Author of
"Harriet and the Piper," etc.
A. L. BURT COMPANY
Publishers
New York
Published by arrangement with Doubleday, Page & Company
Printed in U. S. A.
COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY
KATHLEEN NORRIS
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION
INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN
COPYRIGHT 1920, 1921, BY THE PICTORIAL REVIEW COMPANY
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES
AT
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.
TO
MARY O'SULLIVAN SUTRO
For forty-eight hours the snow-storm had been ragingunabated over New York. After a wild and windyThursday night the world had awakened to a mysteriouswhirl of white on Friday morning, and to a dark,strange day of steady snowing. Now, on Saturday,dirty snow was banked and heaped in great blockseverywhere, and still the clean, new flakes flutteredand twirled softly down, powdering and featheringevery little ledge and sill, blanketing areas in spotlesswhite, capping and hooding every unsightly hydrantand rubbish-can with exquisite and lavish beauty.Shovels had clinked on icy sidewalks all the first day,and even during the night the sound of shouting andscraping had not ceased for a moment, and their moreand more obvious helplessness in the teeth of thestorm awakened at last in the snow-shovellers, and inthe men and women who gasped and stumbled alongthe choked thoroughfares, a sort of heady exhilarationin the emergency, a tendency to be proud of the storm,and of its effect upon their humdrum lives. Theylaughed and shouted as they battled with it, and asNature's great barrier of snow threw down the littlebarriers of convention and shyness. Men held out[Pg 2]their hands to slipping and stumbling women, caughtthem by their shoulders, panted to them that this wasa storm, all right, this was the worst yet! Girls,staggering in through the revolving glass doors of thebig department stores, must stand laughing helplesslyfor a few seconds in the gush of reviving warmth, whilethey beat their wet gloves together, regaining breathand self-possession, and straightened outraged millinery.
Traffic was congested, deserted trucks and motor-carslined the side streets, the subways were jammed, thesurface cars helpless. Here and there long lines ofthe omnibuses stood blocked in snow, and the pressfrantically heralded impending shortages of milk andcoal, reiterating pessimistically: "No relief in sight."
But late in Saturday morning there was a suddenlull. The snow stopped, the wind fell, and the pure,cold air was motionless and sweet. The city emergedexhausted from its temporary blanketing, and fromthe buried benches of Bowling Green to the virgin sweepof pure white beyond Van Cortlandt Park, began itsusual January fight with the snow.
A handsome, rosy old lady, wrapped regally in furs,and with a maid picking her way cautiously beside her,was one of the first to take advantage of the suddenchange in the weather. Mrs. Melrose had been heldcaptive for almost two days, first by Thursd