The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1888-03-31
ANNIE LAURIE.
BY ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS.
From Harper's Magazine

III.
She was left with her house, her mu-
steal education, her voice. and bank
account that paid the undertaken and
the grocer. The week after the funeral
Mrs. Tombs came in by the front door
without ringing, and said, "Pm a pa
tient. I set store by the doctor. He
cured me of terrible thing had the
matter of me. I'd been alongside of
Mr.. Tombs if your father hadn't per-
vented. You'd better believe was
thankful to mercy for that. I loved the
doctor. His patients did, you know.
I'll live with you if you want me to.
I can get along on board wages. I'm
we'll off, considerin' what Mr.. Tombs
was. I'd like to do something for my
doctors daughter"
"Thank you, Mrs. Tombs," said An
ME Laurie. She went up and kissed
Mrs. Tombs, and that was the beginning
and end of that. In three weeks she
opened her singing school; and the sum-
mer people took vacation lessons when
they came, for their little girls. She
sang in a choir in Fairharbor. She
played to rich mvalids; she was not I'M
heard of at parlor concerts; che toiled
over the drifts of Cape Ann in winter to
give private instruction to mechanics
daughters; in short, she struggled for ex-
istence, and had it. She was brave,
busy woman. Everybody knew Annie
Laurie. She was not a ssint-not bit
OF it; her eyes flashed too quickly. She
was live human creature; che had
even a little temper of her own; she
scolded her quarrymen or her pupils if
they deserved it, and made up for it next
time by bountiful bursts of tenderness.
Although poor woman, she had moods,
she was not always the same; she gave
herself the luxury of a varied nature, and
though she sometimes lost friend be-
cause OF it, she kept more than she lost.
At ffty-one she was bright-eyed, hand
some, heartsome soul to look upon, with
a maternal manner and the laugh of a
girl.
People used to say that she would get
over it and marry; but they had, for
the most part, given that up now. She
had been beloved, OF course, as most
woman are; times not few, as such wo-
men are. But she had followed her soil
tary life as one follows page that is to
be read.
Martin Derrick, coming up to her door
that night, looked in from the threat of
the storm to the caress of the house with
heavy. hungry eyes. He could see her
before he entered, for the curtain was
not quite close and even blew in the
gasps of the rising gale that pulled
through the loose, old-fashioned window
castings.
"She needs a carpenter here for
week, "he thought. She made merry of her
economies; one would have thought they
were her luxuries; but it went hard with
him to look on and see them.
She sat alone in the lamp light there
was rose-colored shade upon the lamp
with her fine fingers-whiter for the col
ors of the gay paper-hashing to and
fro at her Christmas work. She sat erect
and strong.
Her brave face was bent; it had a
sweet, mute look. He wondered of what
she was think ing. Her thoughts seemed
to him something precious and far, like
the setting or the rising OF the sun. He
was plain, busy man, who wrought in
stone and lived a little rigidly. The
granite of his quarries had got into
him one might say; his mind WAS we'll
strstifed. He knew what he wished;
he usually had it. He had desired sue
cess, and got it; fortune, it came; mar
riage, and his wife adored him; children,
and they were fine fellows-never fell
sick and never went wrong. He had al
ways prospered. He expected matters
to go as he chose TO have them. Moth
ing had ever thwRrted Martin Derrick in
all his life but death and Annie Laurie.
For Mrs. Derrick died, and Annie Lau-
rie-He was plain man, as / say, not
given to that monumental weakness
which we call imagination; but Annie
Laurie seemed as far from him, at her
nearest, as the color or the approach of
the sky, He thought OF her with the
reverence with which a bsffled man
thinks of the unattainable; it amounts to
religion in some men, and practically
serves many of the same purposes.
This did not affect his general belief
that thing which was not to be had for
the asking was to be had by persisting.
This was the natural belief of success
full man. When he came in that night
and sat down by her and looked at her
serene and stately face, his hands clinch-
cd.