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[Illustration: LOVELINESS]


LOVELINESS

A Story

by

ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS



  "Be my benediction said,
   With my hand upon thy head,
     Gentle fellow-creature!"
            E. B. BROWNING.







Boston and New York
Houghton, Mifflin and Company
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
1900

The Illustrations Are by Sarah S. Stilwell

Copyright, 1899, by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward
and Houghton, Mifflin and Co.
All Rights Reserved




_For the smoke of their torment ascendeth._




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

                                                       PAGE

    LOVELINESS                              _Frontispiece_

    THE MAID STOOD LOOKING IDLY ABOUT                   14

    "TILL LOVELINESS COMES HOME"                        20

    THROUGH THE BENDING SHRUBBERY                       40




LOVELINESS.


Loveliness sat on an eider-down cushion embroidered with cherry-
puppies on a pearl satin cover. The puppies had gold eyes. They were
drinking a saucer of green milk. Loveliness wore a new necktie, of
cherry, a shade or two brighter than the puppies, and a pearl-gray, or
one might call it a silver-gray jacket. He was sitting in the broad
window sill, with his head tipped a little, thoughtfully, towards the
left side, as the heads