Mrs. Lander

“ Lander did not feel very comfortable, nor was her good opinion of herself quite so firm as it had been earlier in the day. But she took good care, in the future, not to give any more work to Mrs. Walton, and was exceedingly particular afterwards, in employing poor people, to know whether they sewed for Mrs. Brandon. There are a good many people in the world who encourage the poor on Mrs. Lander's principle. ”

“ Lander, somewhat discontentedly, "though I can't see as it's done me so very much good, yit. Both your payrints livin'?"
"Yes'm. Oh, yes, indeed!"
"And your mother, is she real rugged? She need to be, with such a flock of little ones!"
"Yes, motha's always well. Fatha was just run down, the doctas said, and ought to keep more in the open air. That's what he's done since he came he'e. He helped a great deal on the house and he planned it all out himself."
"Is he a ca'penta?" asked Mrs. Lander.
"No'm; but he's—I don't know how to express it—he likes to do every kind of thing." ”

“ Lander gave way to her tears as she broke out, "Oh, it ain't the way it was the last time I was he'a! You hea'd that he—that Mr. Landa—"
"Mrs. Atwell told me," said Clementina. "Won't you come in, and sit down?"
"Why, yes." Mrs. Lander pushed in through the narrow door of what was to be the parlor. Her crapes swept about her and exhaled a strong scent of their dyes. Her veil softened her heavy face; but she had not grown thinner in her bereavement.
"I just got to the Middlemount last night," she said, "and I wanted to see you and your payrents, both, Miss Claxon. It doos bring him back so! ”

“ Lander.
"I am not sure that I make myself quite clear," said the rector. "I mean, a chance to prove how useful and helpful she can be. Do you think you can make life hard for her occasionally? Can you be peevish and exacting, and unreasonable? Can you do something to make her value superfluity and luxury at their true worth?"
Mrs. Lander looked a little alarmed and a little offended. "I don't know as I undastand what you mean, exactly," she said, frowning rather with perplexity than resentment. "But the child sha'n't have a care, and her own motha couldn't be betta to her than me. ”

“ Lander how the girls at their hotel had left her out, but Miss Milray could not see that Clementina met them with rancor, when her authority brought them together. If the child was humiliated by her past in the gross lonely luxury of Mrs. Lander's life or the unconscious poverty of her own home, she did not show it in the presence of the world that now opened its arms to her. ”

“ They seldom sat in the parlor where the ladies met, after dinner; they talked only to each other; and there, as elsewhere, the girl kept her filial care of the old woman. The question of her relation to Mrs. Lander became so pressing among several of the guests that, after Clementina had watched over the banisters, with throbbing heart and feet, a little dance one night which the other girls had got up among themselves, and had fled back to her room at the approach of one of the kindlier and bolder of them, the landlord felt forced to learn from Mrs. Lander how Miss Claxon was to be regarded. ”

“ Lander's gondola, she sent Clementina back three times to their rooms for outer garments of differing density. When she brought the last Mrs. Lander frowned.
“This won't do. I've got to have something else—something lighter and warma.”
“I can't go back any moa, Mrs. Landa,” cried the girl, from the exasperation of her own nerves.
“Then I will go back myself,” said Mrs. Lander with dignity, “and we sha'n't need the gondoler any more this mo'ning,” she added, “unless you and Mr. Hinkle wants to ride.” ”

“ He was explicit in his charges to Clementina concerning Mrs. Lander, and at the end of them, he said, "She will not know when she is asking too much of you, but you will, and you must act upon your knowledge. And remember, if you are in need of help, of any kind, you're to let me know. Will you?"
"Yes, I will, Dr. Welwright."
"People will be going away soon, and I shall not be so busy. I can come back if Dr. Tradonico thinks it necessary."
He left Mrs. Lander full of resolutions to look after her own welfare in every way, and she went out in her gondola the same morning. ”

“ Lander, but so loud that Clementina could hear, “I suppose she's told you who the belle of the ball was, the other night? Went out to supper with a lord!” He seemed to think a lord was such a good joke that if you mentioned one you had to laugh.
The Russian's card bore the name Baron Belsky, with the baron crossed out in pencil, and he began to attack in Mrs. Lander the demerits of the American character, as he had divined them. He instructed her that her countrymen existed chiefly to make money; that they were more shopkeepers than the English and worse snobs ”

“ Lander poured out upon him, and her identifications, through reference to this or that person in Boston whom he knew either at first or second hand. He had not to pronounce upon her syntax, or her social quality; it was enough for him, in behalf of the Claxons, to find her what she professed to be.
“You must think,” he said, laughing, “that we are over-particular; but the fact is that we value Clementina rather highly, and we wish to be sure that your hospitable offer will be for her real good.”
“Of cou'se,” said Mrs. Lander. “I should be just so myself abort her.” ”

“ Mrs. Lander received her with that becoming dignity of manner and gravity which certain persons always assume when money has to be paid out. She, as it behooved her to do, thoroughly examined every seam, line of stitching, and hem upon each of the three shirts, and then, after slowly laying the garments upon a table sighed, and looked still graver. Poor Mrs. Walton felt oppressed; she hardly knew why.
"Does the work please you?" ”

“ Lander engaged her. "You want to look afta this young lady," she said, indicating Clementina. "I can look afta myself," but Ellida took charge of them both on the train out from Boston with prompt intelligence.
"We got to get used to it, I guess," Mrs. Lander confided at the first chance of whispering to Clementina. ”

“ Lander could see that the partitions of the house within were lathed, but not plastered, and the girl looked round as if to realize its condition and added, "It isn't quite finished inside."
"We wouldn't, have troubled you," said Mrs. Lander, "if we had seen anybody to inquire of."
"Yes'm," said the girl. "It a'n't any trouble."
"There are not many otha houses about, very nea', but I don't suppose you get lonesome; young folks are plenty of company for themselves, and if you've got any brothas and sistas—"
"Oh," said the girl, with a tender laugh, "I've got eva so many of them!" ”

“ Mr. Hinkle said, "No, best look out for your health, if it takes all summer. I shouldn't want you to hurry on my account. Your time is my time. All I want is for Miss Clementina, here, to personally conduct me to her father. If I could get him to take hold of my gleaner in New England, we could make the blueberry crop worth twice what it is."
Mrs. Lander perceived that he was joking; and she asked what he wanted to run away for when the young Russian's card came up. He said, "Oh, give every man a chance," and he promised that he would look in every few days, and see how she was getting along. ”

“ While all the time poor Lander was embarrassed with the amorous attentions of the widow, and was afraid lest he should be squeezed to death by the closeness of her tender embraces. At length he mustered courage fairly to tell her that he could not return her passion; and though she afterwards ceased to persecute him farther, she was not, as many of her sex in similar circumstances would have been, actuated by the least feeling of revenge. On the contrary, she continued to regard him with kindness to the last, but forthwith transferred her love to Clapperton. ”

“ Instead of carving out the future her love must demand, he remained slave to the present and continued packing goods for men who were to live the life.
When the opposition came back from the mountains and the A. F. C. headquarters were blue with profanely expressed rage, Lander secretly rejoiced at their good fortune and felt the thrill of youth, lusting for the unusual. Even the pack-mules, skinned from withers to tail from carrying two hundred pounds for two thousand miles, urged him to follow their back trail. ”

“ Lander grew up. As soon as she was released to the grandeur of hotel life, she expanded to the full measure of its responsibilities and privileges, but still without seeking to make it the basis of approach to society. Among the people who surrounded her, she had not so much acquaintance as her husband even, who talked so little that he needed none. She sometimes envied his ease in getting on with people when he chose ”

“ Landa."
"Should you be willin'," asked Mrs. Lander, after another little pause, "if your folks was willin', to go ova the'a, to some of them European countries, to spend the winta?"
"Oh yes, indeed!" said Clementina.
They discussed the matter in one of the full talks they both liked. At the end Mrs. Lander said, "Well, I guess you betta write home, and ask your motha whetha you can go, so't if we take the notion we can go any time. Tell her to telegraph, if she'll let you, and do write all the ifs and ands, so't she'll know just how to answa, without havin' to have you write again." ”

“ You're round with him in the gondoler, night and day, and when he's he'e, you'a settin' with him half the time on the balcony, and it's talk, talk, the whole while.” Clementina took in the fact with silent recognition, and Mrs. Lander went on. “I ain't sayin' anything against it. He's the only one I don't believe is afta the money he thinks you'a goin' to have; but if you don't want him, you want to look what you're about.” ”

“ Walton's appearance, when she came, plainly enough told the story of her indigence.
"Mrs. Brandon informs me," said Mrs. Lander, "that you do plain sewing very well, and that you stand in need of work. I always like to encourage the industrious poor."
The woman inclined her head, and Mrs. Lander went on.
"Do you make shirts?"
"Yes, ma'am, sometimes."
"Do you consider yourself a good shirt maker?"
"I don't call myself any thing very extra; but people for whom I work seem generally pleased with what I do."
"I have six shirts cut out for Mr. Lander. How soon can you make them?" ”

“ I have lived and fought my way among men and savages.' Ah, that is the speech that makes m'm'selle very proud. A woman likes to discover things in the man she loves, not to know him as we know the way from here to Petite Côte. Her love is like an old mountain man—always hungry for something new."
"Eighteen months!" muttered Lander, more to himself than to Papa Clair. ”

“ Finally his old face lighted and his frosty blue eyes began to sparkle.
"It can be done!" he rejoiced. "Name of a knife! It will work out after the wish of one's heart. He is here. You want your satisfy. He must challenge you. I will see that he does. This time it shall be with cold steel."
"But there's no cause," protested Lander.
"There is; he is alive. You suffered much, thinking him dead. You were attacked and forced to flee. He is responsible. ”

“ She had, as I recall her, a narrow, sallow face, sharp eyes, and a long chin. She might have been thirty years old. Unlike Miss Harriet Hosmer, who lived not far away, Miss Lander had no attractiveness for us children. ”

“ You want somebody that can do for you; and keep you company, and read to you, and talk to you—well, moa like a daughta than a suvvant—somebody that you'd get attached to, maybe—"
"And don't you see," Mrs. Lander broke out severely upon him, "what a ca'e that would be? Why, it's got so already that I can't help thinkin' about her the whole while, and if I got attached to her I'd have her on my mind day and night, and the moa she done for me the more I should be tewin' around to do for her. I shouldn't have any peace of my life any moa. ”

“ Lander was coming to the entertainment.
He did not seem aware that Mrs. Milray was leaving the affair more and more to him. He went forward with it and was as amiable with her as she would allow. He was so amiable with everybody that he reconciled many true Americans to his leadership, who felt that as nearly all the passengers were Americans, the chief patron of the entertainment ought to have been some distinguished American. The want of an American who was very distinguished did something to pacify them; but the behavior of an English lord who put on no airs was the main agency. ”

“ There was also another strong inducement, which operated upon the mind of the Landers, to expedite their departure, and that was, that from some circumstances which had occurred, it was not beyond the range of probability, that the head of John Lander, if not of his brother also, might be severed by the skill of Ebo, the executioner. Love is certainly a most wondrous power, whether it shows itself in the bosom of the fair English girl, or in that of the sooty African ”

“ Lander wandered about looking for the girl through the parlors and the piazzas, and then went to the office to ask what had become of her.
The landlord came out of his room at his question to the clerk. "Oh, I guess she's round in my wife's room, Mr. Landa. She always likes to see Clementina, and I guess they all do. She's a so't o' pet amongst 'em." ”

“ Henry said to Lander. "It was machine guns...."
3
Lander had obtained a permit for him, so that he could go to England, and in a little while, he would leave the Club and go to Westland Row to catch the train to Kingstown. There was a strange quietness in his heart. He had lived through a terror and had not been afraid. He had seen men immolating themselves gladly because they had believed that by so doing they would make their country a finer one to live in.
"It was the wrong way," he said to himself, "but in the end, nothing matters but that a man shall offer his life for his belief!" ”