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Summer (version 2)-Edith Wharton · Ethan Frome

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  Speaker 1: Chapter two of Summer by Edith Wharton. This LibriVox recording
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  Speaker 1: is in the public domain. The hours of the Hatchard
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  Speaker 1: Memorial Librarian were from three to five, and charity royal
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  Speaker 1: sense of duty usually kept her at her desk until
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  Speaker 1: nearly half past four. But she had never perceived that
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  Speaker 1: any practical advantage thereby accrued either to north Dormer or
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  Speaker 1: to herself, and she had no scruple in decreeing, when
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  Speaker 1: it suited her, that the library should close an hour earlier.
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  Speaker 1: A few minutes after mister Harney's departure, she formed this decision,
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  Speaker 1: put away her lace, fastened the shutters, and turned the
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  Speaker 1: key in the door of the Temple of Knowledge. The
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  Speaker 1: street upon which she emerged was still empty, and after
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  Speaker 1: glancing up and down it, she began to walk toward
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  Speaker 1: her house, but instead of entering, she passed on, turned
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  Speaker 1: into a field path, and mounted to a pasture on
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  Speaker 1: the hill side. She let down the bars of the gate,
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  Speaker 1: followed a tray along the crumbling wall of the pasture,
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  Speaker 1: and walked on till she reached a knoll where the
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  Speaker 1: clump of larches shook out their fresh tassels to the wind.
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  Speaker 1: There she lay down on the slope, tossed off her hat,
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  Speaker 1: and hid her face in the grass. She was blind
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  Speaker 1: and insensible to many things, and dimly knew it. But
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  Speaker 1: to all that was light and air, perfume and color,
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  Speaker 1: every drop of blood in her responded. She loved the
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  Speaker 1: roughness of the dry mountain grass under her palms, the
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  Speaker 1: smell of the thyme into which she crushed her face,
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  Speaker 1: the fingering of the wind in her hair and through
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  Speaker 1: her cotton blouse, and the creak of the larches as
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  Speaker 1: they swayed to it. She often climbed up the hill
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  Speaker 1: and lay there alone for the mere pleasure of feeling
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  Speaker 1: the wind and of rubbing her cheeks in the grass. Generally,
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  Speaker 1: at such times she did not think of anything, but
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  Speaker 1: lay immersed in an inarticulate well being. To day, the
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  Speaker 1: sense of well being was intensified by her joy at
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  Speaker 1: escaping from the library. She liked well enough to have
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  Speaker 1: a friend drop in and talk to her while she
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  Speaker 1: was on duty, But she hated to be bothered about books.
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  Speaker 1: How could she remember where they were when they were
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  Speaker 1: so seldom asked for orma Fry occasionally took out a novel,
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  Speaker 1: and her brother Ben was fond of what he called geography,
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  Speaker 1: and of books relating to trade and bookkeeping. But no
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  Speaker 1: one else asked for anything, except at intervals Uncle Tom's cabin,
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  Speaker 1: or opening of a chestnut burr, or longfellow. She had
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  Speaker 1: these under her hand and could have found them in
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  Speaker 1: the dark, but unexpected demands came so rarely that they
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  Speaker 1: exasperated her like an injustice. She had liked the young
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  Speaker 1: man's looks, and his short sighted eyes, and his odd
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  Speaker 1: way of speaking that was abrupt yet soft, just as
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  Speaker 1: his hands were sunburnt and sinewy, yet with smooth nails
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  Speaker 1: like a woman's. His hair was sunburnt, looking too, or
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  Speaker 1: rather the color of bracken after frost, his eyes gray
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  Speaker 1: with the appealing look of the short sighted, his smile
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  Speaker 1: shy yet confident, as if he knew lots of things
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  Speaker 1: She had never dreamed of, and yet wouldn't for the
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  Speaker 1: world have had her feel his superiority. But she did
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  Speaker 1: feel it, and liked the feeling, for it was new
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  Speaker 1: to her, poor and ignorant as she was, and knew
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  Speaker 1: herself to be humblest of the humble, even in North Dormer,
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  Speaker 1: where to come from the mountain was the worst disgrace
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  Speaker 1: yet in her narrow world she had always ruled. It
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  Speaker 1: was partly, of course, owing to the fact that Lawyer
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  Speaker 1: Royal was the biggest man in North Dormer, so much
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  Speaker 1: too big for it, in fact, that outsiders who didn't
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  Speaker 1: know always wondered how it held him. In spite of everything,
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  Speaker 1: and in spite even of Miss Hatchard, Lawyer Royal ruled
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  Speaker 1: in North Dormer, and Charity ruled in Lawyer Royal's house.
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  Speaker 1: She had never put it to herself in those terms,
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  Speaker 1: but she knew her power, knew what it was made of,
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  Speaker 1: and hated it. Confusedly, the young man in the library
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  Speaker 1: had made her feel for the first time what might
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  Speaker 1: be the sweetness of dependence. She sat up, brushed the
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  Speaker 1: bits of grass from her hair, and looked down on
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  Speaker 1: the house where she held sway. It stood just below her,
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  Speaker 1: cheerless and untended, its faded red front divided from the
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  Speaker 1: road by eight yard, with a path bordered by gooseberry bushes,
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  Speaker 1: a stone well overgrown with traveler's joy, and a sickly
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  Speaker 1: crimson rambler tied to a fan shaped support which mister
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  Speaker 1: Royle had once brought up from Hepburn to please her.
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  Speaker 1: Behind the house a bit of uneven ground with clothes
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  Speaker 1: lines strung across it, stretched up to a dry wall,
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  Speaker 1: and beyond the wall a patch of corn and a
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  Speaker 1: few rows of potatoes strayed vaguely into the adjoining wilderness
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  Speaker 1: of rock and fern. Charity could not recall her first
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  Speaker 1: sight of the house. She had been told that she
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  Speaker 1: was ill of a fever when she was brought down
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  Speaker 1: from the mountain, and she could only remember waking one
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  Speaker 1: day in a cot at the foot of Missus Royle's bed,
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  Speaker 1: and opening her eyes on the cold, neatness of the
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  Speaker 1: room that was afterward to be hers. Missus Royle died
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  Speaker 1: seven or eight years later, and by that time Charity
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  Speaker 1: had taken the measure of most things about her. She
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  Speaker 1: knew that Missus Royle was sad and timid and weak.
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  Speaker 1: She knew that Lawyer Royal was harsh and violent and
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  Speaker 1: still weaker. She knew that she had been christened Charity
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  Speaker 1: in the white church at the other end of the
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  Speaker 1: village to commemorate mister Royle's disinterestedness in bringing her down,
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  Speaker 1: and to keep alive in her a becoming sense of
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  Speaker 1: her dependence. She knew that mister Royle was her guardian,
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  Speaker 1: but that he had not legally adopted her, though everybody
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  Speaker 1: spoke of her as Charity Royal, and she knew why
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  Speaker 1: he had come back to live at North Dormer instead
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  Speaker 1: of practicing at Nettleton, where he had begun his legal career.
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  Speaker 1: After missus Royle's death, there was some talk of sending
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  Speaker 1: her to a boarding school. Miss Hatchard suggested it and
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  Speaker 1: had a long conference with mister Royle, who, in pursuance
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  Speaker 1: of her plan, departed one day for Starkfield to visit
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  Speaker 1: the institution she recommended. He came back the next night
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  Speaker 1: with a black face, worse Charity observed than she had
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  Speaker 1: ever seen him, and by that time she had had
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  Speaker 1: some experience. When she asked him how soon she was
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  Speaker 1: to start, he answered shortly, you ain't going, and shut
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  Speaker 1: himself up in the room. He called his office, and
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  Speaker 1: the next day the lady who kept the school at
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  Speaker 1: Starkfield wrote that under the circumstances, she was afraid she
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  Speaker 1: could not make room just then for another pupil. Charity
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  Speaker 1: was disappointed, but she understood it wasn't the temptations of
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  Speaker 1: Starkfield that had been mister Royle's undoing. It was the
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  Speaker 1: thought of losing her. He was a dreadfully lonesome man.
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  Speaker 1: She had made that out because she was so lonesome herself.
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  Speaker 1: He and she, face to face in that sad house,
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  Speaker 1: had sounded the depths of isolation. And though she felt
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  Speaker 1: no particular affection for him, and not the slightest gratitude,
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  Speaker 1: she pitied him because she was conscious that he was
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  Speaker 1: superior to the people about him, and that she was
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  Speaker 1: the only being between him and solitude. Therefore, when Miss
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  Speaker 1: Hatchard sent for her a day or two later to
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  Speaker 1: talk of a school at Nettleton, and to say that
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  Speaker 1: this time a friend of hers would make the necessary arrangements,
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  Speaker 1: Charity cut her short with the announcement that she had
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  Speaker 1: decided not to leave North Dormer. Miss Hatchard reasoned with
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  Speaker 1: her kindly, but to no purpose. She simply repeated, I
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  Speaker 1: guess mister Royle's too lonesome. Miss Hatchard blinked perplexedly behind
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  Speaker 1: her eye glasses. Her long, frail face was full of
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  Speaker 1: puzzled wrinkles, and she leant forward, resting her hands on
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  Speaker 1: the arms of her mahogany arm chair, with the evident
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  Speaker 1: desire to say something that ought to be said, the
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  Speaker 1: feeling does you credit, my dear. She looked about the
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  Speaker 1: pale walls of her sitting room, seeking counsel of ancestral
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  Speaker 1: de gerretypes and didactic samplers, but they seemed to make
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  Speaker 1: utterance more difficult. The fact is, it's not only not
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  Speaker 1: only because of the advantages, there are other reasons. You're
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  Speaker 1: too young to understand. Oh no, I ain't, said Charity harshly,
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  Speaker 1: and Miss Hatchard blushed the roots of her blond cap.
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  Speaker 1: But she must have felt a vague relief at having
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  Speaker 1: her explanation cut short, for she concluded, again, invoking the
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  Speaker 1: de geratypes. Of course, I shall always do what I
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  Speaker 1: can for you, and in case, in case, you know,
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  Speaker 1: you can always come to me. Lawyer Royle was waiting
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  Speaker 1: for Charity in the porch when she returned from this visit.
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  Speaker 1: He had shaved and brushed his black coat and looked
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  Speaker 1: a magnificent monument of a man. At such moments, She
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  Speaker 1: really admired him. Well, he said, is it settled, Yes,
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  Speaker 1: it's settled. I ain't goin, not to the Nettleton School,
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  Speaker 1: not anywhere. He cleared his throat and asked sternly, why
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  Speaker 1: I'd rather not, she said, swinging past him on her
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  Speaker 1: way to her room. It was the following week that
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  Speaker 1: he brought her up the Crimson Rambler and its fan
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  Speaker 1: from Hepburn. He had never given her anything before. The
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  Speaker 1: next outstanding incident of her life had happened two years later,
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  Speaker 1: when she was seventeen. Lawyer Royal, who hated to go
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  Speaker 1: to Nettleton, had been called there in connection with a case.
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  Speaker 1: He still exercised his profession, though litigation languished in North
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  Speaker 1: Dormer and its outlying hamlets, and for once he had
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  Speaker 1: had an opportunity that he could not afford to refuse.
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  Speaker 1: He spent three days in Nettleton, won his case, and
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  Speaker 1: came back in high good humor. It was a rare
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  Speaker 1: mood with him, and manifested itself on this occasion by
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  Speaker 1: his talking impressively at the supper table of the rousing
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  Speaker 1: welcome his old friends had given him. He wound up confidentially,
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  Speaker 1: I was a damn fool ever to leave Nettleton. It
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  Speaker 1: was Missus Royal that made me do it. Charity immediately
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  Speaker 1: perceived that something bitter had happened to him and that
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  Speaker 1: he was trying to talk down the recollection. She went
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  Speaker 1: up to bed early, leaving him seated and moody thought,
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  Speaker 1: his elbows propped on the worn oilcloth of the supper table.
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  Speaker 1: On the way up, she had extracted from his overcoat
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  Speaker 1: pocket the key of the cupboard where the bottle of
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  Speaker 1: whiskey was kept. She was awakened by a rattling at
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  Speaker 1: her door and jumped out of bed. She heard mister
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  Speaker 1: Royle's voice low and peremptory, and opened the door, fearing
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  Speaker 1: an accident. No other thought had occurred to her, But
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  Speaker 1: when she saw him in the doorway, a ray from
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  Speaker 1: the autumn moon falling on his discomposed face, she understood.
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  Speaker 1: For a moment, they looked at each other in silence,
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  Speaker 1: Then as he put his foot across the threshold, she
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  Speaker 1: stretched out her arm and stopped him. You go right
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  Speaker 1: back from here, she said, in a shrill voice that
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  Speaker 1: startled her. You ain't gonna have that key tonight, Charity,
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  Speaker 1: let me in. I don't want the key. I'm a
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  Speaker 1: lonesome man, he began, in the deep voice that sometimes
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  Speaker 1: moved her. Her heart gave a startled plunge, but she
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  Speaker 1: continued to hold him back contemptuously. Well, I guess you
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  Speaker 1: made a mistake. Then the saint your wife's rew any longer.
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  Speaker 1: She was not frightened, She simply felt a deep disgust,
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  Speaker 1: and perhaps he divined it or read it in her face,
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  Speaker 1: for after staring at her a moment, he drew back
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  Speaker 1: and turned slowly away from the door. With her ear
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  Speaker 1: to her keyhole, she heard him feel his way down
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  Speaker 1: the dark stairs and toward the kitchen, and she listened
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  Speaker 1: for the crash of the cupboard panel, but instead she
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  Speaker 1: heard him, after an interval, unlock the door of the house,
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  Speaker 1: and his heavy steps came to her through the silence
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  Speaker 1: as he walked down the path. She crept to the
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  Speaker 1: window and saw his bent figure striding up the road
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  Speaker 1: in the moonlight. Then a belated sense of fear came
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  Speaker 1: to her with the consciousness of victory, and she slipped
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  Speaker 1: into bed, cold to the bone. A day or two later,
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  Speaker 1: poor Yodoras Skeef, who for twenty years had been the
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  Speaker 1: custodian of the Hatchered Library, died suddenly of pneumonia, and
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  Speaker 1: the day after the funeral chaired, she went to see
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  Speaker 1: Miss Hatchard and asked to be appointed librarian. The request
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  Speaker 1: seemed to surprise Miss Hatchard. She evidently questioned the new
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  Speaker 1: candidate's qualifications. Why I don't know, my dear. Aren't you
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  Speaker 1: rather too young? She hesitated. I want to earn some money,
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  Speaker 1: Charity merely answered, doesn't mister Royle give you all you require?
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  Speaker 1: No one is rich in North Dormer. I want to
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  Speaker 1: earn money enough to get away, To get away, Miss
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  Speaker 1: Hatchard's puzzled wrinkles deepened, and there was a distressful pause.
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  Speaker 1: You want to leave, mister Royle, yes, Or I want
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  Speaker 1: another woman in the house with me, said Charity resolutely.
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  Speaker 1: Miss Hatchard clasped her nervous hands about the arms of
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  Speaker 1: her chair. Her eyes invoked the faded countenances on the wall,
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  Speaker 1: and after a faint cough of indecision, she brought out
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  Speaker 1: the housework's too hard for you, I suppose. Charity's heart
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  Speaker 1: grew cold. She understood that Miss Hatchard had no help
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  Speaker 1: to give her, and that she would have to fight
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  Speaker 1: her way out of her difficulty alone. A deeper sense
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  Speaker 1: of isolation overcame her. She felt incalculably old. She's got
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  Speaker 1: to be talked to like a baby, she thought, with
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  Speaker 1: a feeling of compassion for Miss Hatchard's long immaturity. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: that's it, she said aloud. The housework's too hard for me.
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  Speaker 1: I've been coughing a good deal this fall. She noted
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  Speaker 1: the immediate effect of this suggestion. Miss Hatchard paled at
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  Speaker 1: the memory of poor Yodora's taking off, and promised to
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  Speaker 1: do what she could. But of course there were people
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  Speaker 1: she must consult, the clergyman, the Selectman of North Dormer,
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  Speaker 1: and a distant Hatchard relative at Springfield. If you'd only
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  Speaker 1: gone to school, she sighed. She followed Charity to the door,
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  Speaker 1: and there, in the security of the threshold, said, with
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  Speaker 1: a glance of evasive appeal, I know mister Royle is
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  Speaker 1: trying at times, but his wife bore with him, and
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  Speaker 1: you must always remember, Charity, that it was mister Royal
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  Speaker 1: who brought you down from the mountain. Charity went home
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  Speaker 1: and opened the door of mister Royle's office. He was
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  Speaker 1: sitting there by the stove, reading Daniel Webster's speeches. They
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  Speaker 1: had met at meals during the five days that had
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  Speaker 1: elapsed since he had come to her door, and she
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  Speaker 1: had walked at his side at Eu Dora's funeral, but
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  Speaker 1: they had not spoken a word to each other. He
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  Speaker 1: glanced up in surprise as she entered, and she noticed
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  Speaker 1: that he was unshaved and that he looked unusually old,
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  Speaker 1: But as she had always thought of him as an
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  Speaker 1: old man, the change in his appearance did not move her.
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  Speaker 1: She told him she had been to see miss Hatchard
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  Speaker 1: and with what object she saw that He was astonished,
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  Speaker 1: but he made no comment. I told her the housework
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  Speaker 1: was too hard for me, and I wanted to earn
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  Speaker 1: the money to pay for a hired girl. But I
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  Speaker 1: ain't going to pay for her. You've got to I
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  Speaker 1: want to have some money of my own. Mister Royle's
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  Speaker 1: bushy black eyebrows were drawn together in a frown, and
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  Speaker 1: he sat drumming with ink stain nails on the edge
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  Speaker 1: of his desk. What do you want to earn money for?
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  Speaker 1: He asked? So's to get away when I want to?
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  Speaker 1: Why do you want to get away? Her contempt flashed out.
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  Speaker 1: Do you suppose anybody'd stay at North Dorm? Or if
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  Speaker 1: they could help it? You wouldn't, folks say? With lowered head,
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  Speaker 1: he asked, where'd you go to anywhere I can earn
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  Speaker 1: my living. I'll try here first, and if I can't
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  Speaker 1: do it here, I'll go somewhere else. I'll go up
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  Speaker 1: the mountain if I have to. She paused on this
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  Speaker 1: threat and saw that it had taken effect. I want
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  Speaker 1: you should get miss Hatchard and the Selectman to take
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  Speaker 1: me at the library, and I want a woman here
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  Speaker 1: in the house with me, she repeated. Mister Royle had
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  Speaker 1: grown exceedingly pale when she ended. He stood up ponderously,
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  Speaker 1: leaning against the desk, and for a second or two
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  Speaker 1: they looked at each other. See here, he said at length,
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  Speaker 1: as though utterance were difficult. There's something I've been wanting
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  Speaker 1: to say to you. I'd ought to have said it before.
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  Speaker 1: I want you to marry me. The girl still stared
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  Speaker 1: at him, without moving. I want you to marry me,
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  Speaker 1: he repeated, clearing his throat. The minister'll be up here
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  Speaker 1: next Sunday and we can fix it up then, or
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  Speaker 1: I'll drive you down to Hepburn, to the Justice and
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  Speaker 1: get it done there. I'll do whatever you say. His
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  Speaker 1: eyes fell under the merciless stare. She continued to fix
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  Speaker 1: on him, and he shifted his weight uneasily from one
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  Speaker 1: foot to the other as he stood there before her. Unwieldy,
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  Speaker 1: shabby disordered, the purple veins distorting the hands he pressed
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  Speaker 1: against the desk, and his long orator's jaw trembling with
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  Speaker 1: the effort of his avowal. He seemed like a hideous
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  Speaker 1: parody of the fatherly old man she had always known.
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  Speaker 1: Marry you me, she burst out, with a scornful laugh.
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  Speaker 1: Was that which you came to ask me the other night?
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  Speaker 1: What's come over you? I wonder how long is it
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  Speaker 1: since you've looked at yourself in the glass? She straightened herself, insolently,
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  Speaker 1: conscious of her youth and strength. I suppose you think
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  Speaker 1: it would be cheaper to marry me than to keep
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  Speaker 1: a hired girl. Everybody knows you're the closest man in
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  Speaker 1: Eagle County. But I guess you're not going to get
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  Speaker 1: your mending done for you that way. Twice, mister Royle
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  Speaker 1: did not move while she spoke. His face was ash colored,
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  Speaker 1: and his black eyebrows quivered, as though the blaze of
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  Speaker 1: her scorn had blinded him. When she ceased, he held
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  Speaker 1: up his hand. That'll do. That'll about do, he said.
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  Speaker 1: He turned to the door and took his hat from
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  Speaker 1: the hat peg on the threshold. He paused, people ain't
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  Speaker 1: been fair to me from the first They ain't been
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  Speaker 1: fair to me, he said, then he went out. A
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  Speaker 1: few days later, north Dormer learned with surprise that Charity
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  Speaker 1: had been appointed librarian of the Hatchard Memorial at a
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  Speaker 1: salary of eight dollars a month, and that old Verena
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  Speaker 1: Marsh from the Creston Almshouse was coming to live at
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  Speaker 1: Lawyer Royal's and do the cooking. End of chapter two,
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  Speaker 1: Chapter four of Summer by Edith Wharton. This LibriVox recording
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: is in the public domain. He stopped and lifted his
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: hat with a shy smile. I beg your pardon, he said,
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: I thought there was no one here. Charity stood before him,
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: barring his way. You can't come in the library and
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: open to the public Wednesdays. I know it's not, but
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: my cousin gave me her key. Miss Hatchard's got no
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: right to give her key to other folks any more'n
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: I have. I'm the librarian, an I know the by laws.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: This is my library. The young man looked profoundly surprised.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: Why I know it is. I'm so sorry if you
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: mind my coming. I suppose you came to see what
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: more you could say to set her against me. But
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: you needn't trouble. It's my library to day. But it
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: won't be this time tomorrow. I'm on the way now
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: to take her back the key and the register. Young
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: Harney's face grew grave, but without betraying the consciousness of
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: guilt she had looked for. I don't understand, he said,
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  Speaker 1: there must be some mistake. Why should I say things
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: against you to Miss Hatchard or to any one. The
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: apparent evasiveness of the reply caused Charity's indignation to overflow.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: I don't know why you should, I can understand. Or
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: m Fry's doing it because she's always wanted to get
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  Speaker 1: me out of here ever since the first day. I
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: can't see why when she's got her own home and
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  Speaker 1: her father to work for her, nor i'd a target
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: neither when she got a legacy from her stepbrother only
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: last year. But anyway, we all live in the same place,
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: and when it's a place like North Dormer, it's enough
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: to make people hate each other just to have to
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: walk down the same street every day. But you don't
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: live here, and you don't know anything about any of us.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: So what did you have to meddle for? Do you
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  Speaker 1: supp propose the other girls had kept the books any
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  Speaker 1: better than I did? Why arm a fry don't hardly
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  Speaker 1: know a book from a flat iron? And what if
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  Speaker 1: I don't always sit round here doing nothing till it
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: strikes five up at the church? Who cares if the
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: library's open or shut? Do you suppose anybody ever comes
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: here for books? What they'd like to come for is
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: to meet the fellows they're going with, if I'd let em.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: But I wouldn't let Bill Sollas from over the hill
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  Speaker 1: hang round here waiting for the youngest target girl, because
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: I know him, that's all. Even if I don't know
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  Speaker 1: about books, all I ought to She stopped with a
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: choking in her throat. Tremors of rage were running through her,
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: and she steadied herself against the edge of the desk
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: lest he should see her weakness. What he saw seemed
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: to affect him deeply, for he grew red under his
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: sunburn and stammered out, But miss Royal, I assure you,
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: I assure you. His distress inflamed her anger, and she
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: regained her voice to fling back. If I was you,
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: I'd have the nerve to stick to what I said.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: The taunt seemed to restore his presence of mind. I
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: hope I should if I knew, but I don't. Apparently
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  Speaker 1: something disagreeable has happened for which you think I'm to blame.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: But I don't know what it is because I've been
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: up on Eagle Ridge ever since the early morning. I
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: don't know where you've been this morning, but I know
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: you were here in this library yesterday. And it was
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: you that went home and told your cousin the books
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: were in bad shape, and brought her round to see
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  Speaker 1: how I'd neglected them. Young Harney looked sincerely concerned. Was
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: that what you were told? I don't wonder you're angry.
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: The books are in bad shape, and as some are interesting,
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: it's a pity. I told Miss Hatchard they were suffering
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: from dampness and lack of air, and I brought her
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: here to show her how easily the place could be ventilated.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: I also told her you ought to have some one
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: to help you to do the dusting and airing. If
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: you were given a wrong version of what I said.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, but I'm so fond of old books that
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: I'd rather see them made into a bonfire than left
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: a molder away like these. Charity felt her sobs rising
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: and tried to stifle them in words, I don't care
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  Speaker 1: what you say. You told her. All I know is
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  Speaker 1: she thinks it's all my fault, and I'm going to
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  Speaker 1: lose my job. And I wanted it more'n anyone else
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  Speaker 1: in the village, because I haven't got anybody belonging to
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: me the way other folks have. All I wanted was
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: to put aside money enough to get away from here sometime.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: Do you suppose if it hadn't been for that, I'd
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: have kept on sitting day after day in this old
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: vault of this appeal, Her hearer took up only the
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: last question. It is an old vault, but need it be?
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: That's the point. And it's my putting the question to
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  Speaker 1: my cousin that seems to have been the cause of
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: the trouble. His glance explored the melancholy penumber of the long,
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: narrow room, resting on the blotched walls, the discolored rows
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: of books, and the stern rosewood desk, surmounted by the
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: portrait of the young honorious. Of course, it's a bad
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: job to do anything with the building jammed against a
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: hill like this ridiculous mausoleum. You couldn't get a good
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: draft through it without blowing a hole in the mountain.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: But it can be ventilated after a fashion, and the
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: sun can be let in. I'll show you if you like.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: The architect's passion for improvement had already made him lose
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: sight of her grievance, and he lifted his stick instructively
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: toward the cornice. But her silence seemed to tell him
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: that she took no interest in the ventilation of the library,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: and turning back to her abruptly, he held out both hands.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: Look here, you don't mean what you said. You don't
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: really think I'd do anything to hurt you. A new
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: note in his voice disarmed her. No one had ever
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: spoken to her in that tone. Oh what did you
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: do it for? Then she wailed. He had her hands
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: in his, and she was feeling the smooth touch that
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: she had imagined the day before on the hill side.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: He press her hands lightly and let them go. Why
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: to make things pleasanter for you? Here? And better for
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: the books. I'm sorry if my cousin twisted around what
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: I said. She's excitable and lives on trifles. I ought
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: to have remembered that. Don't punish me by letting her
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: think you take her seriously. It was wonderful to hear
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: him speak of Miss Hatchard as if she were a
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: querulous baby. In spite of his shyness, he had the
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: air of power that the experience of cities probably gave.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: It was the fact of having lived in Nettleton that
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: made Lawyer Royal, in spite of his infirmities, the strongest
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  Speaker 1: man in North Dormer, and Charity was sure that this
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: young man had lived in bigger places than Nettleton. She
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: felt that if she kept up her denunciatory tone, he
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: would secretly class her with Miss Hatchard, and the thought
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: made her suddenly simple. It don't matter to miss Hatchard
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: how I take her. Mister Royle says, she's going to
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: get a trained librarian, and I'd sooner resign than have
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: the village say she sent me away. Naturally, you would,
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: but I'm sure she doesn't mean to send you away
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: at any rate. Won't you give me the chance? To
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: find out first and let you know. It will be
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: time enough to resign if I'm mistaken. Her pride flamed
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: into her cheeks at the suggestion of his intervening. I
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: don't want anybody should coax her to keep me if
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: I don't suit, He colored too. I give you my word.
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  Speaker 1: I won't do that. Only wait till tomorrow, will you.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: He looked straight into her eyes with his shy gray glance.
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  Speaker 1: You can trust me, you know you really can. All
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  Speaker 1: the old frozen woes seemed to melt in her, and
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  Speaker 1: she murmured awkwardly, looking away from him, Oh, I'll wait.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: End of chapter four, Chapter six of Summer by Edith Wharton.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. That evening,
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: after supper, Charity sat alone in the kitchen and listened
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: to mister Royal and young Harney talking on the porch.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: She had remained indoors after the table had been cleared
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: and old Verena had hobbled up to bed. The kitchen
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: window was open, and Charity seated herself near it, her
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: idle hands on her knee. The evening was cool and
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: still beyond the Black Hills, an amber west passed into
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: pale green, and then to a deep blue in which
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: a great star hung. The soft hoot of a little
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: owl came through the dusk, and between its calls, the
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: men's voices rose and fell. Mister Royal's was full of
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: a sonorous satisfaction. It was a long time since he
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: had had any one of Luciu's Harney's quality to talk to.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: Charity divined that the young man symbolized all his ruined
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: and unforgotten past. When Miss Hatchard had been called to
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: Springfield by the illness of a widowed sister, and young Harney,
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: by that time seriously embarked on his task of drawing
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: and measuring all the old houses between Nettleton and the
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  Speaker 1: New Hampshire border, had suggested the possibility of boarding at
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: the Red House in his cousin's absence. Charity had trembled
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: lest mister Royle should refuse. There had been no question
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: of lodging the young man, there was no room for him,
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: but it appeared that he could still live at Miss
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: Hatchard's if mister Royle would let him take his meals
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: at the Red House, And after a day's deliberation, mister
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: Royle consented Charity suspected him of being glad of the
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: chance to make a little money. He had the reputation
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: of being an avaricious man, but she was beginning to
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: think he was probably poorer than people knew. His practice
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: had become little more than a vague legend, revived only
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: at lengthening intervals by a summons to Hepburn Nettleton, and
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: he appeared to depend for his living mainly on the
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: scant produce of his farm and on the commissions received
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: from the few insurance agencies that he represented in the neighborhood.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: At any rate, he had been prompt in accepting Harney's
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: offer to hire the buggy at a dollar and a
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: half a day, and his satisfaction with the bargain had
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: manifested itself unexpectedly enough at the end of the first
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: week by his tossing a ten dollar bill into Charity's
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: lap as she sat one day retrimming her old hat.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: Here go get yourself a Sunday bonnet. That'll make all
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: the other girls mad, he said, looking at her with
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: a sheepish twinkle in his deep set eyes, and she
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: immediately guessed that the unwonted present the only gift of
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: money she had ever received from him represented Harney's first payment.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: But the young man's coming had brought mister Royle other
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: than pecuniary benefit. It gave him for the first time
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: in years a man's companionship. Charity had only a dim
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: understanding of her guardian's needs, but she knew he felt
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: himself above the people among whom he lived, and she
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: saw that Lucius Harney thought him so. She was surprised
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: to find how well he seemed to talk now that
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: he had a listener who understood him, and she was
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: equally struck by young Harney's friendly deference. Their conversation was
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: mostly about politics and beyond her range, but tonight it
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: had a peculiar interest for her, for they had begun
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: to speak of the mountain. She drew back a little
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: lest they should see she was in hearing the mountain.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: The mountain. She heard mister Royle say, why the mountain's
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: a blot. That's what it is, sir, A blot. That
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: scum up there ought to have been run in long ago,
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: and would have if the people down here hadn't been
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: clean scared of them. The mountain belongs to this township,
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: and its north Dormer's fault. If there's a gang of
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: thieves and outlaws living over there in side of us,
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: defying the laws of their country, why there ain't a
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: sheriff or a tax collector or a corner durst go
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: up there. When they hear of trouble on the mountain.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: The select men look the other way and pass an
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: appropriation to beautify the town pump. The only man that
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: ever goes up is the minister, and he goes because
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: they send down and get him. Whenever there's any of
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: them dies. They think a lot of Christian burial on
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: the mountain. But I never heard of their having the
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: minister up to marry them, and they never trouble the
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: justice of the peace either. They just heard together like
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: the heathen. He went on, explaining, in somewhat technical language,
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: how the little colony of squatters had contrived to keep
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: the law at bay and charity. With burning eagerness awaited
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: Young Harney's comment, But the young man seemed more concerned
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: to hear mister Royle's views than to express his own.
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: I suppose you've never been up there yourself, he presently asked. Yes,
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: I have said, mister Royle with a contemptuous laugh. The
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: wise acres down here told me I'd be done for
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: before I got back, but nobody lifted a finger to
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: hurt me. And I'd just had one of their gang
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: sent up for seven years too. You went up after that, yes, sir,
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: right after it. The fellow came down to Nettleton and
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: ran a muck, the way they sometimes do after they've
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: done a wood cutting job. They come down and blow
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: the money in. And this man ended up with manslaughter.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: I got him convicted, though they were scared of the mountain,
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: even at Nettleton. And then a queer thing happened. The
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: fellow sent for me to go and see him in jail.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: I went, and this is what he says. The fool
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: that defended me is a chicken livered son of a bend.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: All the rest of it, he says. And I've got
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: a job to be done for me up on the mountain,
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: and you're the only man I seen in court that
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: looks as if he'd do it. He told me he
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: had a child up there, or thought he had a
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: little girl, and he wanted her brought down and reared
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: like a Christian. I was sorry for the fellow so
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: I went up and got the child. He paused, and
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: Charity listened with a throbbing heart. That's the only time
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: I ever went up the mountain, he concluded. There was
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: a moment's silence, and then Harney spoke, and the child
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: had she no mother? Oh, yes, there was a mother,
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: but she was glad enough to have her go. She'd
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: have given her to anybody. They ain't half human up there.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: I guess the mother's dead by now, with the life
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: she was leading. Anyhow, I've never heard of her from
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: that day to this. My god, how ghastly Harney murmured,
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: and Charity, choking with humiliation, sprang to her feet and
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: ran upstairs. She knew, at last, knew that she was
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: the child of a drunken convict and of a mother
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: who wasn't half human and was glad to have her go.
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: And she had heard this history of her origin related
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: to the one being in whose eye she longed to
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: appear superior to the people about her. She had noticed
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: that mister Royle had not named her, had even avoided
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: any allusion that might identify her with the child he
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: had brought down from the mountain, and she knew it
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: was out of regard for her that he had kept silent.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: But of what use was his discretion, since only that afternoon,
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: misled by Harney's interest in the Outlaw Colony, she had
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: boasted to him of coming from the mountain. Now every
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: word that had been spoken showed her how such an
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: origin must widen the distance between them. During his ten
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: days sojourn at North Dormer, Lucius Harney had not spoken
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: a word of love to her. He had intervened in
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: her behalf with his cousin and had convinced Miss Hatchard
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: of her merits as a librarian, But that was a
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: simple act of justice, since it was by his own
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: fault that those merits had been questioned. He had asked
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: her to drive him about the country when he hired
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: Lawyer Royal's buggy to go on his sketching expeditions, but
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: that two was natural enough, since he was unfamiliar with
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: the region. Lastly, when his cousin was called to Springfield,
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: he had begged mister Royle to receive him as a boarder.
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: But where else in North Doormer could he have boarded?
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: Not with Carrick Fry, whose wife was paralyzed and whose
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: large family crowded his table to overflowing, not with the
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: Targets who lived a mile up the road, nor with
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: poor old missus Hawes, who, since her eldest daughter had
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: deserted her, barely had the strength to cook her own meals,
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: while ally picked up her living as a seamstress. Mister
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: Royle's was the only house where the young man could
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: have been offered a decent hospitality. There had been nothing, therefore,
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: in the outward course of events to raise in Charity's
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: breast the hopes with which it trembled. But beneath the
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: visible incidents resulting from Lucius Harney's arrival, there ran an undercurrent,
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: as mysterious and potent as the influence that makes the
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: forest break into leaf before the ice is off the pools.
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: The business on which Harney had come was authentic. Charity
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: had seen the letter from a New York publisher commissioning
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: him to make a study of the eighteenth century houses
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: in the less familiar districts of New England, But incomprehensible
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: as the whole affair was to her, and hard as
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: she found it to understand, why he paused, enchanted before
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: certain neglected and paintless houses, while others refurbished and improved
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: by the local builder, did not arrest a glance. She
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: could not but suspect that Eagle County was less rich
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: in architecture than he Averred, and that the duration of
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: his stay, which he had fixed at a month, was
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: not unconnected with the look in his eyes when he
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: had first paused before her in the library. Everything that
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: had followed seemed to have grown out of that look.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: His way of speaking to her, his quickness in catching
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: her meaning, his evident eagerness to prolong their excursions and
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: to seize on every chance of being with her. The
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: signs of his liking were manifested enough, but it was
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: hard to guess how much they meant, because his manner
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: was so different from anything North Dormer had ever shown her.
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: He was at once simpler and more deferential than any
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: one she had known, and sometimes it was just when
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: he was simplest that she most felt the distance between them.
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: Education and opportunity had divided them by a width that
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: no effort of hers could bridge, And even when his
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: youth and his admiration brought him nearest, some chance, word,
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: some unconscious illusion, seemed to thrust her back across the gulf.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: Never had it yawned so wide as when she fled
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: up to her room, carrying with her the echo of
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: mister Royle's tale. Her first confused thought was the prayer
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: that she might never see young Harney again. It was
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: too bitter to picture him as the detached, impartial listener
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: to such a story. I wish he'd go away. I
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: wish he'd go to morrow and never come back, she
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: moaned to her pillow, and far into the night she
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: lay there in the disordered dress. She had forgotten to
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: take off her whole soul, a tossing misery on which
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: her hopes and dreams spun about like drowning straws. Of
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: all this tumult, only a vague heart soreness was left.
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: When she opened her eyes the next morning. Her first
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: thought was of the weather. For Harney had asked her
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: to take him to the brown house under Porcupine and
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: then around by Hamblin, and as the trip was a
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: long one, they were to start at nine. The sun
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: rose without a cloud, and earlier than usual. She was
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: in the kitchen, making cheese sandwiches, decanting buttermilk into a bottle,
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: wrapping up slices of apple pie, and accusing Verena of
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: having given away a basket she needed, which had always
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: hung on a hook in the passage. When she came
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: out into the porch in her pink calico, which had
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: run a little in the washing, but was still bright
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: enough to set off her dark tints, she had such
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: a triumphant sense of being a part of the sunlight
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: and the morning, that the last trace of her misery vanished.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: What did it matter where she came from or whose
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: child she was? When love was dancing in her veins,
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: and down the road she saw young Harney coming toward her.
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: Mister Royle was on the porch too. He said nothing
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: at breakfast, But when she came out in her pink
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: dress the basket in her hand, he looked at her
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: with surprise. Where are you goin to? He asked why
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: mister Harney starting earlier than usual to day? She answered,
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: mister Harney, mister Harney, ain't mister Harney learned how to
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: drive a horse. Yet she made no answer, and he
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: sat tilted back in his chair, drumming on the rail
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: of the porch. It was the first time he had
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: ever spoken of the young man in that tone, and
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: Charity felt a faint chill of apprehension. After a moment,
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: he stood up and walked away toward the bit of
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: ground behind the house where the hired man was hoeing.
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: The air was cool and clear, with the autumnal sparkle
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: that a north wind brings to the hills in early summer,
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: and the night had been so still that the dew
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: hung on everything, not as a lingering moisture, but in
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: separate beads that glittered like diamonds on the ferns and grasses.
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: It was a long drive to the foot of Porcupine,
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: first across the valley with blue hills bounding the open slopes,
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: then down into the beech woods, following the course of
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: the creston a brown brook, leaping over velvet ledges, then
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: out again on to the farm lands about Creston Lake,
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: and gradually up the ridges of the Eagle Range. At
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: last they reached the yoke of the hills, and before
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: them opened another valley, green and wild, and beyond it
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: more blue heights, eddying away to the sky like the
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: waves of a receding tide. Harney tied the horse to
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: a tree stump and they unpacked their basket under an
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: an aged walnut with a ribbon trunk, out of which
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: bumblebees darted. The sun had grown hot, and behind them
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: was the noonday murmur of the forest. Summer insects danced
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: on the air, and a flock of white butterflies fanned
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: the mobile tips of the crimson fireweed. In the valley below,
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: not a house was visible. It seemed as if Charity
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: Royal and Young Harney were the only living beings in
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: the great hollow of earth and sky. Charity's spirits flagged
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: and disquieting thoughts stole back on her. Young Harney had
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: grown silent, and as he lay beside her, his arms
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: under his head, his eyes on the network of leaves
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: above him, she wondered if he were musing on what
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: mister Royal had told him, and if it had really
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: debased her. In his thoughts, she wished he had not
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: asked her to take him that day to the brown house.
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: She did not want him to see the people she
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: came from, while the story of her birth was fresh
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: in his mind. More than once, she had been on
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: the point of suggesting that they should follow the ridge
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: and drive straight to hamblin where there was a little
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: deserted house he wanted to see, but shyness and pride
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: held her back. He'd better know what kind of folks
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: I belonged to, she said to herself, with a somewhat
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: forced defiance, for in reality it was shame that kept
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: her silent. Suddenly she lifted her hand and pointed to
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: the sky. There's a storm coming up. He followed her
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: glance and smiled. Is it that scrap of cloud among
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: the pines that frightens you? It's over the mountain, and
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: a cloud over the mountain always means trouble. Oh, I
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: don't believe half the bad things you all say of
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: the mountain. But anyhow, we'll get down to the brown
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: house before the rain comes. He was not far wrong,
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: for only a few isolated drops had fallen when they
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: turned into the road under the shaggy flank of porcupine
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: and came upon the brown house. It stood alone side
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: a swamp bordered with alder thickets and tall bulrushes. Not
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: another dwelling was in sight, and it was hard to
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: guess what motive could have actuated the early settler who
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: had made his home in so unfriendly a spot. Charity
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: had picked up enough of her companion's erudition to understand
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: what had attracted him to the house. She noticed the
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: fan shaped tracery of the broken light above the door,
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: the fluting of the paintless pilasters at the corners, and
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: the round windows set in the gable, and she knew,
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: for reasons that still escaped her these were things to
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: be admired and recorded. Still, they had seen other houses
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: far more typical. The word was Harney's, and as he
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: threw the reins on the horse's neck, he said, with
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: a slight shiver of repugnance, we won't stay long against
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: the restless alders. Turning their white lining to the storm,
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: The house looked singularly desolate. The paint was almost gone
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: from the clapboards, the window panes were broken and patched
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: with rags, and the garden was a poisonous tangle of nettles,
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: bird ocks, and tall swamp weeds, over which big blue
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: bottles hummed. At the sound of wheels, A child with
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: a tow head and pale eyes like lyff Hyat's, peered
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: over the fence and then slipped away behind an outhouse.
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: Harney jumped down and helped Charity out, and as he
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: did so, the rain broke on them. It came slantwise
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: on a furious gale, laying shrubs and young trees flat,
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: tearing off their leaves like an autumn storm, turning the
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: road into a river, and making hissing pools of every hollow.
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: Thunder rolled incessantly through the roar of the rain, and
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: a strange glitter of light ran along the ground under
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: the increasing blackness. Lucky, we're here after all, Harney laughed.
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: He fastened the horse under a half roofless shed, and
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: wrapping Charity in his coat, ran with her to the house.
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: The boy had not reappeared, and as there was no
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: response to their knocks, Harney turned the door handle and
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: they went in. There were three people in the kitchen,
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: to which the door admitted them. An old woman with
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: a handkerchief over her head was sitting by the window.
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: She held a sickly looking kitten on her knees, and
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: whenever it jumped down and tried to limp away, she
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: stooped and lifted it back without any change of her aged,
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: unnoticing face. Another woman, the unkempt creature that Charity had
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: once noticed in driving by, stood leaning against the window
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: frame and stared at them, And near the stove, an
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: unshaved man in a tattered shirt sat on a barrel asleep.
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: The place was bare and miserable, and the air heavy
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: with the smell of dirt and stale tobacco. Charity's heart
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: sank old derided. Tales of the mountain people came back
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: to her, and the woman's stare was so disconcerting, and
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: the face of the sleeping man so sodden and bestial,
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: that her disgust was tinged with a vague dress. She
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: was not afraid for herself. She knew the Hyatts would
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: not be likely to trouble her, but she was not
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: sure how they would treat a city fellow. Lucius Harney
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: would certainly have laughed at her fears. He glanced about
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: the room uttered a general how are you, to which
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: no one responded, and then asked the younger woman if
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: they might take shelter till the storm was over. She
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: turned her eyes away from him and looked at Charity.
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: You're the girl from Royals, ain't you? The color rose
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: in Charity's face. I'm Charity Royal, she said, as if
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: asserting her right to the name in the very place
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: where it might have been most open to question. The
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: woman did not seem to notice. You can stay, she
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: merely said. Then she turned away and stooped over a
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: dish in which she was stirring something. Harney and Charity
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: sat down on a bench made of a board, resting
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: on two starch boxes. They faced a door hanging on
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: a broken hinge, and through the crack they saw the
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: eyes of the tow headed boy and of a pale
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: little girl with a scar across her cheek. Charity smiled
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: and signed to the children to come in, but as
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: soon as they saw they were discovered, they slipped away
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: on bare feet. It occurred to her that they were
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: afraid of rousing the sleeping man, and probably the woman
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: shared their fear, for she moved about as noiselessly and
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: avoided going near the stove. The rain continued to beat
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: against the house, and in one or two places it
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: sent a stream through the patched panes and ran into
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: pools on the floor. Every now and then, the kitten
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: mewed and struggled down, and the old woman stooped and
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: caught it, holding it tight in her bony hands, and
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: once or twice the man on the barrel half woke,
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: changed his position and dozed again, his head falling forward
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: on his hairy breast. As the minutes passed and the
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: rain still streamed against the windows, a loathing of the
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: place and the people came over Charity. The sight of
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: the weak minded old woman, of the cowed children, and
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: the ragged man sleeping off his liquor made the setting
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: of her own life seem a vision of peace and plenty.
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: She thought of the kitchen at mister Royle's, with its
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: scrubbed floor and dresser full of china, and the peculiar
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: smell of yeast and coffee and soft soap that she
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: had always hated, but that now seemed the very symbol
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: of household order. She saw mister Royle's room, with the
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: high backed horsehair chair, the faded rag carpet, the row
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: of books on a shelf, the engraving of the Surrender
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: of Burgoyne over the stove, and the mat with a
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: brown and white spaniel on a moss green border. And
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: then her mind traveled to Miss Hatchard's house, where all
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: was freshness, purity and fragrance and compare to which the
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: Red House had always seemed so poor and plain. This
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: is where I belong, This is where I belong, she
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: kept repeating to herself, but the words had no meaning
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: for her. Every instinct and habit made her a stranger
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: amongst these poor swamp people, living like vermin in their lair.
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: With all her soul, she wished she had not yielded
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: to Harney's curiosity and brought him there. The rain had
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: drenched her, and she began to shiver under the thin
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: folds of her dress. The younger woman must have noticed it,
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: for she went out of the room and came back
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: with a broken tea cup, which she offered to Charity.
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: It was half full of whiskey, and Charity shook her head,
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: But Harney took the cup and put his lips to it.
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: When he had set it down, Charity saw him feel
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: in his pocket and draw out a dollar. He hesitated
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: a moment and then put it back, and she guessed
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: that he did not wish her to see him offering
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: money to people she had spoken of as being her kin.
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: The sleeping man stirred, lifted his head and opened his eyes.
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: They rested vacantly for a moment on Charity and Harney,
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: and then closed again, and his head drooped. But a
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: look of anxiety came into the woman's face. She glanced
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: out of the window and then came up to Harney.
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: I guess you'd better go along now, she said. The
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: young man understood and got to his feet. Thank you,
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: he said, holding out his hand. She seemed not to
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: notice the gesture and turned away. As they opened the door.
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: The rain was still coming down, but they hardly noticed it.
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: The pure air was like balm in their faces. The
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: clouds were rising and breaking, and between their edges the
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: light streamed down from remote blue hollows. Harney untied the
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: horse and they drove off through the diminishing rain, which
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: is already beaded with sunlight. For a while, Charity was
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: silent and her companion did not speak. She looked timidly
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: at his profile. It was graver than usual, as though
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: he too were oppressed by what they had seen. Then
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: she broke out abruptly, those people back there are the
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: kind of folks I come from. They may be my
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: relations for all I know. She did not want him
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: to think that she regretted having told him her story.
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: Poor creatures, he rejoined, I wonder why they came down
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: to that fever hole, she laughed ironically, to better themselves.
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: It's worse up on the mountain. Bash Hayatt married the
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: daughter of the farmer that used to own the brown
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: house that was him by the stove. I suppose Harney
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: seemed to find nothing to say, and she went on,
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: I saw you take out a dollar to give to
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: that poor woman. Why did you put it back? He
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: reddened and leaned forward to flick a swamp fly from
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: the horse's neck. I wasn't sure, was it because you
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: knew they were my folks and thought I'd be ashamed
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: to see you give them money. He turned to her
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: with eyes full of reproach. Oh Charity. It was the
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: first time he had ever called her by her name.
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: Her misery welled over. I ain't I ain't ashamed. They're
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: my people, and I ain't ashamed of them. She sobbed,
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: My dear, he murmured, putting his arm about her, and
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: she leaned against him and wept out her pain. It
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: was too late to go around to Hamblin, and all
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: the stars were out in a clear sky. When they
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: reached the north Dormer Valley and drove up to the
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: Red House end of chapter six, Chapter seven of Summer
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: by Edith Wharton. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: Since her reinstatement in Miss Hatchard's favor, Charity had not
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: dared to curtail by a moment her hours of attendance
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: at the library. She even made a point of arriving
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: before the time, and showed a laudable indignation when the
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: youngest target girl, who had been engaged to help in
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: the cleaning and rearranging of the books, came trailing in
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: late and neglected her task to peer through the window
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: at the solace boy. Nevertheless, library days seemed more than
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: ever irksome to Charity after her vivid hours of liberty,
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: and she would have found it hard to set a
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: good example to her subordinate if Lucius Harney had not
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: been commissioned before Miss Hatchard's departure to examine with the
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: local carpenter the best means of ventilating the memorial. He
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: was careful to prosecute this inquiry on the days when
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: the library was open to the public, and Charity was
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: therefore sure of spending part of the afternoon in his company.
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: The target girl's presence and the risk of being interrupted
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: by some passer by suddenly smitten with a thirst for letters,
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: restricted their intercourse to the exchange of commonplaces. But there
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: was a fascination to Charity in the contrast between these
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: public civilities and their secret intimacy. The day after their
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: drive to the Brown House was library day, and she
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: sat at her desk, working at the revised catalog, while
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: the Target girl, one eye on the window, chanted out
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: the titles of a pile of books. Charity's thoughts were
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: far away in the dismal house by the swamp and
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: under the twilight sky during the long drive home, when
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: Lucius Harney had consoled her with endearing words. That day,
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: for the first time since he had been boarding with them,
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: he had failed to appear as usual at the midday meal.
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: No message had come to explain his absence. Had Mister Royle,
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: who was more than usually taciturn, had betrayed no surprise
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: and made no comment in itself. This indifference was not
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: particularly significant for mister Royle, in common with most of
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: his fellow citizens, had a way of accepting events passively,
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: as if he had long since come to the conclusion
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: that no one who lived in North Dormer could hope
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: to modify them. But to Charity in the reaction from
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: her mood of passionate exultation, there was something disquieting in
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: his silence. It was almost as if looke vicious Harney
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: had never had a part in their lives. Mister Royal's
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: imperturbable indifference seemed to relegate him to the domain of unreality.
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: As she sat at work, she tried to shake off
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: her disappointment at Harney's non appearing. Some trifling incident had
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: probably kept him from joining them at midday, but she
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: was sure he must be eager to see her again,
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: and that he would not want to wait till they met.
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: At supper. Between mister Royal and Verena, she was wondering
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: what his first words would be, and trying to devise
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: a way of getting rid of the target girl before
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: he came. When she heard steps outside and he walked
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: up the path with mister Miles, the clergyman from Hepburn,
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: seldom came to North Dormer, except when he drove over
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: to officiate at the Old White Church, which by an
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: unusual chance happened to belong to the Episcopal Communion. He
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: was a brisk, affable man, eager to make the most
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: of the fact that a little nucleus of church people
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: had survived in the sectarian wilderness, and resolved to undermine
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: the influence of the gingerbread colored Baptist chapel at the
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: other end of the village. But he was kept busy
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: by parochial work in Hepburn, where there were paper mills
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: and saloons, and it was not often that he could
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: spare time for North Dormer. Charity, who went to the
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: White Church. Like all the best people in North Dormer,
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: admired mister Miles, and had, even during the memorable trip
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: to Nettleton, imagined herself married to a man who had
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: such a straight nose, in such a beautiful way of speaking,
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: and who lived in a brown stone rectory covered with
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: Virginia creeper. It had been a shock to discover that
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: the privilege was already enjoyed by a lady with crimped
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: hair and a large baby. But the arrival of Lucius
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: Harney had long since banished mister Miles from Charity's dreams,
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: and as he walked up the path at Harney's side.
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: She saw him as he really was, a fat middle
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: aged man, with a baldness showing under his clerical hat
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: and spectacles on his Grecian nose. She wondered what had
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: called him to North Dormer on a week day, and
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: felt a little hurt that Harney should have brought him
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: to the library. It presently appeared that his presence there
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: was due to Miss Hatchard. He had been spending a
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: few days at Springfield to fill a friend's pulpit, and
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: had been consulted by Miss Hatchard as to young Harney's
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: plan for ventilating the memorial. To lay hands on the
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: Hatchard ark was a grave matter, and Miss Hatchard always
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: full of scruples about her scruples, it was Harney's phrase,
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: wished to have mister Miles's opinion before deciding I couldn't.
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: Mister Miles explained, quite make out from your cousin what
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: changes you wanted to make, And as the other trustees
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: did not understand either, I thought I had better drive
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: over and take a look. Though I'm sure, he added,
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: turning his friendly spectacles on the young man, that no
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: one could be more competent. But of course this spot
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: has its peculiar sanctity. I hope a little fresh air
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: won't desecrate it. Harney laughingly rejoined, and they walked to
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: the other end of the library while he set forth
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: his idea to the rector. Mister Miles had greeted the
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: two girls with his usual friendliness, but Charity saw that
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: he was occupied with other things, and she presently became aware,
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: by the scraps of conversation drifting over to her, that
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: he was still under the charm of his visit to Springfield,
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: which appeared to have been full of agreeable incidents. Ah,
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: the Coopersons, Yes, you know them, of course, she heard.
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: That's a fine old house, and Ned Cooperson has collected
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: some really remarkable Impressionist pictures. The names he cited were
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: unknown to Charity. Yes, yes. The Schaefer Quartet played at
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: Leric Hall on Saturday evening, and on Monday I had
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: the privilege of hearing them again at the Towers beautifully
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: done Bach and Beethoven a lawn party. First. I saw
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: miss Balt several times by the way, looking extremely handsome.
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: Charity dropped her pencil and forgot to listen to the
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: target girl's sing song. Why had mister Miles suddenly brought
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: up Annabel Balch's name? Oh really, she heard hearny rejoin,
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: and raising his stick, he pursued, You see, my plan
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: is to move these shelves away and open a round
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: window in this wall, on the axis of the one
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: under the pediment. I suppose she'll be coming up here
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: later to stay with miss Hatchard. Mister Miles went on,
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: following on the train of thought, then spinning about and
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: tilting his head back. Yes, yes, I see, I understand
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: that will give a draft without materially altering the look
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: of things. I can see no objection. The discussion went
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: on for some minutes, and gradually the two men moved
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: back toward the desk. Mister Miles stopped again and looked
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: thoughtfully at Charity. Aren't you a little pale? My dear?
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: Not over working? Mister Harney tells me you and Mami
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: are giving the library a thorough overhauling. He was always
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: careful to remember his parishioner's Christian names, and at the
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: right moment he bent his benignant spectacles on the target girl.
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: Then he turned to Charity, don't take things hard, my dear,
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: don't take things hard. Come down and see missus Miles
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: and me some day at Hepburn, he said, pressing her
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: hand and waving a farewell to Maimie Target. He went
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: out of the library and Harney followed him. Charity thought
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: she detected a look of constraint in Harney's eyes. She
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: fancied he did not want to be alone with her,
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: and with a sudden pang, she wondered if he repented
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: the tender things he had said to her the night before.
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: His words had been more fraternal than lover like, but
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: she had lost their exact sense. In the caressing warmth
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: of his voice, he had made her feel that the
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: fact of her being a waif from the mountain was
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: only another reason for holding her close and soothing her
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: with consolatory murmurs. And when the drive was over and
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: she got out of the buggy, tired cold and aching
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: with emotion, she stepped as if the ground were a
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: sunlit wave, and she the spray on its crest. Why then,
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: had his manners suddenly changed? And why did he leave
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: the library with mister Miles. Her restless imagination fastened on
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: the name of Annabel Balch from the moment it had
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: been mentioned. She fancied that Harney's expression had altered. Annabel
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: Balch at a garden party at Springfield, looking extremely handsome.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: Perhaps mister Miles had seen her there at the very
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: moment when Charity and Harney were sitting in the Hyatt's
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: hovel between a drunkard and a half witted old woman.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: Charity did not know exactly what a garden party was,
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: but her glimpse of the flower edged lawns of Nettleton
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: helped her to visualize the scene. And envious recollections of
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: the old things which Miss Balch avowedly wore out when
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: she came to North Dormer made it only too easy
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: to picture her in her splendor. Charity understood what associations
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: the name must have called up, and felt the youth
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: uselessness of struggling against the unseen influences in Harney's life.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: When she came down from her room for supper, he
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: was not there, and while she waited on the porch,
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: she recalled the tone in which mister Royle had commented
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: the day before on their early start. Mister Royle sat
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: at her side his chair tilted back, his broad black
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: boots with sighed elastics resting against the lower bars of
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: the railings. His rumpled gray hair stood up above his
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: forehead like the crest of an angry bird, and the
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: leather brown of his veined cheeks was blotched with red.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: Charity knew that these red spots were the signs of
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: a coming explosion. Suddenly, he said, where's supper? Has? Verena
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: marsh slipped up again on her soda biscuits. Charity threw
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: a startled glance at him. I presume she's waiting for
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: mister Harney. Mister Harney, is she? She'd better dish up,
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: then he ain't coming. He stood up, walked to the
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: door and called out in the pitch necessary to penetrate
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: the old woman's tympanum. Get along with the supper. Verena
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: Charity was trembling with apprehension. Something had happened. She was
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: sure of it now, and mister Royle knew what it was.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: But not for the world would she have gratified him
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: by showing her anxiety. She took her usual place, and
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: he seated himself opposite and poured out a strong cup
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: of tea before passing her the teapot. Verena brought some
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: scrambled eggs, and he piled his plate with them. Ain't
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: you going to take any? He asked. Charity roused herself
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: and began to eat. The tone with which mister Royle
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: had said he's not coming seemed to her full of
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: an ominous satisfaction. She saw that he had suddenly begun
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: to hate Lucius Harney, and guessed herself to be the
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: cause of this change of feeling. But she had no
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: means of finding out whether some act of hostility on
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: his part had made the young man stay away, or
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: whether he simply wished to avoid seeing her again. After
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: their dry back from the brown house, she ate her
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: supper with a studied show of indifference, but she knew
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: that mister Royle was watching her, and that her agitation
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: did not escape him. After supper, she went up to
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: her room. She heard mister Royle cross the passage, and
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: presently the sounds below her window showed that he had
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: returned to the porch. She seated herself on her bed
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: and began to struggle against the desire to go down
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: and ask him what had happened. I'd rather die than
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: to do it, she muttered to herself. With a word,
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: he could have relieved her uncertainty, but never would she
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: gratify him by saying it. She rose and leaned out
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: of the window. The twilight had deepened into night, and
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: she watched the frail curve of the young moon dropping
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: to the edge of the hills. Through the darkness, she
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: saw one or two figures moving down the road, but
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: the evening was too cold for loitering, and presently the
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: strollers disappeared. Lamps were beginning to show. Here and there.
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: In the window, a bar of light brought out the
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: whiteness of a clump of lilies on the Haws's yard,
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: and farther down the street, Carrick Fry's Rochester lamp cast
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: its bold illumination on the rustic flower tub in the
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: middle of his grass plot. For a long time, she
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: continued to lean in the window, but a fever of
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: unrest consumed her, and finally she went downstairs, took her
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: hat from its hook, and swung out of the house.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: Mister Royle sat on the porch Verena beside him, her
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: old hands crossed on her patched skirt as Charity went
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: down the steps. Mister Royle called after her, where are
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: you going? She could easily have answered to Orma's or
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: down to the targets, and either answer might have been true,
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: for she had no purpose. But she swept on in silence,
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: determined not to recognize his right to question her. At
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: the gate, she paused and looked up and down the road.
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: The darkness drew her as she thought of climbing the
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: hill and plunging into the depths of the larchwood above
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: the pasture. Then she glanced irresolutely along the street, and
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: as she did so, a gleam appeared through the spruces
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: at Miss Hatchard's gate. Lucius Harney was there. Then. He
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: had not gone down to Hepburn with mister Myles, as
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: she had first imagined. But where had he taken his
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: evening meal? And what had caused him to stay away?
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: For mister Royle's the light was positive proof of his presence,
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: for Miss Hatchard's servants were away on a holiday, and
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: her farmer's wife came only in the mornings to make
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: the young man's bed and prepare his coffee. Beside that lamp,
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: he was doubtless sitting at this moment. To know the truth,
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: Charity had only to walk half the length of the
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: village and knock at the lighted window. She hesitated a
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: minute or two longer, and then turned toward Miss Hatchard's.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: She walked quickly, straining her eyes to detect any one
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: who might be coming along the street, and before reaching
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: the fryes, she crossed over to avoid the light from
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: their window. Whenever she was unhappy, she felt herself at
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: bay against a pitiless world, and a kind of animal
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: secretiveness possessed her. But the street was empty, and she
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: passed unnoticed through the gate and up the path to
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: the house. Its white front glimmered indistinctly through the trees,
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: showing only one oblong of light on the lower floor.
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: She had supposed that the lamp was in Miss Hatchard's
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: sitting room, but she now saw that it shone through
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: a window at the farther corner of the house. She
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: did not know the room to which this window belonged,
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: and she paused under the trees, checked by a sense
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: of strangeness. Then she moved on, treading softly on the
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: short grass and keeping so close to the house that
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: whoever was in the room, even if roused by her approach,
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: would not be able to see her. The window opened
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: on a narrow verandah with a trellised arch. She leaned
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: close to the trellis, and, parting the sprays of clematis
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: that covered it, looked into a corner of the room.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: She saw the foot of a mahogany bed and engraving
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: on the wall, a wash stand on which a towel
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: had been tossed, and one end of the green covered
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: table which held the lamp. Half of the lamp shade
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: projected into her field of vision, and just under it,
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: two smooth, sunburnt hands, one holding a pencil and the
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: other a ruler, were moving to and fro over a
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: drawing board. Her heart jumped and then stood still. He
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: was there a few feet away, and while her soul
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: was tossing on seas of woe, he had been quietly
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: sitting at his drawing board. The sight of those two
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: hands moving with their usual skill and precision, woke her
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: out of her dream. Her eyes were open to the
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: disproportion between what she had felt and the cause of
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: her agitation, and she was turning away from the window
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: when one hand abruptly pushed aside the drawing board, and
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: the other flung down the pencil. Charity had often noticed
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: Harny's loving care of his drawings, and the neatness and
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: method with which he carried on and concluded each task.
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: The impatient sweeping aside of the drawing board seemed to
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: reveal a new mood. The gesture suggested sudden discouragement or
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: distaste for his work, and she wondered if he too
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: were agitated by secret perplexities. Her impulse of flight was checked.
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: She stepped up on the verandah and looked into the room.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: Harney had put his elbows on the table and was
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: resting his chin on his locked hands. He had taken
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: off his coat and waistcoat and unbuttoned the low collar
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: of his flannel shirt. She saw the vigorous lines of
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: his young throat and the root of the muscles where
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: they joined the chest. He sat staring straight ahead of him,
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: a look of weariness and self disgust on his face.
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: It was almost as if he had been gazing at
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: a distorted reflection of his own features for a moment,
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: and Charity looked at him with a kind of terror.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: As if he had been a stranger under familiar lineaments.
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: Then she glanced past him and saw on the floor
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: an open portmanteau, half full of clothes. She understood that
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: he was preparing to leave, and that he had probably
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: decided to go without seeing her. She saw that the decision,
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: from whatever cause it was taken, had disturbed him deeply,
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: and she immediately concluded that his change of plan was
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: due to some surreptitious interference of mister Royle's. All her
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: old resentments and rebellions flamed up, confusedly, mingled with the
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: yearning roused by Harney's nearness. Only a few hours earlier,
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: she had felt secure in his comprehending pity. Now she
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: was flung back on herself, doubly alone. After that moment
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: of communion, Harny was still unaware of her presence. He sat,
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: without moving, moodily, staring before him at the same spot
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: in the wall paper. He had not even had the
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: energy to finish his pack, and his clothes and papers
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: lay on the floor about the portmanteau. Presently, he unlocked
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: his clasped hands and stood up, and Charity, drawing back hastily,
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: sank down on the step of the verandah. The night
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: was so dark that there was not much chance of
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: his seeing her unless he opened the window, and before
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: that she would have time to slip away and be
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: lost in the shadow of the trees. He stood for
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: a minute or two, looking around the room with the
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: same expression of self disgust, as if he hated himself
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: and everything about him. Then he sat down again at
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: the table, drew a few more strokes, and threw his
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: pencil aside. Finally, he walked across the floor, kicking the
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: portmanteau out of his way, and lay down on the bed,
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: folding his arms under his head and staring up morosely
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: at the ceiling. Just so Charity had seen him at
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: her side on the grass or the pine needles, his
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: eyes fixed on the sky, and pleasure flashing over his
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: face like the flickers of sun the brand shed on it.
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: But now the face was so changed that she hardly
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: knew it, and grief at his grief gathered in her throat,
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: rose to her eyes and ran over. She continued to
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: crouch on the steps, holding her breath and stiffening herself
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: into complete immobility. One motion of her hand, one tap
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: on the pane, and she could picture the sudden change
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: in his face in every pulse of her rigid body.
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: She was aware of the welcome his eyes and lips
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: would give her. But something kept her from moving. It
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: was not the fear of any sanction, human or heavenly.
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: She had never in her life been afraid. It was
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: simply that she had suddenly understood what would happen if
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: she went in. It was a thing that did happen
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: between young men and girls, and that North Dormer ignored
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: in public and snickered over on the sly. It was
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: what Miss Hatchard was still ignorant of, but every girl
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: of Charity's class knew about before she left school. It
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: was what had happened to Ally Hawes's sister Julia, and
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: had ended in her going to Nettleton, and in people's
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: never mentioning her name. It did not, of course, always
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: end so sensationally, nor perhaps on the whole, so untragically.
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: Charity had always suspected that the shunned Julia's fate might
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: have its compensations. There were other worse endings that the
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: village knew of, mean miserable, unconfessed, other lives that went
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: on drearily without visible change, in the same cramped setting
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: of hypocrisy. But these were not the reasons that held
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: her back. Since the day before, she had known exactly
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: what she would feel if Harney should take her in
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: his arms, the melting of palm into palm and mouth
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: on mouth, and the long flame burning her from head
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: to foot. But mixed with this feeling was another, the
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: wondering pride in his liking for her, the startled softness
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: that his sympathy had put into her heart. Sometimes when
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: her youth flushed up in her she had imagined yielding,
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: like other girls, to furtive caresses in the twilight. But
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: she could not so cheapen herself to Harney. She did
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: not know why he was going, but since he was going,
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: she felt she must do nothing to deface the image
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: of her that he carried away. If he wanted her,
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: he must seek her. He must not be surprised into
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: taking her, as girls like Julia Hawes were taken. No
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: sound came from the sleeping village, and in the deep
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: darkness of the garden she heard now and then a
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: secret rustle of branches, as though some night bird brushed them.
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: Once a footfall passed the gate, and she shrank back
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: into her corner, but the steps died away and left
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: a profounder quiet. Her eyes were still on Harney's tormented face.
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: She felt she could not move till he moved. But
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: she was beginning to grow numb from her constrained position,
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: and at times her thoughts were so indistinct that she
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: seemed to be held there only by a vague weight
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: of weariness. A long time passed in this strange vigil.
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: Harney still lay on the bed, motionless and with fixed eyes,
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: as though following his vision to its bitter end. At last,
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: he stirred and changed his attitude slightly, and Charity's heart
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: began to tremble, but he only flung out his arms
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: and sank back into his former position. With a deep sigh.
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: He tossed the hair from his forehead, and then his
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: whole body relaxed. His head turned sideways on the pillow,
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: and she saw that he had fallen asleep. The sweet
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: expression came back to his lips, and the haggardness faded
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: from his face, leaving it as fresh as a boy's.
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: She rose and crept away. End of chapter seven. Chapter
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: nine of Summer by Edith Wharton. This LibriVox recording is
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: in the public domain. Charity sat before the mirror, trying
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: on a hat which Ally Hawes, with much secrecy, had
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: trimmed for her. It was of white straw, with a
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: drooping brim and cherry colored lining that made her face
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: glow like the inside of the shell. On the parlor mantelpiece,
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: she propped the square of looking glass against mister Royle's
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: black leather bible, steadying it in front with a white
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: stone on which a view of the Brooklyn Bridge was painted.
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: And she sat before her reflection, bending the brim this
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: way and that, while ally Hawes's pale face looked over
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: her shoulder like the ghost of wasted opportunities. I look awful,
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: don't I? She said at last, with a happy sigh.
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: Allie smiled and took back the hat. I'll stitch the
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: roses on right here, so's you can put it away
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: at once. Charity laughed and ran her fingers through her
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: rough dark care. She knew that Harney liked to see
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: its reddish edges, ruffled about her forehead and breaking into
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: little rings at the nape. She sat down on her
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: bed and watched Allie stoop over the hat with a
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: careful frown. Don't you ever feel like going down to
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: Nettleton for a day, she asked. Allie shook her head
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: without looking up. No, I always remember that awful time
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: I went down with Julia to that doctor's. Oh, Allie,
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: I can't help it. The house is on the corner
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: of Wing Street and Lake Avenue. The trolley from the
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: station goes right by it, And the day the minister
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: took us down to see those pictures, I recognized it
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: right off and couldn't seem to see anything else. There's
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: a big black sign with gold letters all across the front.
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: Private consultations. She came as near as anything to dying.
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: Poor Julia, Charity sighed from the height of her purity
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: and her security. She had a friend whom she trusted
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: and who respected her. She was going with him to
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: spend the next day, the fourth of July, at Nettleton.
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: Whose business was it but hers? And what was the harm?
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: The pity of it was that girls like Julia did
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: not know how to choose and to keep bad fellows
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: at a distance. Charity slipped down from the bed and
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: stretched out her hands. Is it sewed. Let me try
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: it on again. She put the hat on, smiled at
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: her image. The thought of Julia had vanished. The next morning,
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: she was up before dawn and saw the yellow sunrise
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: broaden behind the hills and the silvery luster preceding a
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: hot day tremble across the sleeping fields. Her plans had
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: been made with great care. She had announced that she
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: was going down to the Band of Hope picnic at Hepburn,
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: and as no one else from North Dormer intended to
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: venture so far, it was not likely that her absence
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: from the festivity would be reported. Besides, if it were,
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: she would not greatly care. She was determined to assert
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: her independence, and if she stooped to fib about the
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: Hepburn picnic, it was chiefly from the secretive instinct that
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: made her dread the profanation of her happiness. Whenever she
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: was with Lucius Harney, she would have liked some impenetrable
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: mountain mist to hide her. It was arranged that she
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: should walk to a point of the Creston Road, where
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: Harney was to pick her up and drive her across
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: the hills to Hepburn in time for the nine thirty
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: train to Nettleton. Harny at first had been rather lukewarm
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: about the trip. He declared himself ready to take her
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: to Nettleton, but urged her not to go on the
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: fourth of July on account of the crowds, the probable
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: lateness of the trains, the difficulty of her getting back
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: before night. But her evident disappointment caused him to give way,
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: and even to effect a faint enthusiasm for the adventure.
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: She understood why he was not more eager. He must
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: have seen sights beside which even a fourth of July
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: at Nettleton would seem tame. But she had never seen anything,
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: and a great longing possessed her to walk the streets
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: of a big town on a holiday, clinging to his
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: arm and jostled by idle crowds in their best clothes.
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: The only cloud on the prospect was the fact that
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: the shops would be closed, but she hoped he would
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: take her back another day when they were open. She
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: started out unnoticed in the early sunlight, slipping through the
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: kitchen while Verena bent above the stove to avoid attracting notice.
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: She carried her new hat carefully wrapped up and had
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: thrown a long gray veil of missus Royle's over the
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: new white muslin dress which Ally's clever fingers had made
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: for her. All of the ten dollars mister Royle had
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: given her, and a part of her own savings as well,
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: had been spent on renewing her wardrobe. And when Harney
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: jumped out of the buggy to meet her, she read
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: her reward in his eyes. The freckled boy who had
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: brought her the note two weeks earlier, was to wait
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: with the uggie at Hepburn till their return. He perched
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: at Charity's feet, his legs dangling between the wheels, and
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: they could not say much because of his presence, But
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: it did not greatly matter, for their past was now
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: rich enough to have given them private language. And with
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: the long days stretching before them like the blue distance
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: beyond the hills, there was a delicate pleasure in postponement.
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: When Charity, in response to Harney's message, had gone to
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: meet him at the Creston Pool, her heart had been
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: so full of mortification and anger that his first words
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: might easily have estranged her. But it happened that he
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: had found the right word, which was one of simple friendship.
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: His tone had instantly justified her and put her guardian
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: in the wrong. He had made no allusion to what
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: had passed between mister Royle and himself, but had simply
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: let it appear that he had left because means of
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: conveyance were hard to find at North Dormer and because
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: Creston River was a more convenient center. He told her
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: that he had hired by the week the buggy of
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: the freckled boy's father, who served as livery stable keeper
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: to one or two melancholy summer boarding houses on Creston Lake,
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: and had discovered within driving distance a number of houses
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: worthy of his pencil, and he said that he could
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: not while he was in the neighborhood give up the
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: pleasure of seeing her as often as possible. When they
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: took leave of each other, she promised to continue to
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: be his guide, and during the fortnight which followed they
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: roamed the hills in happy comradeship. In most of the
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: village friendships between youths and maidens, lack of conversation was
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: made up for by tentative fondling, but Harney, except when
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: he had tried to comfort her and her trouble on
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: their way back from the Hyats had never put his
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: arm about her or sought to betray her into any
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: sudden caress. It seemed to be enough for him to
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: breathe her nearness like a flower's. And since his pleasure
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: at being with her, and his sense of her youth
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: and her grace perpetually shone in his eyes and softened
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: the flections of his voice, his reserve did not suggest coldness,
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: but the deference due to a girl of his own class.
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: The buggy was drawn by an old trotter, who whirled
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: them along so briskly that the pace created a little breeze.
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: But when they reached hepburn. The full heat of the
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: airless morning descended on them. At the railway station, the
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: platform was packed with a sweltering throng, and they took
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: refuge in the waiting room, where there was another throng,
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: already dejected by the heat and the long waiting for
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: retarded trains. Pale mothers were struggling with fretful babies or
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: trying to keep their older offspring from the fascination of
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: the track. Girls and their fellows were giggling and shoving
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: and passing about candy and sticky bags, and older men,
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: collarless and perspiring, were shifting heavy children from one arm
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: to the other, and keeping a haggard eye on the
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: scattered members of their families. At last, the train rumbled
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: in and engulfed the waiting multitude. Only swept Charity up
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: onto the first car, and they captured a bench for
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: two and sat in happy isolation while the train swayed
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: and roared along through rich fields and languid tree clumps.
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: The haze of the morning had become a sort of
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 1: clear tremor over everything, like the colorless vibration about a flame,
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: and the opulent landscape seemed to droop under it. But
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: to Charity the heat was a stimulant. It enveloped the
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: whole world in the same glow that burned at her
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: heart now. And then a lurch of the train flung
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: her against Harney, and through her thin muslin, she felt
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: the touch of his sleeve. She steadied herself. Their eyes met,
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: and the flaming breath of the day seemed to enclose them.
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: The train roared into the Nettleden station. The descending mob
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: caught them on its tide, and they were swept out
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: into a vague, dusty square thronged with seedy hacks and
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: long curtained omnibuses drawn by horses with tasseled flanets over
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: their withers, who stood swinging their depressed heads drearily from
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: side to side. A mob of bus and hack drivers
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: were shouting to the Eagle House, to the Washington House,
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: this way to the lake, just starting for Greytop, and
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: through their yells came the popping of fire crackers, the
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: explosion of torpedoes, the banging of toy guns, and the
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: crash of a fireman's band trying to play the Merry
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: Widow while they were being packed into a wagonette streaming
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: with bunting. The ramshackle wooden hotels about the square were
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: all hung with flags and paper lanterns. And as Harney
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 1: and Charity turned into the main street with its brick
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: and granite business blocks crowding out the old, low storied
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: shops and its towering poles strung with innumerable wires that
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 1: seemed to tremble and buzz in the heat, they saw
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: the double line of flags and lanterns tapering away gaily
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: to the park at the other end. Of the perspective.
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: The noise and color of this holiday vision seemed to
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: transform Nettleton into a metropolis. Charity could not believe that Springfield,
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: or even Boston had anything grander to show, and she
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: wondered if at this very moment, Annabel balch on the
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 1: arm of as Brilliant a young man were threading their
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: way through scenes as resplendent. Where shall we go first,
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: Harney asked, But as she turned her happy eyes on him,
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: he guessed the answer and said, We'll take a look around,
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: shall we. The street swarmed with their fellow travelers, with
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: other excursionists arriving from other directions, with Nettleton's own population,
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: and with the mill hands trooping in from the factories
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: on the creston. The shops were closed, but one would
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: scarcely have noticed it, so numerous were the glass doors
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: swinging open on saloons, on restaurants, on drug stores, gushing
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: from every soda water tap, on fruit and confectionery shops
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: stacked with strawberry cake, coco nut drops, trays of glistening molasses, candy,
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: boxes of caramels, and chewing gum, baskets of sodden strawberries,
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: and dangling branches of bananas. Outside of some of the
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: doors were tressels with banked up oranges and apples, spotted
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: pears and dusty raspberries, and the air reeked with the
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: smell of fruit and stale coffee beer and sassparilla and
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: fried potatoes. Even the shops that were closed offered, through
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: wide expanses of plate glass, hints of hidden riches. In
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: some waves of silk and ribbon broke over shores of
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: imitation moss, from which ravishing hats rose like tropical orchids.
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: In others, the pink throats of gramophones opened their giant
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: convolutions into a soundless chorus, or bicycles shining in neat
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: ranks seemed to await the signal of an invisible starter.
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: Or tears of fancy goods and leatherette and paste and
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 1: celluloid dangled their insidious graces, and in one vast bay
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 1: that seemed to project them into exciting contact with the public.
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 1: Wax ladies in daring dresses chatted elegantly or with gestures
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 1: intimate yet blameless, pointed to their pink corsets and transparent
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: hosiery presently harny found that his watch had stopped and
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: turned in in a small jeweler's shop, which chanced to
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: still be open. While the watch was being examined, Charity
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: leaned over the glass counter, where on a background of
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: dark blue velvet, pins, rings, and brooches glittered like the
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: moon and stars. She had never seen jewelry so near by,
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: and she longed to lift the glass lid and plunge
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: her hand among the shining treasures. But already Harney's watch
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: was repaired, and he laid his hand on her arm
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: and drew her from her dream. Which do you like best,
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: he asked, leaning over the counter at her side. I
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: don't know. She pointed to a gold lily of the
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: valley with white flowers. Don't you think the blue pins better,
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: he suggested, And immediately she saw that the lily of
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: the valley was mere trumpery compared to the small round
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: stone blue as a mountain lake, with little sparks of
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: light all round it. She colored at her want of discrimination.
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 1: It's so lovely. I guess I was afraid to look
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: at it, she said. He laughed, and they went out
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: of the shop, But a few steps away he exclaimed,
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: oh by jove I forgot something and turned back and
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: left her in the crowd. She stood staring down a
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: row of pink gramophone throats till he rejoined her and
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: slipped his arm through hers. You mustn't be afraid of
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 1: looking at the blue pin any longer, because it belongs
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 1: to you, he said, and she felt a little box
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: being pressed into her hand. Her heart gave a leap
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 1: of joy, but it reached her lips only in a
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: shy stammer. She remembered other girls whom she had heard
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: planning to extract presents from their fellows, and was seized
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 1: with a sudden dread lest Harney should have imagined that
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 1: she had leaned over the pretty things in the glass
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: case in the hope of having one given to her.
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: A little farther down the street, they turned in at
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 1: a glass doorway opening on a shining hall with a
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 1: mahogany staircase and brass cages in its corners. We must
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 1: have something to eat, Harney said, and the next moment
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 1: Charity found herself in a dressing room, all looking glass
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: and lustrous surfaces, where a party of showy looking girls
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: were dabbing on powder and straightening immense plumed hats. When
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: they had gone, she took courage to bathe her hot
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: face in one of the marble basins, and to straighten
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: her own hat brim, which the parasols of the crowd
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 1: had indented. The dresses in the shops had so impressed
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 1: her that she scarcely dared look at her reflection, But
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 1: when she did so, the glow of her face under
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: her cherry colored hat and the curve of her young
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: shoulders through the transparent muslin restored her courage. And when
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: she had taken the blue brooch from its box and
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 1: pinned it on her bosom, she walked toward the restaurant
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: with her head high, as if she had always strolled
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: through tessellated halls beside young men in flannels. Her spirits
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: sank a little at the sight of the slim, wasted
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: waitresses in black with bewitching mob caps on their haughty heads,
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 1: who were moving disdainfully between the tables, not for another hour.
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: One of them dropped to Harny in passing, and he
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: stood doubtfully glancing about him. Oh well, we can't stay
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: sweltering here, he decided, Let's try somewhere else, and with
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 1: a sense of relief. Charity followed him from that scene
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 1: of inhospitable splendor that somewhere else turned out, after more
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: hot tramping and several failures, to be of all things,
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 1: a little open air place in a back street that
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: called itself a French restaurant and consisted in two or
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 1: three rickety tables under a scarlet runner, between a patch
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 1: of zinias and petunias, and a big elm bending over
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: from the next yard. Here they lunched on queerly flavored things,
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: while Harney, leaning back in a crippled rocking chair, smoked
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: cigarettes between the courses, and poured into Charity's glass a
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 1: pale yellow wine, which he said was the very same
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 1: one drank in just such jolly places in France. Charity
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 1: did not think the wine as good as sassparilla, but
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 1: she sipped a mouthful for the pleasure of doing what
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: he did, and of fancying herself alone with him. In
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: foreign countries. The illusion was increased by their being served
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 1: by a deep bosomed woman with smooth hair and a
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 1: pleasant laugh, who talked to Harny in unintelligible words and
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: seemed amazed and overjoyed at his answering her in kind.
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 1: At the other tables, other people sat mill hands, probably
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: homely but pleasant looking, who spoke the same shrill jargon
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: and looked at Harny and Charity with friendly eyes. And
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 1: between the table legs, a poodle with bald patches and
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: pink eyes nosed about for scraps and sat up on
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 1: his hind legs. Absurdly, Harny showed no inclination to move.
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 1: For hot as their corner was, it was at least
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 1: shaded and quiet, and from the main thoroughfares came the
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 1: clanging of trolleys, the incessant popping of torpedoes, the jingle
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: of street organs, the bawling of megaphone men, and the
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: loud murmur of increasing crowds. He leaned back, smoking his cigar,
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 1: patting the dog, and stirring the coffee that steamed in
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 1: their chipped cups. It's the real thing, you know, he explained,
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 1: and Charity hastily revised her previous conception of the beverage.
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: They had made no plans for the rest of the day,
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 1: and when Harney asked her what she wanted to do next,
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 1: she was too bewildered by rich possibilities to find an answer. Finally,
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 1: she confessed that she longed to go to the lake
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 1: where she had not been taken on her former visit,
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: and when he answered, oh, there's time for that, it
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 1: will be pleasanter. Later, she suggested seeing some pictures like
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 1: the ones mister Miles had taken her to. She thought.
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 1: Harny looked a little disconcerted, but he passed his fine
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 1: handkerchief over his warm brook, said gaily, come along then,
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 1: and rose with a last pat for the pink eyed dog.
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 1: Mister Miles's pictures had been shown in an austere y
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 1: mc a hall with white walls and an organ, but
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 1: Harny led Charity to a glittering place. Everything she saw
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 1: seemed to glitter, where they passed between immense pictures of
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 1: yellow haired beauties stabbing villains in evening dress, into a
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 1: velvet curtained auditorium packed with spectators to the last limit
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 1: of compression. After that, for a while, everything was merged
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 1: in her brain, in swimming circles of heat and blinding
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 1: alternations of light and darkness. All the world has to
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: show seemed to pass before her in a chaos of
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 1: palms and minarets, charging cavalry regiments, roaring lions, comic policemen
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: and scowling murderers. And the crowd around her, the hundreds
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 1: of hot sallow, candy munching faces, young, old, middle aged,
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: but all kindled with the same contagious excitement, became part
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 1: of the spectacle and danced on the screen with the rest. Presently,
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 1: the thought of the cool trolley run to the lake
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 1: grew irresistible, and they struggled out of the theater. As
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 1: they stood on the pavement, harny pale with the heat,
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 1: and even Charity a little confused by it. A young
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 1: man drove by in an electric runabout with a calico
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 1: band bearing the words ten dollars to take you round
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 1: the lake. Before Charity knew it was happening, Harney had
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 1: waved a hand and they were climbing in. Say for
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 1: twenty five I'll run you out to see the ball
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: game and back, the driver proposed, with an insinuating grin,
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 1: But Charity said quickly, Oh, I'd rather go rowing on
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 1: the lake. The street was so thronged that progress was slow.
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 1: But the glory of sitting in the little carriage while
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: it wriggled its way between laden omnibuses and trolleys, made
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 1: the moments seem too short. Next turn, as Lake Avenue,
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 1: the young man called out over his shoulder, and as
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: they paused in the wake of a big omnis groaning
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: with knights of pitheus in cocked hats and swords, Charity
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: looked up and saw on the corner a brick house
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 1: with a conspicuous black and gold sign across its front.
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 1: Doctor Merkle private consultations at all hours, Lady attendants. She read,
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 1: and suddenly she remembered Ally Hawes's words. The house was
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 1: at the corner of Wing Street and Lake Avenue. There's
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 1: a big black sign across the front. Through all the
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 1: heat and the rapture, a shiver of cold ran over her.
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 1: End of chapter nine, Chapter ten of Summer by Edith Wharton.
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The lake
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: at last a sheet of shining metal, brooded over by
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 1: drooping trees. Charity and Harney had secured a boat, and
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 1: getting away from the wharves and the refreshment booths, they
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 1: drifted idly along, hugging the shadow of the shore, where
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 1: the sun struck the water. Its shafts flamed back blindingly
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: at the heat veiled sky, and the least shade was black.
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 1: By contrast, the lake was so smooth that the reflection
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 1: of the trees on its edge seemed enameled on a
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 1: solid surface. But gradually, as the sun declined, the water
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 1: grew transparent, and Charity, leaning over, plunged her fascinated gaze
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 1: into depths so clear that she saw the inverted tree
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 1: tops interwoven with the green growths of the bottom. They
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 1: rounded a point at the farther end of the lake, and,
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 1: entering an inlet, pushed their bow against a protruding tree trunk.
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 1: A green veil of willows overhung them. Beyond the trees,
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 1: wheat fields sparkled in the sun, and all along the
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 1: horizon the clear hills throbbed with light. Charity leaned back
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 1: in the stern, and Harny unshipped the oars and lay
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 1: in the bottom of the boat without speaking. Ever since
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 1: their meeting at the Creston Pool, he had been subject
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 1: to these brooding silences, which were as different as possible
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 1: from the pauses when they ceased to speak. Because words
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 1: were needless at such times, his face wore the expression
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 1: she had seen on it when she had looked in
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 1: at him from the darkness, And again there came over
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 1: her a sense of the mysterious distance between them. But
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 1: usually his fits of abstraction were followed by bursts of
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 1: gayety that chased away the shadow before it chilled her.
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: She was still thinking of the ten dollars he had
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: handed to the driver of the runabout. It had given
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 1: them twenty minutes of pleasure, and it seemed unimaginable that
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 1: any one should be able to buy amusement at that rate.
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: With ten dollars, he might have bought her an engagement ring.
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 1: She knew that Missus tom Fry's, which came from Springfield
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 1: and had a diamond in it, had cost only eight
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 1: seventy five, but she did not know why the thought
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 1: had occurred to her. Harney would never buy her an
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 1: engagement ring. They were friends and comrades, but no more.
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 1: He had been perfectly fair to her. He had never
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 1: said a word to mislead her. She wondered what the
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 1: girl was like whose hand was waiting for his ring.
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 1: Boats were beginning to thicken on the lake, and the
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 1: clang of incessantly arriving trolleys announced the return of the
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 1: crowds from the ball field. The shadows lengthened across the
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 1: pearl gray water, and two white clouds near the sun
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 1: were turning golden. On the opposite shore men were hammering
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 1: hastily at a wooden scaffolding in a field. Charity asked
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 1: what it was for. Why the fireworks? I suppose there'll
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 1: be a big show. Harney looked at her, and a
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 1: smile crept into his moody eyes. Have you never seen
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: any good fireworks? Miss Hatchard always sends up lovely rockets
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 1: on the fourth she answered doubtfully. Oh, his contempt was unbounded.
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 1: I mean a big performance like this illuminated boats and
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 1: all the rest. She flushed at the picture. Do they
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 1: send them up from the lake too? Rather, didn't you
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 1: notice that big raft we passed? It's wonderful to see
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 1: the rockets completing their orbits down under one's feet, She said, nothing,
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 1: and he put the oars into the row locks. If
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 1: we stay, we'd better go and pick up something to eat.
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 1: But how can we get back afterwards? She ventured, feeling
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 1: it would break her heart if she missed it. He
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 1: consulted a timetable, found a ten o'clock train, and reassured
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: her the moon rises so late that it will be
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 1: dark by eight and will have over an hour of it.
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 1: Twilight fell, and lights began, and to show along the shore.
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 1: The trolleys roaring out from Nettleton became great luminous serpents,
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 1: coiling in and out among the trees. The wooden eating
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 1: houses at the lake's edge danced with lanterns, and the
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 1: dusk echoed with laughter and shouts and the clumsy splashing
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 1: of oars. Harney and Charity had found a table in
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 1: the corner of a balcony built over the lake, and
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 1: were patiently awaiting an unattainable chowder. Close under them, the
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 1: water lapped the piles, agitated by the evolutions of a
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 1: little white steamboat trellised with colored globes, which was to
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 1: run passengers up and down the lake. It was already
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 1: black with them as it sheared off on its first trip. Suddenly,
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 1: Charity heard a woman's laugh behind her. The sound was familiar,
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 1: and she turned to look a band of showily dressed
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 1: girls and dapper young men wearing badges of secret societies
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 1: with new straw hats tilted far back on their square
• 1:40:59
  Speaker 1: clipped hair had invaded the balcony and were loudly clamoring
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 1: for a table. The girl in the lead was the
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 1: one who had laughed. She wore a large hat with
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 1: a long white feather, and from under its brim, her
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 1: painted eyes looked at Charity with amused recognition. Say if
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 1: this ain't like old Home week, she remarked to the
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 1: girl at her elbow, and giggles and glances passed between them.
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 1: Charity knew at once that the girl with the white
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 1: feather was Julia Haw's. She had lost her freshness, and
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 1: the paint under her eyes made her face seem thinner,
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 1: but her lips had the same lovely curve and the
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 1: same cold, mocking smile, as if there were some secret
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 1: absurdity in the person she was looking at, and she
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 1: had instantly detected it. Charity flushed to the forehead and
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 1: looked away. She felt herself humiliated by julius sneer, and
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 1: vexed that the mockery of such a creature should affect her.
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 1: She trembled lest Harney should notice that the noisy troop
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 1: had recognized her, but they found no table free and
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 1: passed on tumultuously. Presently, there was a soft rush through
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 1: the air, and a shower of silver fell from the
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 1: blue evening sky. In another direction, pale Roman candles shot
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 1: up singly through the trees, and a fire haired rocket
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 1: swept the horizon like a portent. Between these intermittent flashes,
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 1: the velvet curtains of the darkness were descending, and in
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 1: the intervals of eclipse, the voices of the crowds seemed
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 1: to sink to smothered murmurs. Charity and Harney, dispossessed by newcomers,
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 1: were at length obliged to give up their table and
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 1: struggle through the throng about the boat landings. For a
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 1: while there seemed no escape from the tide of late arrivals,
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 1: but finally Harny secured the last two places on the
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 1: stand from which the more privileged were to see the fireworks.
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 1: The seats were at the end of a row, one
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 1: above the other. Charity had taken off her hat to
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 1: have an uninterrupted view, and whenever she leaned back to
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 1: follow the curve of some disheveled rocket, she could feel
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 1: Harny's knees against her head. After a while the scattered
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 1: fireworks ceased. A longer interval of darkness followed, and then
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 1: the whole night broke into flower. From every point of
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 1: the horizon, gold and silver arches sprang up and crossed
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 1: each other. Sky orchards broke into blossom, shed their flaming petals,
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 1: and hung their branches with golden fruit, and all the
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 1: while the air was filled with a soft, supernatural hum,
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 1: as their great birds were building their nests in those
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 1: invisible tree tops. Now and then there came a lull,
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 1: and a wave of moonlight swept the lake in a flash.
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 1: It revealed hundreds of boats, steel dark against lustrous ripples.
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 1: Then it withdrew, as if with a furling of vast,
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 1: translucent wings. Charity's heart throbbed with delight. It was as
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 1: if all the latent beauty of things had been unveiled
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 1: to her. She could not imagine that the world held
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 1: anything more wonderful. But near her she heard some one say,
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 1: you wait till you see the set piece, and instantly
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 1: her hopes took a fresh flight. At last, just as
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 1: it was beginning to seem as though the whole arch
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 1: of the sky were one great lid pressed against her,
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 1: dazzled eyeballs and striking out of them continuous jets of
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 1: jeweled light. The velvet darkness settled down again, and a
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 1: murmur of expectation ran through the crowd. Now now, the
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 1: same voice said excitedly, and Charity, grasping the hat on
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 1: her knee, crushed it tight in the effort to restrain
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 1: her rapture. For a moment, the night seemed to grow
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 1: more impenetrably black. Then a great picture stood out against it,
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 1: like a constellation. It was surmounted by a golden scroll
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 1: bearing the inscription Washington, crossing the Delaware and across a
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 1: flood of motionless golden ripples. The national hero passed erect,
• 1:45:08
  Speaker 1: solemn and gigantic, standing with folded arms in the stern
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 1: of a slowly moving golden boat along Oh burst from
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 1: the spectators. The stand creaked and shook with their blissful trepidations. Oh,
• 1:45:24
  Speaker 1: Charity gasped. She had forgotten where she was, had at
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 1: last forgotten even Harney's nearness. She seemed to have been
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 1: caught up into the stars. The picture vanished, and darkness
• 1:45:36
  Speaker 1: came down. In the obscurity, she felt her head clasped
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 1: by two hands, her face was drawn backward, and Harney's
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 1: lips were pressed on hers. With sudden vehemence, he wound
• 1:45:48
  Speaker 1: his arms about her, holding her head against his breast,
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 1: while she gave him back his kisses. An unknown Harney
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 1: had revealed himself a harny who dominated her, and yet
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 1: over whom she felt herself possessed of a new, mysterious power.
• 1:46:05
  Speaker 1: But the crowd was beginning to move, and he had
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 1: to release her. Come, he said in a confused voice.
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 1: He scrambled over the side of the stand, and holding
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 1: up his arm, caught her as she sprang to the ground.
• 1:46:18
  Speaker 1: He passed his arm about her waist, steadying her against
• 1:46:21
  Speaker 1: the descending rush of people, and she clung to him, speechless, exultant,
• 1:46:26
  Speaker 1: as if all the crowding and confusion about them were
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 1: a mere vein stirring of the air. Come, he repeated,
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 1: We must try to make the trolley. He drew her along,
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 1: and she followed, still in her dream. They walked as
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 1: if they were one, so isolated an ecstasy that the
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 1: people jostling them on every side seemed impalpable. But when
• 1:46:50
  Speaker 1: they reached the terminus, the illuminated trolley was already clanging
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 1: on its way, its platforms black with passengers. The cars
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 1: waiting behind it were as thickly packed, and the throng
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 1: about the terminus was so dense that it seemed hopeless
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 1: to struggle for a place last trip up the lake.
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 1: A megaphone bellowed from the wharf, and the lights of
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 1: the little steamboat came dancing out of the darkness. No
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 1: use waiting here, Shall we run up the lake, Harney suggested.
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 1: They pushed their way back to the edge of the water.
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 1: Just as the gangplank lowered from the white side of
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 1: the boat. The electric light at the end of the
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 1: wharf flashed full on the descending passengers, and among them
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 1: Charity caught sight of Julia Hawes, her white feather askew
• 1:47:37
  Speaker 1: and the face under it flushed with coarse laughter. As
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 1: she stepped from the gangplank, she stopped short, her dark
• 1:47:44
  Speaker 1: ringed eyes darting. Malice hullo Charity Royal, she called out,
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 1: and then, looking back over her shoulder, Didn't I tell
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 1: you it was a family party. Here's Grandpa's little daughter
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 1: come to take him home. A snigger ran through the group,
• 1:48:02
  Speaker 1: and then, towering above them and steadying himself by the
• 1:48:06
  Speaker 1: hand rail. In a desperate effort at erectness, mister Royle
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 1: stepped stiffly ashore. Like the young men of the party.
• 1:48:14
  Speaker 1: He wore a secret Society emblem in the button hole
• 1:48:17
  Speaker 1: of his black frock coat. His head was covered by
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 1: a new panama hat, and his narrow black tie, half undone,
• 1:48:24
  Speaker 1: dangled down on his rumpled shirt front. His face a
• 1:48:29
  Speaker 1: livid brown with red blotches of anger, and lips sunken
• 1:48:33
  Speaker 1: in like an old man's, was a lamentable ruin in
• 1:48:36
  Speaker 1: the searching glare. He was just behind Julia Hawes and
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 1: had one hand on her arm, But as he left
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 1: the gangplank, he freed himself and moved a step or
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 1: two away from his companions. He had seen Charity at once,
• 1:48:51
  Speaker 1: and his glance passed slowly from her to Harney, whose
• 1:48:54
  Speaker 1: arm was still about her. He stood staring at them
• 1:48:58
  Speaker 1: and trying to master the senile quiver of his lips.
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 1: Then he drew himself up with the tremulous majesty of
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 1: drunkenness and stretched out his arm. You whar you damn
• 1:49:13
  Speaker 1: bare headed hoar you? He enunciated slowly. There was a
• 1:49:19
  Speaker 1: scream of tipsy laughter from the party, and Charity involuntarily
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 1: put her hands to her head. She remembered that her
• 1:49:26
  Speaker 1: hat had fallen from her lap when she jumped up
• 1:49:28
  Speaker 1: to leave the stand, and suddenly she had a vision
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 1: of herself, hatless, disheveled, with a man's arm about her,
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 1: confronting that drunken crew headed by her guardian's pitiable figure.
• 1:49:41
  Speaker 1: The picture filled her with shame. She had known since
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 1: childhood about mister Royle's habits, had seen him as she
• 1:49:49
  Speaker 1: went up to bed, sitting morosely in his office, a
• 1:49:52
  Speaker 1: bottle at his elbow, or coming home heavy and quarrelsome
• 1:49:56
  Speaker 1: from his business expeditions to Hepburn or Springfield. But the
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 1: idea of his associating himself publicly with a band of
• 1:50:03
  Speaker 1: disreputable girls and barroom loafers was new and dreadful to her. Oh,
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 1: she said, in a gasp of misery, and releasing herself
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 1: from Harney's arm, she went straight up to mister Royle.
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 1: You come home with me. You come right home with me,
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 1: she said, in a low, stern voice, as if she
• 1:50:25
  Speaker 1: had not heard his apostrophe. And one of the girls
• 1:50:28
  Speaker 1: called out, say, how many fellers does she want? There
• 1:50:33
  Speaker 1: was another laugh, followed by a pause of curiosity, during
• 1:50:37
  Speaker 1: which mister Royle continued to glare at Charity. At length,
• 1:50:41
  Speaker 1: his twitching lips parted. I said you damn whore, he
• 1:50:49
  Speaker 1: repeated with precision, steadying himself on Julia's shoulder. Laughs and
• 1:50:54
  Speaker 1: jeers were beginning to spring up from the circle of
• 1:50:56
  Speaker 1: people beyond their group, and a voice called out from
• 1:50:59
  Speaker 1: the gangway. Now then step lively there all aboard. The
• 1:51:04
  Speaker 1: pressure of approaching and departing passengers forced the actors in
• 1:51:08
  Speaker 1: the rapid scene apart and pushed them back into the throng.
• 1:51:12
  Speaker 1: Charity found herself clinging to Harney's arm and sobbing desperately.
• 1:51:16
  Speaker 1: Mister Royle had disappeared, and in the distance she heard
• 1:51:20
  Speaker 1: the receding sound of Julia's laugh. The boat, laden to
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 1: the taffrail was puffing away on her last trip. End
• 1:51:30
  Speaker 1: of chapter ten, Chapter seventeen of Summer by Edith Wharton.
• 1:51:41
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Charity lay
• 1:51:46
  Speaker 1: on the floor on a mattress, as her dead mother's
• 1:51:49
  Speaker 1: body had lain. The room in which she lay was
• 1:51:52
  Speaker 1: cold and dark and low ceilinged, and even poorer and
• 1:51:56
  Speaker 1: barer than the scene of Mary Hyatt's earthly pilgrimage. On
• 1:52:00
  Speaker 1: the other side of the fireless stove lift, Hyatt's mother
• 1:52:03
  Speaker 1: slept on a blanket with two children, her grandchildren, she said,
• 1:52:08
  Speaker 1: rolled up against her like sleeping puppies. They had their
• 1:52:12
  Speaker 1: thin clothes spread over them, having given the only other
• 1:52:15
  Speaker 1: blanket to their guest. Through the small square of glass
• 1:52:19
  Speaker 1: in the opposite wall, Charity saw a deep funnel of sky,
• 1:52:24
  Speaker 1: so black, so remote, so palpitating with frosty stars, that
• 1:52:28
  Speaker 1: her very soul seemed to be sucked into it. Up there, somewhere,
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 1: she supposed, the god whom mister Miles had invoked was
• 1:52:37
  Speaker 1: waiting for Mary Hyatt to appear. What a long flight
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 1: it was, and what would she have to say when
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 1: she reached him. Charity's bewildered brain labored with the attempt
• 1:52:48
  Speaker 1: to picture her mother's past and to relate it in
• 1:52:51
  Speaker 1: any way to the designs of a just but merciful God,
• 1:52:55
  Speaker 1: But it was impossible to imagine any link between them.
• 1:52:59
  Speaker 1: She felt herself as remote from the poor creature she
• 1:53:02
  Speaker 1: had seen lowered into her hastily dug grave, as if
• 1:53:05
  Speaker 1: the height of the heavens divided them. She had seen
• 1:53:08
  Speaker 1: poverty and misfortune in her life. But in a community
• 1:53:12
  Speaker 1: where poor, thrifty Missus Hawes and the industrious Alley represented
• 1:53:16
  Speaker 1: the nearest approach to destitution, there was nothing to suggest
• 1:53:20
  Speaker 1: the savage misery of the mountain farmers. As she lay there,
• 1:53:25
  Speaker 1: half stunned by her tragic initiation, Charity vainly tried to
• 1:53:29
  Speaker 1: think herself into the life about her. But she could
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 1: not even make out what relationship these people bore to
• 1:53:35
  Speaker 1: each other or to her dead mother. They seemed to
• 1:53:38
  Speaker 1: be herded together in a sort of passive promiscuity, in
• 1:53:42
  Speaker 1: which their common misery was the strongest link. She tried
• 1:53:46
  Speaker 1: to picture to herself what her life would have been
• 1:53:48
  Speaker 1: if she had grown up on the mountain, running wild
• 1:53:51
  Speaker 1: in rags, sleeping on the floor, curled up against her
• 1:53:54
  Speaker 1: mother like the pale faced children huddled against old Missus Hyat,
• 1:53:58
  Speaker 1: and turning into a fierce, bewildered creature, like the girl
• 1:54:02
  Speaker 1: who had apostrophised her. In such strange words, she was
• 1:54:06
  Speaker 1: frightened by the secret affinity she had felt with this girl,
• 1:54:09
  Speaker 1: and by the light it threw on her own beginnings.
• 1:54:12
  Speaker 1: Then she remembered what mister Royle had said in telling
• 1:54:15
  Speaker 1: her story to Lucius Harney. Yes there was a mother,
• 1:54:19
  Speaker 1: but she was glad to have the child go. She'd
• 1:54:22
  Speaker 1: have given her to anybody well, After all, was her
• 1:54:27
  Speaker 1: mother so much to blame? Charity, since that day, had
• 1:54:31
  Speaker 1: always thought of her as destitute of all human feeling.
• 1:54:34
  Speaker 1: Now she seemed merely pitiful. What mother would not want
• 1:54:38
  Speaker 1: to save her child from such a life. Charity thought
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 1: of the future of her own child, and tears welled
• 1:54:45
  Speaker 1: into her aching eyes and ran down over her face.
• 1:54:49
  Speaker 1: If she had been less exhausted, less burdened with his weight,
• 1:54:53
  Speaker 1: she would have sprung up then and there and fled away.
• 1:54:57
  Speaker 1: The grim hours of the night dragged themselves slowly by,
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 1: and at last the sky paled and dawned through a
• 1:55:03
  Speaker 1: cold blue beam into the room. She lay in her corner,
• 1:55:06
  Speaker 1: staring at the dirty floor, the clothes line hung with
• 1:55:10
  Speaker 1: decaying rags. The old woman huddled against the cold stove,
• 1:55:14
  Speaker 1: and the light gradually spreading across the wintry world and
• 1:55:17
  Speaker 1: bringing with it a new day in which she would
• 1:55:20
  Speaker 1: have to live, to choose, to act, to make herself
• 1:55:23
  Speaker 1: a place among these people, or to go back to
• 1:55:27
  Speaker 1: the life she had left a mortal lassitude weighed on her.
• 1:55:32
  Speaker 1: There were moments when she felt that all she asked
• 1:55:34
  Speaker 1: was to go on lying there unnoticed. Then her mind
• 1:55:38
  Speaker 1: revolted at the thought of becoming one of the miserable
• 1:55:40
  Speaker 1: herd from which she sprang, and it seemed as though
• 1:55:44
  Speaker 1: to save her child from such a fate, she would
• 1:55:46
  Speaker 1: find strength to travel any distance and bear any burden
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 1: life might put on her. Vague thoughts of Nettleton flitted
• 1:55:54
  Speaker 1: through her mind. She said to herself that she would
• 1:55:57
  Speaker 1: find some quiet place where she could bear her child
• 1:56:00
  Speaker 1: and give it to decent people to keep, and then
• 1:56:03
  Speaker 1: she would go out like Julia Haw's and earn its
• 1:56:06
  Speaker 1: living and hers. She knew that girls of that kind
• 1:56:09
  Speaker 1: sometimes made enough to have their children nicely cared for,
• 1:56:13
  Speaker 1: and every other consideration disappeared in the vision of her baby,
• 1:56:17
  Speaker 1: cleaned and combed and rosy and hidden away somewhere where
• 1:56:20
  Speaker 1: she could run in and kiss it and bring it
• 1:56:23
  Speaker 1: pretty things to wear. Anything, anything, was better than to
• 1:56:27
  Speaker 1: add another life to the nest of misery on the mountain.
• 1:56:31
  Speaker 1: The old woman and the children were still sleeping when
• 1:56:33
  Speaker 1: Charity arose from her mattress. Her body was stiff with
• 1:56:37
  Speaker 1: cold and fatigue, and she moved slowly lest her heavy
• 1:56:40
  Speaker 1: steps should rouse them. She was faint with hunger and
• 1:56:44
  Speaker 1: had nothing left in her satchel. But on the table
• 1:56:47
  Speaker 1: she saw the half of a stale loaf. No doubt
• 1:56:50
  Speaker 1: it was to serve as the breakfast of old missus
• 1:56:53
  Speaker 1: Hyatt and the children. But Charity did not care. She
• 1:56:57
  Speaker 1: had her own baby to think of. She broke off
• 1:57:00
  Speaker 1: a piece of the bread and ate it greedily. Then
• 1:57:03
  Speaker 1: her glance fell on the thin faces of the sleeping children,
• 1:57:06
  Speaker 1: and filled with compunction, she rummaged in her satchel for
• 1:57:10
  Speaker 1: something with which to pay for what she had taken.
• 1:57:13
  Speaker 1: She found one of the pretty chemises that Ali had
• 1:57:15
  Speaker 1: made for her, with the blue ribbon run through its edging.
• 1:57:19
  Speaker 1: It was one of the dainty things on which she
• 1:57:21
  Speaker 1: had squandered her savings, and as she looked at it,
• 1:57:24
  Speaker 1: the blood rushed to her forehead. She laid the chemise
• 1:57:28
  Speaker 1: on the table, and, stealing across the floor, lifted the
• 1:57:31
  Speaker 1: latch and went out. The morning was icy cold, and
• 1:57:36
  Speaker 1: a pale sun was just rising above the eastern shoulder
• 1:57:39
  Speaker 1: of the mountain. The houses scattered on the hill side
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 1: lay cold and smokeless under the sun flecked clouds, and
• 1:57:46
  Speaker 1: not a human being was in sight. Charity paused on
• 1:57:49
  Speaker 1: the threshold and tried to discover the road by which
• 1:57:52
  Speaker 1: she had come the night before. Across the field surrounding
• 1:57:56
  Speaker 1: Missus Hyatt's shanty, she saw the tumble down house in
• 1:57:59
  Speaker 1: which she supposed the funeral service had taken place. The
• 1:58:02
  Speaker 1: trail ran across the ground between the two houses and
• 1:58:05
  Speaker 1: disappeared in the pine wood on the flank of the mountain,
• 1:58:09
  Speaker 1: and a little way to the right, under a wind
• 1:58:11
  Speaker 1: beaten thorn. A mound of fresh earth made a dark
• 1:58:14
  Speaker 1: spot on the fawn colored stubble. Charity walked across the
• 1:58:18
  Speaker 1: field to the ground. As she approached it, she heard
• 1:58:22
  Speaker 1: a bird's note in the still air, and looking up,
• 1:58:25
  Speaker 1: she saw a brown song sparrow perch in an upper
• 1:58:28
  Speaker 1: branch of the thorn above the grave. She stood a
• 1:58:31
  Speaker 1: minute listening to his small, solitary song. Then she rejoined
• 1:58:35
  Speaker 1: the trail and began to mount the hill to the
• 1:58:38
  Speaker 1: pine wood. Thus far she had been impelled by the
• 1:58:42
  Speaker 1: blind instinct of flight, but each step seemed to bring
• 1:58:45
  Speaker 1: her nearer to the realities of which her feverish vigil
• 1:58:48
  Speaker 1: had given only a shadowy image. Now that she walked
• 1:58:51
  Speaker 1: again in a daylight world on the way back to
• 1:58:54
  Speaker 1: familiar things, her imagination moved more soberly. On one point,
• 1:58:59
  Speaker 1: she was still decided she could not remain at North Dormer,
• 1:59:04
  Speaker 1: and the sooner she got away from it, the better.
• 1:59:07
  Speaker 1: But everything beyond was darkness. As she continued to climb,
• 1:59:11
  Speaker 1: the air grew keener, and when she passed from the
• 1:59:14
  Speaker 1: shelter of the pines to the open grassy roof of
• 1:59:16
  Speaker 1: the mountain, the cold wind of the night before sprang
• 1:59:19
  Speaker 1: out on her. She bent her shoulders and struggled on
• 1:59:23
  Speaker 1: against it for a while, but presently her breath failed,
• 1:59:26
  Speaker 1: and she sat down under a ledge of rock, overhung
• 1:59:29
  Speaker 1: by shivering birches. From where she sat, she saw the
• 1:59:32
  Speaker 1: trail wandering across the bleached grass in the direction of Hamblin,
• 1:59:36
  Speaker 1: and the granite wall of the mountain falling away to
• 1:59:39
  Speaker 1: infinite distances. On that side of the ridge, the valleys
• 1:59:42
  Speaker 1: still lay in wintry shadow, but in the plain beyond,
• 1:59:46
  Speaker 1: the sun was touching village roofs and steeples, and gliding
• 1:59:49
  Speaker 1: the haze of smoke over far off invisible towns. Charity
• 1:59:54
  Speaker 1: felt herself a mere speck in the lonely circle of
• 1:59:57
  Speaker 1: the sky. The events of the last two days seemed
• 2:00:01
  Speaker 1: to have divided her forever from her short dream of bliss.
• 2:00:05
  Speaker 1: Even Harney's image had been blurred by that crushing experience.
• 2:00:09
  Speaker 1: She thought of him as so remote from her that
• 2:00:12
  Speaker 1: he seemed hardly more than a memory in her fagged
• 2:00:15
  Speaker 1: and floating mind. Only one sensation had the weight of reality.
• 2:00:20
  Speaker 1: It was the bodily burden of her child. But for
• 2:00:23
  Speaker 1: it she would have felt as rootless as the whiffs
• 2:00:26
  Speaker 1: of thistledown the wind blew past her. Her child was
• 2:00:29
  Speaker 1: like a load that held her down, and yet like
• 2:00:32
  Speaker 1: a hand that pulled her to her feet. She said
• 2:00:35
  Speaker 1: to herself that she must get up and struggle on.
• 2:00:39
  Speaker 1: Her eyes turned back to the trail across the top
• 2:00:42
  Speaker 1: of the mountain, and in the distance she saw a
• 2:00:45
  Speaker 1: buggy against the sky. She knew its antique outline and
• 2:00:49
  Speaker 1: the gaunt build of the old horse pressing forward with
• 2:00:52
  Speaker 1: lowered head, and after a moment she recognized the heavy
• 2:00:55
  Speaker 1: bulk of the man who held the reins. The buggy
• 2:00:58
  Speaker 1: was following the trail and making straight for the pine
• 2:01:01
  Speaker 1: wood through which she had climbed, and she knew at
• 2:01:03
  Speaker 1: once that the driver was in search of her. Her
• 2:01:06
  Speaker 1: first impulse was to crouch down under the ledge till
• 2:01:09
  Speaker 1: he had passed, but the instinct of concealment was overruled
• 2:01:12
  Speaker 1: by the relief of feeling that some one was near her.
• 2:01:15
  Speaker 1: In the awful emptiness, she stood up and walked toward
• 2:01:19
  Speaker 1: the buggy. Mister Royle saw her and touched the horse
• 2:01:23
  Speaker 1: with the whip. A minute or two later he was
• 2:01:26
  Speaker 1: abreast of Charity. Their eyes met, and without speaking, he
• 2:01:30
  Speaker 1: leaned over and helped her up into the buggy. She
• 2:01:33
  Speaker 1: tried to speak to stammer out some explanation, but no
• 2:01:37
  Speaker 1: words came to her, and as he drew the cover
• 2:01:40
  Speaker 1: over her knees, he simply said, the Minister told me
• 2:01:43
  Speaker 1: he'd left you up here, so I come up for you.
• 2:01:47
  Speaker 1: He turned the horse's head and they began to jog
• 2:01:50
  Speaker 1: back toward Hamblin. Charity sat speechless, staring straight ahead of her,
• 2:01:56
  Speaker 1: and mister Royle occasionally uttered a word of encouragement to
• 2:01:59
  Speaker 1: the horse. Get along there, Dan. I gave him a
• 2:02:03
  Speaker 1: rest at Hamblin, but I brought him along pretty quick,
• 2:02:06
  Speaker 1: and it's a stiff pull up here against the wind.
• 2:02:10
  Speaker 1: As he spoke, it occurred to her for the first
• 2:02:12
  Speaker 1: time that to reach the top of the mountain so early,
• 2:02:15
  Speaker 1: he must have left North Dormer at the coldest hour
• 2:02:18
  Speaker 1: of the night and have traveled steadily but for the
• 2:02:20
  Speaker 1: halt at Hamblin, And she felt a softness at her
• 2:02:24
  Speaker 1: heart which no act of his had ever produced since
• 2:02:27
  Speaker 1: he had brought her the Crimson Rambler, because she had
• 2:02:30
  Speaker 1: given up boarding school to stay with him. After an interval,
• 2:02:34
  Speaker 1: he began again, it was a day just like this,
• 2:02:37
  Speaker 1: only spitting snow when I come up here for you
• 2:02:40
  Speaker 1: the first time. Then, as if fearing that she might
• 2:02:44
  Speaker 1: take his remark as a reminder of past benefits, he
• 2:02:47
  Speaker 1: added quickly, I dunnows you think it was such a
• 2:02:50
  Speaker 1: good job either. Yes, I do, she murmured, looking straight
• 2:02:55
  Speaker 1: ahead of her. Well, he said, I tried. He did
• 2:03:02
  Speaker 1: not finish the sentence, and she could think of nothing
• 2:03:04
  Speaker 1: more to say. Ho there, Dan, step out, he muttered,
• 2:03:09
  Speaker 1: jerking the bridle. We ain't home yet, You cold, he
• 2:03:14
  Speaker 1: asked abruptly. She shook her head, but he drew the
• 2:03:18
  Speaker 1: cover up higher and stooped to tuck it in about
• 2:03:21
  Speaker 1: the ankles. She continued to look straight ahead. Tears of
• 2:03:25
  Speaker 1: weariness and weakness were dimming her eyes and beginning to
• 2:03:28
  Speaker 1: run over, but she dared not wipe them away, lest
• 2:03:31
  Speaker 1: he should observe the gesture. They drove in silence, following
• 2:03:35
  Speaker 1: the long loops of the descent upon Hamblin, and mister
• 2:03:38
  Speaker 1: Royle did not speak again till they reached the outskirts
• 2:03:41
  Speaker 1: of the village. Then he let the reins droop on
• 2:03:44
  Speaker 1: the dashboard and drew out his watch. Charity, he said,
• 2:03:49
  Speaker 1: you look fair done up and north Dormer's a goodish
• 2:03:52
  Speaker 1: way off. I've figured out that we'd do better to
• 2:03:55
  Speaker 1: stop here long enough for you to get a mouthful
• 2:03:57
  Speaker 1: of breakfast, and then drive down to Creston and take
• 2:03:59
  Speaker 1: the train. She roused herself from her apathetic musing the train.
• 2:04:05
  Speaker 1: What train? Mister Royle, without answering, let the horse jog
• 2:04:10
  Speaker 1: on till they reached the door of the first house
• 2:04:12
  Speaker 1: in the village. This is old missus Hobart's place. He said,
• 2:04:17
  Speaker 1: she'll give us something hot to drink. Charity half unconsciously
• 2:04:21
  Speaker 1: found herself getting out of the buggy and following him in.
• 2:04:24
  Speaker 1: At the open door, they entered a decent kitchen with
• 2:04:27
  Speaker 1: a fire crackling in the stove. An old woman with
• 2:04:30
  Speaker 1: a kindly face was setting out cups and saucers on
• 2:04:33
  Speaker 1: the table. She looked up and nodded as they came in,
• 2:04:37
  Speaker 1: and mister Royle advanced to the stove, clapping his numb
• 2:04:40
  Speaker 1: hands together. Well, Missus Hobart, you got any breakfast for
• 2:04:45
  Speaker 1: this young lady. You can see she's cold and hungry.
• 2:04:48
  Speaker 1: Missus Hobart smiled on Charity and took a tin coffee
• 2:04:52
  Speaker 1: pot from the fire. My you do look pretty mean,
• 2:04:56
  Speaker 1: she said compassionately. Charity reddened an sat down at the table.
• 2:05:01
  Speaker 1: A feeling of complete passiveness had once more come over her,
• 2:05:05
  Speaker 1: and she was conscious only of the pleasant animal sensations
• 2:05:08
  Speaker 1: of warmth and rest. Missus Hobart put bread and milk
• 2:05:12
  Speaker 1: on the table and then went out of the house.
• 2:05:16
  Speaker 1: Charity saw her leading the horse away to the barn
• 2:05:18
  Speaker 1: across the yard. She did not come back, and mister
• 2:05:22
  Speaker 1: Royle and Charity sat alone at the table with the
• 2:05:24
  Speaker 1: smoking coffee between them. He poured out a cup for
• 2:05:28
  Speaker 1: her and put a piece of bread in the saucer,
• 2:05:30
  Speaker 1: and she began to eat as the warmth of the
• 2:05:34
  Speaker 1: coffee flowed through her veins, her thoughts cleared, and she
• 2:05:37
  Speaker 1: began to feel like a living being again. But the
• 2:05:40
  Speaker 1: return to life was so painful that the food choked
• 2:05:43
  Speaker 1: in her throat, and she sat staring down at the
• 2:05:45
  Speaker 1: table in silent anguish. After a while, mister Royle pushed
• 2:05:50
  Speaker 1: back his chair. Now, then he said, if you were
• 2:05:54
  Speaker 1: mine to go along. She did not move, and he continued,
• 2:05:58
  Speaker 1: we can pick up the noon train for Nettleton if
• 2:06:00
  Speaker 1: you say so. The word sent the blood rushing to
• 2:06:04
  Speaker 1: her face, and she raised her startled eyes to his.
• 2:06:08
  Speaker 1: He was standing on the other side of the table,
• 2:06:10
  Speaker 1: looking at her kindly and gravely, and suddenly she understood
• 2:06:15
  Speaker 1: what he was going to say. She continued to sit motionless,
• 2:06:19
  Speaker 1: a leaden weight upon her lips. You and me have
• 2:06:22
  Speaker 1: spoke some hard things to each other in our time, charity,
• 2:06:26
  Speaker 1: and there's no good that I can see in any
• 2:06:28
  Speaker 1: more talking now. But I'll never feel any way but
• 2:06:31
  Speaker 1: one about you. And if you say so, we'll drive
• 2:06:34
  Speaker 1: down in time to catch that train and go straight
• 2:06:36
  Speaker 1: to the Minister's house. And when you come back home,
• 2:06:40
  Speaker 1: you'll come as missus Royal. His voice had the grave,
• 2:06:45
  Speaker 1: persuasive accent that had moved his hearers at the Home
• 2:06:47
  Speaker 1: Week Festival. She had a sense of depths of mournful tolerance.
• 2:06:52
  Speaker 1: Under that easy tone, her whole body began to tremble
• 2:06:55
  Speaker 1: with the dread of her own weakness. Oh, I can't un't,
• 2:07:00
  Speaker 1: she burst out, desperately, can't what she herself did not know.
• 2:07:07
  Speaker 1: She was not sure if she was rejecting what he offered,
• 2:07:10
  Speaker 1: or already struggling against the temptation of taking what she
• 2:07:13
  Speaker 1: no longer had a right to. She stood up, shaking
• 2:07:16
  Speaker 1: and bewildered, and began to speak, I know I ain't
• 2:07:20
  Speaker 1: been fair to you always, but I want to be now.
• 2:07:23
  Speaker 1: I want you to know I want Her voice failed her,
• 2:07:27
  Speaker 1: and she stopped. Mister Royle leaned against the wall. He
• 2:07:32
  Speaker 1: was paler than usual, but his face was composed and kindly,
• 2:07:36
  Speaker 1: and her agitation did not appear to perturb him. What's
• 2:07:40
  Speaker 1: all this about wanting? He said, as she paused, do
• 2:07:44
  Speaker 1: you know what you really want? I'll tell you want
• 2:07:48
  Speaker 1: to be took home and took care of. And I
• 2:07:50
  Speaker 1: guess that's all there is to say. No, it's not all,
• 2:07:55
  Speaker 1: ain't it. He looked at his watch. Well, I'll tell
• 2:07:59
  Speaker 1: you a thing. All I want is to know if
• 2:08:02
  Speaker 1: you'll marry me. If there was anything else, i'd tell
• 2:08:05
  Speaker 1: you so, but there ain't. Come to my age. A
• 2:08:08
  Speaker 1: man knows the things that matter and the things that don't.
• 2:08:11
  Speaker 1: That's but the only good turn life does us. His
• 2:08:15
  Speaker 1: tone was so strong and resolute that it was like
• 2:08:18
  Speaker 1: a supporting arm about her. She felt her resistance melting,
• 2:08:22
  Speaker 1: her strength slipping away from her as he spoke. Don't cry, Charity,
• 2:08:27
  Speaker 1: he exclaimed in a shaken voice. She looked up, startled
• 2:08:32
  Speaker 1: at his emotion, and their eyes met. See here, he
• 2:08:37
  Speaker 1: said gently, Old Dan's come a long distance, and we've
• 2:08:41
  Speaker 1: got to let him take it easy. The rest of
• 2:08:42
  Speaker 1: the way. He picked up the cloak that had slipped
• 2:08:45
  Speaker 1: to her chair and laid it about her shoulders. She
• 2:08:48
  Speaker 1: followed him out of the house and then walked across
• 2:08:51
  Speaker 1: the yard to the shed where the horse was tied.
• 2:08:54
  Speaker 1: Mister Royle unblanketed him and led him out into the road.
• 2:08:58
  Speaker 1: Charity got into the buggy, and he drew the cover
• 2:09:01
  Speaker 1: about her and shook out the reins with a clock.
• 2:09:04
  Speaker 1: When they reached the end of the village, he turned
• 2:09:07
  Speaker 1: the horse's head toward creston end of chapter seventeen,