Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

“ But she lay in her grave, with the grass springing over her, and did not hear.
When Ada Lambert knew of the legacy which the dead woman had left to her, she set up her dimly remembered face, like a saint's, in her orthodox heart. Those thin, rosy cheeks, those heavy-lidded, resolute eyes, and the smoothly crimped, gray-yellow hair gleamed out of its inner shadows. She worshiped it with purest offerings of love and pity and sympathy. If it were worth the while, poor Angeline was really canonized in return for her long years of silent suffering, and had her own shrine and her own devotee. ”

“ When Letitia came to herself again, she was in a great feather-bed in the unfinished loft of the log-house. The wind blew in her face, a great, star shone in her eyes. She thought at first she was out of doors, then she heard a kind but commanding voice repeating, "Open your mouth," and stared up wildly in her great-great-great-grandmother's face, then around the strange little garret lighted with a wisp of rag in a pewter dish of tallow, and the stars shining through the cracks in the logs. Not a bit of furniture was there in the room beside the bed and an oak chest. ”

“ As she sat there the scent of the lilies came more strongly than ever, and now with a curious effect. It was to the girl as if the fragrance were twining and winding about her and impelling her like leashes. All at once an impulse of yielding which was really freedom came to her. Why in the world should she not cross the little north yard, step over the low hedge, and go into that lily-garden? She knew that it would be beautiful there. She looked forth into the crystalline light and the soft plumy shade, — she would go over into the Ware garden. ”

“ She had converted every unused dish in the house into a receptacle for her rose leaves. Old china teapots stood about, and sugar bowls, and earthen jars, all exhaling spicy sweetness. They were in every room in the house. The amusements which life held for Clarissa seemed to be concentrated into this one gentle, erratic one of conserving rose leaves. And the amusement was of such long standing that it was almost like a duty to her. It is doubtful if she did not unconsciously think it wrong to let a rose leaf entirely perish, with all its sweetness, while she could save it. ”

“ Neither dreamed that Emmeline knew perfectly well how she looked and that an innocent rapture because of her beauty in her silver-dotted gown seemed to perfume her very soul. It is more beautiful than beauty itself to be innocently conscious of it, and to value it more for the sake of the love of another than for self-love. Emmeline reflected how pleased the Boy would be with her appearance and she tasted that pleasure instead of her own, exactly as she had tasted the breakfast the morning after he had rescued her from her prison. ”

“ That night, long after her mother and aunt were asleep, Catherine Gould, muffled up in her warm flannel dressing-gown, sat beside her window gazing out at the wintry, moonlit night. She was debating with herself whether she could or could not live without the usual lot of women which her lover had offered her that night. She was quite sure that, if she did not marry John Greason, she would never marry at all. He had been so long in her dreams as her husband that she could not violate them. Catherine was an inherently constant girl. ”

“ It was not so much that she looked young in color and contour, but the very essence of youth was in her carriage and her glance. She looked alive, as only living things which have been a short time upon the earth look alive. Her blue eyes were full of challenge; her chin had the lift of a conqueror; her very hair sprang from its restraining pins with the lustiness of childhood.
Selma and Clara sat together lingeringly over their breakfast, then Selma excused herself, and Clara settled herself happily in the library with newspapers and magazines. ”

“ They lived together afterward in the little house in the woods, and were happy with a strange crystallized happiness at which they would have mocked in their youth, but which they now recognized as the essential of all happiness upon earth. And always the woman knew what she knew about her husband, and the man knew about his wife, and each recognized the other as old lover and sweetheart come together at last, but always each kept the knowledge from the other with an infinite tenderness of delicacy which was as a perfumed garment veiling the innermost sacredness of love. ”

“ But when the dignified Ozias Adams and his consort were retired for the night, an excited, giggling, whispering group gathered in the great kitchen, around poor little Josiah's stocking, hanging limp as to appearance, but in reality filled with the blooming fancies of childhood. At that very instant little Josiah was lying awake in his hard bed under the eaves, and it had begun to snow, and white stars drifted in upon his counterpane, and he was listening for the sleigh-bells and the fairy clatter of Santa Claus's reindeers' hoofs upon the roof. ”

“ It may be that people, like landscapes, have their color-schemes. Ann had always loved the soothing background color of the earth-green. She had surrounded herself with it. Her home was vine-screened and surrounded by trees and hedges. In her youth she had worn green gowns; now she wore black, and left the green to her daughter Ruth, who had inherited her mother's love of the color.
The porch was sweet with blooming roses and elder-flowers, and other indefinite odors, blending in a bouquet of perfume. ”

“ As for the parrot, he loved his mistress, if he loved anything. He would extend an ingratiating but deceitful claw towards her between his cage wires whenever she approached. If ever she had a torn finger in consequence, she made light of it, like any wound of love. He would take morsels of food from between her thin lips.
When she talked to him with that language of love which every soul knows by instinct, and which is intelligible to all who are not too deadened and deafened with self, he would cock his glittering head and look at her with that inscrutable jewel-eye of his. ”

“ THE three old sisters, Rachel and Nancy and Camilla, lived in the house in which they had been born. They were very old in years—the youngest was nearly seventy—but they were, after all, the most youthful maidens in the village. Not a child dragging her doll-carriage past their windows, not a young girl strolling by in the twilight on her lover's arm, was as young as they, for the youth in them had actually triumphed over age, and gained, as it were, a species of immortality in this world. ”

“ The little room glowed with love of her like a jewel, and the woman saw it and smiled a smile of which she had never before been capable.
At last she went back to the kitchen. Her feet were cold. She opened the door of the stove oven and sat with her skirts gathered up, basking in warmth, and reflecting. “Poor man, he certainly thought a great deal of me,” she told herself. She admitted at last her old lover to his place of dignity which true love owed him. She remembered him and she also remembered herself. ”

“ Clarissa went at her old work again. She moved among the rose-trees, a prim, delicate figure, in her old green and white gown, and cut every loose rose carefully. She was bent, in her graceful parsimoniousness, on saving all that she could of the sweetness of the world; no matter how poorly she might live herself, her delight in this would not forsake her. She had lost love and youth and beauty, but she still got a little comfort out of her unselfishness and her roses. One is not entirely desolate while one can follow his instincts.
Anne laughed at her. ”

“ Marg'ret Poole had always been an honest woman. She had never taken a thing which did not belong to her in her whole life. She suddenly experienced a complete moral revulsion. It was as if her principles, where weights were made shifty by her long watching and longing, had suddenly gyrated in a wild somersault. While they were reversed, Marg'ret, warily glancing around, slipped that parcel under her arm, opened the door, and sped home.
It was better Christmas weather than it had been a week ago. There was now a fine level of snow, and the air was clear and cold. ”

“ Everything was white and pure and glittering, full of symbolism of the ineffable holiness and passionless of that which is outside the heat of human life. She realized dimly that if she were to say no to her lover, that in spite of her radiant beauty, which was of a kind to endure, in spite of her triumphant philosophy of obtaining whatever she could from the minor joys of existence, and not allowing her body or soul to become lean through deprivation of the larger ones, she would, in reality, live her life and die her death, as it were, in that cold glitter outside her window. ”

“ But as for the man driving, his face was radiant, his eyes of young manhood lit with the light of the morning. He had not owned it, but he himself had sometimes chafed under the dull necessity of his life, but here was excitement, here was exhilaration. He drew the sweet air into his lungs, and the deeper meaning of the spring morning into his soul. Christopher Dodd interested him to the point of enthusiasm. Not even the uneasy consideration of the lonely, mystified woman in Dodd's deserted home could deprive him of admiration for the man's flight into the spiritual open. ”

“ Harry was gazing up with great black eyes, as full of wondering delight as a child's, at the blue crystal of the sky, against which tossed the gold feathers of the trees, when another young man, emerging from the parson's gate, purposely collided with him. Harry's hand which did not hold the book clinched involuntarily, and he frowned; for although destined for the ministry, he had fighting blood in his veins. Then he laughed, for it was only John Brooks, who was always playing off a jest upon some one whenever he was able. ”

“ It is something in this world now even to know of a man who is happy.”
“I am glad if he is,” said the doctor with a laugh, as he put on second speed for a short steep hill.
There was no doubt that Ed Mann was happy. When the horrible summer was over and a drenched dismal autumn, winter came without snow, brilliant, crystalline, dazzling with cold blue — with constellations pricking the heavens with celestial splendor.
Ed in his house enjoyed to the full every day. He was not in the least lonely. He was happy, and he believed his Emmy was happy; he believed also in Billy's happiness. ”

“ The next day but one, Adam returned to his shack, but he was in despair. That had come which he had foreseen. All day he sat on a ledge of stone near his shack, reflecting. It was a beautiful day in spring, and a sudden warm spell had brought out the leaves on the trees. His feet were sunken in a bed of wild flowers. He heard running water and pipes of birds, and it seemed to him that he also heard something else — the trumpet of freedom of life and earth which calls a man to the battle-field of God. ”

“ Mistress Tabitha's purpose had not wholly failed in its effect. A great vague horror of something which she was too ignorant to see fairly came over her. The face of that fine strange gentleman, dimly remembered before through all the years, shaped itself suddenly and plainly out of the darkness like the face of a demon. Persis looked away, shuddering, to the candle-gleam over the meadow, and Darius Hopkins's eyes seemed to look wistfully and lovingly into hers. ”

“ And the apple and lilac will bloom to-morrow.
The honeysuckle is red on the rock;
The willow floats over the brook like a feather;
In every shadow some love lies hid—
And you and I in the world together. ”

“ Emerson had driven out of the yard, Addie and Annie talked together, Jane Strong made gruel, and Tommy sat beside his mother. Josiah paced up and down the front walk. He had a feeling as if the solid ground was cut from under his feet. He had not known for so many years what it was to live without the sense of Amelia's sustaining care, that he felt at once unreasoning anger with her, a monstrous self-pity, and an agony of anxious love. The one clear thing in his mind was that Amelia ever since their marriage had put in his sleeve buttons and shirt studs. ”

“ As she sat there the girl belied the young minister's description of her. She did not look in the least like a doll, in spite of the rounded figure in the little rocking-chair and the dimpled face resting in a cup of dimpled hands. Her eyes, staring into the glossy bosses of the cherry-tree, looked black instead of blue, and were set in reflective and reminiscent hollows. Her curved mouth was a straight line. She saw and did not see the cherry branches stirred now and then by a seeking robin, although the cherries were long since gone. ”

“ Clara saw the fair head of the young man on Selma's black-satin lap. She saw the broad young shoulders heave. She saw Selma Windsor put her hand lovingly on the fair hair and stroke it, and murmur something which she did not catch. But soon the young man stood up, and his white face was lit by a brave smile.
“Oh, of course, Miss Windsor,” he said, “it is all the fortune of life and love and war. Of course I have courage enough to take what comes. Of course I am not beaten. Of course I am young, and shall get over it. I am not a coward. ”

“ But the cat loved Sophia, and he knew and appreciated her love for himself. It was not the fact that she fed and sheltered him. He loved her, because he came and brushed about her, arching his back, striped as splendidly as if he had but just left the jungle, when he was not in the least hungry. Sophia took a deal of comfort with her stolen treasure, the cat. Sometimes it seemed to her that she had a queer delight in feeling that it was stolen. Sophia had a bit of the devil in her, despite her age and training, and mild and gentle ways. ”