Miss Chester

“ Chester thought not. "No, centre the interest in the runaway family, as in mademoiselle's 'Clock in the Sky.'" And so all agreed.
A second time he walked home with mademoiselle, under the same lenient escort as before. One thus occupied, by moonlight, can moralize as he cannot with any larger number. "It's hard enough at best," he said, "for us, in our pride of race, to sympathize--seriously--in the joys, the hopes, the sufferings of souls under dark skins yet as human as ours if not as white."
"Yes, 'tis true. Only one man, Mr. Chester, I ever knew, myself, who did that." ”

“ Chester conquered the repugnance, that spite of herself arose in her heart, at the thought of chilling the lips yet warm from the rosy mouth of her child, by contact with anything less dear, and bending down, she pressed a tremulous kiss upon the uplifted forehead of the little stranger.
Mary drew an uneven breath; an expression of exquisite content spread over her face, and giving her hand to Mrs. Chester, she allowed herself to be lead toward the pretty couch, made up so temptingly in a corner of the outer room. ”

“ Chester, who lies asleep by the side of Sally and her baby-treasure. There is no light in the room, there is no moon in the sky. With trembling fingers, the man in the street plays upon the keys of his instrument, and pauses in the middle of a note, and shakes as though an ague were on him. ”

“ Chester passed in where the minister sat in an arm chair, propped up with pillows, signs of Lucy's tender care. As Chester entered, the man smiled and reached out his hand. The resentment in the young man's heart vanished, when he saw the yearning in the suffering man's face. Yet he stood for some time rooted to the spot, looking at the man who was no doubt his father. Every line of that face stood out boldly to Chester. How often, in his boyhood days he had pictured to himself what his father was like—and here he was before him. ”

“ Chester. "She is rather exclusive, most likely. The wife of a man who has made so much noise in the world may look down upon us."
Lady Ellis raised her black eyebrows and had a great mind to tell Mrs. Chester to speak for herself; she was not accustomed to be looked down upon.
"Does the wife wear a threadbare gown?" she asked, having heard the description of the professor's coats.
"Very likely," said Mrs. Chester. "She need not, you know; they are rich."
"Rich, are they?"
"Very rich--now. In early life they had to pinch and screw, and live without a servant. Dr. Macpherson told us about it." ”

“ Intensely cold as the night was, Chester could not resist that exquisite sense of the beautiful, which objects so novel and picturesque were sure to excite in his imaginative mind. There was something so purely ideal in those massive branches, stripped of leaves and laden down with crystalline spray, while the wind swayed them heavily about, and the moonlight flooded them through and through, that even a duller man than Chester must have paused to admire. ”

“ This happiness is softer and more enraptured as with jaunty step and purple mantle, in satin and silk, and rigged up as cavalier to meet his lady love, Chester steps out of his boat on the dyke about half a mile west of Sandvliet, where there is a pretty landing-stage and ornamental steps running down to the water for lady’s use and a charming walk shaded by poplars leading up to the exquisite chateau built by my lord of Alva for his daughter’s summering. ”

“ He explained that he wanted to consult as to methods of concealing from Miss Frayn the nature of the suit.
"Am I to understand," said I, "that she does not know that the relief sought is her expulsion from the school?"
"Of course she don't!" replied Chester. "Do you think I'd let her know? She thinks everybody loves her. Nobody ever dared tell her anything else, either here or down where she was raised. The boys down there always were in love with her. She don't see anything strange in it—and there isn't." ”

“ You’d never guess with whom she’s driving! Edward E. Allison! He’s the richest bachelor in New York!”
Mrs. Helen Davies turned to her anxious sister with a sparkle in her black eyes.
“It’s all right, Grace,” and then she turned eagerly to the phone. “Did he come in?”
“They were in too big a rush,” jabbered Lucile excitedly. “He doesn’t look old at all. Arly and I watched them drive away. They seemed to be great chums. Gail got him at Uncle Jim’s vestry. Doesn’t she look stunning in red!”
“Where is she?” interrupted Mrs. Sargent, holding her thumb.
“Out driving,” reported sister Helen. ”

“ As Chester went quickly back to his room, instead of feeling refreshed after his bath, he again experienced the disagreeable sensation that he was not alone. This time he felt as if he were being accompanied by an invisible presence. It was a very extraordinary and a most unpleasant feeling, one which Chester had never experienced before, and it made him afraid—afraid he knew not of what.
Being the manner of man he was, he began to think that he must be ill—that there must be something the matter with his nerves. ”

“ So Sir Guy Chester, coming with his bride to court, Hermoine, by the graces of her mind, which are enchanting, and by her beauty, which is grand and winning, sends Shene and Westminster wild with admiration.
Looking on this, Queen Bess remarks sadly: “Good fortune has made this Chester a carpet knight; he now eats with that Italian abomination called a fork. Still, he has an eye for treasure; his lady’s diamonds are finer than my own. Perchance he may make a good Lord of the Treasury, for he’ll do no more fighting—unless he is a fool.” ”

“ Later on he would gradually work his way out West, where there was more room for an ambitious small boy to expand and grow. Chester dreamed some dazzling dreams as he sat there on the bench under the Belltown chestnuts. Passers-by, if they noticed him at all, saw merely a rather small, poorly clad boy, with a great many freckles, a square jaw and shrewd, level-gazing grey eyes. But this same lad was mapping out a very brilliant future for himself as people passed him heedlessly by. ”

“ And Duggie stopped me with,—
"But if it had n't been Berri and I, it would have been someone else—which we're very glad it was n't."
Old Mrs. Chester is a jewel. I didn't pay much attention to her at first, but was just glad to know she was in the room. Later, however, when I began to want to get up and she devoted the whole of her marvellous art to keeping me amused, I appreciated her. She is wonderful. I was going to assert that she inspires the kind of affection one can't help feeling for a person who is all heart and no intelligence ”

“ I am forbidden to climb stairs, but I couldn't find you on the lower deck."
"Did you wish to see me?" asked Chester.
"Yes; I—you'll not think me over bold, will you, but I had to find you—won't you sit down here—I can't talk very loudly tonight."
Chester drew a chair close to hers. A light wrap clung about her and the moonlight streamed on head and face. The young man, in the most matter-of-course-way adjusted the wrap to the girl's shoulders as he said:
"You are not well, tonight." ”

“ Chester, who could not forget the upsetting of her plans.
"Of course we were very sorry," spoke Mary Jupp. "It is so tiresome to put back one's dinner after it is at the fire. I should have been more cross than you, Mrs. Chester."
"What with one thing and another, I have been cross enough today," confessed Mrs. Chester, giving a jerk to her widow's cap, which never kept on two minutes together, wanting strings. "First of all, this morning, came Lady Ellis's letter to upset me, and with nothing ready for her!" ”

“ If there were such kind folks as this in the world, why, he would get along all right. The rosy lady's smiles and taffy—the smiles much more than the taffy—went far to thaw out of him a certain hardness and resentfulness against people in general that Aunt Harriet's harsh treatment had instilled into him. Chester instantly made a resolve that when he grew stout and rosy and prosperous he would dispense smiles and taffy and good cheer generally to all forlorn small boys on boats and trains. ”

“ He came down like an immense frog, with outstretched arms and legs, sublime. But like anything else than a frog he began to scramble and gasp, and flounder in the puddle.
Chester dashed to the spot, dismounted, and helped him out.
To describe the ludicrous appearance of the strangling, drenched, muddy, hatless equestrian, or the effect it had upon the convulsed spectators, would be superfluous. With the exception of Chester, only Miss Sedley, a young lady of the finest feelings, and Sarah, whose conscience upbraided her for the mischief she had done, were at all able to control their mirth. ”

“ What passed between you and papa last evening? Is it—have you ceased to love me?"
"No, no, Lucy, not that. I love you as much as ever, more than ever for something has been added to my first love—that of a love for a sister."
"Yes, Chester I know. When I was baptized—"
"No; you don't know. I don't mean that."
"What do you mean?"
Oh, it was so hard to go on. One truth must lead to another. If he told her he was her brother in the flesh as well as in the spirit, she would want to know how, why; and the explanation would involve her father. ”

“ The acting did nothing to dispel the growing uneasiness. Sir Chester himself, apparently oppressed by the weightiness of the occasion and the responsibility of offering an unfamiliar brand of goods to his public, had dropped his customary debonair method of delivering lines and was mouthing his speeches. It was good gargling, but bad elocution. And, for some reason best known to himself, he had entrusted the rôle of the heroine to a doll-like damsel with a lisp, of whom the audience disapproved sternly from her initial entrance. ”

“ Not so very flying; for the young ladies took off their bonnets and made themselves comfortable for an hour or two. Mrs. Chester--craftily foreseeing what valuable allies these would prove--melted into tears again, and renewed her request to Mrs. Lake. Abandoning pride and its reticence, she openly explained what a boon to her, poor distressed woman, it was that she was craving for, and avowed her poverty, and the terms on which Lady Ellis had come to her. The Miss Jupps had known all about it before, as Mrs. Chester knew, but she took advantage of the situation. ”

“ I let him borrow money of me—I permitted his familiarities and his vulgarity as long as I could endure it—I listened to all his schemes. Why, Chester, d'you know, he is trying to destroy me, and make her take my place permanently? He hasn't a scruple! He's after my money, and, worst of all, after me! It's incredible. Oh, if you can't outwit him, I'm lost!"
"There's only one sure way, now, to foil him, Joy. You must marry me this afternoon!" ”

“ For sensations of this kind Chester is a "hede and chefe cyte." Simply to walk its streets is to step to time and tune of ballads; the very air about one's ears goes lilting with them; the walls ring; the gates echo; choruses rollic round corners,—ballads, always ballads, or, if not a ballad, a play, none the less lively,—a play with pageants and delightful racket. ”

“ Captain Brown and Chester Lawrence stood by the railing and watched the boat lowered. Then when they knew it was safely riding the waves, they turned to each other.
"Where is your life-belt?" asked the Captain. "Get it, and put it on."
"Is there a chance?"
"There is always a chance. Come. We shall go together, one way or another—the way God wills."
They walked along the slanting deck down to where Lucy lay on the couch in the smoking room. Chester did not notice the life-belt on the table, but he lifted a lantern to Lucy's face, kneeled by it, and kissed it tenderly. ”

“ You never in your life saw a finer-looking fellow than Chester was that night as he kissed his wife, gave the beautiful Isabel a toss in the air, and patted little Mary on the head, all in the same minute. ”

“ The night of the toboggan party, when she had stood with her face upturned, and the moonlight gleaming on her round white throat. He had trembled, much to his later sorrow, as he fastened the scarf about her warm neck. However, she was the visiting niece of one of his vestrymen, who lived next door to the rectory. She was particularly charming in this outfit of brown, which enhanced so much her rich tints. ”

“ On the corresponding estuary of the Mersey stands Birkenhead, the bustling modern port of Cheshire; but it was at Chester that Milton's college mate had embarked for another haven than the one he reached.
Chester itself is to many an American tourist the old-world city first seen and best remembered. Liverpool and Birkenhead are of to-day, but Chester, walled, turreted, with its arched gateways, its timber-and-plaster houses, its gables and lattices, its quaint Rows, its cathedral, is the mediæval made actual. ”

“ Chester flushed.
"By Jove!" he said. "You're the limit. Can't a fellow look at a pretty girl without drawing some such remark from you?"
"But I know you so well," laughed Hal.
"Rats!" Chester ejaculated.
At that moment two young German officers entered the room and strode toward the table where mother and daughter—as Chester had surmised the two to be—sat. They stopped suddenly, noticing apparently for the first time that the table was occupied.
"Himmel!" one exclaimed. "Conditions are pretty bad when a man cannot find a seat at his own table." ”