Barbara Kay

“ Grandfather said.
"Oh, dear!" said Elizabeth, "the instances keep piling up of the way he has seen right through me from the first minute of my coming, but now I'm beginning to see through him," she added, triumphantly.
"When anybody makes up their mind they are beginning to see through Father, there is generally breakers ahead for them," Grandmother said, thoughtfully.
"It's from Father that I get whatever business acumen I have," John Swift said; "let the other fellow think he is getting away with everything, and then when he has given himself entirely away, never let up on him." ”

“ She bustled off to the kitchen, to reappear with a mound of ice-cream in which the strawberries were embedded, like so many perfect emeries.
"I like ice-cream better than anything in the world," Elizabeth said.
"I like it better than fathers and mothers and sisters and intimate friends, but not better than grandparents, especially not grandparents when one of them is celebrating its birthday," Peggy declared, "Now, I'm getting silly. Will somebody stop me, please? Oh, look! Look at Judidy!" ”

“ Elizabeth thought, "she's just saying that to postpone the evil hour. All right, Peggy, dear," she said aloud, "good-bye till—good-bye!" and she flung her arms around Peggy's neck in a suffocating embrace.
In the old valanced rocking chairs before the living-room windows Grandfather and Grandmother Swift sat alone in the gathering darkness.
"House seems kinder lonesome to-night, don't it, Mother? Hard lines to lose the whole family all to once. They ought to gone off one by one, so's we wouldn't notice it so much."
"Times come and seasons change," said Grandmother. ”

“ With one long, indrawn breath, Ruth Farraday turned and walked back along the beach.
"She's shivering as if she were cold," Elizabeth thought, as she watched the diminishing figure.
It was high tide, and the deep blue waves were foam-crested. The wide sky was streaked with clouds, and a bright sun lay hot upon the sands. Elizabeth looked first at Moses' bobbing head, and [pg 199] then at the bobbing, rose-coloured parasol dwindling in the distance.
"Life is a curious thing," she said to herself, slowly, "it keeps changing so, getting better or worse all the time. ”

“ Dear Buddy:
Cross my heart and hope to die. I am quite a lot more grown up than I was when you knew me, and I understand the sacredness of confidences as I didn't at that time. You don't need to worry about trusting me. I love Ruth Farraday very much, and I should think anybody might.
Well, she is not a happy girl. There is a man called Mr. Piggy Chambers—that is what Peggy calls him, anyway—who is in love with her and asked her to marry him. I heard him that day that I went to Provincetown with him in his car. ”

“ Having a brother is the strangest, sweetest thing. I'd rather have one than a sister, though I do think Ruth Farraday is beautiful, and Peggy's lot is, next to mine, the most fortunate in that respect. I ought not to crow like this to an only child, though.
The things I can hardly believe are the things I've been hearing about my ancestors. In a way, you know, I think it is more interesting to be an American than even to be a count. ”

“ CHAPTER XII Buddy Wants to Know
Elizabeth had been to tea with the Farradays. The big, closed-in porch, which was practically their summer living room, gay with chintzes and strewn with all the appurtenances of luxurious modern existence, always gave her a little feeling of homesickness for the life to which she was used in town. The trim maid, quietly manipulating the tea wagon laden with the delicacies of the usual teatime meal, took on an almost pathetic glamour to the little exile.
Mr. Chambers was in possession of the wicker chaise-longue. ”

“ Peggy said.
"I do, and that's the principal thing," Ruth said. "I never realized how he felt about certain things before. I hadn't given much thought to his attitude about the war and all that. I knew he had been a sort of pacifist, and that he had German friends and business connections. I like men to be broad-minded. I don't mind a man that sticks to honest conclusions, if they're sincere, but when I find they are coloured by physical or moral cowardice, why, then I—I'm through. Albert Chambers is a coward, and he's a selfish coward. ”

“ She loves Grandmother more than anybody does outside of the family. Their eyes look lovingly at each other even when they are not speaking, you know, like cousins or something. She is very kind to me, and never neglects a chance to do nice things for me. I told you how Granddaddy kissed her. She is sweet. She is just sweet. If I loved her, Buddy— (you told me not to talk this way to you once, but I am going to) —I would tell her I did, in some way. She is awfully little, for a girl as old as she is, and people protect her. Peggy protects her in a great many ways, and I know she is not happy. ”

“ Judidy brought them in and put them in her lap.
"We are going to lose Judidy next winter," her grandmother said when that young woman had blushed, giggled, and withdrawn to the back porch, from which the sound of a drawling, masculine voice was heard at intervals, interspersed with Judidy's high-pitched protestations. "She's going to be married, she tells me."
"Is she?" said Elizabeth, trying to subdue the dizziness she felt at the sight of Buddy's familiar scrawl.
"Your grandfather and I thought we'd give them a wedding. Judidy's folks won't. They are nice enough people, but peculiar—odd. ”

“ Elizabeth said, "is that she remembers back so well. She knows what it's like to be a girl, and she thinks all the things that girls think are important. Lots of grown people don't. She imagines right into things, but she doesn't poke around them. She doesn't say much, either, but when you tell her a thing she listens to it."
"I wish any of my relations did that. Father just says, 'All right, Peggy, I'll take it all on trust—where's the morning paper?' whatever I say to him, and Mother says, 'Put in that little wisp of hair, darling,' or 'Look at your nails,' no matter what I say to her. ”

“ Elizabeth said. "I don't see how you can, if you really liked New York."
"I liked New York," he said, "but you can't be a country doctor on Broadway. I'd rather take care of these people than those."
"Oh, why?"
"They need it more," he said, simply. "In a big city you don't get the same chance to find out what people do need. It isn't always sick bodies a doctor [pg 154] is called in to look out for, you know. A doctor down here has to be a kind of a lawyer and a justice of the peace and a plumber, into the bargain. In New York he doesn't get that kind of an opportunity." ”

“ Peggy wore a rubber diving cap that made her look as if she had been scalped, but her blue jersey suit was trimmed with blue and green stripes and slashed up the side and laced fetchingly.
"Did you get your birthday wish, or did you wish for a handsome husband in the sweet bye and bye?" Peggy asked, lazily. "I always wish for things that will happen right away, because I can't stand the strain of not knowing whether I'm going to get them or not." ”

“ Bill said, "there's some kind of a mystery about it."
"We're just full of the dickens to-day," Peggy explained, hastily, "this sparkly air has gone to my head—our heads, I guess. Elizabeth always behaves better than I do, but she's as far gone as she ever is to-day. We've just been giggling at nothing all the morning."
"If you can call Mabel and Madget nothing," Elizabeth supplemented.
"Let's go eat, let's go eat, let's go eat," Bill chanted. "I am so starved, I am weak. Tom and I didn't eat any breakfast this morning." ”

“ I'd rather she'd marry—Bill Dean than Piggy Chambers.
"I do not like you, Doctor Fell (Chambers) The reason why I cannot tell, But this alone I know full well, I do not like you, Doctor Fell (Chambers) ." "It would be nice to have lots of money," Elizabeth said, "and to have chauffeurs, and butlers, and tall, elegant footmen in green livery, and estates and things."
"Oh, yes, it would, if you didn't have to take any incumbrances with them. If you had to be handcuffed to a fat man, in addition, that would be something else again."
"Life is very bewildering. Don't you think so, Peggy?" ”

“ Tom Robbins said.
"I think those boys are really quite nice," Peggy said, as they sat under their favourite tree after supper.
"I think they are," Elizabeth said, "but it was rather mortifying the way they followed us in the first place. They ought to have known better."
"But it only needed a hint from us to make them realize."
"I think boys need those hints. It's the fault of girls if they aren't kept right up to the standard."
"Some of the girls on the Cape are not very particular. They are just out after a good time and don't care how they get it." ”

“ Millionaire-slacker-Piggy Chambers, and half over to Europe by this time."
"I don't like to think of it."
"Well, then, think of me," said Peggy. "You don't care as much as I care. You are going back to your Jean and you like her best. There, I said I would bite my tongue out before I said that to you, and now I've gone and said it."
"Let's not care what we say," Elizabeth said. "I do love Jean. Grandmother always says it doesn't make any difference how many children a woman has, she always has a different place in her heart for every one. I guess that's the way it is with friends. ”

“ Ruth Farraday was saying, "perhaps if I had, I wouldn't have attempted it."
"Well, this is the last marriage I can ever have in my family," Peggy said, "unless I ever take the fatal step myself, which I won't. You're just the same, aren't you, Elizabeth? You can only have one outside of your own."
"I don't think Buddy will ever marry," Elizabeth said, looking at Ruth Farraday.
"My son is coming to-morrow or the next day," Mrs. Swift said, hastily, "we hope that Cape Cod is really going to make him well again." ”

“ Peggy said. "Oh, goody, Mother's got a letter from my cousin in Rome—and Ruth has a letter from that Chambers fellow."
"What Chambers fellow?" Elizabeth asked, quickly.
"Piggy Chambers I call him. He's got loads of money and he is very good looking, and he just pesters Ruthie to death."
"What does she do?"
"She lets him. She likes it, rather."
"Oh, dear!" Elizabeth said.
"You don't have to worry. She's my sister. Piggy Chambers isn't so bad. He's just kind of a bore, you know, and awfully fond of writing letters to Piggy Chambers, Esquire. Lots of grown-up fellows are like that." ”