"Don't speak," whispered Miss Lavinia, hanging back.
But we were no sooner on the elevated train than she found use for her
tongue, for whose feet should I stumble over on entering, quite big feet
too, or rather shoes, for the size of the man, but Martin Cortright's,
and of course he was duly presented to Miss Lavinia.
V
FEBRUARY VIOLETS
That night Miss Lavinia was forced to ask "for time for 'forty winks'"
before she could even think of dinner, and Evan and I sat them out in the
deep, hospitable chairs by the library fire. We were not tired, simply
held in check; country vitality shut off from certain ways for six months
is not quickly exhausted, but, on the other hand, when it is spent, it
takes several months to recuperate.
The first night that I leave home for these little excursions I have a
sense of virtue and simmering self-congratulation. I feel that I am doing
a sensible thing in making a break from what the theorists call "the
narrowing evenness of domestic existence." Of course it is a good thing
for me to leave father and the boys, and see and hear something new to
take back report of to them; it is better for them to be taught
appreciation of me by absence; change is beneficial to every one, etc.,
etc., and all that jargon.
The second night I am still true to the theory, but am convinced that to
the highly imaginative, a city day and its doings may appear like the
Biblical idea of eternity--reversed--"a thousand years.
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