Lydie

“ Will you not listen to me, Lydie? Will you not share with me that joy which renders men the equal of God?"
His hand had wandered up the damask curtain, gently drawing its heavy folds from out her clinging fingers. The rich brocade fell behind him with a soft and lingering sound like the murmured "Hush—sh—sh!" of angels' wings shutting out the noise and glare beyond, isolating them both from the world and its conflicts, its passions, and its ceaseless strife.
Secure from prying eyes, Gaston de Stainville threw all reserve from him with a laugh of pride and of joy. ”

“ Real to the awful shame of it all—milady's sneer of triumph, the oath which had risen to Gaston's lips, the wooden figure of the lacquey standing impassive at the door!
Instinctively Lydie's hand flew to her lips; oh, that she could have wiped out the last, lingering memory of that kiss. She, the proud and reserved vestal, a Diana chaste and cold, with lips now for ever polluted by contact with those of a liar. A liar, a traitor, a sycophant! She lashed her haughty spirit into fury, the better to feel the utter degradation of her own abasement. ”

“ As the evening drew to a close, and Amos went out to his chickens as usual after Lizzie had gone to bed, John turned to Lydia.
"What are you reading, these days, young Lydia?"
"Browning—'The Ring and the Book,'" replied Lydia.
John shook his head. "Really grown up, aren't you, Lydia? Do you enjoy being a young lady?"
"Yes, I do, only I miss the old days when I saw so much of you."
"Do you, my dear?" asked Levine, eagerly. "In what ways do you miss me?"
"Oh, every way! No one will ever understand me as you do."
"Oh, I don't know. There are Billy and Kent." ”

“ Lydia shook her head, though Billy's face in the moonlight after the graduation party, returned unexpectedly to her memory as she did so.
"There'll never be any one like you." Then moved by a sudden impulse she leaned toward him and said, "No matter what happens, you will always know that I love you, won't you, Mr. Levine?"
John looked at the wistful face, keenly. "Why, what could happen, young Lydia?" "Oh, lots of things! I'm grown up now and—and I have to make decisions about the rightness and the wrongness of things. But no matter what I decide, nothing can change my love for you." ”

“ Don't you expect Lydia to find her young man and settle down?"
"No, I don't!" snapped Amos. "There isn't a man on earth good enough for Lydia. I don't want her to marry. I'll take care of her."
"Humph! Nothing selfish about a man, is there?" muttered Lizzie.
Kent and Lydia strolled along the leafy road, with the tang of the autumn in their nostrils, and the blue gleam of the lake in their eyes. It was only a half mile to the Willows and as they turned in, Kent took Lydia's hand and drew it through his arm. ”

“ With her bright cheeks and her yellow hair above the fawn-colored corduroy, Lydia looked half boy, half woman.
"My soul, Lydia, they're just grand!" cried Lizzie.
"What boys are going in that crowd?" demanded Amos.
"Charlie and Kent and—Margery's mother's given in—'Gustus Bach. I told you. Daddy, don't you like the suit?"
"Like it!" exclaimed Amos. "Lydia, I'm stunned by it! It makes me realize my little girl's growing up to be a pretty woman. I wish I could have bought you your first suit myself, Lydia. ”

“ The next night, Kent came out to the cottage. Lydia dreaded his coming so little that she was surprised. Yet this day had been one of continual surprise to her. She had wakened to a dawn of robin songs, and had dressed with an answering song in her own heart. She was as one who had never known sorrow or anxiety. Her whole future lay before her, a clear and unobstructed pathway.
For Lydia had found herself. She was a creature to whom a great love and devotion were essential as motive forces. ”

“ Lydia's father looked at her, long and meditatively. He was pretty well discouraged about the probability of ever getting a clear title to the land through Kent or Marshall. And the longer he looked at Lydia, the more his mind reverted to New England, to old tales of the farm on which he and his ancestors had been bred.
"A man with three hundred and twenty acres of land is a power in the community," he said, suddenly.
"Oh, yes, Dad!" cried Lydia.
"You never know what a feeling of independence is," said Lizzie, "till you own land and raise wheat."
Amos stared out the door into the darkness. ”

“ Lydia raised a startled face. "No! No! I'd rather go in rags than borrow money. We're almost out of debt now and we'll stay out. Don't borrow, Daddy," her voice rising hysterically. "Don't borrow!" Adam began to howl.
"All right, dearie, all right!" said Amos.
"I'm an old fool to have said anything," groaned Lizzie. "What does it matter when she's the best scholar in her class and everybody, teachers and boys and girls alike, loves her."
Lydia wiped her eyes and hugged her father, then Adam and then Lizzie.
"I've got John Levine, anyhow," she said. ”

“ Lydia plodded doggedly through the snow. "Of course, Kent's tending to all that, I refuse to be told the details."
"Lydia!" cried Billy again and there was such a note of pain in his voice that she turned her face to his with the same dogged look in her eyes that had been expressed in her walk.
"Why," he said, "what am I going to do without you to look up to—to live up to? You can't mean it!"
"But I do mean it. I fought and fought and I have for years till I'm sick of it. Now, at least, there'll be no more poverty for Dad to complain of." ”

“ For Lydia was dragging the children into her bedroom, and telling them of Mother and Father and Miss Puss, and bidding them look at Lucy Locket’s cradle, and the doll carriage, and the picture-books, all in one breath, and before they even had time to take off their hats and coats. From the noise, and the confusion, and the rushing about, and the sound of many voices all talking at once, as Lydia took them from one end to the other of that little house, you might have thought that all twenty children from the Children’s Home had come visiting instead of four! ”

“ The sun shines low through the trellis and breaks, rosy, against my glass; he glances and trembles golden among thy locks, O Lydia. Among the blackness of thy locks, O snowy Lydia, a pallid rose languishes, and a gentle sudden sadness tempers the fires of love in my heart. Tell me: why does the sea down there send up mysterious groanings under the flaming evening? What songs, O Lydia, do those pines sing to each other? See with what desire those hills stretch out their arms to the setting sun: the shadow grows and embraces them: it seems as though they were begging the last kiss, O Lydia. ”

“ A sudden realization of the loneliness of Lydia's unmothered girlhood, of her innocent faith in him, touched the best that was in him. His voice was a little husky but he answered coolly.
"A hussy, Lyd, is a flirt who's gone to the bad. Those around Lake City chase after the students and the Indians who've got Government allowances, and get their money away from them."
"Oh," said Lydia. "Oh!" Then thoughtfully, "Aren't men silly!"
"Yes, they are," agreed Kent. "And, Lyd, whenever you want to know about such things, you ask me. It's a man's place to tell a girl the things she ought to know." ”

“ Lydia chuckled, then said, "Margery is feeling much better. She's at our house every Sunday. You must come round and see her!"
"Why shouldn't I come to see you, Lydia?" asked Kent, with a new note in his voice.
"Why, of course, you'd see me, but Margery's always been the main attraction with you."
"Has she? Seems to me I recall a time when I couldn't endure the sight of her. And when you were the best pal I had. That's what you are, Lydia, a real pal. A fellow can flirt round with the rest of 'em, but you're the one to look forward to spending a lifetime with!" ”

“ In the studio a fire was blazing and crackling, and Lydia lay down on the rug to watch it and wait for Father to come home. Her head was whirling with all the pleasant happenings of the day. Even the flames seemed to have merry faces that smiled and nodded to her as they rose and fell.
“Red and orange and yellow fairies, and little blue ones too,” thought Lydia. “And they dance and they dance and they never stop. I wonder if they ever go to bed?” And with that Lydia shut her eyes and sailed off to sleep herself. ”

“ She looked with a clear affectionate gaze on his thin smooth-shaven face, and into his tired black eyes.
"Why do you always say 'young' Lydia?" asked the child.
"That's what I want to know, too," agreed Amos.
"Because, by heck! she's so young to be such an old lady." He smoothed the short curly hair with a gesture that was indescribably gentle. "I tell you what, young Lydia, if you were ten years older and I were ten years younger—"
Lydia leaned against his knee and took a large bite of cake. "You'd take me traveling, wouldn't you, Mr. Levine?" she said, comfortably. ”

“ Lydia laughed. "It was nip and tuck between you and Adam, Lizzie. Let's get in away from the mosquitoes—I'm so glad I had this talk with you, Mr. Levine."
"Lydia should have been a boy," said Amos; "she likes politics."
"I'd rather be a girl than anything in the world," protested Lydia, and the two men laughed. If there was still a doubt in the back of Lydia's mind regarding the reservation, for a time, at least, she succeeded in quieting it. She dreaded meeting Charlie and was relieved to hear that Dr. Fulton had taken him East with him for a couple of weeks to attend a health convention. ”

“ Trees, fells, grass were steeped in a wan, gold light, a mingling of sunset and moonrise. The sky was clear; the gradations of colour on the hills ethereally distinct. From a clump of trees came a soft hooting of owls; and close behind them a tall hedge of roses red and white made a bower for Lydia's light form, and filled the night with perfume.
"What do great men matter?" said Tatham incoherently as they paused; "what does anything matter—but—Lydia!" ”

“ Listen, Billy—'We cannot part with our friends. We cannot let our angels go. We do not see that they only go out that archangels may come in.'
"And so," Lydia's voice trembled, but she went on bravely, "I'm trying to understand—trying to see how I can make something good come out of his poor lost life. Somehow I feel as if that were my job. And—and the idea helps me. Oh, my dear John Levine!" ”

“ Lydia blushed. "Oh, not for a long time. Now, let's go and tell my people, Billy."
Out in the night again! Curious how long the short walk to the cottage could be made! Curious how near the stars were—heaven just over the road where the lovers strolled. Not strange that such ecstasy cannot last forever. The human mind could not bear that heaven-born rapture too long.
Lizzie was mending. Amos was sitting in his arm chair, with a bit of paper on which he was figuring. Lydia flew across the room and dropped on her knees beside him. ”

“ Naps followed such early rising as a matter of course, and Lydia, after a peep, came tiptoeing out on the porch as softly as could be for fear of wakening him. Her ill-humor had vanished, and she listened to her mother’s directions with not a cloud on her face.
“Go up the village road and take the first turn,” said Mother in a whisper. “Walk along until you come to something that doesn’t look one bit like a shoemaker’s shop. You will know it by the flowers, and by the trademark over the door. The shoemaker’s name is Mr. Jolly.”
So Lydia skipped up the road with her old shoes under her arm. ”

“ Lydia lay in a hammock with a book all the morning, but the greater part of the time, Miss Towne observed, her eyes were fastened broodingly on the lake and not on the printed page. The two went bathing alone, at noon, and afterward lay on the grassy shore, drying their hair.
"Lydia, wasn't Kent nice to you, yesterday?" asked the chaperone, abruptly.
Lydia turned a startled, sunburned face toward the questioner. "Nice! Why, of course! Kent's like my brother."
"No man but a brother can be like a brother, my dear. Always remember that. ”

“ This is Lydia, now seventy-one years old, and living alone, but for the beloved spirits of Newel and her children who often visit her in dreams and visions. She has earned her present peace and rest, and to-day, as it passes, is but the one link less between her and her longed-for, eternal home with her beloved husband. But it is a very golden link, for it is gilded with precious blessings and privileges but few mortals enjoy. She blesses and is blessed. ”

“ He was eating his waffles absentmindedly and suddenly burst forth,
"Lydia, tell John about Dave Marshall."
Lydia, flushing uncomfortably, did so. Levine did not cease his onslaught on the waffles during the recital. When she had finished, he passed his coffee cup.
"Another cup, young Lydia. Your coffee is something to dream of."
Lydia was too surprised to take the cup. "But—but six hundred dollars. Mr. Levine!" she gasped.
"Good news, eh, Amos?" said Levine. "Getting anxious, isn't he!" Then catching Lydia's look of consternation, "Why, bless your soul, Lydia, what are you upset about? ”

“ Kent crossed over to the couch and took Lydia's hand, while Margery went for her wraps. "Good-by, dear," he whispered, "get well fast for me."
Lydia smiled at him over the bunch of violets.
Billy was the next caller. "I left Dad and Amos saving the Nation through Free Trade," he said. "Gee, Lydia, but you do look better! You don't suppose you could possibly go to the Prom., just for one or two dances, do you?"
Lydia shook her head. "No clothes," she said, briefly. "Ask some other girl."
"There isn't any other girl," replied Billy. "If I can't go with you, I'll be hanged if I go at all! ”