Miss Wilson

“ Wilson knelt down by his side and cried, appealingly:
“Where is my daughter? Tell me that she is unharmed, and restore her again to my arms, and no harm shall come to you. Only give her back to us, and we will forgive you the loss of our home, and all else that you have done to us.”
“The pale-face mother can not have her child again. The chief has not the power to give her again into her arms if he would. The Great Spirit has called her home.” ”

“ Miss Wilson has described what has occurred.”
“Oh, do let me get it,” she cried, rising. “It will make Uncle John scream with laughing. May I, Miss Wilson?”
“There!” said Miss Wilson, indignantly. “It is this incorrigible flippancy of which I have to complain. Miss Wylie only varies it by downright insubordination.”
Mr. Jansenius too was scandalized. His fine color mounted at the idea of his screaming. “Tut, tut!” he said, “you must be serious, and more respectful to Miss Wilson. You are old enough to know better now, Agatha—quite old enough.” ”

“ He gave his daughter in marriage to Wilson’s eldest son, and Wilson gave one of his daughters to Kindersley’s eldest son, and a daughter by this marriage is now Lady Herschell. Miss Wilson had been long adopted by the Porchers, who wished her and young Kindersley to be their heirs.
Henry Wilson had a large family by his first wife, who was a Maitland. He married a second time, the daughter of Lord Henry Fitz-Roy, a son of the Duke of Grafton. This lady brought him several children. She was a devoted mother to both families; as conscientious a lady as was ever born to fulfil great duties. ”

“ Why, she won't even have it that you're poor and ill; she always tells people what a fine mother she has, a lady she said you were, and that's because she's fond of you, and won't have others look down on you!"
Mrs. Wilson could not have heard half of these rapid words, but they succeeded in changing the current of her thoughts. Her moans ceased; Mary saw her pull the shawl together across her chest and turn to the young woman stooping over her. "Pretty?" she said earnestly. "She's as pretty as a summer's day, my Florrie is! They men's been after her ever since she left school! ”

“ Oliver had buckled on my gold-hilted sword, and given me a last touch.
"Thou art prepared, Sir Thomas," he cried, with a grand air and a sweeping bow. "And though thou mayest jeer at me if thou choosest, I will say to thy face, that thou art a goodly sight. Would that the fair ladies of London might see thee to-night; it would create a sensation, I can tell thee."
"Nonsense, boy!" I replied. "I have grown too old and rough to be a pleasant sight for a lady. She would want some fawning tailor's model, sweet-scented and delicate, and not a rude man such as I am." ”

“ Wilson, of course I know all about that boyish escapade of yours, but those things are of no account in society. If we modish women were to avoid the men we had once flirted with, why, sir, we could go nowhere. I warrant you Miss Hardacre is a discreet young woman; she has forgotten that little affair years ago. Should she frown on you because of it? The best policy in these things, Mr. Wilson, is to act as if there had never been any harmless little romance at all. ”

“ Wilson reflected that he had never before known a woman who had been able, for any considerable while, to support both a personal and an intellectual passion. Sitting behind her, he watched her with perplexed admiration, shading his eyes with his hand. In her dinner-dress she looked even younger than in street-clothes, and, for all her composure and self-sufficiency, she seemed to him strangely alert and vibrating, as if in her, too, there were something never altogether at rest. ”

“ Wilson to the Grand, for I am sure you must be wet. It will be very unsafe for you to be long without changing. Ah! here comes the driver, and he has another car coming along after him; that is fortunate, because Mrs. Wilson will not have to wait.”
“If I have to send Dorothy straight back to-day, may I have the pleasure of her company to tea to-morrow afternoon at four o’clock?” asked Mrs. Wilson, holding out her hand with such friendliness that Miss Groome at once gave consent. ”

“ Oh, my dear, I feel so relieved to know that my boy can have a wife from his own class—and still have it right up there—with Him, you know!" she concluded with an upward glance, as Nancy watched her with eyes grown strangely quiet, almost steely—watched her as one might watch an ant. She had the look of one whose will had been made suddenly to stand aside by some great inner tumult.
When her caller had gone she dropped back into the chair, absently pulling a glove through the fingers of one hand—her bag and parasol on the floor at her feet. ”

“ Wilson had been running away from her husband, rather than trying to stop any particular car.
"How could she of been like that?"
"She's a deep one," said Wilson, as if that answered the question. "Ah-h-h——"
He began to rock again, and Michaelis stood twisting the leash in his hand.
"Maybe you got some friend that I could telephone for, George?"
This was a forlorn hope—he was almost sure that Wilson had no friend: there was not enough of him for his wife. He was glad a little later when he noticed a change in the room, a blue quickening by the window, and realized that dawn wasn't far off. ”

“ I've a thousand arms all crying for you."
Slowly she made her eyes come to mine—not without effort, for we were close.
"I am glad we left you,"—she had meant to say "that arm," I judge, but there was a break in her voice, a swift movement, and she suddenly said "this arm," with a little shudder in which she could not meet my eyes; for, such as the arm was, she had finished her speech from within it. Close I held her, like a witless moonling, forgetting all resolves, all lessons, all treaties—all but that she was not a dream woman. ”

“ With all my heart I should wish her a worthy mate of her own class, and I was glad indeed to reflect upon the truth of my assertion to the Mixer, that no unfair advantage would be taken of her. His lordship would remove the Honourable George from her toils, a made monkey, perhaps, but no husband.
Again that day did I listen to a defence of this woman, and from a source whence I could little have expected it. Meditating upon the matter, I found myself staring at Mrs. Judson as she polished some glassware in the pantry. As always, the worthy woman made a pleasing picture in her neat print gown. ”

“ And then I related in a few words all I wished him to know of my kidnaping and detention upon the island.
He listened intently, a look of wonder upon his face.
"And why does my Lord Dunraven hound thee thus?" he cried. "What motive has he, that he should detain thee here?"
"Lad," I answered, a bitter smile upon my face, "thou art young yet, and hast much to learn; when thou growest older thou wilt know what a man will do for the love of a maid. Dost know the Lady Margaret Carroll?"
"Aye," he answered, "the loveliest lady in England; as well ask me if I know my master." ”

“ The water soon flowed up to the feet of the old woman; in a while it mounted to her knees, then to her waist, then to her chin, then to her lips; and when she was almost stifled by the rising waves, and the bubbling groan of her last agony was reaching her fellow-martyr farther up the beach, one heartless ruffian stepped up to Margaret Wilson, and, with a fiendish grin and mocking laugh, asked her, ‘What think you of your friend now?’ And what was the calm and noble reply? ‘What do I see but Christ, in one of his members, wrestling there? Think you that we are the sufferers? ”

“ In con [Pg 35] sequence of a proposal to become his wife, Miss Wilson sailed for Calcutta in 1816. On her arrival, she was kindly received by her affianced lover, who conducted her to the house of a respectable female friend, till arrangements might be completed for the nuptial ceremony. In the interval, she became desirous of withdrawing from her engagement; and Drummond, observing her coldness, offered to pay the expense of her passage back to Scotland. Meanwhile, she was seized with fever, of which she died. ”

“ Wilson herself was favored with more than ordinary advantages of feature and person. In youth she is said to have been remarkably handsome. Even at the age of thirty-eight, the period of life at which the likeness engraved for this volume was taken, a lady of Philadelphia thus writes of her during a visit there: "I wish you could see dear Mrs. Wilson. She is the genteelest, easiest, prettiest person I have seen in the city. And I am far, I can assure you, from being alone in this sentiment. I hear many others constantly express the same opinion. ”

“ A single culverin boomed out, then slowly, as though reluctant to descend from where she had so long floated, supreme and invincible—the mistress of the isle—the flag lowered until it touched the roof. She had finished her course; her day here was done.
Then there arose a roar that made the other weak and puny in comparison, and lo, there floated high above her the cross of Saint George. Proudly and triumphantly she spread her folds and streamed out bravely in the breeze; the mistress of a hundred hard-fought fields and scenes of carnage, she now counted another among her many victories. ”

“ Such an outlook, but from a lower altitude, delighted daily the eyes of Nature-loving Wilson, whose very prose was poetry, of a calibre not less than Kingsley's in his celebrated 'Devonshire Idylls,' or than Ruskin's rhapsodies on Switzerland. His ardent temperament and unusual virility compelled him to throw himself heartily into almost every possible form of physical and intellectual enjoyment. There never was such a man as he for undertaking everything and anything, and for doing nothing badly, including the art of 'loafing,' when he was in the cue for it. ”

“ Thus spoke the fortunate Wilson, the morning after his arrival from New Orleans, bringing the welcome news that his relative was dead, and that he was his heir.
“Don’t be too hasty, Sylvester,” said his mother. “Miss Evans has changed more than any one you ever saw. She is a perfect beauty, bating her freckles. Her hair is no more red than a chestnut. She is plump and round as an apple; she is white as snow, and her eyes are as pretty as possible.”
“Amen, mother! One would think you were her lover instead of your hopeful son. ”

“ First, it was impossible to think of going to her daughter. There were debts in the town; Clem would be unable to work for many weeks; and not only had Little Miss's contribution from her small wage now failed, but she herself had incurred debts and would be without money to pay them.
My neighbor depicted the gravity of this situation with a spirit that taxed my powers of admiration,—powers not slight, I may explain; for had they not already been developed beyond the ordinary by this same woman? Not even was she downcast in my presence. In fine, she was superbly Miss Caroline to me. ”

“ Beware how thou triflest with me."
The voice of the crone floated across to me through the smoke.
"No trick," she mumbled; "'tis but the magic of the great white spirit. Would my lord behold his rival? Look!"
And there upon the silver disk, with his brave, true eyes upon me, shone the face of Bobby Vane.
"'Tis false!" I cried. "False! He would not act thus."
"Wonder not," replied the crone. "Stranger things than this have happened; men would betray all for love of such a maid;" and she muttered something to herself. ”

“ Wilson," declared Peter Dillon.
Mrs. Wilson walked back and forth across her drawing room floor several times before she answered. She looked older in the early morning light. But her restlessness did not disturb Peter, who was reclining gracefully in a chair, smoking a cigarette.
"I am not sure you have reason to bless Providence, Peter Dillon," Mrs. Wilson protested. "What a man you are! You simply cannot judge all girls by the same standard. Some day you are going to meet a girl who is cleverer than you are. ”

“ He still stood looking at me. "Thou art a strange and perverse man, that thou wouldst give thy life for an unknown maid, but the humor of the thing appeals to me. I, too, am strange, and have my whims and fancies. So be it; the maid shall go free with thy friend to see her safe. I have another vessel, which meets me in a day or two; they shall go on that, and thou canst take her place."
"One last word," I said, "thou canst take my life if thou wilt, but thou canst not make me stoop to play the knave. A gentleman I was born, and by God's help, a gentleman I will die." ”

“ Such a man, aided by the powerful assistants of person and manners, and no inconsiderable colloquial talents, Mrs. Wilson knew to be extremely dangerous as a companion to a youthful female heart; and as his visit was to extend to a couple of months, she resolved to reconnoitre the state of her pupil's opinion forthwith in reference to his merits. She had taken too much pains in forming the mind of Emily to apprehend she would fall a victim to the eye; but she also knew that personal grace sweetened a benevolent expression, and added force even to the oracles of wisdom. ”

“ Wilson in bright-eyed consciousness of having sprung a sensation waited to enjoy its effect, he nodded, as much as to inform her that he had grasped the facts and that she might proceed.
She fondled Constance's hand for a little before doing so. She wished to come to the point directly, yet exhaustively; to avoid non-essentials, yet to present the theme with picturesqueness.
"This little woman's heart is deeply engaged," she resumed. "She loves dearly the man who has offered himself to her. ”