THE APARTMENT-HOUSE MYSTERY


1.

"This habit of becoming late for breakfast," Lady Ashleigh remarked, as
she set down the coffee-pot, "is growing upon your father."

Ella glanced up from a pile of correspondence through which she had been
looking a little negligently.

"When he comes," she said, "I shall tell him what Clyde says in his new
play--that unpunctuality for breakfast and overpunctuality for dinner are
two of the signs of advancing age."

"I shouldn't," her mother advised. "He hates anything that sounds like an
epigram, and I noticed that he avoided any allusion to his birthday last
month. Any news, dear?"

"None at all, mother. My correspondence is just the usual sort of
rubbish--invitations and gossip. Such a lot of invitations, by-the-bye."

"At your age," Lady Ashleigh declared, "that is the sort of correspondence
which you should find interesting."

Ella shook her head. She was a very beautiful young woman, but her
expression was a little more serious than her twenty-two years warranted.

"You know I am not like that, mother," she protested. "I have found one
thing in life which interests me more than all this frivolous business of