Trapped

Foreword

I wish, to express special obligation to the Azoth and other magazines, to Edward Herrman, Eliphas Levi, DuPrel, Madam Blavatsky, Nostradamus, Bjerregaardi, Edtward Carpenter, C. Janarajadasa, and other writers on East Indian mysticism and Theosophy, for many of the* conversations in this story.

I also desire to extend thanks to Mrs. Mary Roberts Rinehart, C. Sarolea, Price Collier, The Vicksburg Herald, The Memphis Com¬ mercial Appeal, and other newspapers, for some of the occurances and conversations in the following pages.

The story was written in the fall of 1914 and the spring of 1915. In my desire to be just—and neutral—I wrote to the German-American Association for their strongest propaganda in de¬ fense of their course in Belgium and the origin of the war. As I bought the pamphlets furnished me, I suppose they were what I asked for. Therefore, I feel in presenting the German cause by their own writers, that I have given the Central Powers full justice; and I have also been generous in depicting German characters and war incidents.

I was in Europe during the first of the war, and have written an accurate picture of what I saw and heard, and of that which was described to me by others, in places where it was impossible for me to go.

Table Of Contents

I. Where the Threads Crossed 11

II. A Bit of Margery’s Past. 12

III. The Magic Square. 15

CHAPTER I. Where the Threads Crossed

“Now what is there for me to do?” wondered Amos Russell des¬ pairingly, almost desperately.

With a restlessness born of misery, he stood hat in hand, be¬ fore a window in the X. Y. Z. office, that overlooked a tiny park. But his blurred eyes saw neither the trees nor hedges with their slight powder of spring snow. Instead, he was looking at the shaft of white marble which he had the day previous placed above the grave of his mother. Examining designs, selecting the stone, and finding a suitable inscription, had furnished occupation during the terrible weeks since the funeral. He was now drearily asking him¬ self: “How am I to fill my leisure hours—the long, intolerable evenings?”

In all the world there was not one person whom he could call friend. Except in a business way he knew nobody in London. As he faced this utter lonliness, the dreadful feeling: “What’s the use?” weighed him. He did not realize that such isolation for a man of twenty-three was morbid. Nor did he dream that he was held by the chains of habit; that because he had never learned the art of making friends, he could not now—in his hour of dire need— reach out and fill the gap in his soul.

Twisting his hat in a motion of agony, he walked to his desk, dully repeating over and over:

“Now what is left for me to do?”

Some one knocked at the door.

“Come in,” he called automatically.

Margery Keblinger entered. For the last month Florence Flem¬ ming—as he knew her—had come at this hour every day with trans¬ lations of telegrams and letters, that he was to receive.

He had utterly forgotten her, he recalled, as he nodded good morning.

The hat in his hand, arrested in its quick motion, caught her glance. She remembered his absence of a week. The smile in her eyes faded out as they fell on the new crepe band.

She breathed a sympathetic “Oh!” and impulsively extended her hand. “You—you are in deep sorrow.” she gasped tenderly.

“Yes, my mother/* the boy replied simply. In spite of himself his eyes filled with tears.

“Your mother/’ repeated the girl softly. “Ah, I know what that means. I have lost—my mother, too. My father left us long be fore.”

Her tears overflowed, and she hastily wiped them off her cheeks.

Her unexpected sympathy touched the depths of the boy’s nature. Before he knew how he was saying it, he was telling her of his half-crazing loneliness since his mother’s death.

“I am sorry—so sorry for you. I know all you feel. I am just like you, utterly alone!’’ For a moment she sobbed in her handkerchief. Then, in sudden confidence—that he knew was gen¬ uine—she told him of her mother's death. “We lived on the con¬ tinent—and had such gay, happy times together. Afterwards—I—I had to go to the school of Arts and Sciences—Oh! years!”

Forgetting his own grief for an instant, Amos Russell listened.

“It was all simply perfectly awful!” the girl exclaimed tragi¬ cally. “Until.”

She drew herself up with an appalled self-consciousness, and ended abruptly, “Until I secured this position here.”

The knob of the office door turned, and voices were heard in the corridor. With embarrassed haste Margery placed the package in the hands of Amos. He quickly signed the official papers and gave her two receipts. With nervous fingers she pasted one in her note book and the other on the packet of original telegrams, that she was to file in another room.

The door opened, and Mr. Clarence Holt, the head of the depart¬ ment, entered. Miss Keblinger bowed to him with averted face, and hurriedly left the apartment.

“Quite a pretty girl,” remarked Mr. Holt, removing a rubber band from a bundle of letters on his desk. “Extraordinarily indif¬ ferent though” he added, half to himself.

Clarence Holt’s prominence in the X. Y. Z. office made him generally an object of interest to women.

“I-I believe she is,” responded, 1 the under-secretary.

CHAPTER II. A Bit of Margery’s Past

“How about little god-daughter, Margery?” asked the Duke of Almont, as he took the cup of tea Lady Florence was extending. He was not particularly interested in his question. He let his eyes wander around the rich, pleasant drawing room, before they came back to the countess.

“Everything is going perfectly,” Lady Florence replied, a bit stiffly, “in spite of your predictions.”

His Grace chuckled. “Has nobody discovered that your god¬ daughter and my great niece is working by the day; like any other laboring woman?”

Lady Florence flushed. “It is only two hours in the morning. No one except my housekeepepr, who is absolutely trustworthy, need ever know that Margery is not as idle as the best—or worst—of us.”

The old duke interrupted with another chuckle.

“It would furnish a family sensation,” he admitted, “that might equal Alfred Keblinger’s elopement with Margery’s mother. ’The distractingly pretty daughter of David Lane, the wealthy manufact¬ urer.’ That is the way it appeared in the papers, if my memory is exact. I can truthfully say, my dear Lady Florence, that Lon¬ don was never more agog about our family, than when that marriage took place.”

Lady Florence leaned forward. “Since you are speaking so freely to me, you may not think it impertinent if I ask how you hushed it all up so quickly. I was absent at the time—and did not hear the particulars.” But she failed to add, “It was I who helped them to run away.”

“By getting Alfred immediately out of England. We secured him a position in the foreign legation at Berlin. Shipped him out! Pretty wife and all. Nothing but agreeable reports came back—oc¬ casionally. The girl, as you know, was accomplished—more, an ex¬ ceedingly charming woman. Fortunately when the child came, it was not a boy. No danger of David Lane’s grand-ehild inheriting the title, you see. We could afford to overlook the whole affair, es¬ pecially as old Lane was putting up the money for them. Alfred did not live long, you remember. They made few visits to London.” The duke held out his cup to be re-filled. “Another stroke of luck was the widow’s remaining abroad—living all over Europe. Though of course I had no idea that she was running through with the last ducat that her father had settled upon her!”

The countess laughed half tauntingly.

“When you discovered that, you had your sensation! A girl pretty enough to turn the head of any man, with charm and poise that the English-bred simply never have at that age, dumped on you, and your son and heir in the house!” She laughed softly. “Lady Caroline told me how you rushed over to her and demanded that she take Margery away.”

“It is like Caroline to tell you! Did she add that she and my sisters refused positively even to keep her over night?”

Lady Florence shook her head, and he continued. “I swore a little, I dare say. Margery could flirt with the Crown Prince him¬ self! She learned it on the Continent watching her mother, I sup¬ pose. I had to think of my boy.” The Duke looked a bit sheepish.

“Especially when the girl was absolutely penniless and the es¬ tate in debt.”

“Precisely.” nodded the Duke. “Even Caroline realized that something had to be done; and finally came forward with the proposi¬ tion to place her in the School of Arts and Sciences, of which you are the worthy patroness. Margery’s bare one hundred pounds from her father met the expense easily.”

“When the poor child wanted to work for a living—how you stormed!” smiled Lady Florence audaciously. “My pet hope in founding that school was to inculcate in English girls a desire to sup¬ port themselves—as American young women do.”

“I firmly believe, my dear Lady Florence,” said the Duke, “that Margery got so tired in the school of the one thing she could do— that first-aid nursing training—that any change was a relief, even the desperate one of making her own way in London.”

“I don’t agree with you,” rejoined the countess uncomfortably. Evidently she had had the same thought. “'She knows Russian, German, Spanish and French well enough to be a native of any of those countries. Why shouldn’t she use the talent? And she will never flirt with any of the clerks she meets in the X. Y. Z. office.”

“I am perfectly certain of that.” The old duke smiled enigmat¬ ically into his cup. “Your finding a situation where her one ac¬ complishment—familiarity with most continental languages—could be transmuted into money, was an inspiration. It was equaled though, by your idea of entering her there under her middle name— Florence Fleming—and taking her into your own home.” The Duke dropped his light tone. “But indeed, Lady Florence, we are deeply grateful to you for your kindness to our great niece. I stopped in to tell you some good news for Margery. It could not, however, have been possible without your wise intervention, and care of her during the past weeks.”

Lady Florence looked up eagerly.

But the entrance of her half-brother, Lord Pan-Muir Dalhousie, who had just arrived from Scotland, interrupted.

“I shall come again—with the information,” the Duke said, un¬ der his breath, as he took up his hat.

“It is just like him to leave me in the air and dying of curiosity,” thought the countess, as she rose to meet her brother. “I believe he waited before mentioning it, until he heard Bertram’s voice.”

CHAPTER III. The Magic Square

Two minutes after her flood of tears, in the office of Amos Russell, or to be exact, by the time she had delivered the receipts Amos had given her to the recorder, Margery Keblinger was as happy as if she had not wept. Possibly the tears bathed and eased her wound. She was one of those rare women to whom surface weeping is becoming. She knew her brown eyes swimming in tears were irresistibly tender—and her keen sympathies seized naturally on this outlet. Both tears and impulses, however, were transitory. Nothing below the surface in the girl had been touched. Before she turned the corner in the corridor ishe had forgotten the little shower!

The desk of Miss Florence Fleming—as Lady Florence’s ward was known in the X. Y. Z. office— was at one end of a long room where there was a buzz of work all day; and many people constant¬ ly came and went. Every morning Margery took her seat here, pulled a shade over her forehead—it would be convenient should an acquaintance chance to enter—and concentrating upon her task, in spite of distractions, did her work well. She translated tele¬ grams and letters from German, French, Russian, Flemish and Span¬ ish, into English. iShe referred to her dictionary only when technical language was used. The work seemed so simple, that she often won¬ dered at the salary she received. Promptly at eleven she took the translated copies to Amos Russell, under-secretary to Mr. Clarence Holt, head of the department.

“Mr. Russell is very good looking,” she thought this morning as she straightened her desk, preparatory to leaving. “I should not though, have been quite so cordial. To-morrow I’ll put things back on their former footing. Lady Florence would have been shocked if she had seen me.”

When the girl first entered the office she held to the advice of the wise countess, “Attend to your duties in a dignified manner, and have no social relations with any one in the building. Your friends must be in your own circle.” Margery had practiced aloof¬ ness in the school of Arts and Sciences, whose atmosphere she had described to Amos Russell as “perfectly awful”; and it was very easy for her to be “aloof” in the X. Y. Z. office. As the weeks passed, however, and the pleasant bustle around her became familiar, her reserve unconsciously thawed. When receiving instructions, or giv¬ ing explanations, a smile would bubble up from a happy heart. She could not always remember that she was almost noble! the grand¬ niece of the Duke of Almont. Particularly, when he was such a disagreeable old beggar, who, with all his money had done nothing for her when she was absolutely in need. But the change that had taken place in her, like all natural ones, was imperceptible; and to the girl—who never analyzed herself—her impulsive advance to Amos Russell was totally unexpected.

“Nothing like that shall occur again,” she promised herself, as she stood on the stool in the cloak room, to peek into the mirror and give to her charming eyes a smile of approval.

When she left the office she crossed the narrow street and en¬ tered a square, edged on all sides by hedges too high to look over. To the girl this was enchanted ground. Within the magic of its shrubbery each morning “Margery Keblinger” was transformed into “Florence Flemming”— the girl who worked for pounds, shillings, and pence. A wave of Time’s wand—a scant two hours—and again within the witchery of its shade, Florence Flemming was charmed back into Margery Keblinger, and passed out the idle ward of a countess and great-niece of a duke.

To-day as Margery threaded this bit of fairy land in the heart of London and emerged on the opposite side, Amos Russell and the X. Y. Z. off ice-wo rid were sponged entirely from her mind.

She was to have the unusual pleasure of a quiet lunch with a sedate friend of Lady Florence’s, and afterward a visit to an art gallery.

About tea time that afternoon, as she hurried happily home, re¬ membering with a thrill that she was to have dinner with Lady Flo¬ rence and her brother, Lord Dalhousie, who was expected from Scot¬ land, she saw the duke’s car before the door. She recognized the Almont crest on it. She felt the blood surge into her face. He never came to see her; though his visits to Lady Florence usually concerned her. She slipped in a side entrance, catching her breath uneasily. She would not go in for tea.

“What is it, this time?” she wondered unhappily, as she mounted the stairs to her room.

CHAPTER IV. The Miniature

“These sleeves are ducks!” Margery thought, patting affection¬ ately the sheer stuff over her lovely arms, as she adored her reflec¬ tion in the mirror of her dressing table. “No one will ever suspect this gown is an old one of my mother’s, remade.”

Facing the long mirror she held a smaller one under her chin, with a side-downward glance, to catch the light on her bronze-gold lashes. Looking up again she surprised a smile eddying into dim¬ ples in her pink cheeks.

“You perfectly beautiful, silly-girl,” she grinned softly; and kissing her fingers to her satisfactory reflection, she ran, on the lightest feet in England, down to dinner.

In the drawing room she found Lady Florence and her brother. It was the first time the countess had ever seen her god-daughter in anything approaching an evening gown. The girl’s radiance almost surprised her out of her British calm. “The man who wrote that beauty unadorned is most adorned was an idiot—or he had never seen Margery”—flashed through her mind.

It was hardly a dinner party; there was only one other guest, Lord Carnes, an old friend of Lord Dalhousie. To Margery, however, the table with flowers and silken shades, the well served courses, and the butler in livery, were perfect!

“A month ago I was in that horrible place!” she thought, as the ugly dining-room of the School of Arts and Sciences rose before her mind’s eye.

She slipped her small foot in and out of her pump, just to enjoy the feeling of the silk stocking, to realize that she really was out of bondage.

She felt that she had come into her own!

“Lady Florence,” she whispered happily, as she passed out of the door with her into the drawing room, “Wouldn’t it be terrible if I should wake up—or something should happen—and this bliss should be but a tantilizing illusion?”

“You foolish child!” reproved Lady Florence, but her eyes smiled. It was just a little wonderful for her to have common-sense kindness repaid with such unexpected dividends as Margery’s sparkling happiness.

Her eyes fixed curiously on the girl. From a tiny platinum chain around her neck, hung a locket of exquisite workmanship. In the center blazed a monogram of small but perfect diamonds.

“I thought when you entered school, your uncle put all your jewels in the bank?”

“All except this,” replied the girl, placing her hand on the locket. “I wear it—underneath—all the time: I should feel lost without it.” She unclasped the chain and gave it to Lady Florence. “It was my last Christmas present to my father. He wore it al¬ ways on his fob.”

The countess examined the trinket; on the reverse side was the family crest.

“The day he died,” continued’ Margery softly, “he fastened it around my neck; and I’ve worn it there ever since.”

iShe touched the spring of the locket, revealing an exquisite min¬ iature of her mother.

“How lovely! How perfectly lovely!” exclaimed Lady Florence, going to the reading lamp to examine it. “How exactly you are like your mother with your hair arranged just as hers.”

Margery’s ready blush swept her face in delighted confusion.

“I tried to dress my hair like Mamma’s. Do you think I succeeded ?”

“Amazingly.” The countess was looking from the portrait to the girl. “That soft pompadour and the little love-locks and that red-gold curl over your shoulder are extremely becoming. You are a very fortunate girl to have had a mother from whom to inherit such good looks—and to have done it.”

She replaced the locket around Margery’s slender throat, and snapped the clasp. Here the gentlemen joined them.

Lady Florence rose. She knew these old cronies had much to talk about. She excused herself in order to look over important ac¬ counts. “Margery, please tell Miss Davis, the housekeeper, to meet me in the library.”

After delivering the message to Miss Davis, Margery returned to the drawing room. The two gentlemen were talking so earnestly they did not see her enter. She felt that to speak would be an in¬ trusion; so she slipped) into a vast chair—and listened.

“Surely you do not mean to imply,” Lord Dalhousie was saying, “that the ancient philosophers understood the Christian meaning of the Kingdom of Heaven?”

“Most assuredly I do,” replied Lord Carnes spiritedly. “The true Stoic is not far from the Christian's ‘City of God.’ ”

“You learnd strange things while you were in India!” laughed Lord Dalhousie. “If those old heathen could wake up, I don't be¬ lieve they would understand; what you claim for them.”

“Oh yes! Marcus Aurelius calls the sinner a brother, ‘Partic¬ ipating not indeed in the same flesh and blood, but in the same mind and partnership with the divine.’ ”

“Who is Marcus Aurelius?” wondered Margery. “He must be a clergyman,” she commented mentally; losing interest in this friend of Lord Carnes.

“And Epictetus said. ‘Never in reply to the question, to what country do you belong, say you are an Athenian or a Corinthian, but that you are a citizen of the world.’ ”

“Epictetus!” exclaimed Margery to herself. “What queer names his friends have.” She had seen something of society on the conti¬ nent, but men did not discourse upon such subjects. Neither did they leave her to grow drowsy in an easy chair.

Dalhousie started to speak, but Carnes waved him to silence with another quotation:

“ ‘He then, who has learned that the most comprehensive com¬ munity is that which is composed of men and God—why should not such a man call himself a citizen of the world, and why not a son of God?’ Is not that close to your kingdom?”

“Possibly now and then, in their imaginary flights, the heathen touched it; but their lives were far from the teachings of the lowly Jesus,” replied Lord Dalhousie, thoughtfully. “Zeno, you re¬ member, held that only good men are_”

“Of course,” interrupted Carnes quickly, “If we look for those without the kingdom, their name is legion. I only contend that in every age of the past we find a few clinging to the true and only God.”

“If this,” thought Margery, “is what society people in England talk about, it is not extraordinary that dear Mamma preferred the continent. Why if I have to converse in this way to young men— I shall never be popular!”

“ ‘He only is great who serves mankind,’ ” quoted Lord Carnes with sudden energy. “This truth the earth is fast learning. If I read the signs correctly we are nearing the millennium—as it is com¬ monly called. Already the nations are preparing for arbitration, and not war, to settle disputes.”

“I should like to believe you,” sighed Lord Dalhousie, “But as long as countries are armed to the teeth, the strongest will probably provoke a quarrel.”

“You are wrong. The Great Brother will soon come from Asia and teach the true lesson of life. Disarmament will follow. We shall live to see it.”

A smile twinkled in Lord Dalhousie‘s eyes as he said: “If I am to match my Scotch second-sight—which I don’t claim to possess,— against this ‘prevision’ you have gained by dipping into things oc¬ cult in India, I’ll wager that neither we nor our children shall live to see this everlasting peace.’” Then he went on more seriously. “Why Robert, we are further from it than in the days of Augustus Caesar, when the Prince of Peace was born.” He rose and slowly walked up and down the length of the room, Lord Carnes silently following him with his eyes, as Dalhousie continued:

“The whole world has become idolatrous. England worships the God of Commerce; Germany, Mars; and America, Mammon. Each country, big or little, bows before its special deity; but none—as a whole people—worships, in spirit and in truth, the living God.”

Margery’s eyes were closed. As in a dream she caught the word, “England.” Semi-consciously she wondered, “What will—happen to me in this old England? What is coming to meet me?” A curious sense of half shuddering seized her for a moment. Then, soothed by the murmur of voices, she fell asleep in the enormous chair.

“Are you in earnest?”

“Intensely so,” replied Dalhousie, stopping in his march. “As individuals and as nations we are idolators. We don’t set up graven images in our homes and in our churches; but each hugs some idol to his heart—wealth, love-of-ease, power,—or somethilng else. And because we fail to dub our deity by the name of some ancient god, we pat ourselves on the back and call ourselves CHRISTIAN! Where do you find one who follows the teachings of the Christ?”

There was a momentary pause.

“And things are getting worse, instead of better,” Lord Dalhousie added, throwing himself into a chair.

T am not a churchman,” remarked Lord Carnes, “but I do not take so gloomy a view. In my opinion each year the world grows better. Not in great leaps and bounds, but it goes steadily forward, guided by the ‘grand form, system, plan, of Eternal Will. And though, at present, many live blindly, the Inner Life people, the Mystics, live themselves. And they are teaching others what it is to live. There is no note of negativity. All is centrality, actually, ac¬ tivity, energy.’ It must, and it will, eventually sweep the earth; and.... ”

“Eventually—possibly; but not now,” Dalhousie smiled wearily as he shook his head. “The world moves continually of course, though not always forward, but rather as a pendulum. I fear we are on the backward swing now. As I look about, there is little to en¬ courage the Utopian hopes you picture so graphically. In the most enlightened nations men, women,—ay, and little children—are sacri¬ ficed on the altar of Greed to Mammon! No country is free from this taint—this mad rush for money. Each year thousands of young girls are devoured by a worse monster than the Minotaur. Their souls, as well as their bodies, bartered for gold., Holy wedlock desecrated by many marriages. Millions of illegitimate children born each year. They start life handicapped. Why Price Collier states that in Berlin alone there are 20,000 annually. Have we any reason to hope there are fewer in London? Were Sodom and Gomorrah more vile? When I consider the wickedness of modern civilization—man’s in¬ humanity to man, and his defiance of all spiritual laws—I wonder at the patience of the Creator, the Jealous God of Israel. Nor would my amazement be great if a sudden cataclysm should sink the present continent—Atlantis like—into the ocean, and a second flood teach man the fear of God.”

“It would only transform him into a savage brute, instead of an enlightened one,” announced Lord Carnes calmly. “Man’s nature cannot be changed by wholesale destruction. It was tried once—and failed.”

Before Lord Dalhousie could reply, Lady Florence entered.

CHAPTER V. Drifting

Lady Florence stood smiling at the two old men—absorbed in their eager argument—and Margery, asleep in the chair. She in¬ dicated the girl with a low laugh.

“You've talked her into the land of dreams—which is not quite so bad as being talked to death!"

“We did not know she was there!" cried Lord Dalhousie in surprise.

^She must have entered very quietly," regretted Lord Carnes.

What a really beautiful girl she is f I have a handsome nephew I must send to meet her, to make up for this lapse on my part."

“Who is he?" asked Lady Florence.

“A young lieutenant of the_"

“Don't send him here," cautioned the hostess, smiling a warn¬ ing, “unless you are willing to risk his marrying a penniless girl. I do not wish to add a broken heart to Margery’s other misfortunes."

Lord Carnes glanced at his watch, and murmured something about it being late. Margery awoke in time to hear him say:

“I am leaving early to-morrow for Baden-Baden. My physician insists upon it. My long stay in India was almost too much for me."

“Will your friend, Prince Mavalanka, of Rajputana join you there?"

“Prince Mavalanka!" repeated Margery mentally. “That's even queerer than the other names."

“Yes,” answered Lord Carnes, “but not as a prince. He is traveling as Mohini Doud, and I as Robert Dallas. In a country where titles are so worshipped, we'll feel freer so."

“May all your dreams come true," Lord Dalhousie said, clasping the hand of his old friend.

Lord Carnes smiled almost gaily. He bent over Margery’s hand. “I wish the same to you. May your dreams come true!"

Margery swept him a glance from her bronze-gold lashes, with a charming little gasp. “And may they hurry!" she added.

Lord Carnes looked at her as if something about her had just arrested him. “I believe they will," he said oddly.

But nothing seemed to happen.

On the morrow, the day Margery intended “to put everything back where it was" between her and Amos Russell, she found it impossible to find the level where they had met before. After a week’s real effort she stopped trying. In fact she felt that her consciousness of something to be set right, was a sort of bond that drew him to her, instead of pushing him back.

“He seems really very nice,” she decided carelessly, “and it is pleasanter so. Indeed, it freshens up the day to have a good-looking man exceedingly nice to you. Anyhow, what difference does it make?”

Florence Flemming’s lovely face was making its impression on Amos Russell. At first her beauty to him was wonderful, as a rain¬ bow or a dazzling sunset is wonderful. If she had ignored him, he might have worshipped her as a sort of goddess; and later when he had given a maturer heart to another, she would have remained his “dream-girl.”

When, however, she confessed, “I too, am alone in the world,” she sowed the dragon’s teeth in his love-hungry heart.

He immediately pictured her loneliness as great as his own—and sympathy was born. When their eyes met daily over the telegrams, always, her lovely blush swept her face. He saw that quick down¬ ward sweep of her lashes, and he felt that he was looking upon a heart unfolding to him, and too naturally to conceal its promptings. His pulses quickened; and as the weeks passed he found himself watching for the hour, which brought the translations—and Florence Flemming. Soon the day began with her entrance, and ended with her exit. The remaining hours, imagination was at work on that marvelous structure—first love.