Miss Henderson

“ I was watching her, and I don't think she cares about him."
"I saw you watching her," said Val, "and so did she, and I don't think she liked it. I saw those black brows of hers contract once or twice, and that is an ominous sign with Miss Henderson."
"Miss Henderson could fly into a dickens of a passion, too, if she liked. Your black-eyed, black-haired, brown-skinned women raise the very old diable herself, if you stroke them the wrong way. They are something like big black cats. I tell you, Blake, I don't believe she cares about that military popinjay, Cavendish." ”

“ Marsh one hundred pounds a year annuity, as long as she lives. Her daughter should have had it all, Harriet, and neither you nor I; and the least you can do, in justice, is to provide for her. You will do this?"
"Yes—yes," Miss Henderson cried; "that is not much to do! I want to do more. I want you to share with me, Olly."
"No," said Miss Rose, "you may keep it all. I have as much as I want, and I am very well contented. I have no desire for wealth. ”

“ No man of all those who sought Miss Henderson's favor had the godlike grace of Miles Dawson, combined with the strong intellectuality of Henry Webster, with the added virtues of wealth and amiability, steadfastness of purpose, and all that. It seemed sometimes to Miss Flora Henderson, as it had often seemed to Mr. Augustus Richards, that the standard set was too high, and that an all-wise Providence was no longer sending the perfect being of the ideal into the world, if, indeed, He had ever done so. ”

“ What do you intend to do with Henderson? She is not your sister—she has no pity for your weakness and folly, and she does not recollect being one of two children walking about a great garden with their arms round one another’s neck, and talking innocently of love and marriage, but vowing to one another never to be separated—she is enraged with you, and at all events she has her own battle to fight. ”

“ Val Blake heard it, and grinned as he thought of the egotistical young author getting baffled for once. Miss Henderson's innumerable admirers heard it, and gnashed their teeth with impotent, jealous fury, and, lastly, Miss Henderson herself heard it, and frowned and laughed alternately.
"This horrid gossiping town of yours, Laura!" she said impatiently; "how do they find out everything as soon as one knows it one's self, I wonder! I wish people would mind their own business and let me alone!"
"Great people must pay the penalty of greatness, my dear," Miss Blair answered, philosophically ”

“ Henderson, every woman that is a woman, feels this in the depths of her heart, and it is this feeling suppressed that is at the bottom of a great deal of unhappiness in woman's life. You men have your chance to express it—that is your great good fortune. You are called to be heroes—your hour comes—but we are buried under eternal common-places and trifles."
"Yet, Miss Eva," said I, "I don't think we are so very much better off than you. The life of the great body of men is a succession of mere ignoble drudgeries, with nothing great or inspiring. ”

“ And if there are men so worldly as not to be attracted to unworldliness in a woman, Henderson was not one of them. If his heart had not dictated, his brain would have told him the value of the sympathy of a good woman. ”

“ There went abroad, therefore, an impression of her amiability, her fabulous wealth in jewels and apparel, her graciousness and her cleverness and her domesticity. Her manners seemed to the reporters those of a “lady,” and of this both her wit and freedom from prudishness and her courteous treatment of them convinced them. And the best of all this was that while it was said that Henderson was one of the boldest and shrewdest of operators, and a man to be feared in the Street, he was in his family relations one of the most generous and kind-hearted of men. ”

“ An extraordinary suppressed energy was visible in every line of John Henderson's body as he sat crouching over the fire; and a look of irrepressible excitement smoldered in the eyes that gazed into the glowing coals. He was barely twenty-three years old, but the self-control that comes from endurance and privation sat unmistakably on his knitted brows and closed lips. He was neither handsome of feature nor graceful of figure, yet there was something more striking and interesting than either grace or beauty [Pg 4] in the strong, youthful form and the strong, intelligent face. ”

“ Glory McWhirk sat in Miss Henderson's corner pew, and drank it in, as a soul athirst.
A man of middle age, one might have said, at first sight—there was, here and there, a silver gleam in the dark hair and beard ”

“ With a spring, lithe and quick as a cat, Dave Henderson was through the window, and the dark form was wriggling and squirming in his grasp, and a low cry came—and Dave Henderson swore sharply under his breath.
It was a woman! A woman! Well, that didn't matter! One hundred thousand dollars was gone from his dress-suit case, and this woman was crawling to the fire escape from the next room at three o'clock in the morning—that was what mattered! ”

“ Miss Henderson's so long unsuspected, and apparently brief illness, her sudden death, and the very singular will whose provisions had somehow leaked out, as matters of the sort always do, made a stir and ferment in the place, and everybody felt bound to arrive at some satisfactory conclusion which should account for all, and to get a clear idea of what everybody immediately concerned would do, or ought, in the circumstances, to do next, before they—the first everybodies—could eat and sleep, and go comfortably about their own business again, in the ordinary way. ”

“ Dave Henderson had sunk his elbows on the iron railing, his chin resting in his hands, and was staring at the strange, fluted sky-line where the buildings jabbed their queer, uneven points up into the night. It was a long time before he spoke.
“It's kind of queer, Teresa,” he said slowly. “It's kind of queer. You're something like a friend of—like a man I know. It's kind of queer. Well, you've given me my chance, you've risked your life to give me my chance, you've played as square as any woman God ever made—and now what are you going to do?” ”

“ Dave Henderson spoke again.
“I remember what I said last night—that I couldn't buy you that way. And—and I'm not trying to now. It's going back because I haven't any choice. A man can't take his life from a woman's hand, and from the hand of a friend take the life of the woman who has saved him—and throw them both down—and play the cur. I haven't any choice.” His voice broke suddenly. “It's going back, Teresa, whether it means you or not. Do you understand, Teresa? ”

“ For eight long years, then, Margaret Henderson fought against God; only she spoke not of her mental conflict, but hid her murmurings in her heart, where they rather increased; like the seed which, though buried in the ground, dies not entirely, but brings forth more fruit.
Sunny-haired, blue-eyed Effie Henderson, found home but a cold place of refuge for her little warm heart. Petted by young and old at Deerhurst, she could hardly understand why her mother's brow should wear a constant cloud, her face be the gravest, and her voice sound more harshly than any other. ”

“ Henderson, you don't know how it perplexes one. There's sister Ida, now! she has a circle of friends—the very nicest sort of people they seem to be!—but, dear me! when I am with them a little while, I get perfectly bewildered. No two of them seem to believe alike on any subject; and if you quote the Bible to them, they just open their eyes and look amazed at you, as if that was something quite behind the age; and as there is no standard with them, of course there is nothing settled. You feel as if life was built on water, and everything was rocking and tilting till you are quite dizzy. ”

“ There was a very sweet union of nature and art outside Widow Henderson's cottage, for with all its wild beauty everything was in good order.
Poor thing! She was very young, only seven and twenty; yet that little bright-eyed lass of eight years old called her "mother." All the people in the village pitied her, and made a pet of orphan Effie, though the mother was a stranger from a far-away town and county. But Frank Henderson, her father, had been born and brought up at Deerhurst, and when he first talked about going to sea, it was made a trouble of by the whole parish. ”

“ Henderson was a good officer, he has shown himself an excellent son, always sacrificing his own predilections for the sake of duty. He is a right-minded, religious, sensible man, his own master, and with no connections to take umbrage at Miss White’s position. It is no commonplace man who knows how to honour her for it. Nothing could be a happier fate for her; and you will be no friend to her if you use any foolish terms of disparagement of him because he does not happen to please your fancy.’
‘I am sure Gillian will do no such thing, now that she understands the case’ said her mother. ”

“ Altogether it was a pleasant little house, and Miss Henderson took it at once, as it stood, on the major's own terms, and made arrangements for removing there at once.
"I must have a horse, Laura, you know," she said to Miss Blair, as they inspected the cottage together, for the two girls had grown more and more intimate, with every passing day. "I must have a horse, and a man to take care of him; and besides, I shall feel safer with a man in the house. Then I must have a housekeeper, some nice motherly old lady, who will take all that trouble off my hands ”

“ Henderson had never a chance with a sick husband and two healthy, unruly boys—and a house where the very door-knobs were off, and no money to speak of—Philip, don’t step on that bed! There are bulbs in it—Mrs. Henderson is a very intelligent woman. She admires ‘Wings and Winds,’ and can quote my verses. ”

“ Henderson, we won't keep you from the world of the parlors," said Ida; "but consider you have the entrée here whenever you want a quiet talk; and we will be friends," she said, stretching out her hand with the air of a queen.
"You honor me too much, Miss Van Arsdel," said I.
"Come now, Mr. Henderson, we can't allow our principal literary lion to be kept in secret places," said Miss Eva. "You are expected to walk up and down and show yourself; there are half a dozen girls to whom I have promised to present you." ”

“ The temperature lowered every moment. Henderson instinctively felt that this was but the beginning of the storm. He picked himself up without useless regrets for his pony, and made his way on.
The saffron hue turned to blackness, and then out of the murk shot a living green ball of fire, and ploughed into the earth. Then sheets of water, that seemed to come simultaneously from earth and sky, swept the prairie, and in the midst of it struggled Henderson, weak as a little child, half bereft of sense by the strange numbness of head and dullness of eye. ”

“ For once in my life I became a knocker and said some unpleasant things—albeit they were true—about Henderson. She championed Henderson royally, and when, as a last card, I compared Whit's fine record with Henderson's, not only as a ball player, but as a man, particularly in his reverence for women, she flashed at me:
"What do you know about it? Mr. Henderson asked me to marry him. Can a man do more to show his respect? Your friend never so much as hinted such honorable intentions. What's more—he insulted me!" The blaze in Nan's black eyes softened with a film of tears. ”

“ It was impossible that a knowledge of their importance should not have a reflex influence upon Margaret. Could it be otherwise than that gradually the fineness of her discrimination should be dulled by the almost universal public consent in the methods by which Henderson had achieved his position, and that in time she should come to regard adverse judgment as the result of envy? Henderson himself was under less illusion; the world was about what he had taken it for, only a little worse—more gullible, and with less principle. Carmen had mocked at Margaret's belief in Henderson. ”

“ You must be kind, but not too kind, to a woman. If you are too kind, she will think you weak and foolish, and she will do no work for you. Yes, he loved his mother and his sisters, but he loved his father most of all, because he was big and strong, and fished in the bay even when the weather was very rough. His father only laughed and cuffed him when he stole the bananas from the cart in the market-place, but his mother talked of it for days, and told all the neighbours that he was a thief and a bad boy ”

“ John Henderson had known little of the easy, pleasant paths of life, carpeted by wealth and sheltered by influence. His most childish and distant recollections carried him back to days of anxious poverty. His father, the elder son of a wealthy Scottish landowner, had quarrelled with his father, and at the age of twenty left his home, disinherited in favor of his younger brother. Possessed of a peculiar temperament—passionate, headstrong, dogged in his resolves, he had shaken the dust of Scotland from his feet ”

“ Henderson hurrying down the street in utter disregard of the fiery heat.
“Get in, Hennie,” called Virginia, when Ike stopped the car. “I must talk to you and I want to make you as comfortable as I can.”
“Don’t mind me, child,” protested the widow. “I am a hardened sinner whom it behooves to become accustomed to heat.”
In a few words the girl explained the plan for the picnic.
“It is a splendid thing to do,” Mrs. Henderson agreed. “Of course I’ll be glad to help. Good gracious, sick babies all around us and at our church we are dawdling over a new bell rope and a lock for the front door.” ”