the Middle West, began to agitate the extremely stationary waters of...

Lydia had not been mistaken in her premonition of Paul's attitude toward the new maid. He found her quite unendurable, but the direful stories told by their Bellevue acquaintanc...

"Say, Lydia," said Madeleine with her bluff good humor, coming into the house a few days after the French lecture, "say, I'm awfully sorry I told Paul! I never supposed he'd go...

The morning after her return from Europe, Lydia awoke with a start, as though in answer to a call. The confusion of the last days had been such that she had for a moment the not...

Judge Emery looked tired and old as he sat down heavily at his dinner-table opposite his pretty daughter. The discomfort and irregularity of the household for the last two weeks...

After she was alone she looked again at the miniature of Lydia. The youthful radiance of the face had singularly the effect of a perfect flower. Mrs. Mortimer glanced at the hat...

The scene of Paul's departure was no worse than many an outbreak in the ordinary married life of ordinary, quick-tempered, over-tired married people, for whom an open quarrel br...

On the morning of Lydia's long-expected return, as Mrs. Emery moved restlessly about the large double parlors opening out on a veranda where the vines were already golden in the...

All that day, the tall, ruddy-haired man in working clothes sat in the hall, within sight, though not within hearing, of the sick room, playing with the rosy child, and exerting...

The house of the Emery family was a singularly good example of the capacity of wood and plaster and brick to acquire personality. It was the physical symbol of its owners' posit...

Six o'clock had struck when Mrs. Sandworth came wearily back from her Christmas shopping. It was only the middle of November, but each year she began her preparations for that d...

One hot day in August, Ariadne slept later than usual and when she woke was quite unlike her usual romping, active self. Her round face was deeply flushed, and she lay listlessl...

"But this was a nawful one!" wept Ariadne. "I fought I heard a lot of voices, men's and ladies' as mad--Oh! awful mad--and loud!" She went on incoherently that she had been too...

Lydia lifted her face, white under the shadow of her disordered hair, and said: "It is Mr. Rankin who must take care of the children--Ariadne, and the baby if it lives."

The maid had announced to Mrs. Emery, finishing an unusually careful morning toilet, that Miss Burgess, society reporter of the Endbury _Chronicle_, was below. Before the mistre...

Lydia's two or three big receptions, of which her mother had spoken with so casual a confidence, came off, while not exactly with nonchalant ease, still, on the whole, creditabl...

What happened was, in the first week of October, the sudden death of her father. It was sudden only to his wife and daughter, whom, as always, the Judge had tried to spare, at a...

Lydia dated the estrangement from Marietta, which grew so rapidly during the next year, from the conversation on the day after the dinner party. She was cruelly wounded by her s...

The girls who were to be débutantes that season, the "crowd" or (more accurately to quote Madeleine Hollister's racy characterization) "the gang," stood before Hallam's drug sto...

Lydia stood where he left her, listening to the sound of his footsteps die down the walk outside. She was still standing there when, some time later, the door to the dining-room...

"They must have gone crazy, simply crazy!" said Madeleine, making quick, excited gestures. "Mrs. Sandworth, of course--a person can hardly blame her for anything! She's a cipher...

Dr. Melton burst open the door of the house in the Black Rock woods, and running to the owner caught hold of his bared brown arm. "Paul Hollister is dead!" he cried.

Dr. Melton was at the top of the stairs as the other man came bounding up. "Where in God's name have you been?" he demanded. "Did you start as soon as my messenger--"

XXXI Protection from the Minotaur 337 XXXII As Ariadne Saw It 342 XXXIII What is Best for the Children? 351 XXXIV Through the Long Night 359 XXXV The Swaying Balance 365 XXXVI A...

XVIII Two Sides to the Question 193 XIX Lydia's New Motto 207 XX An Evening's Entertainment 215 XXI An Element of Solidity 226 XXII The Voices in the Wood 233 XXIII For Ariadne'...

I An American Family 3 II American Beauties 12 III Picking up the Threads 22 IV The Dawn 32 V The Day Begins 42 VI Lydia's Godfather 55 VII Outside the Labyrinth 61 VIII The Sha...

XI What is Best for Lydia 115 XII A Sop to the Wolves 122 XIII Lydia Decides in Perfect Freedom 131 XIV Mid-Season Nerves 139 XV A Half-Hour's Liberty 154 XVI Engaged to be Marr...