Ardelia

“ At all events, Ardelia fell in love, with him, violently, desperately, head over heels in love, the very moment the two were introduced. They danced practically every dance together that evening, met surreptitiously the next day and for five days thereafter, and on the sixth day Captain Barnabas received a letter from his daughter announcing that she and Morley were married and had gone to New York together. “We will meet you there, Pa,” wrote Ardelia. “I know you will forgive me for marrying Strickland. He is the most wonderful man in the wide world. ”

“ She sat stiffly on the red plush seat with furtive eyes and sucked-in lips, while the young lady talked reassuringly of daisies and cows and green grass. As Ardelia had never seen any of these things, it is hardly surprising that she was somewhat unenthusiastic; 126but the young lady was disappointed by this lack of ardor. She was so thoroughly convinced of the essential right of every child to a healthy country life, that she was almost disposed to blame Ardelia for not sharing her eminently creditable conviction. ”

“ A policeman was almost always in sight, and one of them, Mr. Halloran, had more than once given her a penny for lemonade. In the room above her head an Italian band practised every evening, and then Ardelia was perfectly 124happy, for she loved music. Often before the band began, a hurdy-gurdy would station itself at the corner, and Ardelia and the other little girls would dance about, singly and in pairs, shouting the tunes they knew, rejoicing in the comparative coolness and the generally care-free atmosphere. Ardelia was the lightest-footed of them all ”

“ Slater to her side.
“There, there, Delia, it’s only a cow. She won’t hurt you. She gives the milk—” Ardelia shuddered—“and the butter, too. Here’s some bread and butter for you. We’ve had our supper, but I thought the sleep would do you more good.”
Still shaken by the shock of that panting, hairy beast, Ardelia put out her hand for the bread and butter, and ate it greedily. Then she stretched her cramped limbs and looked over the umbrella. On the porch sat a bearded man in shirt-sleeves and stocking feet, his head thrown back against his chair, his mouth open. ”

“ You can have all you want every day—why, what’s the matter?”
For Ardelia was growing ghastly pale before them; her eyes turned inward, her lips tightened. A blinding horror surged from her toes upward, and the memory of the liquid ice-cream and the frying onions faded before the awful reality of her present agony.
“A blinding horror surged from her toes upward.”
Later, as she lay limp and white on the slippery hair-cloth sofa in Mrs. Slater’s musty parlor, she heard them discussing her situation. ”

“ Come out with me, Ardelia, and let’s see which can pick the biggest bunch.”
And Ardelia, fortified by ham and eggs, went stolidly forth into the grass and silently attacked the daisies.
In the middle of her bunch the new young lady paused. “Why, Ethel, she isn’t barefoot!” she cried. “Come here, Ardelia, and take off your shoes and stockings directly. Shoes and stockings in the country! Now you’ll know what comfort 142is,” as she unlaced the boots rapidly on the porch.
“Oh, she’s been barefoot in the city,” explained Miss Forsythe, “but this will be different, of course.” ”

“ But Ardelia, chattering with nervousness, wept for her shoes, and sat high and dry in a rocking-chair for the rest of the morning.
“She’s a queer child,” Mrs. Slater confided to the young ladies. “Not a drop of anything will she drink but cold tea. It don’t seem reasonable to give it to her all day, and I won’t do it, so she has to wait till meals. She makes a face if I say milk, and the water tastes slippery, she says, and salty-like. She won’t touch it. I tell her its good well water, but she just shakes her head. She’s stubborn’s a bronze mule, that child. Just mopes around. ”

“ When first the young lady from the College Settlement dragged Ardelia from her degradation—she was sitting on a dirty pavement and throwing assorted refuse at an unconscious policeman—like many of her companions in misery, she totally failed to realize the pit from which she was digged. It had never occurred to her that her situation was anything less than refined, and though, like most of us, she had 120failed to come up to her wildest ideals of happiness, in that respect she differed very little from the young lady who rescued her. ”

“ Though Valentinian doats on beauty's charms, Ardelia must be safe: True virtue checks A bold licentious wish, and guards the fair; He durst not drag an angel to his bed. Maximus
As truth and virtue dignifi'd my bliss, The gods alone who judge of spotless worth, Must clear her fame, and vindicate my own; Or let their vengeance pour in dreadful peals Their heated bolts---till chosen curses fall, In blasts distinguish'd, on the emperor's head. ”

“ Though he's in friendship, gen'rous and sincere, Yet injur'd once, implacably he hates: 'Twou'd beggar language to describe his pride, His strength of passion when arous'd to rage; Inexorable vengeance tears his soul Constant and noble, as a god he loves, But as a furious fiend, rewards his foes; Nought but their death can cool his passions down. Heraclius
Petronius Maximus returns no more To interrupt the pleasures of the court: Ardelia dead---the funeral pile burnt down--- Her ashes gather'd in a golden urn; He in despair has left the imperial city. ”

“ Ardelia, cramped with sitting still, for she had not altered her position since she was placed stiffly on the seat between her fellow-passengers, was lifted down and escorted up the shingle-walk to the porch. A spare, dark-eyed woman in a checked apron advanced to meet them.
“Terrible hot to-day, ain’t it?” she sighed. “I’m real glad to see you, Miss Forsythe. Won’t you cool off a little before you go on? This is the little girl, I s’pose. I guess it’s pretty cool to what she’s accustomed to, ain’t it, Delia?”
“No, I thank you, Mrs. Slater, I’ll go right on to the house. ”

“ The bird of death that nightly pecks the roof, Or shrieks beside the caverns of the dead; Or paler spectres that infest the tombs Of guilt and darkness, horror or despair, Are far more welcome to a wretch like me Than yon bright rays that deck the opening morn; That softly gliding o'er the dewy field Give life to nature---cheer the daisied lawn, Where my Ardelia trod the dappled mead, And breath'd fresh sweetness through the blooming dale. ”

“ Gosse tells of the good luck by which he became possessor of a manuscript volume of the poems of Lady Winchelsea of about the year 1696. With what light-hearted pride he writes: 'If there is any person in the two hemispheres who has so fair a claim upon the ghost of Ardelia, let that man stand forth. ”

“ I am so whimsical," retorted Bambi.
"Would you mind telling me?" begged the Professor.
"She's got money enough to take us to New York," repeated Jarvis.
"Thank you. I don't wish to go to that terrible place. Of all the distressing, improbable places, New York is the worst," replied Professor Parkhurst.
"Be calm, Professor. I was not planning to take you," soothed his daughter.
"But what is to be done with me?" he inquired, anxiously.
"You are to be left the one sole duty of Ardelia, to be overfed and pampered until you aren't fit to live with."
"But you can't go off alone with Jarvis." ”

“ I believe they like us because we're Ardens. Or is it because Edred's a lord?"
"We must find the treasure," said Edred, looking as he always did when he was very much in earnest, so like his father that Aunt Edith could hardly bear it—"so as to be able to look after our people properly."
"And to kick out the Tallow King," said Elfrida.
"But you won't be discontented if you don't find it," said Aunt Edith. "It's only a sort of game really. No one I ever knew ever found a treasure. And think what we've found already! Arden Castle instead of Sea View Terrace—and the lodgers. Good-night, chicks." ”

“ But when alone with you, I shall prove a very demon, whose weapons are galling reproaches, ignominies, insults, and indignities."
"Oh! this is terrible!" cried Adeline, as if her senses were leaving her. "You cannot be such a fiend."
"I can—I will!" returned Lydia. "Have I not undergone enough to make me so? And all was occasioned by you! When I was your wretched tool, you promised me the affection of a sister; and how did you fulfil your pledge? You came to me at a house where I was a governess, and whence I was anxious to remove from the importunities of the master ”

“ And thus had many—many sleepless nights—often rendered terrible by the shade of the murdered Lydia—dimmed the fires of Adeline's eyes, and given to her cheeks the pallor of marble!
Her only solace was her child, on whom she doated with all the affection which can be bestowed by a heart that has nothing else to love—nothing else to render existence even tolerable. ”

“ There was very little time in which to get even with any one, and, of course, getting even with people is not really at all a proper thing to do. Yet Edred did it.
Edred had got Elfrida out of the Tower just as Lady Nithsdale got her lord out, and now he and she and Cousin Richard were at Arden House, in Soho, and the old nurse, who was also, astonishingly, the old witch, had said that there was no time to be lost. ”

“ As soon as Peter thought the horse sufficiently rested, they again set forward, and from the rich plains of the Lyonnois, Adeline for the first time caught a view of the distant Alps, whose majestic heads, seeming to prop the vault of heaven, filled her mind with sublime emotions.
In a few hours they reached the vale in which stands the city of Lyons, whose beautiful environs, studded with villas and rich with cultivation, withdrew Adeline from the melancholy contemplation of her own circumstances, and her more painful anxiety for Theodore. ”

“ Lord Arden laughed.
"And I give you a sign—three signs," said the woman faintly; for it is tiring work seeing into the future, even when you are enlightened with a kiss from some one who has been there. "You shall see the white Mouldiwarp, that is the badge of Arden, on your threshold as you enter." ”

“ I pray you hold me excused in this Master Arderne."
"Not a whit," said Arderne, "the thought is a good one. Women oft-times are led to prize that which those they think well of value,—to open their eyes and see clearly the hugeness of an affection they have not before appreciated."
"But I know not how to woo a maid for myself," said his friend, "since I have never yet made suit to one, how, then, am I to play the suitor for so accomplished a cavalier; I who hath not ever seen the court?"
"Tush, tush, man," said Arderne, "there's ne'er a courtier of them all could match thee, I dare be sworn." ”

“ The sun shines low through the trellis and breaks, rosy, against my glass; he glances and trembles golden among thy locks, O Lydia. Among the blackness of thy locks, O snowy Lydia, a pallid rose languishes, and a gentle sudden sadness tempers the fires of love in my heart. Tell me: why does the sea down there send up mysterious groanings under the flaming evening? What songs, O Lydia, do those pines sing to each other? See with what desire those hills stretch out their arms to the setting sun: the shadow grows and embraces them: it seems as though they were begging the last kiss, O Lydia. ”

“ But Adeline felt that she should now possess a dependant before whom her dignity and self-confidence would ever be overwhelmed by the weight of that dread secret of which Lydia's bosom was the depository. Such a prospect was most galling—most humiliating—most degrading to the mind of the haughty peeress.
"But of what avail are tears?" said Adeline, suddenly. "The danger is here—the evil is before me. We must meet:—it were better that I should see her at once! Doubtless she is unaware in whose abode she is now a menial!" ”

“ Lord Arden stared angrily at her, and then he chuckled. “It’s a bold girl, so it is,” he said. “I own I remember well seeing a witch ducked no further off than Newchurch, and playing truant from my tutor to see it, too.”
“There now, you see,” said Elfrida coaxingly, “we don’t mean to be naughty; we’re just like what you were. You won’t make it bread and water, will you? Especially if bread’s so dear.” ”

“ Lord Arden led Edred and Elfrida away, one in each hand, and as he went he was very severe on disobedient children who went straying after wicked witches, and they could not defend themselves without blaming the cook, which, of course, they would not do. ”

“ Edred insisted, though no one had suggested that he would be mean and sneaky. "We'll tell auntie directly she gets back."
"Of course," said Elfrida, rather relieved, for she had not felt at all sure that Edred meant to do this.
"After all," said Edred, "it's our castle. We ought to go and see the cradle of our race. That's what it calls it in 'Cliffgate and its Envions.' I say, let's call it a pilgrimage. The satchels will do for packs, and we can get halfpenny walking-sticks with that penny of yours. We can put peas in our shoes, if you like," he added generously. ”

“ But the inner Ardea was a being apart—high-seated, alone, self-sufficient in the sense that it saw too clearly to be hoodwinked, infinitely reasonable, with vision unclouded either by passion or the conventions. This inner Ardea knew Vincent Farley better than he knew himself: the small mind, the mask of outward correctness, the coldness of heart, the utter lack of the heroic soul-strength which, even in a brutal man, may sometimes draw and conquer and merge within itself the woman-soul that, yielding, still yields open-eyed and undeceived. ”