Miss Williams

“ And away he went, leaving Miss Butcher smiling fondly after him, while Miss Williams wondered how on earth any girl ever managed to fall in love, considering there was nothing but young men to fall in love with. ”

“ In spite of her intrigue with Stone, and of, it is said, another with Captain Imlay, Miss Williams retained, with her religious sentiment, her association with the protestant set of her sister's family; and the tradition of her which remained to the younger members of it was as of one to admire and love. And in fact her writings are very much what might be expected from a warm-hearted and ignorant woman. ”

“ Williams, I beg you will not—" cried Rita, endeavoring to withdraw her hand.
"You shall listen to me," he cried, half in anger, half pleadingly. "I have loved you as tenderly and unselfishly as woman ever was loved, since I first knew you. I know I am not worthy of you, but I am the equal of any other man, and you shall treat me fairly."
The girl, in alarm, struggled to free herself from his grasp, but he held her and continued:—
"No other man can give you the love I feel for you, and you shall respond to it."
"It is impossible, Mr. Williams," she said pleadingly. "You do not know all. ”

“ May be she is ill in town; nothing in the world more likely, for I have a notion she is always rather sickly. I would lay any wager it is about Miss Williams. It is not so very likely he should be distressed in his circumstances now, for he is a very prudent man, and to be sure must have cleared the estate by this time. ”

“ Andrews, and as if to see herself sit daily and hourly face to face with her old self, the ghost of her own youth, would be a quite easy thing.
The girls were delighted. They left all to Auntie, as was their habit to do. Burdens naturally fall upon the shoulders fitted for them, and which seem even to have a faculty for drawing them down there. Miss Williams's new duties had developed in her a whole range of new qualities, dormant during her governess life. Nobody knew better than she how to manage a house and guide a family. ”

“ do not you know who Miss Williams is? I am sure you must have heard of her before. She is a relation of the Colonel's, my dear; a very near relation. We will not say how near, for fear of shocking the young ladies." ”

“ At this time Miss Williams first spoke of inviting her sister to spend the summer and fall months with us, and in response to a letter Nannie came from Texas. I 50met her at the train and found her to be a remarkably quiet and gentle woman—apparently not very strong—certainly of a most kindly disposition. The sisters had never lived together for any considerable length of time, and they anticipated much pleasure in the society of each other. ”

“ Miss Helen Maria Williams. The Swan probably never did have her gowns cut and turned, for she was a well-to-do lady with an income of four hundred pounds; and she lived very grandly in the bishop's palace at Lichfield, where her father ("an angel, but an ass," according to Coleridge) had been for many years a canon. But Apollo having, after the fashion of gods, bequeathed nothing to his glowing daughter but the gift of song, Miss Williams might occasionally have been glad of a gown to turn. ”

“ Williams. “It transformed a bright and happy woman—happy—despite their impending poverty—in her husband’s love, into a brokenhearted, crushed and desolate widow, whose only incentive to drag her weary way through life was the necessity of caring for her fatherless little ones. It was worse than murder, sir, for it prolonged for years the suffering of a human heart.”
For a moment he paused, and in the stillness that ensued the doctor could be heard muttering dreadful words, as if to himself. Indeed, he could not trust himself to look at Mr. Jordan, who sat as motionless as if turned to stone. ”

“ She was tensely interested in the fact that no person—and “person” was shaded by something subtle in her manner and voice to mean no woman—had ever been loyal to Williams. There was some kind of a story about how his own mother, at some time or other, had been fearfully prejudiced against him.
And I knew that deep within this tragic Sicilian was love of Williams—though she slid the word “love” scornfully from her lips when it came casually into her remarks.
Not knowing Williams, she had been alarmed by what Raikes and Davenant planned. ”

“ Without opening the book, Williams began slowly:
“Man that is born of woman has but a short time to live and is full of misery. He comes up and is cut down like a flower. He flees as from a shadow, and never continues in one place. ”

“ Cis is the mistress of arts and wiles. She sports with the hearts of men. Miss Foster vacillated between the two ideals, and I have no doubt—it was springtime then—wore a pink cotton frock, ironed stiffly, wonderfully frilled.
Beside Cis Foster was another name in another writing, John Emmanuel Williams. He used to come there on Sunday evenings when Mrs. Foster, growing oldish now and a little worn, stayed at home; when Mr. Foster smoked his pipe with a secure feeling that one churchgoing of a Sunday was enough for any man; when the boys, young scamps, were birds'-nesting in the woods. ”

“ Williams," said he kindly, "we all feel that you are rapidly sinking; do you die happy? Do you feel that there is a Jesus in heaven, through whose mediation you will be saved?"
There was a rustling of the bed-clothes, a faint murmur, and the sufferer languidly turned her eyes upon the speaker. A dimness was in those sunken orbs; a clamminess upon her wan brow, and her breast heaved wildly beneath the linen that lay in snowy waves across it. But she did not appear to have heard the inquiry of the minister.
"The Widow White—has she not come yet? ”

“ Somewhat piqued at the abruptness of his dismissal, he takes his departure, without the faintest suspicion that the most accomplished actress of the sixteenth century has been playing one of her many parts. Passing through the ante-chamber, he perceives, apparently awaiting her royal mistress’s summons, a demure damsel of disturbing beauty—it is always the freshest and most innocent-looking of the squadron who is detailed for this kind of service—who modestly lowers her eyes as they meet his, but not before he has had time to remark that they are in keeping with her other perfections. ”

“ Surely, thought Williams, the girl could not kill a mouse. Where, then, would she find strength to kill a man? But she told him, in meagre outline, her story, and he learned that a great, self-controlled, modest strength nestled side by side with ineffable gentleness in the heart of this young girl; and that was the moment of Roger Williams's undoing, and the beginning of Rita's woe. ”

“ With the empressement of the exiled Briton, to whom the vision of a fresh young English girl is as the first violets of spring or the fragrance of the forest after summer rain, I took the slim cool hand she offered me.
“The steward,” I said, “has gone to tell him!”
“I'm afraid,” she went on, scrutinizing me dispassionately after the manner of the modern young girl, “that you're in for a very slow time. There's nobody but just Daddy and me. ”

“ When I felt so bad and it was hard to keep the tears back I took my doll Jane (I had named her after the dear, kind cabin maid) in my arms, rocking and singing some of my old French songs my mother had taught me. When Elizabeth looked at me I said, "Now I am getting patience." Soon the captain came in, saying, "Is this the little girl that is homesick?" I said, "Oh no, I'm not homesick any more. I have got patience." He laughed heartily. Elizabeth explained to him what I meant. He said, "No don't you get homesick any more. I will take you home next April on this old steamboat of mine. ”

“ Let the biggest man alive put a chip on his shoulder, and it will be impudently knocked off. Williams, not wholly unconsciously, wore a chip. Most people, either cautious or sensible, not necessarily timid, gave him headway.
I ignored his manner; though not his words. Commands were things he meant. He was not a bully. And when he gave his loyalty, his friendship, his word, not the combined admiralties of the world could frighten or fight him out of it.
“Too much imagination,” Williams snapped angrily.
I had talked of a woman.
“I'm a mummy inside, Skipper.” ”

“ At times I feel myself very clever. Guided a little, too, by her poised fierceness, the fierceness of eyes and voice, I surmised that she had no sympathy with doing anything for Williams.
For one thing, he had humiliated her father. I had no reason then for not supposing that Davenant was some one else. For a more important thing, Williams had treated her as if her cloak did actually confer invisibility; and, in my experience, nothing more enrages a woman than being ignored. ”

“ The flush of panic swept her and she tried to cry out but could only gasp and snatch for it as for something dearer than life. The bottle was in her hand, her fingers were at the cork—a sense of darkness, of being pressed to death came to her, suffocating. The rushing men were that close. As she flung the glass to her lips and swallowed stranglingly—they caught her. For a moment she was shaken this way and that like a doll in the mouth of dogs. Her waist was ripped from the shoulders, the silken things below it were torn away and the fair white flesh was given to the eyes of the men. ”

“ His sister—there could be no doubt that she was his sister—had a wide-eyed trustfulness and wonder in her eyes. She was a blonde little thing, not yet in bloom; hipless and breastless. In the midst of dark robust maidens who bloomed rapidly she seemed pathetically immature, faded if not blighted ”

“ Williams is a quiet young man who only desires to be left alone to earn his living respectably at the Bar, and see there if he cannot redress the balance in the favour of women. But there is something you could do for me, and it is for that I came to see you to-day—by the bye, we have both let our tea grow cold, but for goodness' sake don't order any more on my account, or else your parlour-maid will be coming in and out and will see that I've been crying and you look flushed. ”

“ And when I read a short story by you in which a young man sees a [196] pretty girl, and begins to talk to her without being introduced to her, and then marries her before luncheon—and finds he's married a Balkan Princess—good-night! I just wonder why people stand for your books; that's all."
"So do I," said Williams, much embarrassed. "I wouldn't stand for them myself."
"Why," continued Green warmly, "I read a story of yours in some magazine the other day, in which a young man sees a pretty girl for the first time in his life and is married to her inside of three quarters of an hour! ”

“ She now wanted Williams to propose marriage to her, but had begun to doubt his ever doing so. He continued to look at her meaningly, and to lay his rather desiccated hand from time to time on her shoulder, or upon the thin fabric of her sleeve, with a lingering, caressing touch. Elsie, however, had inspired too many men to such demonstrations to feel elated by them, and her employer’s proximity roused in her little or no physical response. ”

“ Williams, I am coming again soon, if you will allow me."
"You are very kind, Mrs. Everleigh, and I assure you it will give me great pleasure to have you do so," he replied, with all the old-time courtesy of the once elegant John Hungerford.
"And I will send my car around for you as soon as you feel strong enough for a drive," the lady continued brightly. "You need to get out into this crisp fall air, and before long you will feel like a new man; the world will seem like a different place to you." ”

“ Very reverend and godly he truly was, and a respect not merely ceremonious, but personal, a respect that savors of love, shows itself in the letters addressed to him. Charity and tolerance flow so naturally from the pen of Williams that it is plain they were in his heart. He does not show himself a very strong or very wise man, but a thoroughly gentle and good one. ”

“ Williams shrugged his shoulders.
“Come, Elsie, let’s understand one another. You’re not ignorant, a girl like you must have had half a dozen men after her. And then what about that doctor fellow—Woolley?” ”

“ Williams swore a great oath, that he would not be restrained in his pleasures to please a canting parish 'prentice, nor to humor a parcel of squalling brats—that let people say what they would of him, they should never say he was a hypocrite, and as long as they could not call him that, he did not care what else they called him. ”

“ The public she appears to have regarded very much as a queen might her subjects. On the occasion of a free performance at the Comédie, given by order of the King, she came on to the stage between the two pieces and threw handfuls of silver into the pit; and the worthy Parisians, quite gulled by this piece of theatrical quackery, cried, as they scrambled for the money, "Vive le Roi et Mlle. Clairon!" ”

“ But I do. Everybody does. And nobody knows why. So, meeting you again after all these unromantic years, I thought I'd just ask you whether by any chance you happen to know of any particular section of the city where a plain, everyday broker might make a hit with the sort of girl you write about. Do you?"
"Any section of this city is romantic enough—if you only approach it in the proper spirit," asserted Williams.
"You mean if my attitude toward romance is correct I'm likely to encounter it almost anywhere?" ”

“ Across her face she flung her arm, and bent forward, her whole body shaking with wild hysterical sobs.
Instantly Williams sprang forward, crying out in evil triumph. “I knowed it!” he yelled. “I knowed it. Look at him. Look at his figger. He ain’t no boy. He’s a girl. I’d a guessed it long ago, but she was so d— slim and straight. But she’s been a-growing and developing. Look at her now. She’s a girl, a girl, a girl, an’ she’s been travelling around with that Jack Telfair. ”