Different Girls by Various

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She was speaking more rapidly, and her eyes strayed wistfully over to
the Hopkins piazza, where Sibyl was sitting with the young soldier.
Lorania looked at her pityingly.

"Why, surely," said she.

"Mothers have kinder selfish feelings," said Mrs. Winslow, moistening
her lips and drawing a quick breath, still watching the girl on the
piazza. "It's so sweet and peaceful for them, they forget their sons may
want something more. But it's kinder hard giving all your little
comforts up at once when you've had him right with you so long, and
could cook just what he liked, and go right into his room nights if he
coughed. It's all right, all right, but it's kinder hard. And beautiful
young ladies that have had everything all their lives might--might not
understand that a homespun old mother isn't wanting to force herself on
them at all when they have company, and they have no call to fear it."

There was no doubt, however obscure the words seemed, that Mrs. Winslow
had a clear purpose in her mind, nor that she was tremendously in
earnest. Little blotches of red dabbled her cheeks, her breath came more
quickly, and she swallowed between her words. Lorania could see the
quiver in the muscles of her throat. She clasped her hands tight lest
they should shake. "He's in love with Sibyl," thought Lorania. "The poor
woman!" She felt sorry for her, and she spoke gently and reassuringly:

"No girl with a good heart can help feeling tenderly towards her
husband's mother."

Mrs. Winslow nodded. "You're real comforting," said she. She was silent
a moment, and then said, in a different tone: "You 'ain't got a large
enough track. Wouldn't you like to have our pasture too?"

Lorania expressed her gratitude, and invited the Winslows to see the
practice.

"My niece will come out to-morrow," she said, graciously.

"Yes? She's a real fine-appearing young lady," said Mrs. Winslow.

Both the cyclists exulted. Neither of them, however, was prepared to
behold the track made and the fence down the very next morning when
they came out, about ten o'clock, to the west side of Miss Hopkins's
boundaries.

"As sure as you live, Maggie," exclaimed Lorania, eagerly, "he's got it
all done! Now that is something like a lover. I only hope his heart
won't be bruised as black and blue as I am with the wheel!"

"Shuey says the only harm your falls do you is to take away your
confidence," said Mrs. Ellis.

"He wouldn't say so if he could see my _knees_!" retorted Miss Hopkins.

Mrs. Ellis, it will be observed, sheered away from the love-affairs of
Mr. Cyril Winslow. She had not yet made up her mind. And Mrs. Ellis, who
had been married, did not jump at conclusions regarding the heart of man
so rapidly as her spinster friend. She preferred to talk of the bicycle.
Nor did Miss Hopkins refuse the subject. To her at this moment the most
important object on the globe was the shining machine which she would
allow no hand but hers to oil and dust. Both Mrs. Ellis and she were
simply prostrated (as to their mental powers) by this new sport. They
could not think nor talk nor read of anything but _the wheel_. This is a
peculiarity of the bicyclist. No other sport appears to make such havoc
with the mind.

One can learn to swim without describing his sensations to every casual
acquaintance or hunting up the natatorial columns in the newspapers. One
may enjoy riding a horse and yet go about his ordinary business with an
equal mind. One learns to play golf and still remains a peaceful citizen
who can discuss politics with interest. But the cyclist, man or woman,
is soaked in every pore with the delight and the perils of wheeling. He
talks of it (as he thinks of it) incessantly. For this fatuous passion
there is one excuse. Other sports have the fearful delight of danger and
the pleasure of the consciousness of dexterity and the dogged
Anglo-Saxon joy of combat and victory; but no other sport restores to
middle age the pure, exultant, muscular intoxication of childhood. Only
on the wheel can an elderly woman feel as she felt when she ran and
leaped and frolicked amid the flowers as a child.

Lorania, of course, no longer jumped or ran; she kicked in the Delsarte
exercises, but it was a measured, calculated, one may say cold-blooded
kick, which limbered her muscles but did not restore her youthful glow
of soul. Her legs and not her spirits pranced. The same thing may be
said for Margaret Ellis. Now, between their accidents, they obtained
glimpses of an exquisite exhilaration. And there was also to be counted
the approval of their consciences, for they felt that no Turkish bath
could wring out moisture from their systems like half an hour's pumping
at the bicycle treadles. Lorania during the month had ridden through one
bottle of liniment and two of witch-hazel, and by the end of the second
bottle could ride a short distance alone. But Lorania could not yet
dismount unassisted, and several times she had felled poor Winslow to
the earth when he rashly adventured to stop her. Captain Carr had a
peculiar, graceful fling of the arm, catching the saddle-bar with one
hand while he steadied the handles with the other. He did not hesitate
in the least to grab Lorania's belt if necessary. But poor modest
Winslow, who fell upon the wheel and dared not touch the hem of a lady's
bicycle skirt, was as one in the path of a cyclone, and appeared daily
in a fresh pair of white trousers.

"Yous have now," Shuey remarked, impressively, one day--"yous have now
arrived at the most difficult and dangerous period in learning the
wheel. It's similar to a baby when it's first learned to walk but
'ain't yet got sense in walking. When it was little it would stay put
wherever ye put it, and it didn't know enough to go by itself, which is
similar to you. When I was holding ye you couldn't fall, but now you're
off alone depindent on yourself, object-struck by every tree, taking
most of the pasture to turn in, and not able to git off save by
falling--"

"Oh, couldn't you go with her somehow?" exclaimed Mrs. Winslow, appalled
at the picture. "Wouldn't a rope round her be some help? I used to put
it round Cyril when he was learning to walk."

"Well, no, ma'am," said Shuey, patiently. "Don't you be scared; the
riding will come; she's getting on grandly. And ye should see Mr.
Winslow. 'Tis a pleasure to teach him. He rode in one lesson. I ain't
learning him nothing but tricks now."

"But, Mr. Winslow, why don't you ride here--with us?" said Sibyl, with
her coquettish and flattering smile. "We're always hearing of your
beautiful riding. Are we never to see it?"

"I think Mr. Winslow is waiting for that swell English cycle suit that I
hear about," said the captain, grinning; and Winslow grew red to his
eyelids.

Lorania gave an indignant side glance at Sibyl. Why need the girl make
game of an honest man who loved her? Sibyl was biting her lips and
darting side glances at the captain. She called the pasture practice
slow, but she seemed, nevertheless, to enjoy herself sitting on the
bench, the captain on one side and Winslow on the other, rattling off
her girlish jokes, while her aunt and Mrs. Ellis, with the anxious, set
faces of the beginner, were pedalling frantically after Cardigan.
Lorania began to pity Winslow, for it was growing plain to her that
Sibyl and the captain understood each other. She thought that even if
Sibyl did care for the soldier, she need not be so careless of Winslow's
feelings. She talked with the cashier herself, trying to make amends for
Sibyl's absorption in the other man, and she admired the fortitude that
concealed the pain that he must feel. It became quite the expected thing
for the Winslows to be present at the practice; but Winslow had not yet
appeared on his wheel. He used to bring a box of candy with him, or
rather three boxes--one for each lady, he said--and a box of peppermints
for his mother. He was always very attentive to his mother.

"And fancy, Aunt Margaret," laughed Sibyl, "he has asked both auntie
and me to the theatre. He is not going to compromise himself by singling
one of us out. He's a careful soul. By the way, Aunt Margaret, Mrs.
Winslow was telling me yesterday that I am the image of auntie at my
age. Am I? Do I look like her? Was she as slender as I?"

"Almost," said Mrs. Ellis, who was not so inflexibly truthful as her
friend.

"No, Sibyl," said Lorania, with a deep, deep sigh, "I was always plump;
I was a chubby _child_! And oh, what do you think I heard in the crowd
at Manly's once? One woman said to another, 'Miss Hopkins has got a
wheel.' 'Miss Sibyl?' said the other. 'No; the stout Miss Hopkins,' said
the first creature; and the second--" Lorania groaned.

"What _did_ she say to make you feel that way?"

"She said--she said, 'Oh my!'" answered Lorania, with a dying look.

"Well, she was horrid," said Mrs. Ellis; "but you know you have grown
thin. Come on; let's ride!"

"I _never_ shall be able to ride," said Lorania, gloomily. "I can get
on, but I can't get off. And they've taken off the brake, so I can't
stop. And I'm object-struck by everything I look at. Some day I shall
look down-hill. Well, my will's in the lower drawer of the mahogany
desk."

Perhaps Lorania had an occult inkling of the future. For this is what
happened: That evening Winslow rode on to the track in his new English
bicycle suit, which had just come. He hoped that he didn't look like a
fool in those queer clothes. But the instant he entered the pasture he
saw something that drove everything else out of his head, and made him
bend over the steering-bar and race madly across the green; Miss
Hopkins's bicycle was running away down-hill! Cardigan, on foot, was
pelting obliquely, in the hopeless thought to intercept her, while Mrs.
Ellis, who was reeling over the ground with her own bicycle, wheeled as
rapidly as she could to the brow of the hill, where she tumbled off, and
abandoning the wheel, rushed on foot to her friend's rescue.

She was only in time to see a flash of silver and ebony and a streak of
brown dart before her vision and swim down the hill like a bird. Lorania
was still in the saddle, pedalling from sheer force of habit, and
clinging to the handle bars. Below the hill was a stone wall, and
farther was a creek. There was a narrow opening in the wall where the
cattle went down to drink; if she could steer through that she would
have nothing worse than soft water and mud; but there was not one chance
in a thousand that she could pass that narrow space. Mrs. Winslow,
horror-stricken, watched the rescuer, who evidently was cutting across
to catch the bicycle.

"He's riding out of sight!" thought Shuey, in the rear. He himself did
not slacken his speed, although he could not be in time for the
catastrophe. Suddenly he stiffened; Winslow was close to the runaway
wheel.

"Grab her!" yelled Shuey. "Grab her by the belt! _Oh, Lord!_"

The exclamation exploded like the groan of a shell. For while Winslow's
bicycling was all that could be wished, and he flung himself in the path
of the on-coming wheel with marvellous celerity and precision, he had
not the power to withstand the never yet revealed number of pounds
carried by Miss Lorania, impelled by the rapid descent and gathering
momentum at every whirl. They met; he caught her; but instantly he was
rolling down the steep incline and she was doubled up on the grass. He
crashed sickeningly against the stone wall; she lay stunned and still
on the sod; and their friends, with beating hearts, slid down to them.
Mrs. Winslow was on the brow of the hill. She blesses Shuey to this day
for the shout he sent up, "Nobody killed, and I guess no bones broken."

When Margaret went home that evening, having seen her friend safely in
bed, not much the worse for her fall, she was told that Cardigan wished
to see her. Shuey produced something from his pocket, saying: "I picked
this up on the hill, ma'am, after the accident. It maybe belongs to him,
or it maybe belongs to her; I'm thinking the safest way is to just give
it to you." He handed Mrs. Ellis a tiny gold-framed miniature of Lorania
in a red leather case.

* * * * *

The morning was a sparkling June morning, dewy and fragrant, and the
sunlight burnished handle and pedal of the friends' bicycles standing on
the piazza unheeded. It was the hour for morning practice, but Miss
Hopkins slept in her chamber, and Mrs. Ellis sat in the little parlor
adjoining, and thought.

She did not look surprised at the maid's announcement that Mrs. Winslow
begged to see her for a few moments. Mrs. Winslow was pale. She was a
good sketch of discomfort on the very edge of her chair, clad in the
black silk which she wore Sundays, her head crowned with her bonnet of
state, and her hands stiff in a pair of new gloves.

"I hope you'll excuse me not sending up a card," she began. "Cyril got
me some going on a year ago, and I _thought_ I could lay my hand right
on 'em, but I'm so nervous this morning I hunted all over, and they
wasn't anywhere. I won't keep you. I just wanted to ask if you picked up
anything--a little red Russia-leather case--"

"Was it a miniature--a miniature of my friend Miss Hopkins?"

"I thought it all over, and I came to explain. You no doubt think it
strange; and I can assure you that my son never let any human being look
at that picture. I never knew about it myself till it was lost and he
got out of his bed--he ain't hardly able to walk--and staggered over
here to look for it, and I followed him; and so he _had_ to tell me. He
had it painted from a picture that came out in the papers. He felt it
was an awful liberty. But--you don't know how my boy feels, Mrs. Ellis;
he has worshipped that woman for years. He 'ain't never had a thought
of anybody but her since they was children in school; and yet he's been
so modest and so shy of pushing himself forward that he didn't do a
thing until I put him on to help you with this bicycle."

Margaret Ellis did not know what to say. She thought of the marquis; and
Mrs. Winslow poured out her story: "He 'ain't never said a word to me
till this morning. But don't I _know_? Don't I know who looked out so
careful for her investments? Don't I know who was always looking out for
her interest, silent, and always keeping himself in the background? Why,
she couldn't even buy a cow that he wa'n't looking round to see that she
got a good one! 'Twas him saw the gardener, and kept him from buying
that cow with tuberculosis, 'cause he knew about the herd. He knew by
finding out. He worshipped the very cows she owned, you may say, and
I've seen him patting and feeding up her dogs; it's to our house that
big mastiff always goes every night. Mrs. Ellis, it ain't often that a
woman gits love such as my son is offering, only he da'sn't offer it,
and it ain't often a woman is loved by such a good man as my son. He
'ain't got any bad habits; he'll die before he wrongs anybody; and he
has got the sweetest temper you ever see; and he's the tidiest man
about the house you could ask, and the promptest about meals."

Mrs. Ellis looked at her flushed face, and sent another flood of color
into it, for she said, "Mrs. Winslow, I don't know how much good I may
be able to do, but I am on your side."

Her eyes followed the little black figure when it crossed the lawn. She
wondered whether her advice was good, for she had counselled that
Winslow come over in the evening.

"Maggie," said a voice. Lorania was in the doorway. "Maggie," she said,
"I ought to tell you that I heard every word."

"Then _I_ can tell _you_," cried Mrs. Ellis, "that he is fifty times
more of a man than the marquis, and loves you fifty thousand times
better!"

Lorania made no answer, not even by a look. What she felt, Mrs. Ellis
could not guess. Nor was she any wiser when Winslow appeared at her
gate, just as the sun was setting.

"I didn't think I would better intrude on Miss Hopkins," said he, "but
perhaps you could tell me how she is this evening. My mother told me how
kind you were, and perhaps you--you would advise if I might venture to
send Miss Hopkins some flowers."

Out of the kindness of her heart Mrs. Ellis averted her eyes from his
face; thus she was able to perceive Lorania saunter out of the Hopkins
gate. So changed was she by the bicycle practice that, wrapped in her
niece's shawl, she made Margaret think of the girl. An inspiration
flashed to her; she knew the cashier's dependence on his eye-glasses,
and he was not wearing them.

"If you want to know how Miss Hopkins is, why not speak to her niece
now?" said she.

He started. He saw Miss Sibyl, as he supposed, and he went swiftly down
the street. "Miss Sibyl!" he began, "may I ask how is your aunt?"--and
then she turned.

She blushed, then she laughed aloud. "Has the bicycle done so much for
me?" said she.

"The bicycle didn't need to do _anything_ for you!" he cried, warmly.

Mrs. Ellis, a little distance in the rear, heard, turned, and walked
thoughtfully away. "They're off," said she--she had acquired a sporting
tinge of thought from Shuey Cardigan. "If with that start he can't make
the running, it's a wonder."

"I have invited Mr. Winslow and his mother to dinner," said Miss
Hopkins, in the morning. "Will you come too, Maggie?"

"I'll back him against the marquis," thought Margaret, gleefully.

A week later Lorania said: "I really think I must be getting thinner.
Fancy Mr. Winslow, who is so clear-sighted, mistaking me for Sibyl! He
says--I told him how I had suffered from my figure--he says it can't be
what he has suffered from his. Do you think him so very short, Maggie?
Of course he isn't tall, but he has an elegant figure, I think, and I
never saw anywhere such a rider!"

Mrs. Ellis answered, heartily, "He isn't very small, and he is a
beautiful figure on the wheel!" And added to herself, "I know what was
in that letter she sent yesterday to the marquis! But to think of its
all being due to the bicycle!"

The Marrying of Esther

BY MARY M. MEARS

"Set there and cry; it's so sensible; and I 'ain't said that a June
weddin' wouldn't be a little nicer. But what you goin' to live on? Joe
can't git his money that soon."

"He--said he thought he could manage. But I won't be married at all if I
can't have it--right."

"Well, you can have it right. All is, there are some folks in this town
that if they don't calculate doin' real well by you, I don't feel called
upon to invite."

"I don't know what you mean," sobbed the girl. She sat by the kitchen
table, her face hidden in her arms. Her mother stood looking at her
tenderly, and yet with a certain anger.

"I mean about the presents. You've worked in the church, you've sung in
the choir for years, and now it's a chance for folks to show that they
appreciate it, and without they're goin' to--Boxes of cake would be
plenty if they wa'n't goin' to serve you any better than they did Ella
Plummet."

Esther Robinson lifted her head. She was quite large, in a soft young
way, and her skin was as pure as a baby's. "But you can't know
beforehand how they're going to treat me!"

"Yes, I can know beforehand, too, and if you're set on next month, it's
none too soon to be seein' about it. I've a good mind to step over to
Mis' Lawrence's and Mis' Stetson's this afternoon."

"Mother! You--wouldn't ask 'em anything?"

Mrs. Robinson hung away her dishtowel; then she faced Esther. "Of course
I wouldn't _ask_ 'em; there's other ways of findin' out besides
_asking_. I'd bring the subject round by saying I hoped there wouldn't
be many duplicates, and I'd git out of 'em what they intended givin'
without seemin' to." Esther looked at her mother with a sort of
fascination. "Then we could give some idea about the refreshments; for I
ain't a-goin' to have no elaborate layout without I _do_ know; and it
ain't because I grudge the money, either," she added, in swift
self-defence.

Mrs. Robinson was a good manager of the moderate means her husband had
left her, but she was not parsimonious or inhospitable. Now she was
actuated by a fierce maternal jealousy. Esther, despite her pleasant
ways and her helpfulness, was often overlooked in a social way. This was
due to her mother. The more pretentious laughed about Mrs. Robinson, and
though the thrifty, contented housewife never missed the amenities which
might have been extended to her, she was keenly alive to any slights put
upon her daughter. And so it was now.

Mrs. Lawrence, a rich, childless old lady, lived next door, and about
four o'clock she went over there. The girl watched her departure
doubtfully, but the possibility of not having a large wedding kept her
from giving a full expression to her feelings.

Esther had always dreamed of her wedding; she had looked forward to it
just as definitely before she met Joe Elsworth as after her engagement
to him. There would be flowers and guests and feasting, and she would be
the centre of it all in a white dress and veil.

She had never thought about there being any presents. Now for the first
time she thought of them as an added glory, but her imagination did not
extend to the separate articles or to their givers. Esther never
pictured her uncle Jonas at the wedding, yet he would surely be in
attendance in his rough farmer clothes, his grizzled, keen old face
towering above the other guests. She did not picture her friends as she
really knew them; the young men would be fine gentlemen, and the girls
ladies in wonderful toilets. As for herself and Joe, hidden away in a
bureau drawer Esther had a poster of one of Frohman's plays. It
represented a bride and groom standing together in a drift of orange
blossoms.

Mrs. Robinson did not return at supper-time, and Esther ate alone. At
eight o'clock Joe Elsworth came. She met him at the door, and they
kissed in the entry. Then Joe preceded her in, and hung up his cap on a
projecting knob of the what-not--that was where he always put it. He
glanced into the dining-room and took in the waiting table.

"Haven't you had supper yet!"

"Mother isn't home."

He came towards her swiftly; his eyes shone with a sudden elated
tenderness. She raised her arms and turned away her face, but he swept
aside the ineffectual barrier. When he let her go she seated herself on
the farther side of the room. Her glance was full of a soft rebuke. He
met it, then looked down smilingly and awkwardly at his shoes.

"Where did you say your ma had gone?"

"She's gone to Mis' Lawrence's, and a few other places."

"Oh, calling. Old Mis' Norton goes about twice a year, and I ask her
what it amounts to."

"I guess you'll find ma's calls'll amount to something."

"How's that?" he demanded.

"She's--going to try and find out what they intend giving."

"What they intend giving?"

"Yes. And without they intend giving something worth while, she says she
won't invite 'em, and maybe we won't have a big wedding at all," she
finished, pathetically.

Joe did not answer. Esther stole an appealing glance at him.

"Does it seem a queer thing to do?"

"Well, yes, rather."

Her face quivered. "She said I'd done so much for Mis' Lawrence--"

"Well, you have, and I've wished a good many times that you wouldn't.
I'm sure I never knuckled to her, though she is my great-aunt."

"I never knuckled to her, either," protested Esther.

"You've done a sight more for her than I would have done, fixin' her
dresses and things, and she with more money than anybody else in town.
But your mother ain't going to call on everybody, is she?" he asked,
anxiously.

"Of course she ain't. Only she said, if it was going to be in June--but
I don't want it to be ever," she added, covering her face.

"Oh, it's all right," said Joe, penitently. He went over and put his arm
around her. Nevertheless, his eyes held a worried look.

Joe's father had bound him out to a farmer by the name of Norton until
his majority, when the sum of seven hundred dollars, all the little
fortune the father had left, together with three hundred more from
Norton, was to be turned over to him. But Joe would not be twenty-one
until October. It was going to be difficult for him to arrange for the
June wedding Esther desired. He was very much in love, however, and
presently he lifted his boyish cheek from her hair.

"I think I'll take that cottage of Lanham's; it's the only vacant house
in the village, and he's promised to wait for the rent, so that
confounded old Norton needn't advance me a cent."

Esther flushed. "What do you suppose makes him act so?" she questioned,
though she knew.

Joe blushed too. "He don't like it because I'm going to work in the
factory when it opens. But Mis' Norton and Sarah have done everything
for me," he added, decidedly.

Up to the time of his engagement Joe had been in the habit of showing
Sarah Norton an occasional brotherly attention, and he would have
continued to do so had not Esther and Mrs. Robinson interfered--Esther
from girlish jealousy, and her mother because she did not approve of the
family, she said. She could not say she did not approve of Sarah, for
there was not a more upright, self-respecting girl in the village. But
Sarah, because of her father's miserliness, often went out for extra
work when the neighbors needed help, and this was the real cause of Mrs.
Robinson's feeling. Unconsciously she made the same distinction between
Sarah Norton and Esther that some of the more ambitious of the village
mothers made between their girls and her own daughter. Then it was
common talk that old Jim Norton, for obvious reasons, was displeased
with Joe's matrimonial plans, but Mrs. Robinson professed to believe
that the wife and daughter were really the ones disappointed. Now Esther
began twisting a button of Joe's coat.

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