Verbal Expression

by Edgar Allan Poe
  Helen, thy beauty is to me
    Like those Nicean barks of yore,
  That gently, o’er a perfumed sea,
    The weary, wayworn wanderer bore
    To his own native shore.

  On desperate seas long wont to roam,
    Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
  Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
    To the glory that was Greece,
  To the grandeur that was Rome.

  Lo! in yon brilliant window niche,
    How statue-like I see thee stand,
    The agate lamp within thy hand!
  Ah, Psyche, from the regions which
    Are Holy Land!

by Edgar Allan Poe
    “Nullus enim locus sine genio est.”

     Servius
“La musique,” says Marmontel, in those “Contes Moraux” which in all
our translations we have insisted upon calling “Moral Tales,” as if in
mockery of their spirit–”la musique est le seul des talens qui jouisse
de lui-meme: tous les autres veulent des temoins.” He here confounds
the pleasure derivable from sweet sounds with the capacity for creating
them. No more than any other talent, is that for music susceptible of
complete enjoyment where there is no second party to appreciate its
exercise; and it is only in common with other talents that it produces
effects which may be fully enjoyed in solitude. The idea which the
raconteur has either failed to entertain clearly, or has sacrificed in
its expression to his national love of point, is doubtless the very
tenable one that the higher order of music is the most thoroughly
estimated when we are exclusively alone. The proposition in this form
will be admitted at once by those who love the lyre for its own sake and
for its spiritual uses. But there is one pleasure still within the reach
of fallen mortality, and perhaps only one, which owes even more than
does music to the accessory sentiment of seclusion. I mean the happiness
experienced in the contemplation of natural scenery. In truth, the man
who would behold aright the glory of God upon earth must in solitude
behold that glory. To me at least the presence, not of human life only,
but of life, in any other form than that of the green things which grow
upon the soil and are voiceless, is a stain upon the landscape, is at
war with the genius of the scene. I love, indeed, to regard the dark
valleys, and the gray rocks, and the waters that silently smile, and the
forests that sigh in uneasy slumbers, and the proud watchful mountains
that look down upon all,–I love to regard these as themselves but the
colossal members of one vast animate and sentient whole–a whole whose
form (that of the sphere) is the most perfect and most inclusive of all;
whose path is among associate planets; whose meek handmaiden is the
moon; whose mediate sovereign is the sun; whose life is eternity; whose
thought is that of a god; whose enjoyment is knowledge; whose destinies
are lost in immensity; whose cognizance of ourselves is akin with our
own cognizance of the animalculæ which infest the brain, a being which
we in consequence regard as purely inanimate and material, much in the
same manner as these animalculæ must thus regard us.

Our telescopes and our mathematical investigations assure us on every
hand, notwithstanding the cant of the more ignorant of the priesthood,
that space, and therefore that bulk, is an important consideration in
the eyes of the Almighty. The cycles in which the stars move are those
best adapted for the evolution, without collision, of the greatest
possible number of bodies. The forms of those bodies are accurately such
as within a given surface to include the greatest possible amount of
matter; while the surfaces themselves are so disposed as to accommodate
a denser population than could be accommodated on the same surfaces
otherwise arranged. Nor is it any argument against bulk being an object
with God that space itself is infinite; for there may be an infinity of
matter to fill it; and since we see clearly that the endowment of matter
with vitality is a principle–indeed, as far as our judgments extend,
the leading principle in the operations of Deity, it is scarcely
logical to imagine it confined to the regions of the minute, where we
daily trace it, and not extending to those of the august. As we find
cycle within cycle without end, yet all revolving around one far-distant
centre which is the Godhead, may we not analogically suppose, in the
same manner, life within life, the less within the greater, and all
within the Spirit Divine? In short, we are madly erring through
self-esteem in believing man, in either his temporal or future
destinies, to be of more moment in the universe than that vast “clod of
the valley” which he tills and contemns, and to which he denies a soul,
for no more profound reason than that he does not behold it in operation.

These fancies, and such as these, have always given to my meditations
among the mountains and the forests, by the rivers and the ocean, a
tinge of what the every-day world would not fail to term the fantastic.
My wanderings amid such scenes have been many and far-searching, and
often solitary; and the interest with which I have strayed through many
a dim deep valley, or gazed into the reflected heaven of many a bright
lake, has been an interest greatly deepened by the thought that I have
strayed and gazed alone. What flippant Frenchman was it who said,
in allusion to the well known work of Zimmermann, that “la solitude est
une belle chose; mais il faut quelqu’un pour vous dire que la solitude
est une belle chose”? The epigram cannot be gainsaid; but the necessity
is a thing that does not exist.

It was during one of my lonely journeyings, amid a far distant region of
mountain locked within mountain, and sad rivers and melancholy tarns
writhing or sleeping within all, that I chanced upon a certain rivulet
and island. I came upon them suddenly in the leafy June, and threw
myself upon the turf beneath the branches of an unknown odorous shrub,
that I might doze as I contemplated the scene. I felt that thus only
should I look upon it, such was the character of phantasm which it wore.

On all sides, save to the west where the sun was about sinking, arose
the verdant walls of the forest. The little river which turned sharply
in its course, and was thus immediately lost to sight, seemed to have no
exit from its prison, but to be absorbed by the deep green foliage of
the trees to the east; while in the opposite quarter (so it appeared to
me as I lay at length and glanced upward) there poured down noiselessly
and continuously into the valley a rich golden and crimson waterfall
from the sunset fountains of the sky.

About midway in the short vista which my dreamy vision took in, one
small circular island, profusely verdured, reposed upon the bosom of the
stream.

  So blended bank and shadow there,
  That each seemed pendulous in air–

so mirror-like was the glassy water, that it was scarcely possible to
say at what point upon the slope of the emerald turf its crystal
dominion began. My position enabled me to include in a single view both
the eastern and western extremities of the islet, and I observed a
singularly-marked difference in their aspects. The latter was all one
radiant harem of garden beauties. It glowed and blushed beneath the eye
of the slant sunlight, and fairly laughed with flowers. The grass was
short, springy, sweet-scented, and Asphodel-interspersed. The trees were
lithe, mirthful, erect, bright, slender, and graceful, of eastern figure
and foliage, with bark smooth, glossy, and parti-colored. There seemed a
deep sense of life and joy about all, and although no airs blew from out
the heavens, yet everything had motion through the gentle sweepings to
and fro of innumerable butterflies, that might have been mistaken for
tulips with wings.

The other or eastern end of the isle was whelmed in the blackest shade.
A sombre, yet beautiful and peaceful gloom, here pervaded all things.
The trees were dark in color and mournful in form and attitude–
wreathing themselves into sad, solemn, and spectral shapes, that
conveyed ideas of mortal sorrow and untimely death. The grass wore the
deep tint of the cypress, and the heads of its blades hung droopingly,
and hither and thither among it were many small unsightly hillocks, low
and narrow, and not very long, that had the aspect of graves, but were
not, although over and all about them the rue and the rosemary
clambered. The shades of the trees fell heavily upon the water, and
seemed to bury itself therein, impregnating the depths of the element
with darkness. I fancied that each shadow, as the sun descended lower
and lower, separated itself sullenly from the trunk that gave it birth,
and thus became absorbed by the stream, while other shadows issued
momently from the trees, taking the place of their predecessors thus
entombed.

This idea having once seized upon my fancy greatly excited it, and I
lost myself forthwith in reverie. “If ever island were enchanted,” said
I to myself, “this is it. This is the haunt of the few gentle Fays who
remain from the wreck of the race. Are these green tombs theirs?–or do
they yield up their sweet lives as mankind yield up their own? In dying,
do they not rather waste away mournfully, rendering unto God little by
little their existence, as these trees render up shadow after shadow,
exhausting their substance unto dissolution? What the wasting tree is to
the water that imbibes its shade, growing thus blacker by what it preys
upon, may not the life of the Fay be to the death which engulfs it?”

As I thus mused, with half-shut eyes, while the sun sank rapidly to
rest, and eddying currents careered round and round the island, bearing
upon their bosom large dazzling white flakes of the bark of the
sycamore, flakes which, in their multiform positions upon the water, a
quick imagination might have converted into anything it pleased; while I
thus mused, it appeared to me that the form of one of those very Fays
about whom I had been pondering, made its way slowly into the darkness
from out the light at the western end of the island. She stood erect in
a singularly fragile canoe, and urged it with the mere phantom of an
oar. While within the influence of the lingering sunbeams, her attitude
seemed indicative of joy, but sorrow deformed it as she passed within
the shade. Slowly she glided along, and at length rounded the islet and
re-entered the region of light. “The revolution which has just been made
by the Fay,” continued I musingly, “is the cycle of the brief year of
her life. She has floated through her winter and through her summer. She
is a year nearer unto death: for I did not fail to see that as she came
into the shade, her shadow fell from her, and was swallowed up in the
dark water, making its blackness more black.”

And again the boat appeared and the Fay, but about the attitude of the
latter there was more of care and uncertainty and less of elastic joy.
She floated again from out the light and into the gloom (which deepened
momently), and again her shadow fell from her into the ebony water, and
became absorbed into its blackness. And again and again she made the
circuit of the island (while the sun rushed down to his slumbers), and
at each issuing into the light there was more sorrow about her person,
while it grew feebler and far fainter and more indistinct, and at each
passage into the gloom there fell from her a darker shade, which became
whelmed in a shadow more black. But at length, when the sun had utterly
departed, the Fay, now the mere ghost of her former self, went
disconsolately with her boat into the region of the ebony flood, and
that she issued thence at all I cannot say, for darkness fell over all
things, and I beheld her magical figure no more.

  I saw thee on thy bridal day–
    When a burning blush came o’er thee,
  Though happiness around thee lay,
    The world all love before thee:

  And in thine eye a kindling light
    (Whatever it might be)
  Was all on Earth my aching sight
    Of Loveliness could see.

  That blush, perhaps, was maiden shame–
    As such it well may pass–
  Though its glow hath raised a fiercer flame
    In the breast of him, alas!

  Who saw thee on that bridal day,
    When that deep blush would come o’er thee,
  Though happiness around thee lay,
    The world all love before thee.

by Edgar Allan Poe
  ‘Twas noontide of summer,
    And midtime of night,
  And stars, in their orbits,
    Shone pale, through the light
  Of the brighter, cold moon.
    ‘Mid planets her slaves,
  Herself in the Heavens,
    Her beam on the waves.

    I gazed awhile
    On her cold smile;
  Too cold–too cold for me–
    There passed, as a shroud,
    A fleecy cloud,
  And I turned away to thee,
    Proud Evening Star,
    In thy glory afar
  And dearer thy beam shall be;
    For joy to my heart
    Is the proud part
  Thou bearest in Heaven at night,
    And more I admire
    Thy distant fire,
  Than that colder, lowly light.

by Horatio Alger, Jr.

I wrote my name upon the sand,
  And trusted it would stand for aye;
But, soon, alas! the refluent sea
  Had washed my feeble lines away.

I carved my name upon the wood,
  And, after years, returned again;
I missed the shadow of the tree
  That stretched of old upon the plain.

To solid marble next, my name
  I gave as a perpetual trust;
An earthquake rent it to its base,
  And now it lies, o’erlaid with dust.

All these have failed. In wiser mood
  I turn and ask myself, “What then?”
If I would have my name endure,
  I’ll write it on the hearts of men,

In characters of living light,
  Of kindly deeds and actions wrought.
And these, beyond the touch of time,
  Shall live immortal as my thought.

by Horatio Alger, Jr.
It is the year’s high noon,
  The earth sweet incense yields,
  And o’er the fresh, green fields
Bends the clear sky of June.

I leave the crowded streets,
  The hum of busy life,
  Its clamor and its strife,
To breathe thy perfumed sweets.

O rare and golden hours!
  The bird’s melodious song,
  Wavelike, is borne along
Upon a strand of flowers.

I wander far away,
  Where, through the forest trees,
  Sports the cool summer breeze,
In wild and wanton play.

A patriarchal elm
  Its stately form uprears,
  Which twice a hundred years
Has ruled this woodland realm.

I sit beneath its shade,
  And watch, with careless eye,
  The brook that babbles by,
And cools the leafy glade.

In truth I wonder not,
  That in the ancient days
  The temples of God’s praise
Were grove and leafy grot.

The noblest ever planned,
  With quaint device and rare,
  By man, can ill compare
With these from God’s own hand.

Pilgrim with way-worn feet,
  Who, treading life’s dull round,
  No true repose hast found,
Come to this green retreat.

For bird, and flower, and tree,
  Green fields, and woodland wild,
  Shall bear, with voices mild,
Sweet messages to thee.

If you were coming in the fall,
I’d brush the summer by
With half a smile and half a spurn,
As housewives do a fly.

If I could see you in a year,
I’d wind the months in balls,
And put them each in separate drawers,
Until their time befalls.

If only centuries delayed,
I’d count them on my hand,
Subtracting till my fingers dropped
Into Van Diemen’s land.

If certain, when this life was out,
That yours and mine should be,
I’d toss it yonder like a rind,
And taste eternity.

But now, all ignorant of the length
Of time’s uncertain wing,
It goads me, like the goblin bee,
That will not state its sting.

A wounded deer leaps highest,
I’ve heard the hunter tell;
‘T is but the ecstasy of death,
And then the brake is still.

The smitten rock that gushes,
The trampled steel that springs;
A cheek is always redder
Just where the hectic stings!

Mirth is the mail of anguish,
In which it cautions arm,
Lest anybody spy the blood
And “You’re hurt” exclaim!

by Edgar Allan Poe
I.       Beneath the vine-clad eaves,
             Whose shadows fall before
             Thy lowly cottage door–
         Under the lilac’s tremulous leaves–
         Within thy snowy clasped hand
             The purple flowers it bore.
         Last eve in dreams, I saw thee stand,
         Like queenly nymph from Fairy-land–
         Enchantress of the flowery wand,
             Most beauteous Isadore!
II.      And when I bade the dream
             Upon thy spirit flee,
             Thy violet eyes to me
         Upturned, did overflowing seem
         With the deep, untold delight
             Of Love’s serenity;
         Thy classic brow, like lilies white
         And pale as the Imperial Night
         Upon her throne, with stars bedight,
             Enthralled my soul to thee!
III.     Ah! ever I behold
             Thy dreamy, passionate eyes,
             Blue as the languid skies
         Hung with the sunset’s fringe of gold;
         Now strangely clear thine image grows,
             And olden memories
         Are startled from their long repose
         Like shadows on the silent snows
         When suddenly the night-wind blows
             Where quiet moonlight lies.
IV.      Like music heard in dreams,
             Like strains of harps unknown,
             Of birds for ever flown,–
         Audible as the voice of streams
         That murmur in some leafy dell,
             I hear thy gentlest tone,
         And Silence cometh with her spell
         Like that which on my tongue doth dwell,
         When tremulous in dreams I tell
             My love to thee alone!

V.       In every valley heard,
             Floating from tree to tree,
             Less beautiful to me,
         The music of the radiant bird,
         Than artless accents such as thine
             Whose echoes never flee!
         Ah! how for thy sweet voice I pine:–
         For uttered in thy tones benign
         (Enchantress!) this rude name of mine
             Doth seem a melody!

by Eleanor H. Porter

A GIRL AND A BIT OF LOWESTOFT
Immediately after breakfast the next morning,
Billy was summoned to the telephone.

“Oh, good morning, Uncle William,” she called,
in answer to the masculine voice that replied to
her “Hullo.”

“Billy, are you very busy this morning?”

“No, indeed–not if you want me.”

“Well, I do, my dear.”  Uncle William’s
voice was troubled.  “I want you to go with me,
if you can, to see a Mrs. Greggory.  She’s got a
teapot I want.  It’s a genuine Lowestoft, Harlow
says.  Will you go?”

“Of course I will!  What time?”

“Eleven if you can, at Park Street.  She’s
at the West End.  I don’t dare to put it off for
fear I’ll lose it.  Harlow says others will have to
know of it, of course.  You see, she’s just made up
her mind to sell it, and asked him to find a
customer.  I wouldn’t trouble you, but he says
they’re peculiar–the daughter, especially–and
may need some careful handling.  That’s why I
wanted you–though I wanted you to see the tea-pot,
too,–it’ll be yours some day, you know.”

Billy, all alone at her end of the line, blushed.
That she was one day to be mistress of the Strata
and all it contained was still anything but “common”
to her.

“I’d love to see it, and I’ll come gladly; but
I’m afraid I won’t be much help, Uncle William,”
she worried.

“I’ll take the risk of that.  You see, Harlow
says that about half the time she isn’t sure she
wants to sell it, after all.”

“Why, how funny!  Well, I’ll come.  At
eleven, you say, at Park Street?”

“Yes; and thank you, my dear.  I tried to
get Kate to go, too; but she wouldn’t.  By the
way, I’m going to bring you home to luncheon.
Kate leaves this afternoon, you know, and it’s
been so snowy she hasn’t thought best to try to
get over to the house.  Maybe Aunt Hannah would
come, too, for luncheon.  Would she?”

“I’m afraid not,” returned Billy, with a rueful
laugh.  “She’s got _three_ shawls on this morning,
and you know that always means that she’s
felt a draft somewhere–poor dear.  I’ll tell her,
though, and I’ll see you at eleven,” finished Billy,
as she hung up the receiver.

Promptly at the appointed time Billy met Uncle
William at Park Street, and together they set
out for the West End street named on the paper
in his pocket.  But when the shabby house on
the narrow little street was reached, the man looked
about him with a troubled frown.

“I declare, Billy, I’m not sure but we’d better
turn back,” he fretted.  “I didn’t mean to take
you to such a place as this.”

Billy shivered a little; but after one glance at
the man’s disappointed face she lifted a determined
chin.

“Nonsense, Uncle William!  Of course you
won’t turn back.  I don’t mind–for myself;
but only think of the people whose _homes_ are
here,” she finished, just above her breath.

Mrs. Greggory was found to be living in two
back rooms at the top of four flights of stairs,
up which William Henshaw toiled with increasing
weariness and dismay, punctuating each flight
with a despairing:  “Billy, really, I think we
should turn back!”

But Billy would not turn back, and at last
they found themselves in the presence of a white-
haired, sweet-faced woman who said yes, she
was Mrs. Greggory; yes, she was.  Even as she
uttered the words, however, she looked fearfully
over her shoulders as if expecting to hear from
the hall behind them a voice denying her assertion.

Mrs. Greggory was a cripple.  Her slender
little body was poised on two once-costly crutches.
Both the worn places on the crutches, and the
skill with which the little woman swung herself
about the room testified that the crippled condition
was not a new one.

Billy’s eyes were brimming with pity and
dismay.  Mechanically she had taken the chair
toward which Mrs. Greggory had motioned her.
She had tried not to seem to look about her; but
there was not one detail of the bare little room,
from its faded rug to the patched but spotless
tablecloth, that was not stamped on her brain.

Mrs. Greggory had seated herself now, and
William Henshaw had cleared his throat nervously.
Billy did not know whether she herself were the
more distressed or the more relieved to hear him
stammer:

“We–er–I came from Harlow, Mrs. Greggory.
He gave me to understand you had an–
er–teapot that–er–”  With his eyes on
the cracked white crockery pitcher on the table,
William Henshaw came to a helpless pause.

A curious expression, or rather, series of
expressions crossed Mrs. Greggory’s face.  Terror,
joy, dismay, and relief seemed, one after the other
to fight for supremacy.  Relief in the end
conquered, though even yet there was a second
hurriedly apprehensive glance toward the door
before she spoke.

“The Lowestoft!  Yes, I’m so glad!–that
is, of course I must be glad.  I’ll get it.”  Her
voice broke as she pulled herself from her chair.
There was only despairing sorrow on her face
now.

The man rose at once.

“But, madam, perhaps–don’t let me–”  I
he began stammeringly.  “Of course–Billy!”
he broke off in an entirely different voice.  “Jove!
What a beauty!”

Mrs. Greggory had thrown open the door of
a small cupboard near the collector’s chair,
disclosing on one of the shelves a beautifully shaped
teapot, creamy in tint, and exquisitely decorated
in a rose design.  Near it set a tray-like plate of
the same ware and decoration.

“If you’ll lift it down, please, yourself,”
motioned Mrs. Greggory.  “I don’t like to–with
these,” she explained, tapping the crutches at
her side.

With fingers that were almost reverent in their
appreciation, the collector reached for the teapot.
His eyes sparkled.

“Billy, look, what a beauty!  And it’s a
Lowestoft, too, the real thing–the genuine, true soft
paste!  And there’s the tray–did you notice?”
he exulted, turning back to the shelf.  “You
_don’t_ see that every day!  They get separated,
most generally, you know.”

“These pieces have been in our family for
generations,” said Mrs. Greggory with an accent
of pride.  “You’ll find them quite perfect, I
think.”

“Perfect!  I should say they were,” cried the
man.

“They are, then–valuable?” Mrs. Greggory’s
voice shook.

“Indeed they are!  But you must know that.”

“I have been told so.  Yet to me their chief
value, of course, lies in their association.  My
mother and my grandmother owned that teapot,
sir.”  Again her voice broke.

William Henshaw cleared his throat.

“But, madam, if you do not wish to sell–”
He stopped abruptly.  His longing eyes had gone
back to the enticing bit of china.

Mrs. Greggory gave a low cry.

“But I do–that is, I must.  Mr. Harlow
says that it is valuable, and that it will bring
in money; and we need–money.”  She threw
a quick glance toward the hall door, though she
did not pause in her remarks.  “I can’t do much
at work that pays.  I sew–” she nodded
toward the machine by the window–” but with
only one foot to make it go–  You see, the
other is–is inclined to shirk a little,” she finished
with a wistful whimsicality.

Billy turned away sharply.  There was a lump
in her throat and a smart in her eyes.  She was
conscious suddenly of a fierce anger against–
she did not know what, exactly; but she fancied
it was against the teapot, or against Uncle William
for wanting the teapot, or for _not_ wanting
it–if he did not buy it.

“And so you see, I do very much wish to sell,”

Mrs. Greggory said then.  “Perhaps you will
tell me what it would be worth to you,” she concluded
tremulously.

The collector’s eyes glowed.  He picked up
the teapot with careful rapture and examined
it.  Then he turned to the tray.  After a moment
he spoke.

“I have only one other in my collection as
rare,” he said.  “I paid a hundred dollars for
that.  I shall be glad to give you the same for
this, madam.”

Mrs. Greggory started visibly.

“A hundred dollars?  So much as that?” she
cried almost joyously.  “Why, nothing else that
we’ve had has brought–  Of course, if it’s worth
that to you–”  She paused suddenly.  A quick
step had sounded in the hall outside.  The next
moment the door flew open and a young woman,
who looked to be about twenty-three or twenty-
four years old, burst into the room.

“Mother, only think, I’ve–”  She stopped,
and drew back a little.  Her startled eyes went
from one face to another, then dropped to
the Lowestoft teapot in the man’s hands.  Her
expression changed at once.  She shut the door
quickly and hurried forward.

“Mother, what is it?  Who are these people?”
she asked sharply.

Billy lifted her chin the least bit.  She was
conscious of a feeling which she could not name:
Billy was not used to being called “these people”
in precisely that tone of voice.  William Henshaw,
too, raised his chin.  He, also, was not in the habit
of being referred to as “these people.”

“My name is Henshaw, Miss–Greggory, I
presume,” he said quietly.  “I was sent here by
Mr. Harlow.”

“About the teapot, my dear, you know,”
stammered Mrs. Greggory, wetting her lips with
an air of hurried apology and conciliation.  “This
gentleman says he will be glad to buy it.  Er–
my daughter, Alice, Mr. Henshaw,” she hastened
on, in embarrassed introduction; “and Miss–”

“Neilson,” supplied the man, as she looked at
Billy, and hesitated.

A swift red stained Alice Greggory’s face.  With
barely an acknowledgment of the introductions
she turned to her mother.

“Yes, dear, but that won’t be necessary now.
As I started to tell you when I came in, I have two
new pupils; and so”–turning to the man again
“I thank you for your offer, but we have decided
not to sell the teapot at present.”  As she finished
her sentence she stepped one side as if to make
room for the strangers to reach the door.

William Henshaw frowned angrily–that was
the man; but his eyes–the collector’s eyes–
sought the teapot longingly.  Before either the
man or the collector could speak, however; Mrs.
Greggory interposed quick words of remonstrance.

“But, Alice, my dear,” she almost sobbed.
“You didn’t wait to let me tell you.  Mr. Henshaw
says it is worth a hundred dollars to him.
He will give us–a hundred dollars.”

“A hundred dollars!” echoed the girl, faintly.

It was plain to be seen that she was wavering.
Billy, watching the little scene, with mingled
emotions, saw the glance with which the girl
swept the bare little room; and she knew that
there was not a patch or darn or poverty spot in
sight, or out of sight, which that glance did not
encompass.

Billy was wondering which she herself desired
more–that Uncle William should buy the Lowestoft,
or that he should not.  She knew she wished
Mrs. Greggory to have the hundred dollars.
There was no doubt on that point.  Then Uncle
William spoke.  His words carried the righteous
indignation of the man who thinks he has been
unjustly treated, and the final plea of the collector
who sees a coveted treasure slipping from his grasp.

“I am very sorry, of course, if my offer has
annoyed you,” he said stiffly.  “I certainly
should not have made it had I not had Mrs.
Greggory’s assurance that she wished to sell the
teapot.”

Alice Greggory turned as if stung.

“_Wished to sell!_”  She repeated the words
with superb disdain.  She was plainly very angry.
Her blue-gray eyes gleamed with scorn, and her
whole face was suffused with a red that had swept
to the roots of her soft hair.  “Do you think a
woman _wishes_ to sell a thing that she’s treasured
all her life, a thing that is perhaps the last visible
reminder of the days when she was living–not
merely existing?”

“Alice, Alice, my love!” protested the sweet-
faced cripple, agitatedly.

“I can’t help it,” stormed the girl, hotly.  “I
know how much you think of that teapot that
was grandmother’s.  I know what it cost you to
make up your mind to sell it at all.  And then to
hear these people talk about your _wishing_ to
sell it!  Perhaps they think, too, we _wish_ to live
in a place like this; that we _wish_ to have rugs
that are darned, and chairs that are broken, and
garments that are patches instead of clothes!”

“Alice!” gasped Mrs. Greggory in dismayed
horror.

With a little outward fling of her two hands
Alice Greggory stepped back.  Her face had grown
white again.

“I beg your pardon, of course,” she said in a
voice that was bitterly quiet.  “I should not
have spoken so.  You are very kind, Mr. Henshaw,
but I do not think we care to sell the Lowestoft
to-day.”

Both words and manner were obviously a
dismissal; and with a puzzled sigh William Henshaw
picked up his hat.  His face showed very clearly
that he did not know what to do, or what to say;
but it showed, too, as clearly, that he longed to
do something, or say something.  During the
brief minute that he hesitated, however, Billy
sprang forward.

“Mrs. Greggory, please, won’t you let _me_ buy
the teapot?  And then–won’t you keep it for
me–here?  I haven’t the hundred dollars with
me, but I’ll send it right away.  You will let me
do it, won’t you?”

It was an impulsive speech, and a foolish one,
of course, from the standpoint of sense and logic
and reasonableness; but it was one that might be
expected, perhaps, from Billy.

Mrs. Greggory must have divined, in a way,
the spirit that prompted it, for her eyes grew wet,
and with a choking “Dear child!” she reached
out and caught Billy’s hand in both her own–
even while she shook her head in denial.

Not so her daughter.  Alice Greggory flushed
scarlet.  She drew herself proudly erect.

“Thank you,” she said with crisp coldness;
“but, distasteful as darns and patches are to us,
we prefer them, infinitely, to–charity!”

“Oh, but, please, I didn’t mean–you didn’t
understand,” faltered Billy.

For answer Alice Greggory walked deliberately
to the door and held it open.

“Oh, Alice, my dear,” pleaded Mrs. Greggory
again, feebly.

“Come, Billy!  We’ll bid you good morning,
ladies,” said William Henshaw then, decisively.
And Billy, with a little wistful pat on Mrs.
Greggory’s clasped hands, went.

Once down the long four flights of stairs and
out on the sidewalk, William Henshaw drew a long
breath.

“Well, by Jove!  Billy, the next time I take
you curio hunting, it won’t be to this place,” he
fumed.

“Wasn’t it awful!” choked Billy.

“Awful!  The girl was the most stubborn,
unreasonable, vixenish little puss I ever saw.  I
didn’t want her old Lowestoft if she didn’t want
to sell it!  But to practically invite me there, and
then treat me like that!” scolded the collector, his
face growing red with anger.  “Still, I was sorry
for the poor little old lady.  I wish, somehow, she
could have that hundred dollars!”  It was the
man who said this, not the collector.

“So do I,” rejoined Billy, dolefully.  “But
that girl was so–so queer!” she sighed, with a
frown.  Billy was puzzled.  For the first time,
perhaps, in her life, she knew what it was to have
her proffered “ice cream” disdainfully refused.