The Rising Tide

on said. "Rather different from my day! When I was a

days' so very much yourself, my dear. But of course Freddy is shocking. It isn't that she has bad taste-she has no taste! All I

ds, the ebony cabinets, picked out in gilt-big and foolish and empty-the oil-paintings in vast, tarnished frames, must all have been very expensive. There was an ormolu clock on the black marble mantelpiece holding Time stationary at 7.20 o'clock of some forgotten morning or evening; the bronzes on either side of it-a fisher-maid with her string of fish,[Pg 46] and a hunter

er of things, Ellen,"

tairs," Mrs. Payto

ay? Do speak mo

up, and I'll show you a puzzle I've j

the sitting-room and the room beyond it was always locked, but-you heard things. So s

umatic?" her daughter sympa

a little stiff. Mrs. Dale said her cousin thou

rt in the latest ugliness of style, the high heels, the white veil over the elaborate hair, were all

g

sterday, but I had a thousand things to do! Bridge all afternoon at Bessie C

ale's aunt was dyin

rgetic, and entirely a woman of the world. Her daughter's social seclusion and mental apathy amazed and irritated her. But intelligent and busy as she was, she had leisure for one thing: Fear. She never said of what. Nor would she, if she could help it, allow the name of her

go," Mrs. Payton remon

isgrace us all," Mrs. Holmes said, nervously; "but you keep talking about unpleasa

nd Freddy wouldn't miss me.") All the while she was talking in her kind voice, of living, not dying; of her intention of starting in early this year on her Christmas presents-"I get perfectly worn out with

't very refined,"

she wants to tak

fined," Mrs. Holmes

red collar the other day; and yet, the next thing I knew, Anne told me she was crying her eyes out down in the coal-cellar. I went right down to the cellar, and said, 'You must

there are no such things nowadays. They have men callers, a thing my mother never tolerated

g

at sort of thing? My three all have beaux-only poor Flora's don't seem very fait

mumble. And I shall never change; my way of keepin

week if I were as strict a

ry laugh. "You could eat off the floor in my house; but you never were much of a housekeeper. However, I didn't come to talk about servants; I came to t

" poor Mrs. Payton protest

isn't done? Why do you allo

protesting hands:

p her nonsense. That is what I would do

u can't control girls now

g

old legs; "though I can't imagine any nice man wanting to marry a girl who talks as she does. Maria Spencer to

"Mama! are you sure? I can't b

No; the real trouble is, you insist on living in this out-of-the-way place! Oh, yes, I know; poor Mortimore. Still, the men won't come after her here, because it looks as if she had no m

Mama, with anybody. As for being brainless, Doctor Davis always said, 'The intellect is there;

d-by. Of course, you never take any advice-I'm used to that! If I wasn't the warmest-hearted creature

ly," said M

mother thought, angrily; "it's a question of duty. Mama doesn't seem to remember that Freddy ought to do her duty!" It came over Mrs. Payton, with a thrill of pride, that she herself had always done her duty. Here, alone, with everything silent on the other side of the bolted door, she could allow [Pg 52]herself to think how well she had done it! To Mortimore, first and foremost-she paused there, with a pang of annoyance at her mother's words: "I do not love him best!" she declared. She did her duty to Freddy, just as much as to Morty. When Fred had scarlet fever no mother could have been more devoted. She hadn't taken her clothes off for four days and nights! Her supreme dutifulness, however, a dutifulness of which she had always been acutely conscious, was in enduring Andrew's behavior. "Some women wouldn't have stood it," she thought, proudly. But what a good wife she had been! She had let him have his own way in everything. When he was cross, she had been silent. When he was drunk, she had wept-silently, of course. When he had done other things, of which anonymous letters had informed her, she had still been silent;-but she ha

l scene between the moth

ourself in that horrid, sticky veil. You are mighty glad to get rid of him! You were as afr

r daughter had struck her: "

ed to tell

ou suppose I've been happy?" Her breath caught in a sob. "I've lived

r a child." She was triumphantly aware that she had said something smart; her mother's wincing face admitted

business to make me say a thing like that![Pg 54] You only tell the truth to hurt my feelings. You are just like Andre

mother was the first to come to herself. "I-I didn't mean that, Fredd

Mortimore best. But what I said about Father is true; his being my father doesn't alter the fact t

pretense between them. Never again would Mrs. Payton's vanity over duty done dare to raise its head in her daughter's presence: Freddy knew that, so far as her married life went, duty had been cowardly acquiescence. Never again would Frederica be able to fling at her mother her superior morality: Mrs. Payton knew she was cruel, knew she was "j

to her remorse for having said she loved one child more than the other. "Of course I love

ed her contrition i

st, but I wa

be a beast, to be tru

"Father used to do that. D

ste; then apologized. "I-I mean, Mr. Payton was a very able

No; the trouble with me is, I'm hideously