sure the gentlemen are longing to be left to themselves. You know it is only the new woman who would have dared to beard them in their own smoking-den.'
'It is I who should apologise for bringing you here,' replied her host, rising and going to her side. 'But my wife begged me to take care of you after dinner, for her headache was so bad she had to lie down. Will you show that you forgive me by reading the story to us before you go?'
'Yes, yes,' cried several voices; 'please do.'
'Forgive you? Why, you have inspired me,' laughed Deborah Hayden.
'It's just the time for stories,' whispered Mrs. Barnes, looking round the cosy room and its lazy members. 'I hope it's a gruesome one; I just love horrors.'
'It's not specially gruesome or horrible, neither has it a moral, I am afraid. I wanted to try and prove that a woman should not give up everything and become a household drudge, just because affection binds her to her home. I wished to urge that she should live sometimes the life she craves for, whatever it may be, and fling duty aside—duty, which women so frequently
