Marion Ames Taggart

“ Tom took Barbara home that night, while Mr. Lane was the escort of the Miranda, whom he seemed to think embodied the charms of land and sea sprites. The girls begged to be allowed to walk a little way toward home, longing for fresh air after the exciting evening, and Mrs. Van Alyn made an exception for once to her rule of allowing no young guest to leave her house late except in her carriage.
"I can't tell you how I respect and admire you to-night, Bab," said Tom, earnestly, as he shook her hot little hand in parting. "You are a first-rate actress, but you're more—a first-rate lady." ”

“ Don't tell Jessamy this trash. Ruth Wells, I dare you to try a griddle-cake race with me at luncheon. We'll make the yellow bowl full, and I dare you to race me eating them."
"Why, Barbara Wyndham, do you want to kill yourself? You know they always hurt you!" said Phyllis, horrified. "And a race eating! Ruth, don't do it!"
"Why should I want to kill myself just when we're all so happy, and everything is going beautifully?" cried Bab. "Come on, Ruth!" And she gathered up her skirts and danced toward the kitchen, singing cakewalk music, and swinging her body in the real plantation manner. ”

“ Surely there is nothing strange in carrying a friend's hair, and especially when you thought she was dying," stammered Phyllis.
"You haven't been dying all this time, miss; and what about the Browning line?" suggested Ruth.
"Perhaps boys are like girls, after all, and like to play at being sentimental," said Phyllis. "It is mean of us to spy on Tom; I suppose boys like to dream. Do you remember, Bab, that funny little peanut Italian boy we used to watch for when we were about eleven, and how we used to wear a peanut for a badge to show how we all three admired him? ”

“ Lane?" asked Mrs. Wyndham. "You know my aunt, Mrs. Hewlett? You look as though some one had made you heir to a fortune."
"Not a bad guess, Mrs. Wyndham," said Robert, taking the extended hand. "I have as good news as that to tell you. I honestly believe I like it better than a fortune for myself."
"Then it is all right? He came to terms?" cried Bab, while Jessamy and Phyllis, knowing the answer before it was given, dropped, quite pale with joy, on the sofa, their arms holding each other tight. ”

“ Flats are horrid! A body can't cry a minute in one. Go, go, go, Phyllis; only go." Barbara was getting hysterical, and Phyllis rose without another word. Her own face was full of pain as she turned away, and her eyes looked big with dismayed surprise. She turned back and kissed Barbara. "You'll be better if you take a nap," she said. It cut her like a knife that Bab shrank from her lips.
Phyllis went to her own room, and sat down in her little rocking-chair without taking off her hat. ”

“ Tom does not care more for Phyllis than for you. He was beginning to turn to her, but she slipped away in the beginning, and Tom has found my little Babbie more than he realized, now that he has been thrown with her more. Tom would never dream Phyllis, or any one else, suspected you of liking him too well; he is not a coxcomb, but a straightforward, honest young fellow, who loved us all. He is hurt and angry that one of us could be so capriciously unjust to him. ”

“ If you're friendly toward life and people, then you get happy, then poetical; it's a clear sequence in my mind, only I haven't expressed it clearly."
"Not very, Ruth, and that's undeniable," laughed Phyllis. "I am perfectly certain Mr. Wegg meant nothing so complex. However, your idea is all right; I know from experience one becomes a poet under pressure of happiness."
"One does; the rest don't," said Jessamy. "Phyllis sings yards of rhymes when she's jolly, but Bab and I remain prose copies."
"Won't you show me that story you wrote, and Jessamy's illustrations?" said Ruth. ”

“ Tom, do come into my room," she cried. "Phyllis has come home so ill I am more frightened about her than about mama now."
They found Phyllis exactly as Jessamy had left her. Tom felt her pulse; her hands were burning, the pulses galloping. "She must lie down and wait till the doctor comes," said Tom, looking grave. "I'll give her something sedative that can't do any harm, but I'd rather not do anything more. Doctor Jerome ought to prescribe. Help her into bed, Jessamy, and don't look so hopeless, dear girl; all's not lost save honor, even though that's a good deal to have left. ”

“ It was sea-green and white, hung with pearls and shells and narrow ribbon made to represent seaweed. A gauzy veil, white and filmy as sea-foam, floated from her beautiful hair, which hung, half loose, half confined with pearls, about her shoulders. Little Barbara looked her best in white and gold, with devices for increasing her height, and her hair piled high on her saucy head, held tilted scornfully as became both her actual self and Beatrice.
Grace Hammond was Viola, not in doublets, but in a short skirt, with sword at side and a rakish cap set boyishly on her dark hair. ”

“ Then the masque proper began. There was, naturally, considerable difference in the talents of the actors, but their training had been good, and none was conspicuously bad. Grace Hammond acted with real ability, although she did not understand the character of Viola, construing her by her boyish costume rather after the spirit of Katherine. Jessamy's Miranda was the admiration of all beholders—sweet, innocent, alluring—all that a sea princess should be—while Bab charmed the most fastidious with her Beatrice, burred like a chestnut exteriorly, but womanly sweet and true of heart within. ”

“ Tom was not less excited than they. Not a day passed without his bringing home some wonderful contribution to the coöperative housekeeping, in which he claimed his full share of coöperation. And at last, on the day before the Wyndhams were to move up town, Mrs. Van Alyn carried Tom off with her to the apartment, forbidding the girls entrance to their own precincts, and with his help set in place the priceless treasures of old association which her kindness had kept for them from a past more splendid, but which the present promised to equal in happiness. ”

“ There stood Bab's piano, Jessamy's desk, and the pictures they had loved welcomed them from the walls like living things.
They ran from room to room, calling to each other, [134] sobbing and laughing and kissing the inanimate things like crazy girls. Phyllis's desk stood in her room, and the little rocking-chair Bab loved best held out its arms to her beside her bed. In the dining-room they found silver they had thought never to see again, and dishes which, empty or full, they knew would be equal to food to their mother. ”

“ Violet, shining and smiling in the background, was made happy; and Truce received a chicken wish-bone, with plenty of meat on it, and Nixie a French chop, that being the kind of comfit suited to their palates, each placed in a candy-box ornamented with a picture of a cat and a dog respectively. Bab opened a small case Santa Claus handed her, and flushed with pleasure. A little miniature of Tom smiled up at her, and on the back was engraved: "Years pass away; Love lasts alway." Since that morning a diamond, set as lightly as possible, shone on Barbara's little left hand like a drop of dew. ”

“ There is no doubt that it is a [80] misfortune for women to be forced to compete with men; I never could let little Babbie do it," cried poor Mrs. Wyndham.
"I promise not to compete, Madrina; the men shall go on as if nothing—as if I, at any rate—had never happened. It can't do any harm to send in my application," said Bab.
"There is just where your foolish pride comes in, Emily," said Aunt Henrietta, sternly. "Your daughters are no better than other people's daughters; and every one knows that if a girl behaves herself no harm can befall her under any circumstances." ”

“ Into this half-studio, half-chamber, and wholly beautiful room the three girls crept after dinner, drawing their chairs close to the fire and speaking softly, not to disturb Mrs. Wyndham in the next room.
"The only thing for us to do is to find out what we can live on, and then make our plans. If we haven't quite enough money, we must earn it in some way," said Jessamy, with her most mature and responsible air.
"I think the very first thing of all is to find out what that income will be, and Mr. Hurd says we can't know positively until after the sale," said practical Phyllis. ”

“ She pretends she makes over her dresses because she likes to, and regards the dress when it is done as such a bit of elegance that she hypnotizes others into thinking it is elegant. If you notice, Phyl, Jessamy never does admit that we are scrabbling along; and that is the reason she appears so much more high-bred than you and I do. We rather more than merely admit that we consider a turned dress less desirable than a new one. But Jessamy ignores, even to herself, the fact that the goods have another side, and her dresses look cloth-of-goldy because she expects no less of them. ”

“ The summer had flown past, a happy summer, the last of Jessamy's and Barbara's girlhood. Tom and Robert had urged their claim to begin their own homes by the autumn, and Mrs. Wyndham, who did not approve of long engagements, had yielded.
"I am not going to spend the very last summer that I am free to be as jolly as I wish, without responsibilities,—the last summer before I settle down into a frumpy, solemn old married woman,—struggling with clothes," Barbara declared. "If I can't get enough together to be married in a month, I will start life in a shirt-waist and a duck skirt. ”

“ Dean is a dear, and Boston reserve may be as icy as the comic newspapers say, but when it makes up its mind to thaw it really is as warming as port wine, with much of the same rich, dignified quality. Mrs. Dean treats me with what I should call respectful affection, and that is the kind of treatment that makes a snip of a girl, away from home for the first time, feel self-reliant; it puts her on her mettle to be as womanly, contented, and generally pretty-behaved as she is expected to be. ”

“ Now, look here, Phyllis; you're not different from all the world, but you're different from lots of it. The best never gets run out, but it runs low often. You've been given the highest standards in all things, and they can never be common. It is much easier to be bad than good for people who start crooked; you started straight, you and Jessamy and Bab. All you've got to do is to be yourself and not worry. ”

“ Wyndham, as Jessamy followed Phyllis.
"I came to ask if you had any idea of what Jessamy and I could do with our things, auntie," said Phyllis. "We haven't begun to make an impression on the room, yet the closet and drawers are full."
"Bab and I are in the same plight; how do people get on in such narrow space?" sighed Mrs. Wyndham.
"You'll have to have a wigwam," said Tom.
"A wigwam! That would have no closet at all; besides, where could we build it in New York?" laughed Phyllis.
"In that corner; I'll make it," said Tom. ”

“ In August the serious business of wedding preparations had to be faced; but both Jessamy and Barbara insisted on their being as simple as possible.
How and where to be married was a problem for two brides in one family, when that family lived in an apartment not large enough for their daily needs. It never occurred to the girls to be married separately. Indeed, Tom urged Phyllis to seize some youth—violently, if she must—and be married with the other two; because, he pointed out, it would not only be effective to marry them all at once, but save trouble in the future. ”

“ Phyllis laughed, and shook her head. "Wait till I go home, and you all come to see me," she said. "Barbara is the brightest, most attractive, dear little scamp you ever knew; and Jessamy—Jessamy is too beautiful to be real, and all pure gold. If you knew them, you would see who was the cipher, if ciphers there are."
The Saxon made her mooring in Hingham harbor rather later than usual, for the breeze was very light; but no day on the yacht was ever too long for Phyllis. ”

“ Violet opened the door to them when they reached home, and Truce arched his back into a furry croquet-wicket in his pleasure on seeing them once more; but Jessamy's tears sprang to her eyes again, remembering that the kitten's dear mistress was sailing away; if Phyllis had gone to Darkest Africa, it could hardly have been more dismally tragic than the short journey to Boston seemed to the two girls who loved her.
"We are a square no more," said Bab, drearily, as they seated themselves at the dinner-table. ”

“ And the happiness of broiling the chops on the broiler of the gas-range, new and lovely to behold, if it was black! And the greater happiness of making cocoa for the invalids in the alluring agate saucepan, brought forth from the under part of the kitchen closet, to be useful for the first time in its gray, satin-finish life!
Bab was delirious, cut a slice of bread, and flew off to turn the chops; cut two more slices, and ran away to hug her mother. She set the cold water running, and Jessamy just stopped her afterward from filling the water-pitcher from the hot-water faucet. ”

“ As weeks went by, and Tom's sole visit had been to herself when Jessamy and Barbara were known to be out at lectures which they were attending, Mrs. Wyndham began to share Jessamy's feeling that if something were not done a possession more precious than the wealth they had lost might drift away from her girls forever. Mrs. Wyndham was thoroughly unworldly; it would be horrible to her even to think of making a marriage for her children from ambitious motives; but she realized how rarely in a long life one finds a true friend ”

“ Jessamy saw, and noted again that Babbie, like the white kitten, was growing up fast.
"Oh!" cried Bab, laughing a little self-consciously. [149] "As to wondering, I wonder, wonder, all the time. It is rather like 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,' isn't it? When you're a three-feet snip you wonder what the little star is, and when you're a five-feet snippier you wonder less what is up above the world so high than what is down on your own level, headed toward you. I suppose even the most contented girls have to dream and get restless, don't they, Madrina—don't they, Trucie-pet?" ”

“ Phyllis, happy, busy, interested to try her powers, showed no feeling for Alan beyond the frank friendliness she gave all their young men friends impartially, Tom, Robert, and David, and to distant Rick Dean, whose letters grew constantly more frequent and warmer in tone. Mrs. Wyndham began to wonder if Phyllis were the sort of girl who is so cordially kindly to all boys that no especial one becomes important to her. ”

“ Jessamy and Bab knew no better than she, and her aunt was too ill to be troubled.
Mrs. Haines soon discovered the handsome young fellow who came to meet her governess, and rallied Phyllis on what she called "her conquest." "I hear you have an admirer, my dear," she said.
Phyllis flushed scarlet with indignation. "Tom is a dear boy, like a brother to all of us," she said. "There isn't the least silly thing about him; we are only girls, and we don't want nor think of flirtations." ”