Loveliness: A Story

E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Kerry Tani, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)
BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
1900
For the smoke of their torment ascendeth.
LOVELINESS
Loveliness sat on an eider-down cushion embroidered with cherry-colored puppies on a pearl satin cover. The puppies had gold eyes. They were drinking a saucer of green milk. Loveliness wore a new necktie, of cherry, a shade or two brighter than the puppies, and a pearl-gray, or one might call it a silver-gray jacket. He was sitting in the broad window sill, with his head tipped a little, thoughtfully, towards the left side, as the heads of nervous people are said to incline. He was dreamily watching the street, looking for any one of a few friends of his who might pass by, and for the letter-carrier, who was somewhat late.
Loveliness had dark, brilliant eyes, remarkably alert, but reflective when in repose. Part of their charm lay in the fact that one must watch for their best expression; for Loveliness wore bangs. He had a small and delicate nose, not guiltless of an aristocratic tip, with a suspicion of a sniff at the inferior orders of society. In truth, Loveliness was an aristocrat to the end of his tongue, which curled daintily against his opalescent teeth. At this moment it lay between his teeth, and hung forward as if he held a roseleaf in his lips; and this was the final evidence of his birth and breeding.
For Loveliness was a little dog; a silver Yorkshire, blue of blood and delicately reared,—a tiny creature, the essence of tenderness; set, soul and body, to one only tune. To love and to be beloved,—that was his life. He knew no other, nor up to this time could he conceive of any other; for he was as devotedly beloved as he was passionately loving. His brain was in his heart. In saying this one does not question the quality of the brain, any more than one does in saying a similar thing of a woman. Indeed, considered as an intellect, his was of the highest order known to his race. Loveliness would have been interesting as a psychological study, had he not been absorbing as an affectional occupation. His family and friends often said, How clever! but not until after they had said, How dear he is! The order of precedence in this summary of character is the most enviable that can be experienced by human beings. But the dog took it as a matter of course.