Miss Lee

“ But her voice broke across it joyously, speaking into the tube—"Is that you, Elise? Stephen is coming this morning! Did you know? Yes—this morning! And we want to come over to tea—if you are going to be home. . . . What is it? Yes, we are all coming! I have not seen you in an age, dear. . . . Yes, I know." The voice grew tender and seemed to follow inaudible words with murmuring assent—"I know, dear. But that is past. We are coming now—yes. Good-by."
She returned with radiant face. "She will be at home!" ”

“ She is just twelve years older than I am, so she's near the thirty mark yet, and I like a friend who is older. She seems just the same Miss Lee, no older than she was when I walked down the street of Greenwald in my gingham dress and checked sunbonnet and buried my nose in the pink rose David gave me. How lucky that little country girl is! I'm here in Philadelphia, in a beautiful house, with Virginia Lee for my friend, and glorious visions of music and good times flashing before my eyes. ”

“ Lee's. At her [Pg 94] age, too, with disease helping time to chase away what beauty one has left, how she must feel it!"
"You quite mistake the case, madam," I answered; "Mrs. Lee never depended on her beauty, which, however, no one can dispute, as a means of winning love; her sincerity, intelligence, and gentle wisdom are enough to outlive the loveliness of a Venus."
"You are enthusiastic, Miss Hyde."
"I love Mrs. Lee, and speak as I feel."
"I am afraid," she said, in her blandest manner, "that my interest in the dear lady has led me into obtrusiveness, or, at least, that you think so. ”

“ Miss Lee taught her French and heard her read the daily portion of History, but he recommended the books which charmed her leisure hours, he encouraged her taste, and corrected her judgment; he made reading useful by talking to her of what she read, and heightened its attraction by judicious praise. ”

“ Only if she does stay,” and there was a warning tone of deep meaning in Miss Lee’s well-modulated voice, “her heart, of course, will be broken, and she will have to ask you to travel” with her for two or three years into out-of-the-way parts of the world (Mr. Port shuddered) “until her poor broken heart gets well. Not that it ever will get quite well again, you know; but she will be brave, and try to pretend for your sake that it has. So it shall be just as you say, dear; only for Pennington’s sake, who loves me so much, Uncle Hutchinson, I hope that perhaps you may be willing to let me go.” ”

“ With all his ugly language, which he reserved for conversation with men, he was the soul of consideration for a woman. Mrs. Lee had no fear of any rude expression from his lips. She didn't like him because she felt in his personality the touch of mob insanity which the Slavery question had kindled. She dreaded this appeal to blind instinct and belief. With a woman's intuition she felt the tragic possibility of such leadership North and South. ”

“ Lee, who closed the door behind her. She took him into the drawing-room, and a long half-hour passed. The hall-door was then opened and shut, footsteps sounded on the gravel-path, and Mrs. Lee came into the dining-room. She sank into a chair, and exclaimed, ‘Agnes, he289 is a good man, and he loves you. I have sent him away with a light heart. All will yet be well. We shall recover your sister, and she will live with me, and you will be a happy wife once more in your own home, with your husband and your children by your side.’
‘Will he send the children to me?’ I said. ”

“ She laughed a little tremulously as she tightened rein. "Come, let us hurry. We can go down faster than we came up."
"Yes—Leslie—" He still kept a hand on her rein, holding her back. "You are happy, child? Tell me—"
Her eyes studied his face a minute—full, serious—a woman's eyes. Then they fell. "No," she said, "I am not happy. But you have told me. I thank you for that. I might have kept on dreaming." The little drawl struck the words bravely. Then it faltered and broke.
The girl's hands had covered her face. They had come to the top of the path. ”

“ Lee were more than affectionate; and with the young lady she has the air and manner of a sister who feels her superiority in age, and nothing more.
"This morning I met Mr. Lee on the shore, walking alone. He is a princely man in appearance, taller than Mr. Lawrence, and of more noble proportions. Still, his finely-cut features lack the keen intelligence which is only seen where [Pg 371] great genius exists. The years he has already numbered scarcely count to his disadvantage. ”

“ She tore up her sheets and table linen for bandages; and she and her nieces were constantly employed in attending and cheering the wounded, while all her domestics were busied in preparing food and every thing necessary for those unhappy sufferers. Even Lee felt and acknowledged the resistless force of such generous humanity. He swore, in his vehement manner, that he was sure there would be a place reserved for madame in heaven, though no other woman should be there, and that he should wish for nothing better than to share her final destiny. ”

“ The eyes of the two followed her from the door of the shop. Then they turned and regarded each other gravely.
"She good woman!" said the man.
"Like our Lady of the Water!" responded his wife. "She hold big candle and look everywhere!"
Something in the uplifted hand and fixed gaze of the tiny figure was not unlike the great statue that stands guard at the door of the nation, and Isaac's face held it admiringly.
The woman's lips moved softly. "She say: Come—all children—I give good chance!" she murmured under her breath. . . . ”

“ As, sighting them just then, Lee swung her hat, emitting a clear cowman’s yell, her knotted hair fell down on her shoulders, Gordon exclaimed, “Why, it—it is a girl! In this country do they usually wear—”
“No more ’n they do in the Eastern States,” Bull dryly filled in the hiatus. “On one thing the Maine Methodist jines hands with the Mexican Catholic—they both cover their weemen from chin to toe-p’ints. Ever sence the revolution, Miss Lee’s been doing vaquero’s work, an’ what kind of a job d’you reckon she’d make of it going ’round in skirts? ”

“ I'm going to enjoy, thoroughly enjoy, my music lessons.
Mr. Lee called for me after the lesson. I told him I could find the way back to the boarding-house alone, but he said he'd consider it a pleasure and privilege to call for me. He has the nicest manners! He never needs to flounder around for the right thing to say, it just slips from his tongue like butter. Aunt Maria always says, "look out for them smooth apple-sass talkers," but I'm sure Mr. Lee is a gentleman and just the right kind for a country girl to know.
When he called at the studio this morning I felt proud to walk away with him. ”

“ The voice was pleading. "We do not want to hurt Elise," she added after a minute.
"It will not hurt Elise," he replied firmly. "Elise has always understood." The words had a secure ring.
"Come, mother—you must lie down and rest. I must take care of you just as I used to!" He bent over her tenderly, and she lifted her face for a kiss. . . .
Then she turned and moved blindly toward the window of the sewing- room. She stepped in, facing the seamstress. Outside on the terrace, Milly could see the son lighting his cigar and placing it to his lips. ”

“ Even Dr. Hibbert says that ‘no reasonable doubt can be placed on the authenticity of the narrative’ of Miss Lee’s death, ‘as it was drawn up by the Bishop of Gloucester’ (Dr. William Nicholson) ‘from the recital of the young lady’s father,’ Sir Charles Lee. Every one knows the tale. In a preternatural light, in a midnight chamber, Miss Lee saw a woman, who proclaimed herself Miss Lee’s dead mother, ‘and that by twelve o’clock of the day she should be with her.’ So Miss Lee died in her chair next day, on the stroke of noon, and Dr. ”

“ A contrast himself!—Mr Lee was not refined or pleasing, but his grey eyes were clear and bright beneath his brows, and every line of his harsh, rugged face was graved with a decision that almost rose to power. A passionate face, but with passion well-subdued, a face untender, proud, and illiterate, not softened by love, not refined by education, not enlarged by wide views, and general sympathy. ”

“ Mearely but because Mrs. Lee instinctively greeted all the world lovingly. Under the white hair and dainty, white lace cap, the kind eyes, which had seen seventy years of life—with its human sun and shadow—go by, would beam out of the delicately wrinkled face with a delight in the flowers’ beauty and fragrance as spontaneous and young as youth itself—the spirit which37 discounts time because its habitation is with the good and the eternal. ”

“ We have grown to be great friends in an amazingly short time. Our music, our appreciation of each other's ability, has strengthened the bond between us. Mrs. Lee sends me many invitations for dinner and week-ends in her beautiful home, so that Mr. Lee and I are already well acquainted. He has asked me to call him Royal and if he might call me Phœbe. I've told him all about my life on the farm, my friends up there, and the plans and dreams of my heart. He likes to tease me and call me a little Quakeress, but I don't enjoy that for he does it in a way I don't like. ”

“ Lee's imagination had run loose in pursuit of beautiful and remarkable people and splendours rather than harmonies of line and colour. Lee, like Solomonson, had that inexplicable alchemy of mind which distils gold from the commerce of the world ("All this," said Minter to Trafford, "is an exhalation from all that") ; he accumulated wealth as one grows a beard, and found his interest in his uxorious satisfactions, and so Mrs. Lee, with her bright watchful eyes, quick impulsive movements and instinctive command had the utmost freedom to realize her ideals. ”

“ She laughed lightly.
"You are not tired!" He was looking up at her, the puzzled look still in his eyes. "You are your own daughter!" he declared.
She smiled beneath the white border of the cap—a smile that startled him, so luminous was it, and clear and care free, "I am young," she said. "I mean never to grow old."
"You never will," he replied, lifting his hat as he left her.
She went slowly up the stairs, the little smile still on her lips.
In the library the old man with the boy's face fumbled with the papers, gathering them up in trembling hands and putting them away in the table drawer. ”

“ Surely one of the most beautiful pictures in Kate Lee’s life is here. Ill, in a sense alone and amongst strangers, yet triumphant, filling the days with any little services that came to her hand, performing them as faithfully as she had performed her field duties in the glare of the limelight, and seeking to bring into one young life the spirit that would give to the world a warrior after her own heart, against the day that her own feet could no longer be swift and beautiful for God. ”

“ The girl was not only in love with him—that had been obvious to her from the first—but she was infinitely sorry for the man whom her eyes followed with a look of deep pity. The girl knew everything! Milly's needles passed with swift stitches through the green wool, drawing it up, transforming it into shape and comeliness. Almost of themselves the needles were weaving for her a story that stretched away to the future—for the man and girl. . . . With his mother's cordial aid and the look in the girl's eyes, one did not need to guess what time would bring to Stephen Mason. ”

“ She came through the gate, looking admiringly at the horse that he led by the bridle. "Isn't she a beauty!" She patted the glossy neck, running her hand down its length with slow, happy motion. The mare reached out a sensitive cushiony lip toward the girl's shoulder, sniffing it lightly and nuzzling it a little. The girl laughed out. She stroked the great nose softly, looking into the wide eyes and watching the pointed ears that moved back and forth in swift question and response. "She's a lady!" declared the girl. ”

“ The girl's smile met his for a brief instant, flitting like the shadow. Then it returned to the meadow. Bees came booming across the open space and settled on the overripe pears that covered the ground beyond. The lengthening day held its deep peace. The man had forgotten his question.
When at last he picked up his hat and rose to go, it came to him again. He looked down at her, waiting, turning the hat slowly in his fingers.
The girl's glance met his, smiling. "Are you going?"
"I was—yes—" He sat down again. "But if you want me to stay—"
"I always want you to stay." ”

“ As she stood hesitating which way to go, she caught sight, through one of the open doors, of the dark folds of a woman's gown moving hazily, and the next moment the woman herself appeared in the door.
She held out her hands in a swift gesture, almost of welcome, and Milly moved quickly toward her, ignoring the outstretched hands.
"I am the sewing-woman," she said respectfully. "Are your dresses in here?" She spoke very clearly and distinctly. A faint sound of asthmatic breathing in the distance, that had seemed to halt for a moment, moved softly away. ”

“ Lee had doubtless informed her what route he would take, and so her imagination followed him while her frail form slumbered.
She stirred uneasily on her pillow, drew her black eyebrows together, and spoke again:—
"Why does he leave my Jessie? She don't want to be left with that young man;—and he, poor fellow! how frightened he is! What is that he is saying? Wants to marry my Jessie! Alas! how the heart shrinks in her bosom! My poor child! he should not distress you so! Yet it is an honest heart he offers—full of warmth, full of goodness! Can't you understand that, my darling?" ”