Nina Wilcox Putnam

“ A new breeze, sprung up as though on purpose to disport itself with her tresses, whipped it into a thousand ringlets, and laid a burnished strand across the man’s mouth. How the little tendrils curled among the poppies on her breast; the crimson poppies, whose color was reflected now in her cheeks and lips. Between the parted ivory of her teeth, her breath came sharply.
“Why, oh, why did you so?” she cried. “Why do you mock me, and pull about my hair? I am not beautiful, I have never been beautiful! Why do you mock me? You are cruel, cruel!” ”

“ And seizing her about the waist, he whirled her around in a mad measure, which landed them both, breathless, on the little space of lawn about the sun-dial.
“That’s fine!” he panted. “Sit here and take breath. The grass is much better than the hard stone. Did you like it? Will you dance each day, now?”
“How dare you! Oh! My hair!” cried Araminta, with flushed cheeks, trying hard to be very angry—and failing utterly. ”

“ Indeed, it is not every day that one is robbed, and in the very center of the village street, at that! To be spoken to by a great gypsy man, to bespeak him kindly, and then to have the villain make off with one’s watch—a valued heirloom, too—is something well calculated to upset the calmest of men. Especially as the hue and cry which followed had been utterly unsuccessful, and the fellow had got away!
All this had happened to the young minister that very day. ”

“ It sat there, motionless, until a second squirrel appeared in hot haste and started a pursuit which buried both creatures in the tangle of rose vine on the roof.
“I’m sure they do something to attract the men!” said Araminta, aloud. ”

“ While the minister, at thirty-three, was an eligible young man. What did girls do to attract men? If her mother had lived, she might have told what had attracted her father. Surely no breach of the most sacred covenant, this! ”