The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig

nd, for the antebellum days, notably rich through a cotton speculation. When he built, Washington had no distinctly fashionable quarter; t

onry, filled the whole huge square. On each of its four sides it put in sheepish and chop-fallen countenance a row of boarding houses. In any other city the neighborhood would have been intolerable because of the noise of the rowdy children. But in Washington the boarding house

bdued colors and tints, their elaborate arrangements for regulating the inpour of light. All this suggested wealth. But the Severances were not rich. They had about the same amount of money that old Lucius Quintus had left; but, just as the neighborhood seemed to have degenerated when in fact it had remained all but unchanged, so the Severence fortune seemed to have declined, altogether through changes of standard elsewhere. The Severances were no poorer; simply, other people of their class had grown richer, enormously richer. The Severence homestead, taken by itself and apart from its accidental setting of luxurious grounds, was a third-rate American dwelling

married herself to a rich New Englander, Henry Bowker. Her final and fiercest ambition was social power. She married her daughter to the only son and namesake of Lucius Quintus Severence. The pretensions of aristocracy would soon collapse under the feeble hands of born aristocrats were it not for two things-the passion of the masses of mankind for looking up, and the frequent infusions into aristocratic veins of vigorous common blood. Cornelia Bowker, born Lard, adored "birth." In fulfilling her third ambition she had herself born

from trunk to trunk like a hedge. At one end of the alley was a pretty, arched veranda of the house, with steps descending; at the other end, a graceful fountain in a circle, round which extended a stone bench. Here Margaret was in the habit of walking every good day, and even in rainy weather, immediately after lunch; and here, on the day after the Burke dance, at the usual time, she was walking, as usual-up and down, up and down, a slow even stride, her arms folded upon her chest, the muscles of her mouth moving as she chewed a wooden tooth-pick toward a pulp. As she walked, her eyes held steady like a soldier's, as if upon the s

garet approached the fountain for the thirty-sevent

s to her slender hips, and lifting her shoulders in a movement th

l we Severences get stout as we gr

rowing old. I don't dare think how many seasons out, and not married, or even

te. I'm sure _I_ don't want to come out. I hate society and I don't care about men. It's much pleas

d their nagging, but I do mind standing in your way. And

was the over-luxuriance of healthy youth. "I shan't marry till I find the right man. I'm a fatalist. I believe there's a man for me som

sappeared from her sister's face. She laughed soft

How lovely you did look last night!... You wait for your 'right man.' Don't let them hurry you. The m

and once more her far-away but decided resemblance to Grandmother Bowker

lared Lucia, out of the fulness of experi

ench beside her sister. "I'm going to marry, and I'm going to superintend your future mysel

hand. "You can't say it's dead, so long as you cry like

er hand away. "Shame on you!" she cri

r bedroom and mine," pleaded L

closed it. In this family I can

u don't look on ME as an outsider, do you? Why, I'm the only one in all the world who knows you a

cept toward only you. I'm grandmother over

's the real you,"

med her walk. "You'll see," said she,

Madam Bowker has come," announced sh

devil temper flashed into Margare

ou from th

always in a frightful mood. She comes then to make a row because, withou

e her," decl

aid Lucia. "Grandmothe

Tell her I had just gone to my

et down her thick black hair. The headache was now real, so upsetting to digestion had been the advent of Madam Bowker, obviously on mischief bent. "She transforms me into a

ocking. There stood her grandmother-ebon staff in gloved hand-erect, spare body in rustling silk-gray-white hai

lancet. "They tell me you have a headache." She lifted her lorgnon and scrutinized the pale, angry face of

took too much champagne at those vulgar Burkes last night," she proceeded. "It's a vicious thing for a girl to do-vicious in every way. It gives her a reputatio

est champagne and never drink it," said she. "An

blige

for contention and na

ing. She struck out boldly, with angry joy. "I've long since learned not to expect gratitu

uman being you can't compel by hook or crook to bow

and properly settled in life. I want to end this disgrace. I want to save you

ied to some man I dislik

tell you that my patience is about exhausted. If you are not engaged by the end of this season, I wash my hands of you. I have been spending a grea

d, you

r cannot, or will not, exert yourself to please. You avoid young girls and young men. You waste your life with people already settled. You have taken on the full airs and speech of a married woman, in a

choed Margaret, staring

llowance. You'll have to look to your mother for your dresses and hats and gee-gaws. When I think of the thousands of dollars I've wasted on you-It

thing from you that you didn't force on me. And now, when you've made dr

year and hats and lingerie and everything in proportion? Just to gratify your vanity? No, indeed! To enable you to get a husband, one able to provide for you as befits your s

xuries that Margaret was especially fond; and her grandmother, with an instinct that those tastes of Margaret's proved her indeed a lady-and made it impossible that she should marry, or even think of marrying, "foolishly"-had been most graciously generous in gratifying them. Now, these luxuries were to be withdrawn, these p

against you! No girl appreciates refinement and luxury more than you do. No woman has better taste, could use a large income to better advantage. And you have intelligence. You know you must have a competent husban

ng! Pi

t would become of women of our station? Women should hold themselves dear, should encourage men in that old-time reverence for the sex and its right to be sheltered and wo

this her least successful season, with most of her acquaintances married off, and enjoying and flaunting the luxury she might have had-for, they had married men, of "the right sort"-"capable husbands"-men who h

n, her grandmother: "What do

augh. "I must rope in somebody. Oh, I've been rea

d," said she. "I see you are coming to your senses before it's too late. I knew y

, instead of nagging and bullying and trying to compel, all this might have been settled long ago." She shrugged her sh

f Grant Arkwright?"

arry him," rep

stern eyes gl

e doesn't like you. He's afraid of you. If you give the sl

ttered Madam Bowker. "I'

want me to

ble husband for you." She smiled like a grand inquisitor at prospect o

he colored as with shame and turned away. "What frauds we women are!" she

that was not. And the more sensible they are in other respects, the bigger fools they are about us! Left to themselves, they always make a mess of marriage. They think they know what they want, but they don't. We have to teach t

headache powder and get some sleep." Her grandmother rose instantly. "Yes, you do look badly-for you. And Arkwright has very keen eyes-thanks to those silly women of your set who teach men things they have no business to know." She advanced and kissed