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Updated: June 29, 2025
Yet Lorania was only thirty-three years old, and was of no mind to retire from society, and have a special phaeton built for her use, and hear from her mother's friends how much her mother weighed before her death. "How should I look on a wheel?" she asked, even as Mrs. Ellis had asked before; and Mrs. Ellis stoutly answered, "You'd look noble!"
Nevertheless, Lorania had a good, able-bodied, New England conscience, capable of staying awake nights without flinching; and perhaps from her stanch old Puritan forefathers she inherited her simple integrity so that she neither lied nor cheated even in the small, whitewashed manner of her sex and valued loyalty above most of the virtues.
Ellis looked at her flushed face, and sent another flood of color into it, for she said, "Mrs. Winslow, I don't know how much good I may be able to do, but I am on your side." Her eyes followed the little black figure when it crossed the lawn. She wondered whether her advice was good, for she had counselled that Winslow come over in the evening. "Maggie," said a voice. Lorania was in the doorway.
It was a peculiarity of his that his color turned easily. In a second his hat was on his head and his horse bounded half across the road. "Hardly, I think," said Lorania. "How well he rides! I never knew any one ride better in this country." "I suppose Sibyl would ridicule such a thing," said Mrs. Ellis, continuing her own train of thought, and yet vaguely disturbed by the last sentence.
To-day this secret apprehension flung a cloud over the bicycle enthusiasm. She could not help wondering whether at this moment Lorania was not thinking of the marquis, who rode a wheel and a horse admirably. "Aunt Lorania," said Sibyl, "there comes Mr. Winslow. Shall I run out and ask him about those cloth-of-gold roses? The aphides are eating them all up."
"I didn't think I would better intrude on Miss Hopkins," said he, "but perhaps you could tell me how she is this evening. My mother told me how kind you were, and perhaps you you would advise if I might venture to send Miss Hopkins some flowers." Out of the kindness of her heart Mrs. Ellis averted her eyes from his face; thus she was able to perceive Lorania saunter out of the Hopkins gate.
"That must have been an awful time to you," said Lorania, looking with more interest than she had ever felt on the meek little woman; and she noticed the tremble in the decorously clasped hands. "Yes, ma'am," was all she said. "I've often looked over at you on the piazza, and thought how cosey you looked. Mr. Winslow always seems to be at home evenings." "Yes, ma'am.
And there was also to be counted the approval of their consciences, for they felt that no Turkish bath could wring out moisture from their systems like half an hour's pumping at the bicycle treadles. Lorania during the month had ridden through one bottle of liniment and two of witch-hazel, and by the end of the second bottle could ride a short distance alone.
"No, Sibyl," said Lorania, with a deep, deep sigh, "I was always plump; I was a chubby child! And oh, what do you think I heard in the crowd at Manly's once? One woman said to another, 'Miss Hopkins has got a wheel. 'Miss Sibyl? said the other. 'No; the stout Miss Hopkins, said the first creature; and the second " Lorania groaned. "What did she say to make you feel that way?"
But Lorania could not yet dismount unassisted, and several times she had felled poor Winslow to the earth when he rashly adventured to stop her. Captain Carr had a peculiar, graceful fling of the arm, catching the saddle-bar with one hand while he steadied the handles with the other. He did not hesitate in the least to grab Lorania's belt if necessary.
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