Elva

“ I intend to avail myself of the opportunity of your parents being in Washington to send my little Rosemary to the same school that Wynnette and Elva will attend.”
“Oh, that will be jolly!” “Oh, that will be lovely!” exclaimed Wynnette and Elva, in the same instant.
“That is, if Mr. and Mrs. Force will not consider the addition of Rosemary to their party an intrusion.”
“Why, Miss Susannah! How dare you slander my father and mother right before my two looking eyes?” exclaimed Wynnette. “They will be just set up to have Rosemary! ”

“ The railroad and the hotel and the boarding school are just as free for you as for me, I should think.”
“Rosemary would board at the school, of course,” continued Miss Grandiere.
“So shall Elva and I. If papa could have got a furnished 24house we should have lived at home, and entered the academy as day pupils; but, you see, as papa could not get a house he and mamma and Odalite will live at one of the West End hotels, and Elva and I at the academy.”
“And, oh! won’t it be lovely to have dear Rosemary with us? We should not feel half so strange,” said little Elva. ”

“ They are more fragrant than I had thought even wild honeysuckle could be.
Elva. Elva of the sky-blue scarf and the yellow honeysuckle
My eyes are heavy, but the pain behind them is gone. I think I shall sleep tonight.
Friday, July 21.
Is there any man so gullible as he who prides himself on his accuracy of observation?
I ask this in humility, for I am that man.
Yesterday I rose, feeling fresher than for weeks past. After all, Locke's treatment seemed worthy of respect. With that in mind, I put in only a few hours staining some of my binucleate cilia and finishing the slides. ”

“ Force, as they passed out of the dining room.
Leonidas Force looked so white and grim that little Elva paused behind the rest to speak to him.
“Le! Le! what’s the matter? I do believe you do care, after all.” 132
“Hush, Elva,” said the youth, in a whisper.
“Le! if you do care, you can forbid the banns, on account of that engagement of yours. You can, indeed! Wynnette and I have been reading over the marriage service in the prayer book, and there is a place where it says, ‘If any man here present can show cause’——You know why it shouldn’t be done, it wouldn’t be done, and there an end! ”

“ In other words, they danced and capered all over the drawing room.
“We want Rosemary to go with us, papa, dear,” said Elva.
“We must have Rosemary to go with us, you know, mamma,” added Wynnette.
“That is not for us to say,” replied Mr. Force.
“It is a question for her mother and her aunt,” added Mrs. Force. ”

“ Odalite took no notice of this speech. Wynnette answered:
“Oh, you needn’t fret your nerves to fiddle strings about that—I mean you need not distress yourself, ma’am. She hates him, and so do I. And so does Elva. In spite of prayer book and catechism, we hate him. We can’t help it.” ”

“ There is something in the very atmosphere of Carcassonne which, once yielded to, exhilarates like wine. I have never danced, nor desired to learn. Last night, after a banquet so perfect that I hardly recall its details, I danced. I danced with Elva—and with Elva—and always with Elva. ”

“ The girls who were making plain holders had finished a set of them and at least one other simple gift while Elva continued embroidering on her holder. Everyone was much interested in all of the gifts and made many comments. Although none but Elva knew my views, she received no class approval or bursts of enthusiasm over her holder, and one girl even ventured to ask her if she thought her holder was good design. ”

“ I saw him look into my wife's face, drinking in her frail beauty hungrily, and I thought I knew why he was there.
“I ran the Ringdove upon a reef, and 6he went down with all on board save me,” smiled Burcoltz. “Surely, you couldn’t expect a man to drown when he could save himself!”
And I knew that it was a lie.
The three of us had not been on the island a week before the Austrian was making love to Elva, in his violent, foreign way. Elva seemed to fear that the man would harm me. She repulsed his advances as mildly as she could. But that appeared to make Burcoltz but the more determined. ”

“ Rosemary was poetic, romantic and sentimental to a degree. She was devoted to Wynnette and Elva Force; and she could not bear the idea of Wynnette “throwing herself away” on such a rustic.
“He is my own dear cousin, Wynnette, and I love him dearly as a cousin; but, indeed, I could not marry him to save my soul! And though he is a good boy, I do not think he is a proper match for you,” said Rosemary, one morning, when she had come to spend the day at Mondreer, and the two girls were tête-à-tête in Wynnette’s room, where she had taken her visitor to lay off her bonnet. ”

“ Angus Anglesea, do you consider it conduct becoming an officer and a gentleman to come into this house to supplant a gallant young midshipman, who is serving his country, in the affections of his betrothed bride?’”
“Oh! that will be splendid, Wynnette! What book did you get it out of?” innocently inquired Elva.
“‘Book?’ No book! Every good thing I say you think comes out of a book ”

“ Everybody knows Le is coming home to marry you at Christmas!” retorted the second sister.
“And what do you think, Col. Anglesea?” whispered Elva, a gentle, little blonde of twelve.
“What, my elf?” playfully inquired the colonel.
“Why, when Le and Odalite get married and go to live at Greenbushes, Wynnette and I will live there just as much as we shall at home here.”
“Indeed! and what will Mr. Brother-in-law say to that?”
“Who, Le? Why, Le will say he is very glad. Le loves us all dearly. Le would give us anything we want, or do anything in the world for us. ”

“ I walked out into the bright moonlight. 1 turned the knife over and over, and watched it flash. I looked toward the little hut of brush in which Burcoltz slept. But I couldn’t go down to kill him. I was not enough of a savage to kill a man in cold blood. I turned back to Elva and the knife fell from my hands. Elva stooped and picked it up. ”

“ I spoke to Elva of my extended visit, and she laughingly informed me that people who have drunk the wine and worn the woven robes of Carcassonne seldom wish to leave. She suggested that I give up trying to "escape" and spend my life here. Jest, of course; but I half wished her words were earnest. She and her people are spoiling me for the common, workaday world.
Not that they are idle, but their occupations as well as pleasures are of a delicate, fascinating beauty. ”

“ The house was now in sight and lighted up from garret to basement.
“Oh, how pretty!” cried Elva.
And Wynnette mocked her good-humoredly.
“I told Luce to do it and leave all the window shutters open so you could see through. Lord! tallow candles are cheap enough, ’specially when you make ’em yourself. And there was an awful lot of beef tallow last killing to render down. I couldn’t tell you how many candles I run—about five hundred, I reckon! Well, here we are at the house, and——Oh, Lord! Jake, jump down and hold that dog, or he’ll break his chain and jump through the carriage windows!” ”

“ Odalite, Wynnette and Elva came in, in their poke bonnets and buttoned coats.
“Oh, Miss Grandiere, excuse us, but yours was the only light we saw gleaming around the edges of the blinds, and so we knocked at your door,” said Wynnette, who always took the initiative in speaking, as in other things.
“My dear child! how is it that you children are out, after dark?” inquired the lady.
“We have been making the rounds to bid good-by to the neighbors. Mamma and papa went out yesterday, and we to-day. ”

“ For kalsomine, and for the ground work of wall paper, as well as for window curtains, and chair and sofa colors, Odalite and Miss Meeke preferred olive, sage, lavender and other delicate, neutral tints, while Wynnette and Elva loudly advocated, pink, blue and yellow, or crimson, purple and orange.
At length, without arriving at any mutual understanding, but being rested from their long walk, they all arose to go through the house. Such a rambling house! with stairs going up and stairs going down in such out-of-the-way places; doors opening into rooms in such unexpected quarters ”

“ Then choose we a Dictator, Whom all men shall obey. Camerium knows how deeply The sword of Aulus bites, And all our city calls him The man of seventy fights. Then let him be Dictator For six months and no more, And have a Master of the Knights, And axes twenty-four." IX So Aulus was Dictator, The man of seventy fights; He made Æbutius Elva His Master of the Knights. On the third morn thereafter, At downing of the day, Did Aulus and Æbutius Set forth with their array. Sempronius Atratinus Was left in charge at home With boys, and with gray-headed men, To keep the walls of Rome. ”

“ She took her daughter on her lap, as if Odalite had been a young child, and laid the pale cheek of the girl on her bosom, and motioned her husband to return to the group around the bridegroom.
“Odalite, darling, do not grieve. No wrong of any sort shall be done you. You have your father and your mother, dear, and our faithful love shall never leave you,” said Abel Force, as he stooped and kissed his daughter’s pale forehead, and walked away.
But Odalite made no sign.
“And you have us, darling, darling sister,” said Elva, taking up and kissing one cold hand.
“And you have Le, as true as steel!” ”

“ Not a girl, not any one that one must love or not love, fight for and work for, but a shadow like himself in this place of bright shadows, in this peaceful and happy realm beyond life and beyond death....
The music stopped, and he awoke with some astonishment to find that he, Felix Fay, had been dancing. Elva Macklin smiled, gave his hand a grateful pressure, and turned to the young man who came up asserting that the next dance was his.
Suddenly alarmed, Felix turned to flee from the ballroom; but it was too late. Phyllis had detached herself from her partner, and came over to him. ”

“ A wanderer shipwrecked in a tumultuous tropic sea might well yearn to be cast up on some arctic shore. Deeper than the demands of the senses is the yearning for the Snow Princess, whose kisses are as cool as snowflakes. There is no fever of love in those kisses; their sweet hard chill is like the sight of marble contours; they have the calm of eternity in them.
During his first hours with Elva Macklin, it had seemed 381to Felix that he knew the profoundest secret of human wisdom—the vanity of desire. ”

“ Anglesea affected to treat the young midshipman with great condescension, but equally failed; for Le ignored and disregarded him to the verge of actual rudeness—either not hearing his remarks or else answering them in monosyllables and giving all his attention to his little cousins, Wynnette and Elva, who were seated, by their own choice, the one on his right and the other on his left.
Mrs. Force did not attempt to converse, and Miss Meeke, chilled by the social coldness around her, kept silence. ”

“ I begged you to attack Burcoltz, to give him a reason for killing you! Some day, Weydman, I shall kill you with this knife.”
She thrust the weapon back into her girdle. I know that she will keep her word. Of the two of us, it is she—sweet, fragile, hyacinthine Elva—who is the savage. I still love her . . .
Thus ended the message. There was no bloodstain there. Jamieson looked up and spoke to me:
“She killed him while he was writing that he loved her! The spots on the cloth—she wiped her hands—”
“I understand,” I interrupted.
But did I understand? Can any man understand? ”

“ I have observed since that all these people use the single name only, in presentation and intercourse. Though lacking personal experience with artists, I have heard that they are inclined to peculiar "fads" of unconventionality. I had never, however, imagined that they could be attractive to a man like myself, or pleasant to know.
I am enlightened. These Carcassonnian "colonists" are the only charming, altogether delightful people whom I have ever met.
One and all, they seemed acquainted with Elva's amusing jest at my expense. ”

“ Peters came to welcome their old friends to the neighborhood.
“Three years and three months since you left the neighborhood, madam,” said the rector, when the first greetings were over. “And dear, dear, what changes three years have made! Your two younger daughters have grown so much! Wynnette is a young lady. Elva soon will be one. And Odalite, madam? I hope she is well.”
“Odalite is quite well, thank you, Dr. Peters. She has gone over to Greenbushes, but she will be back to dinner. You and Mrs. Peters, I hope, will give us the happiness of your company for the day,” said the lady. ”

“ Force, taking out his pocketbook.
“He can’t be allowed in the passenger car, sir,” replied the conductor.
“Not in the compartment that we have taken for our own convenience, and where he cannot possibly annoy anybody else?”
“No, sir; it is against the rules.”
“Oh, Mr. Conductor! please! please! He is such a good dog, and we love him so much! Indeed, he will not bite when he knows you don’t mean to hurt us! Please, Mr. Conductor, let him stay!” pleaded Elva. ”

“ Having nothing farther to detain me at Elvas, I proceeded to cross the frontier into Spain. My idiot guide was on his way back to Aldea Gallega; and, on the fifth of January, I mounted a sorry mule without bridle or stirrups, which I guided by a species of halter, and followed by a lad who was to attend me on another, I spurred down the hill of Elvas to the plain, eager to arrive in old chivalrous romantic Spain. But I soon found that I had no need to quicken the beast which bore me, for though covered with sores, wall-eyed, and with a kind of halt in its gait, it cantered along like the wind. ”