Miss Abbott

“ It is well to be remembered with love. It is not so very dreadful to be forgotten entirely. But if we shall resent anything on earth at all, we shall resent the consecration of a deserted room.
Miss Abbott did not sit down, partly because the antimacassars might harbour fleas, partly because she had suddenly felt faint, and was glad to cling on to the funnel of the stove. She struggled with herself, for she had need to be very calm; only if she was very calm might her behaviour be justified. She had broken faith with Philip and Harriet: she was going to try for the baby before they did. ”

“ Nancy and Peter turned to see what had so convulsed him. Up the road toward the gate were approaching three separate groups of women, all coming hurriedly, breathlessly, with a great deal of chatter and fussing with hats and gloves.
Mrs. Maria Slade, behind her blind had seen the purple and cream-colored car. So had Miss Merry, across the street; so had a dozen others from behind their entrenchments. Simultaneously, in as many hearts, the urge of curiosity conquered resentment.
"It'll only take me half a minit to slip on my green dress," Mrs. Slade had called to Miss Merry. "Wait fer me!" ”

“ Play I am your Mother!" The phrase ripped out of Drew's lips like an oath, and twitched itself just in time into explosive, husky mirth. "Play I am your Mother?" The teeniest grimace over his left shoulder outlined the soft silken swish and tug of a lady's train. A most casual tap at his belt seemed to achieve instantly the fashionable hour-glass outline of feminine curves. "Play I am your Mother!" He smiled and, stooping down, took Ruth's scared white face between his hands, and his smile was as bright—and just about as pleasant—as a zigzag of lightning from a storm-black sky. ”

“ At this the slow temper of the lad at her side flamed and though he spoke in a low voice that the other passengers might not hear, he said just what he thought. “Jane Abbott, you are the most selfish, heartless girl I have ever known. It is very hard to believe that you are an own daughter to that most wonderful woman whom we are permitted to claim as our mother. In an hour of trouble (and there were many of them in those long ago days) she was always brave and cheerful, comforting Dad and urging him above all to be true to an ideal. ”

“ Miss Abbott, don't worry over me. Some people are born not to do things. I'm one of them; I never did anything at school or at the Bar. I came out to stop Lilia's marriage, and it was too late. I came out intending to get the baby, and I shall return an 'honourable failure.' I never expect anything to happen now, and so I am never disappointed. ”

“ Herriton’s policy only appeared gradually. It was to prevent Miss Abbott interfering with the child at all costs, and if possible to prevent her at a small cost. Pride was the only solid element in her disposition. She could not bear to seem less charitable than others.
“I am planning what can be done,” she would tell people, “and that kind Caroline Abbott is helping me. It is no business of either of us, but we are getting to feel that the baby must not be left entirely to that horrible man. It would be unfair to little Irma; after all, he is her half-brother. ”

“ Miss Gray had said, putting a book into Gyp's hands. And now, in the middle of them, Miss Gray was staring out across the snowy slopes of the school grounds, not hearing one word, and blinking real tears from her pale-blue eyes!
Little Miss Gray, for years, had come and gone from Lincoln in such a mouse-like fashion that no one ever paid much attention to her; upon her changing classes, as an individual, she left scarcely any impression; as a teacher she was never cross, never exacting, gave little praise and less censure; she worked more like a noiseless, perfect machine than a human being. ”

“ Jerry laid her cheek against her mother's arm. She drew a long breath.
"The world's so wonderful, isn't it? It's dreadful to think of anyone in it, like my—father, who's set his heart so hard on just one thing that he can't see all the other things he might do! I shall never be like that! And it's dreadful"—she frowned sorrowfully out over the starlit valley—"to think of girls who haven't mothers and who can't go to school. ”

“ You can’t live in that hole; you must go among people who can hope to understand you. I mind for myself. I want to see you often—again and again.”
“Of course we shall meet whenever you come down; and I hope that it will mean often.”
“It’s not enough; it’ll only be in the old horrible way, each with a dozen relatives round us. No, Miss Abbott; it’s not good enough.” ”

“ In the looking-glass at the end of the corridor he saw his face haggard, and his shoulders pulled forward by the weight of the sling. Life was greater than he had supposed, but it was even less complete. He had seen the need for strenuous work and for righteousness. And now he saw what a very little way those things would go.
"Is Harriet going to be all right?" he asked. Miss Abbott had come back to him.
"She will soon be her old self," was the reply. For Harriet, after a short paroxysm of illness and remorse, was quickly returning to her normal state. ”

“ Pleasures come and go as quickly as these reflections of myself, she was thinking, and then she held her face up and looked intently across the stream, but not so much at the wooded slope that on that side hemmed it in, as at the curling smoke that she knew came from the fire in John Bishop's shop. "How could mother get such an idea into her head?" she said to herself, but loud enough for her brothers to hear.
"What has mother got in her head?" asked the younger of the two boys, a persistent, inquisitive lad of eleven summers.
"Nothing, dear," Ruth replied. ”

“ Every plowing step drove her heart pounding like an engine, and every lagging footfall started her scared thoughts throbbing louder than her heart. Hurry as fast as she could, stumbling over drift-hidden rocks or floundering headlong into some hollow, she could not seem to outdistance the startling, tumultuous memory of the little dressmaker's passion-glorified eyes staring scornfully down on the slowly sobering faces of the women around her. ”

“ The lad did not seem to consider it unfortunate. “Please be seated again, Miss Abbott, and I’ll occupy the door-step, if you don’t mind. I’d heaps rather meet strangers one by one. It’s easier to get acquainted.”
Then, as he thought of something, he exclaimed: “I hope I have not come over much earlier than I was expected. I hiked all the way. I thought it might be easier to come cross-lots, so to speak, than to ride horseback to Redfords and then up your mountain road.”
“Was it?” Jane asked, wishing to appear interested.
“It was great! I adore mountain climbing, don’t you, Miss Abbott?” ”

“ Herriton!” she exclaimed. “How could you believe her? Do you suppose that I would have entered that man’s house, knowing about him all that I do? I think you have very odd ideas of what is possible for a lady. I hear you wanted Harriet to go. Very properly she refused. Eighteen months ago I might have done such a thing. But I trust I have learnt how to behave by now.”
Philip began to see that there were two Miss Abbotts—the Miss Abbott who could travel alone to Monteriano, and the Miss Abbott who could not enter Gino’s house when she got there. ”

“ Ruth, each of us holds herself as the exception to everything undesirable."
"But, mother," Ruth insisted, "there is a difference. I do not concern myself with my neighbors, and why should I be singled out as the target for all their gossipy arrows? Would it not be more fitting, if I must be criticised, for the Friends to wait until I have really done something terrible, or—or—well—well, until John Bishop asks me to marry him? ”

“ Elizabeth, however, was not the only one who opposed this marriage. The Earl of Murray, Mary's brother, who had been thus far the great manager of the government under Mary, took at once a most decided stand against it. He enlisted a great number of Protestant nobles with him, and they held deliberations, in which they formed plans for resisting it by force. But Mary, who, with all her gentleness and loveliness of spirit, had, like other women, some decision and energy when an object in which the heart is concerned is at stake, had made up her mind. ”

“ The smooth, white, and delicate fingers revealed to the men at once that they were carrying away a lady in disguise. Mary, finding that concealment was no longer possible, dropped her muffler, looked upon the men with composure and dignity, told them that she was their queen, that they were bound by their allegiance to her to obey her commands, and she commanded them to go on and row her to the shore. ”

“ THE Sick-A-Bed Lady lived in a huge old-fashioned mahogany bed stead, with solid silk sheets, and three great squashy silk pillows edged with fluffy ruffles. On a table beside the Sick-A-Bed Lady was a tiny little, shiny little bell that tinkled exactly like silver raindrops on a golden roof, and all around this Lady and this Bedstead and this Bell was a big, square, shadowy room with a smutty fireplace, four small paned windows, and a chintzy wall-paper showered profusely with high-handled baskets of lavender flowers over which strange green birds hovered languidly. ”

“ He concluded that she was thinking of her reception at Sawston, whither her fame would doubtless precede her. Whatever would Mrs. Herriton do? She could make things quite unpleasant when she thought it right. She might think it right to be silent, but then there was Harriet. Who would bridle Harriet’s tongue? Between the two of them Miss Abbott was bound to have a bad time. Her reputation, both for consistency and for moral enthusiasm, would be lost for ever.
“It’s hard luck on her,” he thought. “She is a good person. I must do for her anything I can.” ”

“ Is it all right? Is it all right to you?"
"Yes," said the Young Doctor, "it's—all—right to—me." Then the Sick-A-Bed Lady turned her little face wearily away on her pillow and went back to those dreams of hers which no one could fathom.
For all the dragging weeks and months that followed she lay in her bed or groped her way round her room in a sort of timid stupor. Whenever the Young Doctor was there she clung to him desperately and seemed to find her only comfort in his presence, but when she talked to him it was babbling talk of things and places he could not understand. ”

“ But I've hurt myself worst of all. For here I am an old woman, and not a soul in the world really loves me——"
Nancy put out a protesting hand. Miss Sabrina patted it.
"I am right, my dear, I know it now. But if God will be good to me He will give me a few more years to live, so that I may make up, in a small way, for the wrong I have done—to others and to myself. Do you know, Nancy, it was you who first brought home to me the truth—that happiness comes as it is given. It was a fortunate thing for Happy House when I brought you here, dear." ”

“ He began to feel very much abused because no one was interested in him. Miss Abbott had treated him very badly, even Peterson was as cross with him as the old servant’s good manners would allow, Phil scolded him in his short dry letters, and finally had stopped writing altogether, and that bright little red-headed girl had never come to see him again. When he walked through the town he felt abused because everyone seemed to be having a better time than he. ”

“ Miss Abbott, you are coming too?”
“It is very kind of you, Mr. Herriton. In some ways I should enjoy it; but—excuse the suggestion—I don’t think we ought to go to cheap seats.”
“Good gracious me!” cried Harriet, “I should never have thought of that. As likely as not, we should have tried to save money and sat among the most awful people. One keeps on forgetting this is Italy.”
“Unfortunately I have no evening dress; and if the seats—”
“Oh, that’ll be all right,” said Philip, smiling at his timorous, scrupulous women-kind. “We’ll go as we are, and buy the best we can get. ”

“ How in the world had Mary Abbott been able to—
By three o’clock he had come to another conclusion. He wasn’t going to go away at all. He’d be hanged if he’d be chased around the earth by women. He was going to stay where he was. He was going to go in for farming. He liked the quaint old town, he liked the solid, intelligent, industrious, practical people. He liked Mr. Webster for instance, and Mrs. Webster, and Dolly, and old Mr. Pyncheon, and he quite loved that little Janey Lambert, and he liked—well, already the list had grown to a fairly respectable length for a confirmed misanthrope. ”

“ Kindly greeted by the girls' mother and smothered in kisses by the girls themselves, she made one great effort to swallow the lump that was rising in her throat and succeeded. Everywhere in the house there was sunshine, though now so gloomy out of doors, and she could have kissed the grinning slaves, Rebecca and Hagar, she was so happy. ”

“ Why?"
"I'd give my life," said the Sick-A-Bed Lady, "if there were bones in my silky pillows." She faltered a moment and then continued bravely: "Would you mind—holding me up stiff and strong for a second? There's no bottom to my bed, there's no top to my brain, and if I can't find a hard edge to something I shall topple right off the earth. So would you mind holding me like an edge for a moment—that is—if there's no lady to care? ”