Octave Thanet

“ Youth can suffer so easily and so horribly!"
"Yet," said Mrs. Clymer, "though I admit you were a woeful object, Connie, I thought at the time, and I think now, that Nannie suffered the most. She didn't shed a tear that morning when she came up to your house to say good-by; and I went with you to the depot; but there was a look in her eyes which haunted me. And when she stood in the driveway as we rolled away, watching the carriage, and you turned and she waved her hand and smiled—I felt as if I had seen a surgical operation."
"And then? Oh, Mrs. Curtis, that wasn't the end of it?" ”

“ Lorania gave an indignant side glance at Sibyl. Why need the girl make game of an honest man who loved her? Sibyl was biting her lips and darting side glances at the captain. She called the pasture practice slow, but she seemed, nevertheless, to enjoy herself sitting on the bench, the captain on one side and Winslow on the other, rattling off her girlish jokes, while her aunt and Mrs. Ellis, with the anxious, set faces of the beginner, were pedalling frantically after Cardigan. Lorania began to pity Winslow, for it was growing plain to her that Sibyl and the captain understood each other. ”

“ What's he care? What do any of these rich folks care?"
"I don't think you're fair, Wesley," said Robbins. "All the rich folks aren't mean. I know more about them than you." He spoke with a dawning of pride in his tone, which deepened a little.
"Yes, I know you used to belong to them," said Orr, "and I guess you were decent to the poor. But you'll admit you didn't have no notion how it cuts to work every muscle in you and to lay awake thinking yourself half crazy to puzzle out better ways to make money and yet to feel every year you're a-sinking deeper in the slough! ”

“ Darter should throw herself with energy into preparing for Emmy's marriage; they only dimly foresaw her recovery and reconciliation with the common pleasures of life; but it was enough for Emmy that her mother's black hour had passed, and for Albert that he was close to Emmy, and that there was a vague omen of happiness in the atmosphere.
Mrs. Darter took her tea. She went to sleep, as Miss Keith directed her; and she partook with relish of coffee, toast, and jam that selfsame day, so rapidly had her state improved by evening. ”

“ Darter keep right on and not back-slide, think?" said Mrs. Conner.
"I think she will," said Doris; "I hope she will. And there's one thing: after I'm gone (I shall have to run away from my reputation) you must own up about your ankle—and me to Miss Darter and poor, trusting Miss Bigelow. She's such a good soul! Mrs. Darter—well, you will know when it's safe to tell Mrs. Darter."
"Humph!" said Conner, "Emmy'll be grateful! I guess we'll go slow on the Widow Darter; and as to Ann Bigelow—"
"I do feel sneaky about her," sighed Doris. "It's touching, her faith. She's a simple-hearted creature. ”

“ And a little din of compliments fell upon Darius' ears. It is pleasant to reflect that all over the hall similar groups were exulting unselfishly over their own prowess and their own heroines. Little did Darius Hardy concern himself with them. He took his wife under his arm with a proud and blissful smile. He waved a direction at Darrie: "You take the girls, Darrie, you'll find a cab, somewhere; I want your mother to myself. Now, Myrtle, if sated vanity can demand any more, I'll give it to you in the carriage!" ”

“ Robbins wondered were they as keenly conscious as he of the young fellow's trimly fitted clothes, what good quality that rough plaided brown stuff was, how dainty was his linen. He looked at the home people's ragged coats, he thought of the poverty that he knew, and the reflection of a sneer was on his own lips, and, somehow, a lump in his throat.
"Too cold weather for folks to travel unless they're wanted bad!" ”

“ The blood rushed to Emmy's face; her eyes sank. She answered, in a confused tone: "Aunt Lida Glenn was over yesterday. I don't know what she said to mother, but mother—mother told me the one thing she wanted on earth was to have me—send Albert away and have everything ended between us, for she never was so insulted in her life as she had been by Albert's mother."
"Albert's mother ain't Albert; though I don't blame her, Emmy, and Mrs. Glenn is a awful nice woman. But it ain't fair to hold Albert for her opinions, right or wrong. As I said, she ain't Albert, nor Albert ain't her." ”

“ The widow Darter sat on the piazza in a large rocking-chair. She rocked. As she rocked, she moaned piteously. At intervals she changed the sibilant moan into a hollow groaning sound. "Oh dear! Oh dear! Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!" wailed the widow. "Um-m! um-m! um-m-m-m!"
The little girl flung a frown of impatience over her shoulder. "I don't see why mamma makes such an awful racket!" she snapped.
"She suffers," said Emmy. ”

“ At this time Margaret was thirty years old and had never been asked in marriage. She had spent most of the thirty years in a boarding-school, as pupil or as teacher; and she had brought from her cloistered life a single vivid feeling, a passionate friendship which death had ended. The sapphire ring was her poor friend's last token.
To be thirty and never to have been sought like other girls, leaves a chill in the heart. It may be lonely never to have loved, but it is bleak never to have been loved. ”

“ He was perfectly aware that he owed his life to Spruce's nursing; and he gave Spruce the same admiration which he had used to give the great man who commanded the university football team. The social hiatus between them closed up insensibly, as it always does between men who are in danger and suffering together. Danvers knew Spruce's footfall and his thin face would lighten with a smile whenever the sergeant came in sight. ”

“ Winslow to the stable, which had one window facing the Hopkins pasture. No cows were grazing in the pasture. All around the grassy plateau twinkled a broad brownish-yellow track. At one side of this track a bench had been placed, and a table, pleasing to the eye, with jugs and glasses. Mrs. Ellis, in a suit of the same undignified brevity and ease as Miss Hopkins', sat on the bench supporting her own wheel. Shuey Cardigan was drawn up to his full six feet of strength, and, one arm in the air, was explaining the theory of the balance of power. It was an uncanny moment to Lorania. ”

“ But Willy and Dickson had only this one follower, a little lonely figure, slim and straight and nimble, in white linen, whose brown arms and brown face against her dazzling gown made the effect of a Russian eikon minus the gold-incrusted robe. She halted when Willy halted. With impersonal interest she watched Dickson make a strike. At the clean, beautiful drive she nodded approval. Then her black brows met in a slightly worried frown. Willy, club in hand, was aware of the frown. He was aware—in a sort of subconscious way—that she wanted him to play well ”

“ The flies had no barrier and they entered in noisome companies, to swarm, heavily buzzing, about the medicine spoons and the tumblers and crawl over the nostrils and mouths of the typhoid patients, too weak and stupid to brush them away. The other sick men would lift their feeble skeletons of hands against them; and a tall soldier who walked between the cots and was the sole nurse on duty, waved his palm-leaf fan at them and swore softly under his breath. ”

“ Lorania could see the quiver in the muscles of her throat. She clasped her hands tight lest they should shake. "He is in love with Sibyl," thought Lorania. "The poor woman!" She felt sorry for her, and she spoke gently and reassuringly:
"No girl with a good heart can help feeling tenderly toward her husband's mother."
Mrs. Winslow nodded. "You're real comforting," said she. She was silent a moment, and then said, in a different tone: "You ain't got a large enough track. Wouldn't you like to have our pasture too?" ”

“ Across the street was Darrie's less costly but no less correctly charming house. Hester had done Myrtie's architectural bidding, also. Darrie was the best of sons. She was proud of him; and his father depended more and more on him. She loved his wife; and his children were her vivid delight. Darrie used to fetch her flowers and new plants for the window gardens; and tell her about the children's funny sayings. Darius, her husband, grew kinder and more generous all the time; he gave her a check-book of her own; she told her old friends that she had the best husband and children in the world ”

“ She is a real fine-appearing young lady," said Mrs. Winslow.
Both the cyclists exulted. Neither of them, however, was prepared to behold the track made and the fence down the very next morning when they came out, about ten o'clock, to the west side of Miss Hopkins' boundaries.
"As sure as you live, Maggie," exclaimed Lorania, eagerly, "he's got it all done! Now, that is something like a lover. I only hope his heart won't be bruised as black and blue as I am with the wheel!"
"Shuey says the only harm your falls do you is to take away your confidence," said Mrs. Ellis. ”

“ Amos and Nellie were still calling "Fire!" Katy arrived a good second to the hose cart, breathless with running, but all her wits in good order.
"Long's you've put out the fire, Miss Patsey, I'll put out the fire department," said she; "they're the only danger. Miss Mercy, you open all the windows; let's git rid of the smoke. Nellie, what you carrying your clothes out for?"
Mercedes quite won our hearts by her docility and the quiet way she obeyed. Perhaps it was in recognition that Katy became her tower of refuge when the cause of the fire appeared. It was no less than Amos. ”

“ I don't see how you ever git on them."
"I don't," said Miss Hopkins. "The only way I shall ever learn to start off is to start without the pedals. Does your son ride, Mrs. Winslow?"
"No, ma'am," said Mrs. Winslow; "but he knows how. When he was a boy nothing would do but he must have a bicycle, one of those things most as big as a mill wheel, and if you fell off you broke yourself somewhere, sure. I always expected he'd be brought home in pieces. So I don't think he'd have any manner of difficulty. Why, look at your friend; she's most riding alone!" ”

“ A week later Lorania said: "I really think I must be getting thinner. Fancy Mr. Winslow, who is so clear-sighted, mistaking me for Sibyl! He says—I told him how I had suffered from my figure—he says it can't be what he has suffered from his. Do you think him so very short, Maggie? Of course he isn't tall, but he has an elegant figure, I think, and I never saw anywhere such a rider!"
Mrs. Ellis answered, heartily: "He isn't very small, and he is a beautiful figure on the wheel!" And added to herself, "I know what was in that letter she sent yesterday to the marquis! ”

“ For which glee there was reason, since, inside the hour, the captain was in the colonel's tent, concluding an eloquent picture of his company's discomforts with "Somebody has to do something. If you are powerless, Colonel, I'm not. If they don't give some assurance of changing the camp to-morrow I shall march Company G out and pitch a camp myself, and stand a court-martial. I would rather risk a court-martial than see my men die—and that's what it has come to!" ”

“ He did not hesitate in the least to grab Lorania's belt if necessary. But poor modest Winslow, who fell upon the wheel and dared not touch the hem of a lady's bicycle skirt, was as one in the path of a cyclone, and appeared daily in a fresh pair of white trousers.
"Yous have now," Shuey remarked impressively, one day—"yous have now arrived at the most difficult and dangerous period in learning the wheel. It's similar to a baby when it's first learned to walk but ain't yet got sense in walking. ”