



Produced by Al Haines.





[Illustration: A flower shot down amid the crowd.  Page 19.]




                        *Latter-Day Sweethearts*


                                   By

                         *MRS. BURTON HARRISON*

                               Author of

                           "A Bachelor Maid,"
               "The Carlyles," "The Circle of a Century,"
                        "The Anglomaniacs," Etc.


          "La Duchesse.--'L'amour est le fleau du monde.  Tous
                    nos maux nous viennent de lui.'

            "Le Docteur.--'C'est le seul qui les guerisse,"
                        --"_Le Duel_," _Henri Lavedan_.


            Illustrated in Water-Colors by FRANK T. MERRILL


                           A. S. & T. HUNTER
                            SPECIAL EDITION,
                              UTICA, N. Y.


                          NEW YORK AND LONDON
                 THE AUTHORS AND NEWSPAPERS ASSOCIATION
                                  1907




                          COPYRIGHT, 1906, BY
                       CONSTANCE BURTON HARRISON.

                     _Entered at Stationers' Hall._
                         _All Rights Reserved._



                    Composition and Electrotyping by
                           J. J. Little & Co.
                        Printed and bound by the
                     Plimpton Press, Norwood, Mass.




[Illustration: (Facsimile Page of Manuscript from LATTER-DAY
SWEETHEARTS)]




                              *LATTER-DAY
                              SWEETHEARTS*



                              *CHAPTER I*


In going aboard the "Baltic" that exceptionally fine October morning,
Miss Carstairs convinced herself that, of the people assembled to see
her off, no one could reasonably discern in her movement the suggestion
of a retreat. The commonplace of a sailing for the other side would not,
indeed, have met with the recognition of any attendance at the pier
among her set, save for her hint that she might remain abroad a year.
There had been a small rally on the part of a few friends who had
chanced to meet at a dinner overnight, to go down to the White Star
docks and say good-by to Helen Carstairs.  Helen sincerely wished they
had not come, both because the ceremony proved a little flat, and
because, when she had time to think them over, she was not so sure they
were her friends.

But the main thing was that she had been able to withdraw, easily and
naturally, from a doubly trying situation.  She had not wanted to go
abroad.  All the novelty and sparkle had gone out of that business long
ago.  She knew foreign travel from A to Z, and she loathed tables
d'hote, even more than the grim prospect of private meals with Miss
Bleecker in sitting-rooms redolent of departed food, insufficiently
atoned for by an encircling wilderness of gilding and red plush.  The
very thought of a concierge with brass buttons lifting his cap to her
every time she crossed the hall, of hotel corridors decked with strange
foot gear upon which unmade bedrooms yawned, of cabs and galleries and
harpy dressmakers, of sights and fellow tourists, gave her a mental
qualm.  But it was better than staying at home this winter in the big
house in Fifth Avenue where Mr. Carstairs had just brought a stepmother
for her, in the person of "that Mrs. Coxe."

There was apparently no valid reason for Helen's shuddering antipathy to
the lady, who had been the widow of a junior partner of her father, a
man whom Mr. Carstairs had "made," like many another beginning in his
employ.

Mr. Coxe had died two years before, of nervous overstrain, leaving this
flamboyantly handsome, youngish woman to profit by his gains.  Helen had
always disliked having to ask the Coxes to dinner when her father's fiat
compelled her to preside over the dull banquets of certain
smartly-dressed women and weary, driven men, whom he assembled at
intervals around his board.  She could not say what she objected to in
Mrs. Coxe; she thought it might be her giggle and her double chin.  It
had been always a relief when one of these "business" dinners was over,
and she knew she would not have to do it soon again.  When Mr. Carstairs
dined in return with the Coxes, they had him at some fashionable
restaurant, taking him afterward to the play.  Mrs. Coxe had shown sense
enough for that!  During the interregnum of Mrs. Coxe's mourning
following the demise of her exhausted lord, Mr. Carstairs had had the
yacht meet Helen and himself at Gibraltar, and cruised all that winter
in the Mediterranean.

That had been life abroad, Helen thought, with a throb of yearning!  She
was very fond of her father, rather a stony image to most people, and
immensely proud of the way people looked up to his achievements in the
Street, the resistless rush of his business combinations, his massive
wealth, and his perfect imperturbability to newspaper cavil and attacks
by enemies.  She had loved to be at the head of his establishment, and
to receive the clever and distinguished and notable people, foreign and
domestic, who accepted Mr. Carstairs' invitation to meet one another,
because they were clever and distinguished and notable, not because