Jessamine

“ After that the vegetable-man brought Jessamine a bouquet every trip. Now it was a big bunch of field-daisies or golden buttercups, now a green glory of spicy ferns, now a cluster of old-fashioned garden flowers.
"They keep life in me," Jessamine told him.
They were great friends by this time. True, she knew little about him but she felt instinctively that he was manly and kind-hearted.
One day when he came Jessamine met him almost gleefully. "No, nothing today. There is no dinner to cook."
"You don't say. Where are the folks?"
"Gone on an excursion. They won't be back until tonight." ”

“ Why should we envy any man? Is not our green-house a cabinet of perfumes? It is at this moment fronted with carnations and balsams, with mignonette and roses, with jessamine and woodbine, and wants nothing but your pipe to make it truly Arabian;—a wilderness of sweets! ”

“ Ay, his captivating smiles are as beautiful as the sweet jessamine, as bright as the silvery flash of lightning in the blue sky, and as sweet as pleasant dreams in peaceful nights! And his love? Oh, it is as deep as the ocean itself—reposing in the calmness of its majesty, but overflowing at the slightest stir! Ah me, why my eyes were blind to all these so long—why did I not plunge into that ocean of love, and sleep in its placid bosom, quite forgetful of my own existence! ”

“ Jessamine’s inability to rise from her bed after the funeral of her husband. She had had the harder life of the two.
She had been that woman so much praised, who effaced herself, spoke with a low voice, went often to church, and often to childbed, who brought up her children in the fear of God, nursed them, mended their clothes and their manners, and saw them go forth to their various miseries, to death, to marriage, to maternity. She had been a good wife for a good long life and had taken passively what God or her husband or her children brought home. ”

“ The sill, without and within, was crowded with plants. [358] She had been at work among them for an hour, and they were in their freshest trim. The pruning-scissors lay upon the shelf, and, taking them up, she clipped a sprig of heliotrope, another of mignonette, a rose-bud, and a bit of citron-aloes, bound them together with silk from her work-basket, and offered them smilingly.
"Thank you. They are very sweet, very beautiful! How does the jessamine thrive?" ”

“ Jessamine the Less, another white girl bought in Marrákesh, mother of one daughter; Jessamine the Greater, whose daughter was her father's favourite, loaded with jewels; and others who cooked or served, not having children, though one had a son who died. There were thirteen of us under an older slave who clothed and fed us.
"When the bashador came to the house the agent shut all but five or six of us in a room, the others waiting on him. I used to have to cook for the bashador, for whom they had great receptions with music and dancing-women. ”

“ To one thing the supremely afflicted are entitled in their sorrow--to be obeyed--and yet it is the last kindness that people commonly will do them. But Miss Jessamine did. Steadying her voice, as best she might, she read on, and the old soldier stood bareheaded to hear that first Roll of the Dead at Waterloo, which began with the Duke of Brunswick, and ended with Ensign Brown. ”

“ We will build one like it, in our own home, and cover it with jessamine and wisteria," he said, noting, with loving amusement, the crimson flush that always bathed her face at direct allusions to their marriage. "Orrin shall sketch it for me. He is a universal genius, and his taste is marvellous. His bachelor apartments are a notable exception to any others I ever saw. They are furnished almost as well, kept almost as neatly, as if he were married." [57]
"Isn't he a bit of a Sybarite?" queried Jessie, abruptly. "If he has a fault—or, no! ”

“ The piano was Orrin's bridal gift—a surprise held in reserve by the fond husband to brighten the coming home of his household deity. But the sitting-room back of the state apartments, was the one on which [277] he had expended most care and time. A bay-window did duty for the more roomy oriel, and the shelf, which was an extension of the sill, was filled with plants.
"Next Spring we will set a root of jessamine outside," remarked Roy, when Orrin praised the infant creepers—ivy and passion-flower—on the inside of the casement. ”

“ The last thing I remember as I lay in my blankets was Jessamine's window still lighted, and the water-tank, clear-lined and black, standing over Separ.
DESTINY AT DRYBONE
PART I
Children have many special endowments, and of these the chiefest is to ask questions that their elders must skirmish to evade. Married people and aunts and uncles commonly discover this, but mere instinct does not guide one to it. A maiden of twenty-three will not necessarily divine it. Now except in one unhappy hour of stress and surprise, Miss Jessamine Buckner had been more than equal to life thus far. ”

“ Meanwhile, Ahmed Kemakim laid hands on Jessamine, who was with child by Alaeddin, and committed her to his mother, saying, 'Deliver her to the Lady Khatoun.' So the old woman took her and carried her to the wife of the Master of Police. ”

“ Does not the opium-eater, in his lucid intervals, prefer thirst and languor and pain to the drug for which his diseased appetite cries out as the dying for breath, and the fever-scorched for water? Prefer it with mind and conscience, if not with flesh and will? Jessie Kirke's will lived yet, and it had borne her beyond the reach of temptation and kept her there. But it did not hinder her from picturing Orrin pacing the portico, or, sitting in the parlor, awaiting her while she hid herself and her wretchedness among the willows. ”

“ Jessamine’s salary is raised, but just at present Mrs. Jessamine is doing her own work.
While she is attending to her duties she gives the children a paper of needles, the scissors, some sample packages of aniline dyes and a box of safety matches to play with, and during the intervals of baking and sweeping the rooms she rushes in, kisses and cuddles them and then flies back to her work singing merrily.
One afternoon last week Mrs. Jessamine was lying on the bed reading a Sunday paper. The children were blowing soap bubbles with some old pipestems of Mr. ”

“ Whereupon, Miss Jessamine sent a servant to the churchyard, who found Tony Johnson lying on a tomb-stone, very sick, and having ceased to entertain any hopes of his own recovery.
If it could be possible that any "unpleasantness" could arise between two such amiable neighbors as Miss Jessamine and Mrs. Johnson--and if the still more incredible paradox can be that ladies may differ over a point on which they are agreed--that point was the admitted fact that Tony Johnson was "delicate," and the difference lay chiefly in this: Mrs. ”

“ His utterances were fearless, simple, fervent, enforcing respect for their author, although the listener might not be in sympathy with their spirit. Jessie ceased to weep or sigh while he talked; presently showed her tear-stained face, tremulous with sad smiles, and laid her hand timidly upon his.
"Thank you! Every word is a drop of comfort. But so much talking is bad for your throat, and the fever will return if you are agitated. ”

“ Her emphasis of sincerity was unmistakable and wrought with various effect upon her two auditors.
"So am I!" laughed Roy, his eyes alight with more than mirth. "The grapes you cannot touch, my grasping friend! They were a present to me, not an hour since, from Miss Fanny Provost—a basketful, wreathed with exquisite flowers. She believes in the reality of my interesting invalidism. As for the nectar—give him a sip—Jessie, please! It is not fair that one man should monopolize all the good things of life." ”

“ Up and down! up and down! she trod the long alley, looking at the faintly illuminated windows of that upper chamber; wringing her hands in her dry-eyed agony, longing yet fearing to hear the summons that should end her suspense.
It came at length! Roy's step upon the piazza, and [231] his call, guarded that it should not reach the sick-room, but audible to her as would be the trump of doom.
"Jessie! where are you?"
She went toward him without hesitation. Women have gone to the hall of sentence and to the block in the same way. He met her, guided by her rustling tread among the leaves. ”

“ All this while he held Jessie's hand; his eyes seemed as if they could not leave the countenance whose change had so pained him. The girl's faint smile was very grateful.
"I am not sick! I have no physical ailment beyond a sensation of general good-for-nothingness. I ought to be ashamed to confess it, but I imagine I have a touch of what fine ladies call the 'blues.' Papa would have in Dr. Winters a month ago, in spite of all I could do and say. He laughed at me a little, scolded me a great deal, and pronounced my malady dyspepsia, or low fever, or nervous debility—he was not certain which. ”

“ Fordham before I sleep, and release him; if he still considers himself bound to me, shall tell him plainly that my love is dead—and my heart!" [215]
"You will judge me more mercifully, and yourself more justly one day, Jessie. Your self-reproaches pain me more than do your vituperations against myself. Nothing you can say in your present mood can alter my feelings for you. You have had much to try you, to-day, my poor child! When you are cooler, you will retract—mentally at least—the charges you have brought against one whose heart is now—and always will be—your own. ”

“ Jessie's orders were positive that no one besides the doctors should be admitted, and as the servant's lookout commanded the front gate, she intercepted the many callers who flocked to the Parsonage, at the swift rumor of the pastor's extreme illness.
"We will keep him to ourselves while he stays with us!" the younger sister had answered the other's fear lest this proceeding should give offence to "the people." "He has belonged to them for thirty years. At the last, we may surely claim him!"
"But they love him dearly!" expostulated Eunice. "He is their spiritual father and guide." ”

“ She cannot endure contradiction, as you see; so when she insisted I should ask him for to-night, I complied, I am often thankful, Jessie, that I am not an only child, when I see how restless and irritable so much notice and petting has made her. ”

“ The room was not needed for the use of the guests, and was unlighted except by the low fire in the grate.
"I will light the gas!" said Jessie, trying to withdraw her hand from his clutch.
He tightened the grasp. It is said that every man is a savage at some time of his life. The brutish devil was rampant now in the polished citizen of the world, the indolent epicure. ”

“ The church-bell was not tolled for the pastor's funeral, and a band of trusty yeomen, stationed fifty yards up and down the road, prevented vehicles from approaching the [244] gate of Parsonage or church-yard. The reason was quickly disseminated, and the value of the precaution universally admitted. Mingled with the tears that fell upon the bier of the faithful servant of God, were earnest prayers for the restoration of health and reason to the daughter—"the people's" pride and pet as she had been his—the merry, popular "little Jessie," who was known to every household in the parish. ”

“ He is incapable of what he would consider a dishonorable, much less a base deed! Try and trust him; forget this tale which may be a fiction, out-and-out, and hope for the best!"
"Christmas before last!" murmured Jessie, in stifled accents. "He was corresponding with me then! He had told my father that he meant—Oh!" stopping short, and stamping her foot with feverish energy upon the frozen earth—"Is there no way of ending this horrible suspense? no one who can put me out of this pain? I would give my right hand if I might stand face to face with Roy Fordham, for ten minutes! ”

“ Winters, took the form, not of hysterical emotion, as he had anticipated, but of physical languor and spiritual apathy, which were more alarming. Jessie moved, spoke, and thought like one in a trance; acquiescing in every proposal made by her sister and Roy; obeying every request without demur or inquiry. If left to herself she asked nothing except to be allowed to sit or lie passive for hours together ”

“ Having plied her unsuccessfully with arguments and entreaties of her own devising, Jessie wrote to Roy, begging him to use his powerful influence to avert the threatened evil.
"I cannot do without her!" she said, without staying to reflect upon what might be the husband's feeling on reading the avowal, "unlike as we are and reserved as we have been to one another on some subjects, our hearts are knit together by bands which are all the stronger for our late loss. ”

“ Only Fanny Provost was in a position from which she could see that while her features were steady, and her eyes seemed to follow the red and white spheroids in their windings and doublings, one swollen vein in her throat was beating like a clock, and the nails were bloodless where they pressed upon the cue.
"Come! we must finish our game!" said the young hostess, going back to the table. "Jessie has been perfecting her skill by a bit of private practice, while we were making havoc of our neighbors' characters." ”

“ Mr. Kirke lapsed into slumber or stupor, and the room was silent again save for his irregular breathing, showing that his semi-insensibility varied in character from that of the day. Once, Jessie got up with the remark that it was time to renew the mustard-poultices that stimulated the curdling veins into action, and the pair did the office deftly and mutely. Eunice saw her sister, as she reseated herself, lay her cheek to the almost pulseless hand that [236] rested on the coverlet, and close her eyes, while her lips were stirred by an inaudible sentence. ”