Gene Stratton-Porter

“ I do not know why it is the fate of the world always to want something different from what life gives them. If you only could realize it, my girl, you are in college, and have been always. You are in the school of experience, and it has taught you to think, and given you a heart. God knows I envy the man who wins it! You have been in the college of the Limberlost all your life, and I never met a graduate from any other institution who could begin to compare with you in sanity, clarity, and interesting knowledge. ”

“ Elnora is very sensible, Mrs. Comstock. Hadn’t you better let her decide this?”
“The final decision rests with her, of course,” admitted Mrs. Comstock. “But look you one thing! She’s all I have. As Solomon says, ‘she is the one child, the only child of her mother.’ I’ve suffered enough in this world that I fight against any suffering which threatens her. So far as I know you’ve always been a man, and you may stay. But if you bring tears and heartache to her, don’t have the assurance to think I’ll bear it tamely. I’ll get right up and fight like a catamount, if things go wrong for Elnora!” ”

“ As he touched the top she swung him to the ground, but he clung to her, clasping her tightly, sobbing with fear. Elnora helped him to the bridge, and sat with him in her arms. For a time his replies to her questions were indistinct, but at last he became quieter and she could understand.
He was a mite of a boy, nothing but skin-covered bones, his burned, freckled face in a mortar of tears and dust, his clothing unspeakably dirty, one great toe in a festering mass from a broken nail, and sores all over the visible portions of the small body. ”

“ Sixty young men and women, each of them dressed the best possible, followed her. There were manly, fine-looking men in that class which Elnora led. There were girls of beauty and grace, but not one of them was handsomer or clothed in better taste than she.
Billy thought the time never would come when Elnora would see him, but at last she met his eye, then Margaret and Wesley had faint signs of recognition in turn, but there was no softening of the girl’s face and no hint of a smile when she saw her mother. ”

“ She caught Margaret Sinton by the arm. "My father had a violin! He played it. That's why I can! Where is it? Is it in our house? Is it in mother's room?"
"Elnora!" panted Margaret. "Your mother will kill me! She always hated it."
"Mother dearly loves music," said Elnora.
"Not when it took the man she loved away from her to make it!"
"Where is my father's violin?"
"Elnora!"
"I've never seen a picture of my father. I've never heard his name mentioned. I've never had a scrap that belonged to him. Was he my father, or am I a charity child like Billy, and so she hates me?" ”

“ If Elnora Comstock had been like me, Phil would have come back to me. I can see how selfish I look to him, and how I appear to you, if you would admit it."
"Edith," said Henderson desperately, "there is no use to try to deceive you. You have known from the first that I found you wrong in this. But it's the first time in your life I ever thought you wrong about anything—and it's the only time I ever will. Understand, I think you the bravest, most beautiful woman on earth, the one most worth loving." ”

“ I’ve known Philip all my life. I’ve known him through boyhood, in college, and since. All men respect him. Where the rest of us confess our sins, he stands clean. You can go to his arms with nothing to forgive. Mark this thing! I have heard him say, ‘Edith is my slogan,’ and I have seen him march home strong in the strength of his love for you, in the face of temptations before which every other man of us fell. Before the gods! that ought to be worth something to a girl, if she really is the delicate, sensitive, refined thing she would have man believe. ”

“ S'pose we'd got Elnora when she was a baby, and we'd heaped on her all the love we can't on our own, and we'd coddled, petted, and shielded her, would she have made the woman that living alone, learning to think for herself, and taking all the knocks Kate Comstock could give, have made of her?"
"You bet your life!" cried Wesley, warmly. "Loving anybody don't hurt them. We wouldn't have done anything but love her. You can't hurt a child loving it. She'd have learned to work, be sensible, study, and grown into a woman with us, without suffering like a poor homeless dog." ”

“ Philip sat silently looking far away, with deep thought in his eyes.
“You are angry,” faltered Elnora.
His look came back to her as she knelt before him among the flowers and he gazed at her steadily.
“No doubt I should be,” he said, “but the fact is I am not. I cannot understand a life purely for personal pleasure myself. But she is only a girl, and this is her playtime. When she is a woman in her own home, then she will be different, will she not?”
Elnora never resembled her mother so closely as when she answered that question. ”

“ Edith Carr stood truly regal and filled with scorn. "You are mistaken! Nothing on earth could kill that!" she cried, and Elnora saw that the girl really believed what she said.
"You are very sure of yourself!" said Elnora.
"I have reason to be sure," answered Edith Carr. "We have lived and loved too long. I have had years with him to match against your days. He is mine! His work, his ambitions, his friends, his place in society are with me. You may have a summer charm for a sick man in the country; if he tried placing you in society, he soon would see you as others will. ”

“ Comstock's shoulder. Lower drooped the gay wings, wider they spread, brighter grew the markings as if laid off in geometrical patterns. They could hear Mrs. Comstock's tense breath and see her absorbed expression.
"Young people," she said solemnly, "if your studying science and the elements has ever led you to feel that things just happen, kind of evolve by chance, as it were, this sight will be good for you. Maybe earth and air accumulate, but it takes the wisdom of the Almighty God to devise the wing of a moth. If there ever was a miracle, this whole process is one. ”