Emma Speed Sampson

“ Hortense Markle knew very well how to make herself both agreeable and useful. She would spend hours playing chess with Colonel Hathaway or she would go to the greatest trouble to match some bit of lace for Mary Louise. She spent much of her time engaged in matchless needlework for the prospective bride. She was so pleasant, so agreeable and so very pretty that one could not help liking her. Most of Mary Louise’s friends found her quite as charming as Mary Louise did. ”

“ I have never been jealous in my life. I have an instinct of distrust that I can’t overcome. Her husband affects me the same way. What am I that I should set myself up as a person whose instinct is of any value? They must be all that they seem or so many persons would not be attracted by them.”
She rather hoped Josie O’Gorman would feel like discussing the matter with her after their little talk concerning Hortense Markle on the day the Higgledy-Piggledy Shop had its house warming, but the astute Josie did not mention it again and Irene felt that she must not be the one to approach the subject. ”

“ Thefts were constantly being reported from wealthy persons, high in the social world, from every city in the union. All kinds of household goods would disappear most mysteriously, pictures, bric-a-brac, rugs, books; sometimes even furniture heavy enough to take two strong men to move, would be spirited away in a style uncanny to say the least. ”