Miss Loring

“ The mental question arrested the footsteps of Miss Loring, ere she had proceeded five paces from the door of her chamber.
"Is not what imprudent?" was answered back in her thoughts.
"What folly is this!" she said, in self-rebuke, and passed onward.
"Miss Loring!" There was too much feeling in Hendrickson's manner. But its repression, under the circumstances, was impossible.
"Mr. Hendrickson!" The voice of Miss Loring betrayed far more of inward disturbance than she wished to appear. ”

“ There is always something novel and romantic to a young girl in an offer of marriage. It is the great event of her life. I do not wonder that you are disturbed—though I am surprised at the nature of this disturbance. Time will subdue all this. You have a beautiful life before you, darling! The cherished bride of Leon Dexter must tread a path of roses."
A long sigh parted the lips of Miss Loring, and her face, to which not even the faintest tinge of color had yet returned, bent itself downward. ”

“ You seem to lack a manly confidence in yourself. You are as good as Leon Dexter—aye, a better, truer man in every sense of the word—a man to please a woman at all worth pleasing, far better than he. And yet you permit him to elbow you aside, as it were, and to thrust you into a false position, if not into obscurity. If Miss Loring is the woman God has created for you, in the name of all that is holy, do not let another man usurp your rights. Do not let one like Dexter bear her off to gild a heartless home. Remember that Jessie is young, inexperienced, and unskilled in the ways of the world. ”

“ We are apart now, and apart forever."
"You are too much excited, Jessie," said Mrs. Loring, laying her finger upon the lips of her niece, "and I must enjoin silence and rest. I have faith in you. I will be your friend, though all the world pass coldly on in scorn."
Tears glistened in the eyes of Mrs. Dexter as she lifted them, with a thankful expression, to the face of her aunt, from whom she had not dared to hope for so tender a reception. She knew Mrs. Loring to be worldly-minded; she knew her to be a woman of not over delicate feelings; and as one easily affected by appearances. ”

“ All at once his exterior changed. The clouded brow put on a sunny aspect.
"Forgive me, dear Jessie!" he said with ardor, and a restored tenderness of manner. "True love has ever a touch of jealousy; and something that Mrs. Denison intimated aroused that darker passion. But the shadowed hour has passed, and I am in the clear sunlight again."
He raised her hand to his lips, and kissed it with fervor.
"What did she intimate?" asked Miss Loring. Her manner was less excited, and her tone less imperative.
"What I now see to be false," said Dexter. ”

“ William Richardson’s; best of all were the historic Sunday evenings at the Loring’s on K Street. The elder Miss Loring was a close student of political history. At the Loring salon one met the leading statesmen and diplomats, many of whom, it was said, consulted Miss Loring with reference to the political events she followed so intelligently. I have grateful memories of a son of the house, Doctor Frank Loring, the oculist, who took my friend Helen Gardner and myself under his wing and introduced us to the young dancing set, in whose company we played happily through several blissful weeks. ”

“ I always regarded Loring as the possessor of one sterling quality. Selfish he might be, or indolent, or inconsiderate, an old maid in his fussy little rules of everyday existence and an incurable romantic in his attitude to the life of the twentieth century. With it all he was a man of his word. Under blackmail he had pledged himself to entertain my French journalists, and when the time came for fulfilling the pledge he smiled welcome on them in the hall of House of Steynes. ”

“ Loring wants her.”
“I think she must have gone to her room, she and Mistress Nesbitt went upstairs some time ago.”
Margeret gently inclined her head, and passed out with the noiseless tread Evilena had striven to emulate in vain that day at Loringwood.
“One of Miss Loring’s retainers?” asked Judithe; “I fancied they only kept colored servants.”
“Margeret is colored,” explained Mrs. McVeigh, “that is,” as the other showed surprise, “although her skin does not really show color, yet she is an octoroon––one-eighth of colored ancestry. ”

“ His voice gloated. So did his hands and his heavy, dense-blue eyes. He was altogether a rather unpleasantly "gloatful" person, as a lover. Loring quivered with wrath and nausea. He would have liked to tear Cuthbridge "from the scabbard of his limbs."
"Dinner is served," said the old butler.
It was not until the next day at tea-time that Loring got a chance to see Belinda alone. He came in just as she and her mother also returned from a drive. "I must go up to have tea with Grace," said Mrs. Horton. "You give Morry his tea, Linda." ”

“ Loring became a widow she was both poor and friendless, she was also very delicate. She had never worked in her life, and although she attempted to do so, in order to support herself and little Guy, she found it almost impossible to earn enough to supply them with food. She opened a little school, but could get only a few scholars, and they paid her so little that she was obliged also to take in sewing. This displeased the parents of her pupils and they took away their children, saying "she could not do two things at once." ”

“ Jessie had resumed her seat.
"We have read each other's hearts, Miss Loring," Hendrickson went on. His voice had regained its firmness, and he spoke in low, deep, emphatic tones. "I, at least, have read yours, and you know mine. Against your own convictions and your own feelings, you have been coerced into an engagement of marriage with a man you do not, and never can, love as a wife should love a husband. Consummate that engagement, and years of wretchedness lie before you. I say nothing of Mr. Dexter as regards honor, probity, and good feeling. I believe him to be a man of high integrity. ”

“ And now leave me. Go seek another to walk beside you in life's pleasant ways. Our paths diverge here."
"I will not believe it, Miss Loring! This is only a terrible dream!" exclaimed Hendrickson.
"A dream?" Jessie seemed clutching at the garments of some departing hope. "A dream!" She glanced around in a bewildered manner. "No—no—no." Almost despairingly the words came from her lips. "It is no dream, Paul Hendrickson! but a stern reality. And now," speaking quickly and with energy, "in Heaven's name leave me!" ”

“ Sustain him by the divine power of truth. Let Thy Word be a staff in his hand when travel-worn, and a sword when the enemy seeks his life. In his own strength he cannot walk in this way; in his own strength he cannot battle with his foes—but in Thy strength he will be strong as a lion, and as invincible as an army."
After rising from her knees, Miss Loring, over whose spirit a deep quietude had fallen, re-opened Hendrickson's letter and read it again; and not once only but many times, until every word and sentence were written on her memory. ”

“ The brown eyed, grey haired woman in the door glanced at the two colored men who were following slowly along a path towards the back of the house.
“Yes, Miss Lena, it is quiet,” she agreed. “Please step in Mistress Nesbitt. I’ll have Raquel show you right up to your rooms, for Miss Loring didn’t think you could get here for an hour yet, and she felt obliged to ride over to the north corner, but won’t be gone long.”
“And Mr. Loring––how is he?”
“Mr. Loring is very much worn out. He’s gone asleep now. Doctor says he’s not to be seen just yet.” ”

“ It stirred the imagination in a strange way, as a woman utterly abandoned, lost to all shame, may cease to be a capricious wanton, given to light-hearted amours and become so coldly lascivious that she repels the most passionate of men.
And suddenly, as Loring stared, he saw the woman-shape. He saw that the city, its entire circumference, its central mass, was shaped like a recumbent female with great wanton knees and flame-tipped breasts. ”

“ In honor of the splendid alliance formed by her niece, Mrs. Loring gave a most brilliant wedding party, and the lovely bride stood forth in all her beauty and grace—the admired and the envied. A few thought her rather pale—some said her eyes were too dreamy—and a gossip or two declared that the rich young husband had only gained her person, while her heart was in the keeping of another. "She has not married the man, but his wealth and position!" was the unguarded remark of one of these thoughtless individuals; and by a singular fatality, the sentence reached the ears of Mr. Dexter. ”

“ Loring never spoke harshly—indeed, he seldom spoke at all the little he was at home, but the attentions he paid were so obviously from a sense of duty, that they fell like ice-drops on the heart of his wounded wife. ”

“ Peggy Glamorgan asked as she, her sister and Benson sat at luncheon three hours later. The table was spread on the broad, shadowy veranda on the north side of the ranch-house. The sun beat down upon fields and white roads; insects droned lazily to the accompaniment of the faint roar of the stream swollen by the heavy rain of the night before. "Ye gods! If here isn't Abdul the Great," she mocked saucily as Courtlandt appeared at the door. "Are his humble slaves to be honored with his presence at the noonday meal? Allah, oh Allah! Jerry, aren't you overwhelmed at this tribute to our charms?" ”

“ Mrs. Loring spoke with sudden seriousness; "take my advice, and encourage Leon Dexter. I am pleased to know that you were so much an object of his attentions as your remarks lead me to infer. I know that you will make him a good wife; one of whom he can never be ashamed; and I know that a union with him will give you a proud position."
"Will you waive the subject, at present, dear aunt?" said Jessie, with a pleading look, at the same time glancing covertly towards her cousins, who were drinking in every word with girlish eagerness. ”

“ Many emotions were weighing at her heart, for she felt how far better would it have been that her young head had been laid beneath the green sod that covered Elise Revere, than that her fond, trusting heart should have been buried in the cold selfishness of Edgar Loring’s soul. ”

“ And as this was the longest speech Turnbull had ever heard from Loring's lips, except his arraignment of Nevins before the court, the colonel pondered over it not a little. He took the letter and read it when, an hour later, the Idaho was plowing her lazy way southward through a dull and leaden sea. [Pg 130]
"I'm not the first man to be fooled by a slip of a girl, Loring," wrote Blake. "It isn't the first time that a woman has got the better of me, and it may not be the last. ”

“ He meant to bend and kiss her good-by, just as he would have kissed a younger sister, he said to himself, not as he had kissed Geraldine Allyn. But somehow he [Pg 253] faltered, and that was something unusual to Walter Loring. Even at risk of being abrupt, he felt it time to go, but after the manner of weaker men, took out his watch.
"Yes, I must go, Pancha. We won't say good-by, will we? It is until to-morrow—hasta la mañana. You know we always come again to California. You'll be quite a woman, then, though." ”

“ Many wondered that Dexter should have turned aside for a portionless girl, when he might have led a jewelled bride to the altar. But though superficial, he had taste and discrimination enough to see that Jessie Loring was superior to all the maidens whom it had been his fortune to meet. And so, without pausing to look deeply into her heart, or take note of its peculiar aspirations and impulses, he boldly pressed forward resolved to win. And he did win; and in winning, thought, like many another foolish man, that to win the loveliest, was to secure the highest happiness. ”

“ Loring, as soon as her mind began clearly to comprehend what her niece had done, grew strongly excited. Mrs. Dexter did not reply, but let her eyes fall to the floor, and remained silent. She had no defence to make at any human tribunal.
"Why have you done this, Jessie?" demanded her aunt.
"Forgive my reply, Aunt Phoebe; I can make no other now. The reason is with God and my own heart. He can look deeper than any human eyes have power to see; and comprehend more than I can put in words. ”

“ It was quite the reverse, his safety depended upon her, Jerry thought, but she knew his type. Her need of his help would do more than anything else to clear his mind. She picked up the tin can she had used as a saw and went to the door. She looked back. Beechy was lying with closed eyes, the lines about his mouth relaxed.
The sun had dropped behind a high mountain. The air was sultry. A tinge of rose had replaced the gold of the afternoon coloring. In the southwest an unobtrusive bank of cloud had appeared. The tumbleweed still stirred with every breath of air but everything else was still. ”

“ Of what was passing in the mind of Dexter his bride had no knowledge; nor did her keen instincts warn her that the demon of jealousy was already in his heart. Suffering, and the colder spirit of endurance that followed, had rendered her, in a certain sense, obtuse in this direction.
A full-grown, strong woman, had Jessie become suddenly. The gentle, tenderly-loving, earnest, simple-hearted girl, could never have sustained the part it was hers to play. Unless a new and more vigorous life had been born in her, she must have fallen. ”