Miss Barry

“ It was plain at a glance that the girl was whole-heartedly happy, and whatever incongruity lay between her and these rough mountains he began to understand that her love for Barry and the child made ample amends. As for the other two, he always thought of them in the same instant, for if the child had her eyes and her hair from her mother, she had her nature from the man. They were together constantly, on walks up the mountain, when she rode Black Bart up the steep places: on dips into the valley, when he carried her before him on the stallion. ”

“ It is at the beginning of the first verse that Miss Barry’s eye lights on the monstrosity in Sarah’s hat. Feathers and flowers are abominations in Miss Barry’s eyes when worn by the ‘common people,’ as she calls those beneath her in the social scale. How dare that impertinent girl come to church with such an immodest ornament on her head! What on earth is the world coming to? She must, she will, speak to her ”

“ And now about Barry. I know how hard it is to have him leave you, and that under all your talk of trumpets blowing and flags flying, there's the ache and the heart-break. I cannot see why such things should come to you. The rest of us probably deserve what we get. But you—I should like to think of you always as in a garden—you have the power to make things bloom. ”

“ Barry shook like a child in the clutches of its master—“Yes, Barry; misery and death, and all the tortures of the damned. It’s to save you from this, my own brother, to try and turn your heart from that foul love of money, that your sister is now speaking to you from her grave.—Oh, Barry! try and cure it. Learn to give to others, and you’ll enjoy what you have yourself.—Learn to love others, and then you’ll know what it is to be loved yourself. Try, try to soften that hard heart. Marry at once, Barry, at once, before you’re older and worse to cure; and you’ll have children, and love them ”

“ Miss Honoria Barry and her small niece lived together, with a tall and gaunt handmaiden Norman French, and a broad Yorkshire gardener. Miss Barry was the old cream of Yerbury. Here her family had lived since the Huguenot persecution, and dwindled finally to two. Louis Barry was a dissipated spendthrift. He married, and tormented his wife into an early grave, and might have worn out his sister, but Providence kindly removed him. Miss Honoria retrenched, paid off debts and mortgage by degrees, and brought up Sylvie in a quaint, refined, old-world fashion. ”

“ Barry dropped the gloves into his pocket and stood looking amusedly down the lane.
"Clever child!" he murmured. "Bright, quick-witted little girl! And now—I'll go back and give you your gloves."
Instead, however, he stood staring absently down the alley. He knew just what would happen when Pauline found that he had heeded only the letter of her request. The wistful, childish look of grieved wonder would widen her eyes for a moment, her lip would tremble ever so slightly, and then she would laugh and begin talking of something else. ”

“ Barry was otherwise remarkable, she had "a modest gaiety in her manners and address;" and though in Belvidera, Lady Randolph, Rutland, Euphrasia, Monimia, and Desdemona, she defied rivalry, she really preferred to act Lady Townley, Beatrice, the Widow Brady, Rosalind, and Biddy Tipkin. She acted tragedy, to gratify the house; comedy, to please herself; and she had a supreme indifference for the patronage of Ladies of Quality if she could only win the plaudits of the public at large. ”

“ Barry did not exert himself at first. He wanted to test the stranger's cleverness, so he confined himself to entering one door of a department store or hotel, and hastily departing by another; leaping on a surface car just as it was starting, only to alight as swiftly a few blocks farther on, and take one going in the opposite direction.
These, and half a dozen other tricks of a like nature, he tried, only to end up at Fourteenth Street and Sixth Avenue with the blond fellow sticking to him like a leech.
"He's no slouch," Barry reflected, as he turned slowly eastward. ”

“ Barry is simply a man who is closer akin to the brute forces in nature. See! By the eternal heavens, he's dragging that beast—that dumb beast—back from the door of death!"
Barry had ceased his rapid manipulations, and turned the big dog back upon its side. Now the eyes of Black Bart opened, and winked shut again. Now the master kneeled at the head of the beast and took the scarred, shaggy head between his hands.
"Bart!" he commanded.
Not a stir in the long, black body. The stallion edged a pace closer, dropped his velvet muzzle, and whinnied softly at the very ear of the dog. ”

“ For a moment the Imp of Mischief prompted Little to perilous speech. He caught Barry's glittering eye in time and merely replied: "Aye, aye, sir. Don't forget what you told me: with man, woman, or missionary, keep your gun butt handy. That bush looks shivery. Be good and look after yourself."
He swung off down the wharf path, and Barry stepped into the side trail. The sailor had not covered twenty feet, shivering involuntarily at the uncanny hush of the jungle, when he heard a faint rustling behind him. ”

“ So Barry blushingly paid the guinea, and began to buy little things to make the rooms beautiful—a bamboo basket for flowers—a Sheffield tray—a quaint tea-caddy—an antique footstool for Leila's little feet.
Yet there were moments in the midst of his elation when some chill breath of fear touched him, and it was in one of these moods that he wrote out of his heart to his little bride.
"Sometimes, when I think of you, sweetheart, I realize how little there is in me which is deserving of that which you are giving me. When your letters come, I read them and think and think about them. ”

“ If any performer was ever born for one particular part, Barry was for Othello. There is a length of periods, and an extravagance of passion in this part, not to be found in any other for so many successive scenes, to which Barry appeared peculiarly suitable: with equal happiness he exhibited the hero, the lover, and the distracted husband. He rose, through all the passions, to the utmost extent of critical imagination, yet still appeared to leave an unexhausted fund of expression behind. ”

“ A feeling that expected nothing, that asked nothing, that hoped for nothing but the steady happiness of being near her. To be in sight, in sound, in touch, that was all, that was enough. The sea in calmer mood gives no suggestion of potential storms. Barry's love was the acme of self-abnegation. If he had ever reached the covetous point he would have realized that she was not for him. He never did.
He loved her with a love beside which even his devotion to the old admiral, the passionate affection he bore for the old ship, were trifles. The girl had grown into his heart. ”

“ Of all her living beauty, living frailty, and living intelligence, there remains but this presentment.
It was customary to compare Mrs. Barry with French actresses; but it seems to me that the only French actress with whom Mrs. Barry may be safely compared is Mademoiselle, or, as she was called with glorious distinction, "the Champmeslé." This French lady was the original Hermione, Berenice, Monimia, and Phædra. These were written expressly for her by Racine, who trained her exactly as Rochester did Elizabeth Barry,—to some glory on the stage, and to some infamy off it. ”

“ No pictures crowded his brain. He was simply keyed to a high point of expectancy, and therefore, when the door was opened silently, he sprang up as if in acknowledgment of an alarm and faced Barry. The latter closed the door behind him and glided after the big dog. He had almost crossed the big room when Byrne was able to speak.
"Mr. Barry!" he called.
The man hesitated.
"Mr. Barry," he repeated.
And Dan Barry turned. It was something like the act of the wolf the moment before; a swift movement—a flash of the eyes in something like defiance.
"Mr. Barry, are you leaving us?" ”

“ Even Barry, and Barry hated the idea at first of our having a lodger. But he likes you."
"And I like Barry," he said. "He is youth—incarnate."
"He's a dear," she agreed. Then a shadow came into her eyes. "But he's such a boy, and—and he's spoiled. Everybody's too good to him. Mother was—and father, though father tried not to be. And Leila is, and Constance—and Aunt Isabelle excuses him, and even Susan Jenks." ”

“ Only by refusing to attach an undue value to the significance of what he had said could she arrest the dangerous trend of the conversation and bring it to a safer level.
She sat down slowly, re-arranging the simple tray with ostentatious care.
“You didn't force me to marry you, Barry,” she said quietly. “I knew what I was doing, I realised the difficulties that might arise. But you have nothing to reproach yourself with. You have been kind and considerate in everything. I am enormously grateful to you—and I am very content with my life. Please believe that. ”

“ Porter. "Anyway, Miss Barry," she added, stopping the machine and looking up, "I fancy we are more interested in Linda than in any one else just now. Aren't we?"
"Well, of course, we are," acknowledged Miss Barry grudgingly, realizing whither the admission tended.
"To provide her with a wholesome interest is no small matter."
Miss Barry sniffed. "I don't know how wholesome it is. Blanche Aurora's as insubordinate a young one as ever lived. I'd hate to have her think any more of herself than she does already. All these expensive clothes now, and then next winter, nothing. ”

“ Let the duty be performed by younger hands. Come, then, if you will allow me."
Barry stood silent during this little colloquy. His face, when Emily glanced at it, was as impassive as if he had been a stone image. He was putting great constraint upon himself, determined not to betray his feeling. If she could choose Revere, the acquaintance of a moment, and disregard him, the servant of years, let her do so. He would see. Not by word or look would he try to influence her. If he had ever heard of the Spartan with the wolf at his vitals, he would have realized what the story meant then. ”

“ Bang! bang! bang! Three times he flung himself against something as immovable as rock. Bang! bang! The wooden covering creaked ominously, but scarcely gave at all, and Barry groaned inwardly at the sudden recollection of the ice and snow which must be spread over it, sealing it most effectually.
Scrambling up another step, he placed his shoulders against the boards and heaved strenuously. As he struggled in desperation he heard his pursuers reach the hall below, and a hand rattled the knob of the closet door. ”

“ Barry," said Mrs. Peyton, sitting back in her chair for the first time and moving her white hands in a pretty gesture of relief, "what do you make of it all?"
Barry, examining the feeble handwriting beneath a reading-glass, discerned what appeared to be a startling solution of the mystery; but, deeming it best for the moment to say nothing of this, he offered an obvious answer to her question:
"From what you have told me, Mrs. Peyton, it would seem that an unknown person, concealed in your house, is bent on frightening you away." ”

“ Madame du Barry, all powerful as she was, never dreamt of combating his influence; his name, his position, his wit raised him above attack. During mass the King's thoughts often wandered to the tempest this new escapade of Madame du Barry's would raise, if it were to reach the Dauphin's ears. That Prince had indeed only the day before spoken his mind pretty freely to the Countess, who in spite of his wishes had pushed her nephew the Vicomte du Barry into an equerry's post in his household. ”

“ But to-night, although he hears the music, Captain Barry will not come in. He stands on the porch, peering through the blinds. Unskilled as he is in the reading of character, unaccustomed to the observation of faces, there is no mistaking, even in the sailor's mind, the look in the eyes of Revere.
The young man sits opposite Emily, listening to her, watching her, drinking in the sweetness of the melody and the beauty of her face ”

“ This woman is nothing to me and I am nothing to her but a friend. The ship is hers, and I am her servant, pledged to her service—that is all."
Velo shook his head. "Thou art more than a servant to her; thou art her toa (champion) , and we all have said from the first that she and thee would wed."
Again Barry laughed amusedly. "Thou wouldst marry me to her against my own will, Velo."
"She is beautiful, and a widow, and a fitting mate for a strong man like thee," replied Velo energetically. "I have seen many white women, but none so good to look upon as her. And she is a widow." ”

“ Barry said. “I make my confession, I give myself up—now let the law—if such a thing exists—take its course. And there’s that letter. You know I wrote it, Pollard. You know I must have written it. There’s no other possible theory. You know I left you about six—or a little before. You know I’ve no alibi—and there was time enough for me to go down to the Gleason place and get back for the dinner party.” ”

“ Mrs. Barry's ability and her strength of voice in expressing the passions led to the full development of the rant, which was the test of the dramatic actress as the aria is the test of the opera singer. Ordinarily in a tragedy, there were two: one, the melodious expression of unattainable love in the first part of the play, and the second in the death scene, usually of raving madness. In The Royal Mischief, there are at least six major rants, each more powerful and surprising than the one preceding it. If Mrs. Barry's ability was ever tested, it was with Mrs. Manley's Homais. ”