CHAPTER I Little Miss Severance sat with her hands as cold as ice. The stage of her coming adventure was beautifully set—the conventional stage for the adventure of a young girl, her mother's drawing-room. Her mother had the art of setting stages. The room was not large,—a New York brownstone front in the upper Sixties even though altered as to entrance, and allowed to sprawl backward over yards not originally intended for its use,... more...

Chapter I The editor of that much-abused New York daily, Liberty, pushed back his editorial typewriter and opened one letter in the pile which the office-boy—no respecter of persons—had just laid upon the desk while whistling a piercing tune between his teeth. The letter said: DEAR BEN,—I hate to think what your feelings will be on learning that I am engaged to be married to a daughter of the capitalistic class. Try to... more...

CHAPTER I Mrs. Ussher was having a small house party in the country over New Year's Day. This is equivalent to saying that the half dozen most fashionable people in New York were out of town. Certain human beings are admitted to have a genius for discrimination in such matters as objects of art, pigs or stocks. Mrs. Ussher had this same instinct in regard to fashion, especially where fashions in people were concerned. She turned toward hidden... more...

ARE WOMEN PEOPLE? A Consistent Anti to Her Son ("Look at the hazards, the risks, the physical dangers that ladies would be exposed to at the polls."—Anti-suffrage speech.) You're twenty-one to-day, Willie, And a danger lurks at the door, I've known about it always, But I never spoke before; When you were only a baby It seemed so very remote, But you're twenty-one to-day, Willie, And old enough to vote. You must not go to... more...