Robert Cleland

“ If a man is not a hero, it pleases him the more to see himself in a heroic light. It is new, and it may not occur again, therefore he will do his best to retain the gallant attitude in which he finds himself; and Randolph set himself to live up to his ideal.
It was in ceremonious and most well-behaved fashion that the young lady placed herself on the toboggan, and permitted her cavalier to wrap the outflowing draperies more compactly about her in gracious quietude. ”

“ I wish we were home again."
"Oh, law!" cried Betsey; "are you sure it is quite safe? I used to coast with my hand-sled, like the rest of the kids, when I was little, but it kind of frightens one to see the go-off. Are you quite sure you can protect my bones, Mr. Jordan?"--looking clingingly in his face in search of encouragement--"I feel awful frightened."
"Well, perhaps you are right," said Randolph, impervious to the cling; "it is a good plan to watch the others for a while first, it gives one confidence," and he was gone. ”

“ Muriel held her breath at the catalogue of rustic splendour. She would have liked to say a word in mitigation of the fright she feared Betsey was intending to make of herself, but dreaded to have her youth flung in her face again. The young are so ashamed of their youth while they have it; it is only after it has fled, that, like flowers drooping in the midday heat, they sigh for the dried-up dews of morning which erewhile weighed down their heads with mistaken shame. ”

“ Muriel's virginal rearing by those worthy gentlewomen, her aunts, had made that impossible on her side; and Gerald had been his mother Martha's "vineyard," tended and weeded and cared for assiduously as to his moral nature, brought up in manliness to scorn evil and reverence women, as only that quaint daughter of the solitary places in "Noo Hampshire" could have done.
The moon hung in the highest heaven, the snow near by was aglitter in its sheen, the distance was dim with hazy brightness, and many tobogganers had come in from around to join the sport. ”

“ Work never killed a man; or, if it did, he was a weakling, or he had mistaken his trade.
"Only look!" cried Amelia Jordan, touching her neighbour, Martha Herkimer, with her fan, "I think I may flatter myself that my juvenile party is a success, when the contagious gaiety has caught even that superannuated couple. I should feel flattered, but I confess I am not fond of frisky grey beards. There is a time for everything, even for sitting still and watching the young ones. I wonder at Considine; and really Matilda might have had more sense than yield to his absurdity." ”

“ The guests, unaccustomed to city gaiety and late hours, were still in their soundest sleep, when the clang of the breakfast bell would wake them to the knowledge that another day had begun, and they must drag themselves from between the blankets. As for Susan, owing to neuralgia or laziness, she always breakfasted in bed.
"Mary!" cried George eagerly, when they met one morning, about a week after Betsey's first ball. "It is needless to ask you if you have slept well. You look refreshed and revived as I have not seen you look for years and years. ”

“ Betsey was nothing loth. The beau must be very far gone indeed, she thought, and she could not but cast a backward and regretful glance of her mind to Joe Webb, Gerald Herkimer, and several others, taking them all pell-mell and quite "promiskis," as she pronounced the word. However, she could only have one, she knew that; and she intended to take whoever offered first, if he was eligible, and not run risks by "fooling" after the rest. So much for being practical-minded and not idiotically in love, except with one's own sweet self! ”

“ And in some such fashion Considine lived on, in moderate comfort and prosperity, with the shadow of possible ruin in the back-ground; always felt, but not so strongly that he must disturb the daily furniture of his life by an effort to exorcise the demon; which is a state of things not so very different from what the rest of us endure. We have our threatening shadows too, loss, disease, madness, not so very far off, and always the dismal shade of Death himself looming up behind and dwarfing all the others ”

“ Randolph, I do not mistrust you in the least; but really--it is so long since I got upon a toboggan--that I--I shall just stay here with Mr. Considine, now I have got to the top of the hill, and watch you young people like a sedate chaperon. But here is my cousin, Betsey Bunce; I am sure she will be delighted. They do not toboggan at St. Euphrase, and I am sure she never saw one in Upper Canada. Oh!"--with a little scream--"It really is quite frightful to see them start. And that is Muriel, I declare, and Gerald Herkimer. He will break the child's neck, I do believe; he is so heedless. ”

“ Betray the necessary confidence between lawyer and client? Oh, no! Not for a moment! But we do get to know things at times, while you men of the world are still in the dark, and going forward in the blindest confidence. As to the Banque d'Orval, now. Has nothing transpired to raise the--what shall I call it?--the shadow of a misgiving?"
"Misgiving?--Banque d'Orval?--I believe it stands as strong as the Bank of Commerce of Noo York! Certainly, nairy one! You cannot have looked into its last statement. ”

“ The sherry decanter diffused its topaz radiance in vain all that day, for never once came Ralph within sight of the seductive lustre. He had something to do and think of, and in doing he found the best tonic for his system. It is waiting and looking forward to uncertain evil, distant as yet, and impossible to be struggled with, which racks the nerves to pieces with its strain, and drives the victim to artificial supports, which they from whose coarser construction a nervous system seems to have been omitted, and who cannot comprehend such needs, brand as intemperance and dissipation. ”

“ Aunt Matilda rarely goes to a dance, except a juvenile one, when I am invited. I am not out yet, you know."
"To be sure not, Muriel; I know it. Time enough, my dear," said this experienced woman of the world. "Your time will come quite soon enough, and I hope you will enjoy it. Ah!----" and she heaved an ecstatic sigh, "It was a lovely party. So many gentlemen! And such a floor! I put in a heavenly time, Muriel. I wish you could have seen it. I wish you could have seen me in my new ball-dress--a present, you know--from auntie's niece--by Mme. Jupon! no less--just too elegant for anything. ”

“ But, if we have to lose, let us behave like men of business and common sense; let us not cry over spilt milk, but let us make the best of it. And first, let us look the matter in the face. What is it that has happened to us?----"
"Ze cuivre is not zere!" cried Podevin, eager to rally his self-respect and preen the rumpled plumage on which Ralph had sat down so unceremoniously. ”

“ The ice was broken between the two young people forthwith, and the Lady Superior with her nuns, who had taken such pains in the formation of Adèline's character and manners, would scarcely have recognized her, or been able to distinguish her from one of those dreadful, fast, heretical English girls, they had been wont to hold up to her and her companions as models to avoid, as she caught Randolph's arm to climb to the top of the bank again, and vowed it had been delightful. ”

“ Go and ask Betsey; you will do me a favour if you will, and then introduce a few gentlemen to her. Help her to enjoy herself. It must be dreadful to be so alone in a room full of people."
"You are hard on me, Muriel, to deprive me half my dance and then hand me over to--to-- If she were quietly dressed, it would not be so bad. ”

“ The bank was an enterprise originated by Ralph himself--evolved by him when his ambition had found the local share list too narrow a field. Why should he labour, he thought, to pull strings, and not always efficient ones, to make established stocks jump up and down as he desired, when he was now strong enough to build an automaton of his own, which should obey his wishes without fail, and without outside interference? ”

“ Each descent they made Gerald begged might be their last, but Muriel more eagerly pleaded they might have yet another. It was so splendid, she thought, to see the rowdies, balked in their malice, run thundering into each other, while Gerald received rounds of applause. What taskmaster ever drove so hard as does the female partizan, who desires nothing for herself but merely the glory of her champion? ”

“ It is the Great Consoler who has pitied me and sent me comfort; such distraction as poor Judith could have brought would have been of little avail. That little girl, Betsey's cousin, seems to bring a far more soothing influence with her than Judith or Susan, or any one I ever met, but you. There seems a peacefulness in the air when she is by, that rests my weary, hungry heart. It does me good to sit and look when she comes in, and to hear her talk. She is a darling little girl, and I could feel it in my heart to envy the people she belongs to. She is an orphan, poor thing, they tell me. ”

“ A man married to an old-looking woman, whether fat or lean, always strikes me as a melancholy spectacle--like a sapling sprouting from a crumbling wall, as the poet says--and the world is seldom respectful. It is apt to look on him as the man who broke the commandments and married his grandmama, because nobody of his own age would have him. There is no fear of that with Adèline Rouget; she will improve every year she lives. ”

“ The privilege is by no means an unalloyed boon as the years go by. She finds herself inadmissible to the conclaves of matrons of her own age, where husbands, doctors and children are discussed with freedom; yet her god-daughters and nieces can scarcely be expected to accept her as a compeer; she is a demoiselle passée, an outside hoverer on the confines of social life, with the gay bachelors of earlier decades who are still unwed, and whom society passes by as obdurate and hopelessly unavailable for matrimonial use. ”

“ One man don't exactly like to shoulder a responsibility on the strength of another man's knowledge--see? I would consult you myself, friend Jordan, on my own affairs, and go by what you told me, but somehow that seems different from going it blind in another man's business, and making myself responsible for everything some one else may do."
"But, my dear sir, I am as ignorant of Stock Exchange matters as you can possibly be of the law of real property. ”

“ It ought to be a fancy ball you were going to, and you to represent a snowstorm. The dust is flying from you every time you turn your head."
"Nonsense, George," said his wife. "You are vexing, and very ridiculous. Why tease the girl? We have all made mistakes of that kind in our day, Betsey, my dear. You should have seen Mr. Selby himself, when he was a young man, and wanted to look his best. He could hardly walk--he hobbled--from the tightness of his boots."
"You are mean, Mary, to go back to that. If I did, it was only when I hoped to walk or dance with you." ”

“ What a head for Law the man must have! What clearness of understanding, to have realized such an income. What a style of living he keeps up! How many thousands a year does it take? Quite the leading counsel at our bar." And so clients multiplied, and the suitor whose case failed in his hands felt surer it had had the best presentment than he would have felt had it succeeded with any one else. "If Jordan could not win the suit, pray who could?" ”

“ I shall telegraph to the directors, too, and hold a board meeting. It is handy having men so easily within call, and yet so innocent of business. You had better be present as solicitor, and convince yourself that we are not stealing a march. And then----"
"You wish me, then, not to offer my stock to-day?" said Jordan dubiously. The saw tells us there is honour among thieves, and perhaps there sometimes is, but there is seldom confidence among the over-sharp.
"As to that," cried Ralph scornfully, "you can please yourself. Go to your brokers, by all means, if you think well. ”

“ These are new lights to me, friend Jordan. I must take time to comprehend them. Meanwhile what is your own opinion? And have you any suggestion to make as to what we should do?"
"Candidly, then, General--and with all deference in discussing a matter of finance with you, a member of the Stock Exchange, who make the subject your profession--I believe that you financiers have squally times before you. Confidence will be disturbed and quotations will fall. The investments of our late highly valued friend stand now at higher prices than ever before. ”

“ Betsey! I think this poor soul is losing her wits with grief for her boy. What shall we do?--Call your uncle."
"Not a bit of it, auntie. She is as peart as you or I; but she knows something about Muriel, and we'd better hear it. Designing little monkey! It is just scandalous the way that girl goes on with Gerald and all the young fellows who will mind her. I have long suspected there was something, and Uncle Dionysius always said he never knew that the Stanleys had had a brother at all, till he was shown this daughter." ”

“ I have been turning my attention to minerals lately, I doubt not but with the minister's goodwill we may arrange something to our mutual advantage--yours and mine. Where do they come from? Up the Ottawa? Or, perhaps the Gattineau? Yes! that must be it, the Gattineau. I am interested in Gattineau lands already, and we have indications of copper; but I am free to confess I did not dream of anything so fine as this. If the government wants a company formed to develop minerals on the Gattineau, I'm their man. It will help us to build our railway at once. ”

“ Many a night when he lay awake in the darkness, with nothing to break the stillness but the ticking of his watch at the bed-head, the misgiving and the dread would waken in his mind, and possess him with the restless misery of an aching tooth, which would not be dulled or forgotten, toss and stretch himself as he might; and he would vow in desperation to go down the first thing in the morning and have it out with Jordan ”

“ Man alive! our allowances and commissions in selling out and re-investing would go a long way to make up any loss which could be proved in a court to have arisen from our error in judgment, even if our good intentions did not weigh with the jury to absolve us. That is, supposing the heir should be shabby enough to make such a claim. But the supposition is preposterous. If you sell out that block of stock in the Banque d'Orval and the Proletarian now, your brokerage will be quite a pretty thing--makes a man wish himself a broker to think of it. ”