Miss Perry

“ Miss Burden screamed.
Miss Perry replaced the yellow shin pads in the wicker basket with a leisureliness which was highly reassuring.
“Speak, girl,” stormed the old lady. “I repeat, what is it? If you have dared to introduce a reptile into my drawing-room you shall both leave this house immediately.”
Even this decree did not perturb Miss Perry. She still preserved her constitutional obliviousness to anything in the nature of commotion.
“Oh no, dear Aunt Caroline,” she drawled. “Tobias is not a snake. He is only a ferret.” ”

“ I was not thinking of giving in at all when Miss Perry said, right before everybody, "Adele, dear, would you like to come and share my desk on the platform for the rest of the year? Your little neighbor is not so well bred as I could wish."
That was too much. To sit for one day beside Miss Perry at her desk had always been a favor for which we all contended. And here was this new girl to sit there all the time. And such stooping shoulders, and such shoes ”

“ Plunket prepared a cup of tea for Miss Perry. As she handed it to her she gazed very sternly through her spectacles at the new under-housemaid who sat nursing her wicker basket with remarkable unconcern.
“Thank you so much,” said Miss Perry, accepting the cup of tea with really charming friendliness.
“I had no idea that you were so large,” said Mrs. Plunket, with an aggrieved air. “I think the fact ought to have been mentioned.”
Miss Perry drew off her darned cotton gloves with great simplicity.
“I am rather big,” said she, “but if the beds are too small I can curl myself up.” ”

“ And now that the time had come when it was necessary that he should know his own mind, he really felt that he had a very genuine regard for Miss Perry.
The mere act of walking down Bond Street with her attracted an amount of notice that he was not accustomed to claim in his own person. Nevertheless, he liked it immensely. And even if commanding beauty and an unique personality did not suffice in themselves, the fact that a powerful rival was in the field was enough to stimulate his altruism in the highest degree.
He was fully determined not to be cut out by a man like George Betterton. ”

“ Suppose you see if you can't all be gentlemen, and treat her well."
Miss Perry sat down in the teacher's chair, her heart all in a flutter. She taught a class in her own Sabbath school hundreds of miles away,—five rosy-cheeked, bright-eyed little girls gathered around her every Sabbath; but they were little girls whose mothers had taught them to love their lessons, to listen respectfully to what their teacher said, to bow their heads reverently in prayer; and more than that, they loved her, and she loved them. But these boys! ”

“ One feels sure it will help you at first to have some one to guide you through the traffic.”
“Burden is quite competent to see that she doesn’t get run over,” said the accomplished aunt of Miss Perry.
“Also, my dear Miss Perry,” said Cheriton, mellifluously, “you may require a little advice occasionally from a man of the world. The vast metropolis is full of pitfalls for your sex.”
“We have poachers at Slocum Magna,” said Miss Perry. ”

“ The Earl of Cheriton.”
Mrs. Lascelles laid “Pêcheur d’Islande” upon the varnished boards. She rose to greet Miss Perry with an exclamation. In the circumstances it was most natural, for Miss Perry was looking neither more nor less than a goddess.
Jim’s mother took a hand of Miss Perry in each of her own.
“You are too wonderful,” said she. “You take away one’s breath. I always predicted that you would grow up a beautiful girl; but, really, who could have expected this.”
Miss Perry said nothing at first. She merely proceeded to hug Jim’s mother in the traditional Widdiford manner. ”

“ The manner in which Cheriton enclosed the ample paw of Miss Perry, which nevertheless, speaking relatively, contrived to appear long and slender, in his own delicately manicured fingers was almost epic.
“Miss Perry,” said he, “this is a great moment in my life.”
[87] “Don’t be a coxcomb, Cheriton,” said Caroline Crewkerne with great energy.
No one made fuller use than that old woman of the privilege accorded to age of being as rude as it pleases. But it was so necessary that the wearer of the vegetable basket should not get notions under it before she had been in Hill Street an hour. ”

“ Well—" She broke off short, for Miss Perry, while kind, was human, and was visibly conscious that she had promised her brother and sister-in-law to be at their house in East Auburndale, a populous suburb, long before it was time to put the baby to bed. "I suppose there's nothing for me to do but go home," finished Susanna, discontentedly.
"Accidents will happen!" trilled Miss Perry, blithely, hurrying for her car. ”

“ One day as Perry had recovered strength, Judge Whaley said:
"My son, are you a minister, qualified to perform marriages?"
"Yes."
"When you are ready and strong, will you marry your mother and me again?"
"Very soon," said Perry; "but not too soon. Here is Marion waiting for me, as she has waited, like Rachel for Jacob, these many years. I shall preach no more, dear father, except as a layman. I see by your eyes that the demon is no longer in our home, and the remainder of my life will be spent in returning to you the joy my presence for years dispelled." ”

“ Upon the receipt of these documents Miss Perry was commanded by Aunt Caroline to write to her papa to explain the signal honor that had been conferred upon her; and to inclose a copy of the deed of settlement for his inspection, sanction, and signature. In obedience to this command, with infinite labor and difficulty and many tears, Miss Perry composed the following:—
Papa Dearest,—Aunt Caroline desires me to write to inform you that her old friend the Earl of Cheriton has done me the honor of wishing to marry me—that is, Papa Dearest, if you have no objection. ”

“ One feels one ought to have so many things in common with such a papa as yours.”
“Papa is just as sweet——” began Miss Perry, with a perfectly delightful fervency. But she got no farther.
Aunt Caroline uplifted an immutable finger.
“Araminta,” said she, “it is time you went up to dress. Burden, take her to her room.”
[90] Miss Perry rose at once with a docility that was charming. She bestowed her most frankly indulgent beam upon Lord Cheriton, and quitted the drawing-room in Miss Burden’s custody.
Cheriton screwed his glass into his astonished eye to gaze after such magnificence.
“A goddess!” ”

“ With that Perry looks at me all in a fluster [83] —he have no more wits to turn things off than a born idiot. 'Very well,' says I to her, eating at my egg as if I thought nothing; 'I hopes my missis won't have no call to use 'em, but she's took awful bad in the chest sometimes, and it's as well for us to be ready.' 'I'm sure I pities her,' says the girl, 'for there ain't nothing worse than spasms. ”

“ I wonder if you know how it seemed to have a child like that saying such things. For she was more than a child, she was a beautiful woman, and everything surrounding her was beautiful. And there had been a great many gray years before I met Perry and before the money came which made pleasant living possible.
"I like you because you are strong," was another of her tributes.
"How do you know I am strong?"
"Well, you look it. And not many men could have carried me so easily upstairs."
She had sprained her ankle in getting out of my car on the night that we had dined at the country club. ”

“ Plunket grew very thoughtful indeed. Finally a clear conviction seemed to enfold her.
“I am sorry,” she said, “but I fear that an under-housemaid who is six feet high is out of the question. Her ladyship has a rooted objection to any kind of extravagance.”
Now, as I have said, Miss Perry was not in the least clever. The sum of her knowledge of the world had been acquired at the uncommonly rustic parsonage at Slocum Magna. She realized in her lethargic fashion that her Aunt Caroline was a very proud and unfeeling old woman, who had an odious way of treating her poor relations. ”

“ So Perry was free; as free as an aging husband who has just dispatched his jaded wife. He sang a little and danced around the shattered scraps of plastic and wire and metal.
Then he heard the plaintive bleating beep of sound issuing from the central core of the Serve-All. ”

“ Perry had listened with interest, her big, dark eyes fixed on Teresa.
"I don't know—perhaps his way is more an interpretation," she said abruptly. "It is interesting, at least. Anyone almost can paint a pretty woman, but to see what she is——"
"He only paints what he sees, of course—only he sees, perhaps, what isn't there!" ”

“ Perry's own father had made no money, but Perry's mother was obsessed by the idea that the fortunes of the family were bound up in her son's continuance of his father's practice.
So Perry went home and opened an office. His heart was not in it, but he made enough to live on, and at last he made money enough to marry a wife. He would have married her whether he had enough to live on or not. She was an artist, and she was twenty when Perry met her. We had been spending a month in Maine, on an island as charming as it was cheap. Rosalie was there with a great-aunt and uncle. ”

“ My mistress decided upon it this morning, and I have just seen her off by train, with Sarah in attendance on her. Fact is, sir," added Perry, dropping his voice to a confidential key: "Hatch whispered to me that it was thought best the poor young lady should be out of the house while it is so troubled."
"Troubled!" I repeated, half in scorn.
"Why, yes, sir, you know what it is that's in it," rejoined Perry simply. "Mr. Close, too, he said Miss Annabel ought to be away from it just now."
When every hour of the day is occupied, time glides on insensibly. A week passed. ”

“ There was just one person left on the visitors' seat,—a young lady who looked shy and quiet.
"Oh, Mr. Parker," she said, when the superintendent told her what he wanted, "I can't take that class; I've watched those boys ever since they came in,—they look mischievous enough for anything, and act as they look."
"Then shall we leave them with nothing but mischief to take up their attention?"
"No, but—they really ought to have a better teacher than I,—some one who knows how to interest them."
"But, Miss Perry, the choice lies between you and no one." ”

“ Let the ideal Perry shadow the passer by and from its high pedestal apparently cast a glance at each beholder, which shall penetrate and permeate his mind and heart, and possess him completely with the noble and generous purpose, and lofty soul which animated Perry on the occasion which the artist has undertaken to represent him. ”

“ Aunt Elizabeth said it wouldn’t be safe to have him round the place. But Cousin Jimmy said it was awful hard to get a chore boy and that we ode Perry something for saving my life from the bull. So Aunt Elizabeth gave in and lets him sit at the table with us but he has to stay in the kitchen in the evenings. The rest of us are in the sitting-room, but I am allowed to go out and help Perry with his lessons. He can only have one candle and the light is very dim. It keeps us snuffing it all the time. It is great fun to snuff candles. Perry is head of his class in school already. ”

“ Perry replied. "Well then, you are settin' up with her. You've invited her to be your lady at the next spellin' bee between Six Stars and Turkey Walley, and she has said she'll think about it. Then you've told her that there is something wrong with you. You don't know what it is, 'ceptin' you feel all peekit like for no special reason; you can't eat no more, and sleep poorly and has sighin' spells. Then she kind of peeks at you outen the corner of her eye and smiles. ”

“ He well knew that impulses which might move a woman in the arms of a man, no matter who, battling for her life, might be for the moment only and lead to nothing but regret and alarm afterwards. How could it be otherwise with Virginia Howland? The girl, as though she had not heard him, as though she had forgotten the emotions which had swayed her, closed her eyes wearily and turned her face away.
The ship was yawing again. Tongues of flame reached hungrily for them, licking above Dan's red-gold hair and his back, but never touching the girl. Then the swing of the vessel and the wind again ”

“ She—not Virginia Howland now—just She—turned toward the man who crouched with one hand still clutching the wheel, the other lying loosely, palm downward upon the deck. Her face was filled with the glow of returning blood, her hair streamed, her eyes shone.
Gone, the tempest. The waves were lashing, surly, hissing a monotone as old as Time is old. The darkness was the gloom of an age before the sun was born. ”

“ Perry, suddenly emerging from his gloomy trance, sang with a happy smile:
"When I married A-me-li-ar, Rum-ti tumti tum,"—and then laughed consumedly.
We all shared in his hilarity, and when he had relapsed once more into his solemn and even dejected mood, with the same suddenness as he had emerged from it, I asked: "Do they give up their gardens when they marry?"
"Seldom at once," said Edward. "They need not give them up at all, and there are cases of old men and women still keeping up the gardens in which they first made love to one another, and retiring to them frequently. ”

“ Perry himself retired in the most preposterously light-hearted mood to his state-room, and repeatedly surprised himself, while undressing, by bursting into unmelodious song. He had kissed Valeria good-night, simply because he had to kiss somebody, and Valeria had asked him, half reproachfully (though not à propos of the kiss) , why, if he could be so enchanting, he did not choose to let his amiability shine before men a little oftener. ”