Produced by Annie McGuire THE CO-CITIZENS BY THE SAME AUTHOR _A Circuit Rider's Wife_ _Eve's Second Husband_ _The Recording Angel_ _In Search of a Husband_ [Illustration: "'_Do you know what he means, Selah, sending for the oldest and fairest woman in Jordantown to meet him at this outrageous hour of the afternoon?_'"] THE CO-CITIZENS BY CORRA HARRIS _Illustrated By Hanson Booth_ GARDEN CITY NEW YORK DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 1915 _Copyright, 1915, by_ DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS "Do you know what he means, Selah, sending for the oldest and ugliest, and the youngest and fairest woman in Jordantown to meet him at this outrageous hour of the afternoon?'" _Frontispiece_ "'I want to ask you a delicate question: where ish the ladies? I haven't sheen a woman in four hours!'" 42 "'You may be mayor of this town before you are thirty. A fat mayoress would never do'" 84 "'Bob! I'll make a confession to you. It's been horrid, from first to last. When we are married I want to sit at home and darn your socks--you do wear holes in them, don't you?'" 216 CHAPTER I When Sarah Hayden Mosely died, she did something. Most people do not. They cease to do. They are forgotten. The grass that springs above their dust is the one recurrent memory which the earth publishes of them long after the world has been eased of their presence, the fever of their prayers and hopes. It was the other way with this dim little old woman. During the whole of her life she had never done anything. She was one of those faint whispers of femininity who missed the ears of mankind and who faded into the sigh of widowhood without attracting the least attention. She was simply the "relic" of William J. Mosely, who at the time of his death was the richest man in Jordantown. And by the same token, after his death, Sarah became the richest woman. She had no children, no relatives. She was detached in every way, even from her own property, which was managed by the agent, Samuel Briggs, and was still known as the "William J. Mosely Estate." She attended divine service every Sunday morning, always wearing a black silk frock and a black bonnet tied under her sharp little chin, always sitting erect and alone in her pew, always staring straight in front of her, but not at the minister. Recalling this circumstance afterward, Mabel Acres said: "She must have been thinking of _that_ all the time, not of the sermon."