Deborah

“ Then the anger and scorn that had flashed from Deborah's eyes at her friend's accusation vanished in a moment at sight of her tears—'Mistress Dinnage!' whom Deborah had never known to shed a tear since their childhood.
'Nay,' cried Deborah, with her hands on the quivering shoulders; 'you know this is not so. You know that neither rank nor wealth nor great lady-friends will ever step between us. ”

“ But glancing at Deborah by his side he thought of the night she had been through. No, he decided, he would go on and see what she was up to here.
They turned into a narrower street between tall dirty tenements, and in a twinkling all was changed. For the street, as far as he could see, was gay with flaunting colors, torrents of bobbing hats and ribbons, frocks and blouses, shirts and breeches, vivid reds and yellows and blues. It was deafening with joyous cries, a shrill incessant chatter, chatter, piercing yells and shrieks of laughter. ”

“ Passing through it, she found herself in a narrow passage that she had not before seen. Deborah, the good-natured housemaid, suddenly came out of one of the rooms opening from it, carrying a brush and dustpan. Deborah was the only servant kept in the house, so far as Lady Level saw, apart from the cook, who was fat and experienced.
"What a curious old house!" exclaimed Lady Level. "Nothing but dark passages that turn and wind about until you don't know where you are."
"It is that, my lady," answered Deborah. "In the late lord's time the servants took to calling it the maze, it puzzled them so. ”

“ But let us have one bottle more, Deborah, my life, and Moses give us a good song. What thanks do we not owe to heaven for thus bestowing tranquillity, health, and competence. I think myself happier now than the greatest monarch upon earth. He has no such fire-side, nor such pleasant faces about it. Yes, Deborah, we are now growing old; but the evening of our life is likely to be happy. We are descended from ancestors that knew no stain, and we shall leave a good and virtuous race of children behind us. ”

“ If Miss Deborah had painted candle-shades or china porringers or watered silk panels or flowerpots, no one, I think, would have murmured. But when they learned that she painted pictures they spread and lifted their fans.
“Miss Deborah Ware would ape the men,” they said sternly. And when they saw her studio apron made of ticking and having a bib they tried to remonstrate with my mother, her kinswoman.
“She is a great beauty, for her age,” said the women. “But Beauty is as Beauty does,” they reminded her.
“Deborah does as Deborah is,” my mother answered, smiling. ”

“ She seated herself beside the window, and, unclasping the necklace, took it off and held the jewels up in the moonlight, pressing their soft smoothness to her cheek, where the pendant drops hung like falling tears.
Suddenly, upon the perfect stillness around her, broke a sound. Slow stealthy footsteps were crossing the floor of the spinning-room just outside. Deborah grew cold with instant terror. She heard a hand placed upon her door, and then came a voice, soft, well known, through the stillness: "Deborah—Deborah!" ”

“ Then Deborah looked up white and calm: 'What could have induced you, father? What ruin could be great enow to justify so great a sin? The loss of house and lands? Let them go. You and I had better live in some poor honest way, than keep at Enderby. Let it go. It is no great matter, so long as you have your children's love.'
He groaned. 'It isn't all, Deb; ruin isn't all. We have that, and enow. But ye know the old saying, "Death before dishonour."—Charlie, Charlie!' and the father's tremulous lips struggled piteously to utter more. ”

“ Deborah's heart beat and her colour rose. Girls are silly beings. She could think of and pine for nought but that coquettish cap which would jauntily set her love-locks.
While thus musing, the door opened abruptly, and in stalked a travel-stained figure, a tall figure, with wild dishevelled hair. It was Charlie Fleming, with the passions of his boyhood darkened and deepened, in the sombre beauty of the face that had grown stern and set. ”

“ At home—she and her ancestors before her came from a prosperous country suburb of Boston—she was almost too popular for her own happiness; she lived so much in a group that she hardly had time enough to think life over—to savor her own enjoyment. Of the Harvard men who thronged her parents' house there were always one or two who wanted to marry her, three or four who merely loved her hopelessly, and a great many—and these gave Deborah the most pleasure—who offered her a frank, warm, equal comradeship. ”

“ Deborah had not seen him for weeks; she gave a cry of joy, and sprang into his arms. The roughness of the boy had passed from Charlie Fleming, but his rare demonstrations of affection were shewn to Deborah only. 'I am only here for half an hour, Deb. I must saddle horse afresh and off to Lincoln Castle. I am in rare trouble, Deb. Hush, child! I am come to thank ye for refusing Adam Sinclair. Better poverty, Deb, than that. Better starvation. I'd blow his brains out sooner than see you his wife. ”

“ The angels wanted her in heaven (But they never asked for me) , And that is the reason, I rather guess, In the aguish West countree, That the cold March wind, and the doctor, and death, Took off my Deborah Lee— My beautiful Deborah Lee— From the warm sunshine and the opening flowers, And bore her away from me.
Our love was as strong as a six-horse team, Or the love of folks older than we, Or possibly wiser than we ”

“ A single individual of the Blake family, in whose veins none of the Hickory blood flowed, remained alive; that individual was a woman, fettered by age and infirmities, to a chair on the kitchen hearth of one of her descendants. Dame Deborah was venerated as a relic of old times, rather than beloved. The beings about her had come into the world when she was aged; and those, to whom she had given life, had passed away before her; leaving their mother to the care of a third generation. ”

“ And life is long enow from the wedding to the grave!'
Sir Vincent stood with the letter in his hand. 'Deborah, ye speak strangely; yet you are smiling, and your eyes and cheeks are bright. Little one, tell thy wretched father if thou'rt unhappy over this? Speak, Deb, darling; and if it grieves thee, I will see myself in jail, and Charlie on the gallows, ere thou shalt sacrifice thy life. Deborah, be honest with me.'
'Why, I am honest always. It will not hurt me. I will be a good wife to him till the day I die, if it must needs be so. But would you have me say I love him, reverence him? ”

“ I suppose it’s poor Miss Deborah you mean, since everybody knows she’s dying for ye. Well, well, some hearts are made to be broken, and others made to break them, I suppose. But it’s a pity, for sure, that you don’t make it up together, for you’d make a handsome couple!”
Rees laughed, and passed in not ill-pleased. His was not a nature with any great depth of passion to bestow on any woman. But he knew that Deborah was the handsomest and altogether the nicest girl in the neighborhood. ”

“ He heard their two voices talk on and on, until Laura's slowly quieted down. Soon afterwards she left the house, and Deborah came in to him.
"She's gone home, eh?" asked Roger.
"Yes, she has, poor silly child—she said at first she had come here to stay."
"By George," he said. "As bad as that?"
"Of course it isn't as bad as that!" Deborah cried impatiently. "She just built and built on silly suspicions and let herself get all worked up! I don't see what they're coming to!" For a few moments nothing was said. "It's so unnatural!" she exclaimed. "Men and women weren't made to live like that!" ”

“ Deborah felt guilty. “I'm awfully sorry,” she answered. “Bursting in like that. But you know,” she added, smiling, “it's a good deal of an adventure to tackle you. You're a good deal of a proposition, Lady Armistead. It needed a lot of courage.” ”

“ Suddenly Charles Fairfield rushed forward and, seizing both her hands, fell upon his knees. "Deborah! Deborah! Deborah! I love you! In the name of God Almighty, give me some hope! I meant everything honestly—honorably—do you hear? The marriage would have been legal. Rockwell will swear that to you. What right have you—Debby! Debby, you promised! Is it true that you don't care?"
Deborah drew away from him as far as she could. Her face was drawn and weary, and no light in her eyes answered his entreaties. Claude, who had watched her narrowly, now interposed. ”

“ Look all around you!" He heard Deborah's eager voice in his ear. And as he looked up from the court below he gave a low cry of amazement. In hundreds of windows all around, of sweatshops, tenements, factories, on tier upon tier of fire escapes and even upon the roofs above, silent watchers had appeared. For this one moment in the day the whole congested neighborhood had stopped its feverish labor and become an amphitheater with all eyes upon the school. And the thought flashed into Roger's mind: "Deborah's big family!" ”

“ And there must be madness in the family, or Captain Pennant would never have adopted a fisherman’s baby and brought it up as his own child.”
“Deborah’s very pretty,” said Lady Kate, thoughtfully. “If we were half as good-looking we should have been photographed all over the place as beauties.”
“Pretty! Do you think so?” asked her sister, with an air of matter-of-fact impartiality. “I don’t admire those big, coarse-looking women. I like a face which shows signs of the higher intelligence, a face which lights up. And Deborah has no conversation. I can’t admire a girl without conversation.” ”

“ He had seen her in his dreams, both waking and sleeping; among the women of the Greek camp at the Wady; and only yesterday in peasant garb amid the dying on Bethhoron—yet she was here in her home! He was beginning to question his own mental condition. His hand came to his head as if to certify that it was still upon his shoulders. Deborah quickly proved that this time at least she was no sprite out of the foam of fancy. With a suppressed cry of surprise and gladness she sprang to meet him. He would have been less than a man if he had not extended both hands to embrace her. ”

“ Drewitt has such an appetite; leastways at his supper," answered Deborah.
"I wonder they don't take their meals below; it's a long way to carry them up all them stairs," remarked Mr. Sanders, when Deborah was placing her dish of cutlets on the tray prepared for it.
"Oh, I don't mind it; I'm used to it now," said the good-humoured girl, as she went off with a quick step.
Deborah returned with a quieter step than she had departed. "They are quarrelling like anything!" she exclaimed in a low, frightened voice. "She's gone into my lord's room, and they are having it out over something or other." ”

“ And Deborah knows very well that if she does get married this month, with Laura abroad and Edith up here and only me at the wedding, Edith will smile to herself and say, 'Now isn't that just like Deborah?'"
As Roger slowly rode along a steep and winding mountain road, gloomily he reflected to what petty little troubles a family of women could descend, so soon after death itself. And he lifted his eyes up to the hills and decided to leave this matter alone. If women would be women, let them settle their own affairs. Deborah was due to arrive on the following Friday evening. ”

“ To this woman I had once bound myself with a vow."
Deborah felt the blood coming to her cheeks.
Dion kept on: "While this woman lives, I must live, unless she bids me die. But if she shall call me coward I will disprove her words by dying at her feet. Does the daughter of Elkiah bid me follow my General? I will obey. Since the turn of affairs at Bethhoron you will no longer need one of hated race to protect you. As your Jehovah is my judge, Deborah, I have lived for naught else since I felt the touch of your hand at the Wady. I await your word."
How much one can live in a moment! ”

“ Deborah was lucky. She, in her sheeny lovely dress, was well-nigh worshipped by the men, she looked so full of life, so brilliant. But no Charlie! That was the one drawback; nor did Adam Sinclair know where he was, save that he had left Lincoln the day before in good spirits. Deborah knew in her heart what that meant. As she conversed, she looked full at Adam Sinclair, and felt to love all man and woman kind. The aged wooer trembled before the gracious girl; time only heightened his passion and hardened his determination to win Deborah Fleming at all hazards. ”

“ Edith said, with a prim provoking little smile. Deborah turned on her angrily:
"It has shown that all such mothers as you are out of date and have got to change! That we're bound together—all over the world—whether we like it or whether we don't! ”

“ II. Deborah herself penned this song, as appears by v. 7: Till I Deborah arose. And the first words should be rendered, Then she sang, even Deborah. 1. She used her gifts as a prophetess in composing the song, and the strain throughout is very fine and lofty, the images are lively, the expressions elegant, and an admirable mixture there is in it of sweetness and majesty. No poetry is comparable to the sacred poetry. And, 2. We may supposed she used her power as a princess, in obliging the conquering army of Israel to learn and sing this song. ”

“ Nothing could be more unlike our friend Edward than the stranger. Fair, freckled, light-haired, light-eyed, with invisible eye-brows and eye-lashes, insignificant in feature, pert and perking in expression, and in figure so dwarfed and stunted, that though in point of age he had evidently attained his full growth, (if one may use the expression to such a he-doll,) Robert at fifteen would have made two of him,—such was the new favourite. So far as appearance went, for certain Mrs. Deborah had not changed for the better. ”