Neith Boyce

“ You're but a featherweight, Mira, reasons, obstinacy and all! For the last time, will you walk to the gate with me?"
"I can't break my word."
He caught her wrist and drew her forward. "You needn't. What happened when the house caught fire four years ago? See—how easy it is!"
He bundled her up in his arms and carried her down the steps. She writhed and struggled in his grasp, protesting, commanding, entreating; before he had reached the gate her wounded dignity gave way, and between fright and anger she burst into hysterical tears. Richard put her down. ”

“ It was a white gown with lilac sprigs, made with the full skirts and sleeves of a bygone fashion. She put it on, fastened the belt of lilac ribbon, which still fitted exactly, and, standing again before the mirror, loosened slightly the bands of her beautiful wavy hair and pulled it into little curls about her face. It was a vision of youth which looked back at her from the glass. Not a thread of gray showed in the hair; in the kind light the fine lines about the eyes were invisible. The skin had the dead whiteness of things kept from the sun. ”

“ There was trouble with the Miners' Union; the men were threatening to strike. A mountain fire had destroyed some square miles of his timber, and the mills were at a standstill. A drought menaced the prosperity of his cattle-ranch. Lowell put the letters in his pocket, sent a few telegrams, and postponed his departure another week.
In this unexpected crisis of his life his clearness of vision had by no means failed him. He knew what held him here, and he had determined that when he went Mira Bascom should go with him. ”

“ A few people passed him, generally in pairs, walking close together in the shadow of the trees. A passing buggy stirred up a cloud of dust from the road, but the neat lawns on either side were exquisitely kept, fresh and glistening. Lowell counted the changes which twenty years had made in the street he remembered; here and there a new house had been built or an old one altered; most of them, new and old, had an air of quiet prosperity.
The Bascom place stood on a corner. The large front yard was well kept and full of the pale roses he recollected ”

“ Bella Staines is there a good deal. She makes Mira's gowns, and does her errands in the city. She says Mira buys a lot of books, and takes in two magazines regularly. It seems odd: she was never a girl for reading."
After receiving this information Lowell went one day and called on Miss Staines, who was the village dressmaker, and who received him in a flutter of ribbons and smiles. He sat for an hour in her parlor, filling it with his large presence. Miss Staines, however, fought shy of the subject of Mira, and turned the conversation half a dozen times to more promising themes. ”

“ He talked of her a good deal to Miss Lowell, who, being secretly of a sentimental mind, could not but take a sympathetic interest in this belated blossoming of romance.
"Almiry is a good manager," she said, artfully. "She's kept up the old place all these years, and she's even put by a little money in the bank. Her father left her the house, you know, and fifty dollars a year; the rest of the money went to Hal: he was provoked at Mira's notions. She makes preserves, and does fine embroidery, and has quite a trade, they say." ”

“ And since her death, though he was now successful and still a young man, and though many women had looked kindly on him, he had not felt moved to appropriate any one of them. He had taken it for granted that passion was lost to him with his youth and the only woman who had ever inspired it. ”