Elma

“ She patted Elma's hand with anxious affection.
Adelaide Maud looked hopeful.
"Won't you leave it to us?" she asked, "to Dr. Smith to break it to Miss Annie, as a kind of command, and to me to break it to Mr. Leighton as an abject request? Because I believe this idea of Elma's is about as valuable as any of mine. You must have some one with you who knows how self-denying you are, Miss Grace. You ought to have Dr. Merryweather with you in fact, to keep you in order." ”

“ It was years before she sacrificed the curling moustache to a clean-shaven duke, and shuddered at the suggestion of oil in his hair.
The despair of her life stood in the corner of the white and gold drawing-room. It was an enormous Alexander harmonium. Once, in an easy moment, on conversing affably with her duke in a whisper, she had suggested to him that Miss Grace might let her play on this instrument. Miss Grace, coming in then, was in time to see her lips moving, and considered that the sweet child worked at her lessons. Elma was too sincere to deceive her. ”

“ All these things Elma knew well. She was an ambitious girl; she earnestly desired to secure a good position for herself in life. She hated her sister Carrie's ways, and detested the grumbling, weak sort of character which she could not but see that her mother possessed. All the same, she was not really scrupulous nor high-principled; it was only that the little mean ways and the petty shifts which went on in the small house in Constantine Road sorely fretted her. Her intercourse with girls like Gwin Harley and Bessie Challoner could not but raise her standard. ”

“ They were always on their best behaviour in the house where not only a footman, but an odd man were kept, and Elma, at the age of seven, had been known to complain to Mrs. Leighton when a housemaid was at fault, "We ought to have a man to do this!" Indeed there seemed only one conclusion to it with Elma: that after knowing exactly what it was to call on people who had men servants, in her youth, when she grew up she should be obliged to marry a duke. The duke always met her when she waited for Miss Grace in the drawing-room. ”

“ Down at Tilgate, meanwhile, Elma Clifford had met more than once with Cyril Waring at friends’ houses around, for ever since the accident, Society had made up its mind that Elma ought to marry her companion in the tunnel; and, when Society once makes up its mind on a question of this sort, why, it does its level best in the long run to insure the fulfilment of its own prediction.
Wherever Elma had met her painter, however, during those few short weeks, she had seen him only before the quizzing eyes of all the world ”

“ Elma cried, nestling close to her new friend with a wild burst of relief. “I don’t know why, but I’m not at all ashamed of it all before you, Miss Ewes—at least, not in the way I am before mother.”
“You needn’t be ashamed of it,” Miss Ewes answered kindly. “You’ve nothing to be ashamed of. It’ll never trouble YOU in your life again. It always dies out at last; they say in the sixth or seventh generation, and when it’s dying out, it goes as it went with you, on the night you first fell in love with Cyril. ”

“ Miss Grace told him about Elma's shakiness as though it were a real disease. Mrs. Leighton had never looked upon it as anything more than "just a mannerism," as Miss Grace put it. Dr. Merryweather ran his keen eye over Elma's flushed face.
"You mustn't have too many engagements in your family," he said, "while you remain a convalescent." ”

“ This invitation to the Holkers’, too, had one special attraction: he knew it was a house where he was almost certain of meeting Elma. And since Elma insisted now on writing to him constantly—she was a self-willed young woman was Elma, and would have her way—he really saw no reason on earth himself why he shouldn’t meet her. To meet is one thing, don’t you know—to marry, another. ”

“ But Elma hadn’t failed to notice either the start or its reason.
“It’s only Mr. Cyril,” she said pointedly; “not Mr. Guy, Sir Gilbert. The name came very pat, though. I don’t wonder it startled you.”
She was crimson herself. The judge moved away with a stealthy uncomfortable air. He didn’t half care for this uncanny young woman. A girl who can read people’s thoughts like that, a girl who can play with you like a cat with a mouse, oughtn’t to be allowed at large in society. ”

“ Stop in bed till lunch-time. I won’t let Lucy come up with the tea, of course. You’d rather be alone. You were tired last night. Don’t be afraid, my darling. It’ll soon pass off. There’s nothing on earth, nothing at all to be alarmed at.”
She laid her hand nervously on Elma’s arm. Half dead with shame as she was, Elma noticed it trembled. She noticed, too, that mamma seemed almost afraid to catch her eye. When their glance met for an instant the mother’s eyelids fell, and her cheek, too, burned bright red, almost as red, Elma felt, as her own that nestled hot so deep in the pillow. ”

“ One can do these dreamy, inconsequent things with the most superb pleasure while one's family remains between certain romantic ages; in the case of the Leightons at the moment when Elma ran to her bedroom--between the ages of ten and seventeen. Betty was ten, Elma twelve, Jean fifteen and Mabel seventeen.
It was an axiom with the girls that their parents need not know how they emulated the Story Book Girls. ”

“ Guy answered, laughing. “Cyril told me you had made friends with him, and weren’t one bit afraid of him. Most people are so dreadfully frightened of the poor old creature.”
“But he isn’t old,” Elma exclaimed, interrupting him with some warmth. “He’s in the prime of life. He’s so glossy and beautiful. I quite fell in love with him.”
“And who is Sardanapalus?” Mrs. Clifford asked, with a vague maternal sense of discomfort and doubt. “A dog or a monkey?”
“Oh, Sardanapalus, mother—didn’t I tell you about him?” Elma cried enthusiastically. “Why, he’s just lovely and beautiful. ”

“ I shall keep the servants in a good temper--including Saunders who is a love, and I promise you, you will never regret it--if only you go away for a holiday--now--before you have time to be ill, because you didn't take the thing at the start!"
(Could this be Adelaide Maud!)
Elma flung herself off the music stool, and rushed to Miss Grace.
"And oh, please, please, Miss Grace, let me go with you to see that you get better. You never will unless some one makes you. You will just try to get back to Miss Annie." ”

“ She looked at Mabel's hat. "Well, well. We've had enough trouble with you away. Elma will be ready for none of that nonsense for a year or two, that's one comfort. Jean, you are quite fat. Living in other people's houses seems to agree with you. Not the life we were accustomed to. Young people had to stay at home in my day."
"Now, Aunt Katharine," said Lance, who was a privileged person, "are they your girls, or Mrs. Leighton's, that you lecture them so?"
"Look here, Lance," said Elma, "Aunt Katharine isn't a Broken Hill, or a con--consolidated Johnnie. You just leave her alone, will you?" ”

“ She could never MARRY him, to be sure; but then she could never marry any one else either; and that being so, she liked to SEE him now and again, on neutral ground, as it were, and to know he was somewhere that she could meet him occasionally. Wales and Scotland are so distant from Surrey. Elma showed in her face at once that she thought them both unpleasantly remote from Craighton, Tilgate. ”

“ Elma gave a little gulp of pleasure. This was worth a great deal. There was really nothing on earth like being complimented by one's father. She sidled on Mr. Leighton's knee and put her arms round his neck. He still stroked her hair.
"You must remember that it isn't only in hotels that you see life," he said, "or on battle-fields that you fight battles. It's here at home, where one apparently is only sheltered and dull. It's always easy to get on for a day or two with new, or outside friends. But it's your own people who count. Don't make it disagreeable for Jean to go with Miss Grace." ”

“ I won’t see her again. I couldn’t stand it. She’s too beautiful to see and not to fall in love with.”
CHAPTER VIII. — ELMA BREAKS OUT.
Mrs. Clifford returned from Chetwood Court that clay in by no means such high spirits as when she went there. In the first place, she hadn’t succeeded in throwing Elma and Granville Kelmscott into one another’s company at all, and in the second place Elma had talked much under her very nose, for half-an-hour at a stretch, with the unknown young painter fellow. When Elma was asked out anywhere else in the country for the next six weeks or so, Mrs. ”

“ He was devoted to Elma, for she worshipped him meekly all her life, and was convinced that no such genius had ever existed. Your father is right. I never knew a more brilliant young man than Edgar was at twenty-one ”

“ There were two ways to Elma's home. One way was by crossing a wide common, cutting off a certain corner, walking down a by-street, and so, by a series of short cuts, reaching Constantine Road. By the other and slightly longer way you had to pass an open thoroughfare in the center of which blazed, with its shining lights and its gay exterior, a large public-house called the "Spotted Leopard." Now the "Spotted Leopard" was by no means a nice place to pass at night. Men considerably the worse for drink were apt to linger about the doors. ”

“ I shall endeavour to be ready for you in the autumn."
"They are the funniest pair," said Jean; "Helen is so cool and Cuthbert so domineering! And I used to be so stuck on engagements," she sighed.
All the girls were in Elma's room, where Isobel tried on some of her finery. Elma lay on the couch at the window. She had had her trip with Mr. and Mrs. Leighton, and had come home with some colour and a good deal more vitality. Yet still there was much to be desired. Dr. Merryweather thundered out advice about the wedding.
"She is not to be excited," he kept hammering at every one. ”

“ A short distance further west is the lumbering town of Elma, which I take a great pride in, on account of its name, being, as you see, the same as my own. It is a busy little city with important railway connections, in addition to its thriving lumbering trade. ”

“ With our present squalor and vulgarity in the surroundings of the poor, and luxury and shall we say with others? vulgarity in those of many of the rich, any vital growth would seem well-nigh hopeless. Who can conceive of art taking root in the pain and ugliness of the lives of many people in our great cities? They scarcely have a glimmering of what real beauty and harmony are. ”

“ Elmira helped in that. There is always a relief to the soul in bringing it into intimate association with the uniformity of nature. Elmira, bending over the bed of herbs, with the sweet breath of them in her nostrils, gained a certain quiet in her unrest of youth and passion. It was as if she kept step with a mightier movement which tended towards eternity. She had persisted, in spite of Lawrence's entreaties, in her determination that he should cease all attention to her. ”

“ Even through the dreary winters he but closes his eyes and the verdure is there, and the beauty.
No need of that to-night, however, for the chilly season has again passed away, and the old elm is rich in her emerald robes, and the breath of the soft winds is upon him, and the same murmur in his ear. There is only the small hand and the gentle words wanting to make it all a precious reality. ”

“ Just as it is idle to cry peace when there is no peace, so it is vain to preach altruism to a society living and toiling under conditions which would bankrupt any individual or any class that tried to live up literally to the golden rule. ”

“ After I saw father up stairs, I came down and found you here asleep. And Elmer—forgive me—it was wrong, but I did not mean to stay here so long——"
"Alma!"
"You will pardon me?"
"Oh! Pardon you—pardon you—why should I? I dreamed the angels watched me."
"I was anxious, and we owe you so much. We can never reward you—never!"
"Reward, Alma! I want none—save——"
"Save what?"
He opened his arms wide. A new and beautiful light came into her eyes.
"Can there be greater reward than love?"
"No. Love is the best reward—and it is yours." ”

“ For, robed in some creation of Worth that has been imported to America to make her seem a fairy, Erma's beauty is of the air not of the earth. It is some light, gauzy, shimmering, gleaming thing, covered with tiny pink rosebuds,—thousands of them,—and floats about the girl's dazzling shoulders and gleaming neck and snowy maiden bosom, which is of such exquisite proportions and contours that it would make a sculptor's dream and an average man's ecstasy. ”

“ Shall not America, partly through the people being followed, partly led, by the art-seers, develop an art like that of the past, which, "by the very fact that it must speak to the soul of multi- tudes in a language prescribed by precise relations," thus having "its technical merits exalted, reached the lofty expression which reveals itself in fragments, the immortal footprints of bygone civilizations"? Shall she not by being true to her traditions and her destiny, her "manifest destiny," a democracy grand and great, develop an art such as the world has not yet seen ? ”

“ Lifting my eyes aloft, I viewed the encircling hills that nature has placed there to make this valley a paradise. Fruit is grown here on an extensive scale. Strawberries, cherries, apples and prunes are nature's favorites, and she bestows a lavish care on them. ”

“ After giving orders that he was not to be disturbed, he threw himself as he was upon his camp bed, and, oblivious of the fact that the news of his momentous victory had circled the globe and that his name was upon the lips of half the world, he fell into a dreamless, restful sleep. ”

“ As he looked over the field of carnage and saw what havoc the day had made, he thought of the Selwyns and the Thors, whose selfishness and greed were responsible for it all, and he knew that they and their kind would have to meet an awful charge before the judgment seat of God. Within touch of him lay a boy of not more than seventeen, with his white face turned towards the stars. One arm was shattered and a piece of shell had torn a great red wound in the side of his chest. Dru thought him dead, but he saw him move and open his eyes. ”