Joslyn Gray

“ Her realization that the girl's charming face and figure were matched by a most lovable personality came so quickly as to seem instantaneous. In very truth, Elsie's bubbling gayety and sweetness of disposition were as natural and inseparable as her very dimples.
At once, Miss Pritchard's life took on new color, new meaning. The change for her was far greater than if she had carried out her former intention and gone from work in the city to leisure in the country. She was in a new, strange, wonderful country where life was interesting, even thrilling, beyond anything she had ever known. ”

“ Lorraine’s grimness melt before that absurd mite of kitten. As her daughter passed it over to her, she, too, hid her face against its softness. Then she put it in her lap and gazed at it in a sort of fascination, her daughter hanging over her and quite unnecessarily calling attention to the little thing’s charms. As a matter of fact, Mrs. Lorraine hadn’t handled—hadn’t even seen—a baby kitten of the ordinary, harmless, necessary cat-kind since she had been a child in a New England farmhouse and had worshipped the successive litters of a three-coloured Tabby that had lived at one of the barns. ”

“ And sometimes I just hate to be at the head of my class, and I’d like to waste time in school instead of always studying, and even to be real bad, just to see how it would feel. But you can’t, of course, when you’re bigger than everyone in school, even the teacher. I never was even spoken to in school in all my life, but sometimes I dream I am. I dream that Miss Sherman says: ‘Why, Betty Pogany, a great big girl like you!’ And the boys all grinning and everybody in school looking at me!”
As she glanced up, Meadowcroft smiled kindly. The girl smiled frankly, too. ”

“ Lorraine, who had come out of her shell almost unbelievably in her week of companionship with Miss Penny, so that now in the crisis she was a very tower of strength not only to Miss Penny but to the Miller household as well, began to be greatly troubled by her daughter’s demeanour. She had rejoiced at the manner in which the girl had bloomed under Anna’s influence, and had been amazed not only at her capacity for learning and power of adaptability but at the generous warmth and sweetness of her nature. She had believed that a real transformation had taken place. ”

“ Now you, Elsie dear, concerned with make-believe—fiction—as you will constantly be in your study for the stage, eager, of course, to use every moment and occasion, with one subject dominating your thoughts, will need to be very, very careful with regard to your separate, personal life. In other words, in good old-fashioned terms, you'll have to guard your soul. Keep that good and pure and true. Keep that sacred, above and apart from your work, and then whether you are ever a great actress or not, you will be a good woman. ”

“ But it’s harder for you to wait so long. I hope you can keep up your spirits, though,” Betty returned wistfully.
“O, Betty darling, don’t worry about my spirits. I don’t mind waiting one mite. It’s not so bad, you know, being blind. It’s really sort of fun when one has such a chum as you. And the thing I am most anxious to see is you in sailor-suits with your hair down your back. And yet, I can imagine even that, for you sound so young and limber now—and so pretty!”
Betty laughed. And somehow Rose knew in her heart how prettily she flushed, too. ”

“ How would she ever live without the evening to look forward to? How blissful to have another week before her—six more appearances before that vast, applauding throng! How happily would she go to sleep tonight to the music of the lullaby of the thought: "Another week at the Merry Nickel, another week at the Merry Nickel! Bliss! Bliss! Bliss!"
And yet it wasn't at all a blissful face which Miss Pritchard bore in memory to her own room that night after she had kissed Elsie, put out the light, and opened the windows. ”

“ Anna added. “And yet, Mrs. Langley, there’s worse than that. Now my friend that I am going back to the city to see lost her husband in the summer and now she’s sick herself, and there’s her baby. If she should—well, it must be no end harder for one to think of dying and leaving one’s baby alone in the world than to move away from somewhere and leave the grave of a baby whose soul is all safe.” ”

“ Harrow opened the door, Betty’s eyes shone so deeply and her cheeks glowed so rosily, that in other circumstances that lady must have wondered. But she hadn’t seen the girl since the preceding Saturday, and there was something far more striking and startling to discover about her than shining eyes and glowing cheeks. She stared at her in utter amazement, her face, which, since Rose’s illness, had taken on a seemingly permanent expression of half-fretful, half-despairing anxiety, becoming void for the nonce of all save sheer wonderment. ”

“ Elsie smiled. Indeed she almost laughed, partly because she was herself struck by the humor of it, partly because it would so amuse Elsie Moss when she wrote her about it.
"Oh, no," she repeated. "Oh, no, Uncle John"—resolutely—"she was just—well—she was acting, I suppose. She wants very much to go on the stage."
"And doesn't lose any opportunity for practice?" He smiled, but rather ruefully. "Poor child! Somehow, of all ambitions, there seems to be more tragedy, more pitifulness, underlying that than any other. Where one succeeds, so many fail—go down into darkness and obscurity. ”

“ Langley sat almost erect. When it had happened, Anna did not know, but she noticed now for the first time that the hump was gone. “I don’t want you without him,” she cried, “and I want to know the truth. Why should he be afraid of me after I had done all that?”
“Because—O, if everything else was all right, he would be afraid of—your teeth!” the girl cried desperately. “They’re so—far apart—there’s a gap on each side. He hasn’t many, himself, but they’re close up and anyhow he doesn’t know what he looks like. When I hold him up to the mirror, what do you think he does. He looks right at me!” ”

“ Tommy delivered the message immediately. Betty heard it indifferently. Indeed, it failed to penetrate her wretchedness sufficiently to make any impression. Terrible as the experience of that morning had been, it already seemed to the girl far, far in the past. Her one thought was of Rose and of the weekly visits to Dr. Vandegrift. If the latter were over, if Rose was condemned to perpetual blindness, what did anything matter?
All day, the girl’s heart had been like a stone. Never in her life had she known such wretchedness. She had proposed to Rose that they should take the train home. ”

“ If he wasn’t her father, if he were some younger man—Anna wouldn’t admit it even to herself, but something kept trying to tell her that Alice acted now just as a girl would who was planning to run away—to elope. Still, that did not explain her interest in Reuben. Alice didn’t question any more, it is true, but she was all eagerness whenever Reuben was mentioned. But nothing could be more absurd, if one knew Reuben, than to connect him in any way with the man with whom Alice had been seen or with the occasion of her solitary rambles. ”

“ For her part, the eager, warm-hearted girl adored Miss Pritchard almost at sight. The strength and sincerity of the woman, her utter unselfishness, her wisdom, her humor, and her keen intelligence combined to make her the most impressive personality the sensitive young girl had ever encountered. Quite untroubled by the ethical aspect of the situation, she gave herself up to it wholly, only troubled lest she had gotten the better part of the exchange she had made with the real Elsie Marley; lest she be cheating the other out of companionship with this wonderful Cousin Julia. ”

“ As a matter of fact, lack of experience made Meadowcroft more critical and exacting always as a teacher than Mr. Appleton; and when he made special effort to be thorough and to take nothing for granted, as he did in this instance, he was truly to be feared. Those fifteen lessons proved something never to be forgotten.
“Wasn’t it fierce!” cried Rose as they sank into their seats in the half-past four train. “Isn’t that man the limit when he’s really mad? Goodness me, do you suppose it will be as bad as this every day, Betty?” ”