But still the ancient children lingered, numb with cold and loneliness and yet at peace, wonderfully at peace. Above their heads a motor had stopped in the thick hush of the gloaming. Two lovers, thinking themselves alone in their world, were whispering and scuffling in amorous play. There was a girl’s voice that gasped, “Don’t!” and a man’s voice that grumbled, “All right for you!” Evidently the world would never lack for lovers. Lovers were still coquetting and sulking and making a war of opportunity. The girl, vexed by her gallant’s too easy discouragement, spoke stupidly: “I love sunsets, don’t you?” “Uh-huh!” “The lake’s pretty, don’t you think?” “Pretty big for its age. It’s just a new pond, you know, to add to New York’s collection. They’re looking for more water every day. I was reading that they’re planning to tap the Adirondacks next, as soon as the Catskills are used up. “They’re turning a river around up there now. It was flowing west and they’re going to dig under a mountain through an eighteen mile tunnel and steal the river, and make it run east and south to New York.” This titanic work did not interest the girl at all. She tried to fetch the youth around to human themes: “Somebody was telling me there used to be farms and homes down under where the water is now. You can hardly believe it!” “Ye-ah, people used to live down there, they say.” “I wonder what they were like. Nice old-fashioned souls, I suppose, good and simple and innocent, and not wicked in our modern ways.” “I suppose not. But they didn’t get much out of life, I guess. They couldn’t have known what love was. They couldn’t have seen anybody down there as pretty as you are.” “Don’t! Somebody might see you. It’s getting so dark you must drive me home. If Mamma knew I had been out here alone with you——!” Still there was stealth in the world—joy to be stolen and turned into guilt, secrets to be cherished. Keith helped Immy to her feet and they struggled toward the road out of the night up into the night. In the sky to the south the sleepless torches of far-off New York were pallidly suspected. The waters below were black to their depths, save where the stars slept or twinkled as a ripple shook their reflection, or a fish, exploring its new sky, broke through into another world. THE END. _Harper Fiction_ THE VEHEMENT FLAME BY MARGARET DELAND Can a man marry a woman twenty years his senior—and be happy and remain true to the wife of his choice? This—and the Biblical quotation from the Song of Solomon: “Love is strong as death, jealousy is cruel as the grave; the coals thereof are coals of fire which hath a most vehement flame”—is the basis of Mrs. Deland’s latest novel. This book by its sheer bigness of theme, will rank above even _The Iron Woman_ and _The Awakening of Helena Ritchie_. THE VERTICAL CITY BY FANNIE HURST