Mistress Anne

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Mistress Anne, by Temple Bailey

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Title: Mistress Anne
Author: Temple Bailey
Illustrator: F. Vaux Wilson
Release Date: October 30, 2007 [EBook #23246]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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MISTRESS ANNE
BY TEMPLE BAILEY
AUTHOR OF CONTRARY MARY, ETC.
FRONTISPIECE BY F. VAUX WILSON
GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
Made in the United States of America
[Illustration: SHE SHOWED HIM HER SCHOOL]
COPYRIGHT 1917 BY THE PENN PUBLISHING COMPANY
Made in U. S. A.
Mistress Anne
To
P. V. B.
who sees the sunsets
Contents
I. IN WHICH THINGS ARE SAID OF DIOGENES AND OF A LADY WITH A LANTERN 11
II. IN WHICH A PRINCESS SERVING FINDS THAT THE MOTTO OF KINGS IS MEANINGLESS 21
III. IN WHICH THE CROWN PRINCE ENTERS UPON HIS OWN 36
IV. IN WHICH THREE KINGS COME TO CROSSROADS 51
V. IN WHICH PEGGY TAKES THE CENTER OF THE STAGE 62
VI. IN WHICH A GRAY PLUSH PUSSY CAT SUPPLIES A THEME 77
VII. IN WHICH GEOFFREY WRITES OF SOLDIERS AND THEIR SOULS 91
VIII. IN WHICH A GREEN-EYED MONSTER GRIPS EVE 111
IX. IN WHICH ANNE, PASSING A SHOP, TURNS IN 136
X. IN WHICH A BLIND BEGGAR AND A BUTTERFLY GO TO A BALL 149
XI. IN WHICH BRINSLEY SPEAKS OF THE WAY TO WIN A WOMAN 160
XII. IN WHICH EVE USURPS AN ANCIENT MASCULINE PRIVILEGE 178
XIII. IN WHICH GEOFFREY PLAYS CAVE MAN 196
XIV. IN WHICH THERE IS MUCH SAID OF MARRIAGE AND OF GIVING IN MARRIAGE 210
XV. IN WHICH ANNE ASKS AND JIMMIE ANSWERS 226
XVI. IN WHICH PAN PIPES TO THE STARS 239
XVII. IN WHICH FEAR WALKS IN A STORM 256
XVIII. IN WHICH WE HEAR ONCE MORE OF A SANDALWOOD FAN 274
XIX. IN WHICH CHRISTMAS COMES TO CROSSROADS 284
XX. IN WHICH A DRESDEN-CHINA SHEPHERDESS AND A COUNTRY MOUSE MEET ON COMMON GROUND 298
XXI. IN WHICH ST. MICHAEL HEARS A CALL 314
XXII. IN WHICH ANNE WEIGHS THE PEOPLE OF TWO WORLDS 333
XXIII. IN WHICH RICHARD RIDES ALONE 347
XXIV. IN WHICH ST. MICHAEL FINDS LOVE IN A GARDEN 361

Mistress Anne
CHAPTER I
In Which Things Are Said of Diogenes and of a Lady With a Lantern.
THE second day of the New Year came on Saturday. The holiday atmosphere had thus been extended over the week-end. The Christmas wreaths still hung in the windows, and there had been an added day of feasting. Holidays always brought people from town who ate with sharp appetites.
It was mostly men who came, men who fished and men who hunted. In the long low house by the river one found good meals and good beds, warm fires in winter and a wide porch in summer. There were few luxuries, but it pleased certain wise Old Gentlemen to take their sport simply, and to take pride in the simplicity. They considered the magnificence of modern camps and clubs vulgar, and as savoring somewhat of riches newly acquired; and they experienced an almost ?sthetic satisfaction in the contrast between the rough cleanliness of certain little lodges along the Chesapeake and its tributary tide-water streams, and the elegance of the Charles Street mansions which they had, for the moment, left behind.
It was these Old Gentlemen who, in khaki and tweed, each in its proper season, came to Peter Bower's, and ate the food which Peter's wife cooked for them. They went out in the morning fresh and radiant, and returned at night, tired but still radiant, to sit by the fire or on the porch, and, in jovial content, to tell of the delights of earlier days and of what sport had been before the invasion of the Philistines.
They knew much of gastronomic lore, these Old Gentlemen, and they liked to talk of things to eat. But they spoke of other things, and now and then they fell into soft silences when a sunset was upon them or a night of stars.
And they could tell stories! Stories backed by sparkling wit and a nice sense of discrimination. On winter nights or on holiday afternoons like this, as, gathered around the fire they grew mildly convivial, the sound of their laughter would rise to Anne Warfield's room under the eaves; she would push back the papers which held her to her desk, and wish with a sigh that the laughter were that of young men, and that she might be among them.
To-day, however, she was not at her desk. She was taking down the decorations which had made the little room bright during the brief holiday. To-morrow she would go back to school and to the forty children whom