Annie F. Johnston

“ Once started on her round of repairs, Wilma found herself viewing the entire premises from the standpoint of the sharp gray eyes that had looked so reprovingly at the broken-hinged gate.
"If Tom ever comes here again," she vowed to herself, "he shall not see this grand old place in such a pitiful state of dilapidation. I can at least see that the porch floor has paint, and the garden chairs more than three legs apiece. I feel that I have the making in me of a first-class carpenter." ”

“ Here's the list of the boys she wants, and each one is to bring one of the girls of our set as his valentine, in fancy costume, you know. I've seen all the boys but you and Ben Fuller, and they've chosen the girls they want to invite."
"Who's left for us?" queried Phil. "Let me see the list a minute. Nannie Mason," he read, slowly. "No wonder she was left to the last; she's such a silly little thing and does nothing but giggle. Alida Gooding! Jarvis, you haven't left me much choice. Alida's the homeliest girl in town. It is a pity that she is so ugly when her sister May is such a beauty. ”

“ Mary Lee looked up quickly. "I don't believe that you understand, after all," she cried. "I could rise above the snubbings. It is not that that hurts, but it is the disappointment. Oh, you don't know how I longed to be friends with those girls! They are so bright and attractive, and seem to have such good times together. It is the missing of all that I had hoped to find that hurts."
The wistfulness of the fair little face touched the general's gallant soul to the quick. ”

“ She nodded toward the velvety green terraces, with their marble urns of flowers, stretching one above another until they reached the stately white pillars of the old mansion, where two stone lions guarded the white steps. On the highest terrace a peacock stood motionless, his resplendent feathers spread to the sun. Here and there deserted hammocks swung under the trees, with books and magazines scattered invitingly underneath. Mary Lee turned aside from the path to look at the title of one in passing. ”

“ Valentine's day you will find yourself admired by everybody."
Alida shrugged her shoulders so incredulously that the doctor took out her watch and showed her a picture inside the case. "There is my proof," she said. It was the picture of a sweet, kindly old face, plain in features, but with a beauty of expression that made Alida's eyes soften as she looked at it.
"My mother," said Doctor Agnes, gently. "She might be called a homely woman in both senses of the word. Every one feels the cheer of her presence as of a warm, comfortable [48] fire-side. ”

“ It is too bad the custom is dying out. Young people seem to be discarding their patron saint."
"Oh, no, indeed, father," answered May. "We have got beyond hearts and darts and lace-paper affairs; but cast your judicial eye over that table at all I have received to-day: books and music and boxes of candy and no end of flowers."
"Where is your share, Alida?" asked the judge, kindly, peering over his eye-glasses at his [44] youngest daughter. "What did St. Valentine bring you?"
"Nothing," answered Alida, rising suddenly to leave the room, lest he should notice the tears she could not force back. ”

“ The sight of the letter addressed to Agnes had given rise to Wilma's usual supposition, and then silence followed for nearly an hour. It was broken by a sudden thundering of the griffin's head against the great front door. The girls' hearts seemed to leap up in their throats. They had not heard that sound since the June day of Mrs. Gorham's visit.
"Tom!" ejaculated Wilma, in a terrified [126] whisper, looking wildly into Claribel's startled eyes. "Oh, we can't let him in! Neither of us is fit to go down, and there isn't a spark of fire in this big barn of a house, even in the kitchen stove." ”

“ Agnes Mayne's wise supervision it became an unfailing source of pleasure to the girl. Winter slipped into spring, and the crocuses gave way to the summer roses, and still her interest grew daily. She even begged not to be taken to the seashore, where the family always spent their summers.
"Mrs. Mayne has asked me to stay with her," she said, "and she has such a dear little house, and I am sure that the children at the hospital would miss me now if I were to go away. There is so much that I can do to make the poor little things happier."
Alida had her own way finally. ”

“ I have assured him your latch-string will be out to him as it was to me, for old time's sake. I shall be very glad to have him know the daughters of my old friend."
"Oh," cried Wilma, as Agnes read the letter aloud, "if he is half as interesting as his mother's tales of him, he must be a real Prince Charming. But, oh, girls, don't you hope he'll wait until 'Carrington' is out? It would be dreadfully embarrassing if, after his mother's account of our hospitality, we could give him only scraps. There can't always be a picnic basket to fall back on." ”

“ Do you understand, madame? Not a cent is to come out of her wages, and you are to keep her and be good to [27] her, if you want my good-will. I am coming back this way in the spring, and this gown is so beautifully made that I shall be glad to order my entire summer wardrobe from you."
"Why, Rhoda Balfour!" exclaimed her cousin again, while madame bowed and smiled and bowed again.
As for Cicely, she went back to the workroom almost dazed, and tingling with the remembrance of Miss Balfour's friendly tones. ”

“ It helped her to hold her head high, and carried her through a trying interview with the most fashionable dressmaker in the city, whither she had slipped away with some little models of children's dresses of her own designing and making.
At the end of an hour she came away triumphant. Madame, impressed by her references, quick to see the value of her original ideas, and shrewd enough to know how useful this artistic young girl could be to her, consented to her proposition to establish a department for the making of children's fancy costumes, of which Claribel was to be in charge. ”

“ It seems to me that we are sort of acting a lie. Mam Daphne will wait on the table to-day, and Mrs. Gorham will see what a spread we have, and will think that we live that way all the time."
"Well," said Wilma, hopefully, "we will live that way all the time when sister's 'Romance of Carrington' is published. How good it will be to feel able to ask the girls to stay to lunch any time they happen to drop in, and not have to be wondering if the butter will hold out!" ”

“ To Claribel and Wilma, not yet out of their teens, repairs on the old house did not seem half so important as their own personal ones of shoe soles and skirt braids. It was their sister Agnes, ten years older, who shouldered all such worries.
There had been girls in the country place where they lived, girls of the best old families, too, who, feeling the pinch of poverty that followed the changed conditions of the South after the war, had gone away to teach school or learn typewriting. ”

“ Every one looked up as the two girls stood for a moment in the doorway. Miss Shelby glanced around in a coldly indifferent way, holding up her broadcloth skirt that it might escape the ravellings and scraps scattered over the floor. She was a tall brunette as elegantly dressed as any figure in madame's latest Parisian fashion-plate.
"Why can't you put somebody else off to accommodate me just this once?" she said. "It is a matter of great importance. My cousin has already bought the material on my promise that you would make it up for her. ”

“ A place at a bookkeeper's desk had been the first thing that he had been able to obtain.
He felt Mary Lee's lack of advantages more than she did. With the exception of a few excursions into the country, she had lived all her seventeen years in this dingy little house on a side street. Her mother had been her only teacher, and the men and women found in the books of her father's library her only companions. Mary Lee was a sociable creature; she [63] longed for the companionship of girls of her own age. ”

“ It was long after midnight when she finished, and she crept into bed, her head still throbbing with a dull ache.
"The last day of the old year!" she said to herself, as she waded through a newly fallen snow to her work the next morning. "Oh, Marcelle, how can I ever hold out ten months longer? Nobody in this whole city cares that I caught cold sitting up in a room without a fire, or that I feel so lonely and bad this minute that I can't keep back the tears." ”

“ Surely, Travis, they must be all golden days here. I have never imagined anything so beautiful."
Miss Philura met them in the hall in a white wrapper, waving a huge palm-leaf fan. "I was up waiting for you," she said, cordially. "Every one else in the house is asleep. That is all one can do these hot afternoons."
"I shall soon follow everybody's example," said Travis, when they had been shown to their rooms and the trunks brought up.
"And I shall begin a long letter home," said Mary Lee, spreading out her writing material on an old claw-footed table, by the window overlooking the peacock. ”

“ See! Here is an impression of Gladstone's hand, and lots of celebrated people. Miss Hill has no right to class all believers in palmistry with mountebanks and gypsies, and she certainly betrays her ignorance of a noble science when she mixes it up with clairvoyance and common fortune-telling.'
"Still, Miss Hill's remarks made some change in Elsie's plans, for when we gathered in her room at the appointed time, it looked just as usual, although she had intended to have it darkened and hung with black curtains. ”

“ Since they had been living [119] in the south wing the neighbours always came to the side entrance.
"Who can it be at this hour of the morning?" cried Claribel, dropping her iron and clutching at her light curly hair, which was always in pretty disorder. "We're none of us dressed to meet strangers. Run, Mam Daphne! How fortunate you are here to go to the door!"
A moment later the old coloured woman was fumbling at the long unused bolts, while the girls listened breathlessly at the dining-room door. It was a lady's voice that reached them. ”

“ There is a music-teacher who has the room across the hall from mine. She is at home this week with a cold on her lungs, and to-morrow, when I go to work, I am going to loan her all my beautiful roses. It's too bad to have them 'wasting their sweetness on the desert air' all day while I am gone. So she shall have them until I come home at night."
Madame Levaney gave no holiday to her employees on New Year's day, but Cicely did not care. She left her roses at Miss Waite's door with the announcement that they were hers for the day, but that she would have to call for them and claim them at night. ”

“ They have never seen anything beyond their [81] own little strip ''twixt the hill and the sky,' and they can only follow a leader like a flock of pretty sheep. It is true that they ought to have a broader horizon than the boundary of the little social circle in which they were born, but you must make allowances for them, my child. From their cradles they have been hedged round with conventionalities which have made them short-sighted. It is your privilege to rise above the petty social hollows of life. ”

“ It is absolute foolishness for us to prate of old-world castes when it is a part of our national creed that any one among us may rise as high as the best of us, provided he can grow the wings wherewith to soar. ”

“ What is the use of wasting half a dollar to hear predictions that you might not be able to believe, or if you could believe them, would make you utterly miserable?"
"Oh, it is just for the fun of it, Helen," urged [92] Sara. "Please take us. All the girls are going, and we have never had our fortunes told in our lives."
Before there was time for a reply, Jane came to the door. "The carriage is waiting, Miss Helen," she said. For a moment Helen stood irresolutely beside her dressing-table, stroking her muff in an absent-minded sort of way. ”

“ Sara hesitated. "I had planned to break it to you gently," she began, "but as you are going out there is no time to lead up to the subject gradually. I hope you'll not be shocked, but there is a clairvoyant at the Metropole this week. Some of the girls have been there, and they say it is simply wonderful how she can tell fortunes. She charges only fifty cents. Olive and I are wild to go, and we thought maybe you might take us Saturday afternoon."
Helen buttoned her gloves as if considering. "Do you think it would make you any happier, little sister, to know what the future holds for you?" ”

“ But, oh, girls, I did hope to finish that [121] book to-day! It may be weeks before I'm keyed up to the pitch again where I feel equal to writing the climax as it should be done."
There were tears in Wilma's eyes as she carried the lunch-basket into the pantry, but she giggled as, passing the old portraits on the stairs, as they went up to dress, Claribel shook her fist in their faces.
"That's what we get for having the latch-string of our ancestors in our keeping," she exclaimed. "It's pretty well frayed out by this time, and cannot stand many more strains like this. ”

“ Her door was open into the hall to admit the breeze, and she heard some one coming up the stairs. There were voices passing her door, and she recognised the first as Hester Tyler's. She was a young artist, lately arrived, who was a favourite with every one. "It's hardly fair, Molly," she was saying. "People who are sure of their own social position have no need to snub anybody. Miss Dent is certainly a lady, any one can see that, and if her voice is as good as Miss Philura says, she ought to be included in the programme." ”

“ People feel at home—at their easiest and best—with her, and she is the 'cozy corner' they naturally turn to, old and young alike."
"Then she must have been born with such a nature," interrupted Alida.
"No, she was as reserved and timid as you are—always worrying about her appearance and thinking that people were criticising her, until she went to visit an eccentric old aunt, who spent her time in finding employment for friendless young girls.
"Aunt Winifred soon found that mother was in as great need of employment as the poorest little seamstress on her list. ”