Lena Lingard

“ The orchestra kept sawing away at the "Traviata" music, so joyous and sad, so thin and far-away, so clap-trap and yet so heart-breaking. After the second act I left Lena in tearful contemplation of the ceiling, and went out into the lobby to smoke. As I walked about there I congratulated myself that I had not brought some Lincoln girl who would talk during the waits about the Junior dances, or whether the cadets would camp at Plattsmouth. Lena was at least a woman, and I was a man. ”

“ Lena's curly black water-spaniel, Prince, breakfasted with us. He sat beside her on the couch and behaved very well until the Polish violin-teacher across the hall began to practice, when Prince would growl and sniff the air with disgust. Lena's landlord, old Colonel Raleigh, had given her the dog, and at first she was not at all pleased. She had spent too much of her life taking care of animals to have much sentiment about them. But Prince was a knowing little beast, and she grew fond of him. After breakfast I made him do his lessons; play dead dog, shake hands, stand up like a soldier. ”

“ Lena had brought them all back to me. It came over me, as it had never done before, the relation between girls like those and the poetry of Virgil. If there were no girls like them in the world, there would be no poetry. ”

“ The noblest qualities are ridiculed. Grinning college boys, ignorant and conceited, what do they know of delicacy!"
I controlled my features and tried to speak seriously.
"If you mean me, Mr. Ordinsky, I have known Miss Lingard a long time, and I think I appreciate her kindness. We come from the same town, and we grew up together."
His gaze traveled slowly down from the ceiling and rested on me. "Am I to understand that you have this young woman's interests at heart? That you do not wish to compromise her?" ”

“ Ordinsky. A girl who makes her own living can ask a college boy to supper without being talked about. We take some things for granted."
"Then I have misjudged you, and I ask your pardon,"—he bowed gravely. "Miss Lingard," he went on, "is an absolutely trustful heart. She has not learned the hard lessons of life. As for you and me, noblesse oblige,"—he watched me narrowly.
Lena returned with the vest. "Come in and let us look at you as you go out, Mr. Ordinsky. ”

“ A couple of jack-rabbits, run in off the prairie, could not have been more innocent of what awaited them than were Lena and I.
Our excitement began with the rise of the curtain, when the moody Varville, seated before the fire, interrogated Nanine. Decidedly, there was a new tang about this dialogue. I had never heard in the theater lines that were alive, that presupposed and took for granted, like those which passed between Varville and Marguerite in the brief encounter before her friends entered. ”

“ Next summer I'll take her down new furniture and carpets, so she'll have something to look forward to all winter."
I watched Lena sitting there so smooth and sunny and well cared-for, and thought of how she used to run barefoot over the prairie until after the snow began to fly, and how Crazy Mary chased her round and round the cornfields. It seemed to me wonderful that she should have got on so well in the world. Certainly she had no one but herself to thank for it.
"You must feel proud of yourself, Lena," I said heartily. "Look at me ”

“ She's always so afraid some one will run off with you!" Lena slipped her silk sleeves into the jacket I held for her, smoothed it over her person, and buttoned it slowly. I walked with her to the door. "Come and see me sometimes when you're lonesome. But maybe you have all the friends you want. ”

“ On the table beside her there was a basket of early summer flowers which the Pole had left after he heard of the accident. He always managed to know what went on in Lena's apartment.
Lena was telling me some amusing piece of gossip about one of her clients, when I interrupted her and picked up the flower basket.
"This old chap will be proposing to you some day, Lena."
"Oh, he has—often!" she murmured.
"What! After you've refused him?"
"He does n't mind that. It seems to cheer him to mention the subject. Old men are like that, you know. ”

“ It makes them feel important to think they're in love with somebody."
"The Colonel would marry you in a minute. I hope you won't marry some old fellow; not even a rich one."
Lena shifted her pillows and looked up at me in surprise. "Why, I'm not going to marry anybody. Did n't you know that?"
"Nonsense, Lena. That's what girls say, but you know better. Every handsome girl like you marries, of course." ”

“ I prefer to be foolish when I feel like it, and be accountable to nobody."
"But you'll be lonesome. You'll get tired of this sort of life, and you'll want a family."
"Not me. I like to be lonesome. When I went to work for Mrs. Thomas I was nineteen years old, and I had never slept a night in my life when there were n't three in the bed. I never had a minute to myself except when I was off with the cattle."
Usually, when Lena referred to her life in the country at all, she dismissed it with a single remark, humorous or mildly cynical. But to-night her mind seemed to dwell on those early years. ”

“ I led her toward Cleric's chair, the only comfortable one I had, questioning her confusedly.
She was not disconcerted by my embarrassment. She looked about her with the naïve curiosity I remembered so well. "You are quite comfortable here, are n't you? I live in Lincoln now, too, Jim. I'm in business for myself. I have a dressmaking shop in the Raleigh Block, out on O Street. I've made a real good start."
"But, Lena, when did you come?" ”

“ IV HOW well I remember the stiff little parlor where I used to wait for Lena: the hard horsehair furniture, bought at some auction sale, the long mirror, the fashion-plates on the wall. If I sat down even for a moment I was sure to find threads and bits of colored silk clinging to my clothes after I went away. Lena's success puzzled me. She was so easy-going; had none of the push and self-assertiveness that get people ahead in business. She had come to Lincoln, a country girl, with no introductions except to some cousins of Mrs. ”

“ Milly would say at such times. It was only natural then, that Milly considered it her duty to apologise for her little sister's outburst of naughtiness. As Lena made no answer, she went on, "You won't mind, Lena dear, will you?"
"It's very hard," burst out Lena. "Mama trusted her to me, so she ought to have obeyed me; and Hester blames me, I know she does, from what she said, and she takes her part, and she has been my nurse, and ought to like me best; but nobody does love me but Auntie."
"O Lena, I do, and Papa and Mama, and Lucy."
"But they all love you best. ”

“ It feels its strength, spreads and preens itself, and is away to the forest to meet its fate.
Such was Lena in the first months of her marriage. The world’s warmth welcomed her, partly in curiosity, and partly because she was in truth Richard Percival’s wife, and the protégée of Mrs. Lenox, who took every pains to shield her and help her. The ways of that little sphere that calls itself society she found it not difficult to acquire, when to beauty she added the paraphernalia of luxury. ”

“ A moment afterward a strange, faint voice was heard to call: "Mamma!" Frau Hildesmuller at first thought it was Lena's spirit calling, and then she rushed to the rear of Fritz's covered wagon, and, with a loud shriek of joy, caught up Lena herself, covering her pale little face with kisses and smothering her with hugs. Lena's eyes were heavy with the deep slumber of exhaustion, but she smiled and lay close to the one she had longed to see. There among the mail sacks, covered in a nest of strange blankets and comforters, she had lain asleep until wakened by the voices around her. ”

“ Did she give you any name, or tell where she was going?"
"She said her name was Oliver." (I thought of the O. R. on the clothes at the laundry.) "But I knew this wasn't so; and if she had not looked so very modest, I might have hesitated to take her in. But, lor! I can't resist a girl in trouble, and she was in trouble, if ever a girl was. And then she had money—Do you know what her trouble was?" This again to Lena, and with an air at once suspicious and curious. But Lena has a good face, too, and her frank eyes at once disarmed the weak and good-natured woman before us. ”

“ Clifford should have sent her a present she could not have told you herself.
"May Lena have the hat, and me the basket, Mania?" asked Milly pleadingly. "You like the hat best, don't you, Lena?"
Mrs. Graham was trying to comfort the weeping Lucy, who refused to be comforted, and wept and raved at the cruelty of every one in general and Mrs. Clifford in particular.
"No, Milly, I don't want the hat: they were both sent to you; of course she likes you best—every one does." And with these words, and without a kind look or word of thanks to her sister, Lena left the room. ”

“ Shading her eyes with her hand from the sun, she looks about attentively.
"Yes," she remarks to herself in a low voice, "I can get plenty for both rooms without spoiling the garden. I think Mama shall have the violets, and Milly the primroses; and I shall ask Auntie to let me run to the fields and get some cowslips for Lucy; and Papa shall have some of all, because he is the only man." Here her meditations were broken into by hearing Auntie's voice calling—
"Lena, Lena, where are you, dear child?" ”

“ You ain't got no reason to be sitting there now with all that crying, I never see anybody have trouble it did them any good to do the way you are doing, Lena. You hear me Lena. You go home now and you be good the way I tell you Lena, and I see what I can do. I make your Aunt Mathilda make old Mrs. Kreder let you be till you get your baby all right. Now don't you be scared and so silly Lena. I don't like to see you act so Lena when really you got a nice man and so many things really any girl should be grateful to be having. ”

“ Lena's face, rosy-flushing; Hiram's, bright, wide-eyed; Don's, resolute and high and strong. Again that flashing vision, the Titan Sleiter tottering to his fall, the black horse racing forever across the blazing sunset.
He could not see the stars—warm tears were in his eyes. Not of sorrow—of love and pride.
The far-off, measured beat of soft footsteps; they came nearer to him—the trampling of many feet. The moon rose radiant over the crater's low rim; the rocky circle became a shore, bordered on a pool of dancing, rippling light; the soft air was sweet and pure and cool. ”

“ This was too much for Lena in her present mood. Giving her sister a push, she exclaimed angrily, "How rude you are not to answer me! What are you looking at?"
"There now, Lena, you have spoilt it all."
"Spoilt all what? How tiresome you are, Milly!"
"I was counting the ships that passed, or that I could see, and I wanted to count twenty, and I had only got to fourteen when you disturbed me. Now I must begin again."
"Oh, that's silly. It's all very well when you are by yourself, but not when you have any one to play with." ”

“ And her eyes filled with tears as she added, "And David, how sorry he must be, he was so fond of her!"
"Yes, dear, we must pity them, but not little Mary herself; she is happy, perfectly happy now."
"O Mama, I am so glad I did not die too, for I was not good like her, and I hadn't told you and Papa. I meant to that very night, but Miss Gifford would not let me write."
"God has been very good to us all, as He always is, Lena, and has spared my little girl to us, and given her another opportunity of living and working for Him." ”

“ But Lena no longer exulted in the beauty that had brought her so much sorrow. When she went abroad on simple domestic errands for her mother, she always wore a thick vail that obscured her face, and she appeared unconscious of the admiring glances that rested on her queenly form and graceful carriage. The zest for flirtation was over now, for her proud heart was broken, and Lena would be glad when death released her from her undying remorse for her ruined life and her father’s untimely death. ”

“ Graham to let Hester and the other servants come too—every one ought to help in the hay-field."
Lena did not return home until as late an hour as she dared to, but nothing was said by either Mama or Miss Marshall at her being a little late, both hoping that she had had time to reflect on what had passed, and that by this time she knew she alone had been to blame for the false hopes she had raised for herself and her little sister. Not one word did Lena say about the parcel or her disappointment. She would show them she did not care. ”

“ I mustn't speak of the white one. Milly and I decided we never would; and Bessie said she would think me very mean if I did, and I won't."
"How good you are all to me!" said Lena, giving her little sister a kiss.
"That's because you are so much nicer now than you used to be—you are not always"—— Here Lucy stopped, abashed at Milly's indignant exclamation.
"Always what?" asked Lena after a moment's pause.
"Always wanting to be first, and going on about being the eldest. I love you ever so much more now since you have been to Sidcombe;" ”

“ She felt the disgrace it was for a decent german girl that a man should go away and leave her. Lena knew very well that her aunt was right when she said the way Herman had acted to her was a disgrace to everyone that knew her. Mary and Nellie and the other girls she always sat with were always very good to Lena but that did not make her trouble any better. ”