Mrs. Nathaniel Conklin

“ How little the child knew that some day she would write anything and everything because she was "too bashful to talk." How little any of us know what we are being made ready to do. And how we would stop to moan and weep in very self-pity if we did know, and thus hinder the work of preparation from going on.
Linnet played with the fringe of her shawl and looked as if something hard to speak were hovering over her lips.
"Did mother tell you about Will?" she asked, abruptly, interrupting one of Miss Prudence's stories to Marjorie of which she had not heeded one word. ”

“ As I stood and looked at them I thought, how many girls in this city would be vain if they owned their eyes and hair, and how God had thrown the beauty down among them who had no thought about it. He gives beauty to those who hate him and use it to dishonor him, just as he gives money to those who spend it in sinning. I almost think, that he holds cheaply those two things the world prizes so highly; money and beauty."
After a moment Marjorie said: "I do not mean to live for the world."
"And you do not sigh for beauty?" smiled Miss Prudence. ”

“ Marjorie entreated. "I don't want to lose anything. I suppose it is as good to be a girl as a woman."
"Get all the sweetness out of every day; live in to-day, don't plan or hope about womanhood; God has all that in his safe hands. Read the kind of books I have spoken of and when you read grown-up stories let some one older and wiser choose them for you. By and by your taste will be so formed and cultivated that you will choose only the best for yourself. I hope the Bible will spoil some other books for you." ”

“ Everything in the room had been among her father's wedding presents to herself—the rosewood furniture, the lace curtains, the rare engravings, the carpet that was at once perfect to the tread and to the eye, the ornaments everywhere: everything excepting the narrow gilt frame over the dressing bureau, enclosing on a gray ground, painted in black, crimson, and gold the words: "I HAVE SEEN THY TEARS." Miss Prudence had placed it there especially for Mrs. Kemlo.
Deborah had never been alone in the house in the years when her mistress was making a home for herself elsewhere. ”

“ It was pleasant to sit there and see the sleighs pass and hear the bells jingle; it was pleasant to look over towards the church and the parsonage; and pleasantest of all to bring her eyes into Miss Prudence's face and work basket and the work in her lap for Prue.
"But I mean—faces," acknowledged Marjorie. "I mean faces—too. I don't see why, of all the beautiful things God has made, faces should be ignored. The human face, with the love of God in it, is more glorious than any painting, more glorious than any view of mountain, lake, or river." ”

“ What made our sins hurt him so?"
"His great love to us."
"Nobody's sins ever hurt me so."
"You do not love anybody well enough."
The spirit of peace was brooding, at last, over the worn face. Morris had left her with his heart at rest, for the pain on lip and brow began to pass away in the first hour of Miss Prudence's presence.
Prue was summoned after what to her seemed endless waiting, and, nestling in Aunt Prue's lap, with her head on her shoulder and her hand in hers, she sat still in a content that would not stir itself by one word. ”

“ Money makes a difference; is it rather hard not to be rich? Position makes a difference; is it rather hard not to be noble?"
"I never thought about those things. They give you advantage in the world; but beauty makes people love you."
"What kind of beauty?"
"Lovable beauty," confessed Marjorie, smiling, feeling that she was being cornered.
"What makes lovable beauty?"
"A lovable heart, I suppose."
"Then I shouldn't wonder if you might have it as well as another. Is
Clarissa Parks more loved than any one in your class?"
"Oh, no. She is not a favorite at all." ”

“ Marjorie could get on delightfully with souls, but bodies were something that came between her soul and their soul; the flesh, like a veil, hid herself and hid the other soul that she wanted to be at home with. She could have written to the Hollis she remembered many things that she could not utter to the Hollis that she saw today. Marjorie could not define this shrinking, of course.
"Hollis has to go back in a day or two," Captain Rheid announced; "he spent part of his vacation in the country with Uncle Jack before he came home. Boys nowadays don't think of their fathers and mothers." ”

“ Linnet looked like a veritable linnet in her brown suit with the crimson plume in her brown hat; I believe the girl affects grays and brown with a dash of crimson, because they remind her of a linnet, and she is like a linnet in her low, sweet voice, not strong, but clear. She will be a lovely, symmetrical woman when she comes out of the fire purified. How do I know she will ever be put in any furnace? Because all God's children must suffer at some times, and then they know they are his children. ”

“ School?
"No," answered Marjorie, sitting upright; "school sits as lightly on my shoulders as that black lace scarf you gave me yesterday; it is because I grow more and more wicked every night. I am worse than I was last night. I tried to read in the Bible just now and I did not care for it one bit, or understand it one bit; I began to think I never should find anything to do me good in Malachi, or in any of the old prophets."
"Suppose you read to me awhile—not in the Bible, but in your Sunday-school book. You told Prue that it was fascinating. 'History of the Reformation,' isn't it?" ”

“ Answering Captain Rheid's questions was better than this! Staying at her grandfather's and confessing about the pitcher was better than this!
Suddenly—or had she heard it before, a whistle burst out upon the air, a sweet and clear succession of notes, the air of a familiar song: "Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home."
Some one was at hand, she sprang through the vines, the briers catching the old blue muslin, extricating herself in time to run almost against the navy-blue figure that she had not yet become familiar with.
The whistle stopped short—"Well, Mousie! Here you are!" ”

“ Marjorie was awake long before Deborah entered the chamber to kindle the fire, trying to form some excuse to keep Prue from going to school with her. How could she take her to-day of all days; for the girls to look at her, and whisper to each other, and ask her questions, and to study critically her dress, and to touch her hair, and pity her and kiss her! And she would be sure to open the round gold locket she wore upon a tiny gold chain about her neck and tell them it was "my papa who died in California." ”

“ Marjorie's face was radiant just then. The love, the surprise, the joy, made it beautiful.
Miss Prudence could not forbear, she drew the beautiful face down to kiss it.
"People will always call you plain, dear, but keep your soul in your face, and no matter."
"Can I help Deborah now? Or isn't there something for me to do upstairs?
I can study and practice this afternoon."
"I don't believe you will. Look out in the path."
Marjorie looked, then with a shout that was almost like Linnet's she dropped her work, and sprang towards the door. ”

“ The girls were awed and silent.
"I have been shocked at the rudeness of city girls, and I have been charmed with the tact and courtesy of more than one country maiden. Nowadays education and the truest culture may be had everywhere."
"Even in Middlefield," laughed Marjorie her heart brimming over with the thought that, after all, she might be as truly a lady as Helen Rheid.
If Linnet had been as excited as Marjorie was, at that moment, she would have given a bound into the grass and danced all around. But Marjorie only sat still trembling with a flush in eyes and cheeks. ”

“ Marjorie closed her eyes and leaned back against Linnet. Morris had gone to God.
It was hours before the tears came. She sobbed herself to sleep towards morning. She did not deserve it; but she would keep the thing he had sent to her. Another beautiful life was ended; who would do his work on the earth. Would Hollis? Could she do a part of it? She would love his mother. Oh, how thankful she was that he had known that rest had begun to come to his mother, that he had known that she was safe with Miss Prudence. ”

“ Little Miss Dodd ran up laughing, and Marjorie could say no more; what more could she say than "good-bye"? But she wanted to say more, she wanted to say—but Emma Downs was asking her if it were late and Morris had gone.
"What a handsome young fellow!" exclaimed Miss Parks to Marjorie, hanging up her cloak next to Marjorie's in the dressing room. "Is he your brother?"
"My twin-brother," replied Marjorie.
"He doesn't look like you. He is handsome and tall."
"And I am homely and stumpy," said Marjorie, good-humoredly. "No, he is not my real brother." ”

“ She is too restless and she is not satisfied. Look at Linnet; she is happier to-day with her husband that reads only the newspapers, the nautical books, and his Bible, than Miss Prudence with all her lectures and concerts and buying books and knowing literary people! She couldn't make a Miss Prudence out of Linnet, but she will make a Miss Prudence twice over out of you."
"Linnet is happy because she loves Will, and she doesn't care for books and people, as we do; but we haven't any Will, poor Miss Prudence and poor Marjorie, we have to substitute people and books." ”

“ I understand myself better than I want to, and yet I do not understand myself at all."
"That is because you are growing," said Marjorie, with her wise air. "I haven't settled down into a real Marjorie yet. I shouldn't know my own picture unless I painted it myself."
"We are two rather dangerous people, aren't we?" laughed Hollis. "We will steer clear of each other, as Will would say, until we can come to an understanding."
"Unless we can help each other," Marjorie answered. "But I don't believe you need to be pulled apart, but only to be let alone to grow—that is, if the germ is perfect." ”

“ Marjorie studied with no pretence: Master McCosh had said that Miss West studied in fifteen minutes to more purpose than any other of her class did in an hour. She did not study, she was absorbed; she had no existence excepting in the lesson; just now there had been no other world for her than the wondrous Milky Way.
"I shall have Miss West for a teacher," he had told Miss Prudence.
Marjorie wondered if he ever would. Mrs. Browning has told us:
"Girls would fain know the end of everything." ”

“ Clarissa Parks was the beauty of the class, Emma Downs the poet, Lizzie Harrowgate the mathematician, Maggie Peet the pet, Ella Truman wrote the finest hand, Maria Denyse was the elocutionist, Pauline Hayes the one most at home in universal history, Marjorie West did not know what she was: the remaining twenty-two were in no wise remarkable; one or two were undeniably dull, more were careless, and most came to school because it was the fashion and they must do something before they were fully grown up. ”

“ Miss Prudence had a way of designating the long apartment as two rooms, for there was an arch in the centre, and there were two mantels and two fireplaces. Prue's father would have said to-night that the old room was unchanged—nothing had been taken out and nothing new brought in since that last night that he had seen the old man pacing up and down, and the old man's daughter whirling around on the piano stool, as full of hope and trust and enthusiasm as ever a girl could be. ”

“ Morris, I want to go with Miss Prudence and study; I don't want to be a housekeeper and have a husband, like Linnet! I have so much to learn; I am eager for everything. You see you are older than I am."
"Yes," he said, disappointedly, "you are only a little girl yet. Or you are growing up to be a Woman's Rights Woman, and to think a 'career' is better than a home and a man who is no better than other men to love you and protect you and provide for you." ”

“ Only everything she does is new. She is two Marjories, and that's what I can't make out. She is silent and she is talkative; she is shy, very shy, and she is as bold as a little lion; sometimes she won't tell you anything, and sometimes she tells you everything; sometimes I think she doesn't love me, and again she loves me to death; sometimes I think she isn't as bright as other girls, and then again I'm sure she is a genius. Now Linnet is always the same; I always know what she will do and say; but there's no telling about Marjorie. ”