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Vanishing Points
Vanishing Points
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Scanned, proofed and corrected from the original edition for your reading pleasure. (Worth every penny!)
***
Contents:
THE MAN IN THE CLOISTER
MOTHER
THE STORY OF ABE
A GUARDED SHRINE
THE DISCOVERY
THE MASTER
THE INTERPRETER
THE HANDS OF THE FAITHFUL
THE WIZARD'S TOUCH
A MAN OF FEELING
THE LANTERN
THE PRIVATE SOLDIER
THE CLUE
GOLDEN BABY
THE FLIGHT OF THE MOUSE
THE QUEENS OF ARCADY
***
An excerpt from the beginning of the first story:
THE MAN IN THE CLOISTER
THE Littletons had an evening at home, because Aunt Harriet Webb, from Overland, was making her annual winter visit, and it became not only a point of honor to stand by and entertain a comfortable old lady to whom all city amusements were not plain sailing, but a privilege as dearly prized as a new form of vaudeville.
Aunt Harriet had kept a boarding-house at Overland in the middle years which were now slipping past her, and it was there the Littletons, being then persons of a modest income, had spent several summers and formed for her an attachment which they never, in their present flourishing days, permitted to languish. Mr. Littleton, who was now a white-haired autocrat of civic affairs, and his wife, a faithful patroness of music and the kindred arts whenever her name was sought, had not changed with the gilding of their responsibilities, except perhaps to be more kind, more constant in remembering their leaner time and the companions who had helped to make it fruitful. When Aunt Harriet came, they always felt they were returning to a delightful state of indolence, because their engagements were immediately curtailed, save such as Aunt Harriet liked to share. Mr. Littleton read his evening paper and sometimes sat by with a volume of Dickens until he yawningly concluded it was time to go to bed, and his wife crocheted or even knitted faithfully to the tune of their old friend's chat. To-night the unvaried programme was continuing, except that Ruth Nutter, Mr. Littleton's private secretary, was established there, smiling now and then as she was addressed, and pasting book-plates into a pile of volumes from England; and Sedgwick, the Littletons' grandson, corrugated with reflection on social problems, was frowning into the fire and contributing nothing whatever to conversational interchange.
Aunt Harriet, a short, stout, very neat old lady with smooth hair dressed in the fashion of the sixties and a cashmere dress she had made herself according to a never-dying ideal, looked benevolently up from her knitting one or twice, in a lapse of conversation, to consider the younger man and woman and wonder over them in a voiceless way. It seemed to her splendid to be of an age which is no age at all, and that these two were apparently ignoring their dowry. They ought to be laughing and sparkling at each other. The pretty girl, with her sweet, pale face, blue eyes, and soft black hair, and the distinction of her white hands against her black dress artfully subdued in style to the precise shade of her calling, ought to be conscious of her hereditary right as accorder of happiness, and the gaunt young man, with his brown eyes and working, sensitive mouth, should be gayly or even humbly suppliant. But no! These two inheritors of the world's promises might as well have been creatures of withered held for all the battle of merry life between them. Once Sedgwick did say something about the Fabian Society, and Ruth lifted a quick, earnest glance and asked him if he had read a certain pamphlet on the plight of millionaires, and they went on talking about Shavianism, with a conjecture from Sedgwick as to the likelihood of Shaw's loving his fellow man. Aunt Harriet could make nothing of it all. It seemed to her "dreadful foolish talk". She sometimes had quick poetic fancies sprung from reminiscent glimpses at the pictures life had hung in her mind, and she suddenly laughed out. Littleton looked up from his volume of Dickens and smiled, out of a general benevolence, and his wife asked cozily:
"What is it?"
"I was kinder thinkin', that's all," said Aunt Harriet, in a tone subdued to her understanding of courtship's thraldom, "about them two over there. I was wonderin' if they'd ever been sleigh-ridin' together--or may-flowerin'."
***
Contents:
THE MAN IN THE CLOISTER
MOTHER
THE STORY OF ABE
A GUARDED SHRINE
THE DISCOVERY
THE MASTER
THE INTERPRETER
THE HANDS OF THE FAITHFUL
THE WIZARD'S TOUCH
A MAN OF FEELING
THE LANTERN
THE PRIVATE SOLDIER
THE CLUE
GOLDEN BABY
THE FLIGHT OF THE MOUSE
THE QUEENS OF ARCADY
***
An excerpt from the beginning of the first story:
THE MAN IN THE CLOISTER
THE Littletons had an evening at home, because Aunt Harriet Webb, from Overland, was making her annual winter visit, and it became not only a point of honor to stand by and entertain a comfortable old lady to whom all city amusements were not plain sailing, but a privilege as dearly prized as a new form of vaudeville.
Aunt Harriet had kept a boarding-house at Overland in the middle years which were now slipping past her, and it was there the Littletons, being then persons of a modest income, had spent several summers and formed for her an attachment which they never, in their present flourishing days, permitted to languish. Mr. Littleton, who was now a white-haired autocrat of civic affairs, and his wife, a faithful patroness of music and the kindred arts whenever her name was sought, had not changed with the gilding of their responsibilities, except perhaps to be more kind, more constant in remembering their leaner time and the companions who had helped to make it fruitful. When Aunt Harriet came, they always felt they were returning to a delightful state of indolence, because their engagements were immediately curtailed, save such as Aunt Harriet liked to share. Mr. Littleton read his evening paper and sometimes sat by with a volume of Dickens until he yawningly concluded it was time to go to bed, and his wife crocheted or even knitted faithfully to the tune of their old friend's chat. To-night the unvaried programme was continuing, except that Ruth Nutter, Mr. Littleton's private secretary, was established there, smiling now and then as she was addressed, and pasting book-plates into a pile of volumes from England; and Sedgwick, the Littletons' grandson, corrugated with reflection on social problems, was frowning into the fire and contributing nothing whatever to conversational interchange.
Aunt Harriet, a short, stout, very neat old lady with smooth hair dressed in the fashion of the sixties and a cashmere dress she had made herself according to a never-dying ideal, looked benevolently up from her knitting one or twice, in a lapse of conversation, to consider the younger man and woman and wonder over them in a voiceless way. It seemed to her splendid to be of an age which is no age at all, and that these two were apparently ignoring their dowry. They ought to be laughing and sparkling at each other. The pretty girl, with her sweet, pale face, blue eyes, and soft black hair, and the distinction of her white hands against her black dress artfully subdued in style to the precise shade of her calling, ought to be conscious of her hereditary right as accorder of happiness, and the gaunt young man, with his brown eyes and working, sensitive mouth, should be gayly or even humbly suppliant. But no! These two inheritors of the world's promises might as well have been creatures of withered held for all the battle of merry life between them. Once Sedgwick did say something about the Fabian Society, and Ruth lifted a quick, earnest glance and asked him if he had read a certain pamphlet on the plight of millionaires, and they went on talking about Shavianism, with a conjecture from Sedgwick as to the likelihood of Shaw's loving his fellow man. Aunt Harriet could make nothing of it all. It seemed to her "dreadful foolish talk". She sometimes had quick poetic fancies sprung from reminiscent glimpses at the pictures life had hung in her mind, and she suddenly laughed out. Littleton looked up from his volume of Dickens and smiled, out of a general benevolence, and his wife asked cozily:
"What is it?"
"I was kinder thinkin', that's all," said Aunt Harriet, in a tone subdued to her understanding of courtship's thraldom, "about them two over there. I was wonderin' if they'd ever been sleigh-ridin' together--or may-flowerin'."
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