Katharine Haviland-Taylor

“ But the heat hadn’t made my depression. I had so wanted Miss Sheila and Mr. Wake to know and like each other. They were both lonely, and I loved them both and they seemed alike and suited to like each other in lots of ways. And I could tell that Mr. Wake needed Miss Sheila from the manner in which he had talked of her at the beginning of our friendship. And now it was all over; I could never present my dear friend to her, nor talk of my Fairy Godmother to him!
It did seem all wrong, but as Leslie and Viola both said, things turn out as one doesn’t expect them to. ”

“ Certosa is a large and beautiful place that tops a hill, about three miles outside of Florence, and I enjoyed going there, although it made me feel sad. I suppose my feeling was silly, but the order is an ancient one; they take in no new members, and all that are left to rattle around in the very big place are a half dozen tottering old men, whose hands shake as they unlock the heavy doors for you, and whose breath grows short as they travel the long stairs that take one up to the Capella Prima, which means the main chapel. ”

“ Miss Hutchinson had asked.
"Father McGowan," said Cecilia, "shall I ever be allowed to forget my inferiority to the most? It is always there, even when they ask me for money for their charities. They say, 'Mrs. Dash has subscribed. You will probably want to.' By right of bricks, I purchase my admission. Shall I always feel this way?"
"Oh, no," answered Father McGowan. "When you get past thirty you forget how you feel—that is, if you're any good. After that you think of others, and the ego is rubbed down by the world into its proper size."
"I am a pig!" said Cecilia. ”

“ I can’t believe it. You didn’t, did you, Amy?”
And again Amy said “No.”
“It is too childish for her,” Evelyn continued triumphantly. “She plays as good a game of bridge as I do, mother, and she wouldn’t stoop to this sort of action. That we leave to people who accept everything and give nothing but trouble.”
“In some way,” I said, “I am going to pay you for everything”--and I could feel myself growing steadily more white, for I was furiously angry--“and I am going home,” I added, “home where truth is believed and I am trusted.” Then I looked at Amy. ”

“ Cats that step reluctantly and pick up their feet in their wet-hating, curly way, will, I know, always take me back to the damp air of that afternoon when I walked down past the fish market to the Piazza del Duomo, where the cobbles shone in the wet and reflected the bobbing umbrellas, and where, instead of the usual chattering crowds, there were empty spaces, which was bound to give a feeling of loneliness to any one who knew and loved the Florence of sunny days. ”

“ French heels, Father McGowan, dear!"
"Cecilia Madden, dear," said Father McGowan. His look was inscrutable. He laid a hand on her hair. His touch was very gentle. "Most of all," he said, "remember never to be ashamed of your people, and always to love them. Love those who love you. Reason the truth out in your heart, and don't accept the standards of little Miss Millionairess, because she is that. Understand?"
"Yes," replied Cecilia, "I understand, but Father McGowan, I would always love paw. Wearing shoes and collars in the house is just the trimmings," she stated bravely. ”

“ Everyone called on me, and everyone gave me advice. The calls, the advice, the shrill of the locusts, the way the sunlight looked in the garden, and the braid which Mrs. Bradly insisted must be put on my new dresses, all tangled. I can’t think of one thing without having something else, that came in that time, creep in. I suppose it was because I was so hurried that nothing was sorted. It all simply sunk in my mind together as I rushed; and, of course, there was no calm between, in which one’s consciousness builds fences, or tethers a thought in its proper pasture. ”

“ At least John thought so, the pleasantest, he thought, for ages, but just now he was suffering from a profound shock. K. Stuyvesant had said something that had left John mentally holding on to his solar plexus.
"You say it's an evidence of youth to get drunk?" said John.
"Uh huh," answered K. Stuyvesant in an indifferent tone. "Surest sign in the world that a fellow's about nineteen. You know how it is, a chap wants to get old, be thought old, so he imitates what he thinks is manhood. Like a kid, picking out gilt instead of gold, he picks out a drunk, and thinks it's a man. ”

“ On the mantel were some pink tarletan stockings filled with candy—there was no fastening them up, the mantel was made of marble—and Leslie had got a little piece of mistletoe which Sam had hung in the doorway.
“Really, it has the feeling of Christmas,” said Leslie, as she picked up the gown, which I had made on her with safety pins.
“Hasn’t it?” murmured Viola, who, in spite of saying the most bitter things, did want to make up.
“When it’s lit by candles it will be pretty,” I prophesied, and it was. ”

“ Evelyn said that one would be a falling star.
“But perhaps you could persuade father that I need one,” Amy went on. “You have a tactful way and seem to be very chummy with him lately.”
“Oh, Baby!” said Evelyn (Baby is the family pet name for Amy) , “you should be ashamed of yourself! Why don’t you give father a Christmas present of not asking for the impossible and not whining for what he can’t give you?” ”

“ But,—Cecilia had dreamed of quiet evenings with the moon making a glittering path of silver on the Sound.... She'd dreamed of a big, gruff man coming toward her across soft grass.... That, and the scent of roses, pink roses.... Instead the summer would be full of Marjory's friends. Marjory had so many and such gay ones! Dancing, playing cards, motoring,—hunting pleasure with a strained intensity, running foolishly so that boredom should not overtake them.... And she had needed the summer with John. Marjory, her good friend, was not the one to show him things as Cecilia would have him see them. ”

“ THE EFFECT OF A SECRET It was hard to get down to real work after Christmas, for there was a spirit of gaiety in the air that was too strong to be ignored. In the streets was always the shrill noise that came from little tin horns; children were always playing on the pavements with their new toys, and you could hardly go a block without seeing a crowd around a vender of something or other that was built to please small people. . . . Monkeys that climb up frail, yellow sticks will always make me think of Florence in holiday dress—I know it! ”

“ Kempwood says was a famed beauty and a toast of that day (for men drank toasts to women then, if they liked them) , must have been kind as well as pretty. For a man may love a woman first for the loveliness of her skin or her eyes or her hair, but he loves her long for only one thing, and that is the beauty of her spirit. ”

“ Jeremiah's eyes were like a child's—the eyes of a frightened child. "Sometimes," he said in a whisper, "I'm afraid he's ashamed of me!"
"No!" exploded Father McGowan, "No!"
There is nothing like the scorn of the undetected guilty for those who are exposed. Cecilia was treated to fine scorn, supercilious looks, and, worst of all, a chill overlooking; for she had allowed a boy whom she'd never met to buy her a soda water and a pink sundae! ”

“ It is, in some way connected with Cosimo I, it is said, and the Medici coat of arms is to be found around in different spots. It is a very old building, and it is, like everything else on the hillside, perched on the slant with all its lovely gardens planted on steps. And down below spreads out the country with little blazing yellow roadways, and pink and tan villas, and groves of gentle green olive trees, and a church and monastery that often send up the soft sound of bells. ”

“ Chase goes on pounding as a smile gradually widens on his face; someone above speaks, the Chase individual can hear the voice since the doors are open, and, although it was a mansion for that day, it is not a great house for to-day. The sounds easily carry, and especially since it is night and a ‘calm September one, in which hardly a leaf stirred.’ He pounds three times, and up above three quaking people think a question is answered and that a ghost walks and thumps. ”

“ I can't, Cecilia——"
"Don't!" answered Cecilia. "You are! I know you better than any one. You have been my best friend always, and I say you are!"
Marjory's fingers plucked at the coverlet restlessly. She breathed in quick gasps. Cecilia laid her hand on Marjory's. "Perhaps to-morrow you'll feel differently?" she suggested. "You know dark makes things so much darker. I'll do anything to make you happier. I'll ask Mr. Twombly to come out and play with you often, Marjory dear." ”

“ The old ladies who always sit in doorways and call to each other, huddled less over their scaldinoes, and little boys with bare knees ran through the paths in the Piazza Indipendenza or spun their tops on the pavement on our side of the street. Of course officers walked slowly, and little knots of soldiers from the ranks collected on corners to talk, and pretty Italian girls fluttered past. ”

“ Evelyn didn’t even stop to wipe her feet. . . . And we saw that the window-sill was splintered and that there were deep dents in it, as if someone had pounded in a huge nail and then pulled it out.
“More thieving,” said aunt. “We must be calm. . . . I am going to faint, I know I am. Evelyn, get your bedroom slippers. There seems to be no safety, no calm. But if you will just try to hold on to control----” And then somehow Amy got tangled up in the telephone cord and pulled the telephone from the table, and the table over with it, and aunt simply screamed.
Uncle Archie was tired. ”

“ The painting smiled down gently.
"Pink roses," it seemed to say. "There are always pink roses, but youth must hold them to see their beauty.... Seeing no loveliness in dreams denied, no heights in greatest depths...."
"Come in!" said John. "Please!" K. Stuyvesant hesitated. He wanted to, for just a glimpse of Cecilia was everything to him; but, she—she had not wanted to see him. "I am out a great deal," she said in that memorable 'phone message,—also, "I have quite forgotten the little episode of the boat." ”

“ Wake, “that I am too old to meet a Fairy Godmother. No doubt—” (he was trying to play, but his tone was a little stiff) “she’d suggest picnicking in the moonlight—isn’t that the hour when Fairy Rings are most popular?—and that might make my shoulders stiff. Then—seriously, dear child—I am no good as a cavalier; I falter. Children and old ladies are the age for me now, and soon it will be middle-aged women, whom I shall think of as children. ”

“ The shops were simply gorgeous with their red and green decorations, and people carried packages, looked tired, but smiled. It was the greatest fun in the world to go out on Saturday mornings and scrunch through the snow to the subway, and then delve into the crowds, who laughed and pushed and hurried with such good nature. Amy and I could hardly wait for school to close. And in school notes simply flew, all of them containing confidences about the furs the writer hoped to get, or the ostrich-feather fan she knew she was going to get, having seen the long package on the hall table. ”

“ DARK CLOUDS The days that followed were dark and gloomy; the cold crept inside and every one was uncomfortable and almost every one cross. Sometimes I think that the weather really makes all the history, and certainly if it hadn’t been damp Leslie wouldn’t have been sick with a cold; and if she hadn’t had a cold she wouldn’t have quarreled with Viola; and if Viola and she hadn’t quarreled, Viola wouldn’t have told Miss Meek all about Leslie’s heart affair; and if Viola hadn’t confided it to Miss Meek, then Viola and Leslie might have patched up their difference long before they did. ”

“ Cecilia was aware of Stuyvesant's eyes. They were so dear! She wondered if it was very wicked to love them, for she knew she always would.... And he had intimated that if Jeremiah were less prominent—Cecilia swallowed hard. The gods are visited with temptations, and too often they come to little humans. Cecilia was meeting hers. For the minute she felt anything possible, justifiable for the end she craved, and in the middle of her minute the white spark in her little heart flared.
"Papa," she said, "please tell Mr. Twombly about the time you hit the boss on the ear with a brick." ”

“ Kempwood’s being hurt had almost made me sick.
“Look here, Nat,” he said, turning over very carefully so that he faced me, “we’re friends, aren’t we?”
I nodded, just as hard as I could, for emphasis. For various reasons, I decided I would not speak just then. I was afraid my voice would behave as Willy Jepson’s used to when he was fourteen. He himself never knew whether it was going to sound like Hamlet, in the soliloquy, or Miss Hooker when she saw a fuzzy caterpillar; and those ranges differ widely.
“Well, if we’re friends,” went on Mr. Kempwood, “whatever bothers you must bother me. ”

“ Wake, said “Nonsense, I have gray hair, and wrinkles—”
“No—” Mr. Wake shook his head. “No—” he said again.
She smiled at him, and her lips quivered.
“You,” she said, “can still say pretty things, can’t you?”
“To you, Sheila,” he answered, and then I thought that Sam and I ought to move on. I said so in an aside to Sam, who was acting as if he were sitting in an aisle seat and twisting his program into funny shapes while he waited—in great suspense—for the hero to get the girl just before the drop of the last curtain. I think men are much too natural at times, and that was one of them. ”

“ Hadn't believed her.... "One more try, Cecilia, although you are a great trial both to me and my pupils," echoed through her brain in Mrs. De Pui's cold tones. Cecilia sat upright on the bed. "My heart's right," she said aloud. "I believe it's better than Annette's. Don't that count for nothing? Ain't being kind being a lady?" She stared sullenly across the room. The white furniture glittered coldly. From between the flutter of scrim curtains she saw a painfully well arranged park. Even the trees were smugly superior.
"Gawd was in that flat," she said, and again aloud. ”

“ For all you really take is love, and the whitest part of your soul. I am sure all jealousies, and hurts and little things stay here, and I like to believe so. . . . But to get on, old Chloe told my grandfather, and he, a broken-hearted old man, took it off. And then he kissed my mother’s arm, at the spot where the bracelet had made a mark, and he said: “It’s all right now, my little girl, isn’t it? It’s all right now!” For he hoped she was very happy. And then he went off and sat down on the porch, his head sagging down on his chest and in his hands the Jumel bracelet. ”