Josephine Daskam Bacon

“ Dozens of those books the boy had cleverly filled in with his little japanned paint-box and mussy, quill-handled brushes; and the scene before him, the rich tints of the hedge, the symmetrical little tree brilliant with hundreds of tiny globes, the big white apron, the lazy yellow cats, and everywhere the prim rectangular lines so amusingly conventional to accentuate the likeness, almost choked him with the suddenness of the recognition. They must have colored that very picture a dozen times, Tommy and he. ”

“ They—the ones I know—come in for a moment while I mend something, or pin their things in the back, and it's surprising how much there is to do! They fly about so they can't stop to take care of their things. They talk to me while I set them straight, and it's very interesting. I tell Lizzie I go out a great deal, just hearing about their adventures, when she drops in to see me. She never forgets me; she brings somebody to my sitting-room every day or so that she thinks I'd enjoy meeting—and I always do. She never makes a mistake.”
“Oh, she's wonderful,” Varian agreed easily. ”

“ Dudley's eyes were lacking; a group of tiny wrinkles at the corners gave her instead a pleasant, humorous regard that her sister's literal directness missed utterly.
Nervous under his scrutiny, she rose hastily, and before he could prevent her she had brought him a roomy arm-chair from the house.
“At our age there's no use in running risks,” she said simply, “you ought not to sit on the grass; leave that for the young folks.” ”

“ She's a wonder—she really is. When you remember how she used to carry her father's dinner to the store Saturday afternoons—”
“And now I suppose she sports real Mechlin on her cap,” assented Hunter, anxious to show how perfectly he caught the situation.
Varian had roared helplessly. “Cap? Cap!” he had moaned finally. “Oh, my sainted granny! Cap! My poor fellow, your view of Binghamville must be like the old maps of Africa in the green geography, that said 'desert' and 'interior' and 'savage tribes' from time to time. I should like awfully to see Mrs. Dud in a cap.” ”

“ The women have set themselves a tremendous field to cover nowadays, and when one succeeds so admirably—” He paused.
She shook her head thoughtfully.
“But everything is done for her!” she protested. “Why, I have never yet seen all the servants in this house! And you know there is a housekeeper? Lizzie sees her a little while in the morning, that's all. And she never sews a stitch—there's a seamstress here all the time, you know, and that has nothing to do with the clothes that come home in boxes. And little Dudley has his tutor, and his old nurse that looks after his clothes. ”

“ I like to see the girls enjoy themselves. I'm glad they're happy—some of those visiting Lizzie are so pretty!—but I'm glad I haven't got to run about so much. I'm very fond of driving myself, if I have a good quiet horse that won't shy and doesn't go fast, and Lizzie has one for me—a white one that's gentle—and I drive about in the phaëton a great deal. ”

“ Here, puss!” a high voice called, and a tall slender girl in a swish of lace and pink draperies rushed across one side of the square. A portly trousered figure essayed to gain the tree she had left, but a romping girl in white caught him easily, while Mrs. Dud, the tail of her gown thrown over her arm, skimmed triumphantly across to her partner's tree.
“One more, one more, colonel. You can't give up, now you're caught! One more before we go in!” called the pink girl.
“Here's Mr. Varian. Come and help us out—the colonel's beaten!” added Mrs. Dud. ”

“ I'm not so young as I used to be. I'd have liked the gayety well enough when I was a girl, but I guess it tires me a little now. There seems to be so much going on all the time. Lizzie says she's resting, but it wouldn't rest me. ”

“ Hunter had looked puzzled.
“But, dear me! she might very well wear one, I should think,” he had murmured defensively. “I don't wish to be invidious, but surely Lizzie must be—let's see; 'eighty, 'ninety—why, she must be between forty-five and fifty now.”
Varian had waved his hand dramatically. “Nobody considers Mrs. Dud and time in the same breath. If you could see her in her golf rig! Or on a horse! She even sheds a lustre on the rest of us. I forget my rheumatism!”
But Hunter, retreating behind his determination to avoid a second seasickness—it might have been sincere ”

“ At some light question he turned and faced her.
“You could not have all the greenhouses, but there could be plenty of flowers,” he said pleadingly.
“Flowers? Where?” she asked.
“Wherever we lived,” he answered. “And oh, Mary, I think we could be happy together! Don't say no!” as she shrank a little. “Don't, Mary, for heaven's sake! I care too much—I care terribly. I am too old a man to care so much and—lose.... ”

“ He admired her as he would admire some charming soft pastel hung in a cool white room.
“How sweet and good you are!” he said warmly; and then, to cover her deep embarrassment and his own sudden emotion, he continued quickly, “Are you very busy in the morning, always?”
“There are different things,” she murmured, still looking at her spoon. “I have letters to write—I keep up with a good many old friends in Binghamville and Albany, where I lived with my married niece ten years, till they moved West. I loved her children; I half brought them up. One died ”