Molly

“ Molly excelled herself, was the wonder of the whole city. How she curtsied to their lordships—what a figure she had for that grace—how tall, how supple, and how slim! When she gave her rosy cheek to each in turn, there was a kind of caught sob audible in the crowd. The simplicity of the act brought tears to tender eyes: men laughed or looked haggard, according as the trouble took them; women, more at home with tears, clung to each other as they cried. ”

“ She was awakened from her revery by Philippe, who seized her hand, apple blossoms and all, and addressed her in the most impassioned tones: "Cousin Molly! Molly, dearest Molly! I have longed for this moment as I want to tell you how much I am gratified that you like Roche Craie. The place means so much to my mother and father and to me that we are happy when any one likes it, but for you of all persons to be pleased with it, adds to its value in our eyes. We all of us want you to make your home here. ”

“ Reluctantly, with trembling steps and hidden eyes, Molly forces herself to approach the dreaded spot. For the first time she is about to look on our undying foe,—to make acquaintance with the last great change of all.
A cold hand has closed upon her heart; she is consumed by an awesome, unconquerable shrinking. She feels a difficulty in breathing; almost she thinks her senses are about to desert her. ”

“ Molly would like to rule her little court also. She felt the genuineness of her fascination, the possession of which she realized to the full degree—that sort of fascination which succeeds where beauty, intellect, spirituality fail. It was a power, great, untried, unmeasured. Naturally her first impulse was to test it, to use it. She luxuriated in it. Nothing could be more delightful than to command and be obeyed; to smile into answering, smiling faces; to frown and see swiftly, as in a mirrored reflection, the countenances about her become dark. ”

“ Any girl who had been abroad would have taken it as little more than the merest politeness, but to Molly it came as a surprise. A glow of quick, deep joy rose within her; her cheeks did not blush, for this was a feeling too peaceful, too restful for blushes or any sort of discomfort.
"This young lady can run like a deerhound," said Edmund, "and bandage like a surgeon."
"But that's about all she can do," laughed Molly. "Ah! there"—she could not quite hide the regret in her voice—"there are Lady Groombridge and Lady Rose." ”

“ As her glorious voice floats through the dimly-lighted room and out into the more brilliant night beyond, Luttrell, and Letitia, and John sit entranced and wonder secretly at the great gift that has been given her.
"If ever words are sweet, what, what is song
When lips we love the melody prolong!"
Molly in every-day life is one thing; Molly singing divinely is another. One wonders curiously, when hearing her, how anything so gay, so debonnaire as she, can throw such passion into words, such thrilling tenderness, such wild and mournful longing. ”

“ It was Louise Barry, handsome and smiling, in a rich costume of dark silk and velvet.
“Oh, Molly, in bed yet? Luxury has taught you bad habits,” she exclaimed with a light laugh.
“My mistress is sick, madame,” exclaimed Phebe, banging the door shut, and turning on the visitor with sharp displeasure.
“Go away, Louise! I can’t bear the sight of you!” Molly cried, fretfully; but Miss Barry sank coolly into the easiest chair in the luxurious room.
“Your manners are as bad as of old, Molly,” she retorted, insolently. “But send your maid away, please; I want to talk to you privately.” ”

“ She sat quiet a few moments until Molly’s jealous love conquered her pride.
“Florine Dabol, why do you say such things to me? Do you believe that Louise has won my husband’s love from me?” she demanded.
“It is plain to be seen, madame. Such goings-on!” Florine tossed her head and shrugged her shoulders in a way that expressed volumes.
Molly gazed at her with eyes full of pain, and Florine said to herself that she was making good progress indeed.
“Madame, you are too good, you are indeed. I would not live with a man that hated me openly, and spent all his time with another woman. ”

“ He spoke at last but not to utter the words she expected.
"I haven't come to say, 'Thank you,' Molly," he said. "I have come to ask why."
"Oh!" said Molly.
She was startled, confused, almost scared, by the mastery that underlay the gentleness of his tone. He kept her hand in his, standing there, facing her in the dimness; and, cripple as he was, she knew him for a strong man. ”

“ He has fallen madly, gladly, idiotically in love with beautiful Molly Massereene.
Every curve of her pliant body is to him an untold poem; every touch of her hands is a new delight; every tone of her voice is as a song rising from out of the gloom of the lonely night. ”

“ Merry knows what is pretty and becoming: I don't," thought Molly, meditating in the bushel basket, with her eyes on her snuff-colored gown and the dark purple bow at the end of the long braid Muffet had been playing with. ”

“ But Molly had not laughed when the words were repeated; they gave expression to a feeling with which she sometimes looked at many things besides her dressing-table—they might all prove only so much more to leave in the end!
She sank exhausted again onto the sofa. Why had he come? Why could he not leave her alone? Did she want his friendship, his pity, his confidence? Why look at her so kindly when he must know how he hurt her? She had felt such joy when she saw that he believed in her. ”

“ In such emergencies as this, where a creature of coarser fibre would fail, Molly's hereditary fineness of instinct stood her in good stead. She saw intuitively the attitude she should take. In the first place, she held herself in the background, left the lead to others, behaved as if she suspected herself of being an intruder; so that the men suddenly felt themselves very paternal and adoptive. ”

“ Worse than wraiths! Of a sudden something beyond accounting happens. In Molly’s bedroom they’ve always kept the old paper, spotty and faded as it is; funny old paper, peopled by Venetian boatmen and early Victorian trees. And now between two breaths Andy and Isaiah are pictures with the boatmen and memories with the trees. It is as though, still visible, no one saw them; as though reality had abandoned them and gone out into the middle of the room.
Molly is real; they’re not. ”

“ At sight of this pedestrian the bay horse, which had been pacing easily and beautifully, uttered a loud whinny of delight, and changed his easy gait for a sudden gallop that took Molly by surprise, and, losing her balance in the saddle, the reins slipped from her hands. Another moment and our luckless heroine went flying over the head of her noble steed and landed ignobly on her face in the dust of the road. ”

“ Tenderly and lovingly, she embraced them again and again; now she gazed into the joy-raying eyes of her happy father,—now into the deep, blue, tender eyes of the beloved Molly,—as if to make [88] up, in the fulness of her bliss, for the long time she had been deprived of this source of delight. Then she suddenly turned round to the young physician who was standing behind her, and who had been deeply touched by this exciting scene.
"How shall I thank you?" she cried, pressing his hand to her innocent lips, which he vainly struggled to withdraw. ”

“ Molly beamed with pleasure. “Ah, you see how wonderful mother is. I thought you would appreciate her. She likes you, too, Professor Green. Mother says she believes she understands boys better than girls and can enter into their feelings more.”
“Oh, what am I saying?” thought Molly. “I wonder what the Wellington girls would say if they could know I forgot and as good as called their Professor of English a boy! Well, he does look quite boyish out of doors, with his hat on.” ”

“ Molly flushed, but finished her breakfast in silence, and then ran upstairs to arrange an impromptu riding-habit.
By letting out the tucks in her red cashmere dress she made a very presentable habit, combined with the velvet-trimmed jacket, and setting a little red-plumed turban on her mop of curls she ran down-stairs in the gayest spirits.
“I’m ready, Aunt Thalia.”
“Whew! You’re like a whirlwind, Louise,” exclaimed Mrs. Barry; but she summoned old Abe at once, and said:
“Miss Barry wants a ride, Abe, and you must go with her as she is not accustomed to riding. ”

“ You’ve bought a dolly for your little Molly with hair so bright and eyes so blue;
I’ll give you a kiss, a sweet little kiss, and may be I’ll give you two!
Oh, my Daddy, my dear old Daddy, I do love you!
Molly has climbed on his shoulders broad,
“Let us play horses, my Dad!”
See how they scamper around the house,
And Molly is oh, so glad!
Slyly she peeps in his pockets then,
Thinking that Dad cannot see;
Ah, the young rogue knows there’s something there,
And Molly is laughing with glee.—Chorus. ”

“ Molly replies, quietly; "I told you I sang a little; it is not customary to laud one's own performances."
"You are a clever actress," says Marcia, so low as to be unheard by all but Molly: "with such a voice as yours, and such masterly command of all emotion and expression, you should make the stage your home."
"Perhaps I shall find your hint useful in the future," says Molly, with a slight shrug of her shoulders: "when one is poor it is always well to know there is something one can put one's hand to when things come to the worst; but at present I feel sufficiently at home where I am. ”

“ Molly’s head popped up from the pillow like a cork.
“Indeed she won’t then! Marry me off, indeed! I should like to see any one try it!” she blazed, indignantly.
“Hi, honey, doane you want get married?” Ginny Ann inquired, in amazement.
“No, I don’t! I hate men, every one of them—deceitful prigs!” cried Molly, violently, adding to herself that the man she had seen tonight she hated worst of all. ”

“ Molly, there's the loving-cup to come yet," he whispered. I hated him, but held on to his thumb tight for half a minute. He didn't know what the matter really was, but he understood what I needed. He always does.
And after that everybody had a good time, Jane and her nephew as much as anybody, and I could see Aunt Bettie and Mrs. Johnson peeping in the pantry door, having the time of their lives, too.
That dinner was going like an airship on a high wind, when something happened to tangle its tail feathers, and I can hardly write it for trembling yet. ”

“ Molly was almost certain that Cousin Edwin was about to place this office on the shoulders of his younger brother, but glancing again at the flushed and happy face of Dodo at the side of Judy, the Professor relented and dropped behind to look after his relation.
Never had Molly been so wildly excited as she was over the football game that afternoon. It was a wonderful picture, the two teams lined up against each other; crowds of people yelling themselves hoarse; the battle cry of the Repton team mingling with the warlike cry of the Exmoor students. ”

“ She dressed habitually in soft, thick, gray silk, and pinned her collar of the yellowest old real lace with a magnificent diamond brooch. Ill-health had magnified an already imperious temper; and Molly was not far wrong when she complained that the aristocratic old lady was a perfect old dragoness, for she was the terror of her servants when in one of her “spells,” as they called them, and even her young visitor had more than once smarted under the lash of her displeasure. ”

“ And Molly raised her frank blue eyes to his appealing brown ones and answered: "No, I can't love you just a little, but I have to love you a whole lot."
His day dream was indeed coming true: alone with Molly Brown in the great, deep, silent forest, his love spoken at last and Molly actually confessing that she cared for him. That eminent instructor of English at Wellington College found when the time came to express himself that all his knowledge of words was as naught, and the only English he had at his command was: "I love you, do you love me?" ”

“ But, Molly—how strange it sounds to call you Molly! You must get strong enough to go out of this room, to meet your husband at the table, and in the parlor daily. You must accept invitations to places where he will be compelled to attend you. Gradually you will win him back to his old attendance on you, his old loving care. ”

“ In the doorway of the hut, looking towards him through the dark, stood Moll Gregory. Lamplight from inside passed her and pierced the night with a long beam. She held an empty basin in her hands. The dark was clear to him who had ridden half-a-dozen miles through it; but she looked before her in a puzzled way.
"Is that you, Mr. Power?"
"Yes, Molly."
He believed he shook when he spoke to her. She was a draught of water, chilled by snows from high peaks, offered into the hands of a dying man. How she impassioned the night with her loveliness. ”

“ For a long time Molly searched every inch of the ground back of the sheds where she might have been. Then, with an ever-growing feeling of desperation, she hunted in the field itself, across which she had followed the parade. And it was here that Judy and Nance found her so absorbed in her search that she had not even noticed their approach.
“Oh, Molly, Molly! what are we going to do with you?” cried Nance, seizing her by the arm impulsively. “You’ll kill yourself by your imprudence. ”

“ Molly, and come and say other how-do-you-does," he called softly.
It was a funny glad-to-see-him I felt as I came into the office where he was standing over by the window looking out at my garden in its twilight glow. I think it is wrong for a woman to let her imagination kiss a man on the back of his neck even if she has known for some time that there is a little drake-tail lock of hair there just like his own son's. I gave him my hand and a good deal more of a smile and a blush than I intended. ”