Lucindy

“ The child sat straight and serious, one warm hand clinging to Lucindy's slender palm. But her eyes still sought the face of her older friend. Molly McNeil rose to a sitting posture. She took the straw from her mouth, and spoke with the happy frankness of those who have no fear because they demand nothing save earth and sky room.
"I know who you are," she said to Lucindy. "You're left well off, and I guess you could bring up a child, give you your way. We're as poor as poverty! You take her, if she'll go. Ellen, she's a nice lady ”

“ Can’t we come to play?” asked Carrie.
“Oh, can’t we come?” said the other two, almost in a breath.
“No, Auntie told me this morning, that I must tell you and the rest of the girls, that it wouldn’t be convenient to have you come, as you have done; you are not stylish enough for Miss Hattie Randolph to associate with, I suppose.”
The girls looked really disappointed. Lucindy was a great favorite, and a leader, fearless and successful in all escapades that required originality and coolness, and her company would be sorely missed. ”

“ She sho' won't last long; I tell you dat right now!"
Lucindy prepared to answer the summons, but before she could wipe the flour from her hands, Adelaide changed her mind. She said she would answer the knock herself, and, as she went into the house, Randall came around the corner and went into the kitchen. He was somewhat excited, and Lucindy inquired if he was ill. "Mammy," he said, "does you know who that is knockin' at the door? Well, it aint nobody in the roun' worl' but ol' Marster's grandson; it's Miss Betty's boy. Of all people on top of the ground, that's who it is." ”

“ She's goin' to have her younger sister come to live with us now. We shall be a passel o' women, sha'n't we?"
"I guess it's well for you Ann Toby's what she is, or she'd cheat you out o' your eye-teeth!"
"Well," answered Lucindy, easily, "I ain't goin' to worry about my eye-teeth. If I be cheated out of 'em, I guess I can get a new set."
At five o'clock, they had some cookies, ostensibly for Claribel, since Mrs. Wilson could not stay to tea; and then, when the little maid had taken hers out to the front steps, Lucindy broached a daring plan, that moment conceived. ”

“ Randolph’s elegant India mull overskirt, and had almost ruined her other dresses, as the trimmings were broken and destroyed, and some of them were gone entirely.
“It must have been when I went for water; I noticed that there were two tramps going down the road, a man and woman.”
“Oh, Lucindy, you should have locked the door!”
“Why, aunt, I never lock the doors when I go after water. I suppose you’ll put the blame of it on me!” Here Lucindy began to cry. “I think you are a very strange woman to leave no one but a girl alone in a house, with such valuable things ”

“ Be ashamed of yourself! a great big girl like you going around in the dark, barefooted and bareheaded. Seat yourself in that chair, and don't move out of it till I tell you, or you'll be sorry."
Lucindy, listening with all her ears, lifted her arms in a gesture of admiration and astonishment, exclaiming to herself, "I des wish you'd listen! Dat sho do beat my time!"
Adelaide went off to play, and it might be supposed that she had forgotten Cally-Lou ”

“ Why under the sun don't they have a party of Injuns tackle it?"
The woman who heard repeated the remark as a sample of aunt Lucindy's desire to have everything "all of a whew;" but when it came to the ears of a certain young man who had sat brooding, in silent emulation, over the birth of the elephant, he rose, with fire in his eye, and went to seek his mates. Indians there should be, and he, by right of first desire, should become their leader. ”

“ Well, how'd the flowers suit?"
"I haven't quite made up my mind," said Lucindy, trying to speak with the dignity befitting her quest. "I just come in with little Claribel here. She's goin' to have a new hat, and her grandma said she might come down with me to pick it out. You've got some all trimmed, I believe?"
Miss West opened a drawer in an old-fashioned bureau.
"Yes," she said, "I've got two my niece trimmed for me before she went to make her visit to Sudleigh. One's blue. I guess you've seen that. Then there's a nice white one. The 'Weekly' says white's all the go, this year." ”

“ She ain’t no folks of her own, nor much means, and ought to marry a man who can make things easy for her. Guess I’ll have to wait a spell longer before I say anything to Lucindy about marryin’ now;” and a look of resolute resignation settled on Joe’s haggard face as he gave up his dearest hope.
“I think Lucindy will have something to say, if she is like most women, and you will find the burdens much lighter, for sharing them between you. Don’t worry about that, but get well, and go home as soon as you can.”
“All right, ma’am;” ”

“ Randolph. “They hid it there, expecting to come for the rest of it the next day. They’ll be disappointed. I’ll be gone.”
The boy was Carrie Hess’s brother, and the ruse had worked; entirely turning off all suspicion from Lucindy.
Mrs. Gimson lost her summer boarders and Lucindy returned to school. This unprincipled girl, however, learned the hard lesson, in her after life, that ingratitude to benefactors, and unfaithfulness to trust, meet a sure retribution, even if they appear to succeed.
A MIDNIGHT ATTACK.
AS NIGHT CAME DARKLY DOWN.
The night came darkly down ”

“ John's goin' to bring Claribel up, to spend the arternoon an' stay to supper."
"Why, dear heart! that needn't make no difference. I should admire to have her, too. I'll show her some shells and coral I found this mornin', up attic."
Lucindy had almost reached the street when she turned, as with a sudden resolution, and retraced her steps.
"Jane," she called, looking in at the kitchen window. "It's a real bright day, pretty as any 't ever I see. Don't you worry for fear o' my disturbin' them that's gone, if I do try to ketch at somethin' pleasant. ”

“ He's pine-blank as happy now as a killdee by a mill-race. You can't faze 'em. I'd in-about give up my t'other hand ef I could stan' flat-footed, an' grin at trouble like that there nigger."
"Niggers is niggers," said Miss Becky, smiling grimly, "an' you can't rub it out; yit I lay I've seed a heap of white people lots meaner'n Free Joe. He grins—an' that's nigger—but I've ketched his under jaw a-tremblin' when Lucindy's name uz brung up. ”

“ Lucien's conduct since his return to Paris had borne the stamp of such profound policy that it excited—and could not fail to excite—the jealousy of all his former friends, on whom he took no vengeance but by making them furious at his success, at his exquisite "get up," and his way of keeping every one at a distance. The poet, once so communicative, so genial, had turned cold and reserved. De Marsay, the model adopted by all the youth of Paris, did not make a greater display of reticence in speech and deed than did Lucien. ”

“ Lucien, like all neophytes, was modest and regular in his habits in those early days at the Hotel de Cluny. After the first unlucky venture in fashionable life which absorbed his capital, he threw himself into his work with the first earnest enthusiasm, which is frittered away so soon over the difficulties or in the by-paths of every life in Paris. The most luxurious and the very poorest lives are equally beset with temptations which nothing but the fierce energy of genius or the morose persistence of ambition can overcome. ”

“ Over Lucina's shoulders, far below her waist, fell her wonderful fair hair, in curls, and every curl might well have proved a twining finger of love. Lucina wore a bonnet of fine straw, trimmed simply enough with a white ribbon, but over her face hung a white veil of rich lace, and through it her pink cheeks and lips and great blue eyes and lines of golden hair shone and bloomed and dazzled like a rose through a frosted window. ”

“ So Lucien may perhaps succeed to admiration in spite of his mistakes; he has only to profit by some happy vein or to be among good companions; but if an evil angel crosses his path, he will go to the very depths of hell. ‘Tis a brilliant assemblage of good qualities embroidered upon too slight a tissue; time wears the flowers away till nothing but the web is left; and if that is poor stuff, you behold a rag at the last. So long as Lucien is young, people will like him; but where will he be as a man of thirty? That is the question which those who love him sincerely are bound to ask themselves. ”

“ Seventy years had passed, and on each birthday, so long as she was able to walk, Lucinda, even after she had become Lucinda Bascom, had wandered down by the river side, and gazed, a little superstitiously perhaps, on the log that had been marked with an "L" on the morning she was born. It had stood the wear and tear of the elements bravely, but now it was beginning, like Lucinda, to show age. ”

“ Blondet, as sharp as a needle, could detect more than one secret in Lucien's air and manner; while stroking him down, he contrived to tighten the curb. He meant to know the reasons of Lucien's return to Paris, his projects, and his means of living.
"On your knees to a superiority you can never attain to, albeit you are Finot!" he went on. "Admit this gentleman forthwith to be one of the great men to whom the future belongs; he is one of us! ”

“ Lucinda said slowly, "that it was you who made the mode of life with which I was content impossible for me. If this life I've taken up here is in some sense a makeshift, it's all I've got to take the place of all I had. And now you'd rob me even of it! And one thing more you forget: If I should give in to your wishes and leave Hollywood today, I would only be doing what you say you want to prevent, confessing by flight that my only real interest in my picture work was my greater interest in Lynn Summerlad. ”

“ A gold piece! It was several days of rest and riches for the beggar, and Lucien was on the point of waking her to tell her this, when he heard near his ear, as in an hallucination, a voice—the voice of the Pole, with its coarse drawling accent, almost whispering: "It's now two days since I stirred out of the club, and for two days the 'seventeen' has never turned up; I'll suffer my hand to be cut off, if that number does not turn up on the stroke of midnight." ”

“ Your Lucien is not a poet, he has the poetic temper; he dreams, he does not think; he spends himself in emotion, he does not create. He is, in fact—permit me to say it —a womanish creature that loves to shine, the Frenchman's great failing. Lucien will always sacrifice his best friend for the pleasure of displaying his own wit. He would not hesitate to sign a pact with the Devil to-morrow if so he might secure a few years of luxurious and glorious life. Nay, has he not done worse already? He has bartered his future for the short-lived delights of living openly with an actress. ”

“ Neither Clotilde, nor the Duchesse d'Uxelles, nor Madame de Maufrigneuse, who was always extremely kind to Lucien, could ever obtain this favor from the Duke, so persistently suspicious was the old nobleman of the man that he designated as "le Sire de Rubempre." This shade of distinction, understood by every one who visited at the house, constantly wounded Lucien's self-respect, for he felt that he was no more than tolerated. But the world is justified in being suspicious; it is so often taken in! ”

“ Sir Lucien lighted a cigarette.
“I sometimes wonder, Sin Sin Wa,” he said slowly, “what your aim in life can be. Your father was neither a ship’s carpenter nor a shopkeeper. This I know. Your age I do not know and cannot guess, but you are no longer young. You covet wealth. For what purpose, Sin Sin Wa?”
Standing behind the Chinaman, Sir Lucien’s dark face, since he made no effort to hide his feelings, revealed the fact that he attached to this seemingly abstract discussion a greater importance than his tone of voice might have led one to suppose. ”

“ An elderly lady, a relation of Lucien’s wife, and a person in whose veracity and morality I have the greatest confidence, and for whom he always had evinced more regard than even for his own mother, has repeated to me many of their conversations. She assures me that Lucien deplores frequently the want of a good and religious education, and the tempting examples of perversity he met with almost at his entrance upon the revolutionary scene. ”

“ With Lucien it is the very reverse. His conduct seems to indicate that by your company you confer an obligation on him, and he is studious to remove, on all occasions, that distance which fortune has placed between him and his guests; and as he cannot compliment them upon being wealthier than himself, he seizes with delicacy every opportunity to chew that he acknowledges their superiority in talents and in genius as more than an equivalent for the absence of riches. ”

“ So in the beginning Lucien led the honest, innocent life of the country lad who never leaves the Latin Quarter; devoting himself wholly to his work, with thoughts of the future always before him; who finds Flicoteaux's ordinary luxurious after the simple home-fare; and strolls for recreation along the alleys of the Luxembourg, the blood surging back to his heart as he gives timid side glances to the pretty women. But this could not last. Lucien, with his poetic temperament and boundless longings, could not withstand the temptations held out by the play-bills. ”