Annie Eliot Trumbull

“ No. The creaking of the hay wagon had but just lost itself in the silence, when her quick ear caught the rattle of the lighter carriage. Her first impulse was to step to the door and wait for it there, but she did not yield to it; she would do just as usual, neither more nor less. She would not for worlds have Truman Hanks suspect any special interest on her part. He might try to find out its cause; and a hot blush enveloped Lucyet as she contemplated the possibility of his assigning it to the true one. Only one person in all the village knew that Lucyet Stevens wrote poetry. ”

“ The world was not all dark. The room seemed less lonely with the captain in it, as she glanced around it a second time. She scanned his face: the buttonhole of a mouth had a kindly twist; he did not look in the least like handsome Dick Pember. Mellony had married, and her world was in fragments, and something must come after.
"I never heard as you weren't a good husband to Mis' Phippeny," she said calmly, "and I dono as anybody'll make any objection if I marry you, Captain Phippeny." ”

“ Miss Normaine laughed a little. The conversation was decidedly intermittent. They dropped it entirely at times, and then took it up as if there had been no pause. It was after a brief silence that she went on: "But you and I can see both boats—the success, and the disappointment too. And we can't, for the life of us, help feeling that it's hard on those who have put forth all their strength for defeat." ”

“ For a moment the hope that it is hard to make away with revived in Lucyet's breast. Were they talking of the poem, she wondered, with a certain weary interest. She dreaded a fresh disappointment so keenly that it pained her to speculate much on the chance of it. It was not impossible that they were saying such meaningless stuff ought never to have been printed. As the pale girl drew near with the plodding, patient step which so often proclaims that walking is not a pleasure, but a necessity, of country life, the men did not lower their voices, which she heard distinctly as she passed. ”

“ That's what I want,—life, my own life, not what anybody else gives me of theirs. Why shouldn't I have what they have, even if it's bad now and then? Don't save me in spite of myself! Nobody likes to be saved in spite of themselves."
It was a long speech for Mellony. A [50] large moon had risen, and from the low horizon sent golden shafts of light almost into the room; it was as if the placidity of the night were suddenly penetrated by something more glowing. Mellony stood looking down at her mother, like a judge. Mrs. Pember gazed at her steadily. ”

“ The time for frivolity is over; the flashes of wings have a purpose now; the possibility of cold is in the air, [124] and what is to be done must be done quickly.
"We almost always used to come in summer," said Lucy Eastman, "but I think it's every bit as pretty in the fall."
"So do I," assented Mary Leonard, as she looked down into a hollow where the purple asters grew so thick that in the half-dusk of the shadow they looked like magnified snowflakes powdered thickly on the sward. ”

“ It was thus that, with Mellony's growth from childhood to womanhood, the burning regret for her former unmarried state, whose difficulties had been mainly theological, had become a no less burning resolve that her child should never suffer as she had suffered, but should be guarded from matrimony as from death. That she failed to distinguish between individuals, that she failed to see that young Baldwin was destitute of those traits which her sharpened vision would now have detected in Pember's youth, was both the fault of her perceptive qualities and the fruit of her impregnable resolve. ”

“ The Fairness of a Maid is but a vain Toy, but," declares this most staid biographer, with a refreshing candor, "as it is a matter which is not without its effect on the Fortunes of many, it is not always to be passed over in the Silence which would befit a Sober Pen. Mary Twining's Hair was of a golden Colour and wound itself in small, and not always tidy, Rings about her Neck and Forehead. ”

“ His quid of tobacco again resumed its claim to his undivided attention, and he leaned back against the fence and waited [36] as idly as the drooping sails for a breath of something stirring. By and by it appeared in the shape of another old sailor, between whom and himself there was the likeness of two peas, save for a slight discrepancy of feature useful for purposes of identification.
"You told her where they'd gone, I reckon," he remarked, with a slight chuckle, as he too leaned up against the fence and looked out over the harbor.
"Yes, I did," replied Captain Phippeny. ”

“ Everybody laughed in that end of the car except one small old lady in the corner, who was a stranger and visiting, and who was left with the impression that the gentleman who got off must be a very kind man. It was darker and blowier and snowier than when he had left the corner, and Mr. Gilton floundered through the unbroken drifts up the little path to the door with increasing grudges in his heart [17] against the difficulties of Christmas. ”

“ Leonard at last, rising and taking up her bonnet. "Oh, no, thank you, we must not stay. Miss Pinsett; we are going to-morrow, and we are tired with all the pleasure of to-day, and we have so much—so much to talk over. We shall talk all night, as we used to, I am afraid."
"But before you go, girls," said Miss Pinsett, laying a fragile, white slender hand on each, "you must sing for me some of the songs you used to sing—you know some very pretty duets."
Mary Leonard and Lucy Eastman paused, amazed, and looked into each other's faces in dismay. ”

“ Don't you be melancholy, Lucy Eastman."
"I'm not, Mary—I'm not a bit. I'm only remembering that I used to be."
"We used to go to the well with a sieve instead of a pitcher; that's really the difference," said Mary Leonard. "We've learned not to be wasteful, that's all."
"What fun we used to have," said Lucy, her eyes shining, "visiting your cousins!" ”

“ Mary Twining does not lose her independence, though, woman like, she seems to enjoy losing herself in the love lavished upon her. Here and there are passages which show that in the warmth of her romance she thinks and judges and acts for herself, as she did in her school days. Mary Twining will never merge her individuality in that of another, however dear to her. ”

“ THE sombre tints of Grayhead were slightly suffused by a pink light sifting from the west through the clear air. The yachts in the harbor lay idly beneath the mellow influences of the passing of the summer day,—idly as only sailboats can lie, a bit of loose sail or cordage now and then flapping inconsistently in a breath of wind, which seemed to come out of the west for no other purpose, and to retire into the east afterward, its whole duty done. ”

“ Lucyet glanced through her little [144] window—the tastefully disposed corner of which was dedicated to the postal service—at the tin of animal crackers, the jar of prunes, the suspended bacon, and the box of Spanish licorice, and pondered, half contemptuously, half pitifully, on what had been her life before she had written poems and sent them to the "Daily Morning Chronicle." Then her outlook had seemed scarcely wider than that of the animal crackers with their counterfeit vitality; now it seemed extended to the horizon of all humanity. ”

“ Do tell me that he is," urged Miss Normaine with pathos. "He seems just out of college to me, and I don't like to think that I've lost all sense of proportion."
"Oh, no, you haven't," said Arnold, consolingly. "It's only he that has lost his. He doesn't take exercise enough. He's coming this way to speak to you. You had better think of something more flattering to say."
"I never thought Harry Donald would get stout and bald," went on Miss Normaine, to herself. ”

“ I heard him say to his assistant, 'Don't you ever git mad with women, Bobby. It ain't no [106] use. If it was always the same woman and the same trunk, perhaps you could learn her sometime; but it ain't, and you've got to take 'em just as they come, and get rid of 'em the best way you can—they don't bear instruction.'"
Mary Leonard and Lucy Eastman threw back their heads and laughed; it was genuine, low, fresh laughter, and a good thing to hear. After that there was silence for a few moments as the train sped on its way. ”

“ And as his eyes dwelt again upon the distinction of Miss Normaine's profile, with the knot of blonde hair at the back of her well-held head, he sighed again, as he rose and went over to her. She looked up at him, and her eyes were not quite so calm as usual.
"I am sitting," she said, "among the ruins." [205]
"Indeed?" he said. "Is there room upon a fallen column or a broken plinth for me?"
"Oh, yes," she answered, "but it is not for a successful man like you, whose name is upon the public lips, to gaze with me upon demolished theories." ”

“ I haven't fallen over forty children a minute in the street with their ridiculous parcels, and I haven't had women drop brown-paper bundles that come undone all over me when they crowd into the horse car, and I haven't found it impossible to get to the shirt-collar counter on account of Christmas novelties! ”

“ Captain Phippeny pulled himself together. "No, she hadn't,—no, you don't, Mis' Pember," he declared stoutly. "You're making a mistake. You don't want to see Mellony dead any more'n I do. She's only got married, when all's said and done, and there's a sight of folks gets married and none the worse for it. Ira Baldwin ain't any great shakes,—I dono as he is; he's kinder light complected and soft spoken,—but he ain't a born fool, and that's a good deal, Mis' Pember." ”

“ You don't really know that I've ever had a case, but you make me feel that my name echoes through two worlds at the very least."
"And you are still Harry Donald, suspicious of the gifts that are tossed into your lap," and they both laughed.
"This is the man of the class," went on Judge Donald, turning to Ellis, who had taken a seat above them. "Your books have gotten out to Wisconsin, and that's fame enough for any man."
"Have they really?" said Arnold. "I supposed they only wrote notices of them in the papers."
"Oh, yes," murmured Miss Normaine. "Ellis has turned out clever,—one never knows." ”

“ Suddenly Lucy Eastman turned to her companion.
"Mary," she said, "let's play we were girls again, and going to Englefield just as we used to go—thirty-five years ago. Let's pretend that we're going to do the same things and see the same people and have the same fun. We're off by ourselves, just you and I, and why shouldn't [112] we? We're the same girls, after all," and she smiled apologetically.
"Of course we are. We'll do it," said Mary Leonard, decidedly; "let's pretend." ”

“ She looked up and saw that Captain Phippeny had followed her in and was standing before her, turning his hat in his brown, tattooed hands.
"Mis' Pember," he said, "I thought, mebbe, now Mellony was married, you'd be thinkin' of matrimony yourself agen." As Mrs. Pember gazed at him dumbly it seemed as if she must all at once have become another person. Matrimony had suddenly become domesticated, as it were. Her eyes travelled over the horseshoe charm and the long gold chain, as she listened, and from pocket to pocket. ”

“ If I once marvelled at the yielding of those weak Women who find it easier to relinquish the Happiness that they find in the Love of Those bound to them by mutual attraction, than to contest the matter with all Dignity, Forbearance, Firmness and Patience, how much the more do I marvel now at their Shortsightedness! ”

“ Her mother moved uneasily, and her knotted hands grasped the arms of the stiff chair in which she sat.
"Mellony," she said again, "you've no call to talk so."
"I've no call to talk at all. I've no place anywhere. I'm not anybody. I haven't any life of my own." The keen [48] brutality of the thoughtlessness of youth, and its ignoring of all claims but those of its own happiness, came oddly from the lips of submissive Mellony. Mrs. Pember quivered under it. ”

“ Outside Lucyet sat quietly, her head resting against the white wooden wall of the house; and the editor made a mark or two.
"Now this is what the public want to know," resumed the idler, with a gratuitous air of having been pressed for his opinion. "You editors have a ridiculous way of talking about the public—"
"It strikes me that it is not I who have [172] been making myself ridiculous talking about anything."
"The public! You just tell the great innocent public that you are giving them the sort of thing they like, and half the time they believe you, and half the time they don't. ”

“ As they left the paved city for the old inn which modern travel and enterprise had left on the outskirts, the sky showed lavender through a mistiness that was hardly palpable enough for haze. The browns and reds of the patches of woods in the near distance seemed the paler, steadier reproduction of the flames behind them. Low on the horizon the clouds lay in purple waves, deepening and darkening into brown.
"Mary," said Lucy Eastman, in a low tone, laying her hand on her companion's arm, "it's just the way it looked when we came the first time of all ”

“ The shadows grew longer, the room dimmer, and Miss Pinsett had the maid throw open the blinds to let in the western sunlight. A shaft of illumination fell across one of the Japanese vases, and a dragon blinked, and the smooth round head of a mandarin gleamed. ”