Mary Cary

“ And if I let a chance slip to worry Miss Bray I was sorry for it; but that was before I understood her, and before Miss Katherine came. Since Miss Katherine came I know it's yourself that matters most, not where you live or where you came from, and I'm thinking a little more of Mary Cary than I used to, though in a different way. As for Miss Bray, I truly try at times to forget she's living.
But she's taught me a good deal about Human Nature, Miss Bray has. About the side I didn't know. It's a pity there are things we have to know. I think I will make a special study of Human Nature. ”

“ She hasn't much sense, Mary Cary hasn't, but enough to know wedding trips are personal, and, besides, the girls have turned into regular weepers. Every time anything is said about going away their eyes water up, and Martha feels like a yellow dog with no tail. I know they hate Miss Katherine's going; but why do they cry about my going? Lord, this is a strange place to live in, this world is! I wonder what heaven will be like?
Miss Bray is much better. She says Uncle Parke has cured her. ”

“ But it doesn't matter whether she truly knows anything or not. Miss Webb says she is like those fish scientists. Give her one bone, and she can tell you all the rest. She's had a grand time telling more things about Uncle Parke than Miss Katherine will ever learn in this world.
My dress is finished. I'm to be Maiden of Honor. There are no bridesmaids. Think of it! Me, Mary Cary, once just flesh and blood mechanical, now a living creature who is to wear a white Swiss dress and a sash with pink rosebuds on it, and walk up the church aisle with my arms full of roses. ”

“ They always save me some of whatever they make, which I get the next day. But if I could rise out of bed and eat as much as I want out of that chafing-dish, there would be a funeral Miss Bray would like to attend. The corpse would be Mary Cary, died Martha.
There is a screen at the foot of my bed, put there so the light won't bother me and so I won't be seen. And, thinking I am asleep, Miss Katherine and Miss Webb talk on as if I were dead; and it's very interesting the things they talk about. ”

“ It isn't safe for Martha Cary to be too near Mrs. Pryor, for Mary never knows what she may do.
And, oh, you ought to have seen Miss Bray! She was stepsister to the Queen of Sheba. Solomon never had a wife arrayed like she was on that twenty-seventh day of June. I believe she is engaged to Doctor Rudd. I really do.
You see, after people got over teasing him about that make-believe wedding, he got to thinking about her. He's bound to know he isn't much of a man, and no young girl would have him, so lately he's been ambling 'round Miss Bray. If he can stand her, he'll do well to get her. ”

“ And a thing on your mind is worse than the toothache. One you can tell, the other you can't. A thing you can't tell is like a spook that's always behind you, and right in the bed with you when you wake up sudden, and lies down with you every time you go to sleep. I know, for that letter is on my mind.
When I got out of Miss Bray's room I ran in mine, Miss Katherine being out, and locked the door, and I said:
"Mary Martha Cary, don't ever say again there's no such things as modern miracles. There's been a miracle to-day, and you have seen it. Somebody has been born over." ”

“ He'd asked Miss Bray, and it was all right. And that's what I did. Took dinner with him at the Colonial!
I tell you, Mary Martha Cary had what you could truly call a Time. And Doctor Willwood said he never had enjoyed a morning in his life like that one. Laugh? I never heard a man laugh so hearty. Half the time I couldn't tell why. I'd be real serious, but he'd look at me and almost die laughing. I bet I said some things I oughtn't, but I don't remember, and I couldn't take them back if I did.
It's over. The wedding is over. Everything is after a while in this life, even death ”

“ But I believe that's the reason Miss Katherine don't get married. Because in her secret heart Dr. Parke Alden is still her sweetheart. I know in his secret heart she is still his. She's bound to be if she ever once was.
Glorious superbness! Wouldn't that be grand? If they were to get married she would be my really, truly Aunt! The very thought makes me so full of thrills I can't sit still when it comes over me.
Oh, Mary Martha Cary, what a beautiful place this world could be!
XII A TRUE MIRACLE
secret isn't any pleasure. ”

“ In the evening we have music and a game of cards, except on the opera nights, which we never miss; and then, with a nice warm supper at twelve o'clock, Molly, we close as pleasant a day as you could wish. Of course I can't tell you much more about the Countess, for I 'm unable to talk to her, but she and Mary Anne are never asunder; and, though Cary still plays cold and retired, she can't help calling her a lovely creature. ”

“ Mr. R. H. Cary writes from 49 Gladsmuir Road, London, N.:—
"March 31st, 1892.
"With reference to your inquiry concerning the voice which was heard at the time of the late Mrs. Victor's death, I am able to state that my son, my nephew, and myself were sitting together, and we all heard it distinctly. This occurred about fourteen years ago. The account given by my son exactly coincides with my own recollection. "R. H. CARY."
We have ascertained from the Registrar-General that Mary Victor, widow of Thomas Victor, farmer, died at Linwood, Paul, Penzance, on March 8th, 1875, from bronchitis. ”

“ How shall men ever repay the debt they owe to wifehood and motherhood? How shall civilization itself sufficiently honor the womanhood that alone has made it possible?
But while Richard Temple knew that there was never a murmur at her lot in Mary's heart any more than there was complaining upon her lips, he knew also how earnestly she longed for a better place in the world for him, how intensely ambitious she was that he should find fit opportunity and make the most of it in the way of winning that recognition at the hands of men which her loving soul knew to be his right and his due. ”

“ Miss Sudie, it is true, ran up to her room for a moment—to brush her hair I presume—before she entered the dining-room, but otherwise they both acted very much as they always did, except that Robert addressed almost the whole of his conversation during the meal to his Aunt Mary and Aunt Catherine, while Miss Sudie, sitting there behind the tea-tray, said nothing at all. After tea the older ladies sat with Robert and Sudie in the parlor, until the early bed-time prescribed for the convalescent young gentleman arrived. ”

“ I thought Carrie was not quite so handsome as she might be, when with an angry frown she dropped into her seat, hissed by a big, cross-eyed, red-haired boy, in the corner, because she happened to spell pumpkin, "p-u-n pun k-i-n kin, punkin." I do not think she ever quite forgave me for the pert, loud way in which I spelled the word correctly, for she never gave any more calicos or silks, and instead of calling me "Mollie," as she had before done, she now addressed me as "Miss Mary." ”

“ Mrs. Carey thought the journey from London to Blackstable very tiring. She seldom travelled herself, for the living was only three hundred a year, and, when her husband wanted a holiday, since there was not money for two, he went by himself. He was very fond of Church Congresses and usually managed to go up to London once a year; and once he had been to Paris for the exhibition, and two or three times to Switzerland. Mary Ann brought in the egg, and they sat down. The chair was much too low for Philip, and for a moment neither Mr. Carey nor his wife knew what to do. ”

“ I was much happier about Carrie now—she seemed brighter and in better spirits. If she loathed her daily drudgery, she said little about it, and complained less. All her interests were reserved for Nightingale lane and Rowley street. The hours spent in those unsavory neighborhoods were literally her times of refreshment. Her poor people were very close to her heart, and often she told us about them as we sat working together in the evening, until mother grew quite interested, and used to ask after them by name, which pleased Carrie, and made a bond of sympathy between them. ”

“ They were talking about their first day in Crowfield, about the visit of Katy Summers, and the funny things that had happened to their first caller; and they were all laughing merrily over Mary’s description of how Katy had looked when she went riding out toward the door in the inhospitable chair. Dr. Corliss had just reached out his hand for the sugar. Suddenly the table center began slowly to revolve, and the sugar bowl retreated from his hand as if by magic. ”

“ Drivers and nurses and doctors—these were the characters whom Cary had chosen with which to make his appeal to the laggard nation of us at home.
The Englishwoman, the Belgian mother with her little starving children, the French officer, the dying French poilu—these were the foils for the actress, torn from her stage by a message brought by one of the American ambulance men to the hospital that her brother was passing. It was her part to create the scene with which to stir the blood, hers to cry to the French officer: “Why are the Americans not here to prevent his dying? ”

“ Here was a fair young beauty, with her head up, a clear light shining in her gray eyes—a faint flush on her cheeks.
Colin Quale, meeting her, flickered his lashes and smiled: "Is this what the storm did to you?"
"What?"
"This and this." He touched his cheeks and his eyes. "To-day, if I painted you, I should have to put pink on my palette—yesterday I should have needed only black and white."
Mary smiled back at him. "Do you interpret things always through the medium of your brush?"
"Why not? Life is just that—a little color more or less, and it all depends on the hand of the artist." ”

“ It was a pretty sight, and so intent were most of the party on their occupations that they never saw the pair on the bank till Joe, the idler, started and rolled round with “Hollo!” when all turned, it may be feared with muttered growls from some of the boys; but Carey herself gave a cry of joy, ran down the bank like a girl, and greeted Mary Ogilvie with an eager embrace. ”

“ But of course Marjorie didn't understand him.
"I saved the lily for you," whispered the mischievous breeze, as she started for home. And I think she understood him, for she laughed as she pushed back her curls, as much as to say, "You needn't muss my hair all up telling me so, Mr. Breeze!"
"Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?"
"Oh, now that I have a car," she said,
"It grows twice as fast, you know." ”

“ A nice kid. He’s all fussed up about it. Mr. Cary is a regular tin god to him. You know what the rest of ’em are saying. Mr. Cary hit the beach last night and got soused. His first trip down this way, and the Cartagena rum slipped one over on him. He’ll turn up with a head on him before the ship sails. It will sure put him in wrong with the old man.”
“Who dares say these wicked things?” blazed Teresa. “Mr. Cary is not a common sailor bum. ”

“ Here were five women of one clan. She understood them all, she loved them all. She gave even to Aunt Frances her due. "They all holds their heads high," she had confided on one occasion to Roger Poole, "and Miss Frances holds hers so high that she almost bends back, but she knows how to treat the people who work for her, and she's always been mighty good to me."
Mary's mood of exaltation lasted long after her guests had departed. She found herself singing as she climbed the stairs that night to her room. And it was with this mood still upon her that she wrote to Roger Poole. ”

“ Mrs. Carey sighed as a woman but obeyed as a wife. They were about to step into the carriage when the Vicar remembered that no one had given him his egg. They knew that he must have an egg for his voice, there were two women in the house, and no one had the least regard for his comfort. Mrs. Carey scolded Mary Ann, and Mary Ann answered that she could not think of everything. She hurried away to fetch an egg, and Mrs. Carey beat it up in a glass of sherry. The Vicar swallowed it at a gulp. The communion plate was stowed in the carriage, and they set off. ”

“ She seems born to be the successful wife of a successful author. And if his last novels have not been so successful as his earlier ones, it is, I think, because Mary Carey has become so interested in actualities that she is rather spoiled as an inspirer of the "literature of escape." ”

“ Carey had a cold. Coal was expensive. Besides, Mary Ann, the maid, didn’t like fires all over the place. If they wanted all them fires they must keep a second girl. In the winter Mr. and Mrs. Carey lived in the dining-room so that one fire should do, and in the summer they could not get out of the habit, so the drawing-room was used only by Mr. Carey on Sunday afternoons for his nap. But every Saturday he had a fire in the study so that he could write his sermon.
Aunt Louisa took Philip upstairs and showed him into a tiny bed-room that looked out on the drive. ”

“ In Carrie’s eyes there was already a look of weary sadness, which said that the bitter tears were constantly welling up, while on her brow a shadow was resting, as if Sunnyside were a greater burden than she could bear. Alas, for a union without love! It seldom fails to end in misery, and thus poor Carrie found it. Her husband was proud of her, and, had she permitted, would have loved her after his fashion, but his affectionate advances were invariably repulsed, until at last he treated her with a cold politeness, far more endurable than his fawning attentions had been. ”