Miss Randolph

“ Banbridge folk rather pitied Randolph Anderson for having such a sweetly helpless and incapable mother, albeit very pretty and very much of a lady.
Mrs. Anderson was a large woman, but delicately articulated, with small hands, and such tiny feet that she toppled a little when she walked. Her complexion was like a child's, and she fluffed her thick white locks over her ears and swathed her throat high in soft laces, concealing all the aged lines in face and figure with innocent feminine arts.
Randolph adored his mother. He had never cared for any other woman. ”

“ A voluble talker, she was never known to listen to any person save her superior in position or rank. Lady Randolph's lightest words she cherished and generally repeated them afterwards—as her own.
"I've hardly had time to say anything to you," she bleated. "How well Archibald looks to-night! It distresses me dreadfully to think that he will never wear pink again. Betty is very handsome. What do you say? A beauty? No, no. I can't agree with you. And I always admire blondes. All the Lambs are blondes."
"No black sheep in your family?" said Mark. Lady Randolph, who was near, smiled. ”

“ John Randolph sought Evadne in the familiar porch which had grown to be to him the sweetest spot on earth.
"You are always busy," he said with a smile, as he lifted the garment she was making for the little waif who was to have her first taste of heaven at 'The Willows.' Satan has no chance to find an occupation for you."
"But, oh, Doctor Randolph, what a drop in the bucket all our doing seems, when we think of the need of the world!"
"Yet without the drops the bucket would be empty, dear friend. God never expects the impossible from us, you know. ”

“ Randolph. You will find it out in time, when it is too late; and it will be your own doing."
"What?"
"Daisy will be a confirmed piece of superstition. You will see. And you will not find her docile then. If she once takes hold of anything, she does it with great obstinacy."
"But what is she taking hold of now? After all, you do not tell me," said Mr. Randolph carelessly.
"Of every sort of religious fanatical notion, you will find, Mr. Randolph! She will set herself against everything I want her to do, after the fashion of those people, who think nothing is right but their own way. ”

“ Mrs. Randolph and the doctor watched her with kindly amusement. Her eyes were sparkling with excitement, and there was a bright color in her cheeks; she seemed quite a different creature from the pale, subdued girl of a week before.
"I declare, Barbara, I had no idea that little girl was so pretty," Dr. Randolph remarked in a low tone to his sister-in-law, when Marjorie and Beverly were in the midst of an animated discussion about Captain John Smith and Pocahontas.
"She is charming," Mrs. Randolph answered, smiling. "It is strange how much environment has to do with appearance." ”

“ She met Randolph on equal ground. They soared together—mixed love of country with love of lovers. They rose at dawn to worship the sun, they walked forth at twilight to adore together the crescent moon.
And all the while war was at the gates; we could hear the boom of big guns. The spring drive was on and the Germans were coming back.
I shall never forget the night that Randolph and I were ordered to the front. Mademoiselle had come in with her hands full of violets. Randolph, meeting her for the first time after a busy day, took her hands and the frail blossoms in his eager clasp. ”

“ Mark shall tear them out and tear them up. Dear me! I am making myself ridiculous: chattering on and on about myself."
"One is never ridiculous when one is young," said Lady Randolph solemnly, "and I hope, my dear, you will let me read the turned-down pages before they are torn up. I used to say to myself that I should like to begin life again, to have one more chance. And, listening to you, I feel that I am beginning again. It is exciting. Only I hope that sometimes you will listen to me, and try to profit by my experience of a subject on which you, Betty, are so amazingly ignorant." ”

“ I I had not known Tom Randolph a week before I was aware that life was not real to him. All his world was a stage, with himself as chief player. He dramatized everything—actions, emotions, income. Thus he made poverty picturesque, love a thing of the stars, the day's work a tragedy, or, if the professors proved kind, a comedy. He ate and drank, as it were, to music, combed his hair and blacked his boots in the glare of footlights; made exits and entrances of a kind unknown to men like myself who lacked his sense of the histrionic. ”

“ Even in this hour of mortification, and with the memory of Randolph's doubt in mind, René had some delightful sense of being taken in hand and disciplined. He had not said again that the tie which bound them together must be broken. He had tacitly accepted the joy of defeat, a little ashamed, perhaps.
Every minute of this talk had been a revelation to the man who had lived near Margaret for years. An older man could have told him that no length of life will reveal to the most observant love all the possibilities of thought or action in the woman who may for years have been his wife. ”

“ He spoke to his kinsman and heir of his anxieties as to the future of his dearly-loved and only child, who would at his death be only very inadequately provided for. He did not attempt to conceal the hope he had cherished in asking Randolph to be his guest, that some arrangement might be made which should conduce to her future happiness; and just as the young man’s heart began to beat high with the tumult of conflicting feelings [128] within him, the old earl looked him steadily in the face, and concluded with a certain stately dignity that was exceedingly impressive. ”

“ Randolph and his lady (if he is to have one) , in proportion as the difficulties increase. He is an excellent, good man, to whose temper nothing can be objected, but too much facility, too much milk. Avail yourself of this softness, then, to obtain his attachment.
If the lady has any thing difficult in her disposition, avoid what is rough, and attach her good qualities to you. Consider [188] what are otherwise as a bad stop in your harpsichord, and do not touch on it, but make yourself happy with the good ones. Every human being, my dear, must thus be viewed, according to what it is good for ”

“ Doting father and mother sit around a desolate hearth, helpless to help, powerless to temper or withdraw the barbed arrow which has transfixed their souls. Tenderly fostered, idolized daughter, modestly brilliant, grandly human, with strong, sweet penchant toward self-sacrifice and for lowly, unassuming ministry, yet love-loyal to banished suitor, must bide uncertain issues, enduring that heartsickness which may find no specific.
These rasping human paradoxes are warrant for much bewildering thought. At such even Sir Donald Randolph's speculative, complacent optimism well may stagger. ”

“ Randolph, thinking he smelt a bluff and ready Tory 91lot, in Adam, and his company, found occasion to visit the tavern without delay. He arrived while Rust and the beef-eaters were still at their breakfast. He entered the house at the rear and ordered a drink at the bar.
Motioning the landlord to silence, that worthy being much astonished to see him so early, Randolph presently turned about, as if he had not before observed the trio at table.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “I drink ill when I drink alone; will you not permit me to order something in which you can join me?” ”

“ He looked up, and fixed such a searching gaze on the doctor as he never encountered before. But having no other motive but kindness for a suffering fellow man, he returned the scrutinizing look with steadiness. As Mr. Randolph read the countenance of the stranger, who had thus unexpectedly proffered his friendship, his face suddenly cleared up; and with a most winning smile, and real politeness, and with a touching tone of voice, grasping the doctor's hand, he said, "I am most thankful to you, sir, for your kindness, for I do, indeed, want a friend." ”

“ It was as clear as daylight, even to Randolph, that the woman was innocent. Her little harmless magic was the pathetic effort of a child to kill a dragon. He hesitated a moment before he spoke, and then he decided like the gentleman he was. If it helped the child to believe that her enchanted straw had slain the monster—well, he would let her believe it.
"And now, sir, may I go?"
Randolph looked at the woman in a sort of wonder.
"Are you not afraid," he said, "of the night and the mountains, and the long road?"
"Oh no, sir," she replied simply. "The good God will be everywhere now." ”

“ All I want is not to lose my job. Don't you give me away, and I won't give you away. Do you agree to that compromise and no more said?"
We had been holding each other by the eye, but suddenly his wandered, assisted by the monocle. So odd an expression sat on his face that I followed his straying glance, and saw what he saw—Miss Randolph! Miss Randolph at one of the long French windows of the club-house, with several other ladies. Without a second's hesitation I gripped Payne by the arm and dragged him across the lawn, using him as a screen. Once round the corner of the house, I let him go ”

“ And he had been so kindly about Randolph's five foot seven and a bit over. And he had shown himself so damnably tender toward a man fairly advanced within the shadow of the fifties—a man who, if not an acknowledged outcast from the joys of life, would soon be lagging superfluous on their rim.
Randolph stood before them, looking, no doubt, a bit vacant and inexpressive. "Please go and get Amy," Mrs. Phillips said to him. "I see she's preparing to give way to some one else." ”

“ She now [Pg 72] emphatically voted for the Frenchman and his car. But I have already noted a little peculiarity of Miss Randolph's, which I have also observed in other delightful girls, though none as delightful as she. If she is undecided about a thing, and somebody else takes it for granted she is going to do it, she is immediately certain that she never contemplated anything of the kind.
This welcome idiosyncrasy now proved my friend. "Why, Aunt Mary," she exclaimed, "you wouldn't have me go off and desert my own car, in the middle of the night too? ”

“ Had young Randolph been an ordinary boy of slow intellect, he would never have indulged in these beautiful dreams, which to the stupid mind would seem silly and absurd, but to him were living realities—creations to beckon him on, to encourage him in the hours of danger and to sustain him in the stern battle before him. ”

“ One does not spend whole afternoons at the blood-thirsty age of five, in stalking the turkeycock in the wooded pasture, noiselessly on his belly, with his wooden knife in his hand, and not come to the maturity of ten with the accomplishments of Uncas.
I was presently in a snowball bush, with a very good view of Randolph's inquisition, and I think that if Betty had waited to see it, she need not have gone away in so great a grief. Randolph was sitting behind his table in his pompous manner and with the dignity of kings. But for all his attitudes, he took no advantage over Mammy Liza. ”

“ Randolph, with the madman's fire in his eyes, hears him to the floor, puts his knee upon his breast, and tightens his clutch upon his throat. And as a gurgling noise sounded in the throat of the poor wretch, Randolph bent his face nearer to him, and (to use an all-expressive Scotch word) glowered upon him with those madman's eyes.
"This time there must be no mistake, brother. The world is large enough for many millions of people, but not large enough for us two. You must go, Harry,—master! You are going! Go and tell your father and mine how you treated the children of Herodia! Go!" ”

“ Basil Randolph, now—— But Randolph had not been invited, though his sister and her husband were of the company. Yet had it been Randolph, he would have smiled a wan smile and tried for a mild joke, conscious that he had made an original and picturesque contribution to the affair,—had broken the bland banality of routined dinner-giving and had provided woman with a mighty fine chance to "minister" and fuss: a thing she rather enjoyed doing, especially if a hapless, helpless man had been delivered into her hands as a subject. ”

“ To Randolph's eyes he appeared to grow in strength and stature in the salt breath of the sea, and although he was uniformly kind, even affectionate, to him, he was brusque to the other passengers, and at times even with his friends the sailors. Randolph sometimes wondered how he would treat a crew of his own. He found some answer to that question in the captain's manner to Jack Redhill, the abstractor of the portmanteau, and his old shipmate, who was accompanying the captain in some dependent capacity, but who received his master's confidences and orders with respectful devotion. ”

“ At some time in his early manhood he came into close relationship with Maria Ward. She had been an attractive child, and had grown into a woman so beautiful that Lafayette said her equal could not be found in North America. Her hair was auburn, and hung in curls around her face; her skin was exquisitely fair; her eyes were dark and eloquent. Her mouth was well formed; she was slender, graceful, and coquettish, well-educated, and in every way, charming.
To this woman, John Randolph’s heart went out in passionate, adoring love. ”

“ How beautiful a little act sometimes appears, Randolph, when it sits upon the countenance of one so artless by nature that you can see all the machinery which she imagines is so completely hidden, as a child often hides its eyes and vainly supposes itself unseen. ”