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Updated: June 26, 2025
"He'll think it's yours," she retorted, with a little laugh. She was not much given to laughter. Her life had been singularly monotonous and, having seen very little of the world, she had that self-distrust which is afraid to laugh unless other people are laughing, too. She taught singing at Fern Hill, a private school in Mercer's suburbs. She did not care for the older pupils, but she was devoted to the very little girls. She played wonderfully on the piano, and suffered from indigestion; her face was at times almost beautiful; she had a round, full chin, and a lovely red lower lip; her forehead was very white, with soft, dark hair rippling away from it. Certainly, she had moments of beauty. She talked very little; perhaps because she hadn't the chance to talk living, as she did, with an aunt who monopolized the conversation. She had no close friends; her shyness was so often mistaken for hauteur, that she did not inspire friendship in women of her own age, and Mrs. Newbolt's elderly acquaintances were merely condescending to her, and gave her good advice; so it was a negative sort of life. Indeed, her sky terrier, Bingo, and her laundress, Mrs. O'Brien, to whose crippled baby grandson she was endlessly kind, knew her better than any of the people among whom she lived. When Maurice Curtis, cramming in Mercer because Destiny had broken his tutor's leg there, and presenting (with the bored reluctance of a boy) a letter of introduction from his guardian to Mrs. Newbolt when Maurice met Mrs. Newbolt's niece, something happened. Perhaps because he felt her starved longing for personal happiness, or perhaps her obvious pleasure in listening, silently, to his eager talk, touched his young vanity; whatever the reason was, the boy was fascinated by her. He had ("cussing," as he had expressed it to himself) accepted an invitation to dine with the "ancient dame" (again his phrase!) and behold the reward of merit: the niece! a gentle, handsome woman, whose age never struck him, probably because her mind was as immature as his own. Before dinner was over Eleanor's silence silence is very moving to youth, for who knows what it hides? and her deep, still eyes, lured him like a mystery. Then, after dinner ("a darned good dinner," Maurice had conceded to himself) the calm niece sang, and instantly he knew that it was Beauty which hid in silence and he was in love with her! He had dined with her on Tuesday, called on Wednesday, proposed on Friday; it was all quite like Solomon Grundy! except that, although she had fallen in love with him almost as instantly as he had fallen in love with her, she had, over and over again, refused him. During the period of her refusals the boy's love glowed like a furnace; it brought both power and maturity into his fresh, ardent, sensitive face. He threw every thought to the winds except the thought of rescuing his princess from Mrs. Newbolt's imprisoning bric-a-br
"He has simply done what I put him in the way of doing when I gave him a letter of introduction to that Mrs. Newbolt, in Mercer." "Newbolt? I don't remember " "Yes, you do. Pop eyes. Fat. Talked every minute, and everything she said a nonsequitur. I used to wonder why her husband didn't choke her. He was on our board. Died the year we came up here. Talked to death, probably." "Oh yes.
For, poor as she was in all that governments put imposts upon, and men list in tax returns and carry to steel vaults to hoard away, Sarah Newbolt had her dreams. She had no golden past; there was no golden future ready before her feet.
"But I can't say, Missis Newbolt, that everybody's just azackly well," said he. "Some of your folks?" "No, not none of mine," said Sol. "Then whose?" she inquired impatiently. "Isom's," said he. "You don't mean my Joe?" she asked slowly, a shadow of pain drawing her face. "I mean Isom," said Sol. "Isom?" said she, relieved. "Why didn't Joe come after me?"
They were waiting for his answer. Should he speak? Mrs. Newbolt had risen. There were tears on her old, worn cheeks, a yearning in her eyes that smote him with an accusing pang. He had brought that sorrow upon her, he had left her to suffer under it when a word would have cleared it away; when a word a word for which they waited now would make her dun day instantly bright.
Newbolt, her parlor, her ponderosity, and her missing g's, exhausted his vocabulary of opprobrious adjectives; but Eleanor was silent, just putting up a furtive handkerchief to wipe her eyes. It was dark, and he drew her hand through his arm and patted it. "Don't worry, Star. Uncle Henry is white! She can write to him all she wants to!
Newbolt was standing by the stove, one of the lids partly removed, some white thing in her hand which she seemed hesitating over consigning to the flames. "What've you got there, Mother?" he asked cheerily as he turned to take his place at the waiting table.
Sol had established himself in the case so that he would lose very little glory in the day's revelations, and there remained one pleasant duty yet which he proposed to take upon himself. That was nothing less than carrying the news of the tragedy and Joe's arrest to Mrs. Newbolt in her lonely home at the foot of the hill.
She just appeared, drippin', wet!" "She has evidently fallen into some water," he said; "but I wouldn't ask her about it, yet. Of course we don't know what the result will be, Mrs. Newbolt. I can't help saying I'm anxious. Mr. Curtis had better be sent for. Telegraph him in the morning." He went off, thinking to himself, "She must have gone into the country to do it.
I'll do this for you, Missis Newbolt, but I wouldn't do it for any other human being alive." She turned slowly to him, an expression of mingled amazement and fear on her face. "You mean that you want me to bind Joe out to you till he's his own man?" said she.
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