CUPID'S UNDERSTUDY

by Edward Salisbury Field




Chapter One


If Dad had been a coal baron, like Mr. Tudor Carstairs, or a stock-
watering captain of industry, like Mrs. Sanderson-Spear's husband,
or descended from a long line of whisky distillers, like Mrs.
Carmichael Porter, why, then his little Elizabeth would have been
allowed the to sit in seat of the scornful with the rest of the Four
Hundred, and this story would never have been written. But Dad
wasn't any of these things; he was just an old love who had made
seven million dollars by the luckiest fluke in the world.

Everybody in southern California knew it was a fluke, too, so the
seven millions came in for all the respect that would otherwise have
fallen to Dad. Of course we were celebrities, in a way, but in a
very horrid way. Dad was Old Tom Middleton, who used to keep a
livery-stable in San Bernardino, and I was Old Tom Middleton's girl,
"who actually used to live over a livery-stable, my dear!" It sounds
fearfully sordid, doesn't it?

But it wasn't sordid, really, for I never actually lived over a
stable. Indeed, we had the sweetest cottage in all San Bernardino. I
remember it so well: the long, cool porch, the wonderful gold-of-