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ROUTINE DYNAMICS IN ACTION
RESEARCH IN THE SOCIOLOGY OF
ORGANIZATIONS
Series Editor: Michael Lounsbury

Recent Volumes:

Volume 41: Religion and Organization Theory

Volume 42: Organizational Transformation and
Scientific Change: The Impact of
Institutional Restructuring on
Universities and Intellectual Innovation
Volume 43: Elites on Trial
Volume 44: Institutions and Ideals: Philip Selznick’s
Legacy for Organizational Studies
Volume 45: Towards a Comparative
Institutionalism: Forms, Dynamics and
Logics Across the Organizational Fields
of Health and Higher Education
Volume 46: The University under Pressure
Volume 47: The Structuring of Work in
Organizations
Volume 48A: How Institutions Matter!
Volume 48B: How Institutions Matter!
Volume 49: Multinational Corporations and
Organization Theory: Post Millennium
Perspectives
Volume 50: Emergence
Volume 51: Categories, Categorization and
Categorizing: Category Studies in
Sociology, Organizations and Strategy
at the Crossroads
Volume 52: Justification, evaluation and critique in
the study of organizations:
contributions from French pragmatist
sociology
Volume 53: structure, content and meaning of
organizational networks: extending
network thinking
Volume 54A: Multimodality, Meaning, and Institutions
Volume 54B: Multimodality, Meaning, and Institutions
Volume 55: Social Movements, Stakeholders and
Non-Market Strategy
Volume 56: Social Movements, Stakeholders and
Non-Market Strategy
Volume 57: Toward Permeable Boundaries of
Organizations?
Volume 58: Agents, Actors, Actorhood: Institutional
Perspectives on the Nature of Agency,
Action, and Authority
Volume 59: The Production of Managerial
Knowledge and Organizational Theory:
New Approaches to Writing, Producing
and Consuming Theory
Volume 60: Race, Organizations, and the
Organizing Process
 RESEARCH IN THE SOCIOLOGY OF
ORGANIZATIONS VOLUME 61

ROUTINE DYNAMICS IN
ACTION: REPLICATION AND
TRANSFORMATION
EDITORS
MARTHA S. FELDMAN
University of California, USA
LUCIANA D’ADDERIO
Strathclyde Business School, UK
KATHARINA DITTRICH
Warwick Business School, UK
PAULA JARZABKOWSKI
Cass Business School, City, University of London, UK
&
University of Queensland Business School, Australia.
United Kingdom – North America – Japan
India – Malaysia – China
Emerald Publishing Limited
Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK

First edition 2019

Chapter 2 © Siri Boe-Lillegraven.

Selection, editorial matter and all other chapters © Emerald.
This book contains an Open Access chapter.

Reprints and permissions service

Contact: [email protected]

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,

transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise without either the prior written
permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying
issued in the UK by The Copyright Licensing Agency and in the USA
by The Copyright Clearance Center. Any opinions expressed in the
chapters are those of the authors. Whilst Emerald makes every effort
to ensure the quality and accuracy of its content, Emerald makes no
representation implied or otherwise, as to the chapters’ suitability
and application and disclaims any warranties, express or implied, to
their use.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-78756-586-9 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1-78756-585-2 (Online)
ISBN: 978-1-78756-587-6 (Epub)
ISSN: 0733-558X (Series)
CONTENTS

Lists of Tables and Figures

Contributor Biographies

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Routine Dynamics in Action

Martha S. Feldman, Luciana D’Adderio, Katharina
Dittrich and Paula Jarzabkowski

Chapter 1 Remounting a Ballet in a Different

Context: A Complementary Understanding of
Routines Transfer Theories
Charlotte Blanche and Patrick Cohendet

Chapter 2 Transferring Routines Across

Multiple Boundaries: A Flexible Approach
Siri Boe-Lillegraven

Chapter 3 Copying Routines for New Venture

Creation: How Replication Can Support
Entrepreneurial Innovation
Thomas Schmidt, Timo Braun and Jörg Sydow

Chapter 4 Interdependence Within and

Between Routines: A Performative Perspective
Waldemar Kremser, Brian T. Pentland and Sabine
Brunswicker

Chapter 5 The Dark Side of Routine

Dynamics: Deceit and the Work of Romeo
Pimps
Jeannette Eberhard, Ann Frost and Claus Rerup

Chapter 6 Making New Strategic Moves

Possible: How Executive Management Enacts
Strategizing Routines to Strengthen
Entrepreneurial Agility
Simon Grand and Daniel Bartl

Chapter 7 The Role of Multiple Points of View

in Non-envisioned Routine Creation: Taking
Initiative, Creating Connections, and Coping
with Misalignments
Jorrit van Mierlo, Raymond Loohuis and Tanya
Bondarouk

Chapter 8 Learning a New Ecology of Space

and Looking for New Routines: Experimenting
Robotics in a Surgical Team
Léa Kiwan and Nathalie Lazaric

Chapter 9 Enacting Relational Expertise to

Change Professional Routines in Technology-
mediated Service Settings
Joanna Kho, Andreas Paul Spee and Nicole Gillespie

Index
LISTS OF TABLES AND FIGURES

TABLES
Introduction Table 1 Overview of Papers and Themes in this
Volume.
Chapter 1 Table 1 People Involved in the Project.
Chapter 3 Table 1 Novelspeed’s Ventures.
Table 2 List of Interviews.
Table 3 Venture Creation at Novelspeed (Idealized).
Chapter 4 Table 1 Passenger Service on Delta 139.
Chapter 5 Table 1 Data Sources.
Chapter 6 Table 1 Details of Interviewees.
Table 2 Key Events and Initiatives.
Table 3 Strategizing Routines.
Table 4 Settings for Executive Management’s Routine
Enactment.
Chapter 7 Table 1 Overview of Data Sources Dutch Cleaners.
Table A1 Action Patterns Identified at Dutch Cleaners.

FIGURES
Chapter 1 Fig. 1 Remounting a Show Approached as a
Replication Process.
Fig. 2 Dynamic of Sub-routines Replication.
Chapter 2 Fig. 1 Flexible Routine Transfer (Transfer-as-
Adaptation) in the Case of EuroCo and
AsiaCo.
Fig. 2 A Simplified Model of a Flexible Routine
Transfer (Transfer-as-Adaptation).
Chapter 3 Fig. 1 Coding Scheme.
 Fig. 2 Replicating Entrepreneurial Innovation.
Chapter 4 Fig. 1 Bird’s Eye View of Interdependence between
Subunits.
Fig. 2 Menu Card for a Trans-Atlantic Flight.
Fig. 3 Visualizing Interdependence within and
between Routines: (A) Four Routines and (B)
One Routines.
Chapter 5 Fig. 1 (a) Phases of Romeo Pimp Routine
Emergence.
(b) Pimp/Woman Role Sets.
Fig. 2 Trajectory of Role Set Transitions and Phases
of Romeo Pimp Routine Emergence.
Chapter 6 Fig. 1 Mapping Deal-making between 1987 and
2004.
Chapter 8 Fig. 1 Laparoscopic Surgery.
Fig. 2 Robotic System Installation Steps.
Fig. 3 Practitioners during the Debriefing Session.
Fig. 4 Practitioners Confronted with Video
Recordings of their Surgical Acts in the Or.
Chapter 9 Fig. 1 The Interdependence of Professional
Interactions and Tasks.
Fig. 2 Sequences of Interdependent Action Patterns
Associated with a Telehealth Routine.
CONTRIBUTOR BIOGRAPHIES

Daniel Bartl, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland. Daniel holds a

PhD in Business Administration from the University of St. Gallen and
an Executive Master’s Degree in Communication Sciences from the
University of Lugano. He is a Lecturer of Management, engaged in
researching, consulting, and executive teaching in the fields of
Strategic Management, Strategy-as-Practice, and Leadership
Development.

Charlotte Blanche is a Doctoral Candidate at HEC Montréal and

Senior Partner in a consulting firm. She is a Lecturer on Intercultural
Management and leads workshops on the theme of Art and
Knowledge. Her research in the world of art inspires original insights
for managerial approaches.

Siri Boe-Lillegraven is an Assistant Professor of Strategy at the

Amsterdam Business School, University of Amsterdam, The
Netherlands. Her research is focused on how operative managers
and employees contribute to strategic outcomes and the role of
business in society. She often works with private companies and
practitioners during data collection.

Tanya Bondarouk is the Head of the University of Twente’s HRM

department. She is the Associate Editor for the International Journal
of HRM and Co-editor of the Advanced Series in Management
(Emerald Publishers). She focuses on e-HRM implementation, the
integration of HRM, and social aspects of IT implementations.

Timo Braun is an Assistant Professor for Project Management at

the Freie Universität Berlin, Germany. His current research interests
are interorganizational projects and underlying project networks as
well as their organizational and behavioral foundations. Moreover,
some of his research is related to the projectification of the start-up
scene in Berlin.

Sabine Brunswicker is an Innovation Professor and the Director of

the Research Center for Open Digital Innovation at the Purdue
University, USA. Sabine holds a PhD in Engineering Sciences from
the University of Stuttgart, Germany.

Patrick Cohendet is a Full Professor at HEC Montréal and the Co-

director of Mosaic. His research and published articles and books
focus on the fields of knowledge economy, knowledge management,
and innovation management. He is currently working on these issues
with the OECD and the European Space Agency.

Luciana D’Adderio is a Reader/Associate Professor at Strathclyde

Business School, UK. She has published her work on organizational
practices/routines and technology in high-impact journals including
Organization Science and Organization Studies. She is a member of
the Organization Science Editorial Board and Editor for the
Organization Science Special Issue on “Routine Dynamics.”

Katharina Dittrich is an Assistant Professor of Organization

Studies at the Warwick Business School, UK. Her research interests
include organizational routines and strategy, with an emphasis on
practice–theoretical approaches and qualitative research methods.
Her work has been published in Organization Science, Academy of
Management Journal, and the Cambridge Handbook of Strategy as
Practice.

Jeannette Eberhard, King’s University College at the Western

University, Canada. Jeannette is grateful for the opportunity to study
organizational dynamics in unconventional settings and to bring
attention to issues facing practitioners on the front lines of persistent
social issues.
Martha S. Feldman (Stanford University PhD, 1983; Honorary
Doctorate St Gallen, 2014) is a Professor at the University of
California, Irvine, USA. Best known for research creating the field of
routine dynamics that explores the internal dynamics of
organizational routines, published in Administrative Science
Quarterly, Academy of Management Journal, and Organization
Science.

Ann Frost, Ivey Business School, Canada. Ann’s research interests

include workplace restructuring, dynamics in industrial relations, the
high-performance workplace, and knowledge management in
services.

Nicole Gillespie is a Professor of Management at the University of

Queensland, Australia. Her research focuses on trust development
and repair, particularly in challenging contexts, such as during
organizational change and digital disruption. Her research appears in
the Academy of Management Review, Journal of Management,
Organization Studies, and Business Ethics Quarterly.

Simon Grand, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland, where he is an

Associate Professor for Strategic Management and Management
Innovation and the Academic Director of the RISE Management
Innovation Lab. He researches and publishes in the fields of strategy
process and strategy-as-practice, strategic entrepreneurship, routine
dynamics, and management practice.

Paula Jarzabkowski is a Professor of Strategic Management at the

Cass Business School, City, University of London, UK and University
of Queensland Business School, Australia. Her research on strategy-
as-practice in pluralistic contexts is published in Academy of
Management Journal, Journal of Management Studies, Organization
Science, Organization Studies, and Strategic Management Journal.
Her latest book, Making a Market for Acts of God, was published by
Oxford University Press in 2015.
Joanna Kho is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of
Queensland Business School, Australia. Her research interests
include routine dynamics, professional competence, and expertise
with a particular interest in how change unfolds over time when new
technologies and systems are implemented in health service
contexts.

Léa Kiwan was a Research Assistant Professor in the Université

Côte d’Azur, France. She is now a Consultant and a Lecturer in the
Skema Business School, France. She worked as a Researcher and a
Consultant in human factor subjects in the medical and aviation
fields. Her main domains of research include organizational routines,
innovations, new technologies in medicine, risk management in
medicine, and aeronautics.

Waldemar Kremser is an Assistant Professor for Organizational

Design and Development at the Institute for Management Research,
Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands. In his research, he
is combining a practice-perspective on routines and routine clusters
with insights from complexity theory and organization design.

Nathalie Lazaric is a Research Professor in the Université de Côte

d’Azur CNRS GREDEG, France. She is currently a President of the
EAEPE, Chair of many International Scientific Committees, such as
International Schumpeter Society and EGOS and Advisory Editor of
Journal of Evolutionary Economics. Her main domains of research
include organizational routines, evolutionary theories, habits,
sustainable consumption, and ecological innovations in energy and
mobility.

Raymond Loohuis works as a Senior Lecturer for the research

group for Entrepreneurship, Strategy & Innovation Management
(NIKOS) of the University of Twente, The Netherlands. His research
focuses on the emergence of servitization as business strategy and
smart industrial technology acceptance and value creation in small-
and medium-sized manufacturing firms.
Jorrit van Mierlo recently finished his PhD at the Department of
Human Resource Management of the University of Twente, The
Netherlands. His research focuses on the implementation process of
HRM practices, structuration theory, routine dynamics, and action
research. His further interests include corporate socially responsible
and inclusive HRM policies.

Brian T. Pentland is the Main Street Capital Partners Endowed

Professor in the Broad College of Business at the Michigan State
University, USA. He received his PhD in Management from the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1991.

Claus Rerup, Frankfurt School of Finance and Management,

Germany. Claus studies organizational routines,
attention/sensemaking, and learning from a process perspective. His
work on routine dynamics has been published in Administrative
Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Journal, Journal of
Management, and several other journals and handbooks.

Thomas Schmidt earned his Doctorate between 2011 and 2014 at

the Freie Universität Berlin, Germany. Afterwards he worked as
Postdoc in a research program on networks and entrepreneurship.
His research interests include entrepreneurship, information systems,
artificial intelligence, strategic networks, routines, path dependence,
and process research.

Paul Spee is an Associate Professor in Strategy at the University of

Queensland Business School, Australia. He investigates social
phenomena in the realm of strategizing and organizing through
multiple theoretical lenses such as routine theory. His work appears
in Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science and
Organization Studies.

Jörg Sydow is a Professor of Management and Chair for Inter-firm

Cooperation at the School of Business & Economics at the Freie
Universität Berlin, Germany. He is the Director of the Research Unit
“Organized Creativity,” sponsored by the German Research
Foundation and a Senior Editor with Organization Studies.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The editors would like to thank the routine dynamics community and
the participants of the 2017 EGOS (European Community of
Organization Studies) sub-theme on routine dynamics. They also
thank the co-organizers of the EGOS Standing Working Group on
Routine Dynamics, Nathalie Lazaric and Brian Pentland, as well as
the organizers of the 2017 EGOS conference.
INTRODUCTION: ROUTINE DYNAMICS
IN ACTION
Martha S. Feldman, Luciana D’Adderio, Katharina
Dittrich and Paula Jarzabkowski*

Keywords: Routine dynamics; routine replication; routine

transformation; routine ecology; novelty; sociomateriality

INTRODUCTION
Organizational routines are fundamental building blocks of
organizations and organizing (Cyert & March, 1963; Feldman &
Pentland, 2003; March & Simon, 1958; Nelson & Winter, 1982).
Commonly defined as repetitive, recognizable patterns of
interdependent actions (Feldman & Pentland, 2003, p. 95), routines
underpin everyday work in organizations, such as hiring and training
(Feldman, 2000) or producing goods and services (Kremser &
Schreyögg, 2016; Lazaric & Denis, 2005). Recent empirical research
shows how the dynamics of routines contribute to organizational
stability and change (e.g., Danner-Schröder & Geiger, 2016; Feldman,
2000; Pentland & Rueter, 1994; Turner & Rindova, 2012), to how
organizational members solve organizational problems (e.g., Feldman,
2003; Rerup & Feldman, 2011), and to the processes of
organizational replication (D’Adderio, 2014, 2017) and innovation
(e.g., Sele & Grand, 2016; Sonenshein, 2016). Through these
empirical studies the field of routine dynamics has emerged as a
useful lens to analyze and explain themes and phenomena that
researchers and practitioners alike care about (Feldman, Pentland,
D’Adderio, & Lazaric, 2016; Parmigiani & Howard-Grenville, 2011).
Routine dynamics offers methodological sensitivities (e.g., a focus on
actions) and theoretical tools (e.g., practice theory) that prove useful
in exploring a wide range of organizational phenomena. The papers
in this volume build on this tradition and show how routine dynamics
can illuminate areas such as strategy (Grand & Bartel, this volume),
entrepreneurship (Schmidt, Braun, & Sydow, this volume), human
resources (van Mierlo, Bondarouk, & Loohuis, this volume), health
care (Kho, Spee, & Gillespie, this volume; Kiwan & Lazaric, this
volume), social policy (Eberhard, Frost, & Rerup, this volume), and
the arts (Blanche & Cohendet, this volume).
This volume highlights four themes that are important in analyzing
and theorizing routine dynamics and that help us think about the
empirical phenomenon we care about. These themes are (1)
replication and transfer, (2) ecologies and interdependence, (3) action
and the generation of novelty, and (4) technology and
sociomateriality. Researchers can use these themes as an entry point
into exploring and theorizing particular phenomena.

REPLICATION AND TRANSFER

The first theme builds on the proposition that transfer and replication
provide valuable opportunities to understand routines and routine
dynamics (Feldman et al., 2016). Scholars in an earlier routines
tradition (Nelson & Winter, 1982; Winter & Szulanski, 2001) have
addressed replication as a key organizational strategy aimed at
reaping the scale advantages of innovation through reproducing it at
multiple organizational locations (Winter, 2010). This work has
conceptualized organizational routines as the repositories of
organizational knowledge and “best” practice as well as the building
blocks underpinning organizational capabilities. More recent work in
routine dynamics builds on this work and shifts the focus of inquiry to
uncovering the dynamic and emergent nature of transfer and
replication (Aroles & McLean, 2016; Cohendet & Simon, 2016;
D’Adderio, 2014). This shift entails viewing routines as fundamentally
performative processes which involve the effortful – and always
challenged – recreation of origin routines at new locations (Bertels,
Howard-Grenville, & Pek, 2016; D’Adderio, 2014, 2017). Several
papers in this volume including Blanche and Cohendet (this volume),
Boe-Lillegraven (this volume), and Schmidt et al. (this volume)
extend the routine dynamics theorization of transfer and replication.
Blanche and Cohendet’s (this volume) study of artistic teams
addresses an interesting case of replication where the original intent
of the creator is more important than exact reproduction. They
explore how the replication of routines during the remounting of a
ballet is made possible through sharing the routines’ ostensive aspect
which is retained in the form of a rich professional culture. They thus
show how, in replicating the artistic performance, the team relies on
artifactual representations of the original routines complemented by
knowledge residing in the memory of artistic team members. This
allows them to theorize how practitioners are able to replicate
routines despite the differences imposed by the new context.
Replication takes place by combining an understanding of the local
material context with trade know-how, thus creating innovative
solutions that respect the original intent of the routine while also
being congruent with interrelated routines. The replicator and
replicatee teams are thus able to address the tensions between
innovation and replication.
Schmidt, Braun, and Sydow (this volume) provide insights into the
puzzle of how routine replication can support innovation and new
venture creation. Their study of an incubator organization designed
to support the development of new ventures shows how emergent
routines within new organizations can then be replicated to support
the rapid establishment of other new ventures. They distinguish
between accelerating and innovating routines, where accelerating key
actions involved in new venture creation can unburden the work
involved in innovating, so enabling innovating routines to be
developed and flourish. The dynamic interplay between routines
within the incubating “replicator” organization and those in the new
ventures demonstrates the dynamics of replication across
entrepreneurial organizations.
Boe-Lillegraven (this volume) examines the case of a complex
transfer of multiple interrelated routines from a European to an Asian
company in which the source- and target context had only little in
common. Even though the coordinating actors started out with a
replication approach, attempting to copy exactly the origin routines,
they quickly learned that this approach was not feasible. By engaging
in a pragmatic and flexible approach, the coordinating actors
conceived of new ideas of how to accomplish the transfer and to
respond to the different interests of multiple stakeholders and they
gradually shifted their conceptualization from transfer-as-replication
to transfer-as-adaptation. The author’s analysis reveals that
transferring actors did not isolate and attend to whole routines as has
been typically described by previous studies (e.g., D’Adderio, 2014;
Gupta, Hoopes, & Knott, 2015) but instead focused on transferring
“parts” (e.g., people, artifacts, or actions) associated with multiple
interrelated routines. Overall, the paper points toward the importance
of studying the different ways in which more flexible transfer
processes, where exact replication is unwanted or unfeasible, may
unfold over time.

INTERDEPENDENCE
The second theme addresses the fact that a routine is always related
to other routines (Howard-Grenville, 2005), both inside and outside
the organization. Recent research has thus explored how multiple
routines interact in closely-knit clusters (Kremser & Schreyögg, 2016),
loose bundles (Sele & Grand, 2016), and wider ecologies (Turner &
Rindova, 2012). These studies show how routines intersect, interact,
and become interdependent and embedded in many different ways.
For example, routines are connected through the traveling of human
and non-human actors (Sele & Grand, 2016), through iterative and
ad hoc ways of connecting (Spee, Jarzabkowski, & Smets, 2016) and
through recombining parts of different routines (Cohendet & Simon,
2016). Actors take into account the performances of other routines,
both inside and outside an organization, and anticipate or respond to
the consequences of these performances as they perform, adjust or
change a focal routine (Deken, Carlile, Berends, & Lauche, 2016).
Rather than being fixed or automatic, the interdependence and
embeddedness of routines is usefully understood as a situated and
effortful accomplishment. Exploring how the connections between
routines are accomplished has illuminated why routines are more or
less innovative (Sele & Grand, 2016), how they balance customization
and standardization (Spee et al., 2016), and how they enable or
restrict flexibility and change in organizations (Kremser & Schreyögg,
2016; Turner & Rindova, 2012). In this volume interdependence is a
primary theme for two chapters (Kremser, Pentland & Brunswicker,
this volume; Eberhard, Frost & Rerup, this volume) and an important
secondary theme for five other chapters (see Table 1).
Kremser, Pentland, and Brunswicker (this volume) explore
interdependence within and between routines and introduce the
concept of performative boundaries. Taking the example of the
beverage service on a transatlantic flight they illustrate the
multiplicity and fluidity of routine boundaries and show us why it is
useful to theorize boundaries as a performative process rather than
as fixed or given. They discuss the role of interdependence as
fundamental to the process of creating and recreating patterns of
action or what they and others call patterning.
Eberhard, Frost, and Rerup (this volume) provide a disturbing look
at a different kind of interdependence and a different kind of
dynamic. They show how a routine can develop between two actors
(in their case between a pimp and a person who eventually becomes
a sex worker) and how deceit can be used to entangle one person in
the designs of the other. The chapter describes the dynamics of the
roles as the routine is enacted by both the consciously deceitful pimp
and the victim of the routine who is not conscious of the deceit and is
fooled by it. They show how a relatively stable routine requires
significant changes in the roles of both perpetrator and victim in
order to produce the perpetrator’s intended outcome.
 ACTION AND THE GENERATION OF NOVELTY
Our third theme, examining the role of action in generating novelty, is
informed by various social practice theories that explain the
interaction between action and social structure (e.g., Bourdieu, 1990;
Giddens, 1984; Schatzki, 2002). Such theories seek to explain the
consequentiality of action both empirically in what people do – their
actions – and theoretically in the premise that the patterning of
collective practice that we label as “strategy,” “organization,” or
“routine” is continuously produced within multiple people’s actions
distributed across time and space (Feldman, 2015, 2016; Feldman &
Orlikowski, 2011; Feldman & Worline, 2016). Thus, people’s actions
cannot be separated from the continuous unfolding or becoming of
social order – the patterning – that is brought about within those
actions (Langley, Smallman, Tsoukas, & van de Ven, 2013; Tsoukas &
Chia, 2002). There is a recursiveness to this mutual constitution of
people’s actions and the patterns that they generate that predisposes
stability (Giddens, 1984; Jarzabkowski, 2004) and can raise queries
about how novelty arises (Bucher & Langley, 2016; Deken et al.,
2016). Yet action is never so “over-socialized” that it conforms only to
those patterns (Feldman & Orlikowski, 2011; Feldman & Pentland,
2003; Jarzabkowski, 2004). Rather, each action is an “effortful
accomplishment” (Feldman, 2000; Pentland & Rueter, 1994) that
contains within it the potential for variations by any individual actor in
performing any particular task. This focus on action has been critical
for understanding routines as a source of not only stability but also
change (Bucher & Langley, 2016; Dittrich, Guérard, & Seidl, 2016;
Feldman, 2000; Feldman et al., 2016; Feldman & Pentland, 2003;
Howard-Grenville, 2005). For example, Feldman and Pentland (2003)
show the routine dynamics through which hiring routines change
within the specific actions of different actors. Hence, in order to study
novelty in routines, we need to study the generative nature of actions
in producing continuous modifications to their patterning that often
appear in the first instance to be minor but frequently have
considerable implications for the ways organizations operate and for
what they produce (see, e.g., Bucher & Langley, 2016; D’Adderio,
2014; Deken et al., 2016; Dittrich et al., 2016; Howard-Grenville,
2005; Jarzabkowski, Lê, & Balogun, 2018; Jarzabkowski, Lê, &
Feldman, 2012; Rerup & Feldman, 2011).

Table 1. Overview of Papers and Themes in This Volume.

X, primary focus and (X), secondary focus.

The association between action and the generation of novelty is a

primary theme for two papers in this volume (Grand & Bartel; Van
Mierlo, Bondarouk & Looihui) and a secondary theme for two other
chapters (see Table 1). Drawing on a routine dynamics approach to
strategy-making in a German pharmaceutical firm, Hoechst, Grand
and Bartel (this volume) show how the strategizing routines of senior
managers enable the entrepreneurial agility of corporations. This has
always been something of a puzzle, as the path dependencies and
complex structural context of large corporations tends to stifle
entrepreneurial agility. Yet, as the authors show, managerial
enactment of four strategizing routines – distancing, evaluating,
experimenting, and re-assembling – can enhance agility and enable
new strategic moves for corporations. Their study is important in
linking routine dynamics to the strategic actions of top managers, and
demonstrating the novel strategic outcomes that can emerge from
the dynamic nature of routine actions.
Van Mierlo, Bondarouk, and Loohuis (this volume) examine the
generativity of actions in the context of a new human resource policy
aimed at hiring disadvantaged workers. They show how in the
absence of an envisioned pattern of action, the actions taken by
different actors involved in hiring contribute in distinctive and
complementary ways to bringing the new routine to life. Traditionally
scholars often assumed that multiple points of view hinder routine
performances because the resulting actions conflict. Van Mierlo and
his co-authors (this volume), however, demonstrate that multiple
points of view can be productive because each point of view can
generate distinct actions that contribute to achieving the task of the
routine. In their study, the cumulative generativity of these actions
led to results that by far surpassed the goal that the company set
itself for hiring disadvantaged workers.

TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIOMATERIALITY

As topics which have witnessed a considerable surge of interest over
the past decade, technology and its effects (what we now refer to as
sociomateriality) have been present in theorizing about routines right
from the outset (March & Simon, 1958; Nelson & Winter, 1982). So
much so that a major critique advanced through routine dynamics
addressed the need for both scholars and practitioners to make a
conceptual and empirical distinction between the routine itself and its
artifact (formal practices and procedures) (D’Adderio, 2008; Pentland
& Feldman, 2005). Building on and extending this approach, later
contributions have advocated for the need to conceptualize artifacts
as endogenous components of the routines’ generative system
(D’Adderio, 2011; Feldman, 2016). Bringing artifacts into routine
dynamics theorizing shifted the attention away from fixed and
objectified views of technology and their effects (in other words, their
“materiality”) to study the complex and situated ways in which these
“perform” routines and are performed in turn (D’Adderio, 2014, 2017;
Pentland & Feldman, 2008). Contributions to routine dynamics have
thus addressed important topics such as the influence of
artifacts/technology on organizational goals (D’Adderio, 2014; Salvato
& Rerup, 2017; Turner & Rindova, 2012), workarounds and
adaptation (Bertels et al., 2016; D’Adderio, 2008), ecologies and
clusters (Sele & Grand, 2016), creativity and innovation (Cohendet &
Simon, 2016; D’Adderio, 2003, 2008; Salvato & Rerup, 2017),
standardization and flexibility (Aroles & McLean, 2016; D’Adderio,
2003; Spee et al., 2016). Recent technological advances and greater
recognition of their potential economic and societal effects are now
providing fertile grounds for studying the role of artifacts and
materiality for routines. Two papers in this volume contribute to
extending and advancing this enquiry (Kiwan & Lazaric, this volume;
Kho, Spee, & Gillespie, this volume).
Kiwan and Lazaric (this volume), for example, discuss how a new
ecology of space, created by the introduction of bariatric robotic
surgery, transforms the ostensive and performative aspects of
laparoscopic routines. In so doing, they show how robotic technology,
kept in a different setting and at a distance from the patient, creates
new forms of interaction which are unfamiliar to the team, thus
preventing the transfer of the surgeon’s expertise to the team
members. This, in turn, leads practitioners to experiment with new
artifacts to try to integrate new actions and delineate the boundaries
of interactions during the course of laparoscopic surgery. In
developing the concept of “reflective space,” Kiwan and Lazaric (this
volume) show how this enables practitioners to highlight and discuss
the new patterns of interdependent actions. Within this space,
routine participants are able to explore the emergent tensions
generated by the new artifacts, while also devising new ways to
support experimental performances through integrating new actions
and delineating new boundaries. Their findings thus shed new light
on the role of reflective spaces in routine change, while also showing
how sociomaterial ensembles may produce opportunities for
reshaping routines.
Kho, Spee and Gillespie (this volume) illustrate how routine
participants enact relational expertise through joint action in
technology-mediated contexts. In so doing, they show how the
introduction of telehealth creates a “relational bridge” which provides
favorable conditions for interactions and collaboration among the
various health professionals, thus facilitating the enactment of
relational “selective” and “blending” forms of expertise. The authors
show how, despite technology producing the blurring of professional
boundaries and creating jurisdictional conflict among professionals, it
also promotes over time the introduction of new ways of working
(and new routines) which allowed professionals to overcome
jurisdictional conflict. Telehealth thus facilitated the process through
which relational expertise could become a new resource alongside
professional expertise to solve complex problems, consequently
producing enhanced outcomes.

THE WAY FORWARD

Taken together, the chapters in this volume demonstrate how
important themes of routine dynamics play out in different empirical
contexts. More importantly, they show how routine dynamics is a
useful lens to increase our understanding of important real-world
(sometimes counterintuitive) phenomena, such as why innocent
women may become sex workers (Eberhard et al., this volume), how
bottom-up approaches to creating new routines can far surpass the
initial goals of management (van Mierlo et al., this volume), or how
replicating routines can promote and foster innovation in new venture
creation (Schmidt et al., this volume). Many avenues remain for
engaging routine dynamics in advancing our understanding of new
and changing empirical phenomena. Recent research, for instance,
has focused on new forms of organizing (Puranam, Alexy, & Reitzig,
2014), new technologies (e.g., George, Haas, & Pentland, 2014), and
grand societal challenges (e.g., George, Howard-Grenville, Joshi, &
Tihanyi, 2016). As scholars embark on studying empirical phenomena
that spark their interest, they often encounter routine dynamics
because patterns of action form the basis for social life and
organizing in particular. Routine dynamics, as an approach to
theorizing these phenomena, provides an entry point to uncovering
how the phenomena that we study are enacted and constructed, how
they emerge and unfold over time and allows us to explore how
various aspects of these phenomena are connected in and through
action. By insisting on the relevance of subtle dynamics, it allows us
to access the roots of stability and change in organizations and
beyond. Routine dynamics doesn’t carve up the world in a pre-
defined way and instead encourages openness and continuous
evolution of the theoretical concepts that inform our understanding of
the social world. It provides certain methodological tools (e.g.,
narrative networks, Pentland & Feldman, 2007) and sensitivities (e.g.,
practice theory, actor-network theory, process theory) that are aimed
at opening up lines of inquiry rather than closing them down. We
hope the papers in this volume provide some examples of how
routine dynamics can be engaged to explore the underlying dynamics
of a phenomenon and that they pave the way for further studies in
this direction.

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* All co-editors contributed equally.

Routine Dynamics in Action: Replication and Transformation

Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Volume 61, 1–10
Copyright © 2019 by Emerald Publishing Limited
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved
ISN: 0733-558X/doi:10.1108/S0733-558X20190000061001
CHAPTER 1

REMOUNTING A BALLET IN A DIFFERENT

CONTEXT: A COMPLEMENTARY
UNDERSTANDING OF ROUTINES
TRANSFER THEORIES
Charlotte Blanche and Patrick Cohendet

ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors enter the world of ballet to be
inspired by artistic teams. This original point of view proposes a
complementary understanding of the dynamics of routines
replication where preserving the authenticity of the project’s
intent is emphasized over economic efficiency considerations.
The authors propose that analyzing the remounting of a ballet
as an in-depth extreme case study provides an opportunity to
learn more about other aspects that can be relevant in transfer
stories: the importance accorded to the intent of the routine to
be transferred; the existence of a dialogical dynamic that
engages artifacts and memories of this intent; the existence of
a meta-routine that structures and enables the transfer of sub-
routines across geographical distance in another context. The
authors will see that, in this case, routines replication is also
Another random document with
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Old comrades
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world
at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under
the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org.
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Title: Old comrades

Author: Agnes Giberne

Release date: October 29, 2023 [eBook #71978]

Language: English

Original publication: United Kingdom: John F. Shaw and Co, 1896

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OLD COMRADES ***

Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.

Old Comrades

BY

AGNES GIBERNE

AUTHOR OF
"LIFE-TANGLES," "IDA'S SECRET," "WON AT LAST,"
"THE EARLS OF THE VILLAGE," ETC.

LONDON

JOHN F. SHAW AND CO.

48 PATERNOSTER ROW

CONTENTS

CHAP.

I. A CHRISTMAS CARD

II. THINGS NOT IN THE COLONEL'S LINE

III. USING OPPORTUNITIES

IV. MRS. EFFINGHAM

V. DOLLY'S JOURNAL

VI. A POSSIBLE ACQUAINTANCE

VII. INTRODUCTIONS

VIII. AFTERNOON TEA

IX. WAS SOMETHING WRONG?

X. A PARK ENCOUNTER

XI. ISABEL'S QUESTIONING

XII. A TENNIS PARTY

XIII. DOLLY'S TROUBLE

XIV. DOROTHEA'S LETTER

XV. THE SOMETHING THAT WAS WRONG

XVI. DOLLY'S JOURNAL AGAIN

XVII. A FRIEND IN NEED

XVIII. A MISTAKE

XIX. "STRICTLY IN CONFIDENCE"

XX. CUTTING THE KNOT

OLD COMRADES

CHAPTER I
A CHRISTMAS CARD
"DOROTHEA!"

The voice was deep-toned, verging on gruffness, and it lingered over the name, not
affectionately, but as if the speaker's mind were absent.

No answer came in words from the girl seated beyond the round table. She lowered the
book in her hands, and waited.

"Dorothea!"

"Yes," she said.

"Fetch me the first volume of the Encyclopædia."

"The Encyclopædia?"

"Britannica, of course."

"Downstairs?" Dorothea asked hesitatingly.

"Of course!"—again. "Lowest shelf of the bookcase."

"That long row of big volumes! I think I saw the first volume upstairs."

"Then, my dear, it ought not to be. Everything should always be in its right place."

Colonel Tracy spoke with the air of one enunciating a profound truth, disembosomed by
himself for the first time in the history of the world. He was a grey-haired veteran, with
large features, a complexion of deep-red rust, and solid though not tall figure. Fifteen
years of "retired" life had not undone his Indian military training. When giving an order
to daughter or domestic, he was apt still to give it as to a Sepoy. "Ready! Present! Fire!"
was the Colonel's style. Domestics were disposed to rebel, where the daughter had to
endure.

Dorothea laid down her book, and stood up slowly. There was a controlled stillness
about her movements, unusual in girls of eighteen, and not too common in women of
middle age. She did not remind her father that he, not she, had conveyed the volume to
its present resting-place. One week at home—if this could fairly be called "home"—had
shown Dorothea that whatever went wrong would be the fault of anybody rather than of
the Colonel. So she left that question alone, and vanished.

The Colonel lifted his head, and looked after her. "Quiet!" he muttered in a gratified
tone. "Good thing, too! I hate your bouncing women, slamming the doors, and shaking
the house at every step." He had himself a heavy footfall, and he was given to loud
shutting of doors, but these were exclusive privileges, not to be accorded to anybody
else.

The room which Dorothea left was not attractive. Carpet and curtains were faded; wall-
paper and furniture were ugly; ornaments were cheap and in bad taste. There were no
dainty knick-knacks on brackets or side-tables. An old-fashioned round table stood in
the centre, and was strewn with books—dull books in dull bindings.
London lodgings are not wont to be attractive, especially the second-rate sort. This was
the "upstairs parlour" of a very second-rate sort, situated in a side-street of exceptional
dreariness.

All the houses on either side of the street were exactly like all the rest. Each had a
porch with steps; each had an area with more steps; each had one window of a small
dining-room beside the porch, and two windows of a little drawing-room above; each
had two bedroom windows yet higher, and most had two garret holes at the top. Each
was discoloured with smoke, dingy and dismal. Each had white blinds to the bedroom
windows, which seemed to keep up a futile struggle after cleanliness.

These particulars would have been patent in daylight; but daylight vanishes early on a
December afternoon in town. Night had drawn its pall over the big city an hour before.
A tall candle burnt upon the table, close to the Colonel. He was so used to read and
write alone by the light of a single candle, that the need of a second for his daughter
had not occurred to him.

She came in, carrying the big volume, laid it down, and stood for a moment beside him,
as if to await further orders.

There was nothing "school-girlish" about Dorothea, in the ordinary sense of the word,
though she had left school but one week earlier. Of good height, she had a pretty figure,
the effect of which was somewhat spoilt by the forward carriage of her head, almost
amounting to a poke, and due to short sight. Her face was rounded and pale, and in
repose was serious. The wistful eyes looked through a pair of "pincer" glasses, balanced
on a neat little nose.

Colonel Tracy was making voluminous notes from a decrepit brown volume, which had
lost half its binding. He wrote an atrocious hand, which fact had mattered little hitherto,
since nobody needed to read it except himself. Now that he was beginning to wake up
to the possession of a daughter who might be useful, a new element came into the
question.

"Is that all?" asked Dorothea.

"Humph!" was doubtless meant for thanks, and the girl went towards her seat. But
before she could reach it, a supplementary order was issued: "Ha! No! It's not here!
Second volume."

"Shall I get the second volume?"

Colonel Tracy glanced up, and really did say "Thanks!" with even a suspicion of apology
in the tone.

Dorothea ran down the narrow staircase this time, instead of up. She had to light a
candle, and take it into the dining-room. Having found the required volume, some
impulse led her to the window, where she peeped through the lowered venetians.

A hansom was dashing past; and two ladies on the pavement seemed to be carrying
home an armful of packages. Dorothea could detect a merry ring in their voices as they
went. Then came a boy, bearing a big bunch of holly. For this was Christmas Eve.

The Colonel had bought no holly. "Nonsense," he had said that morning, when Dorothea
petitioned for some. "You are not a child now, my dear; and I have no money to throw
away on rubbish."

Was it rubbish? Dorothea considered the question, as she leant against the window,
forgetting for the moment the volume which had to be taken to her father.

"He does not, seem to care much about Christmas," she thought. "I used to feel it dull
to stay at school; but this seems more dull. Did Mrs. Kirkpatrick guess how it would be,
when she told me I should have worries? She said I must try to draw out my father's
sympathies, because he has been so long alone. But how? What can I do? He does not
care to talk. I can see that it only bothers him. And he seems to have no friends.
Nobody calls to see him, not even any letters come. Will it always be so?"

As if in response, the postman's rap sounded.

"Mrs. Kirkpatrick, I dare say! She will not forget me," the girl said joyously, hastening
out.

But the one letter handed to her was addressed "Colonel Tracy."

"I shall hear to-morrow. I did not really expect it sooner," she thought, and she ran
lightly upstairs.

"Something for you, father. A Christmas card!" she suggested.

Colonel Tracy looked up. "Christmas card!" he repeated. "Where is the volume?"

"The Encyclopædia! O how stupid of me! The postman came, and I forgot. I'll get it at
once."

"Make haste!" hurried her steps. She would have liked to wait and see the envelope
opened. Expeditious as she was, that process was over by the time she returned. The
Colonel sat bolt upright, gazing at something in his hand, with a singular expression on
his sunburnt face. It was a Christmas card, as Dorothea had guessed, and she came
fearlessly near, to gaze also. There was a background of dull pale blue, and across the
background flew a white dove, bearing in its beak a bunch of leaves—presumably an
olive-branch. "Peace and Good-Will" in golden letters occupied one corner.

"Why, father, it is quite an old card," Dorothea exclaimed merrily, anxious to throw
herself into his interests. "Look at the soiled edges; and a crease all down the middle. It
might be years old."

The Colonel was not communicative. He glanced at her with the same odd expression,
and said, "Yes."

"Who can it be from? Some old friend of yours?"

"We were friends—once!"

"And not now?"

"No!" decisively.

"But you exchange Christmas cards?"

"We send—this," after a pause. Colonel Tracy seemed unwilling to explain.

Dorothea knelt on a stool close to the table, resting her hands upon it, much interested.

"Do tell me more," she said. "It is Christmas Eve, and I have nobody else to talk to."

"There is nothing to tell. We had a—a trifling disagreement," said the Colonel. "What
makes you wear spectacles?"

"Short sight. Why, father, you know that!"

"I had forgotten. Well, I shall put this away," said the Colonel.

"And send another to your friend?"

"No. Certainly not. Next Christmas, I shall return this."

A light dawned on Dorothea. "Is that it? I see. How strange!"

"Not strange at all. We have done so for some years—eight or nine, I think—
alternately."

"Always the same card?"

"Yes."

"And you have never met! And never written!"

"No. Why should we?"

Dorothea was silent for a moment. Then she said, "If you met, you would be friends
again."

The Colonel made a dubious sound.

"Was it you who sent the card first, or was it he?"

"Not I."

"And when you first got it, did you wait a whole year to send it back?"

"Certainly."

The wonder in Dorothea's tone was lost upon the gallant Colonel.

"And you will wait a whole year now! Not write a letter, or—"

"I shall wait till next Christmas," said the Colonel.

Thereupon, he pushed the little messenger of peace into a square envelope, wrote upon
it, "Christmas Card—Erskine—" and hid it away in his desk.

"Is Erskine his name?"

"Colonel Erskine. We were in the same regiment. He was my senior, slightly; and I
believe, he retired first."

"And now he lives at—"

"Craye. My dear, we have talked long enough. I have no more time to spare," said the
Colonel, turning with assiduity to vol. ii. of the Encyclopædia.

Dorothea subsided into her chair and into silence. She was not timid, but she did not
wish to worry him. Besides, she had something fresh to think about, in the slow
progress of reconciliation between the two veterans. "But to have gone on all these
years!" she said to herself. "And I wish my father had been the first to send the card."

CHAPTER II
THINGS NOT IN THE COLONEL'S LINE

LONDON is commonly counted a lively place, with plenty to do, and abundance to see;
even though it has its little drawbacks in the shape of noise, soot, and fog. But the
compensating liveliness seemed unlikely to enter into Dorothea Tracy's town existence.

If a man wishes for freedom from society, he is as likely to get what he wants in London
as in the tiniest village—perhaps more so. Colonel Tracy had never been a man of
society. He detested the generality of human beings, hated company, abhorred teas,
dinners, and conversation.

In earlier life, he had had one friend—the quondam comrade of the olive-leaf card!—and
had lost that friend. He had also had a wife, and had lost that wife.

Thenceforward, habits of seclusion had grown upon him apace. As years went on, he
troubled himself to see less and less of his child; though always looking forward,
curiously, to the time when he would have her to live with him. Now that time was
come, and it found him a confirmed hermit. He had no friends. He associated with no
one, called upon no one. As a natural corollary, no one called upon, or associated with
him. He did not even belong to a club, for a club means acquaintances, and the Colonel
wanted no acquaintances. He lived in a huge overgrown parish, the work of which could
never be overtaken by the toiling clergy. A call from one of the curates, some months
earlier, had met with no gracious reception, and had not yet been repeated.

The manner of life which might suit the tastes of a retired veteran was not precisely
fitted for a young girl. This as yet did not cause the Colonel concern; if indeed it
occurred to him. He expected to go on as he had done hitherto, with merely the little
addition of a silent and useful daughter. He expected Dorothea to conform
unquestionably to his will.

She had come "home," as she called it—or rather, as she had called it beforehand—full
of young hopes and dreams. At eighteen, one is apt to see future life through rosy
spectacles. In one short week, the glasses had gained a leaden hue, borrowed from the
leaden atmosphere around. The hopes were dying; the dreams were fading. Dorothea
had had, and would have, some rebellious struggles before settling down to the dead
level of existence which seemed inevitable. Thus far, the effect of her surroundings was
rather to stupefy than to excite. Everything was so different from the previous
expectations of the school-girl, that she did not know what to make of her own position.

A girl naturally wishes for companions. Beyond her father, Dorothea had none; and
Colonel Tracy was far too self-absorbed a man to render satisfying companionship.
Below the rugged surface, he was in the main kind-hearted; but he lacked the mighty
gift of sympathy. He neither understood his daughter, nor troubled himself to be
understood by her. Each was more or less of an enigma to the other.

He had his own notions of propriety, and after his own fashion, he was careful. "You are
too young to walk out alone at present in London," he had said to Dorothea, the day
following her arrival. "I always take my constitutional after breakfast, and you may
accompany me. I hope you are a good walker. If it should be necessary for you to leave
the house at any time when I am otherwise engaged, you must have Mrs. Stirring for a
companion. She has promised me to attend to your wants."

Mrs. Stirring was the lodging-house keeper: a highly respectable little woman, "genteel"
to a degree in her own estimation, but apt to be plaintive in tone and behindhand in
work. So she was not always an available "companion," and when available she was not
too cheerful.

The morning "constitutional" became a daily event, regular as breakfast itself when
weather permitted. Happily, Dorothea was a very good walker. The Colonel went fast
and far; and he never thought of asking whether pace or distance suited his daughter's
capabilities. Dorothea enjoyed the rapid motion and the comparative freshness of the
morning air. She would have enjoyed some conversation likewise; but the Colonel was
seldom in a talkative mood. If she spoke, he grunted; if she asked a question, he
answered it, and that was all.

How to fill the remaining hours of the day became, even in one week, something of a
problem to Dorothea. She had work in hand, but it is dull, at the age of eighteen, to sit
and work with no one to take any interest in the progress of the needle. She dearly
loved reading, but the Colonel's books were such as to put that love to a pretty severe
test. She could have spent hours happily any day in writing to Mrs. Kirkpatrick and her
favourite schoolfellows; but her father's pet economy was in the matter of paper and
stamps. So time threatened to hang upon Dorothea's hands.

Nine years had elapsed since the death of Dorothea's mother; and the greater part of
those nine years had been spent by her in a small Yorkshire school, kept by Mrs.
Kirkpatrick. That had grown to be Dorothea's real "home." She hardly realised the fact
while there, loyally reserving the term for future life with her father, and sometimes
counting it a little hard to spend so many of her holidays at school. But now that the
long-expected life with her father had begun, she knew well enough which was the real
home.
Through the nine years Colonel Tracy had lived more or less in London, often going
abroad for a while. It had happened curiously often—almost regularly—that he had to
go abroad just before Dorothea's holidays, so that he was "quite unable to receive her."
Whether the more correct word would not have been "unwilling" may be doubted. He
was a man who disliked trouble; and he had no notion of doing on principle that which
he disliked, for the sake of others.

About once a year, he had commonly arranged to spend a fortnight at some northern
watering-place with Dorothea: this being the least troublesome mode he could devise
for amusing a school-girl. From the age of twelve to the age of eighteen, she had never
been to London. "Too expensive a journey," the Colonel said, though he made nothing
of going himself north or south, travelling first-class. He liked to have Dorothea always
within easy reach of Mrs. Kirkpatrick, that he might get her off his hands without
difficulty when he found the girlish spirits too much.

Dorothea's recollections of his manner of life in town, seen before her thirteenth
birthday, had grown somewhat dim, and perhaps were embellished by distance.
Moreover, he had often changed his headquarters since those days, so her recollections
were the less important. Certainly she did not expect what she found. The first glimpse
of the dingy apartments, which for more than a year, he had made his home, gave a
shock. Had the Colonel been aware of her sensations, he would have counted them
unreasonable. He had "done his duty by her" in the matter of education. He expected
now that she should "do her duty by him" in the matter of submission and usefulness.

Dorothea was a girl of too much character not to be useful, of too much principle to
indulge in discontent. Still, this week had been a week of "deadly dulness"; and what
there was for her to do, she had, as yet, failed to discover.

The Colonel arranged everything, ordered dinner, interviewed the landlady, and
undertook to procure fish and vegetables. He piqued himself upon his intimate
acquaintance with household details. He needed neither advice nor help. Dorothea was
a mere adjunct in his existence thus far, less important than the said fish, less
necessary than the said vegetables. She felt like a stranded boat, cast upon a mudbank,
out of reach of the tide of life which surged and roared around. This, in a London street,
where cabs and hansoms dashed past, where the sound of the great human Babel
never ceased.

******

Christmas morning dawned.

"I shall hear from Mrs. Kirkpatrick to-day," thought Dorothea cheerily. "Will my father
go to Church with me?"

He had excused himself the Sunday before on the plea of bad weather and
"indigestion." "Bad weather" did not keep the Colonel in when he wanted to secure
fresh fish for dinner; but Church was another matter. Dorothea had had to content
herself with Mrs. Stirring's companionship. The Church was very near, so near that she
meant soon to plead for leave to go alone.
"Good morning, father," she said, in her brightest tone, when he came into the dining-
room. He was punctual to the moment, yet Dorothea was before him.

An indistinct grunt served for "good morning." The Colonel was exercised in mind, to
think that Dorothea should have already made the tea. It was no small trial to give up
his tea-making to her, which he had done as in duty bound, he being man and she
woman; and he liked to stand close by, watching with critical eyes, as she measured out
each spoonful. On the Colonel's plate lay a neat white package, tied round with blue
ribbon. He was far too much absorbed in the tea-question to notice it.

"How many spoonfuls did you put in, my dear?"

"Three, father. One for you, one for me, and one for the teapot. Mrs. Kirkpatrick always
said—"

"Full spoons, but not piled up?" demanded the Colonel, wrinkling anxiously the skin of
his face.

"Yes; just as you showed me."

"And the teapot,—you made the teapot hot first?"

Dorothea nodded. She had to bite her lips to keep from laughing, as the Colonel lifted
the lid and peered in.

"Too much water! A great deal too much water!" he said solemnly.

"No, I don't think so indeed. It will all come right," Dorothea assured him with
audacious confidence. "O father, never mind the tea. See what Mrs. Kirkpatrick has sent
me."

The Colonel did not wish to receive the article in question, but Dorothea put it resolutely
in his hands. He found himself dangling helplessly a small blue satin pincushion, with
"Happy Christmas" worked in white beads.

"Eh, what? yes. Very pretty," said the Colonel. "Yes, quite smart."

"And three Christmas cards, from my schoolfellows."

"Eh? Yes,—uncommonly pretty. What's the use of them all?" demanded the Colonel,
merely because he was at a loss what else to say.

"The use, father! The use of Christmas cards?"

"Well,—yes. What's the use?" persisted the Colonel.

Dorothea stood opposite him, smiling; the light falling full upon her glasses, with the
gentle light eyes behind.

"Don't they all do what yours did last night? Don't they all speak of 'peace and good-
will'?"

This was a shade too personal, and the Colonel dropped Dorothea's pincushion in a
hurry.
"Yes, yes, of course,—all right, no doubt. But such things are not in my line, I'm afraid.
Too much trouble for a busy man to bother about a lot of cards."

Did Dorothea hear him? She was looking towards the window wistfully, dreamily; a
moist glitter showing through her glasses.

"I'm not sure," she said as if to herself, "but I almost think Christmas cards are a sort of
carrying on of the angels' song. A sort of echo of it. Don't you think so, father?"

"My dear, I'll trouble you to ring the bell. Mrs. Stirring will over-do the cutlets, and it's
time the tea was poured out. Brewed long enough. You'd better take all that rubbish off
the table. What's this?"

Any amount of notes of admiration might have been written after the question.
Dorothea watched him, smiling, though she rebelled internally against the word
"rubbish."

"Some mistake," said the Colonel gruffly.

"No, father; it is for you. It is from me."

Colonel Tracy looked extremely uncomfortable. He had had presents from Dorothea
from time to time; but always as it happened by post; little bits of pretty handiwork,
which he could smile over grimly, and consign to a lumber-drawer, only wishing that
they would not come because he had to compose a sentence of thanks in his next letter.
But for years he had received no present in public, so to speak,—with a witness to his
manner of reception. That the giver should be seated opposite was embarrassing, and
that he should be expected to show pleasure was more embarrassing still. His red rust
complexion grew redder than usual, and an awkward laugh broke from him, as he took
refuge in blowing his nose. Still Dorothea looked expectant, and the parcel had to be
opened.

"I'm much obliged, I'm sure. But you see this sort of thing isn't in my line," said the
Colonel.

"Don't you use shaving-tidies, father? Mrs. Kirkpatrick thought—"

"Well, well, of course I use—something," said the Colonel, shoving his new possession
aside, to make room for cutlets and hot plates. "Yes, of course; but you had better not
waste pretty things upon me in future, my dear. You see, they're not in my line. Other
people appreciate them better."

"But I have nobody else," the girl said.

She was a little hurt and disappointed; no doubt more so than she would admit even to
herself. It was evident that her well-meant effort merely bored the Colonel. "I hope you
don't expect Christmas presents from me," the Colonel went on, helping himself
vigorously. He noted her words, and was alarmed lest something sentimental should
follow. "You see, I was not brought up to the sort of thing; and really I could not be
troubled to choose. But if you would care to get something for yourself, I have no
objection to give you five shillings."

Dorothea did not speak at once.

"That reminds me," pursued the Colonel, anxious to get away from a ticklish subject;
"that reminds me! I intend to make you an allowance of twenty pounds for your clothes,
beginning with five pounds on the first of January. I hope you will keep strictly to the
amount, and on no account allow yourself to run into debt. Nothing worse than debt!"

"Thank you, father," Dorothea said slowly.

"Anything you'd care to do to-day? Take a 'bus and go into the country, if you like?" said
the Colonel, meaning that they would do it together.

Dorothea looked surprised. "I am going to Church, of course," she said.

"Oh, ah,—yes, I forgot! No doubt,—quite correct. By-the-bye, I'm not sure about Mrs.
Stirring, whether she can escort you, I mean. Turkey and plum-pudding, you know.
Couldn't leave them, could she?" The Colonel was old-fashioned, and stuck to early
dinner through all vicissitudes of fashion. "So I think you'll have to come out with me
this morning, and be content to go to Church in the evening,—eh, my dear?"

"Father, I always go, morning and evening. I could not stay away. Won't you come too?"

"I—really, I should be happy to oblige you, but something at a distance requires my

attention. Besides, week-days are not Sundays. Perhaps I'm not quite so much of a
Church-goer as you. Now and then we will do it together,—on Sunday,—but I'm not so
young as I was, and, in fact,—however, about this morning?"

"If Mrs. Stirring cannot go, I must go alone." She spoke in a resolute low voice. "It is so
near; there cannot be any harm. I could not stay away on Christmas Day,—for no real
reason."

"H—m!" her father said, in a dubious tone.

"I shall want to go often, when Mrs. Stirring is not free. Please don't make any difficulty.
Let me have that one happiness," she pleaded. "Only two streets, and such quiet
streets. And I look older than I am."

"Well, well!" the Colonel foresaw agitation, and feminine agitation was his abhorrence.
"Well, well,—I suppose I must say yes. But mind, nowhere else, and never after dark.
Not after dusk. The distance isn't much, as you say. Take another cutlet?"

The Colonel impaled one on a fork, and held it out.

"No? Why, you don't half eat." He landed the rejected article on his own plate, and
disposed of the eatable portions in four mouthfuls. "Coming for a walk this morning?"

"No, I think not. I might be late for Church."

"You're like your mother. She was just such another Church-goer," said the Colonel, as if
remarking on an idiosyncrasy of character.

Dorothea could be interested now. She felt relieved and free. "Was my mother like me
in other ways?"

"Pretty well. Pretty well," said the Colonel, wiping his moustache.
"Did she know the Erskines?" This question came suddenly, almost surprising Dorothea
herself.

"Well—yes. She and Mrs. Erskine were great friends—at one time."

"But not after you and Colonel Erskine quarrelled?"

"Well, not after our—little difference. No, we didn't keep up intercourse. What makes
you bother about the Erskines?"

"I don't know. I like to think about them? Do tell me one thing, father,—are there any
Erskine girls?"

"I'm sure I don't know. There was one, of course," said Colonel Tracy, getting up.
"Done, my dear? For I have to be off. Why, of course! Same name, both of you."

"Dorothea?"

"Yes, Dorothea. Just ring the bell; I want to speak to Mrs. Stirring. She roasted the
turkey to a rag last Christmas, and I can't have it happen again. Yes, you were both
called Dorothea,—a fancy of the two mothers. Great nonsense, of course; but when
women take a notion into their heads, there's an end of it. What a time that girl is! Ring
again. The morning will be gone, before I am able to start."

"O! I should like to know if Dorothea Erskine is alive still," cried Dorothea.

CHAPTER III
USING OPPORTUNITIES

"AND you going out alone, Miss Tracy! And the Colonel that particular! As he wouldn't
hear of you crossing the road by yourself."

Mrs. Stirring was manifestly uneasy, counting herself in some sort responsible. She
looked upon this motherless young lady as a charge upon her conscience,—otherwise,
as one of the many burdens in her life. Mrs. Stirring was a person who professed to
carry a great many burdens. She always had been, and always would be, laden with
cares; not so much because she had really more cares than other people, as because
she had less pluck and endurance for the bearing of them. Where Dorothea would have
looked up and smiled, Mrs. Stirring looked down and sighed. The difference was in the
individuals themselves; not in the weight of the burdens laid upon them.

To be sure, Mrs. Stirring was a widow, which sounds sad. There are women, however, to
whom widowhood comes as a merciful release from unhappy wifehood, and Mrs.
Stirring was one of these. She had married in haste, and had repented at leisure. When
her husband was taken from her, she had been conscious in her heart of relief from a
bitter thraldom, though much too correct a little person to let any such feeling appear
through her showers of weeping,—for Mrs. Stirring was a person who had always tears
at command. Still—there the consciousness was.

Now for years, she had been a successful lodging-house keeper, and was not only
paying her way, but was laying by a nice little sum for the future. She had one child, a
pretty winning little girl, and one faithful though uncouth domestic. This was not
altogether a bad state of things. Nevertheless, Mrs. Stirring talked on plaintively of her
trials and burdens, making capital of the widowhood which had been a release.

"And you going out alone, Miss!" she reiterated, coming upon Dorothea dressed for
walking. Mrs. Stirring was apt to be untidy at this hour, and her cap had dropped awry;
while Dorothea was the very pink of dainty neatness, in a costume of dark brown, with
brown hat to match, relieved by a suggestion of red, the glasses over her happy eyes
balanced as usual over the little nose.

"To Church," Dorothea said, smiling. "I wish you could go too."

Mrs. Stirring shook her head dolorously.

"There's the turkey and plum-pudden, Miss," she said, in unconscious echo of the
Colonel. "Dear me! Why if I was to leave them to Susanna, I don't think your Pa 'd stay
a day longer under my roof; I don't, really. He's that particular about the roasting. I'm
all of a quake now with the thought of it—if I shouldn't do it right. And there's the
stuffing, and the gravy, and the sauce! And the pudden, as I've boiled six hours
yesterday, and it's been on again these two hours. Dear me! No; I couldn't go to
church! A poor widow like me 's got to stay at home and mind the dinner."

"I wish my father could dine late," said Dorothea.

A scared look came into Mrs. Stirring's face.

"Now don't you put him up to that—don't you, Miss Tracy. Late dinner means a deal of
work. If your papa dined late, he'd dine early too—that's what gentlemen come to. No, I
wouldn't wish that. But if I was a lady—like yourself, Miss—and hadn't to be at work all
the morning, why I'd be glad enough to put on my best, and go off to Church with the
rest of the folks. And take Minnie too."

"Minnie! O I never thought of that! Why should not Minnie go with me?"

"It's like you to think of it, Miss." Mrs. Stirring was evidently gratified. "And I'm sure
she'd have been glad enough, for she does fret, being kept in. But the bells 'll stop this
minute, and she's in her curl-papers."

"Curl-papers. Can't you pull them out, and smooth her hair, and put on her hat and
jacket?"
Mrs. Stirring was injured.

"Dear me! No! My Minnie don't go to Church without she's dressed suitable. I couldn't
get her ready under twenty minutes. She's in her oldest frock, and not a tucker to it;
and I wouldn't have her go without—not for nothing. And them curls do take a lot of
time. Not as I grudge it, if it's a duty."

"A duty! But what do curls and tuckers matter?" cried Dorothea. "What does it matter
how she is dressed, if only she is there? We don't go to Church to show off our best
dresses. At least, I hope not. Let me have Minnie as she is, only with her hair smooth. If
I don't care, who else will mind? Curls don't signify. Do let her come! It seems so sad to
stay away for nothing on Christmas Day."

No; Mrs. Stirring scouted the proposal. Minnie to go to Church in an old frock and
uncurled hair! She was scandalised. What would the neighbours think? Dorothea had to
give in, and turn away.

"As if it mattered how one is dressed—there!" she thought.

Shutting the hall door, she went briskly down the street, with a delicious feeling of
freedom. She would not have felt so free, perhaps, if even Minnie had been her
companion.

It was a sharp day, and for London tolerably clear. Something of wintry haze hung
overhead, of course; but a red sun made efforts to pierce it. Puddles in the road were
frozen, and here and there a slippery slide might be seen upon the pavement, perilous
for elderly people.

The parting interview with Mrs. Stirring had almost made Dorothea late. As she drew
near the bells stopped, and her pace became something like a run. She gained the
nearest side-door and went softly in.

The Church, a large red brick building, was already crowded, and Dorothea, glancing
round, saw no vacant seat; but somebody beckoned to her, and room was made.
Almost immediately the choir burst into the old Christmas hymn, "Hark! the herald
angels sing," and the congregation joined with heartiness.

Among all that mass of people, Dorothea knew not a single person, and not a single
person knew her. She was a stray unit from a distance dropped into their midst.

Yet the lonely and forlorn sensations which had so often assailed her during the past
week did not assail her here. Strangers though these people were to her, and she to
them, they were one in a Divine fellowship, they served the same Master, they prayed
the same prayers, they sang the same hymns; nay, with many of the throng, she would
soon be united yet more closely, for they would "partake" of the same "holy food."

How could she be lonely? A realisation of this union, and a glow of happy love, crept
into Dorothea's heart, as she lifted her eyes from the hymn-book and looked around.
The angelic message of "Peace and good-will" had been to all of them alike.

"If only I could do something for somebody—not live for myself alone," was the next
thought.
Then just across the aisle she saw a little old lady in mourning, distressfully fumbling for
something which she could not find. Dorothea's quick glance detected a pair of glasses
lying on the floor. In a moment she had stepped out of her place, picked up the glasses,
and given them to their owner.

"Thanks," came in a whisper of relief, with a very sweet smile. Dorothea stepped back,
blushing slightly to feel that she had done a rather prominent thing; yet she would have
done it over again, if required.

The sermon was short, earnest, spirited, mainly about the duty of rejoicing. Not
rejoicing only on Christmas Day, only when things seem cheery and to one's mind, but
always,—on dark days as well as bright ones, amid anxieties as well as pleasures.

"That is for me, I am sure," Dorothea told herself, looking back to some troubled hours
in the past week.

CHAPTER IV
MRS. EFFINGHAM

COMING out of Church, Dorothea found the hour later than she had expected. A very
large number had stayed, and it was already past the Colonel's dinner-hour.

"I must make haste," Dorothea thought. As she said the words to herself, she dreamily
noted the little old lady in mourning a few yards distant, in the act of crossing the road.
"I wonder what her name is? Oh!"

Dorothea's "Oh!" was hardly audible; indeed she felt rather than said it. The old lady
had stepped on a slippery spot, or slide, and went down in a helpless heap, just at the
instant that a hansom dashed round the nearest corner.

Whether instinct or thought guided Dorothea, she could not afterwards have told.
Before she knew what she meant to do, the deed was done.

Two or three ladies near shrieked; and two or three men not so near rushed towards
the scene of action. But shrieks were useless, and the men could not be in time.

To everybody's amazement, a young placid-looking girl in spectacles, just leaving the

gates, flung herself forward, and by an extraordinary exertion of strength dragged the