Jane Abbott

“ Mother Moira started ever so slightly, with the barest twitching of the hand Beryl's cheek touched.
"He was very nice to me. Mother, are he and—and Robin—awfully good friends?"
"What's in your heart, my girl?"
"Mom, couldn't Robin marry almost anybody? She's such a dear and she's so rich and she's travelled around so much."
"Why, bless the heart of her, she's nothing but a child!"
"Mother!" Beryl's voice rang impatiently. "We'll just never grow up in your eyes! Why, Robin's twenty. Well, I should think anyone'd like Tom Granger." ”

“ The fishing folk spent their leisure hours loafing in the shadow of the long shed, smoking and talking; often the artists boldly pitched their easels and stools in everyone’s way and painted a gray hull and a pink-gray sail, checkered with white patches, or a dark-skinned Portuguese bending to the task of spiking shiny cod from the bottom of a dory and throwing them to the wharf to be measured and weighed.
Sidney never failed to thrill to the changing scenes that Rockman’s offered. She had become, like Mart and Lavender and a score of other youngsters, a familiar figure on the old wharf. ”

“ Nancy told the master of Nonie, of that first night in the orchard, of her strange gift of imagination, of her "pretend" games by which she had persistently gilded over the very rough spots of a sordid, lonely life.
"She is always reaching out for the spirit of the things about her and trying to make each her own!"
"She is like a flower that has grown up among weeds," muttered the great man, his thoughts far away, a frown wrinkling his brow. "Sometimes, it is in such places that we find the greatest gifts. ”

“ Sunnyside, John Westley knew at once, was a "hand-made" house; each foot of it had been planned lovingly. Windows had been cut by no rule of architecture but where the loveliest view could be had; doors seemed to open just where one would want to go. The beams of the low ceiling and the woodwork of the walls had been stained a mellow brown. There was a piney smell everywhere, as though the fragrant odors of the mountainside had crept into and clung to the little house. ”

“ There she had her possessions, a flat-topped desk with long wobbly legs which she reached by a box balanced on an old stool, the skeleton of a sofa on which sat five dusty and neglected dolls, a scrap of carpeting, amazing as to red roses but sadly frayed about its edges, one boastful rocker in complete possession of arms and legs, which Trude had smuggled up to her, and a conglomeration of her favorite books scattered everywhere, for in the seclusion of the attic she could pore over them without risk of some Lady Leaguer discovering her love of them. ”

“ Nancy had declared. "It's the loveliest garden I ever saw, Jonathan," and she thought of Nonie's quaint words: "Jonathan puts in seeds that grow into pretty flowers and he's ugly!" Yes, the wrinkled, leathery face under the old hat was not beautiful, and yet something of the beauty of the flowers he grew was reflected in the expression of the old eyes that bent so tenderly over them.
"That's life," reflected Nancy, indulging in a moment's philosophizing. "It's really what we think and do that makes us beautiful or not beautiful!" ”

“ At the mention of the Rileys the smile he had mustered vanished, and his bushy eyebrows drew sharply down over his narrow eyes from which angry little gleams flashed.
"Who asked you to come to me, Miss Forsyth?"
Robin's heart went down into her boots. "No one," she answered in a faint voice. Then, quite suddenly, something in the hard, angry face opposite her fired that spark within her that Beryl had assured her she would feel. She felt the "big thing" grow and grow until she stood straight, quite unafraid, and could go on calmly. ”

“ Jerry and Ginny linked arms as they walked away with the others behind Uncle Johnny. The shadow dispelled—in youth the sun is always so happily close behind all the little clouds—the girls' spirits went forth, joyously, to meet the interests of the moment, the class oration, the class gift, the class song, Isobel's graduating dress, the Senior bouquets—the hundred and one exciting things about the proud class of girls and boys who were, in a few days, to pass forever from the school life—graduates. ”

“ Nancy looked curiously at the strange little figure, almost wraithlike in the dim light. It was hard to believe that the winsome creature could belong in Freedom—and to the "no-good" Hopworths.
There was grace in every movement of the thin little body not in the least concealed by the worn, soiled, out-grown dress. Two dark, burning, eager, questioning eyes told of a spirit that lived above and beyond the sordid, colorless monotony of a life with old Dan'l Hopworth and Liz, who "didn't believe a feller oughta have any fun!" ”

“ Dugald with their books went far from the Cape and Sunset Lane and the crooked body.
The girls, left to themselves, had decided to go clamming. Of all the novel things she had done in the last two weeks Sidney liked clamming best. It was even more fun than the Arabella for after all the Arabella was only pretend. She liked to feel her bare toes suck up the goosy sand as she stepped over the wet beds. She could never dig as fast as Mart or Lavender because she had to stop and watch the sky and the clouds and the moving sails and the swooping seagulls. ”

“ Uncanny, downright uncanny, though, for a girl her age to have such a far-reaching vision. Probably the child didn't realize, herself. Well, there was Jeanne d'Arc, and others, too, he pondered, hazily. And this talented girl Robin had found—a most unusual girl, who'd grown up in a tenement like a flower among weeds, yes, he'd seen such flowers growing amid rankest vegetation! She was not unlike Robin, herself. His mind circled to Robin's own little fifth-floor nest and the horrible odors of that dark stairway. ”

“ Dr. Travis is one of those mortals whose feet touch the earth and whose head is in the clouds; Mrs. Travis is a cultured, beautiful woman with a look in her eyes as though she was always afraid of something—just behind. And then Jerry—like them both and not a bit like 'em—her head in the clouds, all right—a girl who sees beauty and a promise and a vision in everything—a girl of dreams! You can imagine almost any sort of a story about her."
As Mrs. Allan had done, Mrs. Westley laughed at her brother-in-law's enthusiasm. ”

“ Mrs. Lynch's pleasant: "We want to see Granny," admitted them. Robin, blinded for the first moment of coming into the darkness of the room from the bright sunshine outside, stumbled over a chair and in her confusion mumbled some incoherent answer to the shrill cackle of welcome that came from the shrunken bit of humanity bending over a small stove.
"Poor Granny doesn't understand who you are," explained Mrs. Lynch, in an apologetic whisper, touching her head significantly. "Come here, Susy," and she motioned the staring child to her. ”

“ Of course, Anne, darling, if you could see me you'd look shocked—you'd say, 'Nancy Leavitt, when are you going to grow up!' But, Annie, if growing up and up and up is going to be to grow like your Aunt Sabrina, sitting all the day long dwelling on the glories that are past and gone—never—never—never! ”

“ Sidney, standing over her, wished she could do likewise with the same picturesque abandon. Mart was so splendidly “I don’t care a hang”; her tumbled hair now was thick with sand, across her tanned face was a smear of black, her shabby blouse was torn and open at the throat exposing her chest to the hot sun, her bare, hard-muscled legs were outstretched, the heels digging into the sand and the grimy toes separating and curling like the tentacles of a crab.
“Oh, this is the life,” she sang. “Sit down and make yourself at home. This beach’s yours as much as mine I guess.” ”

“ Around the corner dashed a Llewellyn setter and a wiry-haired terrier, tumbling over one another in their eagerness to reach their mistress; at the same moment a door leading from the house to the garden opened and a slender woman came out.
John Westley knew at a glance that she was Jerry's mother, for she had the same expression of sunniness on her lips; her hair, like Jerry's, looked as though it had been burnished by the sun though, unlike Jerry's clipped locks, it was softly coiled on the top of her finely-shaped head. ”

“ Aunt Nellie answered, smiling down at Keineth. "Keineth is happy in our simple life--"
"Simple life--that's just it!" Aunt Josephine spoke rapidly, as though Mrs. Lee had suddenly helped her to find the words she wanted. "You're so simple that you're wonderful! You've learned to live real lives without all the shams that make slaves of the rest of us. Why, my life seems as empty as a bubble and the things I do worth just about as much as a bubble by the side of this." ”