New England -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Short stories
"No! no!" said Letty hastily. "I never want to set eyes on it again."
"I guess I'll get you another one 't you could wear. I looked t'other
day when I went to market; but there was so many I didn't das't to make
a choice unless you was with me."
Letty clung to him passionately. "Oh, David," she cried, with a break
in her voice, "I don't want any rings. I want just you."
David put out one hand and softly touched the little blue kerchief
about her head. "Anyway," he said, "we won't have any more secrets from
one another, will we?"
Letty gave a little start, and she caught her breath before
answering:--
"No, we won't--not unless they're nice ones!"
A LAST ASSEMBLING
This happened in what Dilly Joyce, in deference to a form of speech,
was accustomed to call her young days; though really her spirit seemed
to renew itself with every step, and her body was to the last a willing
instrument. She lived in a happy completeness which allowed her to
carry on the joys of youth into the maturity of years. But things did
happen to her from twenty to thirty-five which could never happen
again. When Dilly was a girl, she fell in love, and was very heartily
and honestly loved back again. She had been born into such willing
harmony with natural laws, that this in itself seemed to belong to her
life. It partook rather of the faithfulness of the seasons than of
human tragedy or strenuous overthrow. Even so early she felt great
delight in natural things; and when her heart turned to Jethro Moore,
she had no doubt whatever of the straightness of its path. She trusted
all the primal instincts without knowing she trusted them. She was
thirsty; here was water, and she drank. Jethro was a little older than
she, the son of a minister in a neighboring town. His father had marked
out his plan of life; but Jethro had had enough to do with the church
on hot summer Sundays, when "fourthly" and "sixthly" lulled him into a
pleasing coma, and when even the shimmer of Mrs. Chase's shot silk
failed to awaken his deep eyes to their accustomed delight in fabric
and color. To him, the church was a concrete and very dull institution:
to his father, it was a city set on a hill, whence a shining path led
direct to God's New Jerusalem. Therefore it was easy enough for the boy
to say he preferred business, and that he wanted uncle Silas to take
him into his upholstery shop; and he never, so long as he lived,
understood his father's tragic silence over the choice. He had broken
the succession in a line of priests; but it seemed to him that he had
simply told what he wanted to do for a living. So he went away to the
city, and news came flying back of his wonderful fitness for the trade.
He understood colors, fabrics, design; he had been sent abroad for
ideas, and finally he was dispatched to the Chicago house, to oversee
the business there. Thus it was many years before Dilly met him again;
but they remained honestly faithful, each from a lovely simplicity of
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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