Harrie

“ To Harriet, when she had once seen him, he was all child, and she all compassion.
We disturbed him with no questions. Harriet's fundamental quality is homeliness, comfortableness. Her tea-kettle seems always singing; an indefinable tabbiness, as of feather cushions, lurks in her dining-room, a right warmth of table and chairs, indescribably comfortable at the end of a chilly day. ”

“ The pony and the habit and the side-saddle did not matter a bit to Harriet now, for she had more—the true heart of Ralph himself. Love can destroy jealousy and all bad things in the heart. So it was with Harriet, even though Robina became the little boy’s school-mother, and even though she won the big prize. ”

“ Harriet. Indeed, I do not know any one I have a particular desire to see this morning, except yourself.
Maria. You forget Mr. Loveyet, when you say so.
Harriet. Poh! I am not talking of men.
Maria. No; but it is very probable you are thinking of a man.
Harriet. And pray what reason have you to think, that my thoughts run upon such an improper subject?
Maria. Improper subject,—ha, ha, ha. So my very discreet, prudish little Harriet never lets man enter into her head; tho' it is pretty notorious somebody has enter'd into her heart long ago. ”

“ Will you put your hand in mine, Harriet?”
The girl over in the shadow felt that her heart would break. And this was love. The great, sad thing was love!
He was talking again. “I never thought, surely, to be a stick of a man like this. I could have made a royal lover, Harriet. A man’s blood at forty is like wine at its fulness. My head—won’t lift—God, that it should come to find me like this! yet, kiss me, will you, Harriet?” ”

“ Harrietta liked the ticking of a clock in a quiet room; oven smells; concocting new egg dishes; washing out lacy things in warm soapsuds. A throw-back, probably, to her grandmother Scoville.
The worst feature of a person like Harrietta is, as you already have discovered with some impatience, that one goes on and on, talking about her. ”

“ If I could go to him, tell him what he means to me, if we were poor--if we could take a little place next to Linda--never see Nina or his mother or Ward or Roy again--Oh, what Heaven! How I should love it, planning for things together, as Linda and Fred did, having him come home to me every night!
"But it isn't that way," Harriet suddenly recalled herself sensibly, "and it is folly even to think about it! He is a rich man, and a married man, and that ends it. That ends it." ”

“ CHARVILLE.
Harriet, Harriet! I thought this would have moved you differently. You triumph, no doubt; but less exultation, and more candour, would surely have been as becoming. If I am more suspicious than other men—I am not aware that I am so—you must at least acknowledge that it was an extraordinary circumstance to have an honourable suitor to a young lady concealed in a family, and making his way through private doors, and by private stairs, to apartments which she did not occupy. This is no chimera of my brain, Madam; Mr. Smitchenstault saw it. ”

“ David took Harriet walking in the fresh cold air, a Harriet so beautiful in her furry hat and long coat, with her brilliant cheeks and her blue eyes shining under a blown film of golden hair, that Linda, as she basted the turkey in the hot kitchen, couldn't help a little prayer that that would all come out "right."
"But, Davy dear!" Harriet and David had stopped short in the exquisite, silent woods. "There is a feeling--a something that makes marriage RIGHT! ”

“ Harriet uttering an expression of pity, the traveller looked up with a contemptuous and incredulous smile.
'Why, what's a torn foot to such as me?' she said. 'And what's a torn foot in such as me, to such as you?'
'Come in and wash it,' answered Harriet, mildly, 'and let me give you something to bind it up.'
The woman caught her arm, and drawing it before her own eyes, hid them against it, and wept. Not like a woman, but like a stern man surprised into that weakness; with a violent heaving of her breast, and struggle for recovery, that showed how unusual the emotion was with her. ”

“ He paused for a single instant and gave me a smile; then he replaced his hat as though he had far more important business to attend to, and went on up the road.
My next glimpse of him was a complete surprise to me. I saw him on the street in town. Harriet pointed him out, else I should never have recognized him: a quiet, shy, modest man, as different as one could imagine from the singer I had seen so often passing my farm. He wore neat, worn clothes; and his horse stood tied in front of the store. He had brought his honey to town to sell. He was a bee-man. ”

“ Irish Mary's reason for leaving Harrietta was a good one. It would have to be, for she was of that almost extinct species, the devoted retainer. Irish Mary wasn't the kind of maid one usually encounters back stage. No dapper, slim, black-and-white pert miss, with a wisp of apron and a knowledgeous eye. An ample, big-hipped, broad-bosomed woman with an apron like a drop curtain and a needle knack that kept Harrietta mended, be-ribboned, beruffled, and exquisite from her garters to her coat hangers. ”

“ While preparing this second edition of Harriet's story, I have been much pleased to find that that good man, Oliver Johnson, is still living and in New York City. And I have just returned from a very pleasant interview with him. He remembers Harriet with great pleasure, though he has not seen her for many years. He speaks, as all who knew her do, of his entire confidence in her truthfulness and in the perfect integrity of her character. ”

“ But she didn’t have the heart to disappoint Harriet by not getting her an Indian legend to read in class the next day, so she sat down and manufactured one, which is as easy as rolling off a log for Migwan. Harriet would never know the difference, and neither would the teacher, off hand, and a made-up legend would save the day for Harriet as well as a genuine one. The chances were she wouldn’t be called upon to read it anyway. You never are, you know, when you’ve broken your neck to be ready. ”

“ Harriet’s father would have disowned any child that refrained in fair argument from putting forth every atom of logical strength he possessed. Every boy was expected, in supporting his opinions, to exert himself to the utmost, but without sophistry or unfairness. ”

“ It was the gayest spring that Harriet had ever known at Crownlands, for even at her best, Isabelle had been socially an individualist, devoting herself to one man at a time, and to nobody else, and the whole family had necessarily accepted Isabelle's attitude. Richard had been too busy to notice or protest, the old lady helpless, and Nina a child. ”

“ There was a lurking antipathy in her to Lady Harriet, though she had received nothing but civility at her hands; the strangely-different point of view in small things which Harry’s mother represented had put her out. It had been uncomfortable, and she had not forgotten it. In her mind the only recognized difference between well-regulated people lay in their social positions. ”

“ She had flung her arms across the railing, and buried her hot face on them, and had wept desperate and angry tears into the silken and golden tangle that shone dully in the starlight.
The stars were paling, and the garden stirred with the first languid breath of the hot day to come, when she suddenly rose and bound up the loosened hair, and went in. Harriet was not yet twenty-seven, and every fibre of her being cried out for sleep. ”

“ As soon as she was strong enough for work, Harriet was hired out to a man whose tyranny was worse, if possible, than that of the woman she had left. Now it was out of door drudgery which was put upon her. The labor of the horse and the ox, the lifting of barrels of flour and other heavy weights were given to her; and powerful men often stood astonished to see this woman perform feats of strength from which they shrunk incapable. ”

“ Better to doubt me than—others?"
She corrected herself in time; she remembered her promise to Harriet. She saw how easy it was for a few errors, a few mistakes to make this strange man forget all the good efforts of a life—deceived in Mr. Wesden as she had been, she could not gauge in those excited moments the depths of his affection for his daughter.
In the avowal there would be danger to Harriet; so, for Harriet's sake, let her take the blame and go away. Harriet could only have cleared up the last mystery—the rest affected herself. ”

“ Harriet’s health was tenderly inquired after, she was solemnly congratulated on her recent appointment, which did her much credit and conferred honor upon her family; but it was soon apparent that there was only one subject, to which, at that moment, Harriet could give her mind. Had she been the mother of the babe, instead of the godmother merely, her impatience to draw aside the curtains of the cradle could hardly have been greater, or her delight in looking upon a ravishing spectacle when she had done so. ”

“ She never took her aching eyes for one second from the wonderful white thing. She scorned to watch the ground. With a magnificent faith she walked, her head lifted, her heart too full to know if she stumbled. In the clear places, always where there were no branches, the white guide flew and Harriet walked after with her staff. ”

“ At four o'clock she dressed herself again, half-mad with headache and fatigue, and went out into a world that was just beginning to brighten into faint shapes and colours. The fresh cold air of morning struck her jaded senses with a delicious chill; she went noiselessly across the terrace and down toward the water, her big soft coat brushing spider-webs from the dim rosebushes as she went. The world lay silent, fragrant, saturated with dew. Yet under its chill Harriet felt the pervading warmth of the day that had gone, and the day that was to come. ”

“ The arrival of a group from the tennis court, Nina, Ida, Ward, Francesca Jay, and their friends, changed the subject immediately, the old lady was distracted, and Harriet busy. But Mary was free to reflect. She had the eyes of a contented woman, freed from her own problem for those of others. "And Harriet is certainly mad about Richard," Mary mused. ”

“ Those were very busy, happy days for Harriet, probably the days she had in mind when she wrote in “Oldtown Folks”: “Certainly of all the days that I look back upon, this Academy life in Cloudland was the most perfectly happy.... It was happy because we were in the first flush of belief in ourselves and in life. Oh, that first belief! those incredible first visions! when all things look possible, and one believes in the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and sees enchanted palaces in the sunset clouds! ”

“ Harriet slept in the room with Julia and Josephine that night, or rather tossed and lay wakeful there. The light of a street lamp came squarely in on the white ceiling, and although the hall door was open, there was no breath of air moving anywhere. The children slept in attitudes of youthful abandonment; Harriet heard Fred and Linda murmuring steadily, and could imagine of what they spoke; little Nammy awakened, and there was an interval of maternal comforting, and then silence. ”

“ Harry—for she hated to be called Harriet—was the daughter of the principal, Doctor Emery. As she was an only child she had been perhaps a little bit spoiled; or, at least, that is what her Aunt Harriet Beverly often intimated; and as she had been born and brought up in a boys’ school she was not unnaturally somewhat of a tomboy, to the extent of being fonder of boys’ games than girls’, and of being no mean hand with oar or paddle, bat or racket. ”

“ She had taken off her loose white coat, and pushed back the hat that pressed upon her thick, shining hair. It clung in damp ringlets to the soft duskiness of forehead and temples, her cheeks glowed rosily under their warm olive, and her clouded smoke-blue eyes were averted; he could see only the thick, upcurling black lashes that fringed them so darkly. The man saw her breast rise and fall with some quick emotion as he half-smilingly watched her.
"The lad gets a beautiful and wise and very discreet wife," he was beginning, but Harriet silenced him angrily. ”

“ One day there were scared faces seen in the negro quarter, and hurried whispers passed from one to another. No one knew how it had come out, but some one had heard that Harriet and two of her brothers were very soon, perhaps to-day, perhaps to-morrow, to be sent far South with a gang, bought up for plantation work. Harriet was about twenty or twenty-five years old at this time, and the constantly recurring idea of escape at sometime, took sudden form that day, and with her usual promptitude of action she was ready to start at once. ”

“ Harriet now called her companion to her in an imperious voice.
“Come here, this minute, you silly!” she said. “Why do you stand there with your mouth gaping and your legs far apart? You look for all the world like one of those foolish sheep on the back lawn.”
“I am not a sheep; you needn’t say it,” answered Jane.
She had reached Harriet’s side by this time.
“Well, come for a walk with me in the paddock,” said Harriet. “I don’t want to be cross to you, Jane, but really that new girl, Robina—she is past bearing.” ”

“ No matter, Richard said, in an aside to Harriet, accepting the situation philosophically, there was no need for suddenness. Harriet tried to be philosophical, too. Richard was bringing two men down for golf this week-end, and with Saunders and Amy, Royal and Madame Carter and Mrs. Tabor, the house would be filled. She had plenty to do with the managing, the endless details that were brought her mercilessly, hour after hour, by maids and housekeeper. And yet under her quiet busyness and her happy hours with the young people there lurked incessantly a fretted sense of danger approaching. ”