The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Yates Pride, by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

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Title: The Yates Pride

Author: Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

Posting Date: August 10, 2008 [EBook #978]
Release Date: July, 1997

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE YATES PRIDE ***

Produced by Judith Boss

THE YATES PRIDE

A ROMANCE

By Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

PART I

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eye to the fashions; her sleeves were never out of date, nor was the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 d