Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

“ Well, my dear, we're the second family, then!” said the woman, very much pleased, and she called out joyously: “Tom Tench! Alan! I've found the place!”
The two men approached. They also seemed surprised and pleased.
“As if she'd done something very clever,” thought Bess. “Didn't they ever expect to find their house?”
“My dear,” said the woman, “I'm Angelina Smith. This is my brother Alan, and my cousin, Tom Tench. Boys, imagine! This is the young lady who lives in the house!”
Both the men took off their hats and smiled at her.
“Shall we move the things in now?” ”

“ Tom Tench won't be long now. He makes a point of writing at least twenty-five hundred words a day. He will do that much, even if he's not in the mood, and has to tear it all up.”
“I see!” said Bess, politely. “But, Miss Smith, you're so busy—please let me go into the kitchen and get things started for you. I'd really love to.”
“My dear, I don't use the kitchen,” Miss Smith replied, calmly.
“Don't use the kitchen!” repeated the dinner guests in unison.
“Never!” said she. “For busy people like ourselves, housekeeping has to be reduced to the utmost simplicity. ”

“ Life is real! Life is earnest! She had always felt like that. She had been left motherless when she was a very tiny girl, and the chief influence of her childhood had been that of her father, a man whom nobody could accuse of undue frivolity. He believed that life was real, and earnest, and pretty awful—especially now, when he was a ruined man.
Bess, however, being only nineteen, could not see things quite as he did. ”

“ Angelina held that it was all the fault of her temperamental cousin, Tom Tench, and that poor Professor Gayle was an innocent victim; while Bess thought secretly that her father, being older and wiser, should have avoided such an antagonism.
“But it does seem a pity,” she said once, “that—your brother has to suffer for it. He seems to work so hard, and he comes home late, and half the time the house is freezing cold, or the lights are out, because they're squabbling about whose place it is to do things.”
“Oh, Alan doesn't mind,” Miss Smith assured her. ”

“ Alan said, 'Christmas will soon be here.' 'What does Christmas mean to us, who have no home?' Tom Tench inquired. 'Boys,' I said, 'you shall have a home!' So, you see!”
“Ah, yes!” said the professor, vaguely. Bess had gone off to make tea, and he was obliged to entertain the party alone. He scarcely felt equal to it. “You said 'studio'?” he continued. “Am I to understand that you are—er—an artist, Miss Smith?”
“All of us! I paint, and Tom Tench writes, and Alan designs. We're very quiet people,” she assured him. “We shan't disturb you in the least.” ”

“ Tom Tench refused to set foot in Professor Gayle's domain; and though the professor could probably be induced to go upstairs, who could foresee the consequences?
Nevertheless, the two dauntless women refused to despair.
“At the very last instant we'll find some way to reconcile them,” said Angelina. “We'll have a wonderful Christmas—I know it! Let's walk into the village this afternoon, and get quantities of holly and mistletoe. Why, my dear, it's Christmas Eve! They can't quarrel to-day. Nobody could!”
“They can, though,” said Bess, sadly. “I hear them now, out on the stairs.” ”

“ Bess went upstairs, to ask if she could help, but Miss Smith thanked her warmly, said that moving meant nothing at all to her, and invited Bess and her father to come up and dine with them that evening notwithstanding the unplaced furniture.
The professor, to his daughter's surprise, seemed pleased by the invitation.
“It is something of an experience to meet genuine artists,” he said. “It will do us good. Miss Smith is, I consider, a remarkable woman. ”

“ The week before Christmas was one of terrific activity for Bess and Angelina, and of unusually bitter hostility between Professor Gayle and Tom Tench. They were shamefully immune from any sort of Christmas spirit. ”

“ His head bandaged, his plans destroyed, his home in ruins, and now this! “It says 'corned beef'!” she faltered.
Then she could bear no more. Taking the corned beef, she ran into the kitchen, and began to cry there.
Alan came after her. He put his arm about her shoulders, but, this being the second time, she did not seem to notice it very much.
“I am s-so s-sorry!” she wailed.
“Please don't be!” he entreated. “Two-family houses are a mistake, anyhow. I've been staying late at the office, trying my hand at designing a house, for a change. I wish you'd look at the plans!” ”

“ He sprang to his feet and came toward her, quickly enough, in spite of his limp.
“I'm waiting to see what will happen,” he explained. “I've done things to that furnace!”
He stood there, smiling up at her, and she felt obliged to smile back at him, but it was not easy.
“If he'd rather stay in the cellar,” she thought, “there's no reason why he shouldn't—absolutely no reason. I'm sure—”
“Look here!” said Mr. Smith, suddenly. “Couldn't we go into the city to dinner some evening?”
A great indignation came over Bess, and a sort of alarm. Young Smith was not smiling now ”

“ The longest-living author of this work died in 1955, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 68 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works. ”