Complete Project Gutenberg William Dean Howells Works

her with my companion, and she could take leave of them all without seeming to abandon them. Then I judged it best to let her have

and simplest and kindest creature in the

eant the girl, but I thought it best

. The girl's very well, and she IS a beauty; and I suppose she HAS been having a dull time, and of course you couldn't please Mrs.

to divining people. How

o him, and I knew yo

o flow. He would put to shame the provok

that he was going

d simple and kind, too, Isabel. He complained bit

hink, considering, that she is rather a

of prosperity that cheers. If it keeps on smiling it ends by making us dissatisfied again. When people are getting into society they are very glad; when they have got in they seem to be rather gloomy. We mustn't

at dress the girl is wearing. They just made a bold dash because they saw it in a dressmaker's window the first day, and she had to have something. It's killingly bec

O

to give them some little glimpse of soc

t give them a turn on the circular railway or the switchback; or we could take them to the Punch and Judy drama, or get their fortunes told in the s

listening to a word I said; for if she had heard me she

l, w

at wouldn't

second thoughts. I didn't like it from the b

duce them to some of our friends,-only there isn't a young

heir having come up this morning a

they t

-putting? It seems to me that it was

know that you like them as well as I do, and I will take all your little

ng at. Those public socialities at the big hotels they could get into as well as we could; but they wouldn't be anywhere when they got there, and they wouldn't know what to do. You know what hollow mock

don't you think they could be deluded into the belief that they were seeing society if we took

he's having a good time, and your little scheme of passing off one

t has become of all the easy gaie

ir old-fashioned American impulse to be sociable, and contemns it. No; we can't do anything for our hapless friends-I can hardly call them our acquaintances. We must avoid them, and keep them merely as a pensive colour in our own vivid memories of Saratoga. If we made them have a good time, and sent them on their way rejoicing, I confess that I should feel myself distinctly a loser. As it is, they're a strain of melancholy poetry in my life, of

Basil. Of course, when you played upon my sympathies so about them, I couldn't

ow anything more about them than I imagined, and I certainly didn't dream of doing anything for them. You'll spoil everything if

e who can give themselves an agreeable pang with the unhappiness of their

at she had promised Mrs. Deering we would come to their hotel for them after tea, and go with them to hear the music at the United States and the Grand Union, I protested. I said that I always felt too sneaking when I was prowling round t

I've a h

ou've a h

ry well

aughing eyes of Miss Dale. She was the one cottager we knew in Saratoga, but when we were with he

rying to convince her that she was wrong, and of course one ha

monicon at the switchback," said Miss Dale. "

aid my wife, "we a

d she instantly adopted t

labyrinth of parentheses that no man could have found his way into or out of, she possessed Miss Dale of the whol

rnities the whole summer long; but I can quite understand how you feel about it, Mrs. March." We came to a corner, and she said abruptly: "Excuse my interr

fe. "I certainly thought she would sug

really going down that street till she saw that it was the best way to esc