The Bay State Monthly — Volume 2, No. 3, December, 1884Various
History
The Bay State Monthly — Volume 2, No. 3, December, 1884
Various
Massachusetts -- Periodicals; New England -- Periodicals
memorial of an inspiring episode in history, and a great work of modern
art.
[Footnote A: _Vide_ papers by Clarence Cook in The Studio, and by
Professor D. Cady Eaton of Yale College in the New York Tribune.]
* * * * *
ELIZABETH.[A]
A ROMANCE OF COLONIAL DAYS.
BY FRANCES C. SPARHAWK, Author of "A Lazy Man's Work."
[Footnote A: Copyright, 1884, by Frances C. Sparhawk. All rights
reserved.]
CHAPTER III.
IDLESSE.
"Don't move your head, Elizabeth, keep it in that position a little
longer," said Katie Archdale, as she and her friend sat together the
morning after the sail. "I wish an artist were here to paint you so;
you've no idea how striking you are."
"No, I have not," laughed the other, forgetting to keep still as she
spoke, and turning the face that had been toward the window full upon
her companion. The scene that Elizabeth's eyes had been dwelling upon
was worthy of admiration; her enthusiasm had not escaped her in any
word, but her eyes were enraptured with it, and her whole face, warmed
with faint reflection of the inward glow, was beautiful with youth, and
thought, and feeling.
"Now you've spoilt it," cried Katie, "now you are merely a nice-looking
young lady; you were beautiful before, perfectly beautiful, like a
picture that one can look at, and look at, and go away filled with, and
come back to, and never tire of. The people that see you so worship you,
but then, nobody has a chance to do it. You just sit and don't say much
except once in a while when you wake up, then you are brilliant, but
never tender, as you know how to be. You give people an impression that
you are hard. Sometimes I should like to shake you."
Elizabeth laughed.
"That's the way you worship me," she answered. "I suspected it was a
strange kind of adoration, largely made up of snubbing."
"It's not snubbing," retorted Katie, "it is trying to rouse you to what
you you might be. But I am wasting my breath; you don't believe a word I
say."
"I should like to believe it," returned the girl, smiling a little
sadly. "But even if I did believe every word of it, it would seem to me
a great deal nicer to be like you, beautiful all the time, and one whom
everybody loves. But there's one thing to be said, if it were I who were
beautiful, I could'nt have the pleasure I do in looking at you, and
perhaps, after all, I shouldn't get any more enjoyment out of it."
"Oh, yes, you would," retorted the other, then bit her lips angrily at
her inadvertence. A shrewd smile flitted over Elizabeth's face, but she
made no comment, and Katie went on hurriedly to ask, "What shall we do
to amuse ourselves to-day, Betsey?" Another slight movement of the
hearer's lips responded. This name was Katie's special term of
endearment, and never used except when they were alone; no one else ever
called her by it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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