Whitney_The_Other_Girls.txt topic ['13', '324', '378', '393']
you like about yourself."
" must tell you that never should have been good for
anything if it hadn't been for you."
", dear!" said . " don't see how we _can_ talk. keeps
coming back again. 've had all those plants kept safe that you sent
me, ," she began, briskly, upon a fresh tack.
" very ivies? , the little three-windowed room!"
"! didn't think you were so unprincipled!" said ,
getting up. " wouldn't have come down here, if had known there
was a promise! shall certainly help you keep it. shall go away."
turned round, and met a gentleman coming down along the slope of
the smooth, broad rock.
". !--!"
sprang to his feet.
" boy! are you?"
"! --how--did you come?"
" came to by the late train last night, and have just
driven over. went to yesterday."
" the steamer! wasn't due till . sailed the
_ninth_?"
". exchanged passages with a friend who was detained in .
came by the . you don't let me speak to ."
pronounced her name with a kind emphasis; he had turned and taken
her hand, after the first grasp of 's.
", 've broken my promise; but don't think anybody could
have helped it. couldn't have helped it yourself."
"'ve seen . 've been here almost an hour. have
thanked that nothing is broken _but_ the promise, ; and
think the term of that was broken only because the intent had been
so faithfully kept. 'm satisfied with _one_ year. believe all the
rest of your years will be safer and better for having this little
lady to promise to, and to help you keep your word."
he bent down his splendid gray head, with the dark eyes looking
softly at her, and kissed on the forehead.
stood still a moment, with a very lovely, happy, shy look
upon her downcast face; then she lifted it up quickly, with a clear,
earnest expression.
" hope you think, . ,-- hope you feel sure,"--she said,
"that wouldn't have been engaged to while there was a
promise?"
" more than you could possibly help," said . ,
smiling.
" the very least little bit!" said , emphatically; and then
they all three laughed together.
* * * * *
don't know why everything should have happened as it did, just in
these few days; except--that this book was to be all printed by the
twenty-third of , and it all had to go in.
very afternoon there came a letter to from .
.
had found . in ; he had pressed him
close upon the matter of his transactions with . ; he had
obtained a hold upon him in some other business that had come to his
knowledge in the course of his inquiries at : and the result
had been that . had repurchased of him the
railroad bonds and the deeds of land, to the amount of
five thousand dollars; which sum he inclosed in his own cheek
payable to the order of .
, morally, some things that have not had opportunity to
investigate in detail, and cannot therefore set down as verities,--
am privately convinced that this little business agency on the part
of , was--in some proportion at least,--a piece of a
horse-shoe!
you have not happened to read " ," you will not know
what that means. you have, you will now get a glimpse of how it
had come to and that their horse-shoe,--their little
section of the world's great magnet of loving relation,--might be
made. , do know, and can tell you, the very words said
to one day when they had been married just three weeks.
"'ve always thought, , that if ever had money,--or if ever
came to advise or help anybody who had, and who wanted to do good
with it,--that there would be one special way should like to take.
should like to sit up in the branches, and shake down fruit into
the laps of some people who never would know where it came from, and
wouldn't take it if they did; though they couldn't reach a single
bough to pick for themselves. mean nice, unlucky people; people
who always have a hard time, and need to have a good one; and are
obliged in many things to pretend they do. are a good many who
are willing and anxious to help the very poor, but think there's a
mission waiting for somebody among the pinched-and-smiling people.
've been a myself, you see; and know all about it, .
!"
know they looked about for crafty little chances to piece out
and supplement small ways and means; to put little traps of good
luck in the way for people to stumble upon,--and to act the part
generally of a human limited providence, which is a better thing
than fairy godmothers, or enchanted cats, or frogs under the bridge
at the world's end, in which guise the gentle charities clothed
themselves in the old elf fables, that were told, truly believe,
to be lived out in real doing, as much as the
were. a great deal of the manifold responsibility that .
undertakes, as broker or agent in the concerns of others, is
undertaken with a deliberate ulterior design of this sort. think
. probably was made to pay about three thousand
dollars of the sum he had wheedled . out of.
makes things yield of themselves as far as they will; he
brings capacity and character to bear upon his ends as well as
money; he knows his money would not last forever if he did not.
. and stayed at -hope over the . . and
. arrived on morning.
was a first home-service in the - that looked out
upon the , and into which the conservatory already gave its
greenness and sweetness, that first after .
read the , , and for the
day; the , that "who had given his only to die for our
sins, and to rise again for our justification, would grant them so
to put away the leaven of malice and wickedness, that they might
always serve in pureness and truth"; the of "the
victory that overcometh the world, even our faith in the of
," who came "not by water only, but by water and blood"; and that
"the spirit and the water and the blood agree in one,"--in our
redemption; the of that of the week, when came
back to his disciples, after his resurrection, and said, " be
unto you," _showing them his hands and his side_.
spoke to them of the of , which is the of
for every one of us; which touches the quick of our own souls where
their life is joined to his or else is dead. how, when we feel
it, we know that this comes down that we may die by it
to sin and live again to justification, in pureness and truth, that
the shows us his wounds for us, and waits to pronounce his
peace upon us; because _ suffers_ till we are at peace. so
his goodness leads us to repentance; that the blood of suffering,
and the water of cleansing, and the spirit of life renewed, agree in
one, that if we receive the one,--if we bear the pain with which
touches us,--we shall also receive the other.
", therefore, whatever crucifixion you have to bear, because of
your wrong-doing. , indeed, suffer justly; but , who hath done
nothing amiss, suffers at our side. ' we are planted together in
the likeness of his death, we shall also be in the likeness of his
resurrection;' our old life is crucified with , that the body of
sin might be destroyed. ' are dead unto sin, but alive unto ,
through our .'"
was there, clothed and in her right mind; her baby on
her lap. . , the mother-matron, sat beside her.
, the plasterer, and his wife, , were there.
and women from the farmhouse and the cottages, dressed in their
best; and little children, looking in with steadfast,
wondering eyes, at the open conservatory door, upon the vines and
blooms steeped in sunshine, and mingling their sweet odors with the
scent of the warm, moist earth in which they grew.
would all have pinks and rosebuds to carry away with them, to
remember the by, and to be forever linked, in their tender
color and fragrance, with the dim apprehension of somewhat holy.
would be an association for them of the heavenly things unseen
with the heavenliest things that are seen.
. had given especial pains and foresight to the filling
of this little greenhouse. meant that there should be a summer
pleasantness at -hope from the very first.
dinner he and walked up and down the long front upper
gallery upon which their own rooms and their guest-rooms opened, and
whence the many windows on the other hand gave the whole outlook
upon and , the smoking kilns, the tidy little homes
already established, and the buildings that were making ready for
more.
told his wife of many things he hoped to
accomplish. pointed out here and there what might be done.
there was a maple wood where they would have sugar-makings in the
spring. was a quarry in yonder hill. here, through that
left hand hollow and ravine, would run their bit of railroad.
" little world of itself might almost grow up here on these two
hundred acres," he said.
" for the home,--you must make that large and beautiful, !
are not shut up here to guard and rule a penitentiary; we are to
bring the best and sweetest and most beautiful life possible to us,
close to the life we want to help. is room for them and us;
there is opportunity for their world and ours to touch each other
and grow toward one. must have friends here, "; (she let
_him_ call her ""; had he not the right to give her a new name
for her new life?) "friends to enjoy the delicious summers, and to
make the long winters full of holiday times. must invent
delights as well as uses: delights that will be uses. must be so
for _your_ sake; must have my satisfied,--content, in ways
that perhaps she herself would not find out her need in."
"__ not your satisfied?"
" a blessed little double name you have! , , the very
of my heart has come to me!"
and walked down again to the , and
finished their talk together,--this number of it,
mean,--about the brown house and the three-windowed, sunny room, and
the grass plot where they would play croquet, and the road to the
mills that was shaded all the way down, so that she could walk with
her bonnet off to meet him when he was coming up to tea. the
ivies that the "good " had kept safe and thriving at
, and the furniture that had stored in a loft in the
. pretty the white frilled curtains would be in the
porch room!
" the interest of the five thousand dollars will be all shall
ever want to spend for anything!"
" shall be quite rich people, . must take care not to
grow proud and snobbish."
" had much better walk than ride, . think that is the
riddle that all our spills have been meant to read us."