Mabell S. C. Smith

“ She rocked to and fro upon her knees, and hid her face in her hands to shut out the glory of beauty and calm that lay before and around her.
"I never thought that love would be like this. To feel it—to be sure of it—and to have to give him to another woman!" She began to cry weakly.
The moon flooded the gallery with its light. A diamond on one of Sydney's clasped hands winked as gayly as if a tragedy were not filling the girl's heart. Then oft-read words came to her lips:
"Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing more courageous, nothing higher; nothing wider, nothing more pleasant ”

“ A lovely vine waved from a wall vase of exquisite design and vines trailed around the wide door as naturally as if they grew there instead of springing from bottles of water concealed behind tall jars of pink hollyhocks.
"It is perfectly charming, my dears, and I can't tell you how obliged I am," said their hostess as she pressed a bill into Ethel Brown's hand. "I know that every woman who will be here will want you the next time she entertains, and I shall tell everybody you did it." ”

“ Fortunately for Dicky, Mrs. Vereshchagin, unlike Mrs. Paterno, had a sense of humor, and as soon as she saw that her child was neither injured nor in danger she burst into laughter as loud as his cries of rage and terror. Roger quickly unfastened him from the tree to which he was bound and handed him over to his mother, none the worse for his experience except that his rompers were torn. Turning to Dicky, Roger decreed that the head must be taken from his arrow.
"It's not your fault, old man," he said; "but Helen was right--this thing is too sharp." ”

“ Helen said, “I want to thank Uncle Richard for giving us the very finest kind of present,” and she waved her hand across the table to Miss Daisy, whose shining eyes and glowing cheeks told of her delight in all she had seen. “Uncle Richard is taking away Ethel Blue, but he’s giving us an aunt. We love her already and we think we’ve all won a prize in her.”
“Ah, no,” exclaimed Miss Daisy, slipping one hand into Ethel Blue’s and laying the other on Captain Morton’s shoulder. “It is I who have won a prize—a double prize!” ”

“ There came to von Rittenheim as he stabled his mule, with many a tender pat upon his coarse coat, one of those times of spiritual insight when we see ourselves as after a long absence we look with scrutiny upon once familiar objects. A perception of new growth filled him with surprise, as we look at the seedling under the window, and notice of a sudden that it has grown to be a sapling. ”

“ Under Miss Merriam's skilful care Elisabeth of Belgium slowly climbed the hill of health. She had grown so weak that she required to be treated like a child much younger than she really was. Miss Merriam gave her extremely nourishing food in small amounts and often; she made her rest hours as long as those of a baby of a year and her naps were always taken in the open air, where she lay warmly curled up in soft rugs like a little Eskimo. At night she and her care-taker slept on an upper porch where she drew deep draughts of fresh air far down into the depths of her tiny relaxed body. ”

“ Dorothy decided. "What's yours, Ethel Blue?"
"I know mine is hepatica. See the 'hairy scape' Helen talked about? And see what a lovely, lovely color the blossom is? Violet with a hint of pink?"
"That would be the best of all for a border. The leaves stay green all winter and the blossoms come early in the spring and encourage you to think that after a while all the flowers are going to awaken." ”

“ She was coming up the hill, laughing with Bob.
Von Rittenheim looked appealingly at Mrs. Carroll.
"Sydney," she called, "go on to the house, dear, with Bob, and send James here."
She rose and laid her hand tenderly on the bent head.
"Stay here a while. It is still quite warm enough for you."
She went slowly across the lawn and disappeared beneath the veranda's roses. A level ray from the setting sun touched Friedrich's fair hair with gold, and went on to be splintered into a thousand tiny shafts against the swelling side of the silver cream-jug. ”

“ Huge hampers of flowers lay beneath a table of planks stretched on trestles. Around it were grouped a dozen of the girls of the Vacation Club weaving wreaths for the heads of the little girls who soon began to arrive, and filling small baskets for them to carry. Some of the children were so small that their nurses had to come with them. They were put first in the long line of twos, while Dorothy and Della Watkins, who were the tallest of all, were the very last. Every girl had a white dress and they made a charming picture which drew a crowd of grown-ups to watch them. ”

“ Dorothy said that she did.
“I saw a lovely piece of it the other day with a design of apple-blossoms. I should use that as a covering for your bed, your couch, your chairs, and for hangings for the windows. Then across one end of the wall—on that shadiest side,—I should throw a branch of apple-blossoms, painted in the same blurry, indefinite way in which the flowers appear on the chintz. I knew a man who was enough of the artist in his soul to do the thing as if the wall had suddenly grown thin and through it you could see an apple tree in blossom out in the orchard.” ”

“ CHAPTER II MOYA AND SHEILA
Elisabeth of Belgium was walking sturdily now on the legs that had been too weak to uphold her when she first came to Rosemont in November. Her increasing strength was an increasing delight to all the people who loved her--and there was no one who knew her who did not love her--but her activity obliged her caretakers to be incessantly on the alert. Miss Merriam, the skilled young woman from the School of Mothercraft, who had pulled her through her period of greatest feebleness, now found herself sometimes quite outdone by the energy of her little charge. ”

“ Helen reassured her. "What you are to do is to dip the fingers of your left hand into one of these saucers. If it proves to be the one with the clear water you'll marry a bachelor; if it's the sandy one he'll be a widower, and if it's the empty one you'll be a spinster to your dying day."
"You have three tries," cried Ethel Blue, "and the saucers are changed after each trial, so you have to touch the same one twice to be sure you really know your fate. Are you ready?" ”

“ Is the law of hospitality to be held of no account? And how is he innocent who poses as my friend, who drinks from my cup, who holds my hand in his, and who goes forth to betray me? Is there no law that binds a friend in honor? I have broken a law—the law of man. Those two men of whom I speak have broken the laws of the heart, the ties of honor and of love. I am a criminal in the eyes of men. They are sinners before the face of God."
Friedrich was trembling as he felt these words flow through his mind. ”

“ The moonlight shone brilliantly on the lake and at its upper end, two or three miles away, the lights of Mayville twinkled through the trees. Boats and canoes were drawing in toward the shore, for Chautauqua custom demands that every one be at home by ten o'clock, and that quiet reign so that the people who have studying to do or are obliged to rise early for their classes and so must go to bed early may not be disturbed. ”

“ They had grown up with the belief that armament was necessary to preserve peace. Great men and good had said so. "If we are prepared for war," they declared, "other nations will be afraid to fight us." Captain and Lieutenant Morton had agreed with them, as was natural for men of their profession. They did not believe in aggression but in being ready for defense should they be attacked.
Now it seemed to Roger and Helen as they read of the sufferings of invaded France and the distress of trampled Belgium that no country had the right to benefit by results obtained through such cruel means. ”

“ I was told that the house belonged to Marie Corelli, the novelist."
"What plants did she have?" asked Dorothy.
"Blue lobelia and scarlet geraniums and some frisky little yellow bloom; I couldn't see exactly what it was."
"Red and yellow and blue," repeated Ethel Brown. "Was it pretty?"
"Very. Plenty of each color and all the boxes alike all over the front of the house."
"We shouldn't need such vividness under our brilliant American skies," commented Mrs. Smith. "Plenty of green with flowers of one color makes a window box in the best of taste, to my way of thinking." ”

“ A mother feels that she can do as her judgment dictates with her own children, but with her stepchildren she weighs everything with even greater care, because she feels an added responsibility toward them.”
“But she can’t love them as she does her own children,” said Ethel Blue.
“I think there is very little difference,” said her Aunt Marion. “I am not your stepmother but at the same time I am not your own mother, and I am not conscious of loving you any less than I love Ethel Brown. You are both my dear girls.” ”

“ Ethel Brown pretended to shoot them all with unerring arrow, and Dicky charged the bushes in handsome style and routed the enemy with awful slaughter.
"This is just the kind of game we ought not to play if we want to make Dicky think of peace and not of war," declared Ethel Blue at last when she had become breathless from the excitement of their countless adventures.
"That's so. It's funny how you forget. It's just as Delia says--we don't realize how fighting and soldiers and thinking about military things is put into our minds even in games when we're little." ”

“ Morgan had knelt against the wall, tearless, and without a word of prayer.
Now it was over, and there was no hope, only waiting for the end,—the waiting that saps courage from the heart of the onlooker, and makes endurance seem a thing impossible; the torture of seeing suffering that is not to be relieved; suffering that seems all unnecessary, since death is to be the issue after all.
Bob had asked for Sydney as soon as he came out of the chloroform, and she had responded at once. ”

“ The ugly smoke will turn into a thing of beauty. The queer point of it all is," he continued, shaking his head sadly, "fairyland is there all the time and always beautiful, only you can't see it."
Dicky's eyes opened wide and he gazed out of the window intent on peering into this mysterious invisible playground.
"Lots of things are like that," agreed Roger. "Don't you remember how those snowflakes we looked at under the magnifying glass on Ethel Blue's birthday burst into magnificent crystals? You wouldn't think a handful of earth—just plain dirt—was pretty, would you? But it is. ”

“ All the girls assisted at the baby's going to bed ceremonies, and tall Helen felt a catch in her throat no less than Ethel Blue at sight of the wasted legs and arms and hollow chest.
"I wonder, now," said Aunt Louise when they had gone down stairs again, leaving Ethel Blue and Ethel Brown to sit in the next room until their own bedtime, so that the faintest whimper might not go unheard. "I wonder where we are going to find some one competent to take care of this baby. A child in such a condition needs more than ordinary care; she needs skilled care." ”

“ It bent this way and that way and crouched back into its holder and then leaped out just in time to meet a slap from a bold wind that drew heavily across the room and in passing, sent the flame, Zip! against Helen's muslin draperies.
In a second they were ablaze, shooting upward toward the ceiling. Dicky watched the fire, fascinated with its speed and its faint crackle as if it were chuckling with amusement at its own pranks.
But fun never lasts very long; Dicky had found that out before. In a minute pieces of muslin, all turned black now, began to float down on him. ”

“ In a near-by tree an insect insisted that “Katy did,” and in the grass a cricket chirruped its shrill call.
“I do feel that Aunt Louise’s being able to build this pretty house after all her years of wandering is about the nicest thing that ever happened out of a fairy story,” murmured Helen softly to her mother, but loudly enough for the others to hear.
“There are people who talk about the law of compensation,” smiled Mrs. Morton in the darkness. “They think that if one good is lacking in our lives other goods take its place.” ”

“ The air was cool and warm, and bright and mellow, and all the contradictions that make October the month of the year's mature perfection; that middle age of the seasons, when the blossoms of folly are past, and the fruits of the will are ripened, and the chill of bare winter is still in the future.
Occasionally, in sheer exuberance, von Rittenheim rose high in his stirrups and gave a whoop of gladness that made Gray Eagle skip in sympathetic deviation from his usual long stride. ”

“ Helen decided, "because the leaves lie closer to the ground."
"What are the blossoms?"
"The ginger has such a wee flower hiding under the leaves that it doesn't count, but the hepatica has a beautiful little blue or purple flower at the top of a hairy scape."
"A hairy what?" laughed Roger.
"A scape is a stem that grows up right from the or root-stock and carries only a flower—not any leaves," defined Helen.
"That's a new one on me. I always thought a stem was a stem, whatever it carried," said Roger.
"And a scape was a 'grace' or a 'goat' according to its activities," concluded Tom. ”

“ Ethel Blue had a real glow when she recalled that although she had been badly scared she had pulled herself together and really driven the cow away, and Dorothy felt that since her nightmare had once had so laughable an ending perhaps it would not come again.
Because of their early rising all the girls took a nap in the afternoon.
"You want to put spirit into your folk dances to-night," Mrs. Morton replied to the Ethels' remonstrances against this hardship. "I want my girls to move with life and not as if they were half asleep." ”

“ To be sure, there was Sydney Carroll, who might supply purpose to any man who loved her, if that man were not a broken-spirited craven. The hopeless longing that had been in his eyes while he gazed at the sunset filled them once more. What had he to offer her but devotion,—the one capacity that was mighty within him? No, not even Love could endow him with Purpose.
Always he completed the circle of his thoughts. He must work for somebody else. ”

“ The road lay through a rolling country with pleasant suburban towns and comfortable-looking farm houses. At Valley Forge they felt like real pilgrims at a shrine, for they remembered the bitter suffering of the American soldiers and the even greater mental anguish of their leader, who sometimes felt that he had led his brave men into this distress, and might not be able to lead them to the victory which he must have, if the colonies were to become independent of the land they had sprung from. ”

“ Some of the villages among the coal mines are hideous from the waste that has been thrown out for years upon a pile never taken away, always increasing. No grass grows on it, no children play on it, the hens won't scratch on it. The houses of the miners turn one face to this ugliness and it is only because they turn toward the mountains on another side that the people are preserved from the death of the spirit that comes to those who look forever on the unlovely. ”

“ The novices always wore a nervously doubtful smile as they left the familiar ties of earth and water behind them and a laugh of delight as they came back unafraid and joyous.
"It looks as if it must be the most perfect feeling that you could have," sighed Ethel Blue as they watched a beaming woman approach over the water and then come down from her seat beside the air chauffeur. "I'm like Roger—I could almost die happy if I could have just one fly."
"The airman has offered a prize for the best name for his machine," Ethel Brown read from the Daily at breakfast one morning. ”

“ I call it merely an understanding of the financial law and a lack of understanding of the law of kindness.”
“I don’t see what law dear Aunt Louise could have broken to have made her have such a hard time,” wondered Ethel Blue. “Her husband being killed and her having to wander about without a home for so many years—that seems like a hard punishment.”
“Men have decided that ‘ignorance of the law is no excuse’!” said her aunt, “and the same thing is true of laws that are not man-made.”
“That seems awfully hard,” objected Helen; “it doesn’t seem fair to punish a person for what he doesn’t know.” ”

“ There was a slice of the stem of a small plant there and it looked just as if it were a house with a lot of rooms. Each room was a cell, Helen said."
"A very suitable name," commented Ethel Brown.
"What are you people talking about?" asked Helen, who came in at that instant.
"I was telling the girls about that time when I looked through the high school microscope," answered Ethel Blue.
"You saw among other things, some cells in the very lowest form of life. A single cell is all there is to the lowest animal or vegetable." ”

“ At Oakwood Baroness Hilda von Rittenheim's coming partook of the nature of an event. Sydney, who never had happened to hear even her name mentioned, went about during the time of her grandmother's absence in a state of agreeable anticipation. She was curious to see this unexpected arrival, and she took pleasure in arranging flowers in her room, and in shading the windows to produce the most desirable light.
"It will please him," she thought, "for us to be nice to her. Poor thing, she's lost all she cared for in the world; everybody ought to be nice to her." ”

“ Up to the time of the fire the Ethels had escorted Dicky to the kindergarten and had then run on to the Girls' Club.
Roger and his grandfather strolled northward along the shore of the lake talking about Helen.
"I understand exactly how she feels," said Roger, "because I should feel exactly the same way if you people expected me to do what you expect her to do."
"But she's a girl," remonstrated Mr. Emerson.
"I guess girls nowadays are different from girls in your day, Grandfather," said Roger wisely. ”

“ One tablespoonful in two gallons of water!"
"Grandfather says he wouldn't ask for plants to blossom better than ours are doing." Ethel Brown repeated the compliment with just pride.
"It's partly because we've loved to work with them and loved them," insisted Ethel Blue. "Everything you love answers back. If you hate your work it's just like hating people; if you don't like a girl she doesn't like you and you feel uncomfortable outside and inside; if you don't like your work it doesn't go well."
"What do you know about hating?" demanded Dorothy, giving Ethel Blue a hug. ”

“ Johnny, at the bridle's length, nibbled at the enamelled green of the lion's tongue with equine vanity,—for he knew that it would beautify his coat,—and pushed his muzzle down among the dry leaves beyond the radius of the pine-needles, lipping them daintily in search of something more appetizing beneath.
The sunshine forced its way through the thick branches of the pine and frolicked gayly with Sydney's ruddy hair, as she tossed aside her hat and sat down to recover her composure, so suddenly and extraordinarily lost. ”

“ Roger ran from his vegetable garden to see what was the matter; Helen appeared from her garden of wild flowers; Miss Merriam, the baby’s caretaker, ran from the porch where she was talking with the Ethels who were waiting for the out-of-town members of the U. S. C. to arrive. At the moment when all these people were rushing to the rescue, Margaret and James Hancock, just off the Glen Point street car, hurried from the corner, and Della and Tom Watkins, arrived by the latest train from New York, burst open the gate in their excitement. ”

“ They all laughed, for Ethel Blue's struggles with mathematics were calculated to arouse sympathy even in a hardened breast.
"It's all true," agreed Helen, who had been listening quietly to what the younger girls were saying, "and I believe we ought to show people more than we do that we like them. I don't see why we're so scared to let a person know that we think she's done something well, or to sympathize with her when she's having a hard time."
"O," exclaimed Dorothy shrinkingly, "it's so embarrassing to tell a person you're sorry." ”

“ He was not sorry for his pledge; he felt that he could have done no less; but Sydney's proud, earnest face flashed before him, and his memory saw it soften and flush with the happy shyness that covered it when she gave him her handkerchief,—and he wondered to what extent Hilda would consider that his promise bound him.
A few days made it clear that he had committed himself to no mere form of words. She received the admiration of every man in the Neighborhood. Patton McRae's elastic heart added another to its list of occupants, and John Wendell fell seriously in love with her. ”

“ From a vase of flowers and leaves and ferns which Mrs. Morton contributed to the game each selected what he wanted to draw. Then, holding his leaf so that the light threw a sharp shadow upon his pad, he quickly painted the shadow with the ink, thinning it with water upon the saucer so that the finished painting showed several shades of gray.
"The beauty of this stunt is that a fellow who can't draw at all can turn out almost as good a masterpiece as Ethel Blue here, who has the makings of a real artist," and James gazed at his production with every evidence of satisfaction. ”

“ The girl paid little attention to him, for, like all mountain horses, he was accustomed to pick his way with a sagacity that man cannot assist.
On Sydney's face rested a shade too heavy to have been brought there by the failings, customary to the country, of Melissa's husband. But twenty years are not proof against the joint attack of sunshine and fresh, sweet air and the glorious motion of a horse, and she seemed a happy, care-free girl to Bob Morgan, sitting in the sun on his father's porch. ”

“ And then there was a long, long silence.
XI
In the Corn
Summer had come.
The soft days of spring had gone by, the days when the feeling of growth impresses every sense. The haze-filled April mornings, warming into the forcing ardor of noon, had stirred into life the activity latent in root and twig. May's glowing sun, shining through the scantily covered branches, made dancing motes of heat wave above the surface of red clay. The aspens fluttered into exquisite greenness. The sourwood put forth the satin of its tender leaves. ”

“ Violets were born!'"
"That's pretty; what's the rest of it?" asked Ethel Brown, on her knees taking up some of the plants with her trowel and placing them in her basket so carefully that there was plenty of earth surrounding each one to serve as a nest when it should be put into Helen's wild flower bed.
"It's about something good happening when everything seems very bad," explained Ethel Blue. ”

“ They were in a gay mood as they gathered up their baskets and trowels and gently laid pieces of newspaper over the uprooted plants.
"It isn't hot to-day but we won't run any risk of their getting a headache from the sun," declared Dorothy.
"These woodsy ones that aren't accustomed to bright sunshine may be sensitive to it," assented Ethel Blue. "We must remember to tell Helen in just what sort of spot we found each one so she can make its corner in the garden bed as nearly like it as possible."
"I'm going to march in and quote Shakespeare to her," laughed Ethel Brown. ”

“ A sharp note was in Friedrich's voice.
"My dear Baron, I must make the humiliating confession that long disuse has impaired sadly my understanding of German. If you should speak to me very slowly, probably I could comprehend you, but at that time you were not speaking slowly."
"My nurses?"
"Neither of them speaks a word of anything but English."
"It is an escape," he murmured. "Forgive me, gnädige Frau. It is a startle to think that perhaps you have given to the world your heart's thoughts."
"Be reassured. It was only the names, Max and Hilda, that we understood." ”