Now all this time, while the tragi-comedy of life was being played in

these three suburban villas, while on a commonplace stage love and humor

and fears and lights and shadows were so swiftly succeeding each other,

and while these three families, drifted together by fate, were shaping

each other's destinies and working out in their own fashion the strange,

intricate ends of human life, there were human eyes which watched over

every stage of the performance, and which were keenly critical of

every actor on it.

Across the road beyond the green palings and the

close-cropped lawn, behind the curtains of their creeper-framed windows,

Advertisement..

sat the two old ladies, Miss Bertha and Miss Monica Williams, looking

out as from a private box at all that was being enacted before them.

The growing friendship of the three families, the engagement of Harold

Denver with Clara Walker, the engagement of Charles Westmacott with her

sister, the dangerous fascination which the widow exercised over

the Doctor, the preposterous behavior of the Walker girls and the

unhappiness which they had caused their father, not one of these

incidents escaped the notice of the two maiden ladies. Bertha the

younger had a smile or a sigh for the lovers, Monica the elder a frown

or a shrug for the elders. Every night they talked over what they had

seen, and their own dull, uneventful life took a warmth and a coloring

from their neighbors as a blank wall reflects a beacon fire.

And now it was destined that they should experience the one keen

sensation of their later years, the one memorable incident from which

all future incidents should be dated.

It was on the very night which succeeded the events which have just been

narrated, when suddenly into Monica William's head, as she tossed upon

her sleepless bed, there shot a thought which made her sit up with a

thrill and a gasp.

"Bertha," said she, plucking at the shoulder of her sister, "I have left

the front window open."

"No, Monica, surely not." Bertha sat up also, and thrilled in sympathy.

"I am sure of it. You remember I had forgotten to water the pots, and

then I opened the window, and Jane called me about the jam, and I have

never been in the room since."

"Good gracious, Monica, it is a mercy that we have not been murdered in

our beds. There was a house broken into at Forest Hill last week. Shall

we go down and shut it?"

"I dare not go down alone, dear, but if you will come with me. Put on

your slippers and dressing-gown. We do not need a candle. Now, Bertha,

we will go down together."




Most Popular