_BY JOSLYN GRAY_ THE OTHER MILLER GIRL BOUNCING BET THE JANUARY GIRL ROSEMARY GREENAWAY RUSTY MILLER ELSIE MARLEY, HONEY KATHLEEN’S PROBATION _CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS_ THE OTHER MILLER GIRL [Illustration: “I am so sorry ... but we don’t have company, you know.” [_Page 53_] THE OTHER MILLER GIRL BY JOSLYN GRAY NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 1922 COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS Printed in the United States of America [Illustration] TO FLORENCE TEMPLETON GRAY JANUARY 31, 1922 IN MEMORY OF TODDIE AND THE DAYS BEFORE THE BIRTHDAY ON WHICH SHE WAS BANISHED ILLUSTRATIONS “I am so sorry--but we don’t have company, you know” _Frontispiece_ FACING PAGE “Please, may I come in? I want to--tell you something” 26 Anna took pride and pleasure in ironing the frills and laces of his little frocks 124 The echoes of the thundering knocks had hardly died away ... when Alice Lorraine appeared 216 THE OTHER MILLER GIRL CHAPTER I On a pleasant Saturday afternoon of the latter part of the September following the awarding of the Wadsworth prize, Mr. Langley received three distinct shocks. The first was occasioned by hearing Miss Penny referred to as an old lady, and the second, which was almost simultaneous, by learning that Anna Miller was commonly known as the ‘other Miller girl.’ The third, which was more subtle, was also more personal and might have wrought real havoc but for the slip of a yellow-haired girl who was characterised thus negatively. Her discovery of this third shock to Mr. Langley and the action she took led to such consequences that if it were the fashion now-a-days to invoke the muse, this history must needs begin by bidding the goddess sing of the uncommon sense of the other Miller girl. The church at Farleigh was a really beautiful building. It was only an old-fashioned New England meeting-house, but its proportions were perfect for its style and its pillared portico was almost as appropriate to its structure and environment as the chaste marble columns of Greece to their more artistic and romantic setting. It stood on an height truncated by natural forces to form a plateau and was surrounded by broad lawns shaded by great English elms and a single oak-tree.