Mary Ann

“ Don't look so sad, Mary Ann. I'm not blaming you. It's not your fault in the least. It's only one of the many jokes of existence. The only reason I want to drive this into your head is to put you on your guard. Though I don't think myself good enough to marry you, there are lots of men who will think they are . . . though they don't know you. It is you, not me, who are grand and rich, Mary Ann . . . beware of men like me—poor and selfish. ”

“ I suppose the fact is she's been called Mary Ann so long and so often that she's forgotten her father's name—if she ever had any. I must do her the justice, though, to say she answers to the name of Mary Ann in every sense of the phrase."
"She didn't seem at all bad-looking, anyway," said Peter.
"Every man to his taste!" growled Lancelot. "She's as platt and uninteresting as a wooden sabot." ”

“ She caught hold of his arm entreatingly.
"You are not the same Mary Ann—to other people. You are a somebody. Before, you were a nobody. Nobody cared or bothered about you—you were no more than a dead leaf whirling in the street." ”

“ But, ere he released her, the long-repressed thought had found expression.
"You don't kiss anybody but me?" he said half playfully.
"Oh, no, sir," said Mary Ann, earnestly.
"What!" more lightly still. "Haven't you got half a dozen young men?"
Mary Ann shook her head, more regretfully than resentfully. "I told you I never go out—except for little errands." ”

“ He sank down, half dressed, on the bed with his head on his breast, leaving his boots and Mary Ann's gloves scattered about the floor. He was angry, humiliated; he felt like laughing, and he felt like sobbing. ”

“ Perhaps I'm as much a duffer in music as in other things. Perhaps you'll be the only person in the world who has ever heard my music, for no one will print it, Mary Ann. Perhaps I shall be that very common thing—a complete failure—and be worse off than even you ever were, Mary Ann."
"Oh, Mr. Lancelot, I'm so sorry." And her eyes filled again with tears.
"Oh, don't be sorry for me. I'm a man. I dare say I shall pull through. Just put me out of your mind, dear. Let all that happened at Baker's Terrace be only a bad dream—a very bad dream, I am afraid I must call it. Forget me, Mary Ann. ”

“ Life, no doubt, would be hard enough still. Struggles and trials enough were yet before him, but he would not think of that now—enough that for a month or two there would be bread and cheese and kisses. And then, in the midst of a tender reverie, with his hand on the lid of his portmanteau, he was awakened by ominous sounds of objurgation from the kitchen.
His heart stood still. He went down a few stairs and listened.
"Not another stroke of work do you do in my house, Mary Ann!" ”

“ Old Mary Ann had had a very changeable life. The place where she now found herself was not her home. The language of the country was not her own. From the shady seat on the low wall, she now looked contentedly at the sunny fields, then across the murmuring brook to the hillside where the big yellow primroses nodded, while the birds piped and sang in the green ash-trees above her, as if they had the greatest festival to celebrate. ”

“ I dress better than you in one sense, Mary Ann. I don't have on a silk gown one day and a petticoat in rags the next. No one ever sees me otherwise than neat and clean, and my clothes keep good a long while. It's the finery that runs away with your money. I am not ashamed to make a bonnet last two years; you'd have two in a season. Another thing, Mary Ann: I do not waste my time—I sit to my work; and I dare say I earn double what you do. ”

“ The population of 5 Baker's Terrace was nine, mostly bell-ringers. Life was one ceaseless round of multifarious duties; with six hours of blessed unconsciousness, if sleep were punctual. All the week long Mary Ann was toiling up and down the stairs or sweeping them, making beds or puddings, polishing boots or fire-irons. Holidays were not in Mary Ann's calendar; and if Sunday ever found her on her knees, it was only when she was scrubbing out the kitchen. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy; it had not, apparently, made Mary Ann a bright girl. ”

“ Mary Ann was an affectionate, sensitive child, fond of out-door sports, imitating everything she saw her brother do, and early in life feeling in her heart that she was to be "somebody." When but four years old, she would seat herself at the piano and play, though she did not know one note from another, that the servant might see that she was a distinguished person! ”

“ And Mary Ann herself had grown gloomier—once or twice he thought she had been crying, though he was too numbed and apathetic to ask, and was incapable of suspecting that Rosie had anything to do with her tears. He hardly noticed that Rosie had taken to feeding the canary; the question of how he should feed himself was becoming every day more and more menacing. ”

“ Mary Ann had no pulse. Mary Ann did not perspire. Mary Ann did not fatigue gradually but all at once. Mary Ann breathed regularly under all circumstances. Mary Ann talked and talked and talked. But then, Mary Ann was not a human being.
When she left the hotel at midnight, Pembroke was quite sure that she understood his plan and that she was irrevocably in love with him. Tomorrow might bring his death, but it might also ensure his escape. After forty-two years of searching for a passion, for a cause, for a loyalty, Frank Pembroke had at last found his. Earth and the human race that peopled it. ”

“ MARY ANN AND MARTHA ANN
The story of Mary Ann and Martha Ann and the red bonnet has been so often retold to my children and grandchildren that every detail has been retained, and in its completeness as I give it here, it is a bit of authentic family history “dressed up” as its hearers love it.
“What kin we do, Ma’y Ann? I dun hear Miss Liza talkin’ ’bout it agin, and ’lowin’ it got to be found.” The two little negroes sat under a wide-spreading pecan tree that scattered its shade and its late autumn nuts over the grassy lawn of a spacious Southern mansion. ”

“ There was room in his portmanteau for everything—now he had no clothes. On the Monday the long nightmare would be over. He would go down to some obscure seaside nook and live very quietly for a few weeks, and gain strength and calm in the soft spring airs, and watch hand-in-hand with Mary Ann the rippling scarlet trail of the setting sun fade across the green waters. ”

“ Mary Ann nodded, and smilingly observed that they had another at home—a boy—older than that one, and they had named him Jerry, out of compliment to him, thinking he was dead.
"So you're married, and have got a family, and a good husband, have you, Mary Ann?"
"Yes, Mr. Thompson, as good a husband as ever a woman were blessed with."
"Being so, I can't marry you," he continued in a dreamy manner. "But, Mrs. Mary Ann, as I'm going to get married somehow, can you recommend me to a nice young gal; I feel mighty lonely now you're out of the way." ”

“ Perhaps you thought I was playing the piano—yes, and teaching Rosie—for my amusement; perhaps you thought I sat up writing half the night out of—sleeplessness," he smiled at the phrase, "or a wanton desire to burn Mrs. Leadbatter's gas. No, Mary Ann, I have to get my own living by hard work—by good work if I can, by bad work if I must—but always by hard work. While you will have fifteen thousand pounds a year, I shall be glad, overjoyed, to get fifteen hundred. ”

“ I shall kiss her nevermore.
“Seems to me the air grows hotter. How I love this old man’s daughter!”
Were my musings as I held her—held the girl whom I adore.
While my Mary Ann was napping, suddenly I heard a rapping
Like a footfall softly tapping on the old man’s bedroom floor,
And I muttered, as I listened through the slightly opened door,
“I have heard that step before.” 41
I shook Mary Ann to wake her, and I said “May Old Nick take her!” ”

“ Mary Ann felt that a careless word or look would be enough to loosen that frail hold on life. When the doctor came, he found his patient in charge of a stout woman in a fresh linen dress, whose self-command was so perfect that he did not waste many words in softening the opinion for which she followed him to the door. ”

“ Ann Mary got up, unfastened the bedroom door, took the lamp, and stepped out into the sitting-room. The pounding came again. "Ann Mary, Ann Mary!" cried a voice. It was her grandmother's.
"I'm comin', I'm comin', grandma!" shouted Ann Mary. She had never felt so happy in her life. She pushed back the bolt of the side door with trembling haste. There stood her grandmother all muffled up, with a shawl over her head; and out in the yard were her grandfather and another man, with a horse and sleigh. The men were turning the sleigh around. ”

“ On the whole I do not know that I regret that accident I had with Mary Ann. It is true that there are times when I am a little disposed to wish that she were not quite so good a manager; now and then every man likes to call his soul his own. On the other hand, she is well qualified to protect me from the rest of the family. She will keep them at bay. Because it is beginning to dawn on me that, singlehanded, she is more than a match for them all. ”

“ If I had become a doctor, I would have been a safe man to allow in any family, because it is certain that I should never have fallen in love with any of my patients. The sight of a pretty face, healthy and vivacious, gives me nearly as much pleasure as finding a vigorous beautiful bush, whose flowers open widely in the sunshine, and whose leaves have never been touched by butterfly or cockchafer. So that the first time that I saw Mary-Ann's face, I experienced a strong temptation to take her hand and say to her: "Mademoiselle, how happy you must be to have such good health." ”

“ The first stayed with the woman whom Nathan knew — the woman who, Mary Ann almost thought, was still darning socks by the table beneath the light. Only a soul was here in the garden — her soul that loved light and color and was strangely capable of guilt. ”

“ Mary struggled bravely with herself, her bosom heaved, she could not keep the tears from swelling to her eyes, but she answered truly and from her aching heart.
"If she will be better off. If you will love her as—as I do, as they did, I will try to think it best!"
"You will try to think it best," repeated the gentleman, and the smile that trembled across his lips was beautiful; "if she goes, my little girl, you shall go with her!"
"Me!" said Mary, lifting up her meek eyes to his face. "Oh, sir, don't make fun of me. Nobody would ever think of making a pet of me!" ”

“ She has lost her treasure and kept her bane a year or two more, and that is what Mary Ann will be.” “She ought to have written to me.” “She ought to do many things that she does not; she ought to have sent Janey from the house, as I told her, as soon as the disorder appeared in it. No, she kept her in her insane selfishness, and now I hope she is satisfied with her work. ”

“ Deep into New York State, and far, far away among the mountains of New England the eye ranged, charmed and satisfied with a fullness of beauty.
Mary saw it, and all the deep feelings as fervent, but less understood in the child than in the woman, swelled and grew rich in her bosom. Not a tint of those luxuriously colored hills ever left her memory—not a shadow upon the distant mountains ever died from her brain. It is such memories, vivid as painting, and burnt upon the mind like enamel, from childhood to maturity, that feed and invigorate the soul of genius. ”

“ Ann Mary was all in brown, a brown calico dress and a brown calico, long-sleeved apron; and her brown hair was braided in two tight little tails that were tied with some old brown bonnet-strings of Mrs. Little's, and flared out stiffly behind the ears. Once, when Ann Mary was at her house, Loretta Adams had taken it upon herself to comb out the tight braids and set the hair flowing in a fluffy mass over the shoulders; but when Ann Mary came home her grandmother was properly indignant. ”

“ Mary Ann gasped.
“Good gracious!” was all she said.
“Well, Mary Ann,” said Selina, coming to Jane’s rescue, “there’s not a particle of use shutting your eyes to plain facts. Ma’s in a serious condition, and if anything happens to her, what’ll you do with all that stuff? You may dye the blue, but that tartan won’t take a good black.”
“Why,” Mary Ann said, recovering speech, “Ma has bronchitis at the beginning of cold weather every year. She’ll be downstairs in a week or two, the same as she always is.”
“I hope so, Mary Ann. I hope, when next she comes down, it won’t be feet first. ”

“ Mary Ann Hopper called, as they passed her: "Hullo, Ingua. Where'd ye git the new duds?"
"Miss Huckins made 'em," answered Ingua proudly.
"I guess I'll go and shake hands with Mrs. Hopper," said Nan. "Don't you remember me, Mary Ann? I'm Nan Cragg."
"Gee! so y'are," exclaimed Mary Ann wonderingly. "We all 'spicioned you was dead, long ago."
"I'm home for a visit. You folks seem prosperous. How's business?"
"Pretty good. We got a new boarder to-day, a feller with bum nerves who come from the city. Gee! but he's togged out t' kill. Got money, too, an' ain't afraid to spend it. ”

“ Mary started, and lifted her moist eyes in amazement. Scarcely in her life had she seen that cold woman kiss any one before.
Aunt Hannah looked kindly into her eyes, and laying a hand on her head, addressed Joseph.
"This child is not beautiful, my son," she said, "but she has something in her face, this moment, worth all the beauty in the world."
"I know it; I feel the sunshine of her presence," answered the youth.
"It is this that troubles her; she fears that, in your love for beautiful things, she will not always please you." ”