Miss Winthrop

“ To Miss Katherine Winthrop’s credit it must be stated that she desired her students at Primrose Hall to grow into something more useful than mere society women. Her ambition was to have them fill many important positions in the modern world now offering such big opportunities to clever women. Miss Winthrop was herself an unusually clever woman, cold perhaps and not sympathetic with most of her girls, but just always and interested in their welfare. ”

“ It was Abbot's purpose to devote a little time that afternoon to answering the letter received but yesterday from Miss Winthrop. It needs no telling—the fact that there had never been a love-affair in their engagement; and no one can greatly blame a woman who is dissatisfied with a loveless match. Viva Winthrop was not so unattractive as to be destitute of all possibility of winning adorers. Indeed, there was strong ground for believing that she fully realized the bliss of having at least one man's entire devotion. ”

“ He had no confidence whatever in Winthrop, simply because he was a man. In such situations men were selfish (he himself should have been no better) ; of course at the time they did not call it selfishness, they called it devotion. But in Margaret his confidence was absolute. And it was with a deep, tender pity for her, for all she had still to go through, that he now bent over her.
Winthrop had gone down-stairs; he paced to and fro in the stone-flagged hall below. The door stood open, the deep soft blue of the Florida sky filled the square frame. "If only she doesn't die!" ”

“ Mother was tired out that afternoon; for she had been on her feet all day, busied in her loving cares to make our simple home as pleasant and as welcome as home could be. But yet she stopped to dress us in our Sunday clothes,—and no sinecure was it to dress three persistently undressable children; Winthrop was a host in himself. "Auntie must see us look our prettiest," she said.
She was a picture herself when she came down. She had taken off her widow's cap and coiled her heavy hair low in her neck, and she always looked like a queen in that lustreless black silk. ”

“ He had flushed a little at her taunt. "I can carry you back to the side we started from," he said.
"No, you cannot do that, either. For I could easily blind you with my hands, and make you stumble."
"Garda!—how absurd!"
"Yes; but it's you who look so," she answered, bursting into a peal of irrepressible glee.
Winthrop had the feeling that she might be right. He knew that he was flushed and angry; no man likes to be laughed at, even by a girl of sixteen. Her eyes, though over-flowing with mirth, had still an unconquerable look in them. ”

“ Then, laughing, she came back to him, her pretty teeth shining beneath her parted lips. "You are the kindest man in the whole world," she announced, standing before him. Winthrop laughed also to see how suddenly happy and light-hearted she had become. "Let us go and tell mamma," continued Garda. "Poor mamma—I haven't been nice to her. But now I will be; I shall tell her that you will buy the place, there's nothing nicer than that. Then we can go to Washington."
"It will take some time, you know," Winthrop suggested. ”

“ Bill stuck close to her side.
“Is this true, Belle?” he said, almost doubtfully.
“True as truth!”
She put out her hand. He took it, and they skated on together, — hearts beating to the rhythm of their movements. The uproar and merriment of the village came only faintly to them. It seemed as if all Nature was hushed to listen to their plighted troth, their words of love renewed, more earnest for long suppression. The beautiful ice spread before them, like their life to come, a pathway untouched by any sorrowful or weary footstep. The blue sky was cloudless. ”

“ I should ask her to come herself, later. New York might amuse her."
"Never in the world, she wouldn't in the least approve of it," said Winthrop, laughing. "It wouldn't be Thorne and Duero; it wouldn't even be New Bristol, where she spent her youth. She would feel that she ought to reform it, yet she wouldn't know how; she would be dreadfully perplexed. She has a genius for perplexity, poor little soul. ”

“ Prinkie sang with the rest, and only Miss Winthrop noticed the troubled expression which rested upon the young girl's face. Miss Winthrop was very much troubled about her class; they were girls from twelve to fifteen years old. Some of them were church members, but nearly all seemed given over to frivolity. During the winter just passed there had been some religious interest in other classes in the school, yet these girls, absorbed in school, children's parties, and dress, had frittered the time away, and, so far as their teacher could see, had made little progress in the divine life. ”

“ Thou mightst have been queen of my heart,
Thou mightst have been all things to me!’”
The exquisite tenor voice of the singer died away into mournful echoes; the low accompaniment wailed along the piano-keys like the cry of a breaking heart, then sobbed itself out—and silence reigned.
“There is still another verse, Mr. Winthrop,” said Lady Edith Chilton, softly.
“Which I shall not sing,” answered Guy Winthrop, coolly.
“Shall not?” the girl repeated after him, in a rising tone of displeasure. “No one ever says ‘shall not’ to me, Mr. Winthrop.” ”

“ But presently, as she looked at Kerr, growing redder with too much dinner and too much wine, laughing at his own coarse jokes and throwing at her with great vulgar compliments; and when all at once, in contrast, rose the figure of the other Major as she had painted him, — disgust so mastered her that she sprang up, pleaded a headache, and fled to her chamber, to wait and hope and doubt and pray alone. ”

“ And if she is as I think she is, she will be glad to come."
"Oh!" said Winthrop, with angry scorn.
"She'll be glad, because she's my wife—she's a stickler for that sort of thing. She is a very good woman; that's the advantage of having a really good woman for your wife—you can rely upon her whether she likes you or not—likes you very much, I mean. But I begin to think you don't know her as well as I do, in spite of the time you have had."
"Know her? I don't know her in the least! I have never known her—I see that now."
At this moment they heard the dip of an oar, and stopped. ”

“ Miss Winthrop had reiterated over and over again in the course of their walk, “but I cannot believe that the queer accidents of life are accidents at all. I believe that it has always been intended that you should some day know your own people and for that reason you were brought from your home in the West to this very neighborhood.”
After a while when Olive had found her voice she said, “I do not like my grandmother, Miss Winthrop, and I feel sure that we will never like one another. ”

“ They found him lying without, under the great window, — a man, and in his arms a burned and blackened thing. It might be, they thought, a woman.
They carried them away where the air was cool, and the crisp frost was unmelted on the grass. The man breathed, and moaned. No one knew his face, masked with black smoke.
With the neighbors, Mrs. Dewitt now came running up, and joined the group.
“See!” said she, with a shudder. “This was my mistress. She always wore this diamond on her neck in the evening. She is dead. No? she breathes!”
Yes; there was the gem, showing red reflections of the flames. ”

“ Winthrop asked him in, and then when he was seated, asked him what he wanted.
"I am wishing to know if you could let me live wiz you a few days — I am wanting to be busy in your mountains, about my affairs, and I just want to know if you can let me have a bed to sleep on at night, and a little somet'ing to eat — I would be very much obliged and I would pay you whatever you please — "
"Mother," said Winthrop, "can you let this gentleman stay here a few days? he has business in the mountains, he says, and wants to stop here?"
"I do not wish to be no trouble to no person," he said blandly. ”

“ Rufus went on bitterly, half communing with himself. — "I for fiery impulse, and you for calm rule."
"I don't want to rule," said Winthrop half laughing. "And I assure you I make no effort after it."
"You do it, and always will. You have the love and respect and admiration of everybody that knows you — in a very high degree; and there is not a soul in the world that cares for me, except yourself."
"I do not think that is true, Will," said Winthrop after a little pause. "But even suppose it were — those are not the things one lives for." ”

“ Winthrop," said his hostess, earnestly; "you are quite mistaken. Good health is in itself full of the deepest interest, I am sure, and especially at the present day, when it is so singularly rare. I am most glad you possess it—most glad indeed."
"I possess enough of it, at any rate, to go over the place, if you will be so kind," said Winthrop. "You know you promised me that pleasure some day, and why not this afternoon? There is a delightful breeze."
Mrs. Thorne dropped her eyes to the tips of her black cloth slippers, visible beneath the skirt of her gown. ”

“ Ah, nevermore! Nothing done could be undone.
“You are very kind,” she said, with an altered manner, — sadness instead of languor. “No one has ever been so tender with me. O Robert! why did you not come years ago?”
While my answer to this pleading question lingered, we entered the lobby.
A young lady, standing there alone and forlorn, pounced upon Emma Denman.
“Dear Emma!” cried Miss Matilda Mildood, “I’m so glad you are here. Do take me home. Our coachman is wild with drink, and my brother Pursy is in danger of his life.” ”

“ If she did not love him, — this man of all men most lovable, this feminine soul in the body of a hero, this man who had spilled his blood for her, whose whole history had trained him for those crowning hours of a chivalric life when the lover led our Gallop of Three; if she did not love him, she must be, I thought, some bloodless creature of a type other than human, an angel and no woman, a creature not yet truly embodied into the body of love we seemed to behold. ”

“ She looked at him, — innocent as a lamb. Bill looked at her, delighted with her little coquetry. A woman without coquetry is insipid as a rose without scent, as Champagne without bubbles, or as corned beef without mustard.
“It’s something I’m thinking of most of the time,” says he, “but I hope it’s softer than Boiler Plates. B. P. stands for Miss Isabella Purtett.”
“Oh!” says Belle, and she skated on in silence. ”

“ Then she drew away indignantly from the man who had put this little stab into her heart.
“Are there no gentlemen in the world?” she thought. “Do men dare to speak so and look so at other young ladies?”
“Loog ad de breddy Meess,” says Emerick, holding a wine-glass before his bushy abattis, as a cover. “Zhe is nod habbie wid Chack, nor wid Gurr!”
“A dozen fellows,” Rawdon rejoined, behind his glass, “of better blood than Jack, and better hearts than Kerr, would have cut in there long ago. The daughter is as sweet and pure as a lily. But who dares marry such a mother-in-law?” ”

“ For anything."
"What do you want me to do, Will?" said Winthrop looking up.
"To tell me why I should not marry Miss Haye or Miss
Cadwallader."
"You not knowing, yourself."
"Yes — I don't," said Rufus.
Winthrop turned over a few leaves of his book and then spoke.
"You are stronger, not to lean on somebody else's strength. You are more independent, not to lean at all. You are honester, not to gain anything under false pretences. And you are better to be yourself, Will Landholm, than the husband of any heiress the sun shines upon, at such terms." ”

“ The day after his return from Vantassel, just as they had done supper, there was a knock at the front door. Winthrop went to open it. There he found a man, tall and personable, well- dressed though like a traveller, with a little leathern valise in his hand. Winthrop had hardly time to think he did not look like an American, when his speech confirmed it. ”

“ I could get you a place wiz him."
"No, sir," said Winthrop smiling; — "the eagle never begins by being something else."
"Dat is true," said the naturalist. "Well — I wish I could do you some goot, but you will not let me; — and I trust you that you are right."
"You are a good friend, sir," said Winthrop gratefully.
"Well — I mean to be," said the other, nodding his good- humoured head.
Elizabeth was too far off to hear any of this dialogue; and she was a little astonished again when they reached the land to see her boatman grasp her friend's hand and give it a very hearty shake. ”

“ The girl regarded him warily, like a fencer fixing her eyes on those of her opponent. There was a pause, which lasted so long that had the silence continued it would have been rude. "Well," the girl returned at last, timidly, "that's what the city expects you to do, is it not?"
Winthrop laughed. "How did you know who I was?" he asked, and then added quickly, "Of course, you're a mind-reader."
For the first time the girl smiled. Winthrop found it a charming smile, wistful and confiding.
"I don't have to ask the spirit world," she said, "to tell me who is District Attorney of New York." ”

“ You and I have had the college, the salon, the club, the street, Europe, the Old World, and Yankeedom through and through; when do you expect to outgrow Ishmael, my Jonathan?”
“Whenever Destiny gives me the final accolade of merit, and names me Lover.”
“What! have you never been that happy wretch?”
“Never. I have had transitory ideals. I have been enchanted by women willowy and women dumpy; by the slight and colorless mind and body, by the tender and couleur de rose, and by the buxom and ruddy. I have adored Zobeide and Hildegarde, Dolores and Dorothy Ann, imp and angel, sprite and fiend. ”