Harriet T. Comstock

“ It is the beginning of the romance of Katherine, a young Dutch girl who has sent, as a love token, to a young English officer, the bow of orange ribbon which she has worn for years as a sacred emblem on the day of St. Nicholas. After the bow of ribbon Katherine's heart soon flies. Unlike her sister, whose heart has found a safe resting place among her own people, Katherine's heart must rove from home—must know to the utmost all that life holds of both joy and sorrow. And so she goes beyond the seas, leaving her parents as desolate as were Isaac and Rebecca of old. ”

“ Mark shook his head, but started obediently. Once he was out of sight, Janet turned into a side path, and ran like a mad thing to the lighthouse wharf. The Comrade was gone! And nowhere on the bay was the white sail visible! Janet raised her eyes and looked at the autumn sky. The calmness was ruffled near the horizon by ragged little clouds.
"The wind is changing," she murmured, "the oyster boats are coming in. There is going to be a wicked storm before nightfall." The bland sky seemed to give the lie to such reasoning, but the trained senses of the girl could not be deceived. ”

“ Janet did not move. Her great, startled eyes, dark, intense, and passion-filled, stared helplessly at the two, who, transfixed, returned the stare in frozen silence. So rigid and deathlike the model lay in the meshes of the net, so beautiful and graceful in her motionless pose, that for an instant the intruders could not trust their senses. Then the woman found voice and action.
"I fear," she said slowly, coldly, and distantly, "I fear we really have intruded where we have no right, Mr. Devant." Then she laughed a rich, rippling laugh. ”

“ That night, winter, in its grimmest sense, settled upon Quinton. The bay became a glistening roadway between the mainland and the dunes. Children on skates or in ice boats filled the short, cold days with laughter and fun. Sleighing parties flashed hither and yonder with never a fear of a crack or hole; and beyond the dunes the life crew kept a keener watch upon the outer bar. Chunky ice formed near shore, and the tides bore it inward and left it high upon the beach. Day by day it grew in height like a shining, curving line of alabaster, showing where the high-water mark had been. ”

“ The first and natural impulse of the girl's nature was to cry out against care and trouble, to make a noise, and act! It was second nature only that had taught her to assume silently and bear secretly whatever of unpleasantness life presented.
"Oh! Cap'n Daddy," she had once cried to Billy, when something had stirred her childish depths, "why don't we yell, and kick and scare it off?"
"'Tain't sensible with them as lives near the sea, Janet," Billy had calmly returned. "The sea teaches a powerful pinted lesson 'long o' them lines. Troubles is like the sea. ”

“ Devant leaned against a tree. Motion was no longer possible. Janet stood in the path and waited. The brute instinct arose in the man's heart. This was his child! In doing for her lay the only expiation possible for him in the world. What were the claims of that man over on the dunes compared to his, should he powerfully press them? What if Captain Billy had given his life to the doing of a duty belonging to another? The Tempter now took on a virtuous, unselfish guise. Think what the girl's life might be! Could any true love, even such stupid love as Billy might bear her, stand in the way? ”

“ With the proud young womanhood that remained with the girl like a royal birthright, the knowledge of all that Thornly's renunciation of her help in his art meant brought the warm blood to her cheek and a prayer of gratitude to her lips. She could afford to live and work apart; she could be glad in worshipping her ideal of all that was brave and manly, even though she knelt forever before an empty shrine.
Billy and Davy loomed upon her near horizon in added splendor. Ah! she had known such good men! ”

“ And, Cap'n David, I know what you all think. You think me a useless kind of girl, willing enough to hang on Cap'n Billy and take all he can give. And I know that you think him soft and, maybe, silly, because he hasn't been sterner with me. But you're all wrong! Cap'n Daddy and I haven't been wasting our time. We've got awfully close to each other while we've lived alone and had only ourselves. I've been thinking a long time of how I could help him best. I didn't want to come over and—and—what shall I say?—well, plunder the city folks. That's what every one is doing. ”

“ Thornly entered the room, closed and locked the door. Then he opened the windows wide. His eye and ear would warn him of intruders, and the breath of the summer day he must have! Janet heard him stop before the easel; then his laugh, contented and youth-filled, rang clearly in the little room.
"Beauty!" he muttered. "Great heaven, what almost weird beauty! My Pimpernel, you'll make me famous!" Then he whistled gayly, hung up his coat and hat—did not the listening girl know every movement?—drew on the old paint besmirched jacket, and filled his pipe. ”

“ At every window on the way down the girl stopped to look out at the stars that were thick in the early autumn gloaming. She was aware of a lack of joy in life—one has to know sorrow and trouble to recognize and classify it clearly. Knowledge was coming slowly to Janet. Hope had buoyed her up, the hope that Thornly would let her prove that she was stronger and braver than that silly creature he had once thought her, but, as time dragged on and no call came from the hut upon the Hills, hope died. Then she had seen Thornly drive past her one day with that white girl from Bluff Head. ”

“ For ten long years David had known this sorrow; and he knew that it was to be his until Death spake the final word.
"It seems to me, David," the querulous voice was saying, "that the sun, up your way, rose mighty late to-day."
"There, there, Susan Jane, 'tis the same old sun as rises an' sets fur all. Had a bad night, Susan Jane?"
"Bad night! that shows what sympathy you have for me, David. All my nights are bad. Bad as bad can be, unless they be worse!"
"Well, Susan Jane, let's hope that a bad night argers a good day. There! are ye fixed, reasonably comfortable? ”

“ That girl, Dick, has wrecked my life!"
Thornly handed the photograph to Devant. He felt as if he were in some way reading a private letter.
"Your life does not seem a wrecked life," he said confusedly. In a vague way he wished to repress a confidence that he felt, once told, might wield an influence over his own acts, and this his independence resented. "You have always appeared a thoroughly contented, successful man." ”

“ I can almost feel Daddy's eye way over from the Station; and there's Davy! I shouldn't wonder now, if he were looking at me as he hauls the oil up to the lamp; and Susan Jane, chair-ridden as she is, has eyes that go out like a devilfish's feelers; and then there is Mark Tapkins! I'm afraid you'll have trouble with Mark's eyes!"
Thornly was laughing uproariously. "You open a vista of human possibilities that makes me about crazy," he said. "Your associates must all be Arguses; but I like not Mark! Just where does Tapkins come in?"
"'Most everywhere!" Janet joined in the care-free laugh. ”

“ I advise you for your own good, Miss Janet, do not struggle to learn to make daubs! It never pays. It's hard enough to make the best go. But you can help me, and together we'll create some pictures that will set the town gaping. What do you say?"
"I do not understand."
"Well, sit for me; be my model! Let me put you in my pictures. I'll pay you well, and if I sell the pictures, you'll have a kind of fame to offer your Cap'n Daddy that no girl need be ashamed of. Have you caught my meaning?"
"You mean, if I sit here upon the Hills—"
"Sit, stand, or lie among them," Thornly explained. ”

“ There is going to be an inlet all right, some day, over on the dunes! When that time comes, beside sweetening the waters of the bay and doing all the rest, something else is going to happen and don't you forget it! Craft from outside will come in and not get stranded, either; and what's more, some craft of yours that is stronger and better fitted than you know of is going to sail out into the open, test its strength and not get wrecked! Sand bars are for nothing in the world, Tapkins, but for conquering. ”

“ Janet had assumed this duty in order to spare David, the nights he must go up aloft. The thin, light body was no burden to the sturdy girl.
"There, Susan, and see the storm is past!" The evening glow was shining in the bedroom window. "And I will undress you, just as easy as easy can be, and put you so, upon the cool bed! The shower has cleared the air beautifully. Now are you comfortable, Susan Jane?"
"I'm more comfortable than what I've been fur a time past. Leave the shade up t' the top, Janet; I like to see the gleam of Davy's Light when it is dark. ”

“ The master of Bluff Head watched the straight young figure fade into the night. Then he turned again to Davy's Light.
"The weight of a dead duty," he muttered. "That's what anchors a man! It isn't in the order of things to trust a man with a new duty, when he failed with the last. There isn't any light to guide a man that's anchored by a dead duty."
Then Devant went back into his lonely house and sat down before the dulling fire to think it out about Thornly.
"He'll never go to any one but me, after he's seen Katharine," he thought. ”

“ The long skirts and new womanhood retarded movement somewhat, but the agile body had not forgotten its cunning. In a minute or two Janet stood in the vacant library. She drew in long breaths. Eliza Jane had aired the room well, but there was a hint of tobacco smoke still. Upon a stand was a vase of golden rod, yellow and vivid amid the rich coloring.
"Some people leave a house a great deal lonelier than others," whispered the girl; "it will never be quite the same."
Devant's presence, his vital personality seemed near and potent. ”

“ It's simply awful to see her greed in money matters. Sitting in her chair, she can manage to want more, strive to get more, and make more fuss about it, than any other woman on the mainland. You have to live with Susan Jane to appreciate her. Oh! poor Davy. We never really knew what a hero he is, Daddy. He's splendid!"
It had been necessary, unless Susan Jane was to receive double pay for her boarder, that Janet should inform Billy as to her money-getting; but once the fact was stated, the girl hurried to other thoughts, in order to divert Billy.
"How'd ye get yer money, Janet?" ”

“ She felt perfectly at her ease with this stranger now. Born and reared where equality and good-fellowship existed, she knew no need of caution. To dislike a person was the only ground for suspicion. To like him was an open sesame to heart and confidence. And Janet liked the stranger immensely.
"Mark comes in 'most everywhere," she repeated. "You'll have to look out for Mark."
"He loves you, I suppose?" Thornly forbore to laugh, and he searched the frank face near him. ”

“ The keen eyes drew together darkly.
"How do you know what Katharine thought, Dick?" The older man was growing anxious.
"A woman thinks only one thing, when she strikes that kind of a blow, Mr. Devant. The effect of the blow upon the object was proof enough of its character. I happened to be in at the death, you know."
"Dick, you're a man of the world; this sort of sentiment is not worthy of your intelligence. Katharine is a loving girl and naturally a bit jealous of you and your dissecting room. ”

“ An' ye know it!" cried Billy. "But Mrs. Jo G., 'fore they sailed off, opened my eyes."
"Mrs. Jo G.!" snapped Janet, raising her head and flashing a look of resentment, "I thought so! What did she suggest—that I might come to her house and wait—wait, just think of it, Cap'n, wait upon those boarders?" She had suggested that, and something even worse, so Billy held his peace.
"It's simply outrageous the way our people are going on," the girl continued; "they are bent upon beggaring the city folks! Beggaring them, really! they have no consciences about the methods they take to—to rob them!" ”

“ Thornly smiled grimly. "That was a devilishly Ibsen-like idea."
"It was a truer touch than the young can understand. Those ghostly women of an early folly often sit beside a man and the later, purer love of his life. Some men are able to ignore the gray spectres and get a deal of comfort from the saner reality of maturer years; I never could. That girl"—he touched the closed book as if it were the grave that concealed her—"has always come between me and later desires for a home and closer ties. ”

“ Ye must choose yerself, Janet, an' do it just an' honest like I've tried t' show ye how!"
"Cap'n Billy,"—Thornly pressed the thin shoulder firmer, the real test was coming now,—"our little girl has had her chance. She knows her father; he came and offered her a life of luxury and pleasure—and she chose you!"
"Gawd!" burst from Davy, and his pipe lay shattered upon the floor.
Billy breathed quicker, but the habit of a lifetime helped him bear this crowning bliss. To such as he it sometimes happens that an inner sense prepares the soul for its mounts of vision. ”

“ This famous Religious-Historical Romance with its mighty story, brilliant pageantry, thrilling action and deep religious reverence, hardly requires an outline. The whole world has placed "Ben-Hur" on a height of pre-eminence which no other novel of its time has reached. The clashing of rivalry and the deepest human passions, the perfect reproduction of brilliant Roman life, and the tense, fierce atmosphere of the arena have kept their deep fascination. ”

“ You've reached the dunes safely, but you'll have to own up some day!" She waved in the direction of the Station.
"How dark the water looks!" she suddenly cried; "stars in plenty—where is Davy's Light?"
White and fear-filled, she sprang toward the stairs and ran lightly upward. Slower she went, after the third landing; anxiety, added to weariness, stayed the eager feet. If the Light were not burning, what then? Just below the lamp and gallery was a tiny room with a table, chair, small stove, and little glass lamp. Here, between the times that David inspected his Light, he sat to read or think. ”

“ Janet murmured, placing some autumn flowers near Susan Jane, "he is glad that dear Davy could have the joy that seemed to us all a burden. That's the way it is when the 'former things have passed away,'"—the girl's tears fell among the flowers,—"such things do not matter then; but here they do! Oh, they matter most of all!"
Mrs. Jo G., her boarders gone and her body weary from the summer's strain, gathered her neglected social charms together for Susan Jane's funeral. There would be a reunion of all Quinton that day. There would be a repast worthy the minister's donation. ”

“ I'm getting to be an old man; I can claim certain privileges on that score, and if life means anything past forty, it means sharing its experiences with a friend. I'm going to speak of something that has never passed my lips for nearly twenty years."
"You are very kind, Mr. Devant." Thornly set his glass down and thrust his hands in his pockets. "I appreciate your friendliness, but please do not give yourself pain. If life means anything under forty, it means getting your knocks at first hand." He tried to smile pleasantly, but his face fell at once into gloomy, set lines. ”