Sharley

“ She was thinking with a wee glow of pleasure how the baby's arms clung around her neck that morning, and how surprised her mother looked when Methuselah cried at her taking this walk. As you were warned in the beginning, nothing remarkable ever happened to Sharley. Since she had begun in practice to approve Mrs. Dike's theory, that no harm is done if we never think of our troubles, she had neither become the village idol, nor in any remarkable degree her mother's pride. ”

“ She noticed that they seemed to think of Harley as one like Jimmy Grayson—that is, one of themselves—and they never considered him raw or green in any respect.
Her confidence in Harley and the momentary elation returned as they stood there in this cup in the mountain-side and looked out upon the expanse of peak and plain. She ate, too, with an appetite that the mountain air sharpened, and she thrilled with strength and hope. ”

“ There are dancers in this world, and other dancers; but Sharlee was the sort that old ladies stop and watch. Of her infinite poetry of motion it is only necessary to say that she could make even "the Boston" look graceful; as witness her now. In that large room, detectives could have found men who thought Sharlee decidedly prettier than Miss Avery. Her look was not languorous; her voice was not provocative; her eyes were not narrow and tip-tilted; they did not look dangerous in the least, unless you so regard all extreme pleasure derived from looking at anything in the nature of eyes. ”

“ The replies came in due time, brief, impersonal, thanking him for his trouble, and giving a little news of Mrs. Grayson, "King" Plummer, and herself. Harley was surprised to see with what terseness, strength, and elegance she expressed herself. "Perhaps there is a force in those mountains which unconsciously teaches simplicity and power," he found himself thinking. He was surprised, too, one day, when he was packing his valise for a hurried start, to see all her letters reposing neatly in one corner of the aforesaid valise. ”

“ Sharlee had thought the whole thing out, and made up her mind. Gentle raillery, which would do everything necessary in most cases, would be wholly futile here. She must doff all gloves and give the little Doctor the dressing-down of his life. She must explode a mine under that enormously exaggerated self-esteem which swamped the young man's personality like a goitre. Sharlee did not want to do this. She liked Mr. Queed, in a peculiar sort of way, and yet she had to make it impossible for him ever to speak to her again. ”

“ Harley's growing sense of helplessness as he, Storri, set forth how Mr. Harley lay in the toils. Now, when Mr. Harley was prostrate beneath the harrow of every alarm, Storri, sure of success, went off on an easier tack—that is, easier for Mr. Harley.
"But why do we lose our self-control?" cried Storri, voice and manner changed from black to white, clouds to sunshine; "we are men, not angry children! See, now, I want nothing a gentleman of honor might not grant. I love your daughter—good! a Russian nobleman loves your daughter! ”

“ Grayson, I am very fond of Mr. Harley, who has proved himself a true friend to us, and I should like to see him happy—that is, married to a true woman, who would not alone receive strength, but give it, too. In the course of his vocation, he has already roamed about the world enough, and it is time now for him to settle down. ”

“ Grayson, you know, is quite fond of him, and in certain things has got into the habit of leaning upon him. Mr. Harley seems to me to be fitted by temperament and strength to be the shield and support of some one. He could make the girl who should become his wife very happy, and I am wondering if he will go out of our West without forming such an attachment."
"That surely," thought the lady, "will bring him to the question which I present to his mind, and he will answer it whether he will or not, by saying this attachment has been formed, and it is for Sylvia." She continued:
"Like Mr. ”

“ For there are men in this world who will run ten city blocks in any weather to avoid talking to a woman who knows more than they do, and knows it, and shows that she knows that she knows it.
Charles Gardiner West looked down at Sharlee; and the music singing in his blood, and the measure that they trod together, was all a part of something splendid that belonged to them alone in the world. Another man at such a moment would have contented himself with a pretty speech, but West gave his sacred confidence. He told Sharlee about the presidency of Blaines College. ”

“ It had given her, also, an obvious exhilaration, probably physical, that Harley had not seen before in a long time, and her smile was of pure welcoming joy.
Harley's was an answering smile, but his heart was full of a longing and an anger equally fierce. Never had she seemed to him more to be desired than on that morning; tall, straight, and young, instinct with the life and strength of the great upland reaches upon which she lived, her pure soul looking out of her pure eyes, she was a woman to be won by the man to whom her love was given, and he rebelled because he did not have the right. ”

“ Sharlee arose, took off her coat and furs, laid them on the bed, and going to the bureau began fixing her hair in the back before the long mirror. No matter how well a woman looks to the untrained, or man's, eye, she can always put in some time pleasurably fixing her hair in the back.
"Now," said Sharlee, "to business. Tell me all about the little dead-beat."
"It is four weeks next Monday," said Mrs. Paynter, putting a shoe-horn in her novel to mark the place, "since the young man came to me. He was from New York, and just off the train. ”

“ Harley!" exclaimed Storri, "I am a gentleman—a Russian gentleman. I ask you, in candor, does a gentleman arrest his wife's father on a charge of forgery? Come; let us have confidence in one another. We are friends, are we not?—we, who are to be in closer alliance when your daughter becomes my Countess wife. Bah! who shall talk of forgeries then?"
The evening was still young—nine o'clock—when Mr. Harley found himself again in the street, bending his slow step homeward. He was wholly adrift now from any thought of those speculative ones at Chamberlin's. ”

“ Presently, having nowhere else to go, he walked over to the mantel-shelf and leant his elbow upon it, staring down at the floor. A considerable interval passed, broken only by the ticking of the clock before he said:—
"You may be an authority on editorial writing—even on manhood—life. But I can hardly recognize you in that capacity as regards sociology."
Sharlee made no reply. She had no idea that the young man's dismissal from the Post had been a crucifixion to him, an unendurable infamy upon his virginal pride of intellect. ”

“ A groan burst from Plummer, and Harley saw his great figure gather as if for a spring. But Harley, quick as lightning, seized the man in a powerful grasp, and cried in his ear: "Not now, Mr. Plummer, not now, for God's sake! Wait until the end!"
Harley felt the "King" quiver in his hands, and then cease to struggle. Sylvia stood by, still as white as death and absolutely motionless. The others, held by the old chief's song, did not see nor hear.
Flying Cloud's eyes were glittering with cruel triumph as he continued his chant. ”

“ Before reaching the now dreaded spot she met one of the men.
"We can see nothing at all, Miss," he declared.
Having gained the beach, she found the tide in, and no sign of Charley's clothes. The other men whom she had besought to come had disappeared, it must have been in some other direction, for she had not met them going away. They, finding nothing, had probably thought her alarm a mere conjecture, and given up the quest.
Baptista sank down upon the stones near at hand. Where Charley had undressed was now sea. ”

“ Queed," said Sharlee, "why are you honest in every way but one? Why won't you admit that you have thought of this school because you would like to do something to help in the life of this town?"
"Because I am not doing anything of the sort! Why will you harp on that one string? Good heavens! Aren't you yourself the author of the sentiment that a sociologist ought to have some first-hand knowledge of the problems of society?" ”

“ She preserved social sympathy by a perfect outward decorum, though the man of the scarlet coat remained in the town and haunted the places where she appeared, and though the eyes of the censorious world were watching expectantly. No voice was raised against her. Her cold beauty held the admiration of all women, for she was not eager for men's company, and she kept her poise even with the man in scarlet near her, glacially complacent, beautifully still, disconcertingly emotionless. They did not know that the poise with her was to an extent as much a pose as Charley's manner was to him. ”

“ Charley Gray has told me he loves me, and asks me to be his wife." This did not surprise me much for I had noticed with secret anxiety the growing intimacy between Charley and my sister. "What shall I tell him, Walter," said my sister, "for I must not, dare not act without the counsel of my only brother?" I looked up in my sister's face with all the affection which welled up from my heart and said, "you love him then, Flora?" "How can I help loving him, who is so gifted, so noble," was her reply. ”

“ At another time West might have been pleased by such candid evidences of confidence and intimacy, but not to-night. He felt that Sharlee, having advertised a delightful gayety by her manner, should now proceed to deliver it: it certainly was not for tired sweetness and disconcerting silences that he had sought this tête-à-tête. But at last his failure to arouse her on indifferent topics became too marked to be passed over; and then he said in a gentle voice:—
"Confess, Miss Weyland. You're as tired as you can be." ”

“ Adjoining his estate lived a quaker, by the name of Harley, a steady, upright man, loving his ease, as all quakers do, but having no objection to see his neighbours finer or wiser than himself. He took a fancy to our hero, and the beloved evening hour often found him sitting on the settee with Hastings, when, after enjoying together an animated conversation, he also would fall into the deep feeling which fading scenery, and the energy of such a character as his young friend's, would naturally excite in a mind so tranquil as his own. ”

“ Charley stood on the embankment above the road, the notables of the parish round him.
Rosalie had been taken to the Cure's house. In that wild moment in the church when she had fallen insensible in Charley's arms, a new feeling had sprung up in her. She loved him in every fibre, but she had a strange instinct, a prescience, that she was lying on his breast for the last time. She had wound her arms round his neck, and, as his lips closed on hers, she had cried: "We shall die together—together." ”

“ He had saved her when he found her a little girl alone in all those vast mountains, and he was entitled to her. Don't you think so, Mr. Harley?"
"I do," replied Harley, with conviction.
"We yielded to his superior claim, but he sent her more than once to see us. We loved her from the first, and we love her yet."
Here Mrs. Grayson paused and hesitated over her words, as if in embarrassment.
"But it is not you and Mr. Grayson alone who love her," suggested Harley.
"It is not we alone; in Boisé everybody loves her, and at the mines and on Mr. Plummer's ranches they all love her, too." ”

“ I never did like her; she has such a conceited air; and now she'll be worse than ever. But I should not have cared if every other man in the house had stood by her the entire evening, but to think that even Robert Fairfield was with her constantly! He only bowed AT ME from across the room, and never came near me. At the Monday-night German he gave me, with a hand-touch and a smile, this red rose, then a bud, and I, foolishly, wore it to-night, although it was faded. The horrid, withered thing! ”

“ Sharlee's dress was blue, and her neck was as white as a wave's foamy tooth. Her manner was intended to convey to Mr. Queed that he was the smallest midge on all her crowded horizon. It did not, of course, have that effect, but it did arrest and pique his attention most successfully. It was in his mind that Charles Weyland had been of some assistance to him in first suggesting work on the Post; and again about the roses for Fifi. He was still ready to believe that she might have some profitable suggestion about his new problem. ”

“ Queed to write another article on a specified subject, "Sociology and Socialism."
To Sharlee the exhibit seemed surprisingly formidable, but the wonder in her eyes was not at that. Her marvel was for the fact that the man who was capable of so cruelly elbowing little Fifi out of his way should be counted a follower of the tenderest and most human of sciences.
"They impress me," she said, returning his envelope; "but not as better than friends." ”

“ Shargeloes put these questions with more urgency than Miss Twemlow liked.
“Really I cannot tell you all those things; they are scarcely of general interest. My dear father said little about it: all knowledge is denied in this good world to women. But no doubt he would tell you, if you asked him, when there were no ladies present.”
“I will,” said Mr. Shargeloes. “He is most judicious; he knows when to speak, and when to hold his tongue. And I think that you combine with beauty one of those two gifts—which is the utmost to be expected.” ”

“ The rumble grew to a roar, and the train pulled into the station. Grayson was faithful to the last, and still thundered forth the invective that delighted the soul of Plover. The train whistled and moved off again, and Harley waited in breathless anxiety.
A tall form rose out of the darkness, and a woman, middle-aged and honest of face, appeared. The correspondent knew that it must be Susan. It could be nobody else. She was looking around as if she sought some one. Harley's eye caught Grayson's, and it gave the signal. ”