Mrs. Stevens

“ At other times John would beg his wife to sing him one song, or to thread a tune on the mystic ivory keys, and he would let his soul go out to God and his wife on the sound-waves that beat upon his throbbing breast. Ah, John had much to thank God for, and he knew it!
One Sabbath day, as usual, they both dressed in their simple, homely best, and together walked up to the Tabernacle; Diantha felt as if she were walking upon air. She looked up at her big, sober, gentle, masterful and yet tender husband, and she knew there was not his superior in all Zion. ”

“ Is that so?" and the soldier looked shrewdly at his companion.
"Yes, captain; that is correct."
Astonished by this frank admission, the captain rode on in silence for some moments. Then, as if to add point to his rejoinder, John Stevens drew in his horse, and turned in his saddle to look his companion full in the eye:
"Yes, sir, that is our belief. But we also hold that no man can be exalted in the Kingdom of Heaven without a woman. Don't you recollect that Paul says the woman is not without the man, nor the man without the woman in Christ Jesus?" ”

“ Only when he met Miss Stevens did he brighten, as he might well do, for Miss Stevens, charming in every guise, was a revelation in evening costume; a ravishing revelation; one to make a man pause and wonder and stand in awe, and regard himself as a clumsy creature not worthy to touch the hem of the garment which embellished such a divine being. Nevertheless he conquered that wave of diffidence in a jiffy, or something like half that space of time, and shook hands with her most eagerly, and looked into her eyes and was grateful ”

“ I raised my glass in the toast he had forgotten.
"To our Beatrice," I said, and drained mine also, though with more appreciation.
"To Beatrice-of course." He looked at the bottom of his empty glass, then before I could offer to refill it, rose from his chair.
"I must go, old man. When you write to Bee, tell her I'm sorry to have missed her."
"Before she could receive a letter from me I shall be with her-I hope. How cold the house is tonight, and the wind breathes everywhere. See how the curtain blows, Quentin." ”

“ Old and young, short and tall, fat and slim—the temporary floor groaning and shivering beneath the hundreds of merry, flying, stamping feet.
Huge camp fires, all over the valley, flung dancing flames and sparks high into the fleecy evening clouds, while at each corner of the pavilion, great pine trees, brought from the hills and set upright for the purpose, burned a spicy, fragrant glowing radiance into every crevice and corner of the bowered halls.
"Are you going to dance with me?" drawled John Stevens, through his long beard, as he suddenly appeared at Diantha's side. ”

“ But strange thoughts sometimes rise in the greedy souls of men, and we would love to possess, in order to make them happy, all the good beings of both sexes in the world.
Mrs. Stevens—for so we will call her for the sake of a name—announced to the family, with whom she was stopping a day or two before I was to leave, that she was necessitated to return to New York in a day or two. ”

“ Stevens, looking at her jocularly.
"I'm not sorry, that I admit," rejoined Mrs. Stevens; "the poor old soul is better off, no doubt; but then there's no necessity to speak of the matter in such an off-hand manner."
"Now, Jule, I beg you won't attempt to put on the sanctified; that's too much from you, who have been wishing her dead almost every day for the last eight years. Why, don't you remember you wished her gone when she had a little money to leave; and when she lost that, you wished her off our hands because she had none. Don't pretend to be in the least depressed ”

“ And still the drops falling from the vase, held high in the hands of the boy-god Narcissus, counted out the moments, and the moonbeams fell straight and long, in narrow shafts, across the spot where Patricia had leant her fair form, stirring to sudden life with her jewelled fingers the water's placid dark surface. ”

“ When a child, she loved the woods, quiet haunts, a free life and plenty of books. LILLIAN M. N. STEVENS. She was educated in Westbrook Seminary and Foxcroft Academy, and, after leaving school, was for several years engaged in teaching in the vicinity of Portland, Me. In 1857 she became the wife of M. Stevens, of Deering, Me., who is now a wholesale grain and salt merchant in Portland. They have one child, Gertrude Mary, the wife of William Leavitt, jr., of Portland. Mrs. Stevens was among the first who heard the call from God to the women in the crusade days of 1873-74. ”

“ John sat so close to the fair-haired girl that he could see the starry shine in her soft blue eyes, and as he looked at her beautiful face the remembrance of the scene he had witnessed in the grove, and that this dear girl had been gazed at and admired by a wicked man, brought the hot tide of feeling welling up in his heart, and he was obliged to turn away his face from her dazzling beauty, while he slowly stroked his long beard, and listened to Charlie Rose exchanging poetic nonsense with the two girls. ”

“ You answer my question by asking another; and I may not care to commit myself. You have some very fascinating and really intelligent women among your people. I saw some lovely faces in your bowery yesterday."
"Well, yes, our girls are tolerably good-looking."
"Oh, Stevens, no wonder your girls long for a breath of worldly freedom, if all your young men are as cautious and unenthusiastic about them as you seem to be," laughed the captain.
"Do our girls long for worldly pleasures?" ”

“ John could not speak, he was too full of emotion to say a word; but when they had entered their own door, and closed themselves from the gaze of the public, he took her in his arms and held her close to his own throbbing heart, and said in her ear, "The mother of my children. For time and in all eternity."
Let us leave them now. We like the last view of our friends to be the brightest and best. This much, however, must be told, that John and Diantha are as happy today, although in the whitened years of old age and long experience, as they were in those early days of their newly wedded love. ”

“ She spent six years in the Lewis High School, Macon, Ga., four years in the Le Moyne Institute, Memphis, Tenn., and her last six in Fisk University—seventeen years of devoted, earnest and fruitful labor in behalf of the colored youth in the South.
Since leaving the South her life has been a pleasant and useful one as Mrs. Stevens, the wife of a devoted husband and an earnest and zealous Christian [Pg 204] woman in the city and the church where her lot was cast. ”

“ Honolulu brought back to Mrs. Stevenson many poignant memories of other days, of which she wrote to her mother-in-law in these words:
"As you suppose, this has been a sad season with me. People say that one gets used to things with time, but I do not believe it. Every day seems harder for me to bear. I say to myself many comforting things, but even though I believe them they do not comfort me. Everything here reminds me of Louis, and I do not think there is one moment that I am not thinking of him. ”

“ I added, "even to cross the room would be an effort. I am tired and weak tonight. As Beatrice once said, my strength beside yours is as a child's to that of a grown man. Won't you close that door for me, dear friend?"
"Why-yes, I will. I didn't know you were ill. If that's the case, you shouldn't be alone in this empty house. Shall I stay with you for a while?"
As he spoke he walked across the room. His hand was on the curtain, but before it could be drawn aside my voice checked him.
"Quentin," I said, "are even you quite strong enough to close that door?" ”

“ Stevens, who are packing him off to Canton without caring a rap what becomes of him. I know what Mrs. Stevens is at; she comes up to town much oftener now, and has got her husband’s nephew into the office, and is trying to get everything for him; and that’s the reason she wants to keep up the old feud, and send this poor Lawrence off to the ends of the earth.’
‘Can’t you do anything for him?’ asked Emily. ‘I thought Mr. Frith did attend to you.’
Clarence laughed. ‘I know that Mrs. Stevens hates me like poison ”

“ Patient as a fox on a long scent in autumn, he would have kept himself lean and circumspect, until, through the help of lugubrious prayer and lantern visage, he could have beguiled into matrimony some one feminine member of the flock—not always fair—whose worldly goods would have sufficed in full atonement for all those circumspect, self-imposed restraints, which we find usually so well rewarded. But Alfred Stevens was not a man of this pious temper. ”

“ Look here, John Stevens, there's no sense in your getting angry. You know well enough that President Young has said repeatedly that there should be no blood spilt in these times, and you know, too, that this gentleman is not to blame if a girl chooses to accept his invitation to spend an hour in his company. Just calm yourself, for neither Ellen nor I have committed any sin, and we are old enough to have some rights of our own. And I am not going to be dictated to by any creature on this earth, man or woman! Whatever you want to say to me must not be said in anger. ”

“ What about Ellen? One thing Dian knew, and that was that Ellen had really liked John Stevens, and what did her bitter anger and her sarcasm at herself mean? She concluded that Ellen was jealous of her. Jealous! jealous of her, Diantha! What, then? What had she done to make her jealous? To think that they two should be at loggerheads over big, silent John Stevens! She herself had always openly declared that she never could love a red-bearded man. Well, John's hair was fine and wavy and it was rich brown, any one could see that. ”

“ Despite our suspicions, we have shown not a trace of hostility toward this girl. We have offered no violence nor rudeness. Who knows? If we continue on our good behavior we may find ourselves accepted as friends, not only by the girl but all her foster-people. I’ve proved it to work out that way more than once."
"She's a mighty nice girl." Waring was weakly accepting a polished yellow cup. "But d'you think we should risk drinking this—purple stuff?"
The explorer sipped testingly at the liquor which his hostess had gracefully poured from the wine-jar. ”

“ I remember reading once in a San Francisco newspaper a comment by a writer who seemed to touch nearly upon the heart of the secret. The paragraph runs thus:
"Once a man told me that Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson was the one woman in the world he could imagine a man being willing to die for. Every man I asked—every single man, rich and poor, young or old, clever or stupid—all agreed about Mrs. Stevenson, that she was the most fascinating woman he had ever seen. ”

“ Ellen stood some time at this viewpoint on the southern peak, and the children gathered around her and John to admire the exquisite beauty of the scene spread out in the fairy dell below them.
"Was there ever anything more beautiful on this earth, Dian?" she asked, in triumphant tones. "There is nothing to hurt or make one afraid in all this holy mountain, is there, John?"
"Hush, Ellie," answered John. "I don't like people to fling the gauntlet in the face of fate with such careless words." ”

“ An avowed purpose of this book is to show that there is plenty of romance and color in every-day life—if the eye be not life-colorblind. If, therefore, John Stevens, with his big, generous heart can awaken the soul of one youth to a higher courage, a more manly outlook upon the splendidly hard discipline of pioneer Western life; if Diantha's suffering and sweet Ellen's sad death help just one vacillating girl to a realization of the dangers with which the path of love and youth are always strewn, then indeed will the author be satisfied. ”

“ Stevens fancied he had no reason to love the youth, but he could not help admiring and envying his equal boldness and agility; the muscular ease with which he flung himself from point to point, and his sure-footed descent upon the crags and fragments which trembled and tottered beneath the sudden and unaccustomed burden. Charitably wishing that, amid all his agility he might yet make a false step, and find an unexpected and rather cold bath in the lake below, Stevens now turned his eyes upon Margaret Cooper. ”

“ Sergius looked at her with plain admiration on his face.
"Believe me, Miss Weston, this charnel odor is no worse than that of the battle-fields to which you were going. I have been there, also. Will you take my arm now? For we must walk through a very disagreeable place."
"No, thank you!" she—well, she snapped, although it isn't a nice thing to say of a heroine. "I am sure Mr. Jones will offer all the help I may need." ”

“ Tremain slipped carelessly, and with the familiarity of good-fellowship, lifted the great bouquet of roses and hyacinths that lay unheeded on Esther's lap. Dick Darling leant over and nodded her brown head at him, while Mrs. Newbold gave him one of her sweet smiles, but laid her fingers on her lips in token of silence, for Box and Cox held the stage, and Miss James was entering into the spirit of Mrs. Bouncer with a verve and sprightliness, seemingly incompatible with her usual irresponsive superciliousness. ”

“ She slipped off this afternoon, and has been in their house over an hour; and it was only this morning I detected her kissing their Clarence through the fence."
"Faugh," said Mr. Stevens, with a look of disgust; "you kissed a nigger! I'm ashamed of you, you nasty little thing; your mother ought to have taken a scrubbing-brush and cleaned your mouth, never do such a thing again; come here to me."
As he spoke, he extended his hand and grasped the delicately rounded arm of his little girl.
"What induces you to go amongst those people; hasn't your mother again and again forbidden you to do so. ”