Frances Hodgson Burnett

“ Then she spoke, hesitatingly:
"Do you mean that I should pretend——," she began.
"Oh, no," interrupted Miss Ferrol. "Not pretend either one thing or the other. Only let me dress you as I choose, and then take care that you say nothing whatever about your past life. You will have to be rather quiet, perhaps, and let him talk. He will like that, of course—men always do—and then you will learn a great many things from him."
"It will be—a very strange thing to do," said Louisiana.
"It will be a very interesting thing," answered Olivia, her enthusiasm increasing. "How he will admire you!" ”

“ Almost every summer they spent in North Carolina, filling their house with those of their friends who would most enjoy the simple quiet of the life they led. There were numberless pictures painted among them at such times and numberless new "types" discovered.
"But you'd scarcely think," it was said sometimes, "that it is here that Mrs. Laurence is on her native heath."
And though all the rest of the house was open, there was one room into which no one but Laurence and Louisiana ever went—a little room, with strange, ugly furniture in it, and bright-colored lithographs upon the walls. ”

“ Most of the guests had come from the far South at the beginning of the season and would remain until the close of it; so they had had time to become familiar with each other and to throw aside restraint.
"There is nothing to distract one," Ferrol said, "nothing to rouse one, nothing to inspire one—nothing! It is delicious! Why didn't I know of it before?"
He had plenty of time to study his sister's friend. She rode and walked with him and Olivia when they made their excursions, she listened while he read aloud to them as he lay on the grass in a quiet corner of the grounds. ”

“ I was very fond of her."
"Oh!" cried Olivia, piteously, "don't say 'was,' Louise!"
"Don't say 'Louise,'" was the reply. "Say 'Louisiana.' I am not ashamed of it now. I want Mr. Ferrol to hear it."
"I have nothing to say in self-defense," Laurence replied, hopelessly.
"There is nothing for any of us to say but good-by," said Louisiana. "We shall never see each other again. It is all over between us. You will go your way and I shall go mine. I shall stay here to-night. You must drive back to the Springs without me. ”

“ She was really depressed, but her protégée was so much more deeply so that she felt it her duty to contain herself and return to cheerfulness.
"Never mind," she said. "I will tell you all I know about them, and,"—after a pause for speculative thought upon the subject,—"by-the-by, it isn't much, and I will lend you some books to read, and give you a list of some you must persuade your father to buy for you, and you will be all right. It is rather dreadful not to know the names of people and things; but, after all, I think there are very few people who—ahem!" ”

“ One moonlight night, as they sat on an upper gallery, he began to speak of the novelty of the aspect of the country as it presented itself to an outsider who saw it for the first time.
"It is a new life, and a new people," he said. "And, by the way, Olivia, where is the new species of young woman I was to see—the daughter of the people who does not belong to her sphere?"
He turned to Louisiana. ”

“ She was very pretty and very young and very ill-dressed—her costume a bucolic travesty on prevailing modes. She did not know where to go, and no one thought of showing her; the loungers about the office stared at her; she began to turn pale with embarrassment and timidity. Olivia Ferrol left her chair and crossed the gallery. She spoke to a servant a little sharply:
"Why not show the young lady into the parlor?" ”

“ She had heard people talk of "standards" and "ideals," and when she was kept to the point and in regulation working order, she could be very eloquent upon these subjects herself.
"You will have to work very seriously," she remarked, rather incongruously and with a rapid change of position. "If you wish to—to acquire anything, you must read conscientiously and—and with a purpose." She was rather proud of that last clause.
"Must I?" inquired Louise, humbly. "I should like to—if I knew where to begin. Who was Worth? Was he a poet?"
Miss Ferrol acquired a fine, high color very suddenly. ”

“ She had seized a hint from some one of Olivia's possessions, and had given her costume a pretty air of primitive simplicity. It was a plain white lawn, with a little frilled cape or fichu which crossed upon her breast, and was knotted loosely behind. She had a black velvet ribbon around her lithe waist, a rose in her bosom where the fichu crossed, and a broad Gainsborough hat upon her head. One was reminded somewhat of the picturesque young woman of the good old colony times. ”

“ It was set upon a small hill and had a long front porch, mottled with blue and white paint in a sanguine attempt at imitating variegated marble.
She burst into a low laugh when she saw it.
"Look at that," she said. "That is one of the finest houses in the country. The man who owns it is counted a rich man among his neighbors."
Ferrol put up his eye-glasses to examine it. ”

“ I thought at first it would be better to let you believe what you would—that it would soon be over, and we should never see each other again, but I did not think that I should have to sit by and see you laugh because he does not know the world as you do—because he has always lived his simple, good life in one simple, country place. ”

“ Here was a man such as she had never spoken to before, who was always ready to endeavor to his utmost to please her: who, without any tendency toward sentimental nonsense, was plainly the happier for her presence and favor. What could be more assiduous and gallant than the every-day behavior of the well-bred, thoroughly experienced young man of the period toward the young beauty who for the moment reigns over his fancy! ”

“ Ferrol, at least, when he first caught sight of her, was reminded of pictures he had seen of them.
There was no trace of her last night's fire in her manner. She was quieter than usual through the first part of the drive. She was gentle to submissiveness to Olivia. There was something even tender in her voice once or twice when she addressed her. Laurence noticed it, and accounted for it naturally enough.
"She is really fonder of her than she has seemed," he thought, "and she is sorry that their parting is so near."
He was just arriving at this conclusion when Louisiana touched his arm. ”

“ Nance were left to themselves. Aunt 'Nervy and Aunt Ca'line and the rest had returned to their respective homes, even Jenny had gone back to Bowersville where she boarded with a relation and went to school.
The days after this seemed so long to Louisiana that she often wondered how she lived through them. In the first passion of her sorrow she had not known how they passed, but now that all was silence and order in the house, and she was alone, she had nothing to do but to count the hours. There was no work for her, no one came in and out for whom she might invent some little labor of love ”

“ From her earliest childhood she had been surrounded by men and women of artistic or literary occupations, some who were drudges, some who were geniuses, some who balanced between the two extremes, and she had unconsciously learned the tricks of the trade. She had been used to people who continually had their eyes open to anything peculiar and interesting in human nature, who were enraptured by the discovery of new types of men, women, and emotions. ”

“ To think yer own father, thet's knowed ye all yer life, could hev give in to its bein' likely as ye wasn't—what he'd allers thought, an' what yer mother 'd thought, an' what ye was, honey."
"I don't——" she began falteringly.
"It's me as oughter be a-standin' agin the door," he said. "It's me! I knowed every word of the first part of what ye've told me, Louisianny. I've been so sot on ye thet I've got into a kinder noticin' way with ye, an' I guessed it out. I seen it in yer face when ye stood thar tryin' to laugh on the porch while them people was a-waitin'. ”