Susan Warner

“ Dillwyn.
"But very real! And very essential."
"Is there not service—true service—that is given wholly to one's needy fellows of humanity? It seems to me I have heard of such."
"There is a good deal of such service," said Lois, "but it is not the true. It is partial, and arbitrary; it ebbs and flows, and chooses; and is found consorting with what is not service, but the contrary. True service, given to God, and rising from the love of him, goes where it is sent and does what it is bidden, and has too high a spring ever to fail. Real service gives all, and is ready for everything." ”

“ Caruthers might have come to like her too well, and that would have been inconvenient; and yet it is so pleasant to be liked! Upon the sober humdrum of Lois's every day home life, Tom Caruthers was like a bit of brilliant embroidery; and we know how involuntarily the eyes seek out such a spot of colour, and how they return to it. Yes, life at home was exceedingly pleasant, but it was a picture in grey; this was a dash of blue and gold. It had better be grey, Lois said to herself; life is not glitter. And yet, a little bit of glitter on the greys and browns is so delightful. ”

“ Philip's answer was mute.
"Besides," said Lois, "he is a sort of man that I never could have liked beyond a certain point. He is a weak character; do you know it, Philip?"
"I know it. I observe, that is the last fault women will forgive in a man."
"Why should they?" said Lois. "What have you, where you have not strength? It is impossible to love where you cannot respect. Or if you love, it is a poor contemptible sort of love."
Philip laughed; and just then the door opened, and the hostess of the inn appeared on the threshhold, with other figures looming dimly behind her. ”

“ What do you do for pleasure up there then, Miss Lothrop?"
"Dig clams."
"Clams!" cried Tom.
"Yes. Long clams. It's great fun. But I find pleasure all over."
"How come you to be such a philosopher?"
"That is not philosophy."
"What is it? I can tell you, there isn't a girl in New York that would say what you have just said."
Lois thought the faces around the lunch table had quite harmonized with this statement. She forgot them again in a most luxuriant trailing Pelargonium covered with large white blossoms of great elegance.
"But it is philosophy that makes you not drink wine? ”

“ The eyes of the strangers glanced towards the old lady in her low chair at the front of the ox cart. In her wrinkled face there was not a line of beauty, perhaps never had been; in spite of its sense and character unmistakeable; it was grave, she was thinking her own thoughts; it was weather-beaten, so to say, with the storms of life; and yet there was an expression of unruffled repose upon it, as calm as the glint of stars in a still lake. Mrs. Lenox's look was curiously incredulous, scornful, and wistful, together; it touched Lois.
"One's young years ought not to be one's best," she said. ”

“ Lois thought, if she were Mr. Lenox, she would not feel flattered.
"When one is young, one does not know disappointment," the other went on.
"And when one is old, one may get the better of disappointment."
"When one is young, everything is fresh."
"I think things grow fresher to me with every year," said Lois, laughing. "Mrs. Lenox, it is possible to keep one's youth."
"Then you have found the philosopher's stone?" said Mr. Lenox.
Lois's smile was brilliant, but she said nothing to that. ”

“ Wishart remarked that Shampuashuh was altogether unlike all other places she ever had heard of.
"Things at Shampuashuh are as they ought to be," Mr. Dillwyn said.
"Now, Mr. Dillwyn," cried Madge, "I will forgive you for taking my queen, if you will answer a question for me. What is 'art criticism'?"
"Why, Madge, you know!" said Lois from her sofa corner.
"I do not admire ignorance so much as to pretend to it," Madge rejoined. "What is art criticism, Mr. Dillwyn?"
"What is art?"
"That is what I do not know!" said Madge, laughing. "I understand criticism. It is the art that bothers me. ”

“ But why should she, Lois?"
"Madge, dear, you know what I told you."
"About what?"
"About that; people's feelings. You and I do not belong to this gay, rich world; we are not rich, and we are not fashionable, and we do not live as they live, in any way; and they do not want us; why should they?"
"We should not hurt them!" said Madge indignantly.
"Nor be of any use or pleasure to them."
"There isn't a girl among them all to compare with you, as far as looks go." ”

“ Miss Madge, I have never, so far, done a bit of good in my life."
"O, Mr. Dillwyn! I cannot believe that. People do not grow useful so all of a sudden, without practice," said Madge, hitting a great general truth.
"It is a fact, however," said he, half lightly, and yet evidently meaning what he said. "I have lived thirty-two years in the world—nearly thirty-three—without making my life of the least use to anybody so far as I know. Do you wonder that I seize a chance?"
Lois's eyes were suddenly lifted, and then as suddenly lowered; she did not speak. ”

“ Every day is just like any other day, and I know beforehand exactly how everything will be; and one dress is like another, and one party is like another. I must go away from home to get any real pleasure."
Lois wondered if she succeeded.
"That's a nice look-out for you, George," Caruthers remarked.
"I shall know how to make home so agreeable that she will not want to wander any more," said the other.
"That is what the women do for the men, down our way," said Lois, smiling. She began to feel a little mischief stirring.
"What sort of pleasures do you find, or make, at home, Miss Lothrop?" ”

“ It was a starlit, sultry night; the world outside the hurrying train covered with a wonderful misty veil, under which it lay half revealed by the heavenly illumination; soft, mysterious, vast; a breath now and then whispering of nature's luxuriant abundance and sweetness that lay all around, out there under the stars, for miles and hundreds of miles. Lois looked and peered out sometimes, so happy that it was not Shampuashuh, and that she was away, and that she would see the sun shine on new landscapes when the morning came round ”

“ It did not occur to me to set him about righting ail the wrongs of the world."
"Is he a Christian?"
"I am afraid you would not say so."
"Then he could not. One must love other people, to live for them."
"Love all sorts?" said Mrs. Barclay.
"You cannot work for them unless you do."
"Then it is hopeless!—unless one is born with an exceptional mind."
"O no," said Lois, smiling, "not hopeless. The love of Christ brings the love of all that he loves."
There was a glow and a sparkle, and a tenderness too, in the girl's face, which made Mrs. Barclay look at her in a somewhat puzzled admiration. ”

“ If you think of the power of the waves here, that have beat to pieces almost everything—rolled and ground and crushed everything that would break—and this delicate little thing has lived through it."
"There is a power of life in some delicate things," said Tom.
"Power of fiddlestick!" said his sister. "Miss Lothrop, I think this place is a terrible desert!"
"Then we will not stay here any longer," said Lois. "I am very fond of these little coves."
"No, no, I mean Appledore generally. It is the stupidest place I ever was in in my life. There is nothing here." ”

“ Barclay in Lois's face. You may easily see more regular features and more dazzling complexion. It was not any particular brilliance of eye, or piquancy of expression. There was a soundness and fulness of young life; that is not so uncommon either. There was a steadfast strength and sweetness of nature. There was an unconscious, innocent grace, that is exceedingly rare. And a high, noble expression of countenance and air and movement, such as can belong only to one whose thoughts and aims never descend to pettinesses; who assimilates nobility by being always concerned with what is noble. ”

“ Good, strong, sensible, practical faces; women that evidently had their work to do, and did it; habitual energy and purpose spoke in every one of them, and purpose attained. Here was no aimless dreaming or fruitless wishing. The old lady's face was sorely weather-beaten, but calm as a ship in harbour. Charity was homely, but comfortable. Madge and Lois were blooming in strength and activity, and as innocent apparently of any vague, unfulfilled longings as a new-blown rose. Only when Mr. Dillwyn's eye met Mrs. Barclay's he was sensible of a different record. ”

“ A large horizon, a wide experience of men and things; was it not better, did it not make life richer, did it not elevate the human creature to something of more power and worth, than a very narrow and confined sphere, with its consequent narrow and confined way of looking at things? Lois was just tired enough to let all these thoughts pass over her, like gentle waves of an incoming tide, and they were emphazised here and there by a vision of a brown curly head, and a kindly, handsome, human face looking into hers. ”

“ The gondola swam along over the quiet water, under the magnificent sky; the reflected colours glanced upon two faces, grave and self-absorbed.
"Old boy," said Philip at length, "I hardly think you are right."
"Right in what? I am right in all I have told you."
"I meant, right in your proposed plan of action. You may say it is none of my business."
"I shall not say it, though. What's the wrong you mean?"
"It seems to me Miss Dulcimer would not feel obliged to you, if she knew all."
"She doesn't feel obliged to me at all," said Tom. "She gives a good as she gets." ”

“ Armadale loved to take the book in her hands, upon her lap, while her granddaughter, leaning over it, read to her. They two had it alone; no other meddled with them. Charity was always in the kitchen at this time, and Madge often in her dairy, and neither of them inclined to share in the service which Lois always loved dearly to render. They two, the old and the young, would sit wholly engrossed with their reading and their talk, unconscious of what was going on around them; even while Charity and Madge were bustling in and out with the preparations for breakfast. ”

“ He had been in the grasp of a strong fancy before; a fancy strong enough to make him spend money, and spend time, for the possible attainment of its object; now it was fancy no longer. He had made up his mind, as a man makes it up once for all; not to try to win Lois, but to have her. She, he saw, was as yet ungrazed by any corresponding feeling towards him. That made no difference. Philip Dillwyn had one object in life from this time. He hardly saw or heard Lois's leave-takings with her class, but as she came up to him he rose. ”

“ Lois did not see it, and would not have known how to interpret it if she had seen it. She is safe, thought Mrs. Wishart, as she noticed the calm unembarrassed air with which Lois sat down to talk with the younger of her hostesses.
"You are making a long stay with Mrs. Wishart," was the unpromising opening remark.
"Mrs. Wishart keeps me."
"Do you often come to visit her?"
"I was never here before."
"Then this is your first acquain'tance with New York?"
"Yes."
"How does it strike you? One loves to get at new impressions of what one has known all one's life. Nothing strikes us here, I suppose. ”