Page:The return of the soldier (IA returnofsoldier00west2).pdf/172

 the loveliest life; the pale usurpers of their birth die young. Such a world will not suffer magic circles to endure.

The parlor-maid knocked at the door.

"Mrs. Baldry and Dr. Anderson are waiting in the drawing-room, ma 'am."

Margaret reassumed her majesty, and put her white face close to the glass as she pinned up her braids.

"I knew there was a something," she moaned, and set the hair-pins all awry. More she could not say, though I clung to her and begged her; but the slow gesture with which, as we were about to leave the room, she laid her hand across the child's photograph somehow convinced me that we were not to be victorious.

When we went into the drawing-room we found Dr. Anderson, plump and expository, balancing himself on the balls of his feet on the hearth-rug and enjoying the caress of the fire on his calves, while Kitty, showing against the dark frame of her oak