Datasets:
edwindvinas
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Dataset card Data Studio Files
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can understand that, I’m sure.”
“I understand that your motive is quite—ahem—commendable.” Dr. Stalling
felt that he was very broad-minded indeed—especially as in his secret
soul he did not believe Valancy’s motive _was_ commendable. He hadn’t
the least idea what she was up to, but he was sure her motive was not
commendable. When he could not understand a thing he straightway
condemned it. Simplicity itself! “But your first duty is to your
mother. _She_ needs you. She implores you to come home—she will forgive
everything if you will only come home.”
“That’s a pretty little thought,” remarked Abel meditatively, as he
ground some tobacco up in his hand.
Dr. Stalling ignored him.
“She entreats, but I, Miss Stirling,”—Dr. Stalling remembered that he
was an ambassador of Jehovah—“_I command_. As your pastor and spiritual
guide, I command you to come home with me—this very day. Get your hat
and coat and come _now_.”
Dr. Stalling shook his finger at Valancy. Before that pitiless finger
she drooped and wilted visibly.
“She’s giving in,” thought Roaring Abel. “She’ll go with him. Beats
all, the power these preacher fellows have over women.”
Valancy _was_ on the point of obeying Dr. Stalling. She must go home
with him—and give up. She would lapse back to Doss Stirling again and
for her few remaining days or weeks be the cowed, futile creature she
had always been. It was her fate—typified by that relentless, uplifted
forefinger. She could no more escape from it than Roaring Abel from his
predestination. She eyed it as the fascinated bird eyes the snake.
Another moment—
“_Fear is the original sin_,” suddenly said a still, small voice away
back—back—back of Valancy’s consciousness. “_Almost all the evil in the
world has its origin in the fact that some one is afraid of
something_.”
Valancy stood up. She was still in the clutches of fear, but her soul
was her own again. She would not be false to that inner voice.
“Dr. Stalling,” she said slowly, “I do not at present owe _any_ duty to
my mother. She is quite well; she has all the assistance and
companionship she requires; she does not need me at all. I _am_ needed
here. I am going to stay here.”
“There’s spunk for you,” said Roaring Abel admiringly.
Dr. Stalling dropped his forefinger. One could not keep on shaking a
finger forever.
“Miss Stirling, is there _nothing_ that can influence you? Do you
remember your childhood days——”
“Perfectly. And hate them.”
“Do you realise what people will say? What they _are_ saying?”
“I can imagine it,” said Valancy, with a shrug of her shoulders. She
was suddenly free of fear again. “I haven’t listened to the gossip of
Deerwood teaparties and sewing circles twenty years for nothing. But,
Dr. Stalling, it doesn’t matter in the least to me what they say—not in
the least.”
Dr. Stalling went away then. A girl who cared nothing for public
opinion! Over whom sacred family ties had no restraining influence! Who
hated her childhood memories!
Then Cousin Georgiana came—on her own initiative, for nobody would have
thought it worth while to send her. She found Valancy alone, weeding
the little vegetable garden she had planted, and she made all the
platitudinous pleas she could think of. Valancy heard her patiently.
Cousin Georgiana wasn’t such a bad old soul. Then she said:
“And now that you have got all that out of your system, Cousin
Georgiana, can you tell me how to make creamed codfish so that it will
not be as thick as porridge and as salt as the Dead Sea?”
* * * * * * *
“We’ll just have to _wait_,” said Uncle Benjamin. “After all, Cissy Gay
can’t live long. Dr. Marsh tells me she may drop off any day.”
Mrs. Frederick wept. It would really have been so much easier to bear
if Valancy had died. She could have worn mourning then.
CHAPTER XX
When Abel Gay paid Valancy her first month’s wages—which he did
promptly, in bills reeking with the odour of tobacco and
whiskey—Valancy went into Deerwood and spent every cent of it. She got
a pretty green crêpe dress with a girdle of crimson beads, at a bargain
sale, a pair of silk stockings, to match, and a little crinkled green
hat with a crimson rose in it. She even bought a foolish little