【英文原著类】The Yates Pride(耶慈的骄傲).pdf

THE YATES PRIDE A ROMANCE
THE YATES PRIDE A
ROMANCE
MARY E. WILKINS FREEMAN
1
THE YATES PRIDE A ROMANCE
PART I
THE YATES PRIDE
Opposite Miss Eudora Yates's old colonial mansion was the perky
modern Queen Anne residence of Mrs. Joseph Glynn. Mrs. Glynn had a
daughter, Ethel, and an unmarried sister, Miss Julia Esterbrook. All three
were fond of talking, and had many callers who liked to hear the feebly
effervescent news of Wellwood. This afternoon three ladies were there:
Miss Abby Simson, Mrs. John Bates, and Mrs. Edward Lee. They sat in
the Glynn sitting-room, which shrilled with treble voices as if a flock of
sparrows had settled therein.
The Glynn sitting-room was charming, mainly because of the quantity
of flowering plants. Every window was filled with them, until the room
seemed like a conservatory. Ivy, too, climbed over the pictures, and the
mantel-shelf was a cascade of wandering Jew, growing in old china vases.
"Your plants are really wonderful, Mrs. Glynn," said Mrs. Bates, "but I
don't see how you manage to get a glimpse of anything outside the house,
your windows are so full of them."
"Maybe she can see and not be seen," said Abby Simson, who had a
quick wit and a ready tongue.
Mrs. Joseph Glynn flushed a little. "I have not the slightest curiosity
about my neighbors," she said, "but it is impossible to live just across the
road from any house without knowing something of what is going on,
whether one looks or not," said she, with dignity.
"Ma and I never look out of the windows from curiosity," said Ethel
Glynn, with spirit. Ethel Glynn had a great deal of spirit, which was
evinced in her personal appearance as well as her tongue. She had an eye
to the fashions; her sleeves were never out of date, nor was the
arrangement of her hair.
"For instance," said Ethel, "we never look at the house opposite
because we are at all prying, but we do know that that old maid has been
doing a mighty queer thing lately."