The Ancient Grudge

THE ANCIENT GRUDGE ## I ### "A HERO—ALWAYS" A wide, white beach ran for a quarter of a mile from a rocky promontory to a point covered with trees. Here and there, through the fringe of pine woods, houses, white and red, thrust their gables; the windows of these caught the blaze of the afternoon sun

Floyd Halket came once and sat with him, rather shy and conscious at first, for he had been dodging tributes for four days; but he responded soon to Stewart's eager and quite objective interest in the details of the rescue. "Just five minutes before it happened, I was telling Lydia Dunbar you had no

So Floyd would sit alone with Mrs. Lee and Anna, and afterwards the little girl would call on him to perform tricks with a silver quarter; she no longer believed in them as she had done at first, but she never gave up trying to detect how he did them. They became very good friends, Mrs. Lee and Anna

"What a huge great smirch it is!" he murmured. The "works" filled the arc of a mile curve made by the Yolin River, of which Floyd could see only a narrow yellow strip. The mills, mostly corrugated iron sheds, with red sides and black, sloping roofs, and the machine-shops and mill offices, buildings

Below them were the abysmal iron mills, in a continuous, three-mile line. At this hour the families, having finished supper, were strewn along the sidewalks or crowded together upon the doorsteps; the children playing hopscotch or dancing to the tune of a hand-organ, the women resting and gossiping,

Bell was in the yard below him, sprinkling her lawn, and occasionally exchanging a word with the neighboring housewife, who was engaged in similar employment. Floyd's arm grew weary of holding up the glass, and having laid it down he listened without shame to the fragments of conversation that reach

The club was an old house on one of the downtown streets, hemmed in now among stores and office buildings, but retaining the dignity that had made it twenty years before the first "mansion" of Avalon. It was a red brick house with a large bay window swelling out on each side of the wide entrance, an

"Dear Floyd," it began, and he knew from his pleasure that he had feared Lydia would address him more formally,—"I am back in Avalon and I want to see you very much. Papa says you will hardly be able to come over for an (evening; but can't you come to luncheon with us next Sunday at one and stay for

"I have to go into the city this afternoon; why would n't it be a good thing to spend the morning in the country?" "Why, it would so," assented Mrs. Bell. "What do you do with yourself, mornings?" pursued Floyd. What do women do after they get the men-folks shipped out of the house?" "Oh, warsh the

"Is n't it a sham!" Mrs. Halket murmured to Floyd. She sat with her feet resting on a cushion and turned up toward the fire; her left hand hung over the arm of her chair, and the rings on it—opals and diamonds—gleamed and glittered in the light. Her husband liked to have her crowd her fingers with r

He had for a partner at the first cotillion of the winter a poisonous young woman who supplied him with information about others in the room. "It's funny," she observed. "I did n't think Mr. Bergen would get on the list this year.

"Is Mr. Lee in?" asked Floyd. The boy got down from his stool. "What name, please?" Floyd produced a card, and the boy disappeared into the adjoining room.

He had almost forgotten what fun it was to be an irresponsible young fellow with congenial idle companions, and he surprised his old friends by his spontaneous gayety. "You're more of a boy than you used to be," one of them said to him seriously. He stayed with the party until October, and then went

When at last he had the plans for the club-house ready, he submitted them to Floyd with a gay confidence. "I think the ladies will find that is just about the sort of building they want," he said. "Artistically, I have n't done anything better." Floyd and his grandfather studied the plans for severa

"I tell you this, Mr. Halket," said one of the men, bringing his fist down on the table, "if that's the Colonel's position, then it means disaster." "I hope not," Floyd answered. "My grandfather's been in this business a good while, and it's quite likely he's wiser about it than any of us. Anyway we

Bennett from his table in the corner noted it and smiled cynically. Stewart's pride was such that to no one but his wife would he confess that he had really nothing to do. From her he made little effort to conceal his discontent. He railed against the town—her native place.

When the dinner was at an end, Colonel Halket rose from his chair. "Gentlemen," he said, "I suggest that we adjourn to the library." He led the way and at the door stood aside to let the others enter. Floyd came last, and when he saw the chairs arranged at the farther end of the room in two stiff ro

The old man was, however, waiting for his grandson to make advances and grew vexed when they did not come. To have the most important designs of his life ignored in this manner, treated day after day as if they were visionary notions which after a first enthusiasm had been abandoned, exasperated Col

The occasion was one of some ceremony, for nearly all the men wore coats, even though it was a warm evening, and many of them had gone home from the works an hour before displaying undershirt and suspenders. Collars were less frequent than cutaways, however,—as if, having made a concession in one ma

They said to Floyd, more definitely, that the end was near. "It's like counting off the minutes on a clock that has almost run down. It's not a bad way to die—peaceful and painless," said one of the doctors to Floyd. Every morning Colonel Halket was moved to a couch in his sitting-room, where he cou

He had spent a morning walking over the wide open lots that lay opposite the entrance to the Halket Park of Avalon. There were thirty acres reaching up to the summit of the low hill, the bare ridge of which marked for one passing in the street the nearest horizon line. Standing on this ridge, one mi

There were four in New York, two in Boston, two in Philadelphia, all of the highest eminence in the profession. In Avalon there had been invited besides himself the firm of Bennett & Durant—the only firm, he acknowledged to himself, that he could feel absolutely confident of beating, notwithstanding

As a holiday, it was not very satisfying; he was so thorough in his investigations that he had not even time to look up the three or four college friends whom he was accustomed to see whenever he visited New York. One day, as he was coming out of St. Luke's, he met Bennett entering. "Hello!" he excl

Now he vouchsafed no explanation for this sudden smiling abandonment of the purpose to which he had apparently dedicated himself. "I want to thank you all," he continued, "and I think after the way we've been working ourselves to death we'd better declare a holiday. And if you'd each of you do me th