Patty's Perversities

Patty went out of the house, and across the orchard. The grass over which she took her way was wet with the cold fog that made the air chill. Everywhere the trees and bushes wer...

Grandmother Sanford's pension had come to be a standing joke. The charming old lady had begun to found upon her expectations the most extensive schemes for benevolence; which, a...

The road to Samoset was up hill and down hill, and altogether uneven; but it lay through a lovely country, just now colored with those soft hues autumn wears before her gorgeous...

The problem of "help" was no less perplexing in Montfield than in the majority of New-England villages. Mrs. Sanford often declared that she had rather do the work for the house...

"There's nobody else," said Will Sanford; "and if Tom Putnam won't take the part, the 'Faithful Jewess' may go to the 'demnition bowwows' but her sorrows will never afflict a Mo...

Mackerel Cove was surrounded by high banks, the path from the grove above being very steep and difficult. A rude hand-rail had been nailed to the trees to assist the visitor in...

It is hardly to be wondered at that the sleep of Tom Putnam was not of the soundest that night. He recalled with painful minuteness the details of his relations with Patience, r...

Patty was the last to come down from dressing that night. She had refused to share with any one the secret of her costume; and even Flossy was ignorant, that beneath the long cl...

Meanwhile the other maskers, if not at heart happier than Patty, were at least outwardly gay. The fun was heartily entered into on all sides, and mock flirtations abounded. Flos...

Mrs. Sanford was so round, so plump, so rosy, that, as she sat enthroned among the carriage-cushions, she might easily have been mistaken for an unusually fine specimen of Dutch...

"I suppose I know when I take cold," she retorted. "I always take cold if I leave off my apron; and, if I go to a tea-party, I always wear my apron under my dress."

Young Blood found himself unexpectedly at his ease with his companion. The awe he felt for her as a stranger, and because of her quaint speech, had largely worn away. Still he r...

"If it makes you feel bad to have me cross," Patty said one morning, in answer to a remonstrance of Flossy's, "think how much worse it is for me to be cross. I have to endure my...

The plan which Mrs. Toxteth had once mentioned to Ease, of having a masquerade follow the exhibition, had not been forgotten; and the invitations had accordingly been issued. It...

Monday morning found the young people at the Sanford cottage in rather indifferent spirits. When the sun, after having fought his way through clouds to do so, awoke Patty, the s...

The gathering was to take place at Mackerel Cove, a little bay jutting inward, amid lovely groves of beech-trees, from a larger inlet of the Atlantic. A drive of a dozen miles s...

It was while Patty was engaged in doing "the millinery of the cooking," that her first swain arrived. Social etiquette in Montfield was not rigid, and Patty was not at all surpr...

The shores of Wilk's Run were as varied as the caprices of a coquette. Here the rocks rose up bold and steep, with broken faces over which trailed green and graceful ferns, and...

"He persecutes her," Patty continued. "I wish he'd let her alone. She's too meek to stand out against him. I ought not to say this to you, but it makes me angry. Why are you so...

"Now we shall see," Mr. Plant remarked to his niece as he led her down to dinner, "what stuff Mr. Blood is made of. There is no more crucial test of a man's civilization than th...

A very mixed audience filled to overflowing the town-hall of Montfield. In the front-seats, which had been cleverly reserved for them by a small advance in price, were seated th...

The day of the masquerade came, and a more sombre mortal than was Patience Sanford the sun did not shine upon. The resolve to wear the costume she had chosen cost her many a bit...

Peter Mixon's unlucky and disreputable head had been pretty severely battered by his accident; and for several days he remained, as his wife lucidly said, "unsensible." This del...

In this way it came about that Patty started alone for the afternoon rehearsal. The rain was still falling, although less heavily than in the earlier part of the day. The wet le...

The Putnam mansion, wherein the lawyer's ancestors had lived and died for several generations, stood next to the cottage of Dr. Sanford; or rather the two places were back to ba...

"Well, Bathalina," Mrs. Sanford said with despair in her voice, "if you must go, I suppose you must; but this is the third Wednesday you've been to that funeral, and I think tha...

Whatever else Flora Sturtevant might or might not be, she at least was energetic, and what she had to do she did at once and with her might. Although she returned from the picni...

The silence of the pair upon the piazza was broken by the arrival at the gate of Will, who had been to the station to meet grandmother Sanford. Patty started up as if to run to...

The quiet which falls upon a country village after its noonday meal, brooded over Montfield. Only the great butterflies and the bees were stirring, except for a humming-bird tha...

It was raining, and raining with a will. It was sure to rain all day: there was no question about that. As Patty looked from her window Thanksgiving morning, and saw the leafles...

When Patience reached Mullen House, she was shown into the drawing-room, where she found Miss Mullen alone. The room was in keeping with its stately mistress. Its furniture was...

"I think, Patty," her mother said as the last word of a long and vain argument, "that you'll end by bringing my gray hairs to a grave in a lunatic-asylum. You are crazy to think...

"I might ha' been Peter Mixon's wife, if my sinful pride hadn't a made me high-minded," she said continually. "How'd I know he'd give up so easily, 'cause I said I wouldn't let...

Seated upon a stone which happened to be clean enough for even her exacting taste, Mrs. Sanford was conversing with Mrs. Brown, a frowsy lady whose house-keeping was a perennial...

The marriage of Will and Ease was naturally a quiet one. Wedding Ease with the certainty of hard work before him, and with the consciousness of taking up a man's burdens, Will w...

Patty slept late the following morning, and before she was well awake the sense of something strange and sad was present in her mind. She opened her eyes, and slowly recalled th...

Miss Flora Sturtevant was walking slowly along a lovely forest-road. It was near sunset, and the rays of light shot long bars of dusky gold between the tree-trunks. The robin, t...

Miss Sturtevant's summer visit to Montfield usually ended with September, but this year she had remained for the theatricals. That she did not carry Tom Putnam's heart as a trop...

The event proved her mistaken; for Mrs. Mixon walked over from Samoset, despite the storm, her bundles hanging about her until she looked like one of the seven wives of the man...

The week which Patty had asked of Clarence Toxteth had expired; and that young lady was in her chamber, giving the last touches to her toilet before going down to the parlor to...

Had Clarence Toxteth presented himself and his claims at the moment when the lady of his choice, panting and angry, had just escaped from the presence of her mother, his suit wo...

Peter Mixon was safely bestowed beneath the sod before Patty remembered the pocket-book which he had confided to her care. One afternoon when she chanced to be alone in the hous...

Soberly and slowly Patty was walking towards home on the last day of November. The rain had been falling at intervals through the day, interspersed with spits of snow. Not far f...

"There is one thing sure," mused Patty Sanford, newly awakened by the sun's rays which streamed through her honeysuckle-draped casement; "there is one thing sure,--I shall go to...

Meanwhile Mrs. Smithers had begun proceedings for obtaining the property willed her by Mr. Mullen. The days which followed at Mullen House were gloomy ones. Mr. Wentworth came d...