Mrs. Foster

“ Foster's death in 1881. But their public work was not given up. Mr. Foster was usually absent during the winter on lecturing tours, while Mrs. Foster made several long campaigns in the West, besides often attending conventions or giving lectures nearer home. When asked how she could bear to leave her little daughter, she would reply, "I leave my child in wise and loving hands and but for a little, while the slave mothers daily have their daughters torn from their arms and sold into torture and infamy."
Never was mother more devoted, more self-sacrificing than she. ”

“ The girl's mother looked up startled. She was quite familiar with what she had always termed the "superhumanly aged remarks" of her daughter, but the new turn they had taken surprised her.
"I don't believe she would, Gertrude. Why? Are you imagining yourself in love with some man who is not chivalrous toward women?" Mrs. Foster smiled at the mere idea of her daughter caring much for any man. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Her daughter's eyes were upon her in surprise. Mrs. Foster laughed a little nervously, and kissed the girl's hand as it lay in her own. "It seems rather droll for your gay little mother to caution you against losing control of yourself, doesn't it?" she asked. "You who were always all balance wheel, as your father says. But—"
"Mamma, don't you think Mr. Avery did perfectly right to send me that letter and this to you?" broke in Gertrude, as if she had not heard the admonition of her mother, and had followed her own thoughts from some more distant point. ”

“ Foster’s erudite club papers. The whole church, the whole world, seemed to be filled with widows—widows whose daughters would not discourage their mothers from taking names different from their own.
Mrs. Overton had no doubt that in a year she would go back to the side of another Mrs. Foster’s table, that she would receive telephone messages for another Mrs. Foster—and that this Mrs. Foster would not even be her daughter.
The last prayer was over. The eight eminent pallbearers were gathering. Mr. Foster rose and offered his arm to his mother-in-law. Mrs. ”

“ Foster. "We must have them come. They'll behave themselves here. I'll write to their father; you write to Maria."
"They're her own boys, you know," added Mrs Foster, soothingly.
"Well, mother," said Annie, "if it must be. But I'm sure they'll make us all very uncomfortable."
"I can stand 'em for a week or so," said Ford, with the air of a man who can do or bear more than most people. "I'll get Dab Kinzer to help me entertain them."
"Excellent," said Mr. Foster, "and I hope they will be civil to him."
"To Dabney?" asked Annie.
"Fuz and Joe civil to Dab Kinzer?" exclaimed Ford. ”

“ Jim Martin took tea together at Foster Reid’s last Wednesday afternoon?”
“No, why, I thought they were on bad terms,” said Mrs. Williamson, betraying a little feminine curiosity.
“So they are, so they are. But they both happened to visit Mrs. Foster the same afternoon and neither would leave because that would be knuckling down to the other. So they stuck it out, on opposite sides of the parlour. Mrs. Foster says she never spent such an uncomfortable afternoon in all her life before. She would talk a spell to one and then t’other. And they kept talking TO Mrs. Foster and AT each other. ”

“ His wife was a member of one of the Blake families of Boston. Their daughter, Hannah Blake Loring, married Theodore Abbot, and was the mother of nine children, one of them being Sarah K., who married David Wood Foster. Mrs. Foster and her daughters, Sarah E. and Harriet W. Foster, live in the south part of the city, in the house which has been their home for thirty years. In this abode is much to please the eye and ear, for both the father and mother were musical and loved the beautiful, as do their daughters. ”

“ The day after I left your hospitable dwelling brought me safe to that of my honored mamma; to the seat of maternal and filial affection; of social ease and domestic peace; of every species of happiness which can result from religion and virtue, from refinement in morals and manners.
I found my brother and his wife, with Lucy Freeman and Mr. Sumner, waiting to receive and bid me welcome. I flew with ecstasy to the bosom of my mamma, who received me with her accustomed affection, testified by the expressive tears of tenderness which stole silently down her widowed cheek. She was unable to speak. ”

“ And here they were, sitting in cousinly talk, as though nothing else were between them but this polite anxiety for Miss Foster's peace of mind! What was behind that apparently frank brow—those sparkling grey-blue eyes? Manisty could always be a mystery when he chose, even to those who knew him best.
She drew a long inward breath, feeling the old inexorable compulsion that lies upon the decent woman, who can only play the game as the man chooses to set it. ”

“ Although the day is warm, she kindled a fire to stimulate the thin, poor blood exhausted by disease and fevers. Two flatirons lie in a dirty heap on the floor. As usual, the room is a nest of filth and untidiness.
Mrs. Foster is half paralyzed, but her tongue is free. She talks fluently in her soft Southern drawl, more Negro than white as to speech and tone. Up to her sidles a dirty, pretty little boy of four.
"This yere is too little to go to the mill, but he's wild to go; yes, ser, he is so. Las' night he come to me en say, 'Auntie, you-all wake me up at fo' 'clock sure ”

“ And Shelmerdene looked at Foster for a long, long time; but Foster was quite sure that her mistress did not see her. She waited....
“You see, Foster, life is an awful mess, and men are extraordinary. You will notice, when you meet your young man at the Palais de Danse, how very extraordinary men are. They are always jealous about the wrong things ... and now I am thirty-four years old! I am thirty-four years old, Foster! Oh, dear, it is perfectly amazing how soon one becomes thirty-four years old!” ”

“ Miss Foster regarded her rising spleen with an indifferent coldness, which made her still more angry.
"I say," she reiterated, "that it is a most unkind and ungrateful way of returning my confidence."
"Wilful child!" exclaimed Miss Foster, "will you never be guided for your own advantage?"
"I am no child!" exclaimed Lucy; "and if I do choose a guide, it shall be one who can rule her own temper."
"You should allow for the emotion you cannot understand," said Miss Foster, gravely; "but leave me now, Lucy, and do not be angry—we are both excited—and may say things we do not mean." ”

“ Anna Maria caught her hand, as she extended it scornfully towards Sir Foster.
"Now, dear Clara, don't be energetic. I will ask Tom what he thinks. Tom always says things so agreeably."
"I will say what is true, if it proves disagreeable," replied Clara, withdrawing her hand from Anna Maria's light grasp, and again pointing attention, by a graceful movement, to Sir Foster, who sat silently winking his eye. "If there is a creature born to be a blessing to woman—patient, gentle, and interesting—look at that man." ”

“ And now, how different!
'It is curious—the animation with which he has begun to talk to Lucy Foster. Pretty child! I like to feel that I have been the fairy god-mother, dressing her for the ball. How little she knows what it means to be talked to by him, to receive courtesies from him,—how many women would like to be in her place. Yet now she is not shy; she has no alarms; she treats him like an equal. If it were not ridiculous, one could be angry. ”

“ Stephen Foster laughed contemptuously.
"You took an unfair advantage of an innocent and trustful girl," he said. "My daughter is young, ignorant of the world, and she does not know her own mind. You have cast a spell over her, as it were. She defies me—she refuses to obey my orders. You have estranged us, Mr. Vernon, and brought a cloud into what was a happy home. I appeal to you, in a father's name, to release the girl from the ill-advised and foolish promises she made you."
"I cannot give her up, sir. I fear you do not understand how much Madge—Miss Foster—is to me. ”

“ Lucy's eyes fell upon the name—it was that of "Beauclerc"—and, unperceived, she took it up, and concealed it in the folds of her dress from further indignity.
"I am not at home," said Miss Foster, in a decisive tone to the aged butler, who regarded the scene with more concern than surprise, and left the room slowly and sadly. The front door was presently heard to close. As if ashamed of the passion into which she had been betrayed, Miss Foster seated herself, at once, and tried to resume her usual coldness of demeanor. ”

“ On the hearthrug in front of the fireplace stood a girl. She was a young girl. In age she was nineteen perhaps, or it may have been a little more. But whatever her age, or whether you would or would not call her beautiful, there was one thing about her that was not to be mistaken. It was the allurement of her smile, a merriment that danced and rippled in her eyes like the sheen on sunlit silk. At the moment it happened that a young man in [7] evening clothes stood before her, and with her arms uplifted, her slender form close to his, the girl was intently tying his necktie. ”

“ Conquering an onrushing flood of painful emotion, he sought Frederick Foster, and imparted the sad news.
“Heavens, how shocking! And I had only a few hours ago written to ask him for his daughter’s hand!” exclaimed the young man.
“Then Cinthia has accepted you!” Arthur cried, with emotion.
“Yes, only yesterday, and I intended to tell you to-morrow. Can you wish me joy, old fellow?” inquired Fred Foster, anxiously, for his cousin had made him acquainted with all his sad past story, and he felt the keenest sympathy with his unhappiness. ”

“ I have been speaking to your mother, and she has told me that she thinks you do care for me, Is it so? May I again——”
“Now, Captain Foster, why cannot we be friends without—without anything else. I will not pretend that I do not understand your meaning, but I tell you, once and for all, I don't want to be married. Really,” and she smiled brightly, “you are as bad as Mr. Portveldt.”
“Very well, Miss Dorothy,” said Foster with annoying equanimity, “I won't allude to the subject again. But what has the Dutchman been doing? Where is he now?”
Dolly laughed merrily. ”

“ If only foster-sister would come, I should not be so frightened."
"But my Yenkâm, thy mother, will be here--" protested Babar.
Ma'asuma shook her head. "It is now, dear heart! And foster-sister will not come unless thou askest her. She said so. Couldst not write to her, Babar?"
"But I know not foster-sister, nor aught of her, save that she was good to my Ma'asuma, for which, may Heaven reward her!"
Ma'asuma sat up, her charming face happy in thought. "Oh! so good, my lord! Not a real foster-sister, either; but we sat under one veil and drank milk out of one cup. ”

“ Lady Wetheral talked all the way from the drawing-room into her boudoir, while Sir Foster followed, humming and staring, perfectly aware something had happened, yet not quite awake to its nature.
"I am delighted our little society is not to be broken up, my dear Sir Foster: now, you know, every thing will continue in its own charming routine—you will be in your arm-chair now every day, as a thing of course. Sit down, dear Sir Foster; I will open this window; the spring flowers are early and delicious this season. I perceive Lucy and Clara walking in the garden. ”

“ His artifice has destroyed my peace of mind, and his presence may open the wounds which time is closing." "Act," said my mamma, "agreeably to the dictates of your own judgment." "I see no harm in conversing with him," said Julia. "Perhaps it may remove some disagreeable thoughts which now oppress and give you pain. And as he is no longer a candidate for your affections," added she with a smile, "it will be less hazardous than formerly. He will not have the insolence to speak, nor you the folly to hear, the language of love." ”

“ Varick, she'd told herself, had gone out of her life. She was done with him. But Bab somehow had not foreseen that Varick, like a ghost, would not down. She had not reflected that his life and hers must of a necessity cross continually. Left to herself, to the resolve she had made, she could have married David with perhaps no more than a qualm or so. She loved him, she knew. She might not love him, perhaps, as a wife should love her husband, but then what matter was that? Round her in the life she now was leading, countless women were married with much less right. They did not love at all. ”

“ Not a shadow of tact had descended to Clara from her mother, to preserve domestic peace. The reckless speech again woke up contention; for Sir Foster advocated his own system of education, by exclaiming,—"Hold your tongue, will you?"
"I shall not be silent," retorted Clara: "don't expect to make me subservient to your vulgar prejudices, as your first wife was compelled to be. I insist upon saying your five boys are like your terriers in every particular." ”