+-------------------------------------------------+ |Transcriber's note: | | | |Obvious typographic errors have been corrected. | | | +-------------------------------------------------+ ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? BY ALICE DUER MILLER AUTHOR OF "THE HAPPIEST TIMES OF THEIR LIVES," "THE CHARM SCHOOL," "COME OUT OF THE KITCHEN," AND "MANSLAUGHTER" [Illustration: Logo] NEW YORK DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 1924 COPYRIGHT, 1914, 1918, 1919, 1922, 1923, 1924 BY ALICE DUER MILLER PRINTED IN U. S. A. VAIL-BALLOU PRESS, INC. BINGHAMTON AND NEW YORK To MY MOTHER-IN-LAW "That little person and small stature was quickly founde to contayne a greate hearte." --CLARENDON. CONTENTS PAGE ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? 1 THE AMERICAN HUSBAND 102 DEVOTED WOMEN 129 THE RETURN TO NORMALCY 154 THE RED CARPET 179 THE WIDOW'S MIGHT 205 WHOSE PETARD WAS IT? 232 THE NEW STOICS 261 WORSE THAN MARRIED 277 ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? I The girls marched into chapel singing Jerusalem the Golden. Some of the voices were shrill and piping, and some were clear and sweet; but all had that peculiar young freshness which always makes old hearts ache, and which now drew tears to the eyes of many visiting parents looking down from the gallery, and trying not to crane their necks conspicuously when their own offspring appeared in the aisle below. On Sundays the whole school came out in blue serge and black velvet tam-o'-shanters. The little girls marched first--some as young as eleven years--and as they came from the main school buildings and marched up the long aisle they were holding the high notes, "Jerusalem the golden," and their voices sounded like young birds', before the older girls came crashing in with the next line, "With milk and honey blest." They marched quickly--it was a tradition of the school--divided to right and left, and filed into their appointed places. Last of all came the tall senior president, and beside her a little figure that hardly reached her shoulder, and seemed as if one of the younger children were out of place; yet this was an important figure in the life of the school--Lita Hazlitt, the chairman of the self-government committee. Her face was almost round except for a small point that was her chin; her hair--short curls, not ringlets--curved up on her black velvet tam, and was blond, but a dusky blond. There was something alert, almost naughty in her expression, although at the moment this was mitigated by an air of discretion hardly avoidable by the chairman of the self-government committee in church.