THE LAST ROSE
OF SUMMER
BY
RUPERT HUGHES
Author of
What Will People Say?
HARPER & BROTHERS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
MCMXIV
COPYRIGHT 1914, BY HARPER AND BROTHERS
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
PUBLISHED OCTOBER, 1914
THE LAST ROSE OF SUMMER
CHAPTER I
As Mrs. Shillaber often said, the onegood thing about her old house wasthe fact that "you could throw thedining-room into the poller" when you wantedto give parties or funerals or weddingsor such things. You had only to foldup the accordeon-pleated doors, push thesofa back against the wall, and lay a rugover the register.
To-night she had thrown the dining-roominto the poller and filled bothrooms with guests. There were so manyguests that they occupied every seat inthe house, including the up-stairs chairsand a large batch of camp-stools fromMr. Crankshaw's, the undertaker's.
In Carthage it was never a real partyor an important funeral unless thoseperilous old man-traps of Mr. Crankshaw'sappeared. They always added adash of excitement to the dullest evening,for at a critical moment one of them couldbe depended upon to collapse beneathsome guest, depositing him or her in asmall but complicated woodpile on the floor.
Less dramatic, but even droller, wasthe unfailing spectacle of the solemn manwho entered a room carrying one of thesestools neatly folded, proceeded to achosen spot, and there attempted vainlyto open the thing. This was sure tohappen at least once, and it gave anirresistibly light touch even to thefunerals. The obstinacy of some ofMr. Crankshaw's camp-stools was sodiabolic that it almost implied a perverseintelligence. And the one that was notto be solved generally fell to thesolemnest man