Constance Fenimore Woolson

“ Celestine, coming up, found her patient looking anything but rested. The next moment she put her hand over her eyes, physical weakness had conquered her.
"Just what I expected, men haven't a spark of gumption," said Celestine, indignantly. "He might have seen you weren't fit for talking; anybody could have seen. There, Miss Margaret, there; don't feel so bad, you'll soon be stronger now." And Celestine put one arm round her charge tenderly.
The touch made Margaret's tears flow faster; leaning her head against her faithful New England friend, she cried and cried as if her heart would break. ”

“ Moore is going on so well," said Margaret, "there is nothing I care so much about." Carrying her plumed hat in her hand, she left the room.
"He is an excellent man, Mr. Moore—most excellent," observed Aunt Katrina, a little stiffly; "of course we can never forget our obligations to him."
"I should think not, indeed," answered Reginald Kirby, for the first time losing some of his gallantry of tone.
"I am sure we have shown that we do not forget them," Aunt Katrina went on, with dignity. "Margaret has shown it, and Evert; between them they have made Mr. Moore comfortable for life." ”

“ He kept the child with him in the large, lonely New England house which even Gertrude Winthrop's sweetness had not been able to make fully home-like and warm. For it had been lived in too long, the old house, by a succession of Miss Winthrops, conscientious old maids with narrow chests, thin throats, and scanty little knobs of gray-streaked hair behind—the sort of good women with whom the sense of duty is far keener than that of comfort, and in whose minds character is apt to be gauged by the hour of getting up in the morning. ”

“ The sumptuous wrap with its deep fringes, the lace of the scarf, the general impression of costly fabrics and of color in her attire, brought out the outlines of her face, as the curling waves of her hair over her forehead deepened the blue of her eyes. On her white arms now, at home in the evenings, bracelets gleamed, the flash of rings came from her little hands; her slender figure trailed behind it rich silks of various light hues.
"You are a beautiful object nowadays, Margaret," Lanse said more than once. "Fancy your having known how, all this time, without ever having used your talent!" ”

“ It was a simple slip of the tongue; she had talked so constantly of him, and always as "Lucian," to Margaret and Winthrop the winter before, that it was natural for her to use the name. She would never have dreamed of using it merely to vex Mrs. Spenser; to begin with, she would not have taken the trouble for Mrs. Spenser, not even the trouble to vex her.
"I fear Lucian, as you call him, will hardly appreciate your kindness," responded Rosalie, stiffly. "He is fond of sketching by himself; and especially, when he has once begun, he cannot bear to be interrupted." ”

“ Thorne. "I am not strong, not able to walk far."
"And I should be delighted, too," continued Garda, "only I am so sleepy. I have fallen into the habit of spending my afternoons in the hammock; that makes me immensely drowsy just at this hour."
"I feel like an interloper," said Winthrop; "say a large mosquito."
"You needn't. It's not well to sleep so much," replied Miss Thorne, calmly.
"Certainly you know how to console. Is that the hammock in which you pass your happy existence?"
"Not existence; only afternoons. You really wish to go?" ”

“ But days end; always that last ten minutes at night will come, no matter how one may put it off. Winthrop put off his until after midnight; but one o'clock found him caught at last; he was alone before his fire, he could no longer prevent himself from taking out that letter and brooding over it.
He imagined East Angels, he imagined Lanse; he imagined him in Aunt Katrina's pleasant room, with the bright little evening fire sparkling on the hearth, with Aunt Katrina herself beaming and happy, and Margaret near. Yes, Lanse had everything, he had always had everything. ”

“ It happened that at this instant Garda woke; and saw the movement. She came swiftly across to her friend. "Oh, I knew you were unhappy, though you never, never say so! But now I have caught you, I have seen it. And oh, Margaret, you are so changed!—you are the loveliest woman in the world still,—but you have grown so thin; look at your hands." And she held up one of Margaret's hands against the light to show its transparency.
But Margaret drew her hand away. "If I'm thin, I am only following out my privilege as an American woman," she answered, lightly. ”

“ But it is desperation, Margaret; it is my feeling about Garda. Let me tell you one thing, I am relying a little upon your having suffered yourself. If you had not, I should never have asked you, because people who haven't suffered, women especially, are so hard. But I saw that you had suffered, I saw it in the expression of your face before I had heard a word of your history."
"What do you know of my history?" asked Margaret, the guarded reserve which was so often there again taking possession of her voice and eyes.
"In actual fact, very little. Only what Mrs. Rutherford told Betty Carew." ”

“ Harold looks well."
"Yes, Margaret always looks the same, I think. She has not that highly colored, robust appearance that some women have, but her health is absolutely perfect; it's really quite wonderful," said the aunt. She paused; then sighed. "I almost think that it has been like an armor to her," she went on. "I don't believe she feels little things as some of us do, some of us who are perhaps more sensitive; she is never nervous, never disturbed, her temper is so even that it is almost exasperating. She thinks as well of everything, for instance, in an east wind as in any other." ”

“ There came to her suddenly the memory of a little arena—an arena where the flowering vines hung straight down from the tree-tops to the water all round, like tapestry, and where the perfumes were densely thick.
"Are you cold?" said Winthrop. "You can't be—this warm night." The slightness of the canoe had betrayed what he thought was a shiver.
"No, I'm not cold."
"The best thing we can do is to make the boat as bright as possible," he went on. "But not in front, that would only be blinding; the light must be behind us." ”

“ She had called it in this way at intervals ever since they entered the swamp.
"The light we carry penetrates much farther than your voice," Winthrop remarked.
"I want him to know who it is."
"Oh, he'll know—such a devoted wife! Who else could it be?"
After a while the lane made a bend, and led them away from the moss; the canoe, turning to the right, left behind it the veiled forest, white and motionless. Margaret drew a long breath, she shook herself slightly, like a person who has emerged. ”

“ Horrid!"
"But there are no stairs at the rectory," suggested Winthrop.
"Don't be owlish, Evert; one is even more apt to step into them on a ground-floor," replied the aunt.
Meanwhile the sea still washed the beach under the eyrie, and now, too, the nerves of almost everybody in it, for neither Margaret nor Celestine could sleep when Mrs. Rutherford could not; even Winthrop, at the Seminole, found himself wakeful, listening to the little soft sound, and thinking of his suffering aunt. ”

“ Winthrop may not be thinking of agriculture; he may be thinking only of climate," remarked Mrs. Thorne, mildly, to her daughter.
"Climate—that is blue sky, I suppose," said Garda; "I acknowledge that there is an abundance of that here. But I advise Mr. Winthrop to buy but a small piece of ground as his standing-point, and to take his sky out perpendicularly; he can go up to any height, you know, as high as the moon, if he likes. That would be ever so much wiser than to have the same amount spread out horizontally over a quantity of swamp-land which no person in his senses could wish to own." ”

“ The light carriage crossed the barren rapidly; the same hushed silence continued, the pine-trees which Betty had seen in a vision, prostrate, did not stir so much as one of their green needles. Margaret and Winthrop spoke occasionally, but they did not talk; anything they should say would necessarily be shared by the man who was driving. But conversation between them was not much more free when the steamer was taking them up the river. ”

“ But Garda would not go. As there was no place for her in Margaret's narrow white bed, she got a coverlet and pillows and lay down on a lounge that was near; here, almost immediately, though she said she should not, she fell asleep. The elder woman did not sleep, she lay watching the moonlight steal over the girl, then fade away. Later came the pink flush of dawn; it touched the lounge, but Garda slept on; she slept like a little child; her curling hair fell over her shoulders, her cheek was pillowed on her round arm.
"So much truthfulness—such absolute truthfulness!" ”

“ What sort of an ideal was Lucian Spenser!"
"Garda is an exception; she has no ideals."
"Oh! don't make her out so disagreeable."
"I couldn't make her out disagreeable even if I should try," answered Margaret. "All I mean is that her nature is so easy, so sunny, that it has never occurred to her to be discontented; and if you are contented you don't have ideals." ”

“ For Lanse had objected to the simplicity of his wife's attire, and especially to the plain, close arrangement of her hair. "You don't mean it, I know," he said, "but it has an appearance of affectation, a sort of 'holier than thou' air. I hate to see women going about in that way; it looks as if they thought themselves so beautiful that they didn't mind calling attention to it—with sanctimonious primness, of course; it's the most conspicuous thing a woman can do."
"It's not a matter of principle with me; it's only my taste," Margaret answered. ”

“ Evert brings up their poverty—it has all come out, of course, since the mother's death. But, poor or not poor, Garda at least always had what she wanted; there were always honey-cakes and oranges for her, and those old servants would wait upon her when they would not speak to her mother. She has never lifted her hand to do anything in her life but swing in her hammock, smell her roses, and play with that crane. Evert keeps harping—what simple things they were to give her so much pleasure. ”

“ Rosalie, Margaret? Isn't it enough that we have to talk to her? She isn't an object of pity in the least; she's got everything she wants, and six times more than she deserves; I detest people who, when they're cross, are all upper lip."
A vision of Rosalie's face rose in Margaret's mind. But she did not at present discuss its outlines with Garda, she simply said, "I must come to the next sitting. And don't choose for it the exact hour when I'm reading to Aunt Katrina." ”

“ Are these explanations sufficient? or do you require more?"
"No explanations can ever be sufficient," Winthrop answered. He stood looking at her. "Oh, Margaret, it is such a fearful sacrifice!" He had abandoned for the moment both his anger and his efforts at argument.
"Yes; but that is what life is, isn't it?" she said, her voice trembling a little in spite of herself.
"No, it's not. And it shouldn't be. Why should an utterly selfish man of that kind, who has forfeited every claim upon you a hundred times over—why should he be allowed to dictate to you, to wither your whole existence? ”

“ Margaret was sitting near the larger table, where there was a second lamp; she was sewing. Having thrown down his volume, with the sudden realization (it came to him occasionally) that he knew every word of it before beginning, Lanse sat among his cushions, watching her hand come and go.
"You are always sewing on such long things!" he said. "What is the use of your doing that sort of work nowadays, when there are sewing-machines?"
"That's like the American who asked, in Venice, what was the use of people's sketching there nowadays, when there were photographs?" ”