- Libros en formato MOBI -  

 Anybody but Anne
The letter I had just read was signed Anne Mansfield Van Wyck,—and the first two names gave my memory such a fillip, that I sat for a long time, motionless, while my thoughts raced back ten years, and reached their goal in a little suburban town.
The picture which memory so obligingly showed me, in definite detail, was that of two young people saying good-by, somewhat effusively. One of these was an immature version of my present self, and the other was a pigtailed school-girl, who now signed herself, Anne Mansfield Van Wyck. At the time of that dramatic parting, she had been Anne Mansfield, and I, Raymond Sturgis, was leaving her to go to college.
Our farewell promises, though made in all good faith, were never fulfilled; and the barrier of circumstances that time raised between us, had kept us from sight of each other for ten years.
I assumed, when I thought of it at all, that Anne had forgotten me; and though I had not forgotten her, I remembered her only casually, and at long intervals...

 The White Alley
Almost before the big motor-car stopped, the girl sprang out. Lap-robes flung aside, veils flying, gauntlets flapping, she was the incarnation of youth, gayety, and modernity.
"Oh, Justin," she cried, as she ran up the steps of the great portico, "we've had such a time! Two punctures and a blow-out! I thought we'd never get here!"
"There, there, Dorothy, don't be so—so precipitous. Let me greet your mother."
Dorothy Duncan pouted at the rebuke, but stood aside as Justin Arnold went forward to meet the older lady.
"Dear Mrs. Duncan," he said, "how do you do? Are you tired? Have you had a bothersome journey? Won't you sit here?"
Mrs. Duncan took the seat offered, and then Arnold turned to Dorothy. "Now it's your turn," he said, smiling at her. "I have to correct your manners when you insist on being so unobservant of the preferment due to your elders."
"Oh, Justin, don't use such long words! Are you glad to see me?"
Dorothy was unwinding yards of chiffon veiling from her head and neck, and was becoming hopelessly entangled in its coils; but her lovely, piquant face smiled out from the clouds of light blue gauze as from a summer sky...