diff options
Diffstat (limited to '22047.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | 22047.txt | 4039 |
1 files changed, 4039 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/22047.txt b/22047.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c82b5ea --- /dev/null +++ b/22047.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4039 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Love Affairs of an Old Maid, by Lilian Bell + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Love Affairs of an Old Maid + +Author: Lilian Bell + +Release Date: July 11, 2007 [EBook #22047] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF AN OLD MAID *** + + + + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Anne Storer, and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + Transcriber's Note: + + The original text noted chapters as 1, 2, 3 etc. in the TOC, + and I, II, III etc. in chapter headers. These have been retained. + + * * * * * + + + + + THE + + LOVE AFFAIRS OF AN OLD MAID + + BY + LILIAN BELL + + + "_Some ships reach happy ports that are not steered_" + + + NEW YORK + HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS + + + Copyright, 1893, by HARPER & BROTHERS. + _All rights reserved._ + + + + +DEDICATION + + +This book is dedicated very fondly to my beloved family, who, in their +anxiety to render me material assistance, have offered me such diverse +opinions as to its merit that their criticisms radiate from me in as many +directions as there are spokes to a wheel. + +This leaves the distraught hub with no opinion of its own, and with +flaring, ragged edges. + +Nevertheless, thus must it appear before the public, whose opinion will be +the tire which shall enable my wheel to revolve. If it be favorable, one +may look for smooth riding; if unfavorable, one must expect jolts. + + + + +PREFACE + + +It is a pity that there is no prettier term to bestow upon a girl bachelor +of any age than Old Maid. "Spinster" is equally uncomfortable, suggesting, +as it does, corkscrew curls and immoderate attenuation of frame; while +"maiden lady," which the ultra-punctilious substitute, is entirely too +mincing for sensible, whole-souled people to countenance. + +I dare say that more women would have the courage to remain unmarried were +there so euphonious a title awaiting them as that of "bachelor," which, +when shorn of its accompanying adjective "old," simply means unmarried. + +The word "bachelor," too, has somewhat of a jaunty sound, implying to the +sensitive ear that its owner could have been married--oh, several times +over--if he had wished. But both "spinster" and "old maid" have narrow, +restricted attributes, which, to say the least, imply doubt as to past +opportunity. + +Names are covertly responsible for many overt acts. Carlyle, when he said, +"The name is the earliest garment you wrap around the earth-visiting me. +Names? Not only all common speech, but Science, Poetry itself, if thou +consider it, is no other than a right naming," sounded a wonderful note in +Moral Philosophy, which rings false many a time in real life, when to ring +true would change the whole face of affairs. + +Thus I boldly affirm, that were there a proper sounding title to cover the +class of unmarried women, many a marriage which now takes place, with +either moderate success or distinct failure, would remain in pleasing +embryo. + +Of the three evils among names for my book, therefore, I leave you to +determine whether I have chosen the greatest or least. The writing of it +came about in this way. + +In a conversation concerning modern marriage, the unwisdom people display +in choice, and the complicated affair it has come to be from a pastoral +beginning, I said lightly, "I shall write a book upon this subject some +fine day, and I shall call it 'The Love Affairs of an Old Maid,' because +popular prejudice decrees that the love affairs of an old maid necessarily +are those of other people." + +No sooner had the name suggested in broad jest taken form in my mind than +straightway every thought I possessed crystallized around it, and I found +myself impelled by a malevolent Fate to begin it. + +It became a fixed intention on a Sunday morning in church during a most +excellent sermon, the text and substance of which I have forgotten. +Doubtless more of real worth and benefit to mankind was pent up in that +sermon than four books of my own writing could accomplish. But, with the +delightful candor of John Kendrick Bangs, I explain my lapse of memory +thus-- + + "I dote on Milton and on Robert Burns; + I love old Marryat--his tales of pelf; + I live on Byron; but my heart most yearns + Towards those sweet things that I've penned myself." + +So the book has been written. The existence of the Old Maid often has been +a precarious one; she has been surrounded by danger, once narrowly +escaping cremation. But my humanity towards dumb brutes saved her. I might +have sacrificed a woman, but I could not kill a cat. So she lives, +unconsciously owing her life to her cat. + +Thus she comes to you, bearing her friends in her heart. I should scarcely +dare ask you to welcome her, did I not suspect that her friends are yours. +You have your Flossy and your Charlie Hardy without doubt. Pray Heaven you +have a Rachel to outweigh them. + +CHICAGO, _March, 1893_. + + + + + CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER PAGE + + 1. I INTRODUCE ME TO MYSELF 1 + + 2. I COME INTO MY KINGDOM 8 + + 3. MATRIMONY IN HARNESS 18 + + 4. WOMEN AS LOVERS 30 + + 5. THE HEART OF A COQUETTE 51 + + 6. THE LONELY CHILDHOOD OF A CLEVER CHILD 65 + + 7. A STUDY IN HUMAN GEESE 78 + + 8. A GAME OF HEARTS 91 + + 9. THE MADONNA OF THE QUIET MIND 120 + + 10. THE PATHOS OF FAITH 137 + + 11. THE HAZARD OF A HUMAN DIE 156 + + 12. IN WHICH I WILLINGLY TURN MY FACE WESTWARD 174 + + + + + THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF ON OLD MAID + + + * * * + + I + + I INTRODUCE ME TO MYSELF + + "There is a luxury in self-dispraise; + And inward self-disparagement affords + To meditative spleen a grateful feast." + + +To-morrow I shall be an Old Maid. What a trying thing to have to say even +to one's self, and how vexed I should be if anybody else said it to me! +Nevertheless, it is a comfort to be brutally honest once in a while to +myself. I do not dare, I do not care, to be so to everybody. But with my +own self, I can feel that it is strictly a family affair. If I hurt my +feelings, I can grieve over it until I apologize. If I flatter myself, I +am only doing what every other woman in the world is doing in her +innermost consciousness, and flattery as honest as flattery from one's +own self naturally would be could not fail to please me. Besides, it would +have the unique value of being believed by both sides--a situation in the +flattery line which I fancy has no rival. + +It is well to become acquainted with one's self at all hazards, and as I +am going to be my own partner in the rubber of life, I can do nothing +better than to study my own hand. So, to harrow up my feelings as only I +dare to do, I write down that it is really true of me that I passed the +first corner five years ago, and to-morrow I shall be 30. + +What a disagreeable figure a 3 is; I never noticed it before. It looks so +self-satisfied. And as to that fat, hollow 0 which follows it--I always +did detest round numbers. + +30; there it goes again. I must accustom myself to it privately, so I +write it down once more, and it laughs in my face and mocks me. Then I +laugh back at it and say aloud that it is true, and for the time being I +have cowed it and become its master. What boots it if the laughter is a +trifle hollow? There is no harm in deceiving two miserable little figures. + +Let me revel in my youth while I may. To-night I am a gay young thing of +twenty-nine. To-morrow I shall be an Old Maid. I have very little time +left in which to make myself ridiculous and have it excused on account of +my youth. But somehow I do not feel very gay. I have a curious feeling +about my heart, as if I were at a burial--one where I was burying +something that I had always loved very dearly, but secretly, and which +would always be a sweet and tender memory with me. I feel nervous, too, +quite as if I did not know whether to laugh or to cry. I remember that +Alice Asbury said she was hysterical just before she was married. I wonder +if a woman's feelings on the eve of being an Old Maid are unlike those of +one about to become a bride. + +My cat sits eying me with sleepy approval. I always liked cats. And tea. +Why have I never thought of it before? It is not my fault that I am an Old +Maid. I was cut out for one. All my tendencies point that way. Please +don't blame me, good people. Come here, Tabby. You and Missis will grow +old together. + +After all, it is a sad thing when one realizes for the first time that +one's youth is slipping away. But why? Why do women of great intelligence, +of intellect even, blush with pleasure at the implication of youth? + +There are fashions in thought as well as in dress, and the best of us +follow both, as sheep follow their leader. We will sometimes follow our +neighbor's line of insular prejudice, when worlds could not bribe us to +copy her grammar or her gowns. Dull people admire youth. They excuse its +follies; they adore its prettiness. That it is only a period of education, +and that real life begins with maturity, does not enter into their minds. +The odor of bread and butter does not nauseate them. Dull people, I +say--and God pity us, most of us are dull--admire youth. Men love it. +Therefore we all want to be young. We strive to be young, nay, we _will_ +be young. + +I am no better than my neighbors. I, too, am young when I am with people. +But there are times when I am alone when the strain of being young +relaxes, and I luxuriate in being old, old, old, when I cease being +contemporary, and look back fondly to the time when the world and I +were in embryo. + +And yet I wonder if extreme age is as repulsive to everybody as it is +to me. Forty seems a long way off. I fancy people at forty become very +uninteresting to the oncoming generation. Fifty is grandmotherly and +suitable for little else. Sixty, seventy, and beyond seem to me one +horrible jumble of wrinkles and wheezes and false beauty and general +unpleasantness. Oh, I hope, if I should live to be over fifty, that I may +be a pleasant old person. I hope my teeth will fit me, and the parting to +my wave be always in the middle. I hope my fingers will always come fully +to the ends of my gloves, and that I never shall wear my spectacles on top +of my head. But I hope more than all that it isn't wicked to wish to die +before I come to these things. + +Before I entirely lose my youth--in other words, before I become an Old +Maid, let me see what I must give up. Lovers, of course. That goes +without saying. And if I give them up, it will not do to have their +photographs standing around. They must be--oh! and their letters--must +they too be destroyed? Dear me, no! I'll just fold them all together and +lay them away, like a wedding-dress which never has been worn. And I'll +put girls' pictures or missionaries' or martyrs' into the empty frames. +Martyrs' would be most appropriate. + +Now for a box to put them in. A pretty box, so that one who runs may read? +Not so, you sentimental Elderly Person. Take this tin box with a lock on +it. There you are, done up in a japanned box and padlocked. I would say +that it looks like a little coffin if I wasn't afraid of what my Alter Ego +would say. She seems cross to-night. I wonder what is the matter with her. +She must be getting old. I should like to hang the key around my neck on a +blue ribbon, but I am afraid. "What if you should be run over and killed," +she says, "or should faint away in church? Remember that you are an Old +Maid." How disagreeable old maids can be! And I've got to live with this +one always. I'll put the key in my purse. Nice, sensible, prosaic place, +a purse. + +How late it grows! I have only a little time left. I believe that clock +is fast. Dear, dear! Do I want to just sit still and watch myself turn? +I meant to have old age overtake me in my sleep. I think I'll stop that +clock and let my youth fade from me unawares. + + + + + II + + I COME INTO MY KINGDOM + + "There is no compensation for the woman who feels that the chief + relation of her life has been no more than a mistake. She has lost + her crown. The deepest secret of human blessedness has half + whispered itself to her and then forever passed her by." + + +I have become an Old Maid, and really it is a relief. I feel as if I had +left myself behind me, and that now I have a right to the interests of +other people when they are freely offered. My friends always have confided +in me. I suppose it is because I am receptive. Men tell me their old love +affairs. Girls tell me the whole story of their engagements--how they came +to take this man, and why they did not take that one. And even the most +ordinary are vitally interesting. Before I know it, I am rent with the +same despair which agitates the lover confiding in me; or I am wreathed +in the smiles of the engaged girl who is getting her absorbing secret +comfortably off her mind. It seems to comfort them to air their emotion, +and sometimes I am convinced that they leave the most of it with me. + +Now I can feel at liberty to enjoy and sympathize as I will. Well, the +love affairs of other people are the rightful inheritance of old maids. +In sharing them I am only coming into my kingdom. + +Alice Asbury has made shipwreck of hers. The girl is actively miserable +and her husband is indifferently uncomfortable, which is the habit this +married couple have of experiencing the same emotion. + +Alice is a mass of contradictions to those who do not understand her--now +in the clouds, now in the depths. Bad weather depresses her; so does a sad +story, the death of a kitten, solemn music. She is correspondingly +volatile in the opposite direction and often laughs at real calamities +with wonderful courage. She has a fund of romance in her nature which has +led her to the pass she now is in. She is clever, too, at introspection +and analysis--of herself chiefly. She studies her own sensations and +dissects her moods. Her selfishness is of the peculiar sort which should +have kept her from marrying until she found the hundredth man who could +appreciate her genius and bend it into nobler channels. Unfortunately she +married one of the ninety-nine. She is not, perhaps, more selfish than +many another woman, but her selfishness is different. She is mentally +cross-eyed from turning her eyes inward so constantly. + +She became engaged to Brandt--a man in every way worthy of her--and they +loved each other devotedly. Then during a quarrel she broke the +engagement, and he, being piqued by her withdrawal, immediately married +May Lawrence, who had been patiently in love with him for five years, and +who was only waiting for some such turn as this to deliver him into her +hands. A poetic justice visits him with misery, for he still cares for +Alice. May, however, is not conscious of this fact as yet. + +Alice, being doubly stung by his defection, was just in the mood to do +something desperate, when she began to see a great deal of Asbury, fresh +from being jilted by Sallie Cox. Asbury was moody, and confided in Alice. +Alice was foolish, and confided in him. They both decided that their +hearts were ashes, love burned out, and life a howling wilderness, and +then proceeded to exchange these empty hearts of theirs, and to go through +the howling wilderness together. + +Alice came to tell me about it. They had no love to give each other, she +said sadly, but they were going to be married. I would have laughed at her +if she had not been so tragic. But there is something about Alice, in +spite of her romantic folly, (which she has adapted from the French to +suit her American needs,) which forbids ridicule. Nevertheless I felt, +with one of those sudden flashes of intuition, that this choice of hers +was a hideous mistake. The situation repelled me. But the very strangeness +of it seemed to attract the morbid Alice. And it was this one curious +strain of unexplained foolishness marring her otherwise strong and in many +ways beautiful character which prevented my loving her completely and +safely. Nevertheless, I cared for her enough to enter my feeble and futile +protest; but it was waved aside with the superb effrontery of a woman who +feels that she controls the situation with her head, and whose heart is +not at liberty to make uncomfortable complications. I would rather argue +with a woman who is desperately in love, to prevent her marrying the man +of her choice, than to try to dissuade a woman from marrying a man she has +set her head upon. You feel sympathy with the former, and you have human +nature and the whole glorious love-making Past at your back, to give you +confidence and eloquence. But with the latter you are cowed and beaten +beforehand, and tongue-tied during the contest. + +So she became Alice Asbury, and these two blighted beings took a flat. +Before they had been at home from their honeymoon a week she came down to +see me, and told me that she hated Asbury. + +Imagine a bride whose bouquet, only a month before, you had held at the +altar, and heard her promise to love, honor, and obey a man until death +did them part, coming to you with a confession like that. Still, if but +one half she tells me of him is true, I do not wonder that she hates him. + +With her revolutionary, anarchistic completeness, she has renounced the +idea of compromise or adaptability as finally as if she had seen and +passed the end of the world. There is no more pliability in her with +regard to Asbury than there is in a steel rod. How different she used to +be with Brandt! How she consulted his wishes and accommodated herself to +him! + +When a woman born to be ruled by love only passes by her master spirit, +she becomes an anomaly in woman--she makes complications over which the +psychologist wastes midnight oil, and if he never discovers the solution, +it is because of its very simplicity. + +All the sweetness seems to have left Alice's nature. She keeps somebody +with her every moment. That one guest chamber in her flat has been +occupied by all the girls that she can persuade to visit her. Asbury +dislikes company, but she says she does not care. She cannot keep +visitors long, because as soon as they discover that they are unwelcome +to Asbury, naturally they go home. + +Fortunately, Asbury does not care for Sallie Cox any more. When his vanity +was wounded, his love died instantly. I think he is more in love with +himself than he ever was with any woman. There are men, you know, whose +one grand passion in life is for themselves. But Alice knows that Brandt +still cares for her, and she feeds her romantic fancy on this fact, and +has her introspective miseries to her heart's content. She is far too +cool-headed a woman to do anything rash. Sometimes I think her morbid +nature obtains more real satisfaction out of her joyless situation than +positive happiness would compensate her for. She appears to take a certain +negative pleasure in it. Their marriage is the product of a false +civilization, and I pity them--at a distance--from the bottom of my heart. +I am sorry for Brandt, too, for he honestly loved Alice and might have +proved the hundredth man--who knows? + +I do not quite know whether to be sorry for May Brandt or not, for she +made complications and made them purposely. She made them so promptly, +too, that she precluded the possibility of a reconciliation between Alice +and Brandt. If Brandt had remained single, I doubt whether Alice would +have had the courage to form an engagement with any other man. She loved +him too truly to take the first step towards an eternal separation. Women +seldom dare make that first move, except as a decoy. They are naturally +superstitious, and even when curiously free from this trait in everything +else, they cling to a little in love, and dare not tempt Fate too +insolently. + +A woman who has quarrelled with her lover, in her secret heart expects him +back daily and hourly, no matter what the cause of the estrangement, until +he becomes involved with another woman. Then she lays all the blame of his +defection at the door of the alien, where, in the opinion of an Old Maid, +it generally belongs. + +If other women would let men alone, constancy would be less of a hollow +mockery. (Query, but is it constancy where there is no temptation to be +fickle?) Nevertheless, let "another woman" sympathize with an estranged +lover, and place a little delicate blame upon his sweetheart and flatter +him a great deal, and _presto!_ you have one of those criss-cross +engagements which turns life to a dull gray for the aching heart which +is left out. + +If, too, when this honestly loving woman appears to take the first step, +her actions and mental processes could be analyzed and timed, it +frequently would prove that, with her quicker calculations, she foresaw +the fatal effect of the "other-woman" element, and, desirous of protecting +her vanity, reached blindly out to the nearest man at her command, and +married him with magnificent effrontery, just to circumvent humiliation +and to take a little wind out of the other woman's sails. But could you +make her lover believe that? Never. + +And so May Lawrence played the "other woman" in the Asbury tragedy. I +wonder if she is satisfied with her role. A girl who wilfully catches a +man's heart on the rebound, does the thing which involves more risk than +anything else malevolent fate could devise. + +On the whole, I think I am sorry for her, for she has apples of Sodom in +her hand, although as yet to her delighted gaze they appear the fairest +of summer fruit. + + + + + III + + MATRIMONY IN HARNESS + + "What eagles are we still + In matters that belong to other men; + What beetles in our own!" + + +The more I know of horses, the more natural I think men and women are in +the unequalness of their marriages. I never yet saw a pair of horses so +well matched that they pulled evenly all the time. The more skilful the +driver, the less he lets the discrepancy become apparent. Going up hill, +one horse generally does the greater share of work. If they pull equally +up hill, sometimes they see-saw and pull in jerks on a level road. And I +never saw a marriage in which both persons pulled evenly all the time, and +the worst of it is, I suppose this unevenness is only what is always +expected. + +Having no marriage of my own to worry over, it is gratuitous when I worry +over other people's. Old maids, you know, like to air their views on +matrimony and bringing up children. Their theories on these subjects have +this advantage--that they always hold good because they never are tried. + +There never was such an unequal yoking together as the Herricks'. Nobody +has told me. This is one of the affairs which has not been confided to me. +Only, I knew them both so well before they were married. I knew Bronson +Herrick best, however, because I never used to see any more of Flossy than +was necessary. + +To begin with, I never liked her name. I have an idea that names show +character. Could anybody under heaven be noble with such a name as Flossy? +I believe names handicap people. I believe children are sometimes tortured +by hideous and unmeaning names. But give them strong, ugly names in +preference to Ina and Bessie and Flossy and such pretty-pretty names, with +no meaning and no character to them. Take my own name, Ruth. If I wanted +to be noble or heroic I could be; my name would not be an anomalous +nightmare to attract attention to the incongruity. We cannot be too +thankful to our mothers who named us Mary and Dorothy and Constance. What +an inspiration to be "faithful over a few things" such a name as Constance +must be! + +But Flossy's mother named her--not Florence, but Flossy. I suppose she was +one of those fluffy, curly, silky babies. She grew to be that kind of a +girl--a Flossy girl. It speaks for itself. I suppose with that name she +never had any incentive to outgrow her nature. + +It came out on her wedding cards: + + "Mr. and Mrs. CHARLES FAY CARLETON + request you to be present at the + marriage of their daughter + FLOSSY + to + Mr. BRONSON STURGIS HERRICK." + +The contrast between the two names, hers so nonsensical and his so +dignified and strong, was no greater than that between the two people. +In truth, their names were symbolic of their natures. It looked really +pitiful to me. + +I wondered if anybody besides Rachel English and me looked into their +future with apprehension. Our misgivings, I must admit, were all for +Bronson. + +Ah, well-a-day! It is so easy to feel sympathy for a man you admire, +especially if he is strong and loyal, and does not ask or desire it of +you. + +Flossy was one of those cuddling girls. She appealed to you with her eyes, +and you found yourself petting her and sympathizing with her, when, if you +stopped to think, you would see that she had more of everything than you +had. She possessed a rich father, a beautiful house, and perfect health. +Nevertheless, you found yourself asking after "poor Flossy," and your +voice commiserated her if your words did not. She invariably had some +trifling ill to tell you of. She had hurt her arm, or scratched her hand, +or the snow made her eyes ache, or she was tired. She never seemed at +liberty to enjoy herself, although she went everywhere, and seemed to do +so successfully in spite of her imaginary ills, if you let her enjoy +herself by telling you of them. + +Everybody helped Flossy to live. Everybody protected and looked after her. +There was some one on his knees continually, removing invisible brambles +from her rose-leaf path. She didn't know how to do anything for herself. +She never buttoned her own boots. When her maid was not with her, other +people put her jacket on for her, and carried her umbrella and buttoned +her gloves. Men always buttoned her gloves, and her gloves always had more +buttons, and more unruly buttons, than any other gloves I ever saw. But +then I am elderly. + +I never knew Flossy to do anything for anybody. She never gave things +away, but on Christmas and her birthdays she received remembrances from +everybody. I used to make her presents without knowing why or even +thinking of it. Flossy's name was on all the Christmas lists, and she used +to shed tears over the kindness of her friends, and write the prettiest +notes to them, so plaintive and self-deprecatory. Then they took her to +drive, or did something more for her. Flossy read poetry and cried over +it. She wrote poetry too, and other people cried over that. + +When Bronson Herrick told me he was going to marry her, I wanted to say, +"No, you are not." But I didn't. I did not even seem to be surprised, for +he is so proud he would have resented any surprise on my part. He told me +about it of course, knowing that I could not fail to be pleased. (His +photograph is in that japanned box of mine. This smile on my face, Tabby, +is rather sardonic. Why is it that men expect an old sweetheart to take an +active interest in their bride-elect, and are so deadly sure that they +will like each other?) + +"She is the most sympathetic little thing," he said enthusiastically. "She +reminds me of you in so many ways. You are very much alike." + +"Oh, thank you, Bronson Sturgis Herrick! I assure you I would cheerfully +drown myself if I thought you were right about that," I exclaimed +mentally. + +He repeated over and over that she was "so sympathetic." He meant, of +course, that she had wept over him. Flossy's tears flow like rain if you +crook your finger at her, and tears wring the heart of a man like Bronson. +To think he was going to marry her! I just looked at him, I remember, as +he stood so straight and tall before me, and said to myself, "Well, you +dear, honest, loyal, clever man! You are just the kind of a man that women +fool most unmercifully. But it's nature, and you can't help it. Go and +marry this Flossy girl, and commit mental suicide if you must." + +"Sympathetic!" + +So he married her five years ago, and became her man-servant. + +When they had been married about a year, people said that Bronson was +working himself to death. I, being an Old Maid, and liking to meddle with +other people's business, told him that I thought he ought to take a +vacation. He said he couldn't afford it. I was honestly surprised at that, +because, while he was not rich, he was extremely well-to-do, with a +rapidly increasing law practice. And then Flossy's father had been very +generous when she married him. He was considerate enough to reply to my +look. + +"You know I married a rich girl. Flossy's money is her own. She has saved +it--I wished her to save it, I _wished_ it--and I am doing my level best +to support her as nearly as possible in the way in which she has been +accustomed to live. She ought to have an easier time, poor child." + +So he did not take a vacation, and the summer was very hot, and when +Flossy came home from Rye she found him wretchedly ill, and discovered +that he had had a trained nurse for two weeks before he let her know +anything about it. Then people pitied Flossy for having her summer +interrupted, and Flossy felt that it was a shame; but she very willingly +sat and fanned Bronson for as much as an hour every day and answered +questions languidly and was pale, and people sent her flowers and were +extremely sorry for her. + +When Bronson became well enough to go away, as his doctors ordered, for a +complete rest, Rachel English happened to go on the same train with them, +and the next day I received a letter, or rather an envelope, from her, +with this single sentence enclosed: "And if she didn't make him hold her +in his arms in broad daylight every step of the way, because the train +jarred her back!" + +(Tabby, there is no use in talking. I must stop and pull your ears. Come +here and let Missis be really rough with you for a minute.) + +There are some women who prefer a valet to a husband; who think that the +more menial are his services in public, the more apparent is his devotion. +It is a Roman-chariot-wheel idea, which degrades both the man and the +woman in the eyes of the spectators. I wrote to Rachel, and said in the +letter, "One horse in the span always does most of the pulling, you know, +especially uphill." And Rachel wrote back, "Wouldn't I just like to drive +this pair, though!" + +Bronson had his ideals before he was married, as most men have, concerning +the kind of a home he hoped for. He always said that it was not so much +what your home was, as how it was. He believed that a home consisted more +in the feelings and aims of its inmates than in rugs and jardinieres. He +said to me once, "The oneness of two people could make a home in Sahara." + +He was ambitious, too, feeling within himself that power which makes +orators and statesmen, but needing the approval and encouragement of some +one who also realized his capabilities, to enable him to do his best. He +himself was the one who was sympathetic, if he had only known it. His +nature responded with the utmost readiness to whatever appealed to him +from the side of right or justice. + +He had noble hopes in many directions, hopes which inspired me to believe +in his truth and goodness, aside from his capabilities for achieving +greatness. His eagle sight, which read through other men's shams and +pretences; his moral sense, which bade him shun even the appearance of +evil, not only permitted, but urged him, seemingly, into this marriage +with Flossy, by which he effectually cut himself off from his dearest +aspirations. One by one I have seen him relinquish them, holding to them +lovingly to the last. The hours at home, which he intended to give to +study and research, have been sacrificed to the petting and nursing of a +perfectly well woman, who demanded it of him. His home life, where he had +dreamed of a congenial atmosphere, where the centripetal force should be +the love of wife and children, merged into frequent journeys for +Flossy--who would have been happy if she never had been obliged to stay in +one place over a week--and a shifting of their one child Rachel into the +care of nurses, because Flossy fretted at the care of her and demanded all +of Bronson's time for herself. + +Thus was Bronson's life being twisted and bent from its natural course. +Was it a weakness in him? To be sure he might have shown his strength by +breaking loose from family ties, and, hardening his heart to his wife's +plaints, have carried out his ambitions with some degree of success. He +did attempt this, nor did he fail in his career. He was called a fairly +successful man. I dare say the majority of people never knew that he was +created for grander things. But something was sapping his energy at the +fountain-head. Was he realizing that he had helped to shatter his ideals +with his own hand? + +I never am so well satisfied with my lot of single-blessedness as when I +contemplate the sort of wife Flossy makes. That may sound arrogant, but +this is a secret session of human nature, when arrogance and all +native-born sins are permissible. + +Flossy is perfectly unconscious of the spectacle she presents to the +world. Ah, me! I know it is said, "Judge not, that ye be not judged." I +might have made him just such a wife, I suppose. O heavens! no, I +shouldn't. Tabby, that is making humility go a little too far. + + + + + IV + + WOMEN AS LOVERS + + "In every clime and country + There lives a Man of Pain, + Whose nerves, like chords of lightning, + Bring fire into his brain: + To him a whisper is a wound, + A look or sneer, a blow; + More pangs he feels in years or months + Than dunce-throng'd ages know." + + +I have had such a curious experience. I have been confided in, twice in +one day. Two more bits out of other lives have been given to me, and it is +astonishing to see how well they piece into mine. + +To begin with, Rachel English came in early. There is something +particularly auspicious about Rachel. She fits me like a glove. She never +jars nor grates. When she is here, I am comfortable; when she is gone, I +miss something. If I see a fine painting, or hear magnificent music, I +think of Rachel before any other thought comes into my mind. One +involuntarily associates her with anything wonderfully fine in art or +literature, with the perfect assurance that she will be sympathetic and +appreciative. She understands the deep, inarticulate emotions in the +kindred way you have a right to expect of your lover, and which you are +oftenest disappointed in, if you do expect it of him. If I were a man, I +should be in love with Rachel. + +Her sensitiveness through every available channel makes her of no use to +general society. Blundering people tread on her; malicious ones tear her +to pieces. Rachel ought to be caged, and only approached by clever people +who have brains enough to appreciate her. I should like to be her keeper. +But her organization is too closely allied to that of genius to be happy, +unless with certain environments which it is too good to believe will ever +surround her. She is so clever that she is perfectly helpless. If you knew +her, this would not be a paradox. Possibly it isn't anyway. + +I do not say that Rachel is perfect. She would be desperately +uncomfortable as a friend if she were. Her failings are those belonging to +a frank, impulsive, generous nature, which I myself find it easy to +forgive. Her gravest fault is a witty tongue. That which many people would +give years of their lives to possess is what she has shed the most tears +over and which she most liberally detests in herself. She calls it her +private demon, and says she knows that one of the devils, in the woman who +was possessed of seven, was the devil of wit. + +Wit is a weapon of defence, and was no more intended to be an attribute of +woman than is a knowledge of fire-arms or a fondness for mice. A witty +woman is an anomaly, fit only for literary circles and to be admired at a +distance. + +It is of no use to advise Rachel to curb her tongue. So tender-hearted +that the sight of an animal in pain makes her faint; so humble-minded that +she cannot bear to receive an apology, but, no matter what has been the +offence, cuts it off short and hastens to accept it before it is uttered, +with the generous assurance that she, too, has been to blame; yet she +wounds cruelly, but unconsciously, with her tongue, which cleaves like a +knife, and holds up your dearest, most private foibles on stilettos of wit +for the public to mock at. Not that she is personal in her allusions, but +her thorough knowledge of the philosophy of human nature and the deep, +secret springs of human action lead her to witty, satirical +generalizations, which are so painfully true that each one of her hearers +goes home hugging a personal affront, while poor Rachel never dreams of +lacerated feelings until she meets averted faces or hears a whisper of +her heinous sin. This grieves her wofully, but leaves her with no mode of +redress, for who dare offer balm to wounded vanity? I believe her when she +says she "never wilfully planted a thorn in any human breast." + +She scarcely had entered before I saw that she had something on her mind. +And it was not long before she began to confide, but in an impersonal way. + +There is something which makes you hold your breath before you enter the +inner nature of some one who has extraordinary depth. You feel as if you +were going to find something different and interesting, and possibly +difficult or explosive. It is dark, too, yet you feel impelled to enter. +It is like going into a cave. + +Most people are afraid of Rachel. Sometimes I am. But it is the alluring, +hysterical fear which makes a child say, "Scare me again." + +Imagine such a girl in love. Rachel is in love. She would not say with +whom--naturally. At least, naturally for Rachel. I felt rather helpless, +but as I knew that all she wanted was an intelligent sympathizer, not +verbal assistance, I was willing to blunder a little. I knew she would +speedily set me right. + +"You are too clever to marry," I said at a hazard. + +"That is one of the most popular of fallacies," she answered me +crushingly. "Why can't clever women marry, and make just as good wives as +the others? Why can't a woman bend her cleverness to see that her house is +in order, and her dinners well cooked, and buttons sewed on, as well as +to discuss new books and keep pace with her husband intellectually? Do you +suppose because I know Greek that I cannot be in love? Do you suppose +because I went through higher mathematics that I never pressed a flower he +gave me? Do you imagine that Biology kills blushing in a woman? Do you +think that Philosophy keeps me from crying myself to sleep when I think he +doesn't care for me, or growing idiotically glad when he tells me he does? +What rubbish people write upon this subject! Even Pope proved that he was +only a man when he said, + + "'Love seldom haunts the breast where learning lies, + And Venus sets ere Mercury can rise.' + +"Did you ever read such foolishness?" + +"Often, my dear, often. But console yourself. A wiser than Pope says, 'The +learned eye is still the loving one.'" + +"Browning, of course. I ought not to be surprised that the prince of poets +should be clever enough to know that. It is from his own experience. 'Who +writes to himself, writes to an eternal public.' You see, Ruth, men can't +help looking at the question from the other side, because they form the +other side. You might cram a woman's head with all the wisdom of the ages, +and while it would frighten every man who came near her into hysterics, it +wouldn't keep her from going down abjectly before some man who had sense +enough to know that higher education does not rob a woman of her +womanliness. Depend upon it, Ruth, when it does, she would have been +unwomanly and masculine if she hadn't been able to read. And it is the man +who marries a woman of brains who is going to get the most out of this +life." + +"Men don't want clever wives," I said feebly. + +"Clever men don't. Why is it that all the brightest men we know have +selected girls who looked pretty and have coddled them? Look at Bronson +and Flossy. That man is lonesome, I tell you, Ruth. He actually hungers +and thirsts for his intellectual and moral affinity, and yet even he did +not have the sense--the astuteness--to select a wife who would have stood +at his side, instead of one who lay in a wad at his feet. Oh, the +bungling marriages that we see! I believe one reason is that like seldom +marries like. For my part I do not believe in the marriage of opposites. +Look at Robert Browning and his wife. That is my ideal marriage. Their art +and brains were married, as well as their hands and hearts. It is pure +music to think of it. And, to me, the most pathetic poem in the English +language is Browning's 'Andrea del Sarto.'" + +"Isn't it strange to see the kind of men who love clever women like you? +You never could have brought yourself to marry any of them, expecting to +find them congenial. They would have admired you in dumb silence, until +they grew tired of feeling your superiority; after that--what?" + +"The deluge, I suppose. Ruth, I don't see how a woman with any +self-respect can marry until she meets her master. That is high treason, +isn't it? But it is one of those sentient bits of truth which we never +mention in society. The man I marry must have a stronger will and a +greater brain than I have, or I should rule him. I'll never marry until I +find a man who knows more than I do. Yet, as to these other men who have +loved me--you know what a tender place a woman has in her heart for the +men who have wanted to marry her. My intellect repudiated, but my heart +cherishes them still. Odd things, hearts. Sometimes I wish we didn't have +any when they ache so. I feel like disagreeing with all the poets to-day, +because they will not say what I believe. Do you remember this, from +Beaumont and Fletcher, + + "'Of all the paths that lead to woman's love + Pity's the straightest'? + +"Men are fond of saying that, I notice, but I don't think we women bear +out the truth. I couldn't love a man I pitied. I could love one I was +proud of, or afraid of, but one I pitied? Never. It is more true to say +it of men. I believe plenty of girls obtain husbands by virtue of their +weakness, their loneliness, their helplessness, their--anything which +makes a man pity them. Pleasant thought, isn't it, for a woman who loves +her own sex and wishes it held its head up better! You may say that it is +this sort who receive more of the attentions that women love, chivalry +and tenderness and devotion. But if all or any of these were inspired by +pity, I'd rather not have them. I would rather a man would be rough and +brusque with me, if he loved me heroically, than to see him fling his coat +in the mud for me to step on, because he pitied my weakness. Do you know, +Ruth, I think men are a good deal more human than women. You can work them +out by algebra (for they never have more than one unknown quantity, and in +the woman problem there would be more _x_'s than anything else), and you +can go by rules and get the answer. But nothing ever calculated or evolved +can get the final answer to one woman--though they do say she is fond of +the last word! We understand ourselves intuitively, and we understand men +by study, yet we are made the receivers, not the givers; the chosen, not +the choosers. It really is an absurd dispensation when you view it apart +from sentiment, yet I, for one, would not have it changed. I should not +mind being Cupid for a while, though, and giving him a few ideas in the +mating line. + +"I think women are often misjudged. Men seem to think that all we want is +to be loved. Now, it isn't all that I want. If I had to choose between +being loved by a man--_the_ man, let us say--and not loving him at all, +or loving him very dearly and not being loved by him, I would choose the +latter, for I think that more happiness comes from loving than from being +loved." + +"Why _don't_ you marry somebody?" I asked in an agony of entreaty, for +fear all of this would be wasted on me, an Old Maid, rather than upon some +man. She shook her head. + +"It needs a compelling, not a persuasive, power to win a woman. No man who +takes me like this," closing her thumb and forefinger as if holding a +butterfly, "can have me. The one who dares to take me like this," +clenching her hand, "will get me. But he will not come." + +Then I walked with her to the door, and she bent over me, and whispered +something about my being a "blessed comfort" to her, and went away. Ah, +Tabby, my dear, it is worth while being an Old Maid to be a blessed +comfort to anybody. But I would just like to ask you, as a cat of +intelligence, what in the world I did for her! + +Imagine some man making that girl care for him so much. For, of course, +it is somebody. A girl does not say such things about the abstract man. + +I was in an uplifted state of mind all day, as I am always after a talk +with Rachel, and when Percival came in the evening, I felt that I could +deluge him with my gathered sentiment, and he would be receptive. Besides, +Percival has a positive genius for understanding. I did not know it, +however, this morning. I seldom know as much in the morning as I do at +night. + +Percival approves of sentiment. He said once that a life which had +principle and sentiment needed little else, for principle was to stand +upon, and sentiment was to beautify with. He said this after I had told +him rather apologetically that I wished there was more sentiment in the +world, because I liked it. Is it strange that I like Percival? You can't +help admiring people who approve of you. + +Percival is a genius. People in general do not recognize this fact. He is +an inarticulate genius. Men feel that he is in some occult way different +from them, yet they do not know just how. Nor will they ever take the +trouble to study out a problem in human nature, either in man or woman, +unless they are philosophers. + +Women care for Percival in proportion to their intuitions. You must +comprehend him synthetically. You cannot dissect him. With generous +appreciation and sympathetic encouragement, Percival's genius would become +articulate. To discover it he must needs marry--but he must wait for the +hundredth woman. This, of course, he will not do. If he can find a Flossy, +he will go down on his knees to her, when she ought to be on hers to him; +metaphorical knees, in this case. + +I am very much afraid he has found her. He is in love. You can always tell +when a man is in love, Tabby, especially if he is not the lovering kind +and has never been troubled in that way before. The best kind of love has +to be so intuitive that it often is grandly, heroically awkward. Depend +upon it, Tabby, a man who is dainty and pretty and unspeakably smooth when +he makes love to you, has had altogether too much practice. + +Percival knows that he is in love--that is one great step in the right +direction. But he is in that first partly alarmed, partly curious frame of +mind that a man would be in who touched his broken arm for the first time +to see how much it hurt. Whoever she is, he loves her deeply and thinks +she never can care for him. He did not tell me this. If he thought that I +knew it, he would wonder how in the world I found it out. Women are born +lovers. They have to do the bulk of the loving all through the world. I +told Percival so. At first he seemed surprised; then he said that it was +true. I believe some men could go through life without loving anybody on +earth. But the woman never lived who could do it. A woman must love +something--even if she hasn't anything better to love than a pug-dog or +herself. + +"Why aren't women the choosers?" said Percival seriously. The same +question twice in one day, Tabby. "Whenever I think of understanding the +question of love, I wish for a woman's intuitions. Women know so much +about it. They absorb the whole question at a glance. But, with so many +different kinds of women, how is a man to know anything?" + +I always liked Percival, but a woman never likes a man so well as when +he acknowledges his helplessness in her particular line of knowledge, and +throws himself on her mercy. Mentally, I at once began to feel motherly +towards Percival, and clucked around him like an old hen. He went on to +say that men often are not so blind that they cannot see the prejudices +and complexities of a woman's nature, but they are not constituted to +understand them by intuition as women understand men. "The masculine +mind," he said, "is but ill-attuned to the subtle harmonies of the +feminine heart." + +I was secretly very much pleased at this remark, but I made myself answer +as became an Old Maid, just to make him continue without +self-consciousness. If I had blushed and thanked him, he would have gone +home. + +"They set these things down to the natural curiousness and contrariness +of women, and often despise what they cannot comprehend." + +He answered me with the heightened consciousness and slight irritation of +a man who has been in that fault, but has seen and mended it. + +"All men do not. Still, how can they help it at times?" + +Then, Tabby, I went a-sailing. I launched out on my favorite theme. + +"Men must needs study women. Often the terror with which some men regard +these--to us--perfectly transparent complexities, could be avoided if they +would analyze the cause with but half the patience they display in the +case of an ailing trotter. But no; either they edge carefully away from +such dangers as they previously have experienced, or, if they blunder into +new ones, they give the woman a sealskin and trust to time to heal the +breach." + +I thought of the Asburys when I said that. But Percival ruminated upon it, +as if it touched his own case. A very good thing about Percival is that +he does not think he knows everything. It encourages me to believe in his +genius. To rouse him from a brown-study over this Flossy girl, I said +rather recklessly, + +"I should like to be a man for a while, in order to make love to two or +three women. I would do it in a way which should not shock them with its +coarseness or starve them with its poverty. As it is now, most women deny +themselves the expression of the best part of their love, because they +know it will be either a puzzle or a terror to their lovers." + +Percival was vitally interested at once. + +"Is that really so?" he asked. "Do you suppose any of them withhold +anything from such a fear?" His face was so uplifted that I plunged on, +thoroughly in the dark, but, like Barkis, "willin'." If I could be of use +to him in an emergency, I was only too happy. + +"Men never realize the height of the pedestal where women in love place +them, nor do they know with how many perfections they are invested nor how +religiously women keep themselves deceived on the subject. They cannot +comprehend the succession of little shocks which is caused by the real man +coming in contact with the ideal. And if they did understand, they would +think that such mere trifles should not affect the genuine article of +love, and that women simply should overlook foibles, and go on loving the +damaged article just as blindly as before. But what man could view his +favorite marble tumbling from its pedestal continually, and losing first a +finger, then an arm, then a nose, and would go on setting it up each time, +admiring and reverencing in the mutilated remains the perfect creation +which first enraptured him? He wouldn't take the trouble to fill up the +nicks and glue on the lost fingers as women do to their idols. He wouldn't +even try to love it as he used to do. When it began to look too battered +up, he would say, 'Here, put this thing in the cellar and let's get it out +of the way.'" + +Percival listened with specific interest, and admitted its truth with a +fair-mindedness surprising even in him. + +"Do you suppose it is possible for a man ever to thoroughly understand a +woman?" he asked, with a retrospective slowness, directed, I was sure, +towards that empty-headed sweetheart of his. + +"I really do not know," I said honestly. "I think if he tried with all his +might he could." + +"Do you think--you know me better than any one else does--do you think +_I_ could, if I gave my whole mind to it?" + +"You, if anybody." I answered him with the occasional absolute +truthfulness which occurs between a man and a woman when they are +completely lifted out of themselves. Something more than mere pleasure +shone in his eyes. It was as if I had reached his soul. + +"If no man ever has been all that a woman in love really believes him, the +best a man could do would be to take care that she never found out her +mistake," he said slowly. + +"Exactly," I said; "you are getting on. It is only another way of making +yourself live up to her ideal of you." + +"Supposing after all, that the woman I love will have none of me," he +said, unconsciously slipping from the third person to the first. + +"I wouldn't admit even the possibility if I were a man. I would besiege +the fortress. I would sit on her front doorstep until she gave in. Don't +ask her to have you. Tell her you are going to have her whether or no," I +cried, thinking of Rachel's words. He looked so encouraged that I am +afraid I have sent him post-haste to the Flossy girl, and gotten him into +life-long trouble. But I had gone too far. I quite hurried, in my +accidental endeavor to shipwreck him. + +"Men do not understand these things, because they will not give time +enough to them. Real love-making requires the patience, the tenderness, +the sympathy which women alone possess in the highest degree. Possibly she +loves you deeply, only you do not believe it. Gauged by a woman's love, +many men love, marry, and die, without even approximating the real grand +passion themselves, or comprehending that which they have inspired, for +no one but a woman can fathom a woman's love." + +I couldn't help going on after I started, for he was thinking of the other +woman, and looking at me in a way that would have made my heart turn over, +if I hadn't been an Old Maid, and known that his look was not for me. + +Then he ground my rings into my hand until I nearly shrieked with the +pain, and said, "God bless you!" very hoarsely, and dashed out of the +house before I could pull myself together. _I_ say so too. God bless me, +what have I done? I've sent him straight to that Flossy girl. I feel it. +I've smoothed out something between them. I have accidentally made him +articulate, and articulation in such a man as Percival is overpowering. He +is a murdered man, and mine is the hand that slew him. + +Tabby, old maids are a public nuisance, not to say dangerous. They ought +to be suppressed. + + * * * * * + +I wonder if he will burst in upon her with that look upon his face! + + + + + V + + THE HEART OF A COQUETTE + + "Strange, that a film of smoke can blot a star!" + + +He did. And the woman was--Rachel. Tabby, I never was better pleased with +myself in my life. I love old maids. I think that whenever they are +accidental they are perfectly lovely. But _what_ a risk I ran! + +I did not know a thing about it until I received their wedding-cards. It +was just like Rachel not to tell me, and it was insufferably stupid in me +not to use the few wits I am possessed of, and see how matters stood. But +my fears and tremors were that Frankie Taliaferro would get him, so I have +watched her all this time. Percival laughed almost scornfully when I told +him this, and said I had been barking up the wrong tree. I retaliated by +saying that if they had been ordinary lovers, I never could have made +such a mistake, and they took it as a great compliment. When I consider +the general run of engaged people, I am inclined to agree with them. +Everybody seems to think they are making an experiment of marriage, +because they are so much alike. But, then, doesn't every one who marries +at all, Jew or Gentile, black or white, bond or free, make an experiment? +I myself have no fear as to how the Percival experiment will turn out. +Rachel says that they are so similar in all their tastes and ideals that +if she were a man she would be Percival, and if he were a woman he would +be Rachel. "Then you still would have a chance to marry each other," I +said frivolously. But she assented with a depth of feeling which ignored +my feeble attempt to be cheerful. "Yet," she continued, "there is a +subtle, alluring difference in our thoughts; just enough to add piquancy, +not irritation, to a discussion. I do not love white, and he does not love +black, as so many husbands and wives do. We both love gray; different +tones of gray, but still gray. It is very restful." The Percivals are not +only restful to themselves, but to others. They used to be in the highly +irritable, nervous state of those whose sensitive organisms are a little +too fine for this world. I never objected to it myself, but I have said +before that Rachel was of no use to ordinary society, and Percival was +little better. When people failed to understand her, she retired into +herself with a dignity which was mistaken for ill-temper. She is too +refined and high-minded to defend herself against the "slings and arrows +of outrageous" people, although if she would, she could exterminate them +with her wit. And some could so easily be spared. It seems, too, that she +is great enough to be a target, so she is under fire continually. This, +while it causes her exquisite suffering, is from no fault of her own--save +the unforgivable one of being original. "A frog spat at a glow-worm. 'Why +do you spit at me?' said the glow-worm. 'Why do you shine so?' said the +frog." And as to Percival--the man I used to know was Percival in embryo. +He is maturing now, and is radiant in Rachel's sympathetic comprehension +of him. He refers to the time before he knew her as his "protoplasmic +state," as indeed it was. But there are a good many of us who would be +willing to remain protoplasm all our lives to possess a tithe of his +genius--you and I among the number, Tabby. You needn't look at me so +reproachfully out of your old-gold eyes. You know you would. + +You have seen Sallie Cox, haven't you? Then you know how it jarred my +nerves to have her rush in upon me when my mind was full of the Percivals. + +Sallie has flirted joyously through life thus far, and has appeared to +have about as little heart as any girl I ever knew. Sallie is the _sauce +piquante_ in one's life--absolutely necessary at times to make things +taste at all, but a little of her goes a long way. At least so I thought +until to-day. + +"I've got something to tell you, Ruth," she said, "so come with me, and we +will take a little drive before going to cooking-school." + +I went, knowing, of course, that she wanted to confide something about +some of her lovers. + +"I am going to be married," she announced coldly. "It's Payson Osborne +this time, and I'm really going to see the thing through. It's rather a +joke on me, because it commenced this way. I was sick of lovers, and some +of the last had been so unpleasant, not to say rude, when I threw them +over, that I thought I would take a vacation. So when I met Payson, I +said, 'What do you say to a Platonic friendship?' It sounds harmless, you +know, Ruth, and he, not knowing me at all, assented. If he had been a man +who knew of my checkered career, he would have refused, suspecting, of +course, that I was going to flirt with him under a new name. But, as I was +serious this time, I knew it was all right. So we began. I suppose you +know he is enormously rich, besides being so handsome, and there will not +be a girl in town who won't say I raised heaven and earth to get him; but +I don't mind telling you, Ruth--because you are such an old dear, and +never are bothered with lovers(!); besides, it will do me good to tell it, +and I know you will never betray me--that I never cared for any man on +earth except Winston Percival. You needn't jump, and look as though the +house was on fire. It's the solemn truth, and I never dreamed that he +cared for Rachel until he married her. Mind you, he never pretended to +love me. It is every bit one-sided, and I don't care if it is. I am glad +that a frivolous, shallow-minded, rattle-brained thing like me had sense +enough to fall in love with the most glorious man that ever came into her +life. I shouldn't have made him half as good a wife as Rachel does--I +really feel as if they were made for each other--but he would have made a +woman of me. I'm honestly glad he is so happy, and things are much more +suitable as they are, for Payson is a thorough-going society man, and +doesn't ask much in a wife or he wouldn't have me, and he doesn't expect +much from a wife or he couldn't get me. + +"Perhaps you don't know that a girl who makes a business of wearing scalps +at her belt never stands a bit of a chance with a man she really loves, +for she is afraid to practise on him the wiles which she knows from +experience have been successful with scores of others, because she feels +that he will see through them, and scorn her as she scorns herself in his +presence. She loses her courage, she loses control of herself, and, being +used to depend on 'business,' as actors say, to carry out her role +successfully, she finds that she is only reading her lines, and reading +them very badly too. If you could have seen me with Percival, you would +know what I mean. I was dull, uninteresting, poky--no more the Sallie Cox +that other men know than I am you. He absorbed my personality. I didn't +care for myself or how I appeared. I only wanted him to shine and be his +natural, brilliant self. I never could have helped him in his work. The +most I could have hoped to do would have been not to hinder him. I would +have been the gainer--it would have been the act of a home missionary for +him to marry me." + +She laughed drearily. + +"Isn't it horribly immoral in me to sit here and talk in this way about a +married man? It's a wonder it doesn't turn the color of the cushions. If +you hear of my having the brougham relined, Ruth, you will know why. +Ruth, I am so miserable at times it seems to me that I shall die. I'd love +to cry this minute--cry just as hard as I could, and scream, and beat my +head against something hard--how do you do, Mrs. Asbury?--but instead, I +have to bow from the windows to people, and remember that I am supposed to +be the complaisant bride-elect of the catch of the season. It is a +judgment on me, Ruth, to find that I have a heart, when I have always gone +on the principle that nobody had any. Yes--how-de-do, Miss Culpepper? +excuse me a minute, Ruth, while I hate that girl. What has she done to me? +Oh, nothing to speak of--she only had the bad taste to fall in love with +the man I am going to marry. Writes him notes all the time, making love to +him, which he promptly shows to me--oh, we are not very honorable, or very +upright, or very anything good in the Osborne matrimonial arrangement. +Anybody but you would hate me for all this I've told you, but I know you +are pitying me with all your soul, because you know the empty-headed +Sallie Cox carries with her a very sore heart, and that it will take more +than Payson Osborne has got to give to heal it. I call him Pay sometimes, +but he hates it. I only do it when I think how much he does pay for a very +bad bargain. But he doesn't care, so why should I? + +"It really does seem odd, when I look back on it, to see how easy it was +to get him, when all the time I was perfectly indifferent to him, and +received his attentions on the Platonic basis to keep him from making love +to me. I really think I never had any one to care for me in so exactly the +way I like, and to be so easy in his demands, and to think me so +altogether perfect and charming, no matter what I do. It was because I was +absolutely indifferent to him. I never cared when he came. I never cared +when he went. Other lovers fussed and quarrelled and were jealous and +disagreeable when I flirted with other men, but Payson never cared. He +didn't tease me, you know. And whenever he said anything, I could look +innocent and say, 'Is that Platonic friendship?' So he would have to +subside. I know he thought some of my indifference was assumed, for when +he told me about Miss Culpepper he thought I would be vexed. I _was_ +vexed, but I had presence of mind not to show it. I only laughed and made +no comment at all--asked him what time it was, I believe. Then when he +looked so disappointed and sulky, I knew I was right, and I patted Sallie +Cox on the head for being so clever--so clever as not to care, chiefly. +There is nothing, absolutely nothing, you cannot do with a man who loves +you, if you don't care a speck for him. And the luxury of perfect +indifference! Emotions are awfully wearing, Ruth. I wonder that these +emotional women like Rachel get on at all. I should think they would die +of the strain. Men are always deadly afraid of such women. I believe +Payson wouldn't stop running till he got to California if I should burst +into tears and not be able to tell him instantly just exactly where my +neuralgia had jumped to. No unknown waverings and quaverings of the heart +for my good Osborne. There goes Alice Asbury again. I am dying to tell you +something. You know why she hates me, and understand why she treats me so +abominably? Well, Asbury gave her the same engagement ring he gave me, and +she doesn't know it. Rich, isn't it? Here we are at the cooking-school. I +am so glad I can slam a carriage-door without being rude. It is such a +relief to one's overcharged feelings." + +Tabby, dear, if your head ever spun round and round at some of the +confidences I have bestowed upon you, I can sympathize with you, for, as I +went into that class, my feelings were so wrenched and twisted that I was +as limp as cooked macaroni. You will excuse the simile, but that was one +of the articles at cooking-school to-day, and when the teacher took it up +on a fork, it did express my state of mind so exquisitely that I cannot +forbear to use it. + +Sallie Cox! Well, I am amazed. Who would think that that bright, saucy, +clever little flirt, who rides on the crest of the wave always, could have +such a heart history? And Percival of all men! I wonder what he would say +if he knew. I don't know what to think about her marrying Payson Osborne. +The last thing she whispered to me as we came out of cooking-school was, +"Don't be too sorry for me because I am going to marry him. Believe me, it +is the very best thing that could happen to me." + +I am very fond of the girl to-night. What a pity it is that everybody does +not know her as she really is! No one understands her, and she has flirted +so outrageously with most of the men that the girls' friendship for her is +very hollow. A few, of whom Alice Asbury is one, dare to show this quite +plainly, and of course Sallie doesn't like it. She pretends not to care +for women's friendship, but she does. She would love to be friendly with +all the girls, but they remember the misery she has made them suffer, and +won't have it. + +Still, there is no doubt that she is marrying the man most of them want, +so that again she triumphs. But, unless I am much mistaken, even as Mrs. +Payson Osborne it will take her a long time to recover her place with the +women which she has lost by having so many of their sweethearts and +brothers in love with her. + +Ah, Tabby, what a deal of secret misery there is in the world! Everybody +will envy Sallie Cox and think that she is the luckiest girl, and Sallie +will smile and pretend--for what other course is left to her, and who can +blame women who pretend under such circumstances? Perhaps there are +reasons just as good for many other pretenders in this world. Who knows? +We would be gentler if we knew more. + +There will be other sore hearts besides Sallie's at her wedding. I had +heard before that Miss Culpepper was quite desperate over Osborne, but, as +she was a girl whom everybody thought a lady, I had no idea that she had +gone so far as Sallie says. Osborne probably didn't object to being made +love to. A man of his stamp would not be over-refined. Strange, now, +Sallie does not love Osborne herself, but she promptly hates every other +girl who dares to do it. Aren't girls queer? + +Then there are a score of men who will gnash their teeth for Sallie--so +many men love these Sallie Coxes. + +Frankie Taliaferro, the Kentucky beauty, who is staying with her this +winter, tells me that Sallie has had several dreadful scenes with +discarded suitors--that one said he would forbid the banns, and another +threatened to shoot himself if she really married Osborne. + +I wonder how many marriages there really are where both are perfectly free +to marry. I mean, no secret entanglements on either side, no other man +wanting the bride, no girl bitterly jealous of her. I never heard of +one--not among the people _I_ know, at least. + +Oh, Tabby, think of all the fusses people keep out of who promptly settle +down at the appointed time and become peaceful old maids. How sensible we +were, Tabby, you and Missis. + +But doesn't it seem to you that people marry from very mixed motives? I +used to have an idea--when I was painfully young, of course--that they +married because they were so fortunate as to fall in love with each other. +Are you quite sure that foolish notion is out of your head too? + + + + + VI + + THE LONELY CHILDHOOD OF A CLEVER CHILD + + "Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood?... To be great is to be + misunderstood." + + +I have been away since early last summer, and consequently never had seen +Flossy's new baby until the newness had worn off, and it had arrived at +the dignity of a backbone, and had left its wobbly period far behind. I am +in mortal terror of a very little baby. It feels so much like a sponge, +yet lacks the sponge's recuperative qualities. I am always afraid if I +dent it the dents will stay in. You know they don't in a sponge. + +As soon as I came home, of course I went to see Flossy's baby, and was +very much disconcerted to discover that she had named it for me. I was +afraid, I remember, that she would want to name the first girl for me, but +she did not. She named her after Rachel. I had an uncomfortable idea, +however, that my name had been discussed and vetoed, by either Flossy or +Bronson. But this time the baby is named Ruth, and I found that it was all +Flossy's doing. + +I was irritated without knowing why. I didn't want anybody to know it +though, and so I was vexed when Bronson said to me, "I couldn't help it, +Ruth." There was no use in pretending not to understand. I could with some +men, but not with Bronson. He is too magnificently honest himself, and +uplifts me by expecting me to be equally so. Nevertheless I failed him in +one particular, for I answered him in my loftiest manner, "I am not at all +displeased. It is a great compliment, I am sure." + +There is nothing so uncivil at times as to be cuttingly polite. What I +said wasn't so at all. But a woman is obliged to defend herself from a man +who reads her like an open book. + +Flossy does not like children, and poor little Rachel never has had a life +of roses. Flossy says children are such a care and require so much +attention. + +"Rachel was all that I could attend to, and here all winter I have had +another one on my hands to keep me at home, and make me lose sleep, and +grow old before my time. I don't see why such burdens have to be put upon +people. Children are too thick in this world any way." + +She fretted on in this strain for some time, until Bronson looked up and +said, + +"Don't, Flossy. You don't mean what you say. Do tell her the little thing +is welcome." + +"I do mean what I say," answered Flossy. + +Then, as Bronson left the room abruptly, Flossy said, + +"And I was determined to name her after you. Bronson didn't want me to. He +said you wouldn't thank me for it, but I told him that Rachel Percival was +quite delighted with her namesake." + +I hid my indignantly smarting eyes in the folds of the baby's dress, as I +held her up before my face, and made her laugh at the flowers in my hat. +Flossy thought I was not listening to her with sufficient interest; so she +got up and crossed the room with that little stumble of hers, which used +to be so taking with the men when she was a girl, and took Ruth away from +me. + +There was a great contrast between the two children. Rachel Herrick is a +shy child, with a delicate, refined face, lighted by wonderful gray eyes +like Bronson's. I do not understand her. She seems afraid of me, and I +confess I am equally afraid of her. Even Rachel Percival does not get on +with her very well, although she has bravely tried. The child spends most +of her time in the library, devouring all the books she can lay her hands +on. Little Ruth is a round, soft, fluffy baby, all dimples and smiles and +good-nature, willing to roll or crawl into anybody's lap or affections. A +very good baby to exhibit, for strangers delight in her, and pet her just +as people always have petted Flossy. Rachel stands mutely watching all +such demonstrations, her pale face rigid with some emotion, and her eyes +brilliant and hard. She is not a child one would dare take liberties with. +No one ever pets her. Flossy complains continually of her to visitors and +to Bronson, so that Bronson has gotten into the way of reproving her +mechanically whenever his eye rests upon her. Her very presence, always +silent, always inwardly critical, seems to irritate her parents. She was +not doing a thing, but sitting sedately, with a heavy book on her lap, +watching the baby, with that curious expression on her face; but Flossy +couldn't let her alone. + +"Baby loves her mother, doesn't she? She is not like naughty sister +Rachel, who won't do anything but read, and never loves anybody but +herself. Sister says bad things to poor sick mamma, and mamma can't love +her, can she? But mamma loves her pretty, sweet baby, so she does." + +Rachel glanced at me with a hunted look in her eyes which wrung my heart. +But, before I could think, she slid down and the big book fell with a +crash to the floor. She ran towards the baby with a wicked look on her +small face, and the baby leaped and held out its hands, but Rachel +clenched her teeth, and slapped the outstretched hand as she rushed past +her and out of the room. + +Poor little Ruth looked at the red place on her hand a minute, then her +lip quivered, and she began to cry pitifully. + +I instinctively looked to see Flossy gather her up to comfort her. It is +so easy to dry a child's tears with a little love. But she rang for the +nurse and fretfully exclaimed, + +"Isn't that just like her! I declare I can't see why a child of mine +should have such a wicked temper. Here, Simpson, take this young nuisance +and stop her crying. Oh, poor little me! Ruth, I'm thankful that you have +no children to wear your life out." + +I dryly remarked that I too considered it rather a cause for gratitude, +and came away. + +Poor little Rachel Herrick! Unlovely as her action was, I cannot help +thinking that it was unpremeditated; that it was the unexpected result of +some strong inward feeling. She looked like one who was justly indignant, +and, considering what Flossy had said, I felt that her anger was +righteous. That her disposition is unfortunate cannot be denied. She seems +already to be an Ishmaelite, for whenever she speaks it is to fling out a +remark so biting in its sarcasm, so bitter and satirical, that Flossy is +afraid of her, and Bronson reproves her with unnecessary severity, because +her offence is that of a grown person, which her childish stature mocks. +Other children both fear and hate her. They resent her cleverness. They +like to use her wits to organize their plays, but they never include her, +for she always wants to lead, feeling, doubtless, that she inherently +possesses the qualities of a leader, and chafing, as a heroic soul must, +under inferior management. Flossy makes her go out to play regularly with +them every day, but it is a pitiful sight, for she feels her unpopularity, +and children are cruel to each other with the cruelty of vindictive +dulness; so Rachel, after standing about among them forlornly for a while, +like a stray robin among a flock of little owls, comes creeping in alone, +and sits down in the library with a book. She is the loneliest child I +ever knew. If she cared, people would at least be sorry for her; but she +seems to love no one, never seeks sympathy if she is hurt, repels all +attempts to ease pain, and cures herself with her beloved books. I never +saw any one kiss or offer to pet her, but they make a great fuss over the +baby, and Rachel watches them with glittering eyes. I thought once that it +was jealousy, and, going up to her, laid my hand on her head, but she +shook it off as if it had been a viper, and ran out of the room. + +I had grown very fond of my namesake, and used to go there when Flossy was +away, and sit in the nursery. The nurse told me once that Mrs. Herrick saw +so little of the baby that it was afraid, and cried at the sight of her. I +reproved her for speaking in that manner of her mistress, but she only +tossed her head knowingly, and I dropped the subject. Servants often are +aware of more than we give them credit for. + +Saturday before Easter I stopped at Flossy's, but she was not at home. I +left some flowers for her, and asked to see the baby, but the nurse said +she was asleep. + +Easter morning I did not go to church, and Rachel Percival came early in +the afternoon to see if I were ill. While she was here this note arrived +by a messenger: + + "DEAR RUTH,--I know you will grieve for me when I tell you that our + baby went away from us quite suddenly this morning, while the + Easter bells were ringing so joyfully. They rang the knell of a + mother's heart, for they rang my baby's spirit into Paradise. + + "I feel, through my tears, that it is better so, for she will bind + me closer to Heaven when I think that she, in her purity, awaits me + there. + + "Hoping to see you very soon, I am + "Your loving FLOSSY. + + "P.S.--Bronson seems to feel the baby's death to a truly + astonishing degree. F. H." + +I flung the note across to Rachel, and, putting my head down on my two +arms, I cried just as hard as I could cry. + +Rachel read it, then tore it into twenty bits, and ground her heel into +the fragments. + +"Why, Rachel Percival! what is the matter?" + +"She wasn't even at home. She was at church. She must have been. She told +me that Bronson was afraid to have her leave the baby, and wouldn't come +himself, but that she didn't think anything was the matter with it, and +wouldn't be tied down. Then such a note so soon afterwards! Ruth, what is +that woman made of?" + +We went together to Flossy's. She came across the room to meet us, +supported by Bronson. She stumbled two or three times in the attempt. +Tears were running down Bronson's face, and he wiped them away quite +humbly, as if he did not mind our seeing them in the least. I could not +bear to watch him, so I slipped out of the room and went upstairs. + +"In here, 'm," said the nurse; "and Miss Rachel is here too. She won't +move that far from the cradle, and she hasn't shed a tear." + +Ruth lay peacefully in her little lace crib, covered with violets, and +beside her, rigid and white and tearless, stood Rachel. I was almost +afraid of the child as I looked at her. She turned her great eyes upon me +dumbly, with so exactly Bronson's expression in them that all at once I +understood her. I knelt down beside her, and gathering her little tense +frame all up in my arms, I began whispering to her. The tears rolled down +her cheeks, and soon she was crying hysterically. Bronson came bounding +upstairs at the sound, but she seized me more tightly around the neck and +held me chokingly. I motioned him back, and succeeded in carrying her away +to a quiet place, where I sat down with her in my arms, and made love to +her for hours. + +I never heard a more pitiful story than she told me, between strangling +sobs, of her hungry life. The child has been yearning for affection all +the time, but has unconsciously repelled it by her manner. She said nobody +on earth loved her except the baby, and now the baby was dead. + +"There is no use of your trying to make things different," she said, +"especially with mamma. She wouldn't care if I was dead too. But papa +could understand, I think, if he would only try to love me. But I love +you--oh! I love you so much that it hurts me. Nobody ever came and hugged +me up the way you did, in my whole life. You have made things over for me, +and I'll love you for it till I die. Why is it that everybody gives mamma +and the baby so much love, when they never cared for it, and I care so +much and never get a single bit? Nobody understands me, and every +one--every one calls me bad. I'm not bad. I love plenty of people who +can't love me. I am not bad, I tell you!" + +She cried herself nearly sick, and then, exhausted, fell asleep, with her +face pressed against mine. Thus Bronson found us. He offered to take her, +and I put her into his arms. Then I told him all that she had said, and +asked him to hold her until she wakened, and give her some of the love her +little heart was hungering for. He couldn't speak when I finished, and I +went down, to find Rachel bathing Flossy's head with cologne, and looking +worn and tired. + +Percival came for Rachel, and one could see that the mere sight of him +rested her. She told him all about it, in her wonderfully comprehensive +way, and he felt the whole thing, and we were all very quiet and peaceful +and sad, as we drove home through the early darkness of that Easter day. + +They left me at my door, and I went in alone, with the memory of that +grieving household--the lonely father, and the selfish mother, and the +unloved child--hallowed and made tender by the presence of the little dead +baby, asleep under its weight of violets. + +I feel very much alone sometimes; but the Percivals carry their world with +them. + + + + + VII + + A STUDY IN HUMAN GEESE + + "I am myself indifferent honest." + + +I have just made two startling discoveries. One is that I am not honest +myself, and the other is that I detest honesty in other people. + +To-day I was sitting peacefully in my room, harming nobody, when I saw +little Pet Winterbotham drive up in her cart and come running up to the +door. I supposed she had come with a message from her sister, and went +down, thinking to be detained about ten minutes. + +It seems but a few years ago since Pet was in the kindergarten. I was +surprised to see that she wore her dresses very long, and that she looked +almost grown up. + +"My dear Pet," I exclaimed, "what is the matter?" + +"Oh, Miss Ruth, I am in such a scrape," she answered me. "I hope you won't +think it's queer that I came to you, but the fact is, I've watched you in +church, and you always look as if you knew, and would help people if they +would ask you to; so I thought I'd try you. + +"Ever and ever so long ago, when I was a little bit of a thing, and played +with other children, and you and sister Grace went out together, I used to +'choose' you from all the other young ladies, because you wore such lovely +hats, and always had on pearl-colored gloves. I suppose it is so long ago +that you were a young lady and had beaux that you've forgotten it. But I +know you used to have lovers, for I heard Mrs. Herrick and Mrs. Payson +Osborne talking about you once, and Mrs. Herrick said you seemed so +tranquil and contented that she supposed you never had had any really good +offers, or you would be all the time wishing you had taken one. And Mrs. +Osborne spoke up in her quick way, and said, 'Don't deceive yourself so +comfortably, my dear Flossy. I know positively that Ruth has had several +offers that you and I would have jumped at.' And then she turned away and +laughed and laughed, although I didn't see anything so very funny in what +she said, and neither did Mrs. Herrick. + +"I do think Mrs. Osborne is the loveliest person I know. She is my ideal +young married woman. She always has a smile and a pretty word for every +one, and young men like her better than they do the buds. Why, your face +is as red as fire. I hope I haven't said anything unpleasant. Mamma says I +blunder horribly, but she always is too busy to tell me how not to +blunder. + +"Now, I want to know which of these two men you would advise me to marry. +I've got to take one, I suppose." + +"Marry!" I exclaimed, so explosively that Pet started. "Why, child, how +old are you?" + +"I'm nineteen," she said, in rather an injured tone, "and I've always made +up my mind to marry young, if I got a good enough offer. I hate old maids. +Oh, excuse me. I don't mean you, of course. I wouldn't marry a clerk, you +understand, just to be marrying. I'm not so silly. I have plenty of +common-sense in other things, and I'm going to put some of it into the +marriage question. Don't you think I'm sensible?" + +"Very," I answered; but I didn't, Tabby. I thought she was a goose. + +"Well now," proceeded my young caller, settling her ribbons with a pretty +air of importance, and looking at me out of the most innocent eyes in the +world, "my sister Grace married Brian Beck because he had such a lot of +money. But you know he is dissipated, and at first Grace almost went +distracted. Then she made up her mind to let him go his own gait, and she +has as good a time as she can on his money. His Irish name Brian is her +thorn in the flesh, and he teases her nearly out of her wits about it. We +have great fun on the yacht every summer. Brian is awfully good to me, and +invites nice men to take with us; still, much as I like Brian as a +brother-in-law, I shouldn't care to have a husband like him. Now, I +suppose you wonder why on earth I am telling you these things, and why I +don't tell one of the girls I go with." + +"Oh, no!" I exclaimed in protest. + +"Of course. I see you think it wouldn't be safe. Girls just can't help +telling, to save their lives. Sometimes they don't intend to, and then +it's bad enough. But sometimes they do it just to be mean, and you can't +help yourself. I have plenty of confidence in you though, and you don't +look as if you'd be easily shocked. You look as though you could tell a +good deal if you wanted to. You're an awfully comfortable sort of a +person. Now, let me tell you. I have two offers. One is from Clinton +Frost, and the other is from Jack Whitehouse. You have seen me with Mr. +Frost, haven't you? A dark, fierce, melancholy man, with black eyes and +hair, and very distinguished looking. + +"I think he has a history. He throws out hints that way. He is gloomy with +everybody but me, and Brian will do nothing but joke with him. There is +nothing Mr. Frost dislikes as much as to laugh or to see other people +laugh. Brian calls him 'Pet's nightmare,' and threatens to give him ink to +drink. + +"I believe Mr. Frost hates Brian. He says the name of our yacht, _Hittie +Magin_, is unspeakably vulgar. Nothing pleases Brian more than to force +Mr. Frost or Grace to tell strangers the name of it. Their mere speaking +the words throws Brian into convulsions of laughter. Then, if people +comment on it, he tells them that the name is of his wife's selection, in +deference to his Irish family. And Grace almost faints with mortification. +Mr. Frost says he will give me a yacht twice as good as Brian's. He adores +me. He says I am the only thing in life which makes him smile." + +I felt that I could sympathize with Mr. Frost on this point. + +"Then there's Jack Whitehouse, Norris Whitehouse's nephew. Mr. Norris +Whitehouse is a great friend of yours, isn't he? Do you know, I never +think of him as an 'eligible,' although he is a bachelor. I should as soon +think of a king in that light. He impresses me more than any man I ever +knew. Don't you consider him odd? No? I do. He is so clever that you would +be afraid of him, if it wasn't for his lovely manners, which make you +feel as though what you are saying is just what he has been wanting to +know, and he is so glad he has met some one who is able to tell him. +Actually he treats me with more respect than some of the young men do. He +makes me feel as if I were a woman, and he had a right to expect something +good of me. I never said that to anybody before, but I can talk to you and +feel that you understand me. I like to feel that people think there is +something to me, even if I know that it isn't much. Mrs. Asbury says that +Mr. Whitehouse is the courtliest man she knows. You know the story of the +Whitehouse money, don't you? Jack told it to me with tears in his eyes, +and I don't wonder at it. You know Jack's father and mother died when he +was very young. Norris was his father's favorite, and the old gentleman +made a most unjust will, leaving only a life interest in the property to +Jack's father; then it all went to his favorite younger son, Norris. Now, +you know what most men would do under the circumstances. They would +acknowledge the injustice of the will, but they would keep the money. +This proves to me what an unusual man Mr. Norris Whitehouse is, for he +immediately made over to his little nephew Jack one half of the +property--just what his father ought to have been able to leave him--and +Jack is to come into that when he is twenty-five. Don't you think that was +noble? Jack worships him. He says no father could have been more devoted +to an only son than his uncle Norris has been to him. He travelled with +him, and gave up years of his life to superintending Jack's education. + +"Now, whoever marries Jack will really be at the head of that elegant +house, for you know it hasn't had a mistress since Jack's mother died, +years ago. I should like that, although I do wish more of the expense was +in furniture instead of in pictures and tapestries. But that is his +uncle's taste. + +"Poor Jack talks so beautifully about his young mother, whom he can +scarcely remember. He says his uncle has kept her alive to him. He is +perfectly lovely with other fellows' mothers, and with mine. He treats +them all, he says, as he should like to have had others treat his mother. +Of course it is only sentiment with him. If she had lived, he might have +given her as much trouble as other boys give theirs. She must have been +lovely. Mamma says she was. But I'd just as soon not have any +mother-in-law to tell me to wrap up, and wear rubbers if it looked like +rain. You know there isn't a bit of sentiment in me. I'm practical. My +father says if I had been a boy he would have taken me into business at +fifteen. Jack thinks I am all sentiment. He says nobody could have a face +like mine and not possess an innate love of the beautiful in art and +poetry and all that. I have forgotten just what he said about that part of +it. But I know he meant to praise me. I didn't say anything in reply, but +I smiled to myself at the idea of Pet Winterbotham being credited with +fine sentiment. + +"Jack is horribly young--only twenty-two--so he won't have his money for +three years, and Mr. Frost is thirty-nine. Jack has curly hair, and when +he wears a white tennis suit and puts his cap on the back of his head and +holds a cigarette in his hand, he looks as if he had just stepped out of +one of the pictures in _Life_. He looks so 'chappie.' He is a good deal +easier to get along with than Mr. Frost, and will have more money some +day, although Mr. Frost has enough. Now, which would you take?" + +"Why, my dear Pet," I said in an unguarded moment, "which do you love?" + +I shrivelled visibly under the look of scorn she cast upon me. + +"I don't love either of them. I've had one love affair and I don't care +for another until I make sure which man I'm going to marry." + +"Can you fall in love to order?" I asked in dismay. + +"Not exactly. 'To order!' Why, no. Anybody would think you were having +boots made. But it's being with a man, and having him awfully good to you, +and admiring everything you say, and having lots of good clothes, and not +being in love with any other fellow, that makes you love a man. I'm sure +from your manner that you like Jack Whitehouse the best, so I think I'll +take him. You are awfully sweet, and not a bit like an old maid. I tell +everybody so." + +"Am I called an Old Maid?" I asked quickly. I could have bitten my tongue +out for it afterwards. + +"Oh, yes indeed, by all the younger set. You see you belonged to Grace's +set and they are all married. It makes you seem like a back number to us, +but you don't look like an old maid. I suppose you can look back ages and +ages and remember when you had lovers, can't you? Or have you forgotten? I +can't imagine you ever getting love-letters or flowers or any such things. +I hope I haven't offended you. I am horribly honest, you know. I say just +what I think, and you mustn't mind it. Mamma says I am too truthful to be +pleasant. But I like honesty myself, don't you?" + +And with that, Tabby, she went away. + +How terrible the child is! Now, Pet is one of those persons who go about +lacerating people and clothing their ignorance, or their insolence, in the +garb of honesty. + +"I am honest," say they, "so you must not be offended, but is it true that +your grandfather was hanged for being a pirate?" Or, "I believe in being +perfectly honest with people. How cross-eyed you are!" + +This is why honesty is so disreputable. When you say of a woman, "She is +one of those honest, outspoken persons," it means that she will probably +hurt your feelings, or insult you in your first interview with her. + +I don't like to admit it even to you, Tabby, but I am horribly shaken up. +After all these years of talking about myself to you as an Old Maid, and +knowing that I am one, to hear myself called such, and to catch a glimpse +of the way I appear to the oncoming generation, shakes me to the +foundation of my being. Soon _I_ shall be pushed to the wall, as something +too worn out to be needed by bright young people. Soon _I_ shall be one of +the old people whom I have so dreaded all my life. Dear Tabby-cat! You can +remember when Missis received love-letters, can't you? They are not all in +the japanned box, are they? Do I seem old to you, kitty? Why, there is +actually a tear on your gray fur. Dear me, what a silly Old Maid Missis +is! + +You see, after all, I have not been honest, even with myself. And, just +between you and me, I will say that I abominate honesty in other people. +There! + + + + + VIII + + A GAME OF HEARTS + + "Man proposes, but Heaven disposes." + + +Tabby, did you ever hear me speak of Charlie Hardy? No, of course not. +Your mother must have been a kitten when I knew Charlie the best. He is a +nice boy. Boy! What am I talking about? He is as old as I am. But he is +the kind of man who always seems a boy, and everybody who has known him +two days calls him Charlie. + +Rachel Percival never thought much of him. She said he was weak, and +weakness in a man is something Rachel never excuses. She says it is +trespassing on one of the special privileges of our sex. Thus she disposed +of Charlie Hardy. + +"Look at his chin," said Rachel; "could a man be strong with a chin like +that?" + +"But he is so kind-hearted and easy to get along with," I urged. + +"Very likely. He hasn't strength of mind to quarrel. He is unwilling, like +most easy-going men, to inflict that kind of pain. But he could be as +cruel as the grave in other ways. Look at him. He always is in hot water +about something, and never does as people expect him to do." + +"But he doesn't do wrong on purpose, and he makes charming excuses and +apologies." + +"He ought to; he has had enough practice," answered Rachel, with her +beautiful smile. "He has what I call a conscience for surface things. He +regards life from the wrong point of view, and, as to his always intending +to do right--you know the place said to be paved with good intentions. No, +no, Ruth. Charlie Hardy is a dangerous man, because he is weak. Through +such men as he comes very bitter sorrow in this world." + +That conversation, Tabby, took place, if not before you were created, at +least in your early infancy--the time when your own weight threw you down +if you tried to walk, and when ears and tail were the least of your +make-up. + +All these years Charlie has never married, but was always with the girls. +He dropped with perfect composure from our set to Sallie Cox's--was her +slave for two years, though Sallie declares that she never was engaged to +him. "What's the use of being engaged to a man that you can keep on hand +without?" quoth Sallie. But Charlie bore no malice. "I didn't stand the +ghost of a show with a girl like Sallie, when she had such men as Winston +Percival and those literary chaps around her. It was great sport to watch +her with those men. You know what a little chatterbox she is. By Jove! +when that fellow Percival began to talk, Sallie never had a word to say +for herself. It must have been awfully hard for her, but she certainly let +him do all the talking, and just sat and listened, looking as sweet as a +peach. Oh! I never had any chance with Sallie." + +Nevertheless, he was usher at her wedding, then dropped peacefully to the +next younger set, and now is going with girls of Pet Winterbotham's age. + +I thoroughly like the boy, but I can't imagine myself falling in love with +him. If I were married to another man--an indiscreet thing for an Old Maid +to say, Tabby, but I only use it for illustration--I should not mind +Charlie Hardy's dropping in for Sunday dinner every week, if he wanted to. +He never bothers. He never is in the way. He is as deft at buttoning a +glove as he is amiable at playing cards. You always think of Charlie Hardy +first if you are making up a theatre party. He serves equally well as +groomsman or pall-bearer--although I do not speak from experience in +either instance. He never is cross or sulky. He makes the best of +everything, and I think men say that he is "an all-round good fellow." + +I depend a great deal upon other men's opinion of a man. I never +thoroughly trust a man who is not a favorite with his own sex. I wish men +were as generous to us in that respect, for a woman whom other women do +not like is just as dangerous. And I never knew simple jealousy--the +reason men urge against accepting our verdict--to be universal enough to +condemn a woman. There always are a few fair-minded women in every +community--just enough to be in the minority--to break continuous +jealousy. + +Be that as it may, the man I am talking about has kept up his acquaintance +with Rachel and Alice Asbury and me in a desultory way, and occasionally +he grows confidential. The last time I saw him he said: + +"Sometimes I wish I were a woman, Ruth, when I get into so much trouble +with the girls. Women never seem to have any worry over love affairs. All +they have to do is to lean back and let men wait on them until they see +one that suits them. It is like ordering from a _menu_ card for them to +select husbands. You run over a list for a girl--oysters, clams, or +terrapin--and she takes terrapin. In the other case she runs over her own +list--Smith, Jones, or Robinson--and likewise takes the rarest. But she is +not at all troubled about it. Marrying is so easy for a girl. It comes +natural to her." + +Tabby, I did wish that he knew as much of the internal mechanism of the +engagements that you and I have participated in, by proxy, as we do--if he +would understand, profit by, and speedily forget the knowledge. + +But, like the hypocrite I am, I only smiled indulgently at him, as if, for +women, marrying was mere reposing on eider-down cushions, with the tiller +ropes in their hands, while men did the rowing. I was not going to admit, +Tabby, that the most of the girls we know never worked harder in their +lives than during that indefinite and mysterious period known as "making +up their minds." You see I uphold my own sex at all hazards--to men. + +He was standing up to go when he said that, but there was something about +him which led me to suspect that he was in a condition when he needed some +woman to straighten out his affairs. I made no reply, which threw the +burden of continuing the conversation upon him. I was in that passive +state which made me perfectly willing to have him say good-night and go +home or stay and confess to me, just as he chose. I knew he needed me; a +good many men need their mothers once in a while as much as they ever did +when boys. There was something whimsically boyish about Charlie as he +leaned over the back of a tall chair and debated secretly whether or not +he should confide in me. + +"Why don't you ask me why I said that?" he said. + +"Because I know without asking. You were induced to say it by what you +have been thinking of all the evening. It sounded like a beginning, but +really it was an ending." + +He looked as though he thought me a mind-reader, but I fancy the knack of +divining when people need a confidant is preternaturally developed in old +maids. + +"How good you are, Ruth." + +"You men always think women are good when they understand you. But it +isn't goodness." + +"No, you're right. It's more comfortable than goodness. It's odd how you +do it. May I tell you about it? You won't think half as well of me as you +do now, but it needs just such women as you to keep men straight, and if +you will give me your opinion I vow I'll do as you say, even if it kills +me." + +I was afraid from that desperate ending that it was something serious, and +it was. He made several attempts before he could begin. Finally he burst +out with, + +"Although you are the easiest person in the world to talk to, and I've +known you always, it is pretty hard to lay this case before you so that +you won't think me a conceited prig. That is because you are a woman and +can't help looking at it from a woman's standpoint. For a good many +reasons it would be easier to tell it to some man, who would know how it +was himself; but you see I want a woman's conscience and a woman's +judgment, because you can put yourself in another woman's place." + +He grew quite red as he talked, and I waited patiently for him to go on, +but gave him no help. + +"Well, here goes. If you hate me afterwards I can't help it. I had no idea +it would be so hard to tell you or I shouldn't have attempted it. But +since you have been sitting there looking at me I am beginning to think +differently of it myself, and I'm sure that, with all your kindness, you +will be very hard on me, and tell me to accept the hardest alternative. +Now, Ruth, you'd better shake hands with me and say good-by while you like +me, because you will think of me as another Charlie Hardy when I've +finished." + +He actually held out his hand, but I folded mine together. + +"No," I said, smiling, "I shall not bid you good-by until I really am +through with you. Don't look so discouraged. Come; possibly I may be a +better friend to you than you think." + +"You are awfully good," he said again. I don't know when I have so +impressed a man with my extraordinary goodness as I did by listening to +Charlie while he did all the talking. If I could have held my tongue +another hour, he would have called me an angel. + +"Well, although you may not know it, I am engaged to Louise King. I +always have been very fond of her, and when I found I couldn't get +Sallie, I was sure I cared as much for Louise as I ever could care for +anybody, and I was perfectly satisfied with her--thought she would make me +an awfully good wife, and all that. But while Miss Taliaferro was up here +visiting Sallie, I was with her a good deal, and the first thing I knew we +were dead in love with each other. You know we were both in Sallie's +wedding-party, and I tell you, Ruth, to stand up at the altar with a girl +he is already half in love with, plays the very deuce with a man. Kentucky +girls are all pretty, I suppose--everybody says so, and you have to make +believe you think so whether you do or not; but this one--you know her? +Isn't she the prettiest thing you ever saw? Well, of course she didn't +know I was engaged, and I kept putting off telling her, until the first +thing I knew I was letting her see how much I thought of her. I don't +suppose it was at all difficult to see, but girls are keen on such +subjects, and a man can't be in love with one more than a week before she +knows more about it than he does. Then, after she told me that she loved +me, how could I tell her that, in spite of what I had said, I was engaged +to another girl? Wouldn't she have thought I was a rascal? No; I had to +let her go home thinking that, if we were not already engaged, we should +be some time, and I went part way with her, and--it was a mean trick to +play, but the nonsensical things that unthinking people do precipitate +affairs which perhaps without their means might never fully develop. Brian +Beck heard that I was going a few miles with her, and he and Sallie and +Payson came down to the train to see us off. Just as we pulled out of the +station, Brian made the most frantic signs for me to open the window, and +when I did so, he threw a tissue-paper package at me. Frankie and I both +made an effort to catch it. Of course it burst when we touched it, and a +good pound of rice was scattered all over us. You never saw such a sight. +It flew in every direction; her hat and my hair were full of it. Some went +down my collar. Of course everybody in the car roared and--well, I'm not +done blushing at it yet. Frankie took it much better than I, and only +laughed at it. But I--I felt more like crying. I saw instantly how it +complicated things. It was a nail driven into my coffin. + +"We had no more than settled down from that and were just having a good +little talk, after the passengers had stopped looking at us, when the +porter appeared, bringing a basket of white flowers with two turtle-doves +suspended from the handle, and Brian Beck's card on it. I wish you could +have heard the people laugh. I declare to you, Ruth, when I saw that great +white thing coming and knew what it meant, it looked as big as a +billiard-table to me. I was going to pay the fellow to take it out again, +but no--Frankie wanted it. She made me put it down on the opposite seat +and there it stood. Those sickening birds were too much for me, so I +jerked them off and threw them out of the window, conscious that my face +was very red and that I was amusing more people than I had bargained for. + +"When the time came for me to get off and take the train back, Frankie +implored me to go on with her, urging how strange it would look to +people, who all thought we were married, to see me disappear and have her +go on alone. I railed at the idea, but she was in earnest, and when I told +her positively that I couldn't--thinking more, I must admit, of the state +of my affairs than of hers--she began to cry under her veil. That settled +it. Of course I couldn't stand it to see the girl I loved cry, so I went +home with her, fell deeper in love every minute I was there, and came away +feeling like a cur because I had not spoken to her father. Her people met +me in the cordial, honest manner of those who have faith in mankind, but I +couldn't look them in the face without flinching. + +"Since I came back, of course, I've been visiting Louise as usual. I told +her all about the rice and flowers, thinking that if she quarrelled with +me about the affair she would break off the engagement. But she only +laughed and said it served me right for flirting with every girl that came +along, and didn't even reproach me. She has absolute faith in me. She +doesn't believe I could sink so low as I have, any more than she could. +She has idealized me until I don't dare to breathe for fear of destroying +the illusion. She thinks that I love her in the way she loves me, but I +couldn't. It isn't in me, Ruth. I don't even love Frankie that way. To +tell the truth, Louise is too good for me. She is magnificent, but I am +rather afraid of her. She has so many ideals and is so intense. Her faith +in me makes me shiver. I am not a bit comfortable with her. I do not even +understand how she can love me so much. I am nothing extraordinary, but if +you knew the way she treats me, you would think I was Achilles or some of +those Greek fellows. She has refused better and richer men than I. Norris +Whitehouse has loved her all her life, and you know what a splendid man he +is, but Louise ridicules the idea of ever caring for anybody but me. She +is so perfect that there is absolutely no flaw in her for me to recognize +and feel friendly with. She reads me like a book, but I am less acquainted +with her than I was before we were engaged. She says such beautiful things +to me sometimes, things that are far beyond my comprehension, and she can +get so uplifted that I feel as if I never had met her. There's no use in +talking; after a girl falls in love with a man she often ceases to be the +girl he courted." + +I recalled what I had said to Percival--"Often a woman denies herself the +expression of the best part of her love, for fear that it will be either +a puzzle or a terror to her lover." Such a saying belonged to Percival. +I shouldn't think of repeating it to Charlie, for he could not comprehend +it. I should puzzle him as much as Louise did. It made me heartsick. How +could even Charlie Hardy so persistently misunderstand the grandeur of +Louise King? Yet how could such a glorious girl imagine herself in love +with nice, weak, agreeable Charlie Hardy? + +Louise is a younger, handsomer, more impetuous, less clever edition of +Rachel Percival; but she is of that order. She is less concentrated and +more emotional than Rachel. I did not quite know how a great sorrow would +affect Louise. Rachel would use it as a stepping-stone towards heaven. + +I have seen a young, untried race-horse with small, pointed, restless +ears; with delicate nostrils where the red blood showed; with full, soft +eyes where fire flashed; with a satin skin so thin and glossy that even +the lightest hand would cause it to quiver to the touch; where pride and +fire and royal blood seemed to urge a trial of their powers; and I have +thought: "You are capable of passing anything on the track and coming +under the wire triumphant and victorious; or you might fulfil your +prophecy equally well by falling dead in your first heat, with the red +blood gushing from those thin nostrils. We can be sure of nothing until +you are tried, but it is a quivering delight to look at you and to share +your impatience and to wonder what you will do." + +Occasionally I see women who affect me in the same way--idealists, capable +of being wounded through their sensitiveness by things which we ordinary +mortals accept philosophically; capable also of greater heights of +happiness and lower depths of misery, but of suffering most through being +misunderstood. To this class Rachel and Louise belong. Rachel, in +Percival, has reached a haven where she rides at anchor, sheltered from +such storms as had hitherto almost engulfed her, and growing more +heroically beautiful in character day by day. Poor Louise is still at sea, +with a great storm brewing. How hard, how terribly hard, to talk to +Charlie Hardy about her, when, after the solemnity of an engagement tie +between them, he was capable of misunderstanding, not only her, but the +whole situation so blindly! But what a calamity it would be if Louise +should marry him! + +"Go on, Ruth. Say something, do. I imagine all sorts of things while you +just sit there looking at me so solemnly. I realize that I am in a tight +place. I did hope that you could see some way out of it for me; but I +know, by the way you act, that you think I ought to give up Frankie--dear +little girl!--and marry Louise, and by Jove! if you say it's the handsome +thing to do, I'll do it." + +This still more effectually closed my lips. He so evidently thought that +he was being heroic. He added rather reluctantly, "I must say that I +suppose Frankie Taliaferro would get over it much more easily than Louise +could." + +"Charlie," I said slowly, "you don't mean to be, but you are too conceited +to live. I wonder that you haven't died of conceit before this." + +Charlie's blond face flushed and he looked deeply offended. + +"Conceited!" he burst out. "Why, Ruth, there isn't a fellow going who has +a worse opinion of himself than I have. I don't see what either of those +girls sees in me to love, I tell you. I am not proud of it. I wish to +Heaven they didn't love me. _I_ haven't made them." + +"'Haven't made them'! Yes, you have. You are just the kind of man who +does. You say pretty things even to old women, and bring them shawls and +put footstools under their feet with the air of a lover. And if you only +hand a woman an ice you look unutterable things. You have a dozen girls at +a time in that indefinite state when three words to any one of them would +engage you to her, and she would think you had deliberately led up to it; +whereas all the past had been idle admiration on your part, and it was a +rose in her hair or a moment in the conservatory that upset you, and there +you are. Oh, these girls, these girls, who believe every time a man at a +ball says he loves them that he means it! Why can't you be satisfied to +have some of them friends, and not all sweethearts?" + +"It can't be done. I've tried and I know. Sallie tried it and it married +her off--a thing not one of her flirtations could have accomplished. This +is the way it goes. You arrange with a girl not to have any nonsense, but +just to be good friends. You take her to the theatre, drive with her, +dance with her. Soon her chaperon begins to eye you over. Fellows at the +club drop a remark now and then. You explain that you are only friends, +and they wink at you and you feel foolish. Next time they see you with +her, they look knowing, and you see, to your horror, that the girl is +blushing. Evidently she is under fire too. Still, you keep it up. She +makes a better comrade than any of the men. You feel that you are out of +mischief when you are with her. She keeps you alert. You never are bored, +but really you are not as fond of her as you were of your college chum +even. She treats you a trifle, just a trifle, differently from all the +other men. This goes to your head. You begin to make a little difference +yourself. You take her hand when you say good-night, just as you would one +of the men. But it is not the same. The girl has needles or electricity in +her hand. You can't let go. You begin to feel that friendship, too, can be +dangerous. Next day you send her flowers, with some lines about the +delights of friendship. She accepts both beautifully, but you have a +guilty feeling that you did it to remind her. She does not seem to +understand that there had been any necessity. Still, you feel rather mean, +and to make up for it you try to atone by your manner. She is looking +perfectly lovely. She wears white. You particularly like white. She knows +it. You think perhaps she wore it to please you. _How_ pretty she is! You +lose your head a little and say something. She looks innocent and +surprised. She 'thought we were just friends. Surely,' she says, 'you +have said so often enough. Why change? Friends are so much more +comfortable.' She wants to 'stay a friend.' You are miserable at the idea, +although that morning it was just what you wanted. You were even afraid +she would think differently. What an ass a man can be! You fling +discretion to the winds and tell her--you tell her--well, you go home +engaged to her. That's how a friendship ends. Bah!" + +"A realistic recital. From hearsay, of course! The next day the man wishes +he were well out of it, I suppose?" + +"Not quite so soon as that, but soon enough." + +"Ah, I wish you knew, Charlie Hardy, how all this sounds even to such a +good friend of yours as I am. It is such men as you who lower the standard +of love and of men in general. Do you suppose a girl who has had an +encounter with you, and seen how trifling you are, can have her first +beautiful faith to give to the truly grand hero when he comes? No; it has +been bruised and beaten down by what you call 'a little flirtation,' and +possibly her unwillingness to trust a second time may force her true +lover into withdrawing his suit. How dare men and women trifle with the +Shekinah of their lives? And when it has been dulled by abuse, what a +pitiful Shekinah it appears to the one who approaches it reverently, +confidently expecting it to be the uncontaminated holy of holies! It is +this sort of thing which makes infidels about love." + +Charlie began to look sulky, feeling, I suppose, that I was piling the +sins of the universe on to his already burdened shoulders. + +"I dare say you are right, but what am I to do?" + +"There is only one thing for you to do, but I know you won't do it." + +"Yes, I will. Only try me," he said, brightening up. + +"You must go and tell Louise that you are in love with Frankie +Taliaferro." + +"Tell Louise? Why, Ruth, it would kill her. You don't know her. She +wouldn't let me off. You don't know how a girl in love feels. Ruth, were +you ever in love?" + +"That is not a pertinent question," I said. "It comes quite near being +the other thing. But let me tell you, Charlie Hardy, I know Louise King, +and it won't kill her. You know 'men have died and worms have eaten them, +but not for love.' That might be said of women." (I didn't know, Tabby, +whether it might or might not. I couldn't afford to let him see my doubts, +if I had any.) "We don't die as easily as you men seem to think." + +"But is this your view of what is right?" he asked. "I was sure you would +counsel the other. I've been fortifying myself to give Frankie up and +marry Louise, and, with all due respect to you, I must say that I think +you are wrong here. You must remember that my honor is involved." + +"Bother your honor!" I cried explosively. Charlie seemed rather pleased +than otherwise at my inelegance. "I am tired to death of hearing men fall +back on nonsense about their honor. I notice they seldom feel called upon +to refer to it unless they are involved in something disreputable." + +Charlie straightened up at this and settled his coat with an indignant +jerk. + +"I hardly think," he began stiffly, "that I am involved in anything +disreputable in being engaged to Miss King." + +"What are a man's debts of honor?" I went on with growing excitement. +"Gaming debts and things he would scarcely care to explain to the public +at large. Your honor is involved in this, is it? And you must save your +honor at all hazards, no matter who goes to the wall in the process! I +suppose if you made the rash vow that, if your horse won the race, you +would cut your mother's head off, while you were still in the flush of +victory, you would seize your bowie-knife and go to work! No? Oh, yes, +Charlie. Your honor, as you call it, is involved. I insist upon it. You +must do it. Oh, I am going too far, am I? Not one step further than men go +in the mire whither their honor leads them. Debts of honor, indeed! Debts +of dishonor I call them. So do most women." + +"Yes, but, Ruth," interrupted Charlie uneasily, "an engagement is +different. I don't dispute what you say in regard to gambling debts--" + +"You can't," I murmured rebelliously. + +"--but a man can't, with any decency, ask a girl to release him when he +has sought her out and asked her to marry him." + +"Perhaps not with decency. But it is a place where this precious honor of +yours might come into play. It would at least be honorable." + +"There isn't a man who would agree with you," he cried. + +"Nor is there a woman who would agree with you," I retorted. But both of +us stretched things a little at this point. + +He thought over the situation for a few minutes, then said, + +"You understand that, in my opinion, Louise loves me the best." + +"The best--yes. For that very reason you must not marry her. O Charlie! +try to understand," I pleaded. "She must love the best when she loves at +all. She has loved the best in you, until she has put it out of your reach +ever to attain to it. It would not be fair to the girl, it would be +robbing her, to accept all this beautiful love for you, and give her in +return--your love for another girl. Do you suppose for an instant that +you could continue to deceive her after you were married? Supposing she +found out afterwards, then what? She might die of that. I cannot say. It +would be enough to kill her. But not if you are honest and manly enough to +tell her in time to save her self-respect. You are powerless to touch it +now. You could kill it if you were married." + +"Honest and manly enough to confess myself a rascal? I don't see where it +would come in," he replied gloomily. + +"It is the nearest approach to it which lies in your power." + +"If the girls' places were only reversed now! I could tell Frankie that I +had been false to our engagement and had fallen in love with Louise. She +would know how it was herself. But Louise couldn't comprehend such things. +I believe she has been as true to me, even in thought, as if she had been +my wife. How can I tell her?" + +"The more you say, the plainer you make it your duty. I say, how can you +not tell her?" + +"I might go away for a year and not let her know and not write to her. +Then she would know without my having to tell her." + +"You wouldn't stand it if a man called you a coward. Don't try my woman's +friendship for you too far. You insult me by offering such a suggestion." + +"Gently, gently, Ruth. I beg your pardon." (Rachel was right in saying he +would not quarrel. I wished he would. I never wanted to quarrel so much in +my life.) + +"I am a coward," he broke down at last. "I'll spare you the trouble of +saying so. But oh, Ruth, you don't know how I dread a scene! You go and +tell her. I can't. I couldn't even write it." + +"How unselfish you are! Spare yourself at all hazards, Charlie, for of +course it was not your fault that things got into such a state." + +"Oh, Ruth, don't!" + +"Well, I won't. But do you realize how I should insult her if I went to +her? It's bad enough for you, the man she loves, to tell her. From any one +else it would be unforgivable. Do as you like. You promised to follow my +advice. Take it and do as you will with it. But I will guarantee the +result if you will do as I say. Come, Charlie. One hour, and it will all +be over, and you can marry Frankie." + +It was like getting him into a dentist's chair. I felt a wholesome +self-contempt as I thus sugar-coated his pill, but he was so abject in his +misery. + +Charlie brightened up perceptibly at the alluring prospect. He shut his +eyes to the dark path which led to happiness, and was revelling in its +glory. + +"Ruth, you dear thing! I don't see how I ever can thank you enough," he +said, taking both my hands in his. "I ought to have stuck to you, that's +what I ought to have done. You would have kept me straight. Do you know, I +used to be awfully in love with you. You really were my first love. I was +about eighteen then. You don't look a day older, and you are just as sweet +as ever." + +I laughed outright. + +"What did I tell you?" I cried. "You can't help making love to save your +life. Your gratitude is getting you into deeper water every minute. Go +home, do. Run for your life, or you'll be engaged to me too. _Then_ +who'll help you out?" + +He acted upon my suggestion and went hastily. + +Tabby, did you ever? He never was in love with me, never on this earth. +Whatever possessed him to say such a thing? He loses his head, that's what +he does. I hope he won't meet any woman younger than his grandmother +before he gets home, or he might propose to her. + + * * * * * + +My heart stands still when I think of Louise King. + + + + + IX + + THE MADONNA OF THE QUIET MIND + + "It is not true that love makes all things easy, but it makes us + choose what is difficult." + + +Across the street, in plain view from my window, has come to dwell a +little brown wren of a woman with her five babies. The house, hitherto +inconspicuous among its finer neighbors, at the advent of the Mayo family +suddenly bloomed into a home. The lawn blossomed with living flowers and +the windows framed faces which shamed, in their dimpling loveliness, the +painted cherubs on the wall. + +It was a delight to see Nellie Mayo in the midst of her children. Hers +were all babies, such dear, amiable, kissable babies, each of whom seemed +personally anxious to prove to every one how much sweetness one small +morsel of humanity could hold. But with five of them, bless me! the house +was one glowing radiance of sunshine, in which the little mother lived and +loved, until they absorbed each other's personality, and it was difficult +to think of one without the others. + +Sometimes in a street-car or on the elevated train I have seen women who I +felt convinced had little babies at home. It is because of the peculiar +look they wear, the rapturous mother-look, which has its home in the eyes +during the most helpless period of babyhood--an indescribable look, in +which dreams and prophecy and heaven are mingled. It is the sweetest look +which can come to a woman's face, saying plainly, "Oh, I have such a +secret in my heart! Would that every one knew its rapture with me!" It +wears off sooner or later, but with Nellie Mayo, whether because there +always was a baby, or because each was welcomed with such a world of love, +the look remained until it seemed a part of her face. + +Long ago we knew her as an unworldly girl, whose peachblow coloring gave +to her face its chief beauty, although her plaintive blue eyes and smooth +brown hair called forth a certain protective faith in her simplicity and +goodness. Sometimes girlhood is a mysterious chaos of traits, out of which +no one can foretell what sort of cosmos will follow, or whether there will +be a cosmos at all or only intelligent chaos to the end. But this girl +seemed to carry her future in her face. She was a little mother to us all. +It was a tribute to her gentleness and dignity that, although she was a +poor girl among a bevy of rich ones, she was a favorite; unacknowledged +perhaps, but still a favorite. She always stood ready with her +unostentatious help. She was everybody's understudy. Flossy Carleton, as +she was then, fastened herself like a leech upon Nellie's capacity for +aid, and was a likely subject for the exercise of Nellie's swifter brain +and willing feet; for to see any one's unspoken need was to her like a +thrilling cry for help, and was the only thing which could completely draw +her from her shy reserve. The chief reason she was popular was that she +had a faculty of keeping herself in the shadow. You never knew where she +was until you wanted her, when she would seem to rise out of the earth to +your side. But, in spite of your intense gratitude at the moment, you +really found yourself taking her as a matter of course. She was one of +those who are fully appreciated only when they are dead, and who then call +forth the bitterest remorse that we have not made them know in life how +dear they were and how painfully necessary to our happiness. + +It is rather a sad commentary upon those same girls, who accepted Nellie's +assistance most readily, to record that, when they were launched into +society and were deep in the mysteries of full-fledged young-ladyhood, +little Nellie Maddox was seldom invited to their most fashionable +gatherings, but came in, at first, before their memory grew too rusty, +for the simpler luncheons and teas. + +This is not a history of intentional or systematic neglect, but a mere +statement of the way things drifted along. Not one of the girls would +wilfully have omitted her, if she had been in the habit of being asked; +but it was easy to let her name slip when all the rest did it, and so +gradually it came to pass that we seldom saw her. Then she married Frank +Mayo, who would not be offended if he heard a newsboy refer to him as "a +gent," or a maid-servant describe him as "a pretty man." Of such a one it +is scarcely necessary to add that he was selfish, inordinately conceited, +and, to complete the description, a trifle vulgar. He never suspected his +wife's cleverness nor appreciated her worship. It almost made me doubt her +cleverness to see how she idolized him, but this instance went far towards +proving that love, with some women, is entirely an affair of the heart. It +irritates Rachel to hear any one say so. She says it argues ignorance of a +nice distinction in terms, and that when the brain is not concerned it +should be called by a baser name. + +I doubt if she could have brought herself to say so if she had been +looking into Nellie Mayo's blue eyes, which looked tired and a little less +blue than as I remembered them. They had pathetic purple shadows under +them, which told of sleepless nights with the babies, and there were fine +lines around her mouth; but her light-brown hair was as smooth and her +dress as plain and neat as ever. + +It was like watching a nest of birds. I felt my own love expand to see the +wealth of affection Nellie had for her precious family. Her unselfish zeal +never flagged. She flitted from one want to another as naturally as she +breathed and with as little consciousness of the process. Her household +machinery ran no more smoothly than many another's, but Nellie met and +surmounted all obstacles with an unruffled brow. Her outward calm was the +result of some great inward peace. She simply had developed naturally from +the girl we had known before we grew up and went away to be "finished by +travel." + +Nothing could go so wrongly, no nerves throb so pitilessly, that they +prevented her meeting her husband with the smile reserved for him alone. +None of the babies could call it forth. When he came home tired, Nellie +fluttered around him making him comfortable, as if life held for her no +sweeter task. + +Being a woman myself, and having no husband to wait upon until it became +natural, I used to feel somewhat vexed that he never served her, instead +of receiving the best of everything so complacently. He never seemed to +realize that she might be tired or needed a change of routine. That +household revolved around him. Of course it was partly Nellie's fault that +he had fallen into the habit of receiving everything and making no return. +Fallen into it? No. With that kind of a man, an only son, and considered +by the undiscriminating to be good-looking, his wife had only to take up +his mother's unfinished work of spoiling him. It is true that these +unselfish women inculcate a system of selfishness in their families which +often works their ruin. They rob the children of their rightful virtue of +self-sacrifice. + +So Nellie idolized her husband. He was her king, and the king could do no +wrong. She taught the babies a sweet system of idolatry, which so far had +been harmless. He cared very little for children; so, when yearning to +express their love for the hero of all their mother's stories, with their +little hearts almost bursting with affection, their love was most +frequently tested by being obliged to keep away from their idol in order +"not to bother him" with their kisses. Fortunately these same withheld +kisses were dear to Nellie, and she never was too busy to accept and +return them. Thus they never knew how busy she was. She was sure to be +about some sweet task for others. If she ever rested, it was with the +cosiest corner occupied by somebody else. + +I wonder what will happen when, in heaven, one of these selfless mothers +is led in triumph to a solid gold throne, all lined with eider-down +cushions, where she can take the rest she never had on earth. Won't she +stagger back against the glittering walls of the New Jerusalem and say, +"Not for me. Not for me. Surely it must be for my husband?" But there, +where places are appointed, she will not be allowed to give it up--which +may make her miserable even in heaven. Ah me, these mothers! It brings +tears to my eyes to think of their unending love, which wraps around and +shelters and broods over every one, whose helplessness clings to their +help, whose need depends upon their exhaustless supply. Theirs it is to +bear the invisible but princely crest, "Ich dien." + +Nellie had no time for literary classes. Her music, of which we used to +predict great things, had resolved itself into lullabies and kindergarten +ditties for the children. She seldom found an opportunity to visit even +me. So it was I who went there and saw how her life was literally bound by +the four walls of that little brown house; yet I never felt any +inclination to pity her, because she was so contented. I knew of others +who seemed happier--that is, the word seemed to describe them better--but +none of them possessed Nellie Mayo's placid content. + +Still, I did not like her husband. He was not of Nellie's fine fibre. He +was dull, while she was delightfully clever. His eyes were rather good, +but he had a way of throwing expressive glances at me, as he talked upon +trifling subjects, which disgusted me. I reluctantly made up my mind that +he considered himself a "lady-killer," but I felt outraged that he should +waste his ammunition upon me. I tried to be amused by it, when I found +indignation was useless with him. I used to call him "Simon Tappertit" to +myself, until I once forgot and referred to him as "Simon" before Nellie, +when I gave up being amused and let it bore me naturally. I always had +treated him with unusual consideration for Nellie's sake, and even had +tried genuinely to admire him because it gave her such pleasure; but when +I discovered that the jackanapes took it as an evidence that he was +progressing in my esteem, I did not know whether to laugh or cry with +vexation. + +All at once, without any explanation or preface, Sallie began calling upon +Mrs. Mayo and sending her flowers from her conservatories. Often when +Sallie came to see me her coachman had orders to be at Mrs. Mayo's +disposal, to take the children for a drive, while Sallie and I sat and +talked about everything except why she had embarked upon this venture. I +was sure there was something in it which must be kept out of sight, +because Sallie never would talk about them. + +I noticed that whenever Frank was away from home--which grew more and more +frequent--an invitation was sure to come for the Mayos from Sallie. But +Nellie never accepted without him, whether from pride or timidity I could +not then determine, and all Sallie's efforts to persuade her were +unavailing. + +It was such an unusual proceeding in Mrs. Payson Osborne to seek out any +one that it excited my wonder. But she was not to be balked by anything; +moreover, I had great faith in her motives, which were sound and good, +even if her plans of carrying them out inclined to the frivolous. + +But all at once her frivolity seemed to reach a climax. She issued +invitations for a lawn fete, to be followed by a very private, very select +dinner, after which came the cotillon. She had decorators from New York, +and otherwise ordered the most extravagant setting for her entertainment. +This might not seem unusual to every one, but with us, who are accustomed +to extracting our enjoyment from one party at a time, this seemed rather a +superb affair. Pet Winterbotham was almost wild with delight. + +"Only think," she cried, "she has asked Jack and me to lead the cotillon! +Isn't that sweet of her? Oh, I do think she is the dearest thing! Though I +must say I'd rather have been asked to the dinner. That's going to be +perfectly elegant. I heard it was to be given for somebody, but I don't +know who it could be. It might be for Frankie Taliaferro. Mrs. Osborne has +asked her to come up for it." + +Pet's remarks rushed on until I soon found myself carried along the tide +of her enthusiasm, which she assured me was shared by every girl in town. + +I shall not attempt to describe Sallie's success. The weather, the people, +fortune itself, was in her favor, and the whole afternoon was admirable. I +confess, however, that it was with some slight curiosity that I awaited +the dinner. + +Sallie's cheeks were flushed and her eyes shone with an unusual brilliancy +as she greeted us, but the proverbial feather would have felled any one of +her guests when Payson offered his arm to Mrs. Frank Mayo, who rose out of +a shadowy corner in a high-throated gown and led us to the dining-room. I +caught Sallie's eye as she laid her hand on Frank Mayo's arm, and she gave +me a comical look, half imploring, half defiant. + +I was guilty of wondering if Sallie had been demented when she planned +that dinner-table, for this is the way we found ourselves: + +Next to Frank Mayo came Alice Asbury, encased in freezing dignity. Brian +Beck, at his worst, supported her on the other hand. After Brian were +Louise King and Charlie Hardy, both looking to my practised eyes +exceedingly stiff and uncomfortable. I had no time to wonder if the blow +had fallen, in casting a glance at the other guests. Nellie Mayo was +admirably situated between Charlie Hardy and Payson Osborne, both of whom +were deference itself to her. The difference in her simple attire from the +full dress all around her in no wise disturbed her unworldly spirit. She +looked with quiet admiration at the handsome shoulders of Louise and +Rachel, evidently never dreaming that the babies' mother might be +expected to follow their example in dress. + +[Illustration: Seating plan.] + +Grace Beck, sitting by Norris Whitehouse, would have an excellent +opportunity of cementing or breaking off the prospective match, which as +yet was unannounced, between her sister and his nephew. Rachel would be +polite, but not wildly entertaining, to Asbury; but he could count on me +to be decent to him, while I snatched crumbs of intellectual comfort from +Percival on my other hand. But Sallie had placed the funereal Clinton +Frost between that rattle-pated Frankie Taliaferro and her lively self, +probably with the laudable intention of seeing whether his face would be +permanently disfigured by a smile. Nor was the poor wretch out of Brian +Beck's reach, but was made the objective point of Brian's liveliest +sallies, the hero of his most piquant and impossible stories, which +convulsed us until I felt sure that the irritated Mr. Frost must cherish +a secret but lively desire to punch his head. Possibly Brian was the only +one who thoroughly enjoyed himself at that ill-starred dinner, for he is +keen on the scent of a precarious situation which is liable to involve +everybody in total collapse. In this instance he seemed to snuff the +battle from afar and stirred up all the slumbering elements of discord +with unctuous satisfaction; and if it had not been for the wicked twinkle +in his Irish blue eyes, which none of his victims could withstand, it +might have resulted seriously. He gayly rallied Charlie Hardy on his +flirtations; predicted seeing him yet brought up with a round turn in a +breach-of-promise case; seemed highly edified by Frankie Taliaferro's +efforts to appear unconcerned at these pleasantries; railed openly at +Clinton Frost's being so unresponsive to the general mirth around him; +shivered visibly at that gentleman's icy retorts; playfully called +attention to his wife's endeavors to frown him into silence; and, in spite +of Sallie's angry glances, really saved her dinner from proving a dismal +failure. Indeed, the cases were too real, and too much genuine misery was +concealed behind impassive faces, not to prove a dangerous situation, the +tension of which was relieved by Brian's extravagant nonsense. Percival +and Norris Whitehouse were sincerely amused by the wit in which Brian +clothed his droll remarks. But the greatest misfortune of the dinner-giver +was realized in Frank Mayo, the man who thinks he can tell a good story. +The Mayos were so new to all of us that this peculiarity was not suspected +until Brian discovered it and dragged it forth. He persuaded Frank to +talk, listened with absorbing interest to the flattest tales, encouraged +him if he flagged, and laughed until the tears came if he by chance forgot +or slurred a point. + +However, no one seemed to think that there was anything seriously amiss +except Sallie, who is a human barometer when she has guests. She knows by +instinct when they are or are not being entertained. Nor was her tact at +fault in seating the people, for I was the only one laden with almost +unbearable knowledge, and I fell asleep that night thinking that possibly +the situation was not so unusual as it appeared to me. I dare say plenty +of dinners are given with just as many unsuspected trap-doors to +sensationalism. + + + + + X + + THE PATHOS OF FAITH + + "To him who is shod the whole world is covered with leather." + + +The next afternoon I was resting and thinking over the brilliancy of the +Payson Osborne entertainment, when Sallie came in, dressed from head to +foot in black. There was not a suspicion of white at wrist or throat. I +was too startled to ask a question until her burst of laughter relieved +me. + +"You poor thing!" she cried, "did I frighten you? But I _am_ in mourning; +yes, truly, for my dinner-party. Ruth, Ruth, what was the matter with it?" + +"Why, nothing. It was exquisitely served, and oh, Sallie, your lawn fete +and the cotillon were beautiful. They were perfect. Truly, you do give the +most successful entertainments in town." + +"Certainly--why shouldn't I," said Sallie sharply, "when I have never done +anything, _anything_ all my life but go to parties and study how to give +them? Oh, Ruth, dear, I do get so tired of it all. But," taking on a +brisker tone, "all the more reason why I should never give such a sad +affair as that dinner. That dinner, Ruth, was what Brian Beck calls a +howling failure. Payson never criticises anything that I do, but even he +came to me quite gingerly this morning, after I had read what the papers +had to say about it, and said, 'My dear child, what was the matter with +your tea-party?' Now, let us admit the success of the other two, and weep +a little in a friendly way over the 'tea-party.'" + +"I had a lovely time--" I began, but Sallie interrupted me. + +"Hypocrite!" she cried vehemently. "You know you didn't. Your eyes were as +big as turkey platters with apprehension." + +"My dear Sallie," I expostulated. + +"Don't you dare put on airs with me, then," she said mutinously. "Now, +what ailed them all? It couldn't have been the advent of the Mayos. I've +launched more ticklish craft than they. Nor could it have been that +abominable Brian Beck, who would spoil Paradise and be the utter ruin of +a respectable funeral. Every one seemed to conspire to make my dinner a +failure." + +"Oh, Sallie, I think Percival especially exerted himself. He was in his +most exquisite mood." + +"Oh, Percival, of course. He must have suspected that something was going +wrong. Did you ever notice, when he talks, how Rachel turns her head away? +But you can see the color creep up into her face. She is too proud and shy +to let people see how much she cares for him. But when _she_ speaks +Percival looks at her with all his eyes, and positively leans forward so +that he shall not miss a word. I love to watch those two. Sometimes when I +have been with them I feel as if I had been to church." + +"Then, too, Payson's manner to Nellie Mayo was the most chivalric thing I +ever saw. He treated her as if the best in the land were not too good for +her." + +"Nor is it," said Sallie warmly. + +"I'm glad you think so. What a sweet, unworldly spirit she has! Almost any +woman would have been distressed because of her gown; but she was so +superior to her dress, with that uplifted face of hers, that I felt +ashamed to think of it myself. You gave her a rare pleasure last night, +for she never meets clever men and women. The Percivals and Mr. Whitehouse +delighted her, and you saw how well she sustained her part of the +conversation. You see she thinks, if she doesn't have time to study. She +was particularly fortunate in having Payson to take her out, for he has a +faculty of putting people at their ease. Do you know, Sallie, Payson +Osborne has come out wonderfully since you married him. He is more +thoughtful, more considerate, and his manners always have been _so_ good. +I declare, last night I caught him looking at you in a way which made me +quite fond of him." + +"I'm fond of him myself," said Sallie candidly. "He undoubtedly is a dear +old thing, and he is tremendously good to me. By the way, did you notice +how red Frankie Taliaferro's eyes were last night? She had the toothache, +poor girl. It came on quite suddenly just before dinner, and it alarmed me +for fear she couldn't appear. Just before dinner I was naming over the way +the people were to go in, and I said that I had to put engaged people +together and separate husbands and wives, after the manner of real life, +and Payson asked if I was sure Louise King and Charlie Hardy were engaged, +and I said yes, although it never had been announced, and just then +Frankie burst into tears. It was a suspicious time for crying, especially +as that egregious flirt had paid her a great deal of attention; but +Frankie would tell _me_, I am sure, and then she really had been to the +dentist's that morning. So I gave her something for it which she said +cured it. I was so vexed at her for making her eyes red, for her blue +dress brought it out. If she had been crying over the other, she might +have spared her tears, for I don't believe Charlie and Louise are engaged. +I think they have quarrelled, for when Charlie offered his arm to Louise, +she looked up with that way she has of throwing her head back, and I +declare to you, Ruth, I saw, I positively saw, forked lightnings shoot +from her eyes. They blazed so I was afraid they would set his tie on fire. +As for Charlie, he turned first green, then magenta, then a rich and +lively purple. I give you my word they did not speak to each other during +that dinner, nor would Louise stay to the cotillon. Charlie danced it with +Frankie. Nice state of affairs, isn't it?" + +I felt myself grow weak. But Sallie proceeded gayly: "Then you know how +hard I have tried to propitiate those miserable Asburys. I declare, I +think Alice might meet me half way. Perhaps she didn't like being seated +between Frank Mayo and Brian Beck, but both she and that awful Frost man +sat as stiff and unsmiling as if they had swallowed curtain-poles by the +dozen." Sallie does not mind an extra word or two to strengthen a simile. +I tried to imagine Alice and Mr. Frost gulping down the articles Sallie +mentioned, but mine was no match for Sallie's nimble fancy and I gave it +up. "I do hope that Pet Winterbotham will not marry that man. I should as +soon see her led to the altar by a satin-lined casket. I had to invite him +when I found that Frankie could come. Wasn't Brian Beck dreadful, and +didn't you think you would go to sleep under Frank Mayo's stories? And +didn't Grace Beck's airs with Mr. Whitehouse amuse you? Oh, she will hold +that head of hers so high if Pet marries Jack. How bored Asbury looked, +didn't he? So selfish of him not to pretend to be pleased. Even Rachel +vexed me by not being nicer to Asbury. I declare, Ruth, I was so irritated +at the queer way every one acted, I felt as if it would be a relief to +make faces at them, instead of beaming on them the hospitable beam of a +hostess. I wonder how they would have liked it." + +"They might have considered it rather unconventional perhaps." + +Sallie smiled absent-mindedly, pressed her hand to her flushed cheek, +looked over towards the Mayo house, and then, meeting my inquiring glance, +dropped her eyes in confusion. + +"Well," I said tentatively. + +Sallie leaned back in her chair, put her hands behind her head, and closed +her eyes. + +"I wonder," she said dreamily, "why I ever attempt to do things. Why can't +people let me alone, and why don't I let them alone? Most of all, why do I +ever try to keep a secret?" + +I knew then that she had been rattling on because her mind was full of +something else. I don't believe she knew half that she had said. Presently +to my surprise I saw a tear steal down her cheek. + +"O Sallie!" I exclaimed, now really worried, "what is it?" + +"I'll tell you, Ruth, for you are the only one who seems really to know +and love that dear little Nellie Mayo and those blessed babies. Ruth, +there is a Damocles sword hanging over that nest of birds, and it is +liable to fall at any moment. Oh, it has weighed on my heart like lead +ever since I discovered the secret. I know you don't like Frank Mayo, but +you will despise him when I tell you the mischief he is up to, and that +poor little wife of his trusting him as if he were an archangel. Oh, he +is common, Ruth, and horrid, and if it is ever found out it will kill +Nellie. But he is carrying on dreadfully with a soubrette in New York. He +is wasting his money on her--and you know he has none to spare--and seems +to be infatuated with her; while she, of course, is only using him to +advertise herself. In fact, that is how I found it out. Payson is in a +syndicate which is trying to buy one of those up-town theatres in New York +and turn it into something else; I forget just what they want to do with +it, but any way, he came in contact with the manager of the theatre where +this woman was playing. He gave them a dinner and afterwards they occupied +his box, and while this woman was on the stage her manager told how some +man was causing nightly sensations by the flowers he sent her, and he said +that he--her manager--thought he would have it written up for the papers +to advertise her before she started out on her tour. He said the man was +making a fool of himself, but the actress didn't care, and when he pointed +out the fellow to them, Payson saw to his horror that it was Frank Mayo. +He didn't say a word before the other gentlemen, but the next day he went +to the manager and begged him to advertise the woman in some other way. He +told him who Frank was and all about his poor little wife and the +children, and the manager, who seems to be a good hearted man, said it was +a shame and promised not to allow it. He even went so far as to offer to +speak to the actress herself and request her to refuse to be interviewed +on the subject. So Payson came home quite relieved. But the next time he +saw the manager Payson asked him how things were going, and he said worse +than ever as far as Frank himself was concerned, and he added that when he +mentioned the subject to the actress she tossed her head and said Mayo +must take care of himself. + +"Then I thought I would do what I could to introduce him into society +here, for you know he is ambitious in that line, and perhaps I might get +him away from the creature. So I gave that whole thing yesterday for the +Mayo family, with what result you know, except that I haven't told you +that the presumptuous dolt made love mawkishly to me all the evening. +Yes, actually! Did you ever hear of such impertinence? Oh, the man is +simply insufferable, Ruth. + +"Now, what I am constantly afraid of is that it will get into the papers +after all. I read them, I fairly study them, so that it shall not escape +me; but, if it does come out, what shall we do for Nellie? It will break +her heart." + +I looked at Sallie with gnawing conscience that I had ever called her +lawn fete the climax of frivolity. The dear little soul! who would have +suspected that she had such a worthy motive for her ball? But, do you +know, sometimes in fashionable life we catch a glimpse of the +simple-minded, homely kindliness which we are taught to believe exists +only among horny-handed farmers, rough miners, and hardy mountaineers. + +"Sallie, dear child," I said, "I beg your pardon for not knowing how noble +you are." + +"Noble? I? Sallie Cox? Now, nobody except Payson ever hinted at such a +thing, and I hushed him up instantly. No, Ruth, it was nothing. I dare say +Rachel or you would have thought of some grand project which would have +been effectual, but _I_ couldn't think of anything to do but to tickle his +vanity by making him the guest of honor at the best affair of the season." + +"Indeed, I think neither Rachel nor I could have thought of anything so +sure to captivate a shallow mortal like Frank Mayo." + +"Set a thief to catch a thief," said Sallie merrily. "I'm shallow myself, +_I_ knew how it would feel to have such a fine thing given for me. My +dear, if the ball were only fine enough it would cure a broken heart." + +"Not if the heart were really broken, Sallie." + +"Well, you must admit that it would help _some_," she said whimsically. + +And so she went away and left the burden upon me. Then I, too, fell to +devouring the papers, as I knew Sallie was doing with me. I went more than +ever to the little brown house which lay in such peril, and I never saw +Nellie with a paper in her hand that I did not shudder. + +At last the thing we so dreaded came to pass. In the evening paper there +was quite a sensational account of it. Thank Heaven, no name was given; +but alas, the description of him, of his wife and five little children, +was unmistakable. I felt as though I had sat still and watched a cat kill +a bird. It was raining, not hard, but drearily, and the dead leaves +fluttered against the windows as the chill wind blew them from where they +clung. I was lonesome, and the autumn evening intensified my feelings. I +glanced over to where a red glow came from Nellie's windows. I fancied her +sitting there with the paper in her hand, as she always did in the one +spare moment of her busy day, with her heart crushed by the news. She +would be alone, too, for Frank was out of town. Poor child! Poor child! I +started up and decided to go and see her. If she didn't want me I could +come back, but what if she did want me and I was not there? + +I found her sitting, as I had expected, alone. The paper, with the fatal +page uppermost, lay in her lap, as if she had read it and laid it down. +There was only the firelight in the room. + +"Come in, dear," she said gladly. "I was just thinking of you and +wondering if such weather did not make you blue. Sit down here by the +fire. It was sweet of you to come in the rain." + +She searched my distressed face anxiously as she spoke. I made no reply. +My heart was too full at being comforted when I had come to comfort. As I +sat on a low stool at her side she seemed to divine my mood, for she drew +my head against her knee with a mother touch, and threaded my hair with a +mother hand, and pressed down my eyelids as I have seen her do when she +puts her baby to sleep. And though she must have felt the tears come, she +did not appear to know. + +"Dear Ruth," she said, "I have been sitting here thinking about you, and +wondering if you were satisfied, such a loving heart as you have, to face +the rest of your life without the love you deserve. You won't be vexed +with me for speaking of it to you, for you know I am so old-fashioned that +I think love is the only thing in this world worth having. It is all that +I live for. Of course my children love me, but, until they grow older, +theirs is only an instinctive love. It isn't like the love of a husband, +which singles you out of all the other countless women in the world to be +his and only his forever. There is power enough in that thought to nerve +the weakest woman to do a giant's task. The mere fact that you are all in +all, the _only_ woman, to the man you so dearly love, the one person who +can make his world; when you think that your being away from one meal or +out of the house when he comes in will make him miss you till his heart +aches--this will keep down a moan of pain when it is almost beyond +bearing, for fear it might cause him to suffer with you; it will nerve +you to stand up and smile into his eyes when you are ready to drop with +exhaustion. Love, such as a husband's love for his wife, is the most +precious, the most supporting thing a woman can have. You never hear me +talk much about my husband, but he is all this and more to me. I cannot +begin to tell you about it. I read about unhappy marriages--why, I read +a dreadful thing to-night in the paper, which set me to thinking how safe +and happy I am, and how thankful I ought to be that I can trust my +husband so. It was about a man who was unfaithful to his wife, and they +had five children just as we have. I know such things do occur, but how or +why is a mystery to me. I hope I am not too hard when I say that in such a +case it must be the wife's fault. Surely if she had been a good wife, an +unselfish and loving wife, he could not have been enticed away. Poor +thing! I wonder how she felt when she heard it. Probably she wouldn't +believe it. Probably she had too much faith in him. You shake your head. +Why, Ruth, you dear thing, you don't know anything about it. A wife +_couldn't_ believe such a thing. Why, I wouldn't believe it if told by an +angel from heaven. But then my husband is so dear to me. I do sometimes +wonder if all women care as much for their husbands as I do for mine. Do +you know, dear, I think about you so much. I know that there have been +several hearts in which you have reigned, and yet you have not cared. But +the true love, the right lover, has not come, or you could not have passed +him by. He is waiting for you; somewhere, somehow, he will come to you, I +am sure, and you will know then that you have belonged to each other all +this time; that this love has been coming down the ages from eternity for +just you two. You will not refuse it then. Why, I could never have refused +to marry Frank when I found that I was as much to him as he was to me! He +is so handsome, so good. I shall never cease to thank God that He made him +turn aside into the quiet places to find me. But, in spite of all this, +you know I don't think he is perfect. He doesn't care for books as much +as I wish he did. He has no ear for music, and he cannot tell a story +straight to save his life, the dear boy! Love does not blind my eyes, but +this is what it does do. It makes me overlook in him what would annoy me +in others. When, at that beautiful dinner of Mrs. Osborne's, Frank told +those stories of his that I've heard for years, I don't think any one +cared to hear them except Mr. Beck and me. I knew they were not well told, +but it was my husband who was telling them, and I could listen to his +voice, even if I couldn't sit next him. + +"How the wind blows. Don't you think it has a lonesome sound to-night? +There isn't a glimmer of light from any of your windows yet, and see what +a lovely glow this fire casts all through the room. It makes the cold +walls look warm, and if it makes shadows, it chases them away when it +blazes its brightest. It is your fault that there is no light in your +windows, and your fault that you have closed your heart against love. You +could have the glow that lights my house and my heart if you only would. +You know, dear, I am not talking to you as a neighbor now or even as a +friend, but as a woman talks to a woman out of her inmost heart. It is +only because I love you so and because I have seen you with my babies that +I know what a home-maker you are. You seem so sad sometimes, and I know +your heart is wistful if your eyes are not. How can you have the courage +to shut out love? How can you see the happiness of all your friends and +not want a share of it yourself? Why do you cry so, my dear? Is there some +one you love? Has any trouble come between you? No? No? Well, there, +there! It was selfish of me to show you the way I look at things and to +try to make you dissatisfied. Never mind. You are stronger than I. I could +not live without love; I should die. But if you can, it may be that you +are fulfilling your destiny more nobly than many another who has more of +what I should choose. + +"Oh, must you go? Forgive me if I have said what I should not. Good-night, +and God bless you, my dear." + + + + + XI + + THE HAZARD OF A HUMAN DIE + + "The tallest trees are most in the power of the wind." + + +Last night at the theatre there were theatricals all over the house. My +eyes followed the play on the stage, but my mind was filled with the farce +in the next box and with the tragedy in the one opposite. + +I was with the Ford-Burkes, and, hearing familiar voices, I pulled aside +the curtain, and in the next box were the Payson Osbornes, Pet +Winterbotham, and Jack Whitehouse. Pet thrust her hand over the railing +and whispered, + +"I'm engaged. Put your hand here and feel the size of my ring. You can get +an idea of it through my glove. I'd take it off and show it to you, only I +think it would look rather pronounced, don't you?" + +"Rather," I assented faintly. + +I glanced beyond her into the fresh blue eyes of young Jack Whitehouse, +and I wondered if the alert, manly young fellow, with his untried but +inherited capabilities, knew that he had been accepted as a husband +because his hair curled and he looked "chappie." + +"I suppose you have heard the news, haven't you?" she went on. + +"Nothing in particular. What news?" + +"Look across the house and you will see." + +Just entering their box opposite were Louise King and Norris Whitehouse, +Jack's uncle. + +"What do you mean?" I asked, with a wrench at Pet's little hand which made +her wince. + +"It's an engagement. Uncle and nephew engaged the same season. Isn't it +rich? Think of Louise King being my aunt. She is only twenty-three." + +Then they saw us and bowed. I felt faint as my mind adjusted itself to +this new arrangement. I levelled my glass at them. + +Louise, magnificently tall and handsome, looked quite self-contained. She +is one of the best-bred girls I know, but it required a stronger +imagination than mine to fathom what mysterious change had transformed +her from the impulsive, loving creature of Charlie Hardy's story to this +serene-eyed woman, who had deliberately elected to marry at the funeral +of her own heart. + +As I looked across at her during that long evening, I felt that it was +impertinent to probe her heart with my wonderings and surmises. I knew +instinctively just how carefully she was hiding her hurt from all human +eyes. I knew how her fierce pride was bearing up under the cruelty of it. +I felt how she had rushed from the humiliation one man had brought her to +the waiting love of the one who should have been her first choice by the +divine right of natural selection. This strong man had loved her for +years, but he would never allow her to imperil either his dignity or her +own. He was just the man her impulsive, high-strung nature could accept as +a refuge, beat against and buffet if need be, then learn to appreciate and +cling to. + +I had an impression that he was not totally ignorant of the state of +affairs. He was older and wiser than she, and capable of the bravery of +this venture. No, he was not being deceived. I was sure of it. Louise was +too high minded to attempt it. She would be scornfully honest with him. +Her scorn would be for herself, not for him, and he had accepted her +joyfully on these terms. His daring was tempered with prudence, and his +clear vision doubtless forecast the end. His insight must have shown him +that, with a girl like Louise, the rebound from the self-disdain to which +Charlie Hardy's confession must have reduced her would be as intense as +her humiliation had been, and that her passionate gratitude to the man who +restored her self-respect would be boundless. Not every man--not even +every man who loved her--could do this. He must possess strong nerves who +descends into a volcano. He must have a more unbending will who tames any +wild thing; but what an intoxicating thrill of pride must come to him who, +having confidence in his own powers, makes the attempt and succeeds. + +Perhaps if Louise had been strong enough to fight this cruel battle out +with herself as Rachel would have done, and win as Rachel would have won, +she might have been able to choose differently. She might then, strong in +her own strength, marry a man of lesser personality, a younger man, and +they two could have adjusted their lives to each other gradually. Now it +must be Louise who would be adjusted, and Norris Whitehouse was just the +man to know the curious fact that the more fiery and impetuous a woman +is, the more easily, if she is in love, will she mould herself to +circumstances. The more untamed and unbending she seems, the more helpless +will she be under the strong excitement of love or grief. + +A strong-minded woman is easier to persuade than a weak one. The grander +the nature the greater its pliability towards truth. The longer I sat and +gazed into the opposite box the clearer it grew in my mind that the +suddenness of this venture did not imply rashness, but serene-eyed faith +only, and such faith would captivate Louise King more than would love. The +only impossible thing about it to a sceptical Old Maid was that it was +the man who was proving himself such a hero, and who was upsetting my +favorite theory that men never understand emotional women. Still, it was +not difficult to except as unusual a man like Norris Whitehouse, and yet +have my theory hold good. In imagination I leaped forward to the peaceful +outcome of this turbulent beginning, and overlooked the way which led to +it. I found myself hoping, with painful intensity, that this venture in +which Norris Whitehouse and I had embarked would prove successful. I had +known and loved Louise King all her life. I had loved her dear mother +before her, and the beautiful daughterhood of this girl had always touched +me as the highest and sweetest type I ever had known. I did not want to be +the one to bring her face to face with her first great sorrow, although I +dared not interfere to less purpose. For + + "'Tis an awkward thing to play with souls, + And matter enough to save one's own. + Yet think of my friend and the burning coals + We played with for bits of stone." + +They could not know that I had had anything to do with it; yet, if ill +came of it, I should blame myself all the rest of my life. + +Not long afterwards they were married very quietly and went away for a few +weeks. When they returned I sought Louise with eagerness, and found that +my fears were not groundless. I tried to think what to do. If it would +have eased matters, I would willingly have gone to her and confessed that +I instigated Charlie Hardy's confession. But I felt that the root of the +matter lay deeper than that, so I said nothing that could be construed +into an unwelcome knowledge of her affairs. + +In the short time which elapsed between their return and the date set for +their departure for Europe, where they were to stay a year, I saw Louise +continually. She sought me as if she liked to be with me, although her +eyes never lost the anxious, hunted expression which you sometimes see in +the eyes of some trapped wild creature. + +It was a raw morning, with a chill wind blowing, when their steamer was to +sail. Mr. Whitehouse, thinking I might have some last private word to say +to Louise, skilfully detached everybody else and strolled with them beyond +earshot, but where his eyes could continually rest upon his wife's face. + +As Louise and I walked up and down I took in mine the small hand which +emerged from the great fur cuff of her boat cloak, and gradually its +rigidity relaxed under my friendly pressure. I remembered, as I +occasionally tightened my grasp upon it, that my dear little baby sister +Lois, who was taken away from us before she outgrew her babyhood, used to +squeeze my hand in this fashion, and when I asked her what it meant, she +invariably said, "It means dat it loves you." I wondered if the same +inarticulate language could be conveyed to poor, suffering Louise. +Suddenly she turned to me and said, + +"You have thrown something gentle, a softness around me this morning. I +can feel it. What is it, Ruth?" + +"I don't know, dear, unless it is my love for you." + +"It is something more. Your eyes look into mine as if you knew all about +it and wished to comfort me." + +As I made no answer, she turned and looked down at me from her superb +height. + +"Tell me," she said quite gently; "I shall not be angry. Tell me, _do_ you +know?" + +"Yes, Louise, I know." + +She hesitated a moment as if she really had not believed it. Then she said +slowly, + +"If any other person on earth except you had told me that, I should die. I +could not live in the knowledge. But you--well, your pity is not an insult +somehow." + +"Because it is not pity, Louise," I said steadily. "There is a difference +between pity and sympathy. One is thrown at you--the other walks with +you." + +She only pressed my hand gratefully. Suddenly she turned and said +impulsively, + +"Then you must know how utterly wretched I am." + +Glancing over her shoulder I could see the eyes of her husband fastened +upon her with an expression which stirred me to put forth my best +efforts. + +Then it came over me how pent-up all this intensity of feeling must be. I +realized how impossible it would seem to her to speak of it. Taking my +life in my hand--for I was mortally afraid--I rushed in, after the manner +of my kind, where angels fear to tread. + +"Did you love him then so much?" + +The pupils of her eyes enlarged until they were all black with excitement. +She caught both my hands in hers. + +"Only God Himself knows how I loved him," she whispered. + +I knew then that all Charlie had said was true, and, weak coward that I +was, if I could have undone the past, I would have given him back to her. +I was borne away by a glimpse of such love. O Charlie Hardy! And you cast +this from you for a pair of blue eyes! + +"How came you to love such a weak man?" I asked tremblingly. + +"That is what I want to know. How could I? How can girls of my sort love +so hopelessly beneath us? I've thought and wondered over that question +until my brain has almost turned, and the only consolation I find is that +I am not the only one. Other women, cleverer than I, have loved the most +contemptible of men and have been deceived just as I was. Oh, if he or I +had only died before I discovered the truth! If I could have mourned him +honorably and felt that my grief was dignified! But I won't allow myself +to grieve over him. I tell myself that I am well out of it and that I +ought to be glad. But instead of gladness there is a dull, miserable ache +in my heart, which I feel even in my sleep. Not for him; I don't mourn for +him, but for myself--for my fallen idols and my shattered ideals. What +will such men have to answer for? I doubt if I ever can believe in +anything human again." + +"Anything _human_," I repeated gladly. + +Louise looked down. + +"He was not omnipotent," she said huskily. "He ruled my heart only, not +my soul." + +"I suppose you have tried to love your husband?" I said. + +"Tried? Oh, Ruth, I have tried so hard! He is so good to me. He knows +everything. Of course I told him. That was why we were married so +suddenly. He wished it and urged such excellent reasons, and I had so much +respect for him and his wisdom in what is best, that I married him. I +thought I could love him. I always thought that if I didn't love--the +other one--I should love Norris; but I can't. I believe my power of love +is gone forever. I feel sometimes as if the best part of me had been +killed--not died of its own accord, but as if it had been murdered." + +"Poor child!" I said. "Why don't you talk this over with your husband?" + +"Oh, Ruth, how could I?" + +"Well, may I talk to you? Will it hurt you?" + +"Nothing that you would say can hurt me, dear." + +"Then let me say just this. You have been trying to do in weeks what +nature would take years to do. In real life you cannot lose your love and +heal your worse than widowed heart and love anew as you would in private +theatricals. You have outraged your own delicate sensibilities, but not +with your husband's consent. He does not want you to try to love him. No +good man does. He wants you to love him because you can't help +yourself--because it seems to your heart to be the only natural thing to +do. 'When the song's gone out of your life, you can't start another while +it's a-ringing in your ears. It's best to have a bit o' silence, and out +of that maybe a psalm'll come by and by.'" + +"Oh, Ruth, dear Ruth, say that again," she cried, turning towards me with +tears in her lovely eyes. I repeated it. + +"How restful to dare to take 'a bit o' silence'!" + +"No one can prevent you doing so but yourself. Mr. Whitehouse married you +to give you just that, confident that he loved you so much that the psalm +would come by and by." + +"I believe he did," said Louise gently, with color rising in her cheeks. + +"Another thing. Don't try not to grieve. Don't repress yourself. It is +right that you should mourn over your lost ideals. Nothing on earth +brings more poignant grief than that. You will never get them back. Do not +expect what is impossible. They were false ideals, none the less beautiful +and dear to you for being that, but truly they were distorted. You will +see this some time. You have begun to see it now. You realize that this +man was in no way what you thought him. You had idealized him, had almost +crowned him. Now you can't help trying to invest Mr. Whitehouse with the +same unnamable, invisible qualities. But no man has them. Your husband is +a thousand times more worthy than the other, yet even he does not deserve +worship. Let the man do the crowning if you can, although a woman of your +temperament would find even that difficult--that which the most inane of +women could accept with calmness and a smile. You have the magnificent +humility of the truly great. Still it is not appreciated in this world. +Try resting for a while and let your husband love you." + +I knew that I was saying, though perhaps in a different way, things which +Norris Whitehouse had urged upon her. Not that she said so. She would +have regarded that as sacrilege. But it was a look, a little trembling +smile, which betrayed the ingenuous young creature to me. I felt that I +was in the presence of a nature very fair and exquisitely pure. It was a +sacred feeling. I almost felt as if I ought not to read the signs in her +face, because she had no idea that they were there. + +"I have such horrible doubts," she said suddenly with suppressed +bitterness. "I do not belittle my love. I know that I loved him with all +my heart and soul, and that I gave him more than most women would have +done, because love means infinitely more to me than it does to them. I +knew all the time that I loved him more than he loved me, but I did not +care, for I believed, blind as I was, that we loved each other all we were +capable of doing, and if I had more love to give it was only because I was +richer than he, and I meant to make him the greater by my treasure. Now I +feel that both I and my love have been wasted. Oh, it was a cruel thing, +Ruth. I feel so poor, so poor." + +"Louise, you think, but you do not think rightly. _Are_ you poorer for +having loved him? What is his unworth compared with your worth? Isn't your +love sweeter and truer for having grown and expanded? No love was ever +wasted. It enriches the giver involuntarily. You are a sweeter, better +woman than before you loved, unless you made the mistake of small natures +and let it embitter you. You have no right to feel that it has been +wasted." + +"Do you think so?" she said doubtfully. "That is an uplifting thought." +Then she added in a low voice, "There is one thing more. It is very +unworthy, I am afraid, but it is a canker that is eating my heart out. And +that is the mortification of it. Can you picture the thing to yourself? +Can you form any idea of how I felt? It grows worse the more I think of +it." + +"I know, I know. But, dear child, there is where I am powerless to help +you. If I were in your place I think I should feel just as you do. It was +a cruel thing. I wonder that you bore it as well as you did." + +"What! Should _you_ feel that way? Then you do not blame me?" + +"Why mention blame in connection with yourself? You are singularly free +from it. But did you ever consider what an honor the love of such a man +as your husband is? Do you know how he is admired by great men? Do you +realize how he must love you, and what magnificent faith he must have to +wish to marry a young girl like you who admits that she does not love him? +If you never do anything else in this world except to deserve the faith he +has in you, you will live a worthy life." + +We were standing still now, and Louise was looking at her husband at a +distance with a look in her eyes which was good to see. + +"You never can love him as you loved the other one. A first love never +comes again. Would you want it to? When you love your husband, as he and +I both know that you will do some time--perhaps not soon, but he is very +patient--still, I say, when you love him you will love him in a gentler, +truer way." + +"Can you tell me why such a bitter experience should have been sent to me +so early in life?" + +"To save you pain later and to make of you what you were planned to be." + +Tears rolled down her cheeks and she bent to kiss me, for the last mail +had been put aboard and we had only a moment more. + +What she whispered in my ear I shall never tell to any one, but it will +sweeten my whole life. + +As we went towards Mr. Whitehouse Louise involuntarily quickened her pace +a little and held out her hand to him with a smile. It was good to see his +face change color and to view the quiet delight with which he received +her. + +Then there were good-byes and hurried steps and a great deal of shouting +and hauling of ropes, and there were waving of hands and a tossing of +roses from the decks above and a few furtive tears and many heart-aches, +and then--the great steamer had sailed. + + + + + XII + + IN WHICH I WILLINGLY TURN MY FACE WESTWARD + + "Grow old along with me. + The best is yet to be, + The last of life, for which the first was made. + Our times are in His hand + Who saith, 'A whole I planned, + Youth shows but half; trust God, see all, nor be afraid.'" + + +The years cannot go on without destroying the old landmarks, and I am so +old-fashioned that change of any kind saddens me. People move away, +strangers take their houses, the girls marry, children grow up, and +everything is so mutable that sometimes my cheerfulness has a haze to it. + +I am in a mood of retrospection to-night. I am living over the past and +knitting up the ravelled ends. + +Dear Rachel! I am thankful that she and Percival continue so happy. It is +wonderful how every one recognizes and speaks of the completeness of +these two. They do not parade their affection. They seem rather to try to +hide it even from me, as if it were almost too sacred for even my kindly +eyes. It is in the atmosphere, and, though they go their separate ways, +they are more thoroughly together than any other married people I know. + +Both Percival and Rachel are becoming very generally recognized now. +People are discovering how wonderfully clever their work is, and they +share themselves with the public, although it is a sacrifice every time +they do so. Rachel's rather turbulent cleverness has softened down. She +says it is because it is "billowed in another greater and gentler sort." +She looks at me rather wistfully sometimes. I know what she thinks, but +she does not bore me with questions. I wonder if she thinks I regret +anything. Unless I consider that the Percivals have redeemed the record I +am keeping, there is nothing especially tempting in the marriages I am +watching. I cannot think that they are any happier than I am. + +Sallie Cox seems contented most of the time. She has a magnificent +establishment, handsomer than all the rest of the girls' put together. Her +husband "doesn't bother" her, she says, and the Osbornes are very popular. + +"I'm glad I'm shallow," she said to me once. "Shallow hearts do not ache +long. If I had a deep nature I should go mad or turn into a saint. As it +is, I wear the scars." + +Once, when I went with her to Rachel's, she sat and looked around the +simple, inexpensive house, with the walls all lined with books and no room +too good to live in every day, and she said, + +"This is the prettiest home I ever was in in my life, and there is not a +lace curtain in the house!" + +We laughed--everybody laughs at Sallie--and Rachel said gently, + +"We don't need them." + +Sallie looked up quickly and took in the full significance of the words, +as she answered in the same tone, + +"No, you do not, but I do." And each woman had told her heart history. +Now, Rachel must know almost as much about Sallie as I do; but she never +will know all. + +Sallie said she went home and hated every room in her house separately and +specifically; then she had a good cry over "the perfectness of the +Percivals," and issued invitations to a masked ball. + +"That ball was full of significance, Ruth," she told me afterwards with +her most whimsically knowing look. "It was bristling with it. But nobody +thought of it except a certain little goose I know named Sara Cox +Osborne." + +Jack Whitehouse and Pet Winterbotham are married. They had the most +beautiful wedding I ever saw; but it was like watching the babes in the +wood, for they are _such_ a young-looking pair. + +I understand better now what Pet meant when she talked about Jack's +appearance so much. I think he expressed to her the idea of perpetual +youth and eternal spring-time. To me, too, it seems as if he ought always +to be yachting in blue and white, or lying at full length on the grass at +some girl's feet. And Pet herself makes an admirable companion-piece. +When I see her in a misty white ball-dress, with one man bringing her an +ice and another holding her flowers and a third bearing her filmy wraps, I +feel that things are quite as they should be. Some people seem to be born +for fair weather and smooth sailing. + +It is too soon to judge them finally. Norris Whitehouse's nephew will +outgrow the ball-room, and Pet will find in Louise an incentive to grow +womanly. + +The Asburys have built a fine house since Alice's father died, and go +about a great deal, but seldom together. Asbury lives at the club, and +Alice has her mother with her. Alice has embraced Theosophy and spells her +name "Alys." She always is interested in something new and advanced, and +whenever I meet her I am prepared to go into ecstasies over a plan to save +men's souls by electricity, or something equally speedy in the moral line. +She is daft on spiritual rapid transit. + +She does these things because she is a disappointed, clever, ambitious +woman, who would have made a noble character if she had been surrounded +by right influences. + +What would have been the result if Alice had taken as her creed: "The +situation that has not its duty, its ideals, was never yet occupied by +man. Yes, here in this poor, miserable, hampered, despicable Actual, +wherein thou even now standest, here or nowhere is thy Ideal; work it out +therefrom, and working, live, be free. Fool! the Ideal is in thyself; thy +condition is but the stuff thou art to shape that same ideal out of; what +matters whether such stuff be of this sort or that, so the form thou give +it be heroic, be poetic? Oh, thou that pinest in the imprisonment of the +Actual and criest bitterly to the gods for a kingdom wherein to rule and +create, know this of a truth: the thing thou seekest is already with thee, +'here or nowhere,' couldst thou only see"? + +Ah, well, she could not. She still is crying to the gods and spelling her +name "Alys." Her cleverness must have an outlet, and, with worse than no +husband to lavish it upon, she scatters it to the four winds of heaven +and gets herself talked about as "queer." + +May Brandt has bitten into her apples of Sodom, and the taste of ashes is +bitter indeed to her. She knows now that Brandt never loved her, and did +love Alice. I do not know whether she thinks he still cares for Alice or +not. May never had much beauty to lose, but she looks worn and unhappy, +and watches Alice with a degree of feeling which would appear vulgar to me +if I did not know just how miserable she is. She is hopelessly plain now, +and Alice is still like a tall, stately lily. Brandt devours her with his +eyes, but Alice makes him keep his distance. + +Sallie Cox has been diplomatic and harmless enough to make Alice forgive +her, and they are quite good friends; but Alice is magnificent in her +scorn of Brandt's wife, who almost cowers in her presence. + +Poor May! I wish I could take that look of suffering from her little +pinched, three-cornered face for just one hour. But how could I? How could +anybody who knew all about it? + +She does not understand Alice in all her moods and vagaries, and Alice +does not condescend to explain herself even to her friends. I do not +believe that Alice and Brandt have ever spoken on the subject which +occupies three minds whenever they two are thrown together. Yet I imagine +it would be a relief to May if she were told that. However, she is +scarcely noble enough to believe it, even if Alice herself should tell +her. But Alice never will. She never gives it a thought. Brandt, too, has +honor, though, even if he had not, Alice would have it for him and forbid +a word. + +It is a fortunate thing for some people's chances for a future life that +there are a reasonable number of consciences distributed through the +world, although it would be an Old Maid's suggestion that sometimes they +be allowed to drive instead of being used as a liveried tiger--for +ornament and always behind. It is a great pity that people who are +supplied with them--and well-cultivated consciences too--have not the +courage to live up to them, but allow themselves to be gently and feebly +miserable all their lives. + +Now, Charlie Hardy has periods of being the most miserable man I ever +knew. His last interview with Louise must have been as serious a thing as +he ever experienced. He has married Frankie Taliaferro, and she makes the +sweetest little kitten of a wife you ever saw. In Louise he would have +been protected by a coat of mail. In Frankie he finds it turned into a +pale-blue eider-down quilt, which suits his temperament much better. + +Louise Whitehouse is coming home soon. Her year abroad has lengthened into +several years, and they have been the most beautiful of her life, she +writes. "Living with a song in one's life may be the sweetest while it +lasts and before one thinks; but to live by a psalm is to find life +infinitely more beautiful and worthier. I never can be thankful enough +that my life was taken out of my hands at the time when I clung to it most +blindly, and ordered anew by One stronger and wiser than I." + +Tears come to my eyes whenever I think of this girl. I do not quite know +why, unless it is that there always is something sad in watching the +tempering of a bright young enthusiasm, even though it becomes more useful +than when so sparkling and high-strung. + +I have been at great pains to have Charlie Hardy realize how happy Louise +is, but his conscience still troubles him at times. He says he knows he +did the right thing for every one concerned, but he dislikes the idea of +himself in so disagreeable a role; and Louise's opinion of him now, after +the one she did have, is a constant humiliation to him. Women always have +admired him, and he objects very strongly to any exception to the rule. I +think he misses the mental ozone which he found in Louise. I often wonder +if men who have loved superior women and married average ones do not have +occasional wonderings and yearnings over lost "might have beens." + +The Mayos still live in the brown house, which has been enlarged and +greatly beautified recently. I have an enthusiastic friendship with the +children, who are growing into slim slips of girls and sturdy, clear-eyed +boys, and their house is still a home. Frank's admiration for soubrettes +died a sudden and violent death at the masked notoriety of his initial +escapade, and for a time he was shocked into better behavior. We hear odd +rumors floating around, however, of whose truth we never can be sure, but +which we shake our heads over, after the fashion of those whose confidence +has been caught napping once. We never knew whether Nellie discovered the +truth or not. If Frank denied it, it would not affect matters with her if +the world rang with it. Her idolatry has a certain blind stubbornness in +it which I should not care to beat against. + +Bronson does not stand as straight as he did when I first knew him. Rachel +says he has "a scholarly stoop." But she knows, and I know, that something +besides law-books and parchment has taken the elasticity out of his step. + +Many years have gone by since I became an Old Maid. I want to call my +Alter Ego's attention to this fact gently but firmly, because I have an +idea that she still considers herself "only thirty," and that she thinks +she has just begun to be an Old Maid. Whereas she is old and so am I. I +do not mind it at all. Neither does she; it is only that she had not +realized it. We have so much to think about more important than our stupid +ages. People have grown used to seeing us about, and we like the same +things, and keep going at about the same pace and in the same road, and I +think we have come to be an Institution. + +I have no worries which I do not borrow from my married friends. I keep up +with the fashions; my clothes fit me; my fingers still come to the ends of +my gloves; I feel no leaning towards all-over cloth shoes; I have not gone +permanently into bonnets. I have tried to be a pleasant Old Maid, and my +reward is that my friends make me feel as if they liked to have me about. +I am not made to feel that I am _passe_. One's clothes and one's feelings +are all that ever make one _passe_. + +Nevertheless, I have turned my face resolutely towards the setting sun. I +am resting now. I have given up struggling against the inevitable. That is +a privilege and an attribute of youth. I feel as though I were only +beginning to live, now that I have passed through the period of turmoil +and come out from the rapids into gently gliding water. There is so much +in life which we could not see at the beginning, but which grows with our +growth and bears us company in the richness of evening-tide. I have +learned to love my life and to cultivate it. Who knows what is in her life +until she has tended it and made it know that she expects something from +it in return for all her aspirations and endeavors? Even my wasted efforts +are dear to me. + + "'Tis greatly wise to talk with our past hours, + And ask them what report they bore to Heaven, + And how they might have borne more welcome news." + +Yet there is a sadness in looking back. I see the many lost opportunities +lifting to me their wistful faces, and dumbly pleading with me to accept +them and their promises; yet I carelessly passed them by. I see worse. I +see the rents in the hedge, where I forced my wilful way into forbidden +fields, and only regained my path after weary wandering, brier-torn, and +none the better for my folly. Lost faces come before me which I might have +gladdened oftener. Voices sound in my ear whose tones I might have made +happier if I would. Withheld sympathy rises up before me deploring its +wasted treasure. How can any one be happy in looking back? The only +pleasure in looking forward is in hope. Yet now both grief and joy are +tempered with a softness which enfolds my fretted spirit gratefully. + + "Time has laid his hand + Upon my heart gently; not smiting it, + But as a harper lays his open palm + Upon his harp to deaden its vibrations." + +And so I am looking forward to-night to an old age more peaceful, less +turbulent, than my youth has been. I reach forward gladly, too, for life +holds much that is sweet to old age, which youth can in no wise +comprehend. Possibly this is one reason why youth is so anxious to +concentrate enjoyment. But I am tired of concentration. There is a wear +and tear about it which precludes the possibility of pleasure. I want to +take the rest of my life gently, and by redoubled tenderness repay it for +rude handling in my youth--that youth which lies very far away from me +to-night and is wrapped in a rainbow mist. + + + THE END + + + + + LOVE-LETTERS + OF A + WORLDLY WOMAN. + + +By Mrs. W. K. CLIFFORD, Author of "Aunt Anne," "Mrs. Keith's Crime," etc. +16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, Uncut Edges and Gilt Top, $1 25. + +This volume contains three brilliant love-stories well worth reading.... +The letters are original and audacious, and are full of a certain +intellectual "abandon" which is sure to charm the cultivated reader.... +We trust that Mrs. W. K. Clifford will give us more fiction in this +delicately humorous, subtle, and analytic vein.--_Literary World_, Boston. + +Mrs. Clifford's literary style is excellent, and the love-letters always +have their special interest.--_N.Y. Times._ + +There is abundant cleverness in it. The situations are presented with +skill and force, and the letters are written with great dramatic propriety +and much humor.--_St. James's Gazette_, London. + +In short analytical stories of this kind Mrs. Clifford has come to take a +unique position in England. In the delicate, ingenious, forcible use of +language, to express the results of an unusual range of observation, she +stands to our literature as De Maupassant and Bourget stand to the +literature of France.--_Black and White_, London. + +The study of character is so acute, the analysis of motives and conduct so +skilful, and, withal, the wit and satire so keen, that the reader does not +tire.--_Christian Intelligencer_, N.Y. + + * * * + +_Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York._ + +_The above work will be sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the +United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price._ + + + + + UNHAPPY LOVES + OF + MEN OF GENIUS. + + +By THOMAS HITCHCOCK. With Twelve Portraits. +16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 25. + +A fascinating book. So taking are its rapidly interchanging lights and +shadows that one reads it from beginning to end without any thought of +possible intrusion.--_Observer_, N.Y. + +The simple and perspicuous style in which Mr. Hitchcock tells these +stories of unhappy loves is not less admirable than the learning and the +extensive reading and investigation which have enabled him to gather the +facts presented in a manner so engaging. His volume is an important +contribution to literature, and it is of universal interest.--_N.Y. Sun._ + +The stories are concisely and sympathetically told, and the book presents +in small compass what, in lieu of it, must be sought through many +volumes.--_Dial_, Chicago. + +A very interesting little book.... The studies are carefully and aptly +made, and add something to one's sense of personal acquaintanceship with +those men and women who were before not strangers.--_Evangelist_, N.Y. + + * * * + +_Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York._ + +_The above work will be sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the +United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price._ + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Love Affairs of an Old Maid, by Lilian Bell + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF AN OLD MAID *** + +***** This file should be named 22047.txt or 22047.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/2/0/4/22047/ + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Anne Storer and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. |