Effie

“ He was so startled and amazed at this new tone in Effie's voice, that words failed him altogether for a minute. It seemed to him as if a castle of cards had tumbled all over his head, and as if he stood in the middle of the ruins. If Effie were going to turn nasty, according to Phil's idea, there was nothing further to be looked for in life. Walter, however, who was older, had more discernment than his little brother.
"Effie has a headache," he said; "can't you see that she has a headache? We'll be very good indeed, Effie, if Agnes will put us to bed." ”

“ After this, Effie and he quarrelled fiercely. They meant a very great deal to each other, but they were both under a strange, unnatural tension. He stayed out of the house as much as possible. He got a special corner for himself at the Red Lion at Cossethay, and became a usual figure by the fire, a fresh, fair young fellow with heavy limbs and head held back, mostly silent, though alert and attentive, very hearty in his greeting of everybody he knew, shy of strangers. He teased all the women, who liked him extremely, and he was very attentive to the talk of the men, very respectful. ”

“ She shut the door and went and stood by his side.
"Don't you think you had better go upstairs and help your mother to get to bed?"
"No; she likes best to be alone," replied Effie. "I want to sit by you. What is the matter with your throat?"
"My throat!—why?"
"You are so husky."
"I am dead beat, that's the truth of it. I am as weak as a cat, and for no earthly reason. Don't bother about my throat, it will be all right after I have had a good night's rest. I tell you, Effie, I never saw a child so ill as that little Freda Harvey. That woman who nursed her is an angel—an angel." ”

“ I have done wrong—I have acted ignobly, and not as Robert Barton would have done by me, or to the meanest in Scotland! Yet I did not tell him to love my daughter Effie—and Home and Hailes shall both be earls, if swords and lances can make them so. Yet—yet—tush! I have behaved like an old wolf. But there was no remedy—I had betrayed too much to him; so cold steel must seal his lips for ever. And yet, alack! those lips have often been upon poor Effie's cheek. No—no—let me not think of it!——But who is this? A captain of the king's arquebussiers—and Sybilla too;—pest! here is another lover! ”

“ Poor Effie Day was but an infant when both her parents were taken from her by death, and no other home had she ever known than the roof of her kind old grandfather. With a tenderness far exceeding that which they had felt for their own children did her grandparents regard her, and in pity for her orphan state, indulged her in every wish which it was in their power to grant. As she grew up her beauty and vivacity was their pride, and no theme could sooner reach their hearts than the praises of their darling Effie. ”

“ For her mother's sake she must see him. Whatever happened, her mother must never know of this calamity. Effie got up, washed her hands and face, smoothed out her hair, and went downstairs. George was already up, he was standing in the little parlor. He turned round when he heard his sister's footsteps, and looked anxiously at her.
"What a brute I am!" he said, when he saw the expression on her face; "but I swear before God, Effie, if you will help me, I'll turn over a new leaf; I'll never do a wrong thing again as long as I live—I swear it." ”

“ Effie with an air of being about to strangle the woman; she affectionately wrung the hands of Cousin Egbert, and had grasped my own tightly before I could evade her, not having looked for that sort of thing.
"That's Cousin Egbert's man!" called Mrs. Effie. But even then the powerful creature would not release me until her daughter had called sharply, "Maw! Don't you hear? He's a man!" ”

“ I meant no wrong to Effie, but, looking on her as a child, I forgot the higher claim I had given her as a wife, and, walking blindly on my selfish way, I crushed the little flower I should have cherished in my breast. "Effie, my old friend Agnes Vaughan is coming here to-day; so make yourself fair, that you may do honor to my choice; for she desires to see you, and I wish my Scotch harebell to look lovely to this English rose," I said, half playfully, half earnestly, as we stood together looking out across the flowery lawn, one summer day.
"Do you like me to be pretty, Sir?" ”

“ No women, but we two. I was so thankful to have Effie. Her gay inconsequence, her complete disregard of everything but the great adventure, helped us over every stony bit of the ground. Gendarmes, sentries with fixed bayonets, grumpy passport and permit officials—she captured them all. Youth is quite invincible, and when its smile is sweet like hers obstacles melt like mist before the rising sun. If I had even attempted that wonderful journey through the war zone without her I should either have been shot as a spy, or interned for the duration. ”

“ Effie, whom I now consulted, after reading the letter of Cousin Egbert, proved to be in favour of my going to him to make one last appeal to his higher nature.
"If only he'd stick out there in the brush where he belongs, I'd let him stay," she explained. "But he won't stick; he gets tired after a while and drops in perhaps on the very night when we're entertaining some of the best people at dinner—and of course we're obliged to have him, though he's dropped whatever manners I've taught him and picked up his old rough talk, and he eats until you wonder how he can. It's awful! ”

“ And all the voices sang with her
"Thus we work, thus we love ever while we live."
Then the procession moved out again, and Effie clung still to the little man's seal-skin cap, as she sat on her cushion of sea-weed, upon the hump on his back; and he marched along, using his flat hands like oars, while the gruff old constable with his sword, and the dolphins and the fishes, great and small, moved beside the pair, and they all went swiftly up from the light to the darker green, the voices growing fainter to Effie, and their forms more indistinct. ”

“ After tea, Effie had to go back to the hospital.
"Good-by mother," she said. "I won't see you now for a fortnight."
Mrs. Staunton got up and put her feeble old arms round her daughter's neck. "Good-by, my darling," she said. "Take care of yourself; don't overwork yourself. Remember it is unnecessary. You have got a home, and a dear, noble, faithful brother to provide for you."
"Yes, Effie, you are heartily welcome to all that I can give you," said George in a lofty tone. ”

“ Effie had often got things in her eye before, and her father had always seemed to think it was natural—rather tiresome and naughty perhaps, but still natural. He had never before thought it curious.
Effie stood holding her handkerchief to her eye, and said: "I don't believe it's out." People always say this when they have had something in their eyes. ”

“ I came back after a week's absence to my home again—a changed man. I had lived out my first rush of passion for Effie, had come to a contemplation of my position. I had gauged Effie's place in the scheme of things, and parted from her for a time. She was back in her place at Raggett Street after a temporary indisposition. I did not feel in any way penitent or ashamed, I know, as I opened the little cast-iron gate that kept Marion's front garden and Pampas Grass from the wandering dog. ”

“ All which Effie repaid with the devotedness of that most wonderful affection called the first or virgin love—the purest, the deepest, the most thorough-going of all the emotions of the human heart. But as yet he had not conceded to her wish that he should consent to their love being made known to Effie's father and mother. Love is only a leveller to itself and its object: the high-born youth, inured to refined manners, shrank from a family intercourse, which put him too much in mind of the revolt he had made against the presumed wishes and intentions of his proud parents. ”

“ She walked quickly, pretending to herself that there was no hurry, and not the least cause for alarm, and cried out into the fog in a strange, unnatural voice that none would have recognised as hers, “Effie! Effie!’
As the lantern shot a bar of light into the fog, Effie herself appeared, walking at a leisurely pace towards the house.
“The gal has been among the spirits again,” said Mrs. Turner, in a low voice.
Then Cissy scolded her soundly.
“Naughty Effie! Where have you been? You’ll be the death of us all, some day. Mercy! How cold the child’s hand is! Bring her to the fire. Oh dear!” ”

“ It was a fine sleigh drawn by a pair of beautiful gray horses, that, with proudly arched neck and flowing mane, stepped daintily, as if perfectly aware of the fact that they were gentlemen's horses, and carried as fashionable a load as New York afforded. A little girl leaned quite over the side of the sleigh, and smiled and nodded to Effie, then waving her handkerchief, to attract still more attention, dropped something upon the ground. It was the child they had seen at the toy-shop. Harry flew to pick up the offering, and gave it to his sister. ”

“ Effie has no money. She goes to see her father, who will take her in, but not the child. It’s an accepted convention that the unmarried mother must be parted from her child. So Effie and the baby turn up here. I say that they shall stay. You say that in that case you’ll go, which you do, having previously dismissed Dot and Dash. ”

“ Extraordinary that such a stern and hard old man should have for daughter such a fresh and lovable slip of a young thing as his Effie! Bright Effie, Sabre always called her, inverting her names. Mr. Bright had a little cupboard called his office at the foot of the main stairway and Bright Effie came often to see her father there. ”

“ Dorothy Fraser, in her dressing-gown, came out to the other room at once.
"Effie!" she exclaimed. "Effie Staunton!"
"Yes, it is I," said Effie; "it is I." She began to unpin her hat as she spoke. "I have come here to stay; I am going to nurse little Freda, and you are to go back to father. The gig is waiting outside, and you can easily drive old Jock. Drive him straight home, and go as fast as ever you can."
"Is your father ill, Effie?"
"Yes; he has taken the diphtheria. He is very ill. Mother sent me for you. If father dies, mother will die. They love each other so dearly—so very dearly. ”

“ George went out for a little, and Effie took up some needlework, sitting where the lamp in the center of the table fell full upon her bright brown hair.
"I wonder, Effie," said Mrs. Staunton in a tone of almost discontent, "that you did not speak to me before now on this subject. I cannot bear to think that a child of mine does not give me her full confidence. You know I am the last person in the world to keep you drudging and toiling at home when you yourself long for a wider field of usefulness." ”

“ When I think of her, the mystery of how she came out of Taylorville, full-fledged to her time, is greater than the mystery of how I came to be at all. For Effie is absolutely contemporaneous. She lives squarely not only in her century, but in the particular quarter of it now going. No clutch of tradition topples her toward the generation of women past. Most women of my acquaintance are either sodden with left-over conventions, or blowsy with racing after the to-be, but Effie is compacted, tucked in, detached from but distinctly related to her background of Montecito. ”

“ Every variety of the human species seemed crowded on those narrow pavements.
Harry and Effie were only a few rods from Mr T.'s door, when Mr Maurice overtook them, on his way to some other part of the city. He smiled, as he always did, on his children, then putting a few pence into Effie's hand, whispered something about 'temptation money,' and passed on. ”

“ A few moments witnessed Effie’s complete recovery, and in a few words she related her vanquishing of the Briton. When Rudolph Runnion touched her hand in the gloomy cave she must have been in a deep swoon, that admirably counterfeited death, for she knew nothing of his visit, and when she came to her senses, the little apartment was filled with pure air, and a moment afterward she was startled by hearing the major’s defiant words. Presently she knew that the red-skins had been vanquished, and that her lover was beyond the cave. ”

“ You are with Sister Kate, are you not?"
"Yes," said Effie. "She scarcely spoke to me—I never felt so awkward in my life, and I know that I was never half so clumsy."
"Of course," said Dorothy, with a smile. "Don't I know the feeling well? It all passes over, my love, and far more quickly than you have the least idea of. Remember you have got the power—those little hands are capable, that head holds a steady and sensible brain. Why, Effie, you have gone through far worse times than this without flinching. Surely, surely you are not going to break down now?" ”

“ Nerves like whipcord, young arteries, and every organ sound. She would live ten—fifteen—twenty years longer, live to be eighty. He was thirty-five now, and Effie was twenty-five. Before they could marry, they would be fifty-five and forty-five; old, old; too old to feel, to care passionately. He had no right to ask Effie to wait twenty years for him.
He must give up thinking about her.
His mother was still in her chair by the drawing-room fire, waiting for him. ”

“ Also a knowledge of corsets that had placed her at the buying end of that important department at Spiegel's. Effie knew to the minute when coral beads went out and pearl beads came in, and just by looking at her blouses you could tell when Cluny died and Irish was born. Meeting Effie on the street, you would have put her down as one of the many well-dressed, prosperous-looking women shoppers—if you hadn't looked at her feet. Veteran clerks and policemen cannot disguise their feet. ”