Ethel Watts Mumford

“ I've never been out of Mayfield before, and I've never been so happy, either."
"Miss Peck"—Mary sought and found her gloves—"was good to me always, when I needed goodness. When I ran away she stood by me and helped me. And when I needed money she scrimped herself and sent it to me. She's my good angel, Mr. Thomas." Her dark-lashed eyes met his with a swift look of meaning.
"Angels are very necessary sometimes—in our business." ”

“ I felt so mean that I hadn't written you. You don't know—it makes all the difference in the world. But, tell me all about yourself. How did they let you off?"
"They didn't," said Miss Peck, suddenly reverting to her defiant manner. "John threw my bag out of the car window. Lucky it wasn't Thomas—oh, where is Thomas?"
The broadly smiling maid laid the basket on the bed.
"Thomas!" exclaimed Mary Allen, alias Margot Fontaine. "Not old Tom!" ”

“ Thomas quite understands women." Mary's voice was again brittle and thin. "He—he's perhaps a little cynical. He doesn't know how hard it is—to—to be a woman. I think he's always thought that because I ran away from—you wouldn't call it 'home,' Miss Elizabeth, would you?—that—that— Oh, well, let's be going." She turned away helplessly.
But Miss Peck was too startled at the last suggestion.
"Why, she just couldn't stay in Mayfield. Why Mr. Thomas, Mary Allen always was a heart of gold. ”

“ If ever a woman nagged a girl into takin' the bit in her teeth, your Cousin Hilda nagged you. It was just jealousy, Mary, because you're purty. And, Mary"—she paused to feast her eyes on the tousled vision of beauty before her—"if she could see you now, she'd up and die." Miss Peck sighed a sigh of utter content "It just rests me to look at you. I don't know what the Lord put into me to make me love purty young things so, but I do. All my life I've loved 'em—flowers an' people an' cats, an' silks an' satins, an' babies, an' pictures an' gold frames. ”

“ Miss Peck felt flustered, as if somehow she needed to explain her presence.
"I ran away, too," she stated boldly.
"Indeed? When?" he inquired politely.
"Why, just now. I don't know as I'd have had the courage if I hadn't helped Mary when she run off. But I remembered, and I kept telling myself that Mary was all right. She'd found her groove, and why shouldn't I? You see, Mr. Thomas, you don't know what it is to be brought up a woman. Everything's your duty if you're a woman ”

“ What are you doing in the chorus dressing-room?"
"Oh," gasped Miss Peck, "ain't it beautiful? Ain't it beautiful!" I—I cud just set here forever an' see all them pretty things. I'd just like to tech 'em all with my fingers."
Mary Allen's face flickered with amusement and sobered to sympathetic earnestness.
"Why, I do believe you were born to be a wardrobe woman. Why, Miss Elizabeth, perhaps it's your groove!" She looked into her companion's ecstatic face, and her own saddened with memories. "And what a friend you'd be to them, Miss Elizabeth. ”

“ Hold on a minute," he called after the new arrival. "It's Miss Fontaine—wants her coffee in her room. All right. Say, tell Miss Fontaine that Miss Peck—Miss Elizabeth Peck, of Mayfield—is here to see her.... Yes, I'll hold the wire.... Tell her to come right up? All right.... Front, show the lady to three sixty-one, and tell the floor maid to make up four thirty-six. Elevator to the right, Miss."
Both Thomas and his owner suffered from the sudden ascension. Had a stomach been permissible in an unmarried lady, Miss Peck would have clutched hers in squeamish terror. ”

“ I took care of Mother and Aunt Sue and Sister Emma till the Lord took 'em, an' I don't believe the Lord intends me to take up John's cross for him, an' nurse his wife and children so's he can let Martha go and only keep one servant.
"All my life I've been in somebody else's groove—I ain't never found my own. Now, I just want to do somethin' it's a human pleasure to do. I've wanted what was live an' pretty, an' all I ever had was a cat. I wanted young people when I was young, an' I never cud have 'em, because there wuz always them as it wuz my plain duty to do for. ”

“ The elderly adviser paled.
"I can only account for your extraordinary conduct," he quavered, "on the ground of demoniac possession. I refuse to believe that one so exemplary can seriously speak as you are speaking or contemplate such actions." ”