[From The Atlantic Monthly (August, 1910)]
So sharp the sword, so airy the defense!
As 'twere a play, or delicate pretense;
So fine and strange—so subtly-poisèd, too—
The egoist that looks forever through!
That winged spirit—air and grace and fire—
A-flutter at the frame, is your desire;
Nay, it is you—who never knew the net,
Exquisite, vain—whom we shall not forget!
[ABBY MEGUIRE ROACH]
Mrs. Abby Meguire Roach, "the very cleverest of the Louisville school of women novelists," was born at Philadelphia in 1876. She was educated in the schools of her native city, finishing her training with a year at Wellesley College. In 1899 she was married to Mr. Neill Roach, of Louisville, Kentucky, and that city has been her home since. Mrs. Roach wrote many stories of married life for the New York magazines, which were afterwards collected and published as Some Successful Marriages (New York, 1906). These have been singled out by the reviewers as "charming" and "most beautiful"; and her work has been compared to Miss May Sinclair's, the famous English novelist. One of Mrs. Roach's most recent stories was published in The Century Magazine for July, 1907, entitled "Manifest Destiny," but this has not been followed by any others in the last year or so. "Unremembering June," one of the best of the tales in Some Successful Marriages, relates the love of Molly-Moll for her invalid husband, after whose death she falls in love with Reno, the father of Lola, "who had been his salvage from the wreck of his marriage."
Bibliography. Harper's Magazine (May, 1907); Library of Southern Literature (Atlanta, 1909, v. xv), contains Miss Marilla Waite Freeman's excellent study of Mrs. Roach.
UNREMEMBERING JUNE[85]
[From Some Successful Marriages (New York, 1906)]
"And you will let me have word of you? Surely? And give me a chance to be of use? Won't you?" he persisted, taking leave. She swept his face swiftly with a glance of inquiry, intelligence. "Won't you?"