Chatty

“ All the cherubs, haloed with the pretty hair and crowned with the flowery hats, and Miss Chatty, too, would, doubtless, have been very much shocked had Nib’s voice not been like a little flute, and the eyes she lifted, like two great big violets, and the teeth she showed, beautifully white. But when lips and lids closed again, she was as homely as the other; and then everybody was shocked at what they had heard, the cherubs looking at each other, and the Doll Doctor’s face becoming much suffused as she received the young rag-pickers’ spoils. ”

“ WHAT a rage he was in, for there were only six eggs left! He roared so loud that all the little muggers inside the shells gnashed their teeth, and tried to roar too.
Then he said, “I know what I’ll do, I’ll fetch Little Black Mingo’s big chatty and cover my eggs with that, then the Mongoose won’t be able to get at them.” So he swam across to the shore, and fetched the dhobi’s big chatty, and covered the eggs with it. “Now, you wicked little Mongoose, come and eat my eggs if you can,” said he, and he went off quite proud and happy. ”

“ She continued to stand away from him, with grave eyes. “Poor Chatty! Nothing left now—”
His own eyes grew grave, in instant sympathy. At such moments he was still the sentimental boy whom she could manage.
“Ah, poor Chatty, indeed!” He groped for the readiest panacea. “Lucky, now,{75} after all, that she has those paupers, isn’t it? I suppose a woman must have children to love—somebody else’s if not her own.” It was evident that the thought of the remedy had already relieved his pain.
“Yes,” Delia agreed, “I see no other comfort for her. I’m sure Joe will feel that too. ”

“ We want Flossie all to ourselves; I do hope she'll let us!"
"So do I!" retorted Dorothy feelingly. "The Hammond-Smiths are welcome to their cousin, so far as I'm concerned," she whispered to Chatty Burns; "I don't like her. She's trying to show off. Edith and Claudia are making far too much fuss over her."
"They always gush," commented Chatty. "Still, I dare say Flossie will need taking down a little." ”

“ I would rather take a nap on a thistle in the sunshine than roll up in a fluffy ball and sleep in a dark hole in the ground. You must not criticise those whose customs are different from yours. Perhaps the butterfly is quite as much amused at you.”
“There she goes again!” cried Chatty, suddenly. “I wish I were a flying-squirrel, that I might catch her. Wait a moment until I frighten her again.”
Chatty began to chase the butterfly once more. He was accustomed to running without looking where he was going, so he did not see the danger that awaited him.
[16]
SPLASH! ”

“ Edith Hammond-Smith was a fairy, and Claudia a pierrot; while Flossie Taylor, in an Eastern shawl, and with bangles tied on for ear-rings, looked a gorgeous Cleopatra.
Chatty Burns, in a tartan plaid, made a typical "Highland lassie". Effie Lawson, with her hair plaited in a tight pigtail, and her eyebrows corked aslant, had, with the aid of a coloured bedspread and a Japanese umbrella, turned herself into a very creditable "Heathen Chinee" ”

“ Gets out, leaving the tantalised audience inconsolable, and longing for courage to question her companion as to the precise details of Eliza's heartless behaviour to George. The companion, however, relapses into a stony reserve. Enter a Chatty Old Gentleman who has no secrets from anybody, and of course selects as the first recipient of his confidence the one person who hates to be talked to in an omnibus. ”

“ A Mugger is an alligator like creature.} poked its nose up through the bottom of the chatty and said “Ha, ha!! Little Mingo, I’m going to eat you up!”
Little Black Mingo did not say anything. She turned and ran away as fast as ever she could, and the Mugger ran after her. But the broken chatty round his neck caught his paws, so he could not overtake her.
But when she got back to Black Noggy, and told her how the Mugger had broken the chatty, Black Noggy was fearfully angry. “You naughty girl,” she said, “you have broken the chatty yourself, I have a good mind to beat you.” ”

“ The yellow butterflies like to sip the honey from the yellow flowers, but the white butterflies seem to prefer the white clover. They are the most beautiful of all insects. Their four wings are colored on both sides. When [15] they rest, their wings stand straight up and do not fold.”
“Butterflies are very queer animals,” said Chatty ungraciously. He was vexed with butterflies, because he knew so little about them. “Why do they sleep with their wings held high above their heads? ”

“ Delia’s needle gave the canvas a sharp prick, and she pushed her work aside.
“I think I understand you both, Joe. Certainly, in Charlotte’s place, I could never give up those children.”
“There you are, my dear fellow!” Jim{69} triumphed, as proud of this vicarious courage as of the perfection of the dinner.
“Never,” said Delia. “Especially, I mean, the foundlings—there are two, I think. Those children always die if they are sent to asylums. That is what is haunting Chatty.”
“Poor innocents! How I love her for loving them! That there should be such scoundrels upon this earth unpunished—. ”

“ Every pulse of her heart beating with its sense of terrible wrong; every chord of love for Rupert strung to its utmost tension; every fear that an excitable imagination can depict within her, Mrs. Chattaway leaned against the palings in utter faintness of spirit. ”

“ And I wish to tell Chattaway that if he'll act a fair part as a man ought, and let my wife and the boys stop on the farm, he'll stand a much better chance of getting the money, than he would if he turns them out of it. I don't say this for their sakes more than for his; but because from my heart I believe it to be the truth. George has his head on his shoulders the right way, and I would advise his mother to keep him on the farm; he will be getting older every day. ”

“ But my belated realization of what Catty meant to me was no reaction to Barbara or connected with the breaking of that tie. The need for Catty was engendered by Catty alone, and for Catty apart from anything I had ever felt for another. It was in some ways an entirely new hunger, as the man’s need transcends the youth’s. I understood now what her question in the woodlot meant and at last I could truthfully answer.
She kissed me back, freely and strongly. “I love you, Hodge,” she said; “I have loved you even through the bad dream of not being able to speak.” ”

“ Catty’s artistry with the needle made a revolution. Not only did she patch and mend and alter; she designed and made clothes, conveying some of her enthusiasm to the other women. The haven was better and more handsomely clad and a great deal of money was saved. Only Barbara refused to have her silk trousers and jackets made at home.
It was not entirely easy to adjust to the new Catty, the busy, efficient, selfreliant creature. Her expressive voice could be enchanting even when she was speaking nonsense—and Catty rarely spoke nonsense. ”

“ Not that Catty didnt have proper respect and enthusiasm for my fortunes. I had completed my notes for Chancellorsville to the End—that is, I had a mass of clues, guideposts, keys, ideas, and emphases which would serve as skeleton for a work which might take years to write—and Catty was the audience to whom I explained and expounded and used as a prototype of the reader I might reach. Volume one was roughly drafted, and we were to be married as soon as it was finished, shortly after my thirtieth and Catty’s twenty-fourth birthday. ”

“ He paid her well, told her most of his plans, counseled with her often, and at times evinced for her a liking and respect very dear to the woman who longed so much to fall upon his neck and claim him as her son. She had been with him in Scotland, and London, and Paris, and at last, six years before his marriage with Anna, had gone with him to Chateau d’Or, which he had just bought, and where for weeks he held a high carnival with his wild, dissipated friends. ”

“ There's enough to keep you busy most of your time if you only did the half of it."
"Is that what you want me to be, Mamma? A servant, like Catty?"
"Poor Catty. If you were more like Catty," her mother said, "you'd be happier than you are now, I can tell you. Catty is never disagreeable or disobedient or discontented." ”

“ Chattaway was upon them.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Chattaway," said George. "Is Cris at home?"
George continued his way as he spoke, brushing past Mr. Chattaway. You know what a very coward is self-consciousness. The presence of Chattaway at that ill-omened moment set them all inwardly quaking. George, the surgeon, old Canham sitting inside, and Ann peeping from the window, felt one and all as if Chattaway must divine some part of the great secret locked within their breasts.
"Cris? I don't think Cris is at home," called out Chattaway. "He went out after dinner." ”

“ Chattaway. "Never trouble your head about business that's above you. Anything between me and your father, or your mother either, is no concern of yours; you are not old enough to interfere yet. I should like to see him. Do you think I may go in?"
"We can ask," answered George; some vague and indistinct idea floating to his mind that a death-bed reconciliation might help to smooth future difficulties.
He led the way through the fold-yard. Nora was coming out at the back-door as they advanced.
"Nora, do you think Mr. Chattaway may go in to see my father?" asked George. ”

“ Well, Catesby, ere a fortnight make me older,
I'll send some packing that yet think not on't.
CATESBY. 'Tis a vile thing to die, my gracious lord,
When men are unprepar'd and look not for it.
HASTINGS. O monstrous, monstrous! And so falls it out
With Rivers, Vaughan, Grey; and so 'twill do
With some men else that think themselves as safe
As thou and I, who, as thou knowest, are dear
To princely Richard and to Buckingham.
CATESBY. The Princes both make high account of you-
[Aside] For they account his head upon the bridge.
HASTINGS. I know they do, and I have well deserv'd it. ”

“ I thought how I would introduce Cathy to him, and how much he would admire her, and how perhaps we could go and stay somewhere near Marshlands in the holidays, so that he could see all the Winstanleys together. I imagined him coming to our Mid-summer breaking-up party, and how proud [199] and happy I should be to have him there. It was an annual occasion to which the parents and friends of the girls were invited, and I had often felt, with a little pang, when I saw the warm greetings between others, that it seemed hard to have no one there to love me specially above everyone else. ”

“ Katty, a complacent, kind-looking woman, somewhat past the middle period of life, then made her appearance. “Well, your reverence?”
“Get hot water and tumblers—Father Pettier is starved after his long ride such a night, and must have a tumbler of punch to warm him, poor fellow, and I am going to keep him in countenance; and see, Katty, bring the poteen that's in Ould Broadbottom, at the right-hand side o' the cubbard. Stir the fire a little, Pettier, and throw on a sod or two—it's getting dull.” ”

“ To Katy she was very gracious, admiring her house, admiring herself, admiring everything, until Katy wondered how she could ever have dreaded to meet her, laughing and chatting as familiarly as if the fashionable woman were not criticising every movement, and every act, and every feature of her face, wondering most at the flour upon her hair! ”

“ Thus we have traced the course of Thomas Chatterton to that eventful crisis of his fate, when he found himself rejected, as it were, by the literary senate of his nation, and thrust down the few steps of the temple of fame which he had dared to ascend, as a forger and impostor. He was thrust away, in a manner, from the heart, and, what was more, from the intellect of his country; yet his proud spirit spurned the ignominious treatment, and he dared to make one grand effort, one great and final appeal against the fiat, in the face of the whole world, and in the heart of the British metropolis. ”

“ I always do," said Lady Cathay, with wondering eyes.
"And I have taken mine black, as I always do. There is the whole difference—in one suggestive detail."
"Tell me more' said Lady Cathay gently, as the maid withdrew.
"You are all pearls, and purity, and propriety."
"And prunes and prism," added Lady Cathay, laughing.
"No, no. Prunes-and-prism does not take coffee at all—it keeps her awake. You are pearls and purity—I am sin and sequins."
"You say terrible things of yourself."
"Remember that I have been living in London and have not told the truth for three months. ”

“ He then hurried to Hans Aden, and said to him—
“Monsieur Mayor, I have forgotten my purse at the public-house, for my illustrious master and I have our money in Bruno’s saddle; lend me ten francs; I’ll return them to you by-and-by.”
“With pleasure,” said Hans Aden, pulling a somewhat wry face—“with pleasure;” and he gave him ten francs.
Coucou Peter, now as proud as a cock, took Dame Thérèse under his arm, and led her to the handsomest stall.
“Dame Thérèse,” he cried, “choose whatever you like. Will you have this shawl, these ribbons, this fichu?—will you have all the shop? Don’t hesitate.” ”

“ A man needed a wife.
The Chatterleys, two brothers and a sister, had lived curiously isolated, shut in with one another at Wragby, in spite of all their connections. A sense of isolation intensified the family tie, a sense of the weakness of their position, a sense of defencelessness, in spite of, or because of the title and the land. They were cut off from those industrial Midlands in which they passed their lives. And they were cut off from their own class by the brooding, obstinate, shut-up nature of Sir Geoffrey, their father, whom they ridiculed, but whom they were so sensitive about. ”