William Dean Howells

“ Miss Reed, responding to a tap at the door: “Ye-e-s! Come in!—You’re caught, Nettie.”
A maid-servant, appearing with a card: “This gentleman is asking for you in the parlor, Miss Reed.”
Miss Reed: “Oh! Ask him to come up here, please.—Nettie! Nettie!” She calls to her friend in the next room. “He’s coming right up, and if you don’t run you’re trapped.”
Miss Spaulding, re-appearing, cloaked and bonneted: “I don’t blame you, Ethel, comparatively speaking. You can say that everything is fair in love. He will like it, and laugh at it in you, because he’ll like everything you’ve done. ”

“ Miss Reed: “Oh!—Go on, Nettie; don’t let my outbursts interrupt you.”
Ransom: “I used to fancy sometimes that she was a little sweet on me.”
Miss Reed: “You wretch!—Oh, scales, Nettie! Play scales!”
Miss Spaulding: “Ethel Reed, are you crazy?”
Ransom, after a thoughtful moment: “Well, so it went on for the next seven or eight weeks. When we weren’t sketching in the meadows, or on the mountain-side, or in the old punt on the pond, we were walking up and down the farmhouse piazza together. She used to read to me when I was at work. She had a heavenly voice, Grinnidge.” ”

“ What is a cow, or a whole herd of cows, as compared with obliging a young lady to offer you money that you hadn’t earned, and then savagely flinging it back in her face? A yoke of oxen would be nothing—or a mad bull.”
He: “Oh, I acknowledge it! I confess it.”
She: “And you own that I am right in refusing to listen to you now?”
He, desolately: “Yes, yes.”
She: “It seems that you gave me lessons in order to be with me, and if possible to interest me in you; and then you were going away without a word.” ”

“ Grinnidge, getting up to fill his pipe: “That was a pleasant thing to do.”
Ransom: “I told her that if it amused her, to keep on; I would be only too glad to give her all—the hints I could, but that I oughtn’t to encourage her. She seemed a good deal hurt. I fancied at the time that she thought I was tired of having her with me so much.”
Miss Reed: “Oh, did you, indeed!” To Miss Spaulding, who bends an astonished glance upon her from the piano: “The man in this book is the most conceited creature, Nettie. Play chords—something very subdued—ah!” ”

“ Miss Spaulding, rushing forward, and catching her friend in her arms: “What is the matter with you, Ethel Reed? What are you doing here, over the register? Are you trying to suffocate yourself? Have you taken leave of your senses?”
Grinnidge: “Our fair friend on the other side of the wall seems to be on the rampage.”
Miss Spaulding, shutting the register with a violent clash: “Ugh! how hot it is here!”
Grinnidge: “Doesn’t like your conversation, apparently.”
Miss Reed, frantically pressing forward to open the register: “Oh, don’t shut it, Nettie, dear! If you do I shall die! ”

“ Miss Reed: “I won’t let you say that, Nettie Spaulding. I didn’t like him. I respected and admired him; but I didn’t like him. He will come near me; but if he does he has to begin by—by—Let me see, what shall I make him begin by doing?” She casts up her eyes for inspiration while she leans forward over the register. “Yes, I will! He has got to begin by taking that money!”
Miss Spaulding: “Ethel, you wouldn’t put that affront upon a sensitive and high-spirited man!”
Miss Reed: “Wouldn’t I? You wait and see, Miss Spaulding! He shall take the money, and he shall sign a receipt for it. ”

“ She takes a portfolio from the table near her, without rising, and writes: “‘Received from Miss Ethel Reed one hundred and twenty-five dollars, in full, for twenty-five lessons in oil-painting.’ There—when Mr. Oliver Ransom has signed this little document he may begin to talk; not before!” She leans back in her chair with an air of pitiless determination.
Miss Spaulding: “But, Ethel, you don’t mean to make him take money for the lessons he gave you after he told you you couldn’t learn anything?”
Miss Reed, after a moment’s pause: “Yes, I do. This is to punish him. I don’t wish for justice now ”

“ Grinnidge, who has been listening attentively to every word at the register at his side: “Ransom, if you don’t want me to go stark mad, shut the register!”
Ransom, about to comply: “Oh, poor old man! I forgot it was open!”
Miss Reed, preventing him: “No! If he has been vile enough to listen at a register, let him suffer. Come, sit down here, and I’ll tell you just when I began to care for you. It was long before the cow. ”

“ Miss Reed: “What?”
Miss Spaulding: “Not unless you were very fond of them.”
Miss Reed, putting away her handkerchief: “Oh, nonsense, Nettie! He never cared anything for me, or he couldn’t have acted so. But no p. 116matter for that. He has fixed everything so that it can never be got straight—never in the world. It will just have to remain a hideous mass of—of—I don’t know what; and I have simply got to on withering with despair at the point where I left off. But I don’t care! That’s one comfort.”
Miss Spaulding: “I don’t believe he’ll let you wither long, Ethel.” ”

“ We had a running fight of it all winter. The man who got his register open first in the morning got all the heat for the day, for it never turned the other way when it started in one direction. Used to almost suffocate—warm, muggy days—maintaining my rights. Some piano-pounder in there this winter, it seems. Hear? And she hasn’t lost any time in learning the trick of the register. What kept you so late in the country?”
Ransom, after an absent-minded pause: “Grinnidge, I wish you would give me some advice.” ”

“ If music be the food of—umph-ump!—you know what!—play on.” They both laugh, and Miss Spaulding pushes back a little from the piano, and wheels toward her friend, letting one hand rest slightly on the keys. ”

“ Ransom: “Yes. But she isn’t pensive. She’s awfully deep. It makes me shudder to think how deep that girl is. And when I think of my courage in daring to be in love with her—a stupid, straightforward idiot like me—I begin to respect myself in spite of being such an ass. Well, I’m off. If I stay any longer I shall never go.” He closes the door after him, and Miss Reed instantly springs to her feet.
Miss Reed: “Now he’ll have to go down to the parlor and send up his name, and that just gives me time to do the necessary prinking. You stay here and receive him, Nettie.”
Miss Spaulding: “Never! ”

“ Besides, it’s very different for a man. Women are weak, poor, helpless creatures. They have to use finesse. But a man should be above it.”
He: “You said you could forgive me anything.”
She: “Ah, but I didn’t know what you’d been doing!”
He, with pensive resignation, and a feint of going: “Then I suppose it’s all over between us.”
She, relenting: “If you could think of any reason why I should forgive you”—
He: “I can’t.”
She, after consideration: “Do you suppose Mr. Grumage, or Grimidge, heard too?”
He: “No; Grinnidge is a very high-principled fellow, and wouldn’t listen ”

“ If you flatten out at her feet to begin with, ten to one but she will pick you up.”
Ransom: “Yes, that was my idea.”
Miss Reed: “Oh, was it, indeed! Well!”
Ransom: “But I’ve nothing to do with her picking me up or pushing me down. All that I’ve got to do is to go and surrender myself.”
Grinnidge: “Yes. Well; I guess you can’t go too soon. I like your company; but I advise you as a friend not to lose time. Where does she live?”
p. 136Ransom: “That’s the remarkable part of it: she lives in this house.”
Miss Reed and Miss Spaulding, in subdued chorus: “Oh!” ”

“ She, with tender magnanimity: “No; only a woman—a poor, trusting, foolish woman!” She permits him to surround the table, with imaginable results. Then, with her head on his shoulder: p. 152“You’ll never let me regret it, will you, darling? You’ll never oblige me to punish you again, dearest, will you? ”