Miss Montague

“ A moment later, the two proud misses shot by me, one of them remarking with curling lips and a toss of her head, 'Do you suppose that Mona Montague expects that we are going to recognize her now?'"
"Why didn't you tell me this before?" Mrs. Montague angrily demanded.
"Because I knew that, if you suspected her identity, you would turn her out of the house forthwith, and then I should have hard work getting into her good graces."
"You are a sly one, Louis."
"One must look out for one's own interests in some respects," he coolly responded.
"Does she know that you suspect her identity?" ”

“ It was quite late in the evening when she completed her task, and, with a sigh of relief, laid the beautiful costume upon the bed, ready for Mrs. Montague's inspection when she should come up stairs for the night.
There was something of regret also mingled with her feeling that she, too, could not join the festivities on Monday evening. She had dearly loved society during the little while she had mingled with it, and the pleasurable excitement of the last few days, which kept all the young ladies in a constant flutter, made her long to be one among them. ”

“ He was again rehearsing a tense scene with the Montague girl. In actor parlance he was giving himself all the best of it. But they were new lines he mumbled over and over. And he was no longer eluded by the title of that book he remembered on the library shelf at Simsbury. Sitting in the cafeteria listening to strange talk, lashed by cruel memories, it had flashed upon his vision with the stark definition of a screened subtitle.
He rang the Montague bell twice before he heard a faint summons to enter. Upon the parlour couch, under blankets that reached her pillowed head, lay Sarah. ”

“ Perhaps, if I could find that woman—Uncle Walter's wife—she might be able to tell me something; but I do not know where to find her. Possibly Mrs. Montague would know whether this Mona Forester is a relative, if I dare ask her; but I do not—I could not—without betraying myself and perhaps spoil all my other plans. Oh, dear, it is so dreadful to be alone in the world and not really know who you are!" she concluded, with a sigh.
About the middle of the next forenoon Mrs. Montague asked her if she would come with her to look over a trunk of clothing preparatory to beginning upon spring sewing. ”

“ As Julie came forth from the Sunday-School room, breathless and trembling, she paused a moment upon the steps, and there the deep serenity of the night received her. She drew a long breath. Her heart still pounded violently, but she had escaped: she was delivered. Inside, Sister Humphries continued to pray, Brother Seabrook speeding the petition upon its way with ejaculations of “Lord, grant it!” “Amen! Amen!” Outside, the sweep of a starlighted sky covered the world. Julie lingered upon the steps, her tense nerves relaxing gradually, as the safety and reassurance outside wrapped her about. ”

“ Montague, thoughtfully, a heavy frown settling on her brow. "There is some mystery about her which I am bound to ferret out; she is exceedingly reticent about herself—I wonder if my suspicions can be correct?" she continued, her face settling into hard, revengeful lines. "She certainly looks enough like that girl to be her child. If I were sure, I would not spare her; I would crush her, for the hate that I bore her mother, notwithstanding she is so useful to me. Ha, ha!" and the laugh was exceedingly bitter, "it would seem like the irony of fate to have her child thrown thus into my power. ”

“ BEAUTIFUL ALICE
That is what we girls call Miss Reade among ourselves. She is divinely beautiful. Her magnificent wealth of raven hair flows back in glistening waves from her sun-kissed brow. (DAN: “If Felix had said she was sunburned you’d have all jumped on him.” (CECILY, COLDLY: “Sun-kissed doesn’t mean sunburned.” DAN: “What does it mean then?” CECILY, EMBARRASSED: “I—I don’t know. But Miss Montague says the Lady Geraldine’s brow was sun-kissed and of course an earl’s daughter wouldn’t be sunburned. “THE STORY GIRL: “Oh, don’t interrupt the reading like this. It spoils it.”) ”

“ Julie planned to seek work also later on, but for the present he entreated her not to.
“No, take time just to be alive a while,” he begged. “Why, we’re almost as new as Adam an’ Eve; all I want you to do is just to help me name the animals.”
“Name the animals!” she laughed, as no human being had ever laughed before at his small whimsicalities.
They were both released into a gayety and laughter of life that heretofore had passed them by. Youth flowed back into Julie’s face, and with it her lost prettiness—or perhaps a fresh prettiness which even her youth had never known. ”

“ Julie said to herself, drawing a deep breath and aware of an enormous content and elation. Her feet moved over the ground with the flying swiftness that had borne her up the church aisle. She was conscious of a beautiful elasticity and freedom, as though a binding cord that had been twisted tighter and tighter to constriction had suddenly snapped, giving her relief and air and release into a beneficent world. ”

“ She waited until the girl came up stairs, then she called her attention to the pieces, and told her what was to be done with them.
She at once exclaimed at the resemblance to Mona.
"Where could Mrs. Montague have got it?" she cried; "it's enough like you, miss, to be your own mother, and a beautiful lady she must have been, too. It's a pity to burn the picture, Miss Ruth; wouldn't you like to keep it?"
"Perhaps Mrs. Montague would prefer that no one should have it; she said it was to be destroyed, you know," Mona replied, but with a wistful look at the mutilated crayon. ”

“ When I am walking in these delicious shades with Emily; when I see those lovely eyes, softened with artless fondness, and hear the music of that voice; when a thousand trifles, unobserved but by the prying sight of love, betray all the dear sensations of that bosom, where truth and delicate tenderness have fixed their seat, I know not the Epicurean of whom I do not deserve to be the envy. ”

“ Montague had struck harder than he had intended, and would gladly have recalled the words. But the door was closed, and the strange woman out of sight and hearing. He walked away to his lodging in Ryder Street, very well content with his day's work, and opening the door of his parlour on the first floor was at once incommoded by a thick fog of tobacco-smoke. But through the fog he saw, comfortably stretched in his best armchair, with his peruke pushed back and his waistcoat unbuttoned, a lackey in Lady Oxford's livery. Montague lifted up his voice and swore. ”

“ Montague smiled at the tact of her pretty companion, in thus attempting to draw her attention to her own affairs.
A good many things had convinced her of late that her seamstress had not been reared in poverty, and certain suspicions, that had startled her when she first saw her, were beginning to force themselves again upon her.
"You can set it down a trifle," she replied; then she asked, persistently returning to the previous question: "Why do you not give music lessons, since you play so well, instead of sewing for your living? ”

“ It was in this way that I first encountered that handsomest and gayest of young actors, H. J. Montague, whose charm exercised a widespread fascination upon the play-goers of his day, and who was further, and quite independently of such histrionic gifts as he could boast, a companion of the most sympathetic spirit. If not endowed with absolute wit, he could so infect the recital of the most ordinary adventures that he had encountered during the day with something of the rollicking sense of boyishness that was his own, as to keep his hearers in a mood of unflagging merriment and enjoyment. ”

“ Julie awoke the next morning in the dim and early light and sat up in her berth. She had slept so profoundly, swept down to such depths of unconsciousness, that for a moment on awakening she appeared to have drifted beyond all the moorings of her accustomed self, so that it took her a few moments of uncertain staring at the swaying green curtains of the berth and at the flickering light across the bedclothes, to realize that she was on the train. ”

“ Wogan looked at his clothes.
'I am wearing her damned livery,' he cried. 'No, I will stay and be hanged like a gentleman, but I take no favours at Lady Oxford's hand,' and in a passion he began to tear off the clothes.
'She offers none,' said Montague. 'She knows nothing of what I intend. I would not trust her. If you have to stand behind, I have to drive by her side; and upon my word I would sooner be in your place. Her ladyship's footman for an hour! Man, are you so proud that your life cannot make up for the humiliation? ”

“ Montague?"
"Certainly," she replied, giving the girl a sharp, curious glance, and immediately preceded her into the room. "Well?" she inquired, turning and facing her, the moment the door was closed, as if already she suspected what was coming.
"I simply wanted to tell you that I am going to return to New York to-day," Mona said, in a tone which plainly indicated that no argument would serve to change her determination.
"Aren't you somewhat premature in your movements? What is your reason for wanting to go home in such a hurry?" Mrs. Montague demanded, with some asperity. ”

“ The indifference of the speech no doubt stung her ladyship.
'Friend!' she said with a sneer. 'This friendship is surely something of the suddenest. I did not even so late as last night notice any great cordiality between you.'
'Very likely not,' said Montague. 'Last night there was a trivial cause for disagreement upon which to-day we are of one mind.'
Lady Oxford flushed and took another tone.
'You are cruel,' she said. She was not so much insulted as hurt. 'You are ungenerous. You are cruel.'
But Colonel Montague was not in a melting mood, and so, 'Give me the packet,' she said sullenly. ”

“ To Miss Fermor.
Yes, my dear Bell, you know me better than I know myself; your Emily loves.—But tell me, and with that clear sincerity which is the cement of our friendship; has not your own heart discovered to you the secret of mine? do you not also love this most amiable of mankind? Yes, you do, and I am lost: it is not in woman to see him without love; there are a thousand charms in his conversation, in his look, nay in the very sound of his voice, to which it is impossible for a soul like yours to be insensible. ”

“ No other man can inspire the same sentiments with my Rivers; no other man can deserve them: the delight of loving you appears to me so superior to all other pleasures, that, of all human beings, if I was not Emily Montague, I would be Madame Des Roches.
I blush for what I have written; yet why blush for having a soul to distinguish perfection, or why conceal the real feelings of my heart?
I will never hide a thought from you; you shall be at once the confidant and the dear object of my tenderness. ”

“ When we look at those we ardently love, a new softness steals unperceived into the eyes, the countenance is more animated, and the whole form has that air of tender languor which has such charms for sensible minds.
To prove the truth of this, my Emily approaches, fair as the rising morn, led by the hand of the Graces; she sees her lover, and every charm is redoubled; an involuntary smile, a blush of pleasure, speak a passion, which is the pride of my soul. ”

“ You may come, Emily; only be so obliging to bring Sir George along with you: in your present situation, you are not so very formidable.
The men here, as I said before, are all dying for me; there are many handsomer women, but I flatter them, and the dear creatures cannot resist it. I am a very good girl to women, but naturally artful (if you will allow the expression) to the other sex; I can blush, look down, stifle a sigh, flutter my fan, and seem so agreeably confused—you have no notion, my dear, what fools men are. ”

“ Apparently, up there in the wide stretches of the deep sky that Julie had always liked, there lurked a terrifying Power that might pounce dreadfully at any moment. Evidently the safest way to get through life was to slip by as unnoticed as possible, clad, if one were a chicken, in speckled gray feathers that faded easily from sight in the grass; or; if one were a little girl, ordering one’s self in the same humble and unobtrusive manner. ”

“ You have been guilty of a dastardly act. Mrs. Montague has shown herself to be lacking in humanity, honor, and every womanly sentiment; but I will not be crushed; even though you have sought to compromise me in this dreadful way I will not yield to you. Your wife I am not, and no writing me as such upon steamer and hotel registers can ever make me so. You may proclaim from one end of New York to the other that I eloped with you from New Orleans, but it will not serve your purpose, and the one for whom I care most will never lose faith in me. And, Louis Hamblin, hear me ”

“ Montague, "that he is married to her before we return to England."
"No," replied the daughter, "like all others of his sex he delights in keeping the ladies in suspense."
"What you say, miss, is very true," said Aunt Quimby, leaning in her turn across Mr. Montague, "and, considering how young you are, you talk very sensibly. Men certainly have a way of keeping women in suspense, and an unwillingness to answer questions, even when we ask them. There's my son-in-law, Billy Fairfowl, that I live with. ”

“ Can you forget, my Rivers, those moments, when, doubtful of the sentiments of your heart, mine every instant betrayed its weakness? when every look spoke the resistless fondness of my soul! when, lost in the delight of seeing you, I forgot I was almost the wife of another?
But I will say no more; my Rivers tells me I have already said too much: he is displeased with his Emily’s tenderness; he complains, that I tell him too often I love him.
You say I can give but one certain proof of my affection. ”