A Fountain Sealed | Page 2

caring for General Colton, her invalid father,
attending committees, and, as a diversion, going to "sewing-circles"
and symphony concerts; but she was fonder of Mary than of any one
else in the world. Rose, who had, as it were, been brought up all over
the world, divided her time now between two continents and quaintly
diversified her dancing, hunting, yachting existence by the arduous
study of biology. Jack, in appearance more ambiguous than either,
looked neither useful nor ornamental; but, in point of fact, he was a
much occupied person. He painted very seriously, was something of a
scholar and devoted much of his time and most of his large fortune to
intricate benevolences. His shabby clothes were assumed, like the air of
indolence; his wealth irked him and, full of a democratic
transcendentalism, he longed to efface all the signs that separated him
from the average toiler. While Rose was quite ignorant of her own
country west of the Atlantic seaboard, Jack had wandered North, South,
West. As for Mary, she had hardly left Boston in her life, except to go
to the Massachusetts coast in summer and to pay a rare visit now and
then to New York. It was of such a visit that she had been talking to
them and of the friend who, since her own return home only a few days
before, had suffered a sudden bereavement in the death of her father.
Jack Pennington, also a near friend of Imogen Upton's, had just come
from New York, where he had been with her during the mournful
ceremonies of death, and Mary Colton, after a little pause, had said, "I
suppose she was very wonderful through it all."
"She bore up very well," said Jack Pennington. "There would never be
anything selfish in her grief."

"Never. And when one thinks what a grief it is. She is wonderful," said
Mary.
"You think every one wonderful, Molly," Rose Packer remarked, not at
all aggressively, but with her air of quiet ill-temper.
"Mary's enthusiasm has hit the mark this time," said Pennington,
casting a glance more scrutinizing than severe upon the girl.
"I really can't see it. Of course Imogen Upton is pretty--remarkably
pretty--though I've always thought her nose too small; and she is
certainly clever; but why should she be called wonderful?"
"I think it is her goodness, Rose," said Mary, with an air of gentle
willingness to explain. "It's her radiant goodness. I know that Imogen
has mastered philosophies, literatures, sciences--in so far as a young
and very busy girl can master them, and that very wise men are glad to
talk to her; but it's not of that one thinks--nor of her great beauty, either.
Both seem taken up, absorbed in that selflessness, that loving-kindness,
that's like a higher kind of cleverness--almost like a genius."
"She's not nearly so good as you are, Molly. And after all, what does
she do, anyway?"
Mary kept her look of leniency, as if over the half-playful
naughtinesses of a child. "She organizes and supports all sorts of
charities, all sorts of reforms; she is the wisest, sweetest of hostesses;
she takes care of her brother; she took care of her father;--she takes care
of anybody who is in need or unhappy."
"Was Mr. Upton so unhappy? He certainly looked gloomy;--I hardly
knew him; Eddy, however, I do know, very well; he isn't in the least
unhappy. He doesn't need help."
"I think we all need help, dear. As for Mr. Upton,--you know," Mary
spoke very gravely now, "you know about Mrs. Upton."
"Of course I do, and what's better, I know her herself a little. Elle est

charmeuse."
"I have never seen her," said Mary, "but I don't understand how you
can call a frivolous and heartless woman, who practically deserted her
husband and children, charmeuse;--but perhaps that is all that one can
call her."
"I like frivolous people," said Rose, "and most women would have
deserted Mr. Upton, if what I've heard of him was true."
"What have you heard of him?"
"That he was a bombastic prig."
At this Mary's pale cheek colored. "Try to remember, Rose, that he died
only a week ago."
"Oh, he may be different now, of course."
"I can't bear to hear you speak so, Rose. I did know him. I saw a great
deal of him during this last year. He was a very big person indeed."
"Of course I'm a pig to talk like this, if you really liked him, Molly."
But Mary was not to be turned aside by such ambiguous apology. "You
see, you don't know, Rose. The pleasure-seeking, worldly people
among whom you live could hardly understand a man like Mr. Upton.
Simply what he did for civic reform,--worked himself to death over it.
And his