Winner Stories

Next Winner (101) | Previous Winner (99)

a young girl, but there was a good deal of the lion about her at
that minute, and her aunt trembled listening perforce to the
indignant outburst.
What truth would it show? she cried. I don't believe there is
such a thing as truth among all these wretched shams! I will never
change my name to escape from prejudice and bigotry, or to win a
share in my grandfather's property! What! Give up my father's
name to gain the money which might have kept him from pain and ruin
and semistarvation? Take the money that might have brought
comfort to my mother that might have kept me with her to the end.
I couldn't take it. I would rather die than touch one penny of it.
It is too late now. If you thought I would consent if that is the
reason you asked me here, I can go at once. I would not willingly
have brought shame upon you, but neither will I dishonor myself nor
insult my father by changing my name. Why, to do so would be to
proclaim that I judged him as those Pharisees did tonight. The
hypocrites! Which of them can show one grain of love for the race,
to set against my father's life of absolute devotion? They sit
over their champagne and slander atheists, and then have the face
to call themselves Christians.
My dear! said Mrs. FaneSmith, nervously. Our only wish is to
do what is best for you; but you are too tired and excited to
discuss this now. I will wish you good night.
I never wish to discuss it again, thank you, said Erica,
submitting to a particularly warm embrace.
Mrs. FaneSmith was right in one way. Erica was intensely excited.
When people have been riding roughshod over one's heart, one is
apt to be excited, and Luke Raeburn's daughter had inherited that
burning sense of indignation which was so strongly marked a
characteristic in Raeburn himself. Violins can be more sweet and
delicate in tone than any other instrument, but they can also wail
with greater pathos, and produce a more fearful storm of passion.
Declining any assistance from Gemma, Erica locked her door, caught
up some sheets of foolscap, snatched up her pen, and began to write
rapidly. She knew well enough that she ought not to have written.
But when the heart is hot with indignation, when the brain produces
scathing sentences, when the subject seems to have taken possession
of the whole being, to deny its utterance is quite the hardest
thing in the world.
Erica struggled to resist, but at length yielded, and out rushed
sarcasms, denunciations, return blows innumerable! The relief was
great. However, her enjoyment was but short for by the time her

Next Winner (101) | Previous Winner (99)

Winner Index