By the Light of the Soul: A NovelFreeman, Mary Eleanor Wilkins
General
By the Light of the Soul: A Novel
Freeman, Mary Eleanor Wilkins
Fiction
Maria felt Eunice's eyes upon her, and realized that she was
thinking, as her aunt Maria had done, that George Ramsey would be a
good match for her. A sort of desperation seized upon her.
"I don't know what you mean by likely," Maria said, impertinently, in
her shame and defiance.
"Don't know what I mean by likely?"
"No, I don't. People in New Jersey don't say likely."
"Why, I mean he is a good young man, and likely to turn out well,"
responded Eunice, rather helplessly. She was a very gentle woman, and
had all her life been more or less intimidated by her husband's and
sister-in-laws' more strenuous natures; and, if the truth were told,
she stood in a little awe of this blooming young niece, with her
self-possession and clothes of the New York fashion.
"I don't see why he is more _likely_, as you call it, than any other
young man," Maria returned, pitilessly. "I should call him a very
ordinary young man."
"He isn't called so generally," Eunice said, feebly.
They were about half an hour reaching Westbridge. Eunice by that time
had plucked up a little spirit. She reflected that Maria knew almost
nothing about the shopping district, and she herself had shopped
there all her life since she had been of shopping age. Eunice had a
great respect for the Westbridge stores, and considered them
distinctly superior to those of Boston. She was horrified when Maria
observed, shortly before they got off the car, that she supposed they
could have done much better in Boston.
"I guess you will find that Adams & Wood's is as good a store as any
you could go to in New York," said Eunice. "Then there is the Boston
Store, too, and Collins & Green's. All of them are very good, and
they have a good assortment. Hardly anybody in Amity goes anywhere
else shopping, they think the Westbridge stores so much better."
"Of course it is cheaper to come here," said Maria, as they got off
the car in front of Adams & Wood's.
"That isn't the reason," said Eunice, eagerly. "Why, Mrs. Judge
Saunders buys 'most everything here; says she can do enough sight
better than she can anywhere else."
"If the dress Mrs. Saunders had on at the church supper was a sample,
she dresses like a perfect guy," said Maria, as they entered the
store, with its two pretentious show-windows filled with waxen ladies
dressed in the height of the fashion, standing in the midst of
symmetrically arranged handkerchiefs and rugs.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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