ANGELA'S BUSINESS

BY HENRY SYDNOR HARRISON

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
FREDERIC R. GRUGER

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge
1915

COPYRIGHT, 1914 AND 1915, BY HENRY SYDNOR HARRISON

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Published March 1915

To JACK
Who does not think as I do.

"I DECIDED I WOULD REFUSE IT"

CONTENTS

I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
XIII
XIV
XV
XVI
XVII
XVIII
XIX
XX
XXI
XXII
XXIII
XXIV

By Henry Sydnor Harrison

ILLUSTRATIONS

"I decided I would refuse it"

"No! Morals are the bulwark of the nation!"

Charles had no great chance to show his fearlessness of public opinion

"Oh!... Why do you do this?"

"Well, I won't marry her! I won't!"

Angela peeped over into Washington Street

This Spinster supplied a quiet charm

"Ho!—had your spies on me, have you?"

ANGELA'S BUSINESS

I

Being an author actually at work, and not an author being photographed at work by a lady admirer, he did not gaze large-eyed at a poppy in a crystal vase, one hand lightly touching his forehead, the other tossing off page after page in high godlike frenzy. On the contrary, the young man at the table yawned, lolled, sighed, scratched his ear, read snatches of Virginia Carter's "Letters to My Girl Friends" in the morning's "Post," read snatches of any printed matter that happened to be about, and even groaned. When he gazed, it was at no flower, but more probably at his clock, a stout alarm-clock well known to the trade as "Big Bill"; and the clock gazed back, since there was a matter between them this evening, and seemed to say, "Well, are you going to the Redmantle Club, or are you not?" But that was precisely the point on which the young man at the table had not yet made up his mind.

Of course, if he went to the Redmantle Club, he could not possibly spend the whole evening here, writing, and, oddly enough, this was at once a cogent reason for staying away from the Redmantle Club, and a seductive argument for going to the same. No lady admirer could ever grasp this paradox, but every true writer must admit that I know his secret perfectly.

From time to time, no diversion offering, the author would read over the last sentence he had written, which very likely ran as follows:—

We have a