Nina Wilcox Putnam

“ I accompanied Alicia up the stairs, feeling as if I were in some enchanted palace of medieval days, and above, the long dim corridor in which the lamps had not yet been lit was ghostly in the pale glimmer from its high mullioned windows.
"Isn't it spooky?" said Peaches in a low tone.
"Yes!" I replied, whispering involuntarily. "One might almost expect to see a ghost!"
And scarcely had I spoken the words when Peaches, the supernormal, who was a trifle ahead of me by now, uttered a shriek and leaned trembling against the stone wall of the passageway. But for a moment I could not come to her aid. ”

“ Araminta said nothing.
“Lean your head back so, against the time stone,” suggested Prometheus, noting that she sat uncomfortably. “That is much better, eh? Do you love the wind? If you lie so, it will put its soft fingers about your throat! Ah! But you wear a collar! Is it not hot and uncomfortable?”
“Yes, rather,” she answered him.
“Then why do you wear it?” he queried, in evident surprise.
“Why—because people do wear collars, I suppose,” she said.
“Take it off!” he begged. “See, I wear no collar, and I, too, am a person. It is silly to wear a thing which is uncomfortable.” ”

“ The outdoors was something grand. The air was as good a cocktail as a person would want, and the lights along the boardwalk was coming out like dandelion blossoms. There was hardly anybody around—just a few here and there and the surf of that wide and cruel ocean which Jim was the other side of, was breaking close to the rail in big white ostrich plumes. ”

“ Even love at secondhand, by observation or by inference as it were, is capable of producing a reformation of the spirit which in its new-found vitality at once questions the body as to its actual age and state of decrepitude. Is one ever really old? Does one pass the period when romantic love can obsess one without one's justifying ridicule? Is there, indeed, any such period? Does not true love always dignify its victim? These are the questions which such a contact must invariably engender. And I confess to being no exception to the rule as I watched Alicia and the duke. ”

“ The house breathed a quiet charm and sense of homeliness, even in the dark. Instinctively he felt that the hall before him was a wide one, more living-room than passageway, and that there would be large, easy chairs about to bump into. A white-railed staircase glimmered vaguely some fifteen feet ahead of him. There must be an electric-light switch somewhere. He would find that!
To look for it he flashed on his lantern, and out of the darkness sprang a lovely thing—a great bowl of windflowers, delicate and frail, their stiff little heads closed in sleep. ”

“ But it is not my custom to sit back and talk things over too long. I have ever noticed that the person which talks too much seldom does a whole lot, and that a quick decision if wrong, at least learns you something, and you can start again on the right track. And no later than the next day after a funny, though good breakfast, of coffee and new bread with cinnamon and sugar baked into it and herrings in cream, I commenced to act.
"Ma, are you going to keep up this Bolshevist bull?" ”

“ A new breeze, sprung up as though on purpose to disport itself with her tresses, whipped it into a thousand ringlets, and laid a burnished strand across the man’s mouth. How the little tendrils curled among the poppies on her breast; the crimson poppies, whose color was reflected now in her cheeks and lips. Between the parted ivory of her teeth, her breath came sharply.
“Why, oh, why did you so?” she cried. “Why do you mock me, and pull about my hair? I am not beautiful, I have never been beautiful! Why do you mock me? You are cruel, cruel!” ”

“ Yet their language was curiously unromantic.
"Cheero!" said the duke. "You look ripping!"
"You're not so dusty yourself," rejoined Peaches.
And then Abby bore down upon us; Abby in a perfectly outrageous black evening gown with diamonds as big as pigeons' eggs in her ears, and very little else. She sailed up like a small sloop, all trig and confident, and after pecking me on the cheek extended a flower-like hand to Mr. Pegg.
"It's awfully good of you to come!" she said. "Dear Freedom has talked of you so often!" ”

“ And indeed, in her confusion at actually having her treasure returned to her, she had let go of the little spot-light. On the instant he caught it, and switched its glow full upon her.... Then for an instant the vision held him. There before him stood the portrait from the drawing-room: a girl of perhaps twenty, with every detail just as the canvas had shown her—the skin like windflowers, the half-opened rosebud mouth, the great eyes half laughing, half sad beneath a tousled mass of red-gold curls.
“Are you Mary-Laetitia Williams?” he gasped. ”

“ Her eyes were fixed upon Ripley with quick apprehension. “Do you understand that you will accomplish nothing by giving us up, except the death of two men who are more than willing to die in the service of their country? Señorita, I appeal to you—we are in your hands. We have been guests in your house to-night. Will you help us?”
Naomi stood rigidly, staring still at Ripley, who had thrown back his thin poncho, and was examining a pair of pistols which he took singly from his belt. ”