Edward Everett Hale

“ Now, when Aucassin heard Nicolette say that she going to another country, he was very much distressed.
"My darling sweetheart," he said, "you shall never go; for that would be to give me my death-blow, and the most cruel death-blow of all. The first man that saw you would take you for his own; and, when I heard that, I should plunge my knife into my heart. No, I would not do that! I would run with all my might against a wall or a rock, and I would throw myself head first upon it, with such a plunge, that my eyes should spring out, and I would brain myself. ”

“ John Sapp was as badly off as the fox. He was fit for a hundred places, but he never could stay in one of them. Had he known how to do one thing, he could have done it his life long.
For, when a crisis comes, or anything like a crisis, the world has a hopeless fashion of jamming its old stout felt hat over its ears, tying a stout scarf above it, and going out to battle in the storm, and forgets, in the fight, the lath-and-plaster hat which has dragged the street yesterday. It trusts a proved friend, though his felt be a little rough, and his braid a little frayed. ”

“ All my wealth is what you see upon my body. I have a mother. She, poor woman, was not richer than I. All she had was an old petticoat to cover her poor old body; and they pulled that off her back, and now she is lying in the straw. That troubles me more than my condition. For money comes and goes. If I lose to-day, I will gain to-morrow; and, when I can pay for the ox, I will. I will never shed a tear for such a trifle as that. And here are you crying for a lost dog! You are a poor creature!"
"Certes, my good fellow, you are a good comforter," said Aucassin. ”

“ As Mr. Bryan was following, Mrs. Goole stopped him. Looking round to see that Hester had disappeared, she said,—
"Fergus, that girl of yours doesn't mean to be married to-morrow."
"How do you know that?" said old Bryan.
"I can see it; I've been watching her," said Mrs. Goole. "You see that you have the forward section; I have the rear one. She won't pass me in the night, whatever she does at your end."
"Do you mean to sit up all night?" said poor Bryan.
"Of course I do, fool!" said his tender sister, "and that you shall sit up all night, too. If you don't, there'll be no wedding to-morrow." ”

“ The people of the town followed the knights and the sergeants: they mounted the ramparts, and poured down a storm of quarrels and javelins.
In the very most terrible moment of the assault, the Count Garin de Beaucaire came into the room where Aucassin was grieving in his sorrow for his sweet darling, Nicolette.
"Oh, my boy!" he said, "what are you doing here while your castle is besieged, good and strong though it be? Do you know, that, if you lose it, you are disinherited? Boy, take your arms, mount your horse, defend your lands, and lead your men to battle. ”

“ I was not a day too soon with my visit to this gentleman. That very night, after my mother and Frida had gone to bed, as I sat in my easy-chair, there came over me one of those strange intimations which I have never found it safe to disregard. Sometimes it is of good, and sometimes of bad. This time it made me certain that all was not well. To relieve my fears I lifted my ladder over the wall, and dropped it in the alley. I swung myself down, and carried it to the very end of the alley, to the place where I had dragged poor Frida in. The moon fell on the fence opposite ours. ”

“ Why will you die?
"Thus asks and prays your own
"PRISCILLA."
"My own cat and dog!" said little Psyche scornfully. But she did not put the letter into the fire, nor did she tear it to shreds to throw them into the sea. I am very sorry; but, even in her wonder, she kept the letter hid away.
"What in the world did they find out about Edward that I do not know?" This was the first fatal question which Psyche asked herself.
"Forger, counterfeiter, detective, gambler—what do the vile creatures mean? They shall not say such horrid things about the best of men!" ”

“ But we are not your men; we are the count's men."
"I beg you to do what I ask you."
"Why should I sing for you, if I do not choose to sing? It is very true that the Count of Garin is the richest man in all this country; but if he found one of my oxen or cows or sheep, in his grazing-lands or in his grain, he would make their eyes fly out. Why should I sing for you, then, if I choose to hold my tongue?"
"May God bless you, my boys!" said Aucassin again. ”

“ Could they help themselves in the arrangements which had left them savages? Had any one ever given them a chance to fence in an up-town lot? Was it, in a word, I said to myself—was it my merit or my good luck which made me as good as a landed proprietor, while the Fordyce heirs had their education? Such thoughts, before I came to my shop, had quite tamed me down, and when I arrived there I was quite off my design, and I concluded that I had taken a wrong measure in my resolution to attack the savages, as I had begun to call men who might be merely harmless loafers. ”

“ Why, my man, I am a director. I am Mr. Siebenhold."
The passengers all grinned, as if to say not to know Mr. Siebenhold was to argue one's self unknown. Bertha had to collect all her powers. What would the stiffest martinet do in her place? She gulped down her terror.
"I can't help that, sir. If you are a director, you have a director's pass, I suppose?"
Magnificent instinct of a woman! For Bertha had never heard of a director's pass nor contemplated the exigency. ”

“ And never did young lover by the side of his mistress drive his span of bays through Central Park with more delight than Max drove Bertha in that glad minute when she stood on the platform by his side, before they were hailed by their first passenger.
Bertha will remember that old woman to her dying day,—an old Irishwoman, who, as Bertha believes, kept a boarding-house. She had with her an immense basket, redolent of cabbage, and of who shall say what else. No professional conductor would have let her carry that hundredweight of freight without an extra fare. ”

“ At first Bertha laughed, and then she was frightened, and then she was provoked.
"Why should I not be conductor? If you laugh any more, I shall offer myself to the company to-morrow, and I will wear a crimson satin frock, and a hat with an ostrich feather. Then we will see which car is the fullest. Cannot I hand a gentleman in quite as well as this assiduous squinting man who hands me in? Can't I make change as fast as that man who gave you a fifteen-cent bill for a quarter? I will not be laughed at, though I am a woman."
So Max stopped laughing for a minute. ”

“ But here was no Hester Bryan. Where was the girl? What had she done with herself?
De Alcantara turned on Mrs. Goole like a wild creature. He was ready to throttle her in his rage. "This is some confounded joke of yours, ma'am!" But no; she was no such actress as to feign that dismay and horror.
"It is he," she shrieked, pointing at her speechless brother, "it is he! He fell asleep, and the minx passed him at his door."
No. Old Bryan was no such fool as to sleep at his post. "Sartin" he had not slept a wink since this porter came upon the train at Chimborazo. ”

“ One day she said to Edward that she believed he knew more people than anybody else in the world. And he said, with a sad sigh, "I am afraid I do"; and she saw that it worried him, and so the dear child said no more.
In all this happy time Psyche had had no visit from her own sisters. Perhaps that was one reason why it was so happy. But it happened, after a happy life of a year and more, that a darling baby boy came to Psyche to make her wonder how she could have thought her life before was life at all. ”

“ Priscilla knew. Did Priscilla know? Why should not Psyche know?
Poor little Psyche! It was very still, and Edward was dead asleep. And one word from him would make her perfectly happy. And yet she did not dare ask him to speak that one word.
Why should she not be perfectly happy? Why should she disturb him at all? Why should she not keep her promise, and be perfectly happy too?
Dear little Psyche! Poor little Psyche! She got out of bed, and she stepped gently across the room to Edward's dressing-room, and she pushed the door to. ”

“ Pretty Hester came running to meet him at the gate, fresh as a rose and glad as a sunbeam; but she saw that all was wrong. All the same, everything was pleasant and cheerful; the children were neat and nice in their best clothes, the supper was perfect, and no returning conqueror had ever a more happy welcome.
Before they slept, even to her downcast, not to say cross, father, Hester told her story,—her story and Horace's. But old Bryan took it very hardly. It was all nonsense, he said. She must not think of weddings. His was no house to be married from. ”

“ There was no cry of a woman now, but only the howling of angry or drunken men, when they are in a rage with some one or with each other. What startled me was that, whereas the woman's cry came from the street south of me, which I have called Fernando Street, the whole crowd of men, as they howled and swore, were passing along that street rapidly, and then stopped for an instant, as if they were coming up what I called Church Alley. ”

“ The very first day that Frida was with us, I felt sure that the savages would make another descent upon us. They had heard her scream, that was certain. They knew she had not passed them, that was certain. They knew there was a coal-bin on the other side of our fence, that was certain. They would have reason enough for being afraid to have her at large, if, indeed, there were no worse passion than fear driving some of them in pursuit of her. ”

“ Psyche, whose two elder sisters were of moderate beauty, was so lovely that she was taken for Venus herself, and men dared only to adore her as a goddess, not to love her. This excited the jealousy of Venus, who, to revenge herself, ordered Cupid to inspire her with love for some contemptible wretch. ”

“ I know that she is the most constant, and the wisest creature that ever was born, as well as the most beautiful. She is the daughter of the King of Carthage, from whom she was stolen in her childhood; and he, in turn, took her and Aucassin from the Castle of Torelore. Glad was he, indeed, to find her; and now he wants to marry her to one of the mightiest kings of Spain. But Nicolette would rather be hanged and burned than consent to be the wife of any but Aucassin, though she were asked to wed the most powerful and the richest prince in the earth. ”

“ I had my party well at work, with some laborers whom we had hired to dig our post-holes, when a white-haired old man, with gold spectacles and a broad-brimmed hat, alighted from a cab upon the sidewalk, watched the men for a minute at their work, and then accosted me. I knew him perfectly, though of course he did not remember me. He was, in fact, my employer in this very job, for he was old Mark Henry, a Quaker gentleman of Philadelphia, who was guardian of the infant heirs who owned this block of land which we were enclosing. ”

“ They were overjoyed at such luck. They surrounded him, and seized his lance and his shield, and, as they led him away prisoner, began to ask each other with what death they would make him die.
"Alas!" said Aucassin to himself, "these are my mortal enemies, who are leading me away to cut off my head. But, if my head is cut off, I shall never be able to speak again to Nicolette, my darling sweetheart."
Then he added, "I still have my good sword. I am mounted on a strong horse. If he does not save me from the mêlée, it is because he never loved me, and then may God never help him!" ”

“ Whether she thought it was the custom in America for young men to live shut up with their mothers in inclosures of half an acre square, or whether she thought we two made some peculiar religious order, whose rules provided that one woman and one man should live together in a convent or monastery of their own, or whether she supposed half New York was made up, as Marco Polo found Pekin, of cottages or of gardens, I did not know, nor did I much care. ”

“ And if Bill Todhunter had weighed that train himself, he could not have been better pleased,—one baggage-car, one smoking-car, two regular first-class, and two palaces: she run just as steady as an old cow! ”

“ The baby was growing to be no baby. She was big enough to run about the floor, and if they had a boiled chicken for dinner, the little girl sucked and even gnawed at the bones. The autumn had gone, and Bertha had a long winter ulster to do her cold work in, and Max a longer and a heavier one for his. Still, neither of them flinched. Max did not like his work as well as he liked covering piano-forte hammers, but he liked it better than nothing. And Bertha liked to be out of debt, and to see Max happy. So never did she ask him to drop a trip, and never did he ask her. ”

“ It's nine o'clock, and just think how hard a day you'll have to-morrow."
"I don't know," said Hester. "I think that it is never so hard to do a thing as to make up one's mind to it; and as for going to bed, I don't care to. Perhaps Mr. De Alcantara has a pack of cards or so with him, and then you can have some whist, aunt, and we— Shall we have Sancho Pedro or euchre, your Grace?"
"Grace me no grace," said De Alcantara, as cards were produced—to his credit, be it said, from a friend's portmanteau. "I vote for euchre, if it be for four hands; Pedro by itself is far from exciting." ”

“ But I tell thee, every beggar's brat in the ward will be over thy fence before it has been built a week, and there will be I know not what devices of Satan carried on in the inside. All the junk from the North River will be hidden there, and I shall be in luck if some stolen trunk, nay, some dead man's body, is not stowed away there. Ah, my young friend, if thee is ever unhappy enough to own a vacant lot in the city, thee will know much that thee does not know now of the exceeding sinfulness of sin. Thee will know of trials of the spirit and of the temper that thee has never yet experienced. ”