E. Nesbit

“ Don't you see you're a woman now—women were made to be kissed, and when a man behaves like a brute and kisses a girl without even asking first, or finding out first whether she loves him, it's not fair on the girl. I shall never forgive myself. Don't you see I took part of you by storm, the part of you that is just woman nature, not yours but everyone's; and how were you to know that you didn't love me, that it was only the awakening of your woman nature? ”

“ It was not till, alone again at his hotel, he pulled out the hollyhock flower with his ball programme that he awoke to a complete sense of the insipid flatness of the new situation.
He had fallen in love—was madly épris, at any rate—and the girl was the girl whose charms, whose fortune, whose general suitability as a match for him had been dinned into his ears ever since he was a callow boy at Oxford, and she a long-black-silk-legged, short-frocked tom-boy of fourteen. Everyone had always said that it was the obvious thing. ”

“ He saw the Essex Court sitting-room as it had looked on the night when Tom had announced that Harriet was the only girl in the world—adding, at almost a night's length, that impassioned statement of his hopeless, financial condition. He could hear Tom's voice as he said—
"And I know she cares!"
Dick felt again the thrill of pleasure that had come with the impulse to be, for once, really noble, to efface himself, to give up the pursuit that lighted his days, the dream that enchanted his nights. ”

“ The green garden, the awakened birds, the roses that still looked asleep, the scented jasmine stars! She saw and loved it all. Nor was she unduly insensible to the charm of the central [148] figure, the girl in the white lace-trimmed gown who leaned her soft arms on the window-sill and looked out on the dawn with large dark eyes. Of course, she knew that her eyes were large and dark, also that her hair was now at its prettiest, rumpled and tumbled from the pillow, and far prettier so than one dared to allow it to be in the daytime. ”

“ You can't go to Harry, because his Mother would be seriously annoyed if you did; and so, believe me, would he—though you don't think it. You can get up and leave me, and go 'away into the night,' like a heroine of fiction—but you can't keep on going away into the night for ever and ever. You must have food and clothes and lodging. And the sun rises every day. You must just quietly and dully go home again. And you can't do it without me. And I'll help you if you'll promise not to see Harry, or write to him for a year. ”

“ Tell me your sad history, poor fellow-wanderer."
"My father was a king," said Harry gravely; but Charling turned such sad eyes on him that he stopped.
"Won't you tell me the real true truth?" she said. "I will you."
"Well," said he, "the real true truth is, Charling, I've run away from home, and I'm going to sea."
Charling clapped her hands. "Oh! so have I! So am I! Let me come with you. Would they take a cabin-girl on the ship where you're going to, do you think? And why did you run away? Did they beat you and starve you at home? Or have you a cruel stepmother, or stepfather, or something?" ”

“ Here, I've got a handkerchief, as it happens," for Charling was feeling blindly and vainly among the coloured chalks. He thrust the dingy handkerchief into her hands, and she dried her eyes, still sobbing.
"That's the style," said he. "Look here, we're like people in a book. Two travellers in misfortune meet upon a wild moor and exchange narratives. Come, tell me what's up?"
"You tell first," said Charling, rubbing her eyes very hard; "but swear eternal friendship before you begin, then we can't tell each other's secrets to the enemy." ”

“ And, at that, his tame devil came as at a signal, and drew a pretty curtain across all thoughts save one—the thought of the "other man's girl." Indeed, hardly a thought was left, rather a sense of her—of those disquieting soft eyes of hers—the pretty hands, the frank laugh—the long, beautiful lines her gowns took on—the unexpected twists and curves of her hair—above all, the reserve, veiling tenderness as snowflakes might veil a rose, with which she spoke of the other man.
Dick had known Tom for all of their men's lives, and they had been friends. ”

“ Betty had leaned her elbows on the sun-dial, and her chin on her hands.
"But you used to think . . ." she began.
"Ah—but I know better now. You've taught me everything. Only I never knew it till last night when I touched you. It was like a spark to a bonfire that I've been piling up ever since I've known you. You've taught me what life is, and love. Love can't be wrong. It's only wrong when it's stealing. We shouldn't be robbing anybody. We should both work better—happiness makes people work—I see that now. I should have to give up parish work—but there's plenty of good work wants doing. ”

“ Harry was silent, racking his brain for arguments.
"Look here, kiddie," he said slowly, "if your father's such a good sort, he'd have more sense than to choose a stepmother who wasn't nice. He's a much finer chap than the fathers in fairy tales. You never read of them being able to do all the things your father can do."
"No," said Charling, "that's true."
"He's sure to have chosen someone quite jolly, really," Harry went on, more confidently.
Charling looked up suddenly. "Who was it chose the chap that you weren't going to stand having set over you?" she said.
The boy bit his lip. ”

“ Her eyes were very pretty, especially when they opened themselves so widely as she tried to express the thoughts that no one but he had ever cared to hear expressed. The definite biography—dead father, ailing mother—hard work—hard life—hard-won post as High School Mistress, were but as the hoarding on which was pasted the artistic poster of their meeting—their parting. He sighed as he walked along the platform. The promise of June had fulfilled itself: he was rich in a sorrow that did not hurt—a regret that did not sting. Poor little girl! Poor pretty eyes! Poor timid, brave maiden-soul! ”

“ Poor Miss Dolly!"
Most of us are mercifully ignorant of the sympathy that surrounds us.
"It's wonderful," he said, when she rejoined him in the drawing-room. "I feel like the Prodigal Son. When I think of the drawing-rooms I've seen. The gim-crack trumpery, the curtains and the pictures and the furniture constantly shifted, the silly chatter, the obvious curios, the commonplace rarities, the inartistic art, and the brainless empty chatter, spiteful as often as not, and all the time this has been going on beautifully, quietly, perfectly. Dolly, you're a lucky girl!" ”

“ Out of the waste and desert of his own life, with its memories of the far country and the husks and the swine, he seemed to be looking through a window at the peaceful life—as a hungry, lonely tramp may limp to a lamp-lit window, and peering in, see father and mother and round-faced children, and the table spread whitely, and the good sure food that to these people is a calm certainty, like breathing or sleeping, not a joyous accident, or one of the great things that man was taught to pray for. ”

“ THE LOVER, THE GIRL, AND THE ONLOOKER
The two were alone in the grassy courtyard of the ruined castle. The rest of the picnic party had wandered away from them, or they from it. Out of the green-grown mound of fallen masonry by the corner of the chapel a great may-bush grew, silvered and pearled on every scented, still spray. The sky was deep, clear, strong blue above, and against the blue, the wallflowers shone bravely from the cracks and crevices of ruined arch and wall and buttress.
"They shine like gold," she said. "I wish one could get at them!" ”

“ The White House was one of those to which no change comes. None but Death, and Death, however he may have wrung the heart or stunted the soul of the living, had been powerless to change outward seemings. Dorothea had worn a black dress for a while, and she best knew what tears she had wept and for what long months the [50] light of life had gone out of all things. But the tears had not blinded her eyes to the need of a mirror-polish on the old mahogany furniture, and all through those months there had been, at least, the light of duty. The house must be kept as her dead mother had kept it. ”

“ She yawned no more over dull novels now—Buxton no longer bored her. She had suddenly discovered a new life—a new stage on which to play a part, her own ability in mastering which filled her with the pleasure of a clever child, or a dog who has learned a new trick. Of course, it was not a new trick; it was the old one.
It was impossible not to go out with the greengrocer every day. What else was there to do? How else could she exercise her most perfectly developed talent—that of smiling on people till they loved her? ”

“ They breathed of love and constancy and faith, a faith that should move mountains, a love that should shine like gold in the furnace of adversity, a constancy that death itself should be powerless to shake. And he sighed. No later love had come to draw with soft lips the poison from this old wound. She had married Benoliel, the West Indian Jew. It is a far cry from Jamaica to London, but some whispers had reached her jilted lover. The kindest of them said that Benoliel neglected his wife, the harshest, that he beat her. ”

“ Hate is only one step from passion."
She rose in a fury. "How dare you use that word to me!" she cried. "Oh, you are a brute! You are quite right: I don't love you—I hate you, I despise you. Oh, you brute!"
"Don't," he said; "I only used that word because it's what people call the thing when it's a man who feels it. With you it's what I said, the unconscious awakening of the womanhood God gave you. Try to forgive me. Have I said anything so very dreadful? It's a very little thing, dear, the sweet kindness you've felt for me. It's nothing to be ashamed or angry about. ”

“ She adored the Baby. She used to walk by herself in the Sussex lanes, for Mrs. Despard often set her free for two or three hours at a time, and more than once the mother and children, turning some leafy corner in their blackberrying or nutting expeditions, came upon Miss Eden walking along with a far-away look in her eyes, and a face set in a mask of steadfast endurance. She would sit sewing on the lawn with Mabel and Gracie playing about her, answering their ceaseless chatter with a patient smile. ”

“ It was almost in silence that they went through lanes still and dark, across the widespread park lawns and down the narrow road to the station. Her hand still lay against his heart. The kiss still thrilled through them both. They parted at the station. He would not risk the lessening of the day's charming impression by a railway journey. He could go to town by a later train. He put her into a crowded carriage, and murmured with the last hand pressure—
"Thank God for this one day. I shall never forget. You will never forget. This day is all our lives—all that might have been." ”

“ The house must be kept as her dead mother had kept it. The three prim maids and the gardener had been "in the family" since Dorothea was a girl of twenty—a girl with hopes and dreams and fond imaginings that, spreading bright wings, wandered over a world far other than this dainty, delicate, self-improving, coldly charitable, unchanging existence. Well, the dreams and the hopes and the fond imaginings had come home to roost. ”

“ The girl in the orchard would have known at a glance. She would gently, tenderly, with infinite delicacy and the fine tact of a noble woman, have drawn his secret from him. She would have shared his sorrow, and shown herself "half wife, half angel from heaven" in this dark hour. Well, it was not too late. She could begin now. But how? He had ordered the tea, and her question was still unanswered. Yet she must speak. When she did her words did not fit the mouth of the girl in the orchard—but then it would have been May there, and this was January. ”

“ And you did love me—oh, don't hate me for anything I've said. Don't you see I'm fighting for my life? Look at me. I am just like your old sweetheart, only I love you more, and I can understand better now how not to make you unhappy. Ah, don't throw everything away without thinking. I am more like the woman you loved than anyone else can ever be. Oh, [103] my God! my God! what shall I say to him? Oh, God help me!"
She had said enough. The one phrase "If I am not the same woman you loved, still I am more like her than anyone else in the world" had struck straight at his heart. ”

“ Elizabeth's lover schemed for and got a good-night word with her at the top of the stairs, by the table where the beautiful brass candle-sticks lay waiting in shining rows.
"Sleep well, you poor, tired little person," he said, as he lighted the candle; "such little feet, such wicked little shoes, such a long, long, long walk."
"You must be tired, too," she said.
"Tired? with eleven miles, and your hand against my heart for eight of them? I shall remember that walk when we're two happy old people nodding across our own hearthrug at each other." ”

“ It was interesting, for the revelation drew her till they were talking together in a world where it seemed no more than natural for her to show him her soul: and she had no skill to weave veils for it.
Such talk is rare: so rare and so keen a pleasure, indeed, as to leave upon one's life, if one be not a poet, a mark strong and never to be effaced.
The slackening of the train at Halstead broke the spell which lay on both with a force equal in strength, if diverse in kind. ”

“ He thought of the good warm dining-room in Russell Square—of the gathering of aunts and uncles and cousins, uncongenial, perhaps, but still human, and he shivered in his fur-lined coat and his icy solitude, damning himself for the fool he knew he was.
And even as he damned, his breath was stopped, and his heart leaped at the sound, faint but unmistakable, of a key in the front door. If a man exist not too remote from his hairy ancestors to have lost the habit of the pricking ear, he was that man. He pricked his ears, so far as the modern man may, and listened. ”