Mrs. Harrison

“ Harrison, remembering that Katherine had seldom had that useful thing—a "day off."
"But, in a way, being tied physically gives you lots of scope mentally. You're always free to think. I've had a lovely feeling always of mental freedom."
Mrs. Harrison shook her head.
"I can't understand that."
"Oh! you would if you'd been in my place. But, all the same, I feel I want a change. I want—well, I want things to happen. Oh! not to me—I don't mean that. But to be in the midst of things, exciting things—even if I'm only the looker-on. You know, things don't happen in St. Mary Mead." ”

“ In every position she has filled, whether as the wife of the poor lawyer, the daring soldier, the senator, or the president of the United States, she has displayed rare adaptability. Mrs. Harrison met the demands made upon her as "first lady of the land" with wonderful success. She endeared herself to all who knew her by her unostentatious, natural womanliness. On October 11, 1890, she was unanimously elected as the first president-general of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and took great interest in the organization. ”

“ She graduated in 1852 from Oxford, Ohio, Female Seminary. Benjamin Harrison, her future husband, took his degree at Oxford University in the same town. They were engaged at the time of their graduation, but Mrs. Harrison taught music in Carrollton, Kentucky, for one year before her marriage October 20, 1853, and removed to Indianapolis, Indiana. When the Civil War broke out, Benjamin Harrison decided to enter the army, his wife saying to him "Go and help to save your country, and let us trust in the shielding care of a higher Power for your protection and safe return." ”

“ Messenger, his daughter, Stevens and Fell had gone back to the hotel, she explained, and Vernon and Lady Ulrica were in the morning-room, conferring, so Mrs. Harrison suggested, over the events of the evening.
“I don’t quite know whether Mr. Fell means to come back,” Mrs. Harrison concluded with a lift of her eyebrows. “He seemed—well, rather ashamed of himself altogether. I’m not sure that he hasn’t taken his things.”
“Just as well, perhaps,” her husband said. And then his observant glance fell on the tulle scarf thrown over the back of a chair. ”

“ Several years after their marriage they removed to New York, where they now live. Mrs. Harrison began to write stories while she was yet a mere girl. In 1876 she published her first magazine story, "A Little Centennial Lady," which attracted attention, and since then she has written much and well. Her published books are "Golden Rod" (New York, 1880) ; "Helen of Troy" (1881) ; "Woman's Handiwork in Modern Homes " (1881) ”

“ Angela sat with shining eyes. She would not have been a woman, she would not have been human but a plaster saint on a pedestal, if her natural happiness had not had the added poignancy of a triumph among her sisters. Just how far Mr. Manford considered himself interested in Miss Carson, she had never yet been able to determine exactly; but that beautiful damsel's position in the scheme of things she, of course, understood perfectly. If her own intuitions had lacked, there were the plain hints Cousin Mary had given her only the other day. ”

“ He had just taken her in his arms, and laid her little head upon his bosom, when the neighbour came for him to go to a political supper. He said the mails that night must bring news that would decide the question. The company would wait for their arrival, and then have a jubilee in honour of Harrison’s success. The child cried and screamed, when George put her away into the mother’s arms; and he said sternly, “Naughty girl! Father don’t love her when she cries.” “She is not well,” replied the mother, with a trembling voice, and hurried out of the room. ”

“ Harrison has an important engagement, and can't wait either. I didn't count on this emergency, though usually I allow for delays. If I only had two girls now—Say!" he cried, as he looked over at Ruth and Alice. "They might do it—they might fill in! How about it, Mr. DeVere; would you let them substitute in this drama? It's a simple thing, and with two minutes' coaching they can do it. That will let Harrison get his train, and I can go on with the next scenes. Will you girls try?" ”

“ Is there One who hears a poor woman like me? But she might hear you, m'sieu, a grand gentleman like you—and so I prayed."
"A grand gentleman! Thank you—madame, thank you," said he, trembling. "I believe I am that, or I was once. I have been very ill, I see. You must not take any notice if I go a little out of my head; it is nothing; Pauline is well accustomed to it, and so may you be if you remain here long. Only be lively with me, be always lively and pray aloud no more. I do not like these prayers. But why are you here? Where are my servants—Maman Archambault, Antoine, and the rest?" ”

“ By-the-bye, as I must leave off being young, I find many douceurs in being a sort of chaperon, for I am put on the sofa near the fire, and can drink as much wine as I like. We had music in the evening: Fanny and Miss Wildman played, and Mr. James Wildman sat close by and listened, or pretended to listen. [289]
. . . Mrs. Harrison [274] and I found each other out, and had a very comfortable little complimentary friendly chat. She is a sweet woman—still quite a sweet woman in herself, and so like her sister! ”

“ Harrison and her aunt talked of the future—of endless trips abroad, and of palatial houses and royal entertainments at home—until the girl was completely dazed. Afterwards, when she and Mr. Harrison were left alone, Helen fascinated her companion as completely as ever, and was radiant herself, and rejoicing. As if to cap the climax, Mr. Harrison broached the subject of a trip to New York, to see if she could find anything at the various picture dealers to suit her music room, and also of a visit to Fairview to meet an architect and discuss her plan there. ”

“ And—so sardonically does life twine joy with sorrow in its willful tangle—it was as she spoke these words that Mrs. Flower, standing at the head of the dark stairs, first called Angela's name. However, that call died unheard. The mother's voice was low, the daughter, for her part, could be conscious of nothing but that this dear and imperious Mr. Manford was a very difficult person to resist. ”

“ Harrison murmured to his wife, and took a few steps towards Lady Ulrica and the mysterious visitor. He was a connoisseur of feminine beauty, and he had been struck by what he mentally termed the “exquisite accuracy” of the profile presented to him. It had come clear and sharp against the background of the plantation, white and vivid in the moonlight; a forehead in a vertical line over the delicately rounded chin, a perfectly curved aquiline nose and the suggestion of a fine, sensitive mouth. Harrison saw it as the considered and patient modelling of some idealised profile in a cameo. ”

“ Harrison gain by all this? He did gain some hours of pleasure—that would have been very exquisite pleasure, but for the doubt that haunted him, and respecting which he could get no data of decision. The shyness and reserve did pass away from Faith; she met him and talked with him as a pleasant intimate friend whose company she enjoyed and who had a sort of right to hers; the right of friendship and kindliness. But then he never did anything to try her shyness or to call up her reserve. He never asked anything of her that she could refuse. ”

“ Final, yes: for while Angela was attaining success to the full limit of her small conceptions, every aspiration that Mary had cherished, literally, had one by one gone down. And if this last was not the worst, perhaps, neither was it the easiest to bear. No, if anything on earth was calculated to harden and embitter a woman who could not easily yield, surely it must be her own so easy overthrow by pink cheeks and soft, empty eyes.
And these white-stone steps Charles now ascended had for him a reminiscent power, by no means comforting. ”

“ Harrison knows what he’s talking about, or he wouldn’t suggest it. But it makes it just a little embarrassing for us girls to seem to be so very eager to welcome another young man into our midst that we fall all over ourselves to let him know it right off the first night.”
“Now, Anita! You’re always so fussy and prudish! As if he would think anything about it at all. Besides, his having been an active Christian Endeavorer in his home church, and his father having [Pg 68] been a member of our church years ago when he was a boy, makes it kind of different, don’t you think?” ”

“ To go and bury herself among strangers won't ever settle anything. Oh," exclaimed Mary, "if she could only, only marry now! I suppose people might stop thinking of her as a pariah then, I suppose she might come back! But what's the use of hoping? She's still crazily in love with that man, you see."
"What!—she is! Why'd she leave him then—?"
The former principal regarded him, drawing on her gloves. She had dark eyebrows, well-marked and unusually arched; they gave a peculiar intentness to her blue gaze, and a faint habitual interrogativeness. ”

“ So without great pomp or ritual, fuss or feathers, came the great moment to which all one woman's life had looked forward, to which, conceivably, it might all look back. Standing statue-like a few feet from her, the fingers of one hand feeling in Judge Blenso's waistcoat-pocket for the ring, those of the other resting lightly on the cold Latrobe, Charles listened to the beautiful words which converted Angela Flower into Mrs. Donald Manford. ”

“ It must have seemed odd to her, the instantaneousness with which her tutor sprang round. And then he began to move back toward her, very slowly, round unwinking eyes glued upon her.
"Ah—what did you say?"
"You look astounded. I suppose you're offended at the suggestion. Now, really—why not take my car while I'm away?" said the old lady. (What a dear, what a darling old lady she was, to be sure!) "Why are you young men so reckless with your health, breaking it down with all this foolish walking, up and down—"
"Oh, ma'am!" stammered Charles. ”

“ And Charles stood alone in the Wings' silent hall, slowly pulling off his wedding-gloves.
In the sitting-room Mary was similarly occupied. Though she was going back to the Flowers' so soon, she took off her hat. Having done so, she stood before the mantel-mirror, fluffing up her hair a little, where the hat had pressed it down. It is the immemorial fashion of women: a characteristic position, and so an engaging one. Delicately the upraised arms defined the lines of a graceful figure. ”

“ Ay, ay; ay, ay!”
“No, no,” said Miss Dexter, irritably. “Don't I tell you, Farmer Wise, that they will live on at the Inn? These young gentlemen like comfort, like being waited upon. They do this in order to insure—in order to—oh! it is difficult to explain my meaning, but you must see, Farmer Wise, that it is not a proper marriage at all, it is a very sad thing for the girl, I should consider, and some one—some friend should tell her so. She can never be a lady, and what kind of life will it be for him, a gentleman born, as you say, when he could have chosen too, where he liked. ”

“ I could not deny her longer. ‘But a little, dearest Virginia! but a little.’ She put aside my hands with the wine in them, impatiently, and stooped down to the basin and drank.
“I thought she would never cease; at last she did—raised her flushed face to mine.
“‘Drink, Glaucus! drink! My fetters pain me not: I am cool now.’
“In a few minutes she looked at me again, and put her arms about me: her fetters were lighter now. I met her look.
“I have wandered at nightfall through the streets, and seen eyes that as a boy I wondered at, as a youth admired, as a man pitied. ”

“ He just called there one evening on business with Mr. Harmon Andrews and Mrs. Lynde saw him and said she knew he was courting because he had a white collar on. I don’t believe Mr. Harrison will ever marry. He seems to have a prejudice against marriage. ”

“ Harrison waiting outside for nothing, he stopped and talked a minute or so with the pretty American. "You looked charming to-night, Miss Remanet," he said, as she threw back her light opera wrap for a moment in the porch and displayed a single flash of that snowy neck with the famous rubies; "those stones become you so."
Persis looked at him and smiled. "You think so?" she said, a little tremulous, for even your American heiress, after all, is a woman. "Well, I'm glad you do. But it's good-bye to-night, Sir Justin, for I go next week to Paris." ”

“ Mr. Jenney's presence in the city was the best news heard by Charles in many a day. All in all, things weren't going off so badly. And, if he knew Angela in the least, she would not be in soon, either; he had thought of all that on the verandah.
Then the Doctor's match caught the gas with a faint pop, and the little room filled with a high white light. In the sudden brightness, the caller's eye noted two unrelated matters almost together. One was merely an ash-tray upon the mantel. The other was Mrs. Flower herself, and her unexpected resemblance to her pretty young daughter. ”

“ The afternoon was fine; the last flickers of a vernal sun danced along the sidewalks. Many people moved on the promenade. The passing moderns attracted the favorable gaze of not a few acquaintances. In appearance, Mary was judged one of the variable women. She, the worker, with her habitually colorless face and faintly fragile look, responded remarkably to dress, as Charles had once before had occasion to note. And to-day, she was dressed as for a holiday and a fête. However, he hardly looked at her once, throughout the brief walk. ”