Carolyn

“ Miss Amanda understood Carolyn May, too. When the child went to the Parlow house she found sympathy and comfort in abundance.
Not that Aunty Rose and Uncle Joe were not sympathetic; but they did not wholly understand the 213 child’s nature. As the winter passed and Carolyn May grew more and more quiet, the hardware dealer and the woman who kept house for him decided that there was nothing the matter with Carolyn May save the natural changes incident to her growing up. For, physically, she was growing fast. As Aunty Rose said to Mr. Stagg, she was “stretching right out of her clothes.” ”

“ The clergyman did not seem to mind neglecting his task for the pleasure of helping Carolyn May with hers. Be explained quite clearly just what Miss Minnie meant by “writing what is in you.”
“Oh! It’s what you think about a thing yourself—not what other folks think,” cried Carolyn May. “Why, I can do that. I thought it was something like those physerology lessons. Then I can write about anything I want to, can’t I?”
“I think so,” replied the minister.
“I’m awfully obliged to you, Mr. Driggs,” the little girl said. “I wish I might do something for you in return.” ”

“ Not far beyond the schoolhouse Prince began to growl, and the hairs stiffened on his neck. 98
“Whatever is the matter with you, Prince?” demanded Carolyn May.
In a moment she saw the cause of the dog’s continued agitation. A roughly dressed, bewhiskered man sat beside the road eating a lunch out of a newspaper. He leered at Carolyn May and said:
“I guess you got a bad dog there, ain’t ye, little girl?”
“Oh, no! He’s us’ally very polite,” answered Carolyn May. “You must be still, Prince! You see,” she explained, “he doesn’t like folks to wear old clothes. ”

“ Her mother had slept in this very bed—had looked into that cunning, clouded glass over the dressing table—had 29 sat in this very little rocking chair to take off her shoes and stockings—had hung her dress, perhaps, over this other chair.
Carolyn May kept repeating these things as she divested herself of her garments and got into the nightgown that Mrs. Price had freshly ironed for her. Then she looked at the high, “puffy” bed.
“How ever can I get into it?” sighed Carolyn May. ”

“ I know your uncle must love you.”
“Do you s’pose so?” queried Carolyn May, trying not to cry.
“He must! How could he help loving you? Immersed as Joseph Stagg is in business and his own selfish projects, he cannot be so hard-hearted as not to love his only sister’s child.”
Carolyn May clutched at her, suddenly and tightly.
“Oh, Miss Mandy!” she gasped, “don’t you s’pose he loves other folks, too? You know—folks he’d begun to love ever so long ago?” ”

“ The mother hesitated an instant, then she put the paper on the girl's lap and pointed to the list of passengers on the Scythia.
"Mr. and Mrs. Rodney Lawrence," Carolyn read, then she read again. She heard her mother saying:
175 "It's the same steamer and the same date that you were going with him."
Mrs. Ffolliott was not thinking of grammar as she spoke.
Carolyn looked up, a hard light in her eyes.
"Only he married Prudence instead of me," she said. "It was a fine plan, wasn't it? No one could have made a better. Of course people hated to tell us. Oh!" ”

“ As Carolyn finished speaking she came to her cousin's side and took her hand for an instant. To her surprise, she found it as cold as her own, though the sun was shining hotly down upon the two.
"If I were a man," began Prudence, "and saw two girls like you and me, I shouldn't look at me, I should just go and fall in love with you."
"No; you wouldn't do any such thing; you'd think—oh, I know what you'd think. Oh, dear!" she partially turned towards the house, "is that Leander's voice? There's no one in the universe but a boy who can be in all places at once. ”

“ Delighted, Carolyn May ran to get ready. Spring was far advanced and the woods were very beautiful. And to stay all night—two whole nights—in a log cabin seemed wonderfully attractive to the little girl.
Aunty Rose let her go because she knew that Uncle Joe would approve of it. Indeed, they had talked the matter over already. Carolyn May missed Miss Amanda so that the hardware dealer had already agreed to some such arrangement as this. Mr. Parlow would drive over on Sunday afternoon and bring the little girl home. Of course, Prince had to go along. ”

“ Carolyn succeeded in pronouncing the words "that 184 woman" in an entirely neutral tone. Having done so, she immediately fell to despising herself for having said them at all. They seemed to her far beneath her own ideal of what she ought to be. In the sudden stress of her penitence and pain she leaned forward and made a gesture for her companion to stop in his walk.
"Lord Maxwell," she said, tremulously, "I don't mean to bear malice, or to judge. How am I to know the strength of temptation which besets somebody else? I am always praying to be forgiven. ”

“ The forest was a seething furnace. Smoke drifted out over the lake in a heavy cloud. Dead embers showered about them. Prince rolled and burrowed in the damp sand at the edge of the water. Cherry filled his throat with a long, cool, satisfying draught.
“My, Uncle Joe! you are just the bravest man!” declared Carolyn May, finding her voice. “Isn’t he, Miss Mandy? And, see, his arm is all burned. Dear me, we must get home to Aunty Rose and let her do it up for him.” ”

“ Betty’s little laugh, came to Carolyn over the wire.
“Wouldn’t it be funny if it is about the same thing! Why Carolyn, I’m just sick about it, but I don’t see how we can come to your house tonight. Father has to have a conference or something tonight down town and can’t drive us out to your place. He’s staying down for dinner somewhere, you know. So there’s no one to take us and Mother doesn’t think it’s safe for us to go on the car and then walk as far as we’d have to, especially coming home.” ”

“ Stagg.
“Oh,” cried Carolyn May a moment later, “I see it again. That’s a skirt I see. Why, it’s a lady!”
Mr. Stagg suddenly grew very stern-looking, as well as silent. All the beauty of the day and of the glade they had entered seemed lost on him. He went on stubbornly, yet as though loath to proceed.
“Why,” murmured Carolyn May, “it’s Miss Amanda Parlow! That’s just who it is!”
The carpenter’s daughter was sitting on a bare brown log by the brook. She was dressed very prettily, all in brown. Carolyn May had seen her that day in church in this same pretty dress. ”

“ He wished he could banish the memory of Carolyn's lovely, truthful face. He was sorry he had seen her. Did human beings always want the thing they could not have?
For what seemed a long time, he heard his wife's pen on the paper; then the noise grew indistinct, and Lawrence knew that he was going to sleep, and was thankful for the knowledge.
But he did not sleep long. Nothing special awakened him, however. He opened his eyes; they rested on Prudence, who had stopped writing. She was sitting with her hands folded on her lap, gazing at him. How old and hard her face appeared! ”

“ Carolyn Ffolliott was sitting on the piazza at Savin Hill, sitting in much the same position and with the same surroundings as when we first met her in the opening chapter of these chronicles. Only it was a year later. A year usually writes very little on the human face, though it may have brought experiences which will in time make their imprint visible.
Carolyn was reading; her brother Leander was sitting on the lawn, trying to unravel the tail of a kite; her mother was walking slowly back and forth, watching her son. ”

“ No matter who’s right and who’s wrong—who’s sinned against, and who’s sinning, the gentleman has to do the penance! There! kiss me, and be off with you!—and hark ye, Carolyn! don’t forget to kneel down and pray Heaven to give you the grace of a meeker temper!”
Carolyn Clifton went to her room and retired to bed, to heat her pillow with her feverish head, to wet it with her hot tears—to sigh, and groan, and toss, and sob all night. This bitter, bitter quarrel, was the first trouble the girl had ever had in all her favored life. ”

“ After Carolyn had breakfasted lightly, (and this was the first food she had taken for thirty-six hours,) she fell exhausted back upon her pillow, and said—
“I cannot appear this morning, Zuleime! I am tired of acting a part!”
“You need not do it, dear Carolyn! The people have breakfasted, and are almost all gone—and the others are going. Carolyn, dear, I saw Archer when he went away—”
Miss Clifton was still too proud to make a comment. ”

“ She liked to shell peas, and Aunty Rose had more in her pan than the little girl had ever shelled at one time at home.
Prince whined and lay down. He had begun to realise now that this was no play, at all, but punishment. He blinked his eyes at Carolyn May and looked as sorry as ever a dog with cropped ears and an abbreviated tail could look.
The hutch was under a wide-branching tree. It was shady, and the bees hummed. A motherly hen with thirteen black chickens paraded by.
“I wonder,” thought Carolyn May dozily, “how the mother can be so white and her family can be so black. ”

“ Don't let's talk of this any longer. When you are stronger, your mind will be stronger, and you won't have these fancies."
Carolyn did not reply to these words. She lay silently in her chair, gazing off to the line where the horizon met the ocean.
She was thinking, suddenly, that it was here on the piazza that she had been sitting when Leander had found the ring that Prudence had given to Rodney; and then Rodney had come and had asked her, Carolyn Ffolliott, to be his wife.
Well, it was all over. But she would not put on black because her lover was faithless. ”

“ I am sure, Carolyn May, that your Uncle Joe has no intention of drowning your dog.”
“Oh, Miss Amanda! Are you pos’tive?”
“Positive! I know Joseph Stagg. He was never yet cruel to any dumb creature. Go ask him yourself, Carolyn May. Whatever else he may be, he is not a hater of helpless and dumb animals.” ”

“ By-and-by Prince began to get very uneasy. It was long past his dinner hour, and every time he heard the screen door slam he jumped up and gazed eagerly and with cocked ears and wagging tail in that direction.
“You poor thing, you,” said Carolyn May at last. “I s’pose you are hungry. It isn’t going to do you a bit of good to eat; but you don’t know it. I’ll ask Aunty Rose if she has something for you.” ”

“ Her pretty brown head often bobbed along by Betty’s fair one and her face was alight with various expressions as she told Betty “all she knew and more,” as she herself said.
“Everybody likes Carolyn,” said Peggy Pollard, who had seen the grades through with Carolyn. “It’s because Carolyn goes out of her way to do things for people. She has a lovely family, too, and that makes a difference, don’t you think, Betty?” ”

“ The sister's being wheeled in a chair by a porter, the brother's walking beside her. They look like Doctor Churchill's friends, Jeff."
"Think you can tell Andy's friends by their uniform?"
"You can tell anybody's intimate friends in a crowd--I mean the same kind of people look alike," asserted Carolyn, with emphasis. "These are the ones, I'm sure. I'll just watch while you greet them and then I'll slip off. I'm taking this next train. What a sweet face that girl has, but how delicate--like a little flower. She's a dear, I'm sure. The brother looks nice, too. They're the ones, I know. ”

“ She still looked slim and frail, but she was beginning to show signs of waxing health very pleasant to see for those who had grown as interested in her as if she were a young sister of their own.
"I've an invitation for you from Carolyn Houghton for an impromptu sleigh-ride to-night. Don't you suppose you can go? I'll take all sorts of care of you and see that you don't get too tired. You've met Carolyn; she's a jolly girl to know, and she told me to bring you if possible." ”

“ The door had been left open by the surprised janitor.
A burst of voices came into the apartment. Uncle Joe turned wonderingly. Miss Amanda stood up. Carolyn May flew out of bed with a shriek that startled them both.
“My papa! My mamma! I hear them! They’re not drownd-ed! God didn’t let ’em be lost at sea!”
She was out of the room in her nightgown, pattering in bare feet over the floor. A brown man, with a beard and twinkling blue eyes, caught her up in strong arms and hugged her swiftly—safely—to his breast. ”

“ I tell you I'm hard hit,—devilishly hard hit,—beg pardon."
"Men seem to be fools about Prudence Ffolliott," remarked Carolyn; "she seems to be that kind of a woman."
Though she spoke in a very quiet voice, hearing her own tones made her shrink from herself in a contemptuous surprise. Had she fallen so low as to allow herself to speak thus? She would have given much to recall her sentence. She drew herself up with some haughtiness as she added, "Please forget that I used such words. Naturally I don't like to think of my cousin. ”

“ Carolyn Clifton is tall and elegantly proportioned, and moves with high-bred dignity. Her features are Grecian—her complexion is dazzlingly fair, save when the pure rich blood mantles in her cheek, and crimsons the short and scornful lip. Her eyes are blue, and half veiled by their fair lashes, as in disdain of aught that might seek their glance. Her fair hair is carried up from her forehead, and falls in 46bright tendril-like curls around the back of her neck, lending an intellectual and queenly grace to the proud head. ”