Meg, of Valencia

“Never carried a pocket mirror in my life. Never taught you to make pretty speeches,” she said tartly. “Why, the first time I saw you, you sat and twirled your thumbs like a ‘bo...

Valencia was a western town, with about forty thousand inhabitants who believed in and were immeasurably proud of the place. There were no factories, and there was no great valu...

When Mr. Robert Spencer was annoyed, he made it known by pacing the floor with his hands under his coat-tails. When he was pleased, he quickened the pace, and his hands caused h...

Mrs. Malloy became oppressed with an uncomfortable feeling of guilt, in the days following the sending of the message. It was foreign to her nature to do anything about which th...

“Come out for a boat-ride,” Robert called to Meg, who was hemming kitchen towels on her rose-embowered porch. She had seen him between the leaves, as he came striding up the wal...

Valencia, to Meg, had become a barren spot on the map. Nothing relieved the dreary monotony but the nagging tongue of her aunt, who, it would seem, had found her mission in life...

His uncle watched him hopefully, his mother anxiously. There could be no doubt that she would have welcomed anything which would turn her son from his desire, but she was parado...

Meg did not see Robert for a week after that memorable walk. The days of his absence were not sweetened by the comments of her aunt. “I knew he would grow tired of being pursued...

For the next few weeks Meg and Robert were almost daily visitors at the Walker home. They could see that Charlie was failing very rapidly, but it was plain that his wife did not...

Meg came down-stairs to breakfast humming a gay little air to herself, and looking so young and fresh that Mrs. Weston looked at her disapprovingly as she took her seat at the t...

Meg was writing to her aunt, and Robert leaned over her shoulder and read: “So I will be married here, and then we will take a trip for Robert’s health. Auntie, please don’t sus...

A strong friendship sprang up between Robert and Charlie Walker, unusual in its warmth, and surprising, as the two men were totally different in taste and character, and as ther...

During the week that Robert was trying to choose his path for life, Mrs. Malloy watched him with anxious, loving eyes, conscious of his struggle, herself elated and depressed ac...

Meg was leaning back in delicious idleness on the cool, shaded porch of her aunt’s house, with her hands loosely clasped above her head, and her eyes dreamily fixed on the treet...

On the evening of Mrs. Weston’s dinner—for she held to the dinner idea in spite of Meg’s protests—the weather was so hot that the heavy, poorly cooked meal was appreciated by no...

Meg did not see Robert again before he left. Mrs. Malloy she saw only for a moment, in the presence of her aunt, when she came to tell them “Good-bye.” “We leave to-morrow,” she...

Meg, refreshed by her nap, was her usual sprightly self at dinner. Mrs. Malloy looked weary and old, and had little to say. Robert, who dined only by courtesy, his repast consis...

As they walked home together, both were silent. When within a block of Meg’s home they passed a little cottage, plainly the home of people in moderate circumstances. When they w...

For a week or so after their return, Mrs. Malloy found herself, in spite of her philosophy, growing bitter. She compared her life, replete with all the bodily comforts that weal...

“_Dear Robert_: Hold on. Wait for me. I made the match, and it’s no fair playing the game out till I come. Will take the first train. But what a combination of hair and name for...