Miss Summers

“ Even more than the rest of the young folks, Shirley was getting the good of this happy, out-door summer, with its quiet pleasures and restful sense of home life. She had never known anything before like it. It was very different, certainly, from the studio life in New York, different from the sketching rambles she had taken other summers with her father. They were delightful, too, and it was pleasant to think of going back to them again—some day; but just at present, it was good to be a girl among other girls, interested in all the simple, homely things each day brought up. ”

“ What fools we women are!" She took out a locket which was hidden in the bosom of her dress, and gazed upon the face which it contained.
"Willy!"--how softly she breathed the name--"twelve months since you told me that story with your eyes--twelve months ago! Where have you been this weary time! I suppose it was an incident with you. I have heard those sort of things are incidents with men. What a fool I was to take it seriously! What fools we women are! I ought to have known that it was the fashion with Mr. Summers to love and ride away." ”

“ Summers did not show any sign of discomposure.
"Surely you will not be hard upon a man, especially upon a man in love. Consider our position. I seek Lily, she seeks me. Life's summer-time is short. You would not have us waste its sweetness?"
"Mr. Summers, I am more amazed than I can say."
"Oh, don't be amazed! For goodness' sake don't be amazed! And don't be hard upon a man--especially upon a man in love! Consider his position, and don't waste the sweetness of life's summer-time--oh, don't, for gracious' sake!" Mr. Ely pulled up his shirt-collar and "shot" his cuffs. ”

“ There are others who think of their summers as something to be endured until they can go back to the more or less selfish freedom of the school. Neither is the right way. The summer ought not to be an entirely frivolous season, neither ought it to be too workaday. If a girl has work to do, everything should be so arranged as not to deprive the vacation of its recreative side. [Pg 100] On the other hand the summer should be all the happier because of a definite object to be accomplished. Something is wrong with a girl unless she finds both summer and winter full of opportunity and pleasure. ”

“ In the well-regulated well-fed Summers world the unusual was regarded as either immoral or ill-bred, and people with emotions were not visited. Sometimes, with a sense of groping in a topsy-turvy universe, Anna had wondered why everybody about her seemed to ignore all the passions and sensations which formed the stuff of great poetry and memorable action. In a community composed entirely of people like her parents and her parents’ friends she did not see how the magnificent things one read about could ever have happened. ”

“ I'd have you break it, then!"
"Let me remove this matter from the realms of romance into the regions of common sense."
"When you City men begin to talk about common sense you mean something very common indeed."
"Mr. Summers, this is a very solemn subject to me."
"Solemn subject to you! I wonder what sort of subject you think it is to me. Is she going to be my wife or yours?"
"Miss Truscott will be the wife of neither."
"Won't she? By George, we'll see!"
Again Mr. Summers made helter-skelter for the door. Again Mr. Ash made haste to interpose. ”

“ Vernon set off for London as soon as she had determined what should be done. He is, if possible, to prevail on Miss Summers to let Frederica continue with her; and if he cannot succeed, to bring her to Churchhill for the present, till some other situation can be found for her. Her ladyship is comforting herself meanwhile by strolling along the shrubbery with Reginald, calling forth all his tender feelings, I suppose, on this distressing occasion. She has been talking a great deal about it to me. She talks vastly well ”

“ The one thing [Pg 222] a child cannot do is explain a complicated situation, even to another child. How could I hope to make Elizabeth understand that, eager to worship at some shrine, I had chosen Isabel Summers with a deliberation that boded ill for my fidelity. She was a thin, blue-eyed girl, with a delicate purity of outline, and heavy braids of beautiful fair hair. ”

“ Just think how strong you will grow with your long summer holiday out-of-doors. You must dig in the garden, and ride horseback, and play tennis," advised Madge enthusiastically, remembering her own happy summers at "Forest House," the old Butler home in Virginia.
Miss Jones shook her head wistfully as she rose to leave the room. "I am afraid I can't have the summer in the country. I have only a sister with whom to spend the summer, and she lives in a little flat in the city. She has a large family, and I expect to help her. My parents are dead." ”

“ If this is a love-letter, give me the other kind of thing.) 'It is quite impossible for me to be your wife.' (What--what the blazes does she mean?) 'The fact is, I am going to marry Mr. Summers instead'!"
Mr. Ely's jaw dropped, and he stared at the letter as though it were a ghost.
"Well--I'm--hanged!' The fact is, I am going to marry Mr. Summers instead.' That takes the cake!' Yours truly, Lily Truscott.'--If that isn't the sweetest thing in love-letters ever yet I heard of!" ”

“ Summers laughed and turned away.
"I'm sorry you cannot give me the information I require. And you really are inhospitable, Ash, you really are. But never mind, I'll have my revenge! When you come to see me I'll not show you the door; nor Ely, if he'll condescend to call."
He had reached the window when the door opened, and Mrs. Clive appeared.
"Ah, here is Mrs. Clive! I am sure that Mrs. Clive will take pity on a man, especially a man in the forlorn situation which I am. May I ask if you can tell me where I am likely to find Miss Truscott?"
"Mr. Summers!"
Mrs. Clive's attitude was a study. ”

“ That Summers boy who clerks in Pieker's grocery was with her. He once wanted Missy to go walking with him and I had to put my foot down. She doesn't seem to realize she's too young for such things. Her brown furs will do her for this season—and next season too! ”

“ Mary liked to plant flowers beside the road and in the fields.
She told her father that she wanted to make people happy who had no gardens. So Father called her The Traveler’s Joy.
But Mary liked best of all to play in the Squire’s meadow. It was filled with beautiful flowers and singing birds.
Mary cried when her father told her that he and the Squire were no longer friends. He said she must not play in the meadow with the Squire’s great dog, Saxon.
One day, the gardener gave Mary some pretty cowslips. She forgot what her father had told her, and ran down to the Squire’s meadow to plant them. ”

“ Yes, that is all very well, Summers, but he cannot marry. That is to say, if he has, as we are supposing, been born and educated as a gentleman, he cannot marry the sort of woman he would like as a wife. ”

“ Summers. But he had no need to ask. It was Haystack Thompson who was dropping down on them from somewhere up in the mountain, and who of course had his fiddle under his arm. For to go to a party without a fiddle was something of which Mr. Thompson never yet had been guilty.
“What’s your receipt for stopping a hootin’ owl, Mr. Bones?” demanded Mr. Summers. ”

“ Madame knows nothing of the horrors of the summer months endured by the “man on duty” out there, and serenely enjoys “the best,” without the seamy side ever turning up. She thinks that to spend one’s winters on the Nile, and one’s summers in the “Emerald Isle,” is as near an ideal existence as this world allows us. It is good to be a woman!
That farewell scene at Venice on board the P. & O., when friends came to see us off with bouquets and “bon voyage”—how I should like just one more of those gay leave-takings! ”

“ Carson roared with laughter.
“No, Summers,” he cried, waving his hands to stop the stream of protest, “I don’t think so—I don’t think anything. But you know yourself that if the girls go up to Sunset Gap, p. 24they’ve got to have a reliable, sensible, agreeable woman along with them. Now where shall we find anyone like that? She must like roughing it, yet she’ll have to be a refined, companionable woman. She must know how to keep the pantry stocked, do the cooking, and yet be a restraint to our impulsive young people. Such a person is hard to find.” ”

“ His wife is Barbara Summers. And they have the dearest baby you ever saw or heard of—Jonathan Summers, he is, bless him. Well, Mrs. Summers is just a little dear thing with brown eyes—she’s no bigger than I am. And from the minute we saw each other, we loved each other and felt at home. So we decided that we’d be kin. I write to her one week, and she writes to me the next. She sends me pictures of Jonathan that she takes with her little camera, and I send her presents when I can—little woven table-covers or baskets. You’ve no idea how sweet she is, Annie Laurie. ”

“ He caught a glimpse of himself in a long old mirror between two windows in the living-room as he came down-stairs, and he said to himself:
“Why, I don’t look in the least like myself. I look a new man. Nobody would ever dream that I’m a murderer!”
He carried two pans of scalloped oysters across the lawn to the church, while Mrs. Summers walked [Pg 88] beside him and carried the third, and guided him to the church kitchen door. ”

“ The oldest sister came down to the castle and said, “I liked best to watch the lights on the land, and to hear the bells ring.”
[163]
When the second sister was fifteen years old, she went up through the water at sunset.
“I think the golden clouds are the most beautiful things in the world,” said the second sister.
The third sister went up a wide river, with green woods and hills along the shore. “I watched some children in the water,” said the sea-maid. “How can they swim? Children have no fish tails.”
The fourth sister said, “The sea is more beautiful than the land. ”

“ You evidently think that her guardian's consent is not required. May I ask if you think that the lady's is unnecessary too?"
"There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy--I see that plainly, Ash! Don't you know that there is a language more eloquent than speech? That it is possible for a man and woman to understand each other perfectly and yet not interchange a word? We understand each other like that, my friend."
"I should be sorry to say anything which might lessen your self-conceit, but I think you are mistaken, Mr. Summers." ”

“ I’ve got to go to the girl’s mother and confess and ask her forgiveness, and then I’m going to give myself up. It’s the only right thing, of course. I ought to have seen that before. But first I’ve got to hunt up that Allan Murray, and make things right with him while I’m free. And that reminds me. Mrs. Summers, there’s a letter upstairs among those you laid on my bureau that seems to be from him. I’ll run up and get it.”
He was gone up the stairs with a bound, and the minister sat and smiled at Mrs. ”

“ Summers has made my gown very well indeed, and I get more and more pleased with it. Charles does not like it, but my father and Mary do. My mother is very much resigned to it; and as for James, he gives it the preference over everything of the kind he ever saw, in proof of which I am desired to say that if you like to sell yours Mary will buy it.
We had a very pleasant day on Monday at Ashe, we sat down fourteen to dinner in the study, the dining-room being not habitable from the storms having blown down its chimney. Mrs. Bramston talked a good deal of nonsense, which Mr. Bramston and Mr. ”

“ Genevieve and the white fox furs were escorted by Arthur Summers.
Now, Arthur had more than once asked Missy herself to “go walking” on Sunday afternoons. But Mrs. Merriam had said Missy was too young for such things. And when Missy, in rebuttal, once pointed out the promenading Genevieve, Mrs. Merriam had only replied that Genevieve's mother ought to know better—that Genevieve was a frivolous-minded girl, anyway.
Missy, peering through the parlour lace curtains, made no answer; but she thought: “Bother! Everybody can go walking but me!” ”

“ Kitchell with the younger children, brown and strong, and quite in the spirit of the occasion; and Hi and Jim were putting boards on saw horses, ready for the feast; and Carin and Annie Laurie were running down the road to welcome some freshly arrived guests.
“I say,” boomed the great voice of the Reverend Absalom Summers, “there never was another spot like this one! Now, was there ever, anywhere? When I get up here I feel just like a boy, I’m so happy—why, I’m just silly with happiness. ”

“ He glanced back at her with a smile as she bent above her task like a school-girl struggling with a “composition.” Her flushed cheek and frowning brow showed that her difficulty was genuine and not an artless device to draw him to her side. She was really powerless to put her thoughts in writing, and the inability seemed characteristic of her quick impressionable mind, and of the incessant come-and-go of her sensations. He thought of Anna Leath’s letters, or rather of the few he had received, years ago, from the girl who had been Anna Summers. ”

“ That Mademoiselle Sue was even much more lovely in her gray costume of golf with a tie the color of the one worn by my Buzz, than she had been in her chiffon of the dinner dance, and the beautiful Belle was much the same, with an added gayety and charm, while I discovered a very sweet Kate Keith and a Mildred Summers who was not of a great beauty but of many interesting remarks which induced much laughing. With them were that Miles Menefee whom my Buzz had recommended to me, and also several young gentlemen of America whom I liked exceedingly. One Mr. ”