Miss Frost

“ Why a something in mourning, called 'Miss Frost,' should still connect itself with our preparatory school, we are unable to say. We retain no impression of the beauty of Miss Frost - if she were beautiful; or of the mental fascinations of Miss Frost - if she were accomplished; yet her name and her black dress hold an enduring place in our remembrance. An equally impersonal boy, whose name has long since shaped itself unalterably into 'Master Mawls,' is not to be dislodged from our brain. ”

“ Yet there they were, laughing and chatting, with a running insinuating sound through it all which made Miss Frost pace up and down unable to bear herself.
The man was always running in when Miss Frost was out. He contrived to meet Alvina in the evening, to take a walk with her. He went a long walk with her one night, and wanted to make love to her. But her upbringing was too strong for her.
“Oh no,” she said. “We are only friends.”
He knew her upbringing was too strong for him also.
“We’re more than friends,” he said. “We’re more than friends.” ”

“ Black-purple and red anemones were due, real Adonis blood, and strange individual orchids, spotted and fantastic. Time for Miss Frost to die. She, Alvina, who loved her as no one else would ever love her, with that love which goes to the core of the universe, knew that it was time for her darling to be folded, oh, so gently and softly, into immortality. Mortality was busy with the day after her day. ”

“ I mean to do everything for little Agnes in the future—that is, if I am not bullied. If I am, I——What is it, Rosamund?"
"Dear Irene, I quite know what you feel. It is the first time you have found some one absolutely to trust you. Little Agnes trusts you; but you ought to remember that she is Miss Frost's little sister. You ought not to hurt her feelings. You ought to let Miss Frost do something for her, too. If you had been supporting somebody very precious and very dear for a great many years, and then quite a fresh person came along and took that treasure from you, how would you feel?" ”

“ Miss Frost wept in anguish, and saw nothing but another woman betrayed to sorrow and a slow death. Sorrow and a slow death, because a man had married her. Miss Frost wept also for herself, for her own sorrow and slow death. Sorrow and slow death, because a man had not married her. Wretched man, what is he to do with these exigeant and never-to-be-satisfied women? ”

“ And having collected what she considered her peace-offering, she sat down on a little wooden bench to wait for Rosamund and her governess.
Meanwhile Rosamund was having a talk with Miss Frost.
"Do you know where we are going to-day?" she asked.
"No," replied Miss Frost.
"Well, you have got to do exactly what I wish. I am most anxious that Irene should have other friends besides me."
"Oh, she will never, never under any circumstances have a friend in the very least like you," said Miss Frost. "You have made her! You have saved her! You are her idol! I am sure we all love you most dearly ”

“ The very first thing you have got to do is to beg Miss Frost's pardon."
"I beg Frosty's pardon! But she is in bed. She says they are running up and down inside her."
"You know you were exceedingly cruel. It was a very low sort of trick to play. I can understand a girl being wild and doing all sorts of things that perhaps she ought not to do, and even neglecting her lessons; but to terrify a poor, harmless governess! And you have terrified more than one. You'll have to drop that sort of thing now, Irene."
"It strikes me you are a poor sort after all," said Irene, gazing at Rosamund attentively. ”

“ Alvina inherited the few simple trinkets, and about forty-five pounds in money.
“Poor Miss Frost,” cried Mrs. Lawson, weeping rather bitterly—“she saved nothing for herself. You can see why she never wanted to grow old, so that she couldn’t work. You can see. It’s a shame, it’s a shame, one of the best women that ever trod earth.”
Manchester House settled down to its deeper silence, its darker gloom. Miss Frost was irreparably gone. With her, the reality went out of the house. It seemed to be silently waiting to disappear. And Alvina and Miss Pinnegar might move about and talk in vain. ”

“ It was time for Miss Frost to die. As Alvina sat motionless in the train, running from Woodhouse to Tibshelf, it decided itself in her.
She was glad to be back in Islington, among all the horrors of her confinement cases. The doctors she knew hailed her. On the whole, these young men had not any too deep respect for the nurses as a whole. Why drag in respect? Human functions were too obviously established to make any great fuss about. And so the doctors put their arms round Alvina’s waist, because she was plump, and they kissed her face, because the skin was soft. ”

“ Miss Frost did not speak. They both entered the governess-cart, and Irene, making a cracking noise with the whip, as she had learned from one of the grooms, started off at a break-neck speed down the somewhat steep avenue. Poor Miss Frost felt inclined to cry out, but Rosamund took one of her hands and pressed it.
After a minute Rosamund's hand was lightly laid on Irene's arm.
"Irene, pull Bob in; he is going much too fast for safety. You don't want his knees to be broken, and we don't want to be tossed out of the cart. Do what I wish you to do instantly." ”

“ Don't let Miss Frost become too jealous, for she is devoted to her little sister."
"Well, I hate the boy," said Irene. "He was so rude when we came off the lake, and he whistled in such a defiant way. He isn't one bit a gentleman. Little Agnes told me that he was going to be a sort of tradesman. We oughtn't to have those people coming to the house. You shouldn't have insisted on my inviting them; you really shouldn't, Rosamund." ”

“ Nobody wants her. And she’s got no relations to go to either, has she? No, that’s her father’s cousin who she’s walking with. Look, they’re coming. He’s a fine-looking man, isn’t he? You’d have thought they’d have buried Miss Frost beside Mrs. Houghton. You would, wouldn’t you? I should think Alvina will lie by Miss Frost. They say the grave was made for both of them. Ay, she was a lot more of a mother to her than her own mother. She was good to them, Miss Frost was. Alvina thought the world of her. ”

“ Miss Frost, it is for you to say."
My heart leaped to this as a speckled trout snaps at a fly. Nothing so near a proposal had ever reached me before. But a New England woman is modest; she does not snatch at the first offer—far from it. I pretended not to understand the badly hidden meaning of his metaphor. A little art of this kind is feminine and excusable, even in a young girl dignified with Society membership and a mission. ”

“ If I am so beautiful I ought to be with beautiful people, like you, Rosamund; for, now I come to look at you, you are very beautiful."
"It is by no means necessary that you should be with beautiful people; but you should give pleasure to people who are not beautiful, because they would like to look at you, and hear your voice, and be refreshed by your kind actions."
"Good gracious me! Kind actions!" said Irene.
"In future I believe they will be kind. Now, please understand you have been exceedingly cruel to Miss Frost." ”

“ Frost was silent. "No, I have never spoken to you or to Nancy of her early history, Dan; simply because, to all intent she has been our own. I have always wished that she should feel absolutely one with us; and I think she always has, until this winter. But of late I have noticed her discontent, her growing restlessness, and I have sometimes wondered if she could be brooding over the mystery of her early years. ”

“ Her hand is on the plough—they spell it plow here, which takes away half the strength of that agricultural word—on the plough, is she, a female, to turn back because rocks and roots choke up the furrow? Not if Miss Frost knows anything of herself!
Speaking of female modesty, between my little cousin and that marble girl, the poor naked creature seemed to have the most of it. She did scrouch down and try to hide herself behind herself, as if she was ashamed that the man who made her had forgot to cover her up a little. But the live girl did not seem to feel for her a mite ”

“ By the eternal powers, my wife would not stoop so low as this model indicates. I must have proof.”
“Then, sir, you shall!” and Frost’s eyes flashed a lightning glance of triumph.
“Gentlemen, I do not like to bring you into this little unpleasantness, but what do you know of this?”
“We know that Mrs. Milburn has often been to the studio, and we, moreover, have seen her when you were at work on the picture. But the man surely knows his own wife; this is a speaking likeness.” ”

“ But neither Miss Frost, nor the doctor, nor any one else could ease the terrors which had laid hold of the brain of little Agnes. She believed Miss Frost to be a sort of magnified Irene. The very name of Irene was enough to set her screaming again. She called Irene a fairy, a changeling, and nothing could soothe her or comfort her.
At last one day the doctor spoke to Mrs. Merriman.
"The case is quite a serious one," he said. "I cannot imagine what has happened to the child. You ought to find out who put that hedgehog in her bed. Hedgehogs are quite harmless in their way ”

“ In the morning the old woman said to her husband, "Drive off now to the forest, and wake the young couple."
The old man wept when he thought of his little daughter, for he was sure that he would find her dead. He harnessed the mare, and drove off through the snow. He came to the tree, and heard his little daughter singing merrily, while Frost crackled and laughed. There she was, alive and warm, with a good fur cloak about her shoulders, a rich veil, costly blankets round her feet, and a box full of splendid presents. ”

“ One couldn't live without them. I don't think there is anything quite so larky as frightening people."
"Now, once for all, Irene, if that is your idea of life, I will write at once to mother and tell her I am coming home."
"No, you won't. I won't let you. I love you. I will try to be a little bit good just to please you. I will say something to Frosty at tea-time. Oh! don't ask me any more."
Irene's queer eyes filled suddenly with tears. Rosamund saw that she was touched.
"Run away and do what you like. I don't want to be long with Miss Frost ”

“ A new beauty had come into her face and slender form, her great dark eyes seemed to hold deeper interests, she was no longer in the world of childhood. The mystery enveloping her origin, which for some reason Mrs. Frost had never chosen to dispel, gave a certain piquancy to the interest and affection Tom felt for her. In the imaginative tales he had been fond of weaving for his own amusement, Nancy would frequently figure, revealed at last as the child of noble parents, as a princess doomed by some strange fate to exile. ”

“ Frost's parlour, and, awkwardly enough, did what could be done for her by men. It was over an hour before they succeeded in restoring her to consciousness, and when they did so, she awoke to delirium and fever. Distracted by anxiety and by their helplessness, at the first streak of dawn, Dan started for town to get a doctor, and Ezra Manners volunteered to go to the Red Farm and bring back Mrs. Frost, Nancy, and the maids. ”

“ Look at one more side of my ball, as it turns around. Jack Frost must have spent all his longest winter nights here, for see what a palace of ice he has built for himself. Brave men have gone to those lonely places, to come back and tell us about them; and, alas! some heroes have not returned, but have lain down there to perish of cold and hunger. Doesn't it look cold, the clear blue ice, almost as blue as the air? And look at the snow, drifts upon drifts, and the air filled with feathery flakes even now. ”

“ Now, I can drink or let it alone.”
“I detest a drunkard,” said Frost, laconically.
“But somebody’s father, brother, or husband, might be strong in all other points and weak in that one,” Cherokee spoke, just a trifle severely.
“And woman has the brunt of it to bear,” said Marrion.
“I hold that we are nearer true happiness when we demand too little from men than when we expect too much,” was Frost’s retort.
Here Robert turned to Marrion:
“I see, from your play, that you believe in an equal standard of morals. You propose to be as lenient with women as with men.” ”

“ But advanced with her as she crossed the grass.
“What do you want?” she cried to all the dark.
She stretched up tall to overlook the light
That hung in both hands hot against her skirt.
“There’s no one; so you’re wrong,” he said. ”

“ Forgive me if I talk plainly, but a woman can defend her virtue easier than her reputation. Frost is publicly over-fond of you. He names your beauty to low men at clubs, and that is calculated to injure you.”
“Yes, I wish he lived in another part of the world. He has done me more harm than everybody else in it.”
Then they talked of other things.
“How glad I am that you will pose for the Athlete. Robert will surely win now, for I don’t think you have a counterpart presentment on earth,” she declared. ”

“ Who are we, any of us, that we should be hard on others?”
“Judge gently,” she replied.
“I hope I always do that.”
“If I only dared tell her now,” said Frost to himself, “but it’s not my affair.”
He saw the feminine droop of her head, and the dainty curve of her beautiful arm.
“She is about to weep,” he muttered.
Miss Baxter, who had been amusing herself with other revelers, turned to interrupt: “Mr. Frost, you haven’t given him dead away?”
This, so recklessly spoken, only added to Cherokee’s discomfort. A flush rose to her cheek. ”