Kathryn

“ Kathryn’s conclusion drove her on the rocks; Mary-Clare’s startled her into a state of clear vision. She recovered her poise first. She smiled her perturbing smile; she came in and sat down and said quietly:
“I was surprised. I am still.”
Kathryn felt a wave of moral repugnance rise to her assistance. The clothes might disguise the real state of affairs––but the voice betrayed much. This was no crude country girl; here was something rather more difficult to handle; one need not be pitiful and condoning; one must not flinch.
“You expected, I suppose, to find Mr. Northrup?” ”

“ That’s one reason I like you,” Carolyn declared, “because you do have ‘dreams.’”
Carolyn looked at Kathryn as if for confirmation of her speech and Kathryn nodded with a wide smile.
“I’m very practical, though, girls. I’m not sure that having dreams is altogether good, either.”
“First you say one thing and then you say another,” Kathryn accused her. “It’s as bad as saying it the way Mr. Simcox answers our questions: ‘Well, yes; and no!’”
Kathryn had so nearly presented their teacher’s voice and intonation that Carolyn and Betty answered with giggles. ”

“ An office man is one thing; a professional man, another; and these wandering Johnnies, like Northrup, still another breed. He’s been starving his scent––that’s what I told him. Too much woman in his––and I don’t mean to hurt you, Kathryn, but you ought to get it into your system that marrying a man like Northrup is like marrying a doctor or minister; you’ve got to have a lot of faith or you’re going to break your man.”
Kathryn’s eyes contracted, then she laughed.
“How charming you are, Doctor Manly, when you’re making talk. Are those pills bitter?” Kathryn reached out for them. ”

“ Kathryn may dress as a ‘comic,’ though it depends somewhat on what costume she can get up the easiest. Carolyn has a lot of them that her sister has used at one time or another, and you know what nice ones they would be. O Mother, I think you are so lovely to let me wear this! You see, it isn’t as if it were an ordinary children’s party or just we girls dressing up as usual. I don’t know, indeed, whom Marcella may not have.”
“Well, come here and let me fit you, child. Allow me to remark that there isn’t as much change as might be expected from the difference in our ages.” ”

“ He went in at one of the end doors, not the middle one, and so disturbed Kathryn’s stage setting. He opened and closed the door so quietly, walked over to the fire so rapidly, that to rise and carry out her programme was out of the question, so Kathryn remained on the hearth and Northrup dropped into the chair beside her.
“Well, little girl,” he said––people always lowered their voices when speaking to Kathryn––“what is it?” ”

“ It was generous of Kathryn to praise Carolyn, in view of her acknowledged bit of jealousy.
“Betty, I laughed and laughed over that letter. It was too clever for words. And the funny things that happened to you! How do people ever keep house and remember all the things that they have to be careful about? I suppose it’s nothing unusual to have somebody at the back door, a ring at the front door, the ice man coming and all while a body is talking at the telephone and trying to get an important message, but you certainly made it funny. ”

“ Then Kathryn sank in a morass.
“Oh! do be sensible,” she said, and her voice was hard and cold. “You must see I have found you out––why pretend? When a man like Mr. Northrup leaves home and forgets his duties––does not even write, buries himself in such a place as this and stays on––what does it mean? What can it possibly mean?”
Mary-Clare was spared much of what Kathryn was creating because she was so far away––so far, far away from the 192 true significance of it all. She was seeing Northrup as Kathryn had never seen him; would never see him. She realized his danger. ”

“ That isn’t like Marcella Waite, though.”
“Marcella is a fine girl, but there are two or three that are different. Oh, they’re nice enough. A body could have them for friends, but they take up little things. Kathryn may have said something that wasn’t according to their notion. Kathryn is pretty independent, you know.”
“So am I,” said Betty.
“Yes, but with a little difference, and then you are prominent now in athletics. They all expect you to win something in the girls’ swimming meet and you are going to make the basketball team.” ”

“ But Betty had clapped a hand over that pretty and mischievous mouth of her small sister. “Amy Lou, your imagination works overtime!”
Amy Lou struggled, but laughed. “Doris says that the girl Kathryn calls ‘Finny’ and Jack Huxley got engaged this summer. Senior girls do!”
“Not if they have any sense,” said Betty, but her mother shook her head at her. “What, Mother—do you approve? Is the world coming to an end?”
“I do not approve for you, Betty, or Doris,” said Mrs. Lee, much amused by the whole incident, “but I should not say that it is out of place for all girls to marry early.” ”

“ She would be playing against Marcella and the other juniors of Kappa Upsilon and Betty thought, though she could not be sure, that she surprised a message between Mathilde and one of the junior players at the other game they played with that class. Mathilde’s play had been a failure. Could it have been that she wanted to give the game to the junior captain, her sorority sister?
Betty told her worries to no one but Kathryn. She did not want to worry Carolyn, who could not imagine that any one would be as mean as that and was too unsuspicious to see anything but the most flagrant acts. ”

“ A ghostly moon in a steel cold sky,
A dance of leaves by the wind swept by,
Like the mirthless rushing of phantom feet.
But the Lady Kathleen murmured: “Sweet!
Love keeps a woman's summer young.”
She sped without fear in the awe of night,
Though the shuddering shadows would stay her flight
With the thought of a horror unknown,
Or a streamlet would laugh 'neath the hedge unshown
But the Lady Kathleen wept no more :
“Oh, joy is mine, for my trial's o'er!” ”

“ She had come to New England an unformed girl whose nature was one of endless possibilities, only waiting for the word which should make them actual and turn her in one way or the other. The word was spoken and, thanks to her aunt's influence and to her association with the simple, natural girls about her, the impulse given was in the right direction. It was as if Katharine had suddenly been born into a new life. No drifting, idle maturity could satisfy her now; her womanhood must be one of purpose and of action. ”

“ Brave Kathleen, noble Kathleen, you are not one-half a second too soon! The swift revolutions of the saw are drawing your doomed lover closer to the encroaching steel! Throw out in an agony those fair white arms, gifted with such momentary, wondrous strength, grasp your loved one wildly, eagerly, and draw him madly from his couch of deadly peril! Saved! And watching angels weep joyful tears at the victory of love over hate and revenge. ”

“ He cannot seem to decide whether opera is lyrical or symphonic. His orchestra suggests the soft freshness of a May night atmosphere in the steppes of Russia, the aroma of flowers, the enchanting long drawn notes of a nightingale interspersed with the love element, and the vocal characterization of the Mayor and the Bailiff in this "A May Night" is extremely clever. Like Strauss, he uses certain themes for certain instruments and has the Russian desire to mingle meaning and sound. ”

“ Kathleen seemed suddenly to grow well and strong at the wonderful discovery that it was her own cousin who had saved her life, and that the sweet, lovely woman who had cared for her so kindly was her own dear grandmother.
They had volumes to tell each other; and how Mrs. Franklyn was shocked when she heard that a decoy letter, pretending to be from herself, had at last brought Kathleen to Richmond.
She wept bitterly at the thought that her precious granddaughter had so nearly lost her life through this mysterious treachery. ”

“ It is not right. You—you—are not free!" she cried, trying to be loyal to her absent betrothed.
"I shall be—soon. The courts will certainly grant me a divorce from that dreadful woman. But then, Kathleen, my freedom will avail me nothing if you are lost to me! Oh, my own love—my darling! be brave, and break through the fetters that bind you to this man you do not love! Wait for me?"
[Pg 216]
Oh, the passionate pleading in his voice and eyes! how they thrilled her soul. She wished to herself that she had never seen poor Teddy, whom she had so rashly promised to marry. ”

“ Tell me that it is not so! My one great hope is for freedom, that I may yet have the hope of winning you. Life without that hope would be a living death. [Pg 162] Oh, Kathleen, my love, my darling! pity me—pity yourself! You have not learned to love the man you have promised to marry. Send him from you. Wait a little, my darling, and happiness will come to us!
"Ralph."
"Oh, my poor boy—my poor boy!" sobbed Kathleen.
She forgot herself, she forgot Teddy Darrell, to whom she had promised herself, and she kissed Ralph Chainey's letter with red, clinging lips, as if it had been his handsome face. ”

“ As Betty stood in her garden whispering to Jethro, Nell Gordon came slowly down the path. For many weary weeks Howard Eliot had evaded her in every way. Was his jealousy so strong as to part them irrevocably? She remembered with remorse the flutterings of her heart when genius had knocked. She had learned since that greatness and domestic felicity are seldom associated even in the mind of the most ardent lover. ”

“ He looked at beautiful Kathleen, with the fire of her dark eyes dim with tears, and her cheeks burning with resentment, feeling himself hardly able to refrain from taking her in his arms and kissing away the tempestuous tears.
Suddenly his repressed passion burst forth:
"Kathleen, my darling, do marry me! Can't you learn to love me just a little? I would be so fond of you, so devoted, that you could not help but learn to love me. And I am rich, you know. I would help you queen it over those insolent women." ”

“ But you must call me Kathleen; you know we are not strangers to each other. I know all about you. I have lived at your home, slept in your pretty room, and—can you ever forgive me, dear?—I read your sweet diary! I was so lonely and so curious over the girl whose identity had become mixed with mine."
"It was very silly, was it not?—that is all I regret about it," Daisy Lynn answered, blushing crimson. Then she looked fearlessly into Kathleen's eyes as she added: "But I am cured now. I despise him. I could not love him now if he begged me on his knees!" ”

“ He saw her again as he had seen her before on the top of the hill on that memorable night in Virginia. What had she said?—
"If I stood in the pathway of liberty for one single instant, I should despise the man who would not sweep me aside without a moment's hesitation."
Oh, Katharine, Katharine, he groaned in spirit, pressing his hands upon his face in agony, while every breaking wave flung the words, "duty and honor," into his face, and every throb of his beating heart whispered "love—love." ”

“ The now completely vanquished Katharine quickly adopted her husband's opinion, and made her speech in like sort to the old gentleman, saying to him, "Young budding virgin, you are fair, and fresh, and sweet: whither are you going, and where is your dwelling? Happy are the parents of so fair a child."—"Why, how now, Kate," said Petruchio; "I hope you are not mad. This is a man, old and wrinkled, faded and withered, and not a maiden, as you say he is." On this Katharine said, "Pardon me, old gentleman; the sun has so dazzled my eyes, that everything I look on seemeth green. ”

“ Betty, orphaned at the age of six, had been adopted by the kind-hearted Mrs. Wopp. The child found her chief joy in life, outside of Jethro, Nancy and Job, in a flower-bed. A small plot of ground had been allotted her for her own use, and there every spring for the last four years her precious flowers had bloomed and had filled her eyes with brightness and her soul with gladness. Morning-glories and nasturtiums were the surest to bloom. They climbed the strings so gracefully and turned the old weather-beaten fence where they grew into a tapestry of gorgeous dyes. ”

“ At first Kathlyn had not the least idea where she was, but the light beyond the lattice, the flitting shadows, and the tinkle of a stringed instrument assured her that she was awake, terribly awake.
She sat perfectly still, slowly gathering her strength, mental and physical. She was not her father's daughter for nothing. She was to fight in some strange warfare, instinctively she felt this; but from what direction, in what shape, only God knew. Yet she must prepare for it; that was the vital thing; she must marshal her forces, feminine and only defensive, and watch. ”

“ Moses Wopp and Clarence Crump, at whose home the former was spending the week end, were on their way to the skating-rink. If they had wanted to skate there, the streets would have accommodated them with a sufficiently smooth surface, as an early frost had rimed the pavement.
A tall, lean, loose-jointed, large-limbed man was enjoying the frosty air and walked briskly humming a gay tune. ”

“ From the curtained darkness beyond a fiend is gliding toward you!
The shrouding hood of the long cloak has fallen back from the face of a woman—a bold, handsome face with steel-blue eyes, and glittering golden hair. In her upraised hand glitters a long thin dagger, on her face is stamped in awful, ashen pallor the fell purpose—murder!
But he sleeps on lightly, dreaming, perhaps, of Kathleen, while this beautiful fury glides soundlessly across the thick moquette carpet, gains his side, poises her shining weapon on high, aims for his heart, and—it descends, it pierces his breast! ”