A TOP-FLOOR IDYL

BY GEORGE VAN SCHAICK

Author of "Sweetapple Cove," "The Son of the Otter," "The Girl at Big Loon Post"

ILLUSTRATED BY
CHASE EMERSON

BOSTON
SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY
PUBLISHERS

Copyright, 1917,
BY SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY
(INCORPORATED)

PRINTERS
S. J. PARKHILL & CO., BOSTON, U.S.A.

TO
MY DEARLY LOVED SISTER
ELISE

And always she was a friend, nothing but the dear friend.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I The Night Alarm
CHAPTER II Frieda the Angel
CHAPTER III I Watch an Infant
CHAPTER IV The Bolt
CHAPTER V Gordon Helps
CHAPTER VI A Bit of Sunshine
CHAPTER VII The Other Woman
CHAPTER VIII We Take an Excursion
CHAPTER IX I Hear Rumours About Gordon
CHAPTER X The Work Lost
CHAPTER XI Gordon Vacillates
CHAPTER XII Gordon Becomes Engaged
CHAPTER XIII Dr. Porter Goes to Work
CHAPTER XIV I Begin to Plot
CHAPTER XV The Lightning Stroke
CHAPTER XVI Frances Reads My Book
CHAPTER XVII Miss Van Rossum Calls
CHAPTER XVIII Diana Among Mortals
CHAPTER XIX Frances Goes To The Country
CHAPTER XX Richetti Is Pleased
CHAPTER XXI The Concert
CHAPTER XXII Gordon Returns
CHAPTER XXIII The Repair of a Broken Strand
CHAPTER XXIV "The Mother and Child"

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

And always she was a friend, nothing but the dear friend.

No, she was only a woman, with a soul for harmony.

Her lovely head was bent down towards the sleeping mite.

A TOP-FLOOR IDYL

CHAPTER I

THE NIGHT ALARM

I smiled at my friend Gordon, the distinguished painter, lifting up my glass and taking a sip of the table d'hôte claret, which the Widow Camus supplies with her famed sixty-five cent repast. It is, I must acknowledge, a somewhat turbid beverage, faintly harsh to the palate, and yet it may serve as a begetter of pleasant illusions. While drinking it, I can close my eyes, being of an imaginative nature, and permit its flavor to bring back memories of ever-blessed tonnelles by the Seine, redolent of fried gudgeons and mirific omelettes, and felicitous with gay laughter.

"Well, you old stick-in-the-mud," said my companion, "what are you looking so disgruntled about? I was under the impression that this feast was to be a merry-making to celebrate your fortieth birthday. Something like a grin just now passed over your otherwise uninteresting features, but it was at once succeeded by the mournful look that may well follow, but should not be permitted to accompany, riotous living."

At this I smiled again.

"Just a moment's wool-gathering, my dear fellow," I answered. "I was thinking of our