The abandoned farm, and Connie's mistakeHolmes, Mary Jane
General
The abandoned farm, and Connie's mistake
Holmes, Mary Jane
American fiction -- 20th century
Through the leaves of a climbing vine the moonbeams filtered and fell
upon her face which he would like to have kissed, but something
restrained him, and afterward, when the awakening came, Connie thanked
God that it was so.
“I will remember,” she said, withdrawing her hand, just as round the
corner came the rustle of skirts and Mrs. Hart appeared in view, with
Count Costello in attendance, smirking into her face just as he had
smirked in Connie’s six weeks ago.
Something in their looks smote Connie like a blow, making her sick at
heart, and she walked away and left them alone. The next morning, when
the early stage left the hotel, a pair of soft, blue eyes looked eagerly
up at a window from which a white hand was waving an adieu. Then the
stage rolled away, and Connie was alone with the memory of what had been
and was soon to be again in its full fruition, she believed. That
morning her aunt had said to her: “I am glad he has gone. I never liked
him, and I read people pretty well. I have no doubt you attracted him,
but it was your money he wanted. Give him a plainer face with more
money, and he would take it.”
“Money!” Connie repeated. “I am sick of the sound, and I certainly have
not enough to make me an object for fortune-hunters. I wish you would
manage to have people, and even him, think me poor; then I shall know
who likes me for myself.”
Her aunt made no reply, but that afternoon she wrote a letter to Paris,
which was to bear early fruit. Meanwhile the days passed with the usual
round of nothings for Connie, who tired of them all. Old men and young
plied her with attentions, which she received graciously, but coldly,
biding her time and counting the days which must elapse before she heard
from him, or he came back to claim her. But he neither came nor wrote,
except a few lines from Paris, saying that he had reached there safely
and was with his friends at the Grand. Mrs. Hart had not intended to
stop much longer in Interlaken, but she kept lingering, declaring
herself infatuated with the place and seemingly infatuated with Count
Costello, who had transferred his attentions from the niece to the aunt.
Every day Connie waited anxiously for the western mails, but only to be
disappointed, and the bright color began to fade from her cheeks, and
the lustre from her eyes. Twice she walked out to the boulder by the
brook, and sitting down upon it, tried to recall every word he had said
to her and what she had said to him. Once she knelt by the rock and
prayed that he might come, but God, who knew better than she what was
for her good, did not answer her prayer, and her eyes grew larger and
more sunken, and her figure lost its symmetrical proportions, until her
aunt awoke to the fact that her health was failing. Thinking heroic
treatment the best, she one day said abruptly: “If you are pining for
that young man, you may as well give him up. The Count has friends in
Paris, who write that your friend is there, leading a gay life and very
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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