The Younger Set

And outside waited their pretty partners of the younger set, gossiping in hall, on stairs and veranda in garrulous bevies, all filmy silks and laces and bright-eyed expectancy.

The long windows were open to the veranda; Selwyn, with his arm through Gerald's, walked to the railing and looked out across the fragrant starlit waste. And very far away they heard the sea intoning the hymn of the four winds.

Then the elder man withdrew his arm and stood apart for a while. A little later he descended to the lawn, crossed it, and walked straight out into the waste.

The song of the sea was rising now. In the strange little forest below, deep among the trees, elfin lights broke out across the unseen Brier water, then vanished.

He halted to listen; he looked long and steadily into the darkness around him. Suddenly he saw her--a pale blur in the dusk.

"Eileen?"

"Is it you, Philip?"

She stood waiting as he came up through the purple gloom of the moorland, the stars' brilliancy silvering her--waiting--yielding in pallid silence to his arms, crushed in them, looking into his eyes, dumb, wordless.

Then slowly the pale sacrament changed as the wild-rose tint crept into her face; her arms clung to his shoulders, higher, tightened around his neck. And from her lips she gave into his keeping soul and body, guiltless as G.o.d gave it, to have and to hold beyond such incidents as death and the eternity that no man clings to save in the arms of such as she.

THE END

THE LEADING NOVEL OF TODAY.

The Fighting Chance.

By ROBERT W. CHAMBERS. Ill.u.s.trated by A.B. Wenzell. 12mo. Ornamental Cloth, $1.50.

In "The Fighting Chance" Mr. Chambers has taken for his hero, a young fellow who has inherited with his wealth a craving for liquor. The heroine has inherited a certain rebelliousness and dangerous caprice.

The two, meeting on the brink of ruin, fight out their battles, two weaknesses joined with love to make a strength. It is refres.h.i.+ng to find a story about the rich in which all the women are not sawdust at heart, nor all the men satyrs.

"After 'The House of Mirth' a New York society novel has to be very good not to suffer fearfully by comparison. 'The Fighting Chance' is very good and it does not suffer."--_Cleveland Plain Dealer_.

"There is no more adorable person in recent fiction than Sylvia Landis."--_New York Evening Sun_.

"Drawn with a master hand."--_Toledo Blade_.

"An absorbing tale which claims the reader's interest to the end."--_Detroit Free Press_.

"Mr. Chambers has written many brilliant stories, but this is his masterpiece."--_Pittsburg Chronicle Telegraph_.

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.

A GREAT ROMANTIC NOVEL.

The Reckoning.

By ROBERT W. CHAMBERS. Ill.u.s.trated by Henry Hutt. $1.50.

"A thrilling and engrossing tale."--_New York Sun_.

"When we say that the new work is as good as 'Cardigan' it is hardly necessary to say more."--_The Dial_.

"Robert Chambers' books recommend themselves. 'The Reckoning' is one of his best and will delight lovers of good novels."--_Boston Herald_.

"It is an exceedingly fine specimen of its cla.s.s, worthy of its predecessors and a joy to all who like plenty of swing and spirit."--_London Bookman_.

"Robert W. Chambers' stories of the revolutionary period in particular show a care in historic detail that put them in a different cla.s.s from the rank and file of colonial novels."--_Book News_.

"A stirring tale well told and absorbing. It is not a book to forget easily and it will for many throw new light on a phase of revolutionary history replete with interest and appeal."--_Chicago Record-Herald_.

"Chambers' bullets whistle almost audibly in the pages; when a twig snaps, as twigs do perforce in these chronicles, you can almost feel the presence of the savage buck who snaps it. Then there are situations of force and effect everywhere through the pages, an intensity of action, a certain naturalness of dialogue and 'human nature' in the incidents. But over all is the glamor of the Chambers fancy, the gauzy woof of an artist's imagination which glories in tints, in poesies, in the little whims of the brush and pencil, so that you have just a pleasant reminder of unreality and a glimpse of the author himself here and there to vary the interest."--_St. Louis Republic_.

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.

WORKS OF ROBERT W. CHAMBERS.

IOLE.

Color inlay on the cover and many full-page ill.u.s.trations, borders, thumbnail sketches, etc., by J.C. Leyendecker, Arthur Becher, and Karl Anderson. $1.25.

The story of eight pretty girls and their fat poetical father, an apostle of art "dead stuck on Nature and simplicity."

"'Iole' is unquestionably a cla.s.sic."--_San Francis...o...b..lletin_.

"Mr. Chambers is a benefactor to the human race."--_Seattle Post-Intelligencer_.

"Quite the most amusing and delectable bit of nonsense that has come to light for a long time."--_Life_.

"One of the most alluring books of the season."--_Louisville Courier-Journal_.

"The joyous abounding charm of 'Iole' is indescribable. It is for you to read. 'Iole' is guaranteed to drive away the blues."--_New York Press_.

"Mr. Chambers has never shown himself more brilliant and more imaginative than in this little satirical idyllic comedy."--_Kansas City Star_.